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"I thought Mephisto dealt with souls!" Jean said her voice an alloy of horror and fury. Ororo was too enraged to form words. Every time they saw someone down below, she put them out of their misery, her face growing grimmer as they flew on.
Harry shook his head. "He deals in souls but the soul and the body are connected. Once your soul is under his control, Mephisto can re-create your body and torture you that way. After all, there are so many ways to torture a person who has a physical form than an immaterial one."
"Don't make the mistake of assuming this is all for his pleasure." Doom said grimly. "There certainly is an aspect of that. In fact, I have no doubt Mephisto enjoys every second of it. But he gains power from these souls as well, from their terror and fear. It feeds him; fear is the source of his power."
"Then I will give him something to fear!" Harry said grimly, his teeth clenched and an angry twitch beginning in one cheek. The next group of demons that attacked them didn't get even within five hundred yards before he shouted out a spell. "Malleis lucis depellendam daemonia!" From all around them massive weapons of light, hammers, swords, and spears appeared and, when they struck the demons, they struck with the clap of a lightning blast to end all lightning blasts. The entire horde dissipated into ash and smoke and the four moved grimly on. Doom looked at Harry, reevaluating his magical strength upwards.
The ground itself again began to attack them, the blades of grass growing up to try and ensnare them. At same time, the very air was becoming like thick gelatin or pudding. Ororo and Harry dealt with that, while Jean and Doom concentrated on the ground attack. Soon enough the attack dissipated once more and they flew on.
For another hour they flew. Now they could see what looked like another mountain in the distance. The assaults during this time came not from minor imps or demons, but greater devils, although their numbers hadn't gone down. Doom and the others had lost count of the dead they had left in their wake, if you could call demons alive to begin with, but these were tougher than the ones that had come before them, each of them taking a little more time to kill. There were still overmatched by the quartet, however. Doom's sword and the technology of his suit were well able to deal death in short and medium ranges. Ororo could killed them from afar with her lightning blasts, storms of ice that froze them solid only to shatter them with blasts of wind, and cutting slashes of wind pressure. Phoenix was simply deadly at any range while Harry continued to battle against the spells that were now coming at them fast and furious.
It was only as they beat that initial wave off that they realized the mountain ahead of them was actually a castle, more massive than anything made by man, so massive it seemed unreal for a moment. The mountain was colored red and black, spiked, and altogether horrible looking. It was as if someone had heard of the Gothic style to sculpt every crenellation and tower with demonic figures and had taken it to the nth degree. Every one of the faces seemed to be slightly different, as if the person whose face it had been based off had died from a very specific torture. There were thousands, millions of faces everywhere they looked.
The sight was intended to inspire terror, both in the demons that worshiped him as a god and any people foolish enough to enter his realm, yet, in this instance, it failed. Those faces held no fear for the quartet that had invaded his realm this time. They only served to harden their determination to see the soul they were here for freed from his grasp, as well as any other they could wrest from him.
"So," Harry said quietly, looking at the other three and passing along another pepper-up potion. Again, a small minor spell tried to insinuate itself into their minds but Harry brushed it off quickly. The spell might've been intended to do something to the potions, but he blocked it so they tasted as normal as ever. "How exactly should we get this Demon Lord to come out and play? I favor the direct approach."
"Ring the doorbell, Guardian," Phoenix growled, her eyes blazing up even brighter with her powers. She was feeling it a little before the pepper-up potion but that seemed to aid not only her physical abilities but her mental faculties as well. Now, all four of them were ready for a fight.
Harry nodded grimly and, gathering his power, shot forth a massive spell enchanting it as his hands clenched together. "Fragor unda fortitudine!" A massive beam of power shot out from his hands, slamming into the front of the castle facing them, slagging, destroying, exploding, and shattering the façade of the castle all along this front. To the demons below its massively lofty spires, it must have seemed as if an earthquake had shattered it, the entire front of it simply collapsing in following falling down the side of the building. "Knock, knock!"
A moment later, Mephisto appeared, striding through the rubble that had previously been part of his castle, even as it repaired itself behind him at his wordless command. Some of the damage, however, didn't repair itself and he frowned, internally wondering what that spell had done to so disrupt his control over at the weft and womb of his realm in this locality.
Mephisto was a tall creature, his facial features somewhat humanlike, yet so very not, somehow perverted and vile, with slanted yellow eyes and thin, pointed face, topped with a wild mane of maroon hair. His ears were long and pointed, larger than the fantasy ideal of elves. His skin was a pinkish hue but not a healthy pink, just pale pink, like a crayon color. His hands in their gloves were long and elegant yet tipped with claws. His clothing was a formfitting red suit of leather (Harry refused to speculate on where it had come from or what animal skin had created it) and, of course, he had a flowing red cape behind him.
His normal sneer was in abeyance and his lips twitched into a ghastly parody of the smirk. "You have my attention, though I normally prefer guests to call ahead."
"We are here for the soul of my mother, Cynthia Von Doom." Doom said his voice as cold as an arctic wind. "Release her, NOW."
"Release dear Cynthia? Why should I do that?" Mephisto said, smirking even wider now. With one hand he gestured, and a woman appeared beside him.
She was dressed in rags, yet that did nothing to hide the fact she was a beautiful woman. She was tall, as tall as Doom maybe, with pale skin, curly brown hair falling to her shoulders, with long legs, and a decent bust. Her expression however made her beauty somehow horrifying. Her eyes were wide open but unseeing. Her face twisted in horrified agony, mouth opening and closing as if she would scream but her throat was too wounded to let the sound through.
"She's one of my favorites, you know," Mephisto said almost conspiratorially looking over at Harry, singling him out as the most dangerous of the invaders. "She was supposed to be my servant on your world, like those Mys-tech wizards who died so sadly recently. A Dr. Druid and the Sorcerer Supreme had a hand in that, but this one…"
His hand caressed the woman's cheek and Doom almost flung himself forward there and then as he watched his mother twitch away from the touch fearfully. "This one was supposed to be my servant and help me turn Latveria as a whole to my worship, starting with her people. A major coup and just the beginning to the souls I could have reaped once I finished… tinkering with the populace and set them loose on their neighbors."
Mephisto growled angrily, his hand no longer caressing her face but gripping her jaw. "And I have made her torture something of a personal hobby of mine ever since. She used my power, called upon me but not to control, not to take over but to (BLETCH) defend. When push came to shove, even against the Duke of that nation who had persecuted her people for years, thanks to my whispering in his ear, all I could do since he had had wretched holy man by his side 24/7, she turned aside and refused to use my power to end his life! She turned her back on me then but my bargains are not such that anyone can go back on!" He turned to them, his eyes narrowed.
"She is mine and I will not give her up her nor any of my other toys!" he gestured and suddenly be faces of the castle wall were no longer faces carved of stone but living beings, humans and other beings as well, all of them screaming in agonies too horrible for the quartet of humans to try to comprehend. "Their fear and pain is my power and my principality, I will only release one if a bargain is struck, not before."
So saying, he waved a hand over a few of the faces nearest him and from their mouths came an amorphous blob of color, with a center of yellow white light around which were layers of other colors. Harry suddenly knew those were souls but before he could do anything, Mephisto grabbed them all up into his hand, then gobbled them down like they were candy, making exaggerating 'nom, nom' noises.
Pure rage sizzled through Harry's brain and what little restraint he had in commanding the massive power he had taken from Balthakk vanished entirely. Magic power flowed off him now and, suddenly, Mephisto was no longer smiling or gloating but staring at Harry with growing alarm, only now able to connect him to the surge of power that emanated from the mortal plane two days ago.
"Keep Mephisto's followers off me," Harry grated and, without another word or even a gesture, a massive spear unformed magical power slammed into Mephisto, blasting him off his feet and away. With a roar, Harry charged after him through the air.
Behind him, all around their position, demons pulled themselves up out of the ground and the side of the building charging in, roaring at him and the other invaders. The avatar of the Phoenix, however, was full of fury as well and she, Ororo, and Doom took the battle to the demons all around them.
Doom charged for the position where his mother still crouched on the ground. He stood over her, his sword in one hand and his other hand blasting out with repulsor blasts, slaying any demon that came near. He stopped after a bit, continuing wielding only the sword and his eye beams, his free hand moving down to yet another pouch at his waist, one of the larger ones. Out came several segmented stone discs, which he began to lay out in a specific pattern around his mother. "Activate!" he shouted, and suddenly a sphere of protective magic went up around seemed to break whatever kind of influence had kept Cynthia from not seeing what was going on around her. She blinked looking up at the armor clad man standing over him with a sword slashing in one hand and the other throwing out beams of concussive force at the demons as they closed. "Victor? What are you doing here?"
"Did you think that I would let that thing hold your soul for a moment longer than I could devise?" Doom growled at her. "You are my mother and I will not allow such a thing to pass."
The woman shook herself, actually standing up and looking at herself. "Do you have something that can possibly heal me or give me some energy back?"
After emptying out his final round of smart bullets, Doom passed over a flask of something from yet another of his pouches. It wasn't a real magical potion. Doom had created it through scientific means mixing several different magical concoctions together until he achieved the desired result.
Now, all of Doom's pouches save one had been opened and he kept one eye on the magical battle occurring in the air well above them, waiting for a chance to strike.
While Ororo, Jean, and Doom were kept busy with the demons swarming towards them, Harry and Mephisto were locked in combat. Normally, Mephisto would try to use quips or jibes to throw off his opponent's stride, get into his head figuratively while his magic spells tried to do it literally. Here he couldn't. He was being pressed far too hard for that. "Godling, you did very well to hide your nature from me but I can see what you are now. You will rue the day you entered my realm. Strong you may be but here I am the only God!"
Mephisto grabbed power from dimension that was his home and his creation, hurling it at his opponent with every kind of spell under his command. Illusions, direct assaults in the form of conjured creatures, conjured fire, conjured lightning, conjured ice, darkness, and pure magic came at Harry in a near unending assault.
Harry blocked or dodged them all, slamming lightning mixed with pure magic and holy light back at the Demon Lord. Mephisto didn't even feel when the connection he had forged between his current torture victim and himself was severed by the runic circle that Doom had put out, too busy defending himself from Harry's furious assault.
He struck back and was appalled to see the few spells that got through Harry's defense shattering against his armor. The areas that weren't covered with his yellow armor, however, were able to be struck. Mephisto watched as an ice spell got through flash freezing his arm but Harry's magic actually healed himself even as he was injured, just as Mephisto's did for most of the spells had struck him. A few however he dodged almost automatically as if his instincts were telling him that those contained something that would counteract his regeneration ability.
Within minutes, both of them were feeling it, with Harry battered, bruised, and bleeding, while Mephisto was simply becoming more and more serious as the minutes flew by on the wings of their massive battle. One attack nearly ripped one of Harry's ears off despite his protective enchantments but his return spell drilled through Mephisto's shoulder. The wounds healed quickly but they broke off for just a moment, glaring at one another before charging at one another again.
The battle raged back and forth, minute after minute as time wore on and more and more demons were thrown at Harry's fellows. Ororo began to tire and pulled out her one of her own emergency pepper-up potions, gulping it down quickly, tossing the other at Doom's mother. Cynthia had thrown in with them, her own spells lashing out, nowhere near as powerful as Harry's, but she didn't aim just for the demon as a whole. She aimed for their eyes, their ears, their weak points, dealing crippling damage to more than a few.
Jean of all of them didn't feel the need for another potion just yet, her mouth locked in a tight smile. "Guardian said you called your mother a queen among women, Doctor. I'm beginning to believe you understated the case."
"Humility is one of the sovereign virtues," Doom shouted back, "so naturally I possess it." Both women laughed at that, but there was a serious air to them now. They couldn't keep this up forever and if one of them fell, the others would join them shortly.
Harry knew none of this, locked in his titanic struggle with Mephisto, as he was. The very air around them was slowly distorting due to the number of spells cast actually beginning to degrade the ancient spell that had created this dimension in the first place, eons ago. Even as he dodged a disc of blackest darkness that wailed as it went past him, a small part of Harry's mind was able to wonder what would happen to them if the dimension itself came undone. However, the spell he dodged split, each bit of darkness becoming larger than the whole had been, joined by more of their fellows fired from Mephisto's outstretched hands.
In retaliation, Harry shouted, "Fiendfyre!" He was not even concentrating, not even trying to control the spell this time, wanting it to rage and get out of control and burn Mephisto and as much of the black disks as it could.
Mephisto merely laughed and, with a wrench of his power, took control of the half-demonic spell, sending it back at Harry who stood for a moment in midair gaping as the wall of dark crimson flame reached towards him, the faces of demons and creatures from mythology reaching for him hungrily. "All right, if that's the way you want to play it!" Harry concentrated again and thrust one hand forward "Blackfyre!"
This spell, Mephisto couldn't take control of and the wall of black flame made up of howling creatures from the depths of mythology and the human soul slammed into its weaker counterpart, consuming it and moving on. Mephisto canceled it with difficulty, pouring in more power than he had ever had to do before this in a element to element battle save for one against a fellow Demon Lord. He was however too slow to dodge another spell, a light-based cutting spells taken from a book Harry had created for dealing with dark creatures more… permanently than the Patronus spell. "демонотубиствотомеч!"
Mephisto gathered his magic around his hand, raising the hand up to block. The cutting spell impacted, but Mephisto hadn't had time to get enough power to his defensive spell and Harry's sliced through Mephisto's shield before going on to take his hand off entirely right behind the thumb.
"RRHHHH," Mephisto glared at Harry, backing away slightly and looking at his hand as he willed his regeneration ability to heal the wound. It didn't respond, however, something in the wound, which he could now see was cauterized, was fighting it. It was healing but so slowly he could actually feel pain for the first time in decades. He turned to stare at Harry. "What have you done Wizard, what have you done!?"
"Release the souls in your possession willingly now or release them with your death," Harry said his voice cold and harsh. "I care not which."
Mephisto roared and charged, magical spells flinging from his hands and body with abandon, but Harry met the assault with equal force. He realized however that any brute force contest, which despite his rage Mephisto had rather cunningly made this into, that even the power he had taken from the Elder God wouldn't be enough to offset the fact that Mephisto was battling them in his own realm, which fueled and powered every gesture and spell he sent at Harry.
He grunted in agony as a spell exploded right beside his face, sending shards of red glass into the side of his hastily raised arm. Thankfully, one of his yellow armor's vambraces caught most of it, but he could feel the things sticking out of his arm right below it, having gone straight through his crysis suit. They weren't deep, but he could feel some kind of poison fighting against his healing ability.
As Mephisto created a blade of black nothingness out of the air and tried to hack at Harry with it Harry responded with his own Sword of Griffindor, casting a Praetorian spell into the blade, much like he had imbued his golems with. The sword lit up like the sun and Harry began to send his power through the spell against Mephisto letting Mephisto be pushed back towards the ground. He needed a physical surface for his power to start working, which meant he had to be on the ground.
The moment he was down, Harry began to fight two battles; one against Mephisto's physical presence in front of them and the other against Mephisto's control of the power that had been poured into his dimension. His magic power sent a bit of his consciousness into the massive, horribly complicated, horribly deep, and monstrously powerful spell that had created this entire pocket dimension, created everything around him solid or otherwise.
Immediately, he felt the power coming into him and also felt it affecting his emotions. He felt anger, he felt the need to make people afraid to feed off their fear, to see those that were close to him, their faces contorted in fear, fear he put there. Harry grimaced and with a wrench of his will stopped the flow, instead ripping and tearing at the magical spell he had been trying to drain, not wanting to let any more of that magical power into him, afraid of what it could do to him long term.
Mephisto tried to smash him down with an overhand hammer blow of pure magic as his other hand conjured up a spear of fire thrusting it towards Harry's chest but Harry's sword caught the first and his hand caught the second. The Magia Erebea technique layering around his hand died and Harry could feel his hand begin to burn under the spell and he wrenched it back, hurriedly disengaging, the damage already done, his hand now a claw of twisted and brunt flesh. Though his healing ability was already kicking in
Suddenly, Mephisto couldn't feel his dimension where it was around Harry anymore. Where there had been the ground, covered with what he rather fondly called blade grass and the bones of his victims, there was now nothing, leaving flat, cold rock for a moment before that too disappeared, leaving only a swirling nothingness below them. Mephisto gaped at the undoing of a portion of his realm, not even stopping Harry as he jumped backwards.
Once again, Harry began to exert his power calling up even more power and throwing it at Mephisto's physical body. "Drill of Light!" Hundreds, thousands of drills shot forward.
Mephisto blocked, dodged, or destroyed nearly all of them but his eyes were growing wider and wider with every second as he felt Harry's earlier intrusion into the spell of his realm rippling out now. The distortion Harry had created was now spreading, leaving Mephisto unable to draw further power from it himself, lest he cause the damage to spread beyond his domain's ability to heal itself.
Now the battle of power was even, neither able to drain anymore power from their environs but Mephisto was feeling it a little more, having become more dependent on the constant loop between him and his plane, the loss cutting into his concentration. He started to take more damage, his spells faltering at times. Another spell like the cutting spell that had taken his hand hit him in the side, only his last second dodge having saved him from being cut in half.
Mephisto screamed again, throwing Harry back with a blast of pure magic and slamming him away Into the sky with another spell which, to Harry's shock, shattered the front of his yellow armor. Pieces fell away around what looked like a fist shaped dent in the metal and Harry grunted in agony, his ribs creaking even with the Magia Erebea and crysis suit adding to his toughness.
As another spell, this one looking like some kind of cross between a purple axe and a missile, tried to impact his head, Harry returned fire. Another light based spell slammed into Mephisto's face causing him to cry out in pain, even though it wasn't very powerful. Harry pressed his advantage, getting in close and smashing Mephisto with spell after concussive spell, keeping Mephisto off balance.
The Demon Lord now had to call upon his victims, draining them utterly right now rather than as they became ripe. He couldn't get as much power from each one this way but the number of them would still give him a significant boost.
When he reached out for those souls, however, Jean struck. She had been hoping for a chance like this, something deep inside of her welling up at the sight of those souls, those little patches of light coming up from the ground heading towards Mephisto in order to feed him their power. She struck, raising up wall of force between his physical form and them.
Mephisto could've easily shattered Jean's wall, if Harry had given him even a moment of peace, but Harry wasn't. He was pressing him hard, pouring out his magical power even as he felt himself tire, felt himself slowly losing the power he had gained from his battle with Balthakk.
Even then, Mephisto might have well been able to outlast Harry and shatter the defense that Jean had thrown up between him and the souls of his victims. But Doom used a moment of calm around him to reach for his last pouch, the one on his thigh. He brought out something which he scattered over his sword before turning and, with unerring aim, throwing the blade up at the Demon Lord in the air above them. The sword struck true in Mephisto's leg, slicing into it.
He screamed in horrifying agony, trying to reach down to pull out the blade but Harry didn't let up, not knowing what Doom had done but capitalizing on it and pressing Mephisto hard. The Demon Lord fought back wildly now, real terror in his eyes, cut off from one source of power and unable to access another thanks to the Phoenix fire cutting him off from his castle and the souls there, his body racked by pain.
Harry pressed forward, throwing everything he had at Mephisto, spell after spell, formed and unformed magic, pouring out his power in an attempt to finish the Demon Lord before his regeneration ability could combat whatever Doom had done. Mephisto had millennia of experience on him but the sheer ferocity and power of Harry's assault, coupled with the pain he was in, was enough to offset that. It was touch and go until Harry bashed through with a triple spell assault, all spells Harry had created. "Aeris Hasta! Sole Arsit! Sol occidit interfectos diripiet: Dæmonium lamina!"
The first sent thousands of air spears at Mephisto from all around him. The second blinded Mephisto for a split second, bursting like a nova flare right in the Demon Lord's eyes. The third was the same sort of spell that had cut off Mephisto's hand, only this time it was a penetrating spell, like his old rifela spell. It struck and penetrated, blowing Mephisto's good arm off at the shoulder, ripping a good chunk of his upper body off on that side along with a bit of neck.
Mephisto fell from the sky thrashing in agony, his still maimed hand pawing feebly at his new wound. The moment he struck the ground Harry conjured massive lances of barbed iron slamming down into the Demon Lord. Normally Mephisto's superhuman abilities would've made metal like this unable to break his skin but now he was wounded sorely by Harry and Doom's attacks, and they pierced his body right through, pinning him to the ground like a butterfly on a piece of cork.
Harry landed across from him, breathing deeply, feeling his magic now close to exhaustion. Conjuring those spikes, which were not just iron but an amalgamation of iron and silver, a metal known to have offensive properties against demons, had taken a lot out of Harry. It was so bad, he was feeling the magic he had channeled into his Magia Erebea flowing back into him, keeping him going automatically. He breathed deeply, looking down at the Demon Lord, missing his arm, missing most of his hand despite the time since that injury, missing a chunk of his chest, yet his eyes still glimmered and he weakly thrashed against the iron rails stuck through him.
The reality displaced wizard was under no illusions. Soon enough, the demon's regeneration would be able to fight against whatever he and Doom had done to them and those metal spikes wouldn't be enough to contain him. Nor was killing Mephisto within their power, not without draining him utterly, and, given how much even a little of his dimension's magic had effected him, Harry wasn't willing to tempt it.
But he was going to wring a promise out of the creature now. He raised the sword of Gryffindor, pouring another Praetorian spell into it before holding the blade's tip right above the Mephisto's forehead. Not in position to slice the head off but in position to drive through the brain. In his current, highly weakened, almost mortal state, a blow to the brain would be one that Mephisto might not be able to recover from. It wouldn't kill him but it would severely impair him for a long time to come, even as he measured things.
"What do you want?" Mephisto snarled, defiant, yet with real fear in his eyes. Though the humans lacked the ability to slay him, he was wounded sore, weakened beyond anything he had ever been before and he had enemies among his own kind which would gladly finish the job.
"Cynthia Von Doom free of you. All the souls you currently possess, we'll have them free of you now, as well. Nor will you try to reclaim them. Moreover, a bit of advice, demon. Earth is under my protection. You will not try to influence, assault, or otherwise attempt to in any way have anything to do with the Earth that is under my protection." Harry enunciated each word clearly, his eyes brimming with his power as he tried to stave off the growing exhaustion he was feeling, rapidly approaching total magical exhaustion for the first time in years save for when he powered up High Note's heart stone. His wounds were no longer healing themselves. His ribs, in particular, were aching, along with his elbow and face, both of which had taken magical impacts in the last few moments of the fight.
They did not take away from his fearsome appearance, rather they added to it. For the first time Mephisto knew what his victims felt and he didn't like it. "I'll agree," he croaked. "Take the bitch and all the others! I will not bother her again or you or that wretched Earth!"
"Then we have an accord." Harry said, standing back up. He pulled out the stone holding the communication array with Strange, then flicked it with some of his blood, watching it flare brightly for a second before going out.
On the other side of the dimensional portal, Dr. Strange looked up as his half of the communication rune flared brightly. He hesitated a moment, wondering if he should chance it, the threat of Mephisto in all his power breaking out on Earth was a major one. Yet it was only a moment, his trust, and indeed his friendship with Potter, making him wish to bet that his young friend, his ladies, and their dubious ally had succeeded in their endeavor. He stood up, moving toward the triangle-shaped doorway and activating the portal.
As the portal opened in front of them, Ororo moved forwards, gently helping Cynthia through the portal followed quickly by Doom, then Jean with Harry coming directly after. His emerald eyes still glowing with magical power, Harry stared at Mephisto as he stepped forward into the portal and for the rest of his (admittedly short) life Mephisto would flinch occasionally as the memory of those eyes awoke in him.
Almost immediately, after the attackers had left, Mephisto's power began to slowly come back to him but it would be ages before he would be able to pull the iron and silver stakes from his person, though his other wounds would heal before that, or so he hoped. All around him he could suddenly feel the presence of other Demon Lords crowding into his dimension's exterior defenses, striking when he was weak, and he groaned aloud in agony, gathered what power he could and threw it into the defense of his realm.
OOOOOOO
The moment he was back in on Earth, Harry slumped to the ground, unconscious before his head hit the snow. His body, mind, soul, and magic were almost utterly exhausted, the last of his reserve from the Magia Erebea now keeping him alive. Jean and Ororo moved forwards quickly, checking for a pulse almost automatically and were relieved to find one immediately. Ororo then looked over at Doom and Cynthia, who were being watched by Steven, his hands glowing slightly in case of any last second betrayal. "I think our businesses concluded, Lord Doom. If you'll excuse us I think Harry needs some TLC."
For his part, Doom looked down at Harry, for a moment indeed entertaining the thought of finishing Harry off now while he was weak. He held no illusions that Harry wouldn't oppose him in the future regardless of their agreements about space travel and Harry's company. HE also had no doubt that he could overcome the two women, as magnificent as they were. It was also obvious that they were both now feeling the effects of what had probably been at least two days' worth of nonstop combat. Whereas, he had been sustained by his armor so hadn't felt the strain nearly as much. Still, it was simply a momentary thought, notwithstanding the ready and rested figure of the Sorcerer Supreme standing nearby.
Harry had dealt with him in good faith and he wasn't an enemy, just yet. Moreover, Victor Von Doom respected power and honor, and Harry had both in spades. He did not deserve to die now in his weakened state. The presence of his mother behind him, looking at him with awe, wonder, and love in her eyes also had a… persuading factor to it.
"Very well, Lady Ororo." he said, bowing to her grandly with one hand trailing on the ground for a moment in courtly fashion. "Thank you all three for your aid in this and I will allow you to depart. Let our next meeting be as hospitable as this one." he finished with more hope than real expectation. With that, he gathered his mother into his arms and took to the sky, flying up over the mountains and away toward Latveria.
Ororo stood for a moment watching him go, then nodded and hurried over to where Jean and Steven were now pulling Harry up. Jean nodded to her, one arm now supporting Harry. "His wounds aren't life threatening, he just needs some rest."
"Indeed, Mr. Potter is suffering from extreme magical exhaustion. For a wizard such as him, such a thing is life threatening if he doesn't get enough rest for his magic core to start refilling." Steven supplied. "I have removed some bits of conjured glass from a few of his wounds, cast a few healing spells, and set his elbow, which he had dislocated badly. Now, all I would recommend is to force him to rest."
"Then it's a good thing I booked us into the hotel down there when Harry was busy parking his baby." Jean chuckled, a sound soon echoed by Ororo, though Steven looked a little green around the gills as he remembered their ride up to the hotel from Bern.
The redhead turned to the Sorcerer Supreme bowing her head in his direction. "Thank you for your help on this, Doctor. I think the three of us are going to take your advice. It's been a busy week and then some, a bit of a break is just what the doctor ordered."
Steven nodded agreeably. "Think nothing of it, though I would like to hear about the entire affair later. I owed Mr. Potter for taking care of Selene when I could not leave America. Aiding him in this would not have been my chosen method of paying him back but still, you returned and were successful. That is all that matters. I will be in touch next weekend to hear the full story. Until then, take it easy, and make certain Mr. Potter does as well.
The two women agreed to that readily after which Ororo called in Clare to pop them down to the Huayra at the hotel. Dr. Strange remained there for a moment, gazing at the portal that Harry had created with his help, then raised a hand and with a powerful flame spell reduced it to ash. Another spell summoned up a wind scattering the ashes into the sky, then Steven Strange turned for home, shaking his head and chuckling quietly.