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Back on Earth, while Hela was away seeing to her own business, Harry's first job turned out to be meeting with King Duncan and his shiny new PM, telling them about the reopening of communications and trade with Asgard, as well as the new agreements Asgard now had with the Avalon Empire. For the moment, after all was said and done, that was all Harry needed to do on that front. Sage had already set to building up a reserve of the needed goods to meet their side of the trade transaction. The UK would be able to quickly follow suit, having long since already prepared a surplus of modern goods of various sorts before the Shadows had even cut the connection between dimensions.
Leaving Britain, Harry also sent out a surreptitious word to the US, Norway, Denmark, Scandinavia and other such places where he knew the Asatru faith was still followed in scattered communities. That would be the segue to helping any of the Asgardians who came through to find Asatru in need of direct intervention. A subtle message reminding these governments of Þór and Balder's existence, and the fact that there were other Asgardians out there as well who might just stop by, would hopefully do as warning enough without Harry needing to get his people further involved. Harry was mostly concerned because Odin had made such a point of mentioning people being beyond human law. Maybe Odin expected trouble to occur, or was simply being prideful, wishing to make it clear Odin felt humans were beneath him and his people. But there was little else Harry could do about it at the moment other than this message to the local governments and later providing representation if needed.
And honestly, he had more important things on his mind. More important, and more emotionally taxing. A series of funerals began the very next day after Harry returned to earth, Nikolai's funeral taking pride of place that first morning.
It ended up a dreary, overcast day, and Harry stood with Ororo and the rest of the Custodes in the deep snows of Camelot as they watched Father Garnoff preside over Nikolai's funeral. Laynia and the X-Men, Stinger and her team, and many of the children who had known Nikolai, in particular those rescued with him in Russia all that time ago, stood in audience as well, their faces somber even as Melody sang under her breath, a brief dirge for the dead. Rahne and Piotr lowered the casket into the ground, and when they stepped back Harry came forward with a shovel and proceeded to help with the burial by brute force, rather than magic.
After the ceremony had ended, Harry, Ororo and Steve made appearances at two other funerals that day for members of the Orbital Drop Marines who had been Jewish and Hindu. The following day was devoted to those of the Christian faiths; Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholics. A third day was devoted to all those who had marked 'not applicable' on their applications in terms of their religious practices, those who didn't believe in any organized religion at all, or who believed in smaller religions that didn't yet have a representative within the Avalon Empire, and so forth.
This happened to include four Asatru. Their souls, Hela had reported, had been sent to Niflheim, and there was a possibility they would be reborn within Utland at some point in the future. How that would actually occur was up to Odin though. Since the men in question had fallen in battle, and had proven themselves exceedingly capable, they fell under the Asgardian ruler's purview instead of Hela's now that their resurrection system was back in place and functioning again.
When asked how long such a decision would take, Hela had simply shrugged. It would take as much time as needed for Odin to make such a decision. If they would be allowed to meet their still living families was not a question however. The dead would remain dead to those who knew them in life. Asgard was to a new beginning for them all, and it was best if that such a break remained clean.
At each funeral it was the same, a somber atmosphere, with silent watchers. A man or, in one case, a woman, presided over the ceremony as friends and loved ones gathered. The Orbital Drop Marines were mostly unmarried thankfully, but the few times parents were able to attend was not exactly a good experience either. Harry and the fallen marines' immediate commanding officers dealt with many tears, but each faced this task as best they could, as stalwart as they could.
Despite Harry's best efforts to propagate the feeling of 'a stiff upper lip' the funerals, and especially Nikolai's still created a pall over Camelot. All the Custodes, Harry and his ladies included, were shaken by the loss of Nikolai and the ODMs who had died. All of them knew it could have been far, far worse, but the loss of a friend hit them all hard.
It took the kids and their normal innocence, vigor, and good cheer nearly a week and a half to break through the dismal funk. They did this mainly by restarting the prank war between Hela and Illyana, kicking the end of the armistice off with a clear victory for the increasingly mischievous blonde cherub.
It was one unassuming afternoon, and Harry, Hela, and Jean were sitting in the dining hall, eating together and talking about, of course, the business of running Avalon. Emma was busy once more on the business side of things, and Ororo had been called away to the Savage Lands to mediate between one of the Savage Lands' original tribes and a band of scientists that had stepped on their toes in no uncertain terms by treading into sacred ground. Harry had initially thought to go with her and express his displeasure to the scientists about their lack of tact, but ultimately he'd decided that Ororo would probably be far more gentle about it then he would've been in the mood to be.
He and Jean were discussing which think tank they believed Tony should devote most of his time to now that he was fully onboard with the Avalon Empire and the power armors of the ODMs only needed miscellaneous tweaking. Harry was of the opinion that their resident mad inventor should join Forge designing the Fleet's Earth-based ships. For all his genius, Reed either didn't understand or refused to acknowledge that warships needed to be designed to destruction: that everything within needed to be designed to last under fire and there needed to be a metric ton of redundancy built in so everything was as easy to repair as possible while still being effective and efficient. It was the same premise that was behind why most modern tanks still had a loader for their main artillery instead of an autoloader. Such systems broke down and constituted a deadly hazard to the tank if hit mid-battle.
Jean on the other hand was of the opinion that Tony should be put in charge of looking into one of their chief bottlenecks, that being creating an assembly line and industrial sector to design, produce, and advance circuitry, microchips, and any other interconnected items. "Tony's the only one of our resident geniuses who has any knowledge about mass production. He could solve that problem for us, and then when it's done he could move on to other similar areas."
"I think we'll need to push for more from Taiwan then, unless another source of similar materials opens up," Harry grumbled, shaking his head. "We do need more microchips, and as it stands they're the world's leading experts in the field, on top of being the best at a lot of other things we need. I hadn't up to this point dealt with them directly, because I was concerned about how badly that would affect the global economy and China's view on the subject, but now I don't think we put it off any longer."
"Regardless of that, Tony should still be put in charge of building up our own microchip infrastructure. We could set it up in the Savage Land," Jean considered. She sighed. "Let's face it, Taiwan is going pell-mell to feed the world's demand in that area as it is, and if we demanded more, someone else would lose out as a result."
Harry nodded, that exact concern having occurred to him before as well. "True, and like I said, the Chinese Dragon is already grumbling given how Russia showed its military to be something of a paper tiger outside of a few high-tech units during the Eurasian war. I don't necessarily want to get them angrier further with me than they are already, but I will if I have to."
Up to now, the Avalon Empire's needs in terms of high-end circuitry had been met by either utilizing the pre-existing Kree systems from their acquired ships, employing pre-existing commercial avenues such as Frost Enterprises, trading with Doctor Doom and Latveria, or digging into the surplus supply that Magneto had built up in the Savage Land that they then coupled with Prometheus 2. But now that they were not only replacing the weapons on the Kree ships but attempting to mass-produce Ravens, working on making the Raven Spires livable and building up the Orbital Drop Marines with their power armor and so forth, they needed far more than their previous supply chains could accommodate. Prometheus 2 and their construction droids just couldn't meet every one of the ever-growing list of demands.
That meant that Harry's direct agreement with Taiwan, which he'd made after announcing the creation of the Avalon Empire, was getting more important as more of their construction droids—which had been manufactured using microchips bought through Frost Enterprises—switched from building more of themselves to the aforementioned tasks such as mass production of the Ravens. That alone was a major drain on their time and resources and didn't even account for the Raven Spires or the ongoing project to cut down on the number of personnel needed to fully man the Kree ships. All twelve of the planned Raven Spires were already hollowed out and ready to be made into bases, but out of that number only two were fully online. Latveria and Wakanda, two other sources of high-end electronics, could not meet the Empire's needs while also continuing to sustain their own local needs, which was especially true for Latveria given how it had grown since the end of the Eurasian War due to Doom annexing segments of his eastern neighbors.
"Well, we should really ask Tony what he wants to do," Harry said with a shrug. "He's officially out of the doghouse with me, so whatever he wants is fine, so long as it doesn't involve—"
The conversation might well have continued on a similar serious vein from there, if not for Hela squawking in outrage drawing Harry and Jean's attention towards her side of the table. "GAHH, hot! Wha~a… Ahh…"
They both watched in some surprise as Hela waved at her open mouth in as if it were burning. When the waving did no good, Hela grabbed at a nearby pitcher, putting it to her fiery lips and draining its contents down quickly.
"Huh… was that pitcher there a moment ago?" Jean inquired, confused. Normally a house elf would refill their glasses. They'd never needed to do it themselves here in Camelot.
"Not at all…" Harry snorted, looking around the hall. "I sense shenanigans afoot."
Setting the pitcher down, Hela opened her mouth again, to berate the house elves for getting her meal confused with someone else's or perhaps to complain about the same as it was well known by now that Hela could not stand spicy things. However, whatever she'd meant to say would go unheard, as instead of a tirade, another squawk came out, this one more avian than angry. Several more squawks followed and Jean lost the battle to contain her giggles.
Nearby several of the kids began to laugh, while Illyana leaped out of her stool and began to dance in place. "Yes, yes! We got her, we got her! Woo!"
Harry was reminded of some of the pranks that the Weasley twins had made. Shaking himself free, he looked over at his young apprentice in some surprise. "Did you put something in her food,?"
"Nope! Hela always checks her meals with spells and stuff to see if there's anything wrong with them. Figuring out where Hela was going to sit was troublesome, but once I figured that out, I got one of the younger house elves to add some spice to her food, told him she wanted to challenge herself. But I knew that Hela would reach for the water quick as can be, not thinking to check where it came from," Illyana answered, as proud as a general after a successful campaign. "It was a team effort."
"Hehehe, I snuck the charmed water pitcher onto the table," another youngster added, one Harry realized he didn't recognize. He looked to be of Arabic descent and looked quite proud of his achievement.
"Right! And that's where my master plan went to work. There's a spell on the pitcher; anyone who drinks from it will start to talk like a bird!" Illyana laughed, still dancing in place as the other kids around her cheered. "I got you! I got you! I got you good Hela!"
"So you did," Harry laughed, Jean tried to muster the willpower to look censorious, utterly failing as her previous giggles shifting into outright laughter as more laughter rose up from the rest of the onlookers. This was a mixed bag of Custodes, youngsters and the normal inhabitants of the castle like Kitty's parents, the teachers, Rahne, and a few of Wendy's teammates including Morph, who had shifted his head to be larger than normal so he could guffaw at the sight even louder.
Seeing the normally prideful, extremely self-contained Hela squawking and grabbing at her throat was a hilarious sight for most of those dining in the hall. However, Harry knew something that Illyana had yet to truly grasp. "But you know, owning up to the fact that you are a prankster is something of a double-edged sword, my dear."
The young Russian girl looked confused for a moment, then hurled herself to the floor as a spell flew towards her from Hela, who obviously didn't need to actually speak to cast spells. The plate of food that Illyana had been eating turned into a large mouse, causing several reactionary shrieks and shouts. The newly born mouse instantly skittered away, leaping down to the ground to head towards the nearest wall. It didn't get far before Garm leapt on it with a huff of laughter. Meanwhile, a red-faced Hela continued to silently fire spells at a now hastily dodging and shielding Illyana.
During the scuffle, a few of the other children, innocent or not, were struck and turned into various small rodents as well. This did not seem to slow the goddess down, although when one of mice squeaked out, "Defend yourselves!" whatever minimal amount of calm might have been had disappeared instantly. Ignoring the admonishing calls of the teachers and Kitty's parents, the entire hall devolved into a battlefield with the young mutants, accompanied by Wendy, Morph, and Anne Marie Cortez, turning their powers on Hela, , magic and energy blasts flying toward her set to the former mutant supremacists' equivalent of stun.
All this gave Hela was more targets for her wrath. An instant later, what had been carefully targeted spells became wide-angled spells, sending several kids to the ground in uncontrollable and involuntary guffawing, while others turned orange and blew up like Harry's aunt Marge once had back in his original world, floating up to the roof with squeaky giggles and hiccups. All the while Hela shielded herself or dodged the various mutant power-based attacks coming towards her without slowing down a bit.
Harry looked on for a few seconds, a grin slowly growing across his face before he hopped to his feet. Standing in the middle of the storm, he flexed his wrists, and began to cast spells; color changers, form changers, ticklers, and spells to also send the victim bobbing up to the ceiling, like Hela's former victims. At the same time, a Protego the equivalent of Fort Knox appeared around Jean as Harry glanced at her and the retreating adults. "House elves, if you could get anyone who doesn't want to participate out of the way?"
Not waiting for an answer, Harry stode after his Asgardian girlfriend. "Oh, Hela~?" he sang.
Hearing such words, said in such a tone, Garm, who had originally hastily ducked underneath the chair, and was wishing that he had gone to Finland to hunt with Danielle and Fenrir, instantly took to his heels. Oh no, most certainly not. I have been around my mistress and Illyana's prank wars too often as is.I refuse to get involved in an all-out battle if Potter is getting involved, regardless of what manner of spells are being flung around.
Hela turned from where she had been busy blocking a stream of super-condensed air with one hand while the other projected a shield that was blocking a spout of water directed at her from another young mutant. A third child, this one appearing like some kind of bird- shaped creature, dove down at her from above but was rebuffed by some sort of invisible wall. Hela nearly ate a blast of magic for her momentary distraction, the effect of which she had no idea of, nor the desire to learn.
She glared back at Harry, who held up his hands in faux surrender, all of his fingers sparking and flickering with magic. "Nothing deadly, nothing truly debilitating. Otherwise, have at thee love." With that, he bowed and launched into his next spell.
The remaining children, teens, and Custodes who still fought turned on both adults with equal fervor, Hela and Harry standing in the middle of the dining hall making too open of a pair of targets to resist. The two magic users utilized various nonlethal charms and transfiguration spells in retaliation, and while Hela still seemed somewhat miffed at the squawking that came every time she opened her mouth, her wide grin showed just how much fun she was truly having. And although many of the children were a little disturbed at seeing Harry, the Lord Potter that only a small cadre of their peers had gotten to know before now, now cackling like a madman as he flung spells at them and at the raven haired beauty in the mask in equal measure, one by one their apprehensions faded in the face of unmitigated fun.
From her position behind a turned over stool, Illyana tried to organize some sort of team defense, but with the sheer chaos in the hall, few among her coterie could hear her, let alone desired to leave their own cover to potentially aid her. This started to change when Morph slid into the empty spot next to her. "What's the plan boss lady?"
Illyana stared at the teen, then began to grin. "Let's get this thing organized second in command! Tell everyone to try and encircle them; attack them from all sides!"
From her new position near the front of the hall, Jean watched all of this unfold feeling almost the same amount of jealousy and annoyance as she would've normally when faced with her pregnancy stopping her from being a frontline combatant in actual combat. Still, at least was a just for fun and show, she could sit this one out she supposed. Not looking away from the small-scale civil war, Jean politely asked one of the house elves to grab some popcorn for her. "If I'm stuck watching, I might as well do so with all the creature comforts possible."
"Well, I hope at least father's song isn't going to be so sad now," A sudden, small voice said beside her, causing Jean to jolt in shock. Turning, she spied Melody standing next to her, also enjoying the battle unfold. "He and the rest of you adults have been so sad about Nikolai and the others you lost. You've all forgotten that grieving for the dead shouldn't stop you from being happy in their stead."
Digesting that overly mature sentence, Jean put a gentle arm around Melody's shoulders, pulling the small girl into a hug and up onto the very comfortable circular basket seat she was sitting in at the moment. In turn, Melody seemed to almost curl around her protruding stomach in tender care. "That is a very wise outlook on life, my dear. Thank you for helping to cheer us all up. Feel free to do it again whenever you see us old fuddy-duddies being sticks in the mud in the future, okay?"
Melody giggled, leaning against the redhead's side, the two continuing to watch the chaos unfold in front of them together.
OOOOOOO
Over the next two weeks, Harry made it a point to get to know the newer kids better, separating his days into work time and play time as he got back into the swing of things. It honestly proved far more beneficial health-wise than working himself to the bone to keep from wallowing in their losses at Asgard. Several of the newer children were of an age where they would need to be sent to actual middle school or high school, and Harry spoke with each of those students individually. He then worked with Camelot's teachers to figure out if they would do better going to the high school in New York and keep under the auspices with Kurt and the other youngsters from Xavier's mansion still there—Kitty had made the decision to test out of high school entirely, with her parents blessing several weeks ago—or to the high school that had opened in the Savage Land.
This was all being handled because ultimately, Harry wanted to keep Camelot for the Custodes, the elementary students, himself, and his various projects. "Predominantly it's because of Melody and Illyana if I'm honest. I want to keep the two of them close, for obvious reasons, and I don't want the education of the older kids to suffer because of where my focus is," Harry explained to Emma one night as she joined them for a dinner. Or rather, for her it was a late lunch, as Emma, despite being formally married to Harry, still spent most of her time in her own mansion in New York running Frost Enterprises.
"That and having the little rugrats around is a hilariously way to stay cheerful," Jean added, chuckling to herself as Hela scowled. The goddess dug into her soufflé dessert with gusto. She'd never tried one before that evening and had found the cherry confection quite delicious. "Aren't they, Hela?"
"Just you wait my dear Jean. My vengeance will be the stuff of legend," Hela grumbled, doing her best to look cross. Unfortunately for her, those listening could tell that her words really had no heat to them any longer.
"Anyway, keeping to the subject at hand rather than going off on an amusing tangent, I think in the future we'll use Camelot as an inflow center. Kids at the middle school and high school levels can then be sent on to the Savage Land. I'm afraid we've reached the limit to how many students we can send to the local high school near Charles and Scott," Harry announced with a shake of his head. "It'll give the kids a few years to think of pursuing full citizenship and what that entails, while still getting a good education, before they'll need to decide what they want to do with their futures."
"Since few of them have families they wish to acknowledge, or vice-versa, thanks to their mutant powers, that kind of fresh start seems like an excellent idea," Emma agreed.
"And we already have an educational system in place in the Savage Land," Ororo said proudly, and well she should. That had been one of her personal major projects, alongside Pinoptes. "We'll always face a distinct challenge in mutant education considering how their powers can affect their daily lives and need to be trained one way or another, but we are old hats at that now. This new influx we're expecting is larger than most we've faced in the past, but we are prepared for it. If you want to keep the castle for just the youngsters and the rest of us, my love, that's perfectly fine, although we'll need to talk to a few students through how to operate the runic doorways to come and go, given such a decision will be splitting up sibling pairs."
"Siblings can stay here for sleeping then, we still have enough space for them. But yes, I would prefer they spent most of their time at the schools in the Savage Land," Harry answered.
"We might also need to allow students hailing from your Middle Eastern or third world countries more acclimatization time, as well as supplementary classes," Hela mused, adding something to the conversation for the first time since her souffle had arrived. "Recall that they will be coming from cultures and societies very different from our own and will need time to get used to the Empire's social mores, or even those of America."
Storm agreed with this with a nod, indicating that she and Pinoptes had already begun creating seminars to help with that kind of thing. Still, she added that she would like to vet the existing population of the Empire to see if they could find someone, or more optimistically, two people to teach such classes.
"But none of you have any objections to keeping our center of government here in the castle? As well as an elementary school?"
Hela grumbled and Emma rolled her eyes, but neither of those were exactly objections. Additionally, Harry knew that Hela's disgruntlement was merely due to her annoyance at present at how Illyana had planned out such an basic trap and still succeeded in pranking her. Even Emma's stance was mostly pro forma due to her dislike for children in general being so well known. Seeing that there were no real problems, Harry turned their attention to other things, refusing to be serious any longer that evening. "So, what about that new referendum that came up from the Council of Prefects? A sports league, was it?"
OOOOOOO
Harry would get his serious quota the next day. With Sage's able aid, he continued to expand Magical Minds' commercial reach, specifically into the law enforcement sector. His potion brewers had finally produced a large enough surplus of Veritaserum that the Empire could afford to start selling it to outside powers. Harry knew that Emma would be positively gleeful by the results once those sales began and the profits rolled in. Interpol, various sovereign nations, and specific law enforcement agencies the world over had been shown samples of the truth serum weeks ago and were salivating to get their hands on it. There were some questions about the legality, if not the ethics, of using a magical potion to force someone to tell the truth, but since the Avalon Empire already had its usage set into its laws, those on the fence had a good precedent to look to and follow. Moreover, Harry had used the potion himself previously in somewhat public settings, if only occasionally, and the various governments knew what he could do was the real deal, so they'd been preparing for this for a while.
On the other hand, Harry was well aware of how badly Veritaserum could be abused if it fell into the wrong hands. Taking that into account, he'd decided that he wasn't going to sell the truth potion to anyone until its use was accepted, controlled, and in the books so to speak. That would probably take a while for even allies like the UK to implement effectively, but even so, the going price for even a single, five gallon ton of Veritaserum was ten times the amount of any of Harry's other potion-based services.
More importantly, and much more serious, was that Harry had to deal with business on the military side of things as well. This kicked off with him and Kitty working on several time dilation chambers in the US, Canada, and Savage Land training centers for the ODMs. The former area in Fortress Mars where the construction droids had first built so many of themselves had also been turned into the training area for the space marines. From there, Harry met with Murphy, asking the commander about the overall progress of the rest of the training centers elsewhere on Earth.
That is how Harry ended up staring at Murphy from across his desk in Fortress Mars, wide eyed and slightly slack jawed. "I'm sorry, how many people are signing up?"
"From India alone, we've had nearly two million men sign up for EDF training since we opened the training center there. But don't let that surprise you Harry, or get your hopes up," Murphy said with a snort. "We're in no way certain how many of those recruits will pass the physical exams, let alone survive basic training, figuratively and literally."
Harry winced but understood that the man had a point. Already there had been a number of deaths due to training accidents in both the Orbital Drop Marine program as well as on the Earth Defense Force side of things. As cruel as it sounded, thankfully these deaths were only among the raw recruits. The trained personnel coming in, the veterans, and those individuals seconded to them from their parent militaries had a far lower rate of accidents.
"And before you say anything, we're already doing everything we can to make the training as safe as we can. If we do any more, we'd need to expand the use of those time dilation chambers of yours, and the cool down periods. We're already getting major complaints among the Orbital Drop Marine recruits… I think you severely underestimated how normal people's physiology would react to that kind of thing," Murphy said, shaking his head as he waves a few forms at Harry. Then, he stands as well. "And we seriously need to expand our officer core, Harry. I need a larger staff, Whitaker needs a larger staff, the Ravens need local commanders and we need more oversight on the training centers. A lot more."
"Alright, and how do we get it? We will not become an offshoot of the American armed forces, or even the British," Harry warned.
"Well if you're asking me for my opinion, I think…" Murphy launched into his spiel from there, Harry taking notes. Eventually he heard enough that he ended up getting Sage and a few of his contacts with various governments involved. He hadn't previously had a direct link to India before this, but Harry decided to set aside a few days to create one if these were the numbers the country could offer. While he knew that the initial two million figure wasn't really all that amazing in comparison to the sheer number of tasks, jobs, and everything else the Avalon Empire required, especially when nothing near that number would actually pass the trainings recruits went through, just hearing it flat out had thrown him. He hadn't even thought to ask how many were coming from neighboring countries or who had expressed interest in becoming an Avalonian citizen.
As the usual workload of a world leader built up, something else occurred three days later that Harry had been quietly longing to happen for a while. The long awaited event had the potential to actually solve one of the larger materials issues the Empire was facing, although Harry didn't want to hold out hope for what was going to happen going into this particular meeting. A meeting which had been set up by the Fantastic Four.
Harry rose from the chair in the neutral conference room that Reed Richards had put together, bowing his head lightly towards the two individuals who had just entered after Reed and Susan. Beside him Emma tilted her head down even less, icy mask fully in place. "King Blackbolt, it is good to meet you at last."
Blackagar Boltagon, the Inhuman king known as Blackbolt, was first and foremost tall, and as lithely well-built as Harry himself, although the interdimensional traveler knew that the man was also as physically strong as the Thing though his musculature wouldn't speak to it. He wore a black suit from top to bottom striped in lengths of white that carried the likeness of lightning bolts. When he moved his arms, it was clear that the suit had what appeared to be wings like a flying squirrel's connected from his arms to his body. There was also what looked like a tuning fork stuck to the forehead of his suit, and while others might have seen that as somewhat silly, Harry knew that it was a sign of Blackbolt's true power. The king's voice alone was apparently so powerful that even a whisper could destroy a city. His body's durability and strength was simply an offshoot of being able to survive the force of his own sonic powers.
Blackbolt's face was also stern and grim as he entered, lines of what Harry knew to be fatigue and grief carving into his face. Yet he still bowed his head politely in turn, taking a seat across from Harry as Medusa slid into a seat across from Emma.
"It is good to treat with you as well Lord Potter, although I do find myself in the uncomfortable position of needing to apologize. I realize that you had initially reached out to us via Medusa and her sister Crystal, and we have not responded formally before now, in any capacity. You must understand that for we Inhumans, the outside world has never been a pleasant place," Medusa answered, speaking for Blackbolt as was her role as his advisor. Not a whisper came from the Inhuman king, and Harry supposed he was grateful for that. "And that reticence was not helped at all by our latest… personal problems."
As Harry had been warned of Blackbolt's power before the meeting, and Medusa's role, he took her speech in stride, smiling in thanks to Reed as he and his wife left the negotiators alone together. "I understand how that can be, on both accounts. If Reed was able to share any of my own past with you, you would know that back in my own dimension, I was part of a small, extremely insular community with our own homegrown terrorists who believed that our powers made us superior to those outside. At least yours didn't want your people to rule over the rest of the world as ours did."
"No but ranks of the xenophobic isolationists were far more powerful and numerous than we'd expected," Medusa stated, keeping her tone and voice vague, Blackbolt not wanting to go into Inhuman politics with yet another group of outsiders. "They have caused us numerous problems on numerous occasions."
No more detail was needed. Ben Grimm had given Harry an abbreviated lowdown after the Fantastic Four's latest mission to help Blackbolt keep his throne. The king's brother, the so-called Maximus the Mad, who also happened to be a genius inventor, had instigated yet another rebellion. This time, he had openly garnered the popular support of members of Inhuman society in direct opposition to Blackbolt's own known desire to reach out to the outer world. The fact that the king wished for this so that their relations with Earth would be on their own terms rather than being forced upon them at a later date was conveniently forgotten. Indeed even now, fresh from being liberated from Maximus' iron fist, the majority of Blackbolt's people were still against the idea of having anything to do with the outer world.
But Blackbolt, with Medusa keeping him informed about the Avalon Empire's doings along with everything else that had been going on, information she sourced from her sister Crystal who had regularly been spending time with Johnny Storm in the outer world to her frustration, knew that the isolationism of the Inhumans wouldn't have lasted for much longer regardless of his people's feelings. Indeed, many others from Earth already knew about their small lunar civilization for months, if not years by this point. And he also knew that it was only that Harry had never been interested enough to investigate them after Reed had informed him that the Inhumans weren't a threat to Earth that had kept their closed-minded ways intact for so long.
"I'm sorry to hear that, and doubly sorry for any trouble your willingness to open up a dialogue between us has caused. However, I cannot truthfully say I'm sorry for the fact that you were able to do so," Harry said, Emma's diplomacy lessons holding strong. "I feel that there is a lot we could offer each other but let me state clearly now that I have no wish to try to rule over you, enforce my laws upon you, or to even introduce you to the rest of Earth if you are against it. The Avalon Empire can and will treat with the Inhumans as if you are an entirely separate nation from the rest of the planet, as we have done with others of Earth, if you so wish."
"I thanks you for your frank and encouraging statement," Medusa announced for Blackbolt, the king sitting stoically beside her. He hadn't moved an inch since sitting down, only his fingers moving occasionally.
As redheaded woman spoke, Emma finally chimed in, "I'm detecting some kind of telepathic communication between them Harry. It feels something like what you, Jean, and me have developed, although I think it's a little more… automatic than that? Blackbolt is the source I am certain, but he doesn't feel like a full bore telepath. Is it some kind of telepathy-based connection between family members?"
Tapping her knee under the table to indicate he had heard her and understood, Harry kept his attention on Blackbolt as Medusa continued. "And that is something we shall want in writing. That the Avalon Empire will not try to force open our borders to further interaction or trade must be paramount in any future agreements. Any trade that does occur will by necessity be between the government of Attilan and the government of the Avalon Empire alone. There will also be no attempt to come in and sell our citizens goods and services they do not require. And there will be no attempt to force us to allow your corporations in for their profit as has occurred so often in human society."
"Agreed. We can write that up right now if you wish," Harry answered instantly, nodding over to Mary Jane, who'd been typing up every word spoken. He had no problems with those demands, hell, he'd have given the Inhumans such assurances without even being asked slash told.
Blackbolt instantly nodded in turn, and Medusa and Harry worked on the appropriate wording for the agreement for a time. Once settled, Medusa's spoke again in Blackbolt's stead. "Now that that is out of the way, we can move on to what we both want from the other. I believe that we should be open and upfront about these things, and in that spirit I must inform you that we would like to leave the moon. Where my people go from that point is understandably up in the air, but ultimately we desire to terraform a planet for ourselves."
Harry wasn't quite sure what to say. That was the last thing he'd expected the king of the isolationists to put forth as a major demand—after the expected restrictions of course—and he had to admit he was thrown.
"… While I obviously have no issue with you and yours moving the location of your civilization, I have to ask… are you able to see to that terraforming yourself or even the transfer of your people?"
"We can construct a starship of our own," Medusa answered, smiling as if at an inside joke known only to her and her husband. "But terraforming a planet is beyond our current means. We believe it to be within yours however. And we are willing to pay for it."
Harry thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. He had already agreed to push forward terraforming some of the moons of Saturn as it was and had recently figured out a way to do more terraformed dwarf planet wouldn't matter overmuch to him. "I will say yes, I can indeed terraform a planet for your people, although the caveat is that the planetary body in question has to naturally be the right type to give me a starting point."
With a few touches to the hidden keyboard set into the desk they sat at, Harry pulled up an extremely detailed holographic map of the solar system. He pointed out various points of iterest here and there; the territory Doctor Doom had claimed for himself, the areas which had been turned over to the Defense Force, the helium cultivation structures, the numerous and still growing number of jump rings scattered across the system. Several of the jump rings, which was what the Raven pilots called the spaceborne teleportation rings, were also in orbit over Earth and Fortress Mars. After all, the Ravens would need a way to enter the network, not just exit.
Medusa and Blackbolt took in the expansive sight, and while they digested just how far humanity had really expanded in such short a time, Harry willingly turned the controls of the mapping system over to the two rulers. The wide looks in their eyes actually brought a grin to Harry's face, which Blackbolt didn't fail to notice. The other king's eyes flicked to him, and his lips twitched, which caused Harry to chuckle. Much like with Doctor Doom and Odin, I don't think Blackbolt and I will ever come to be close friends, but it's good to know that the silent king does have a sense of humor.
A second later Blackbolt actually bodily moved for the first time, turning his attention to what Medusa had been doing. Within seconds, a series of small moons in the orbit of Jupiter were pulled up, enhanced and enlarged until they filled the air between the two rulers, gone over, and then one of them selected.
"What would it take for you to terraform this moon for us?"
Harry looked at the relatively small celestial rock that Medusa had highlighted in yellow thoughtfully. He brought up a set of his own notes on the planetary body, lips pursing as he read. "Your pardon your majesties, I didn't think you would ask for me to terraform something for you. This might take a while."
Graciously waving away any supposed concern or frustration, Medusa turned from the holo-map to Emma and the two were soon making small talk as Harry went over his notes, with Emma helping him to get in touch with Carol and Sage telepathically. After a roughly ten minutes of this Harry had his answer. "It is certainly possible, but it will take time and effort. That and a lot of viable soil. Like, a lot. But now that we've that out of the way, what would you be willing to trade for such a monumental labor?"
"Whatever it ends up being, we would prefer to make our payment in one lump sum . While some of us Inhumans are willing to acknowledge the outside world, few are willing to truly interact with you, or any other sentient beyond our borders," Medusa warned with all the gravity of her stone-faced husband. "And even then, I can think of a handful that would gladly choose the latter."
Harry grimaced, reminded all too clearly of the blood purists in his old world. "How we go about the transfer of whatever goods we agree on is something I am perfectly happy to leave in your hands. If your people are so xenophobic that they don't want to come into contact with mine, we could probably do the handoffs completely through droids and unmanned ships. That being said, any trade items will need to be of a particular nature, as there are certain high-end resources that my people need and are having trouble sourcing in the necessary quantities on Earth."
He held up a hand as Medusa made to speak. "And these goods are such that I will need to receive them continuously. I don't see a way for you to produce enough all at once to deliver it all in one single allotment."
"… What goods exactly are we speaking of here?" Medusa asked slowly, a hint of suspicion creeping into her tone.
"Microchips, computer motherboards, control system hardware," Harry counted, raising a finger as he listed each point. "I can supply the raw material if that is or becomes an issue. My problem is not that I don't have resources, it's that I don't have them in the correct forms. So that is what I need from you, your ability to manufacture high-grade technological components, made to match or exceed specs we would provide you."
"You have a… I believe it is called Forge Two, correct? Surely, from what we've heard, such an installation can create these things for you?"
"Prometheus 2," Harry corrected, "And while its production capacity can match the needs of any one project, say… retrofitting the weapon systems for the Kree ships we captured, that's but a fraction of what I need. As it stands, the Earth Defense Force will be growing exponentially for the foreseeable future, and so too will the quantity of the bits and bobs needed to run it. And unfortunately, while my construction droids are amazing at building and repairs, they're not equipped nor programmed for finely detailed fabrications."
Medusa raised a disbelieving brow, and Blackbolt beside her took a deep breath. "I have still not heard a credible reason for why my people cannot just make our payment to you in one lump sum. Would not a million each of microchips, motherboards, processors, and the like delivered to you all at once not give you the buffer time required to increase your own means of production?"
"It would," Harry agreed. Medusa started to grin in victory, before he dropped the real bomb. "If my needs weren't measured in terms of trillions of the resources you just named and more besides."
The room fell silent. For the Inhumans, it was due to pure shock. Such a number was hard for even them to comprehend, at least when it came to the mass production such a goal would require. For Harry and Emma, they were quiet because they were fighting to keep from laughing at the stunned looks of their opposites.
Once the two Inhuman royals had recovered themselves, Harry again found himself embroiled in haggling. Eventually, he and Blackbolt, through Medusa, agreed upon the price, with him actually winning out on being paid in allotments over time, on the that an Inhuman in their trust would be able to periodically check the terraforming project whenever they desired. From there the matter of when Harry would start said project came up, at which point it became clear that while they could start paying for it now, the Inhumans would still need the resources to do so. And apparently to repair Attillan as well. Which was also a ship.
Recognizing just how advanced the Inhumans really were, to have a space-faring city-ship already, Harry couldn't help but whistle. "Well, I can say this for the Inhumans, you all don't do things by half measure. And I would be more than willing to provide you with raw ore and such, both for your repairs and for you to use in relation to my half of the agreement, for a price."
Rolling her eyes, Medusa launched the room back into the previous conversation. This time through took far less time however, and soon, Harry was standing while shaking hands with Blackbolt, who nodded to him while his lips quirked wryly. Harry got the distinct impression that his Inhuman counterpart had enjoyed all of that about as much is he had, which had been not at all.
Still, Harry walked away from the meeting very pleased, a treaty in hand.
OOOOOOO
After that, things settled down for a time. With Sage running the day-to-day operations of Magical Minds, and the governmental infrastructure of the Avalon Empire in place for the most part, Harry only had a few executive-level decisions to make for both. What he really spent most of that time on was the EDF, in particular following up on General Murphy's words on needing to bring more officers and command staff for the Raven Spires. This effectively devoured several months' worth of his time due to all the meetings he'd been forced to attend, but eventually, there was a real command structure in place. Luckily, since the Navy already had one close to fitting his needs he'd been able to copy large sections of it for his own use. Harry had also worked closely with Admiral Whitaker from the start to bring in captains, commanders, and commodores as well, so Harry had an idea what kind of personnel he wanted going forward.
Perforce, most of these personnel had come from other nations, specifically the United States, Britain, India, and, surprisingly enough, France and Japan. While Japan's military was small and called a self-defense force, they were extremely well-trained, used to working with high levels of technology, and even used to working with others and being part of the US's sphere of influence in the Pacific. And France, although derided in popular American and British culture ever since WW2, and having initially protested Harry's demands for manpower, actually had one of the larger, better-trained militaries in the world who had served extremely well during the Eurasian War.
In terms of executive decisions, most of Harry's work had been signing off on a few things here and there, mostly dealing with the Avalon Empire's response to violent anti-mutant or pro-mutant factions. His response was the same for both: squash them wherever they appeared with extreme prejudice. His tolerance for the intolerant had reached new lows after returning from the Shi'ar, and even those within his own lands weren't exceptions.
One such incident that had unfortunately kicked off within the Empire's borders had ultimately resulted in an extended family, many of whom had signed up to be trained in zero-g mining conditions, being returned to the United States when several male members of said family had assaulted two young mutants. The adults had lost their jobs, the family as a whole had been hit with heavy fines, and the perpetrators had been tried and sentenced within a day.
Another blowup had been caused by a pro-mutant group that had sprung up in Norway. The idiots had gone on a rampage and had tried to take over the city of Egersund. One of the mutants had been able to control concrete and, coupled with an extremely wide area of influence, they'd made a good try at it. That is, until a Magma-led team of Custodes Mundi had arrived.
Once his team had mopped up the criminals, Harry had been forced to make a public statement that the Avalon Empire stood for equality, not pro-mutant superiority, when it was revealed the captured mutants had apparently cobbled together their manifesto from spliced statements that he'd made in the past. After that, he'd also announced that he would be willing to help defray the costs of the reconstruction projects within Egersund as a show of goodwill.
That kind of threat to his public persona, born and based in the manipulation of technology, had necessitated the creation and utilization of a new system by Reed Richards: the International Emergency Override System. When Harry had made his speech, and whenever he needed to do so again, everyone with a TV or radio heard it live, regardless of geographical location or nationality. It might've been a tad excessive, but Harry most decidedly didn't want any sort of supremacist movement able to use his words for their own ends ever again.
Thankfully, the Northern European Strategic Command had been quite happy with Harry before that incident, and a majority of Norway's civilian population hadn't blamed him for the pro-mutant group's acts. The actual Norwegian government hadn't really been happy with Harry at the time, as he'd pushed hard on making mutant equality the law in payment for the Custodes interceding, something that the somewhat conservative sectors of the population hadn't particularly appreciated. However, all of the other countries of the NESC had already done so, and within a few weeks of that incident, Norway had been forced into progressiveness.
To keep an eye on the newest member to the equality movement, Harry had directed Sir Dennis to do what he did best. It would be worth mentioning that by that point, Dennis had several thousand agents in his employ, having built his information broker business into a real intelligence network. Most of those involved had been chosen by Natasha or Mystique and were, barring a few, experienced. Some were undoubtedly reporting to more than one master, but since none of those agents operated within the Empire, Harry hadn't been overly concerned by their presence. Following Harry's order, Dennis had sent a few of his assets into Norway to make certain that the country followed through on actually enforcing its new laws. The Empire hoped the Norwegians would prove trustworthy on that point.
There hadn't been any issues so far, and Harry was grateful to the NESC for also making sure its member state played fair and true. The NESC was the northern European equivalent of the European Union. Previously, Norway and Denmark had made noises about joining the European Union, but while that body had weathered the storm of the Eurasian War and come out a little more solidified after such a turbulent time, Finland and Sweden had come out of the fighting making noises of creating their own union, built around the pre-existing agreements they had with Harry via Magical Minds. When Harry had later come out and declared the creation of the Avalon Empire, Norway and Denmark, along with Iceland, had made an about face and decided to join in with their neighbors instead of the French and German-led EU.
His response to the Norwegian incident had not been the only statement Harry had had to make wearing his Imperial Hat either. Some time later, he'd made a public statement in front of the United Nations. Despite the physical power of the organization having decreased tremendously, it had still been a very good way to get his words heard by people in power the world over without needing to use the IEOS, which he knew overuse of would cause tremendous backlash. In that address, Harry had also not only stirred the pot and rocked the boat, but thrown out the whole kitchen sink. As he'd been wrapping up, he'd ended the speech by formally declaring that the Avalon Empire accepted Taiwan's right to sovereignty.
Needless to say, this did not go over well with China. Not even America had gone so far as to accept Taiwan's sovereignty, to say it was a separate nation from China, something the Chinese refused to acknowledge despite it having been a physical fact for decades. But Harry needed microchips and semi-conductors that Taiwan made, and until the industry of the Inhumans was up and running, Taiwan and Latveria were the only two real sources of such things in the bulk necessary.
Even there, Doctor Doom had his own concerns to see to, such as his homegrown industries and rebuilding the various infrastructure destroyed during the Eurasian war. Nearly the entire eastern half of the European Union had also been making overtures to him as well, not quite begging for his aid, but close. And since China had been dragging its heels on the manpower issue after the war ended and didn't have any other goods Harry was particularly interested in, he was willing to put the screws to them politically.
Thankfully, not everything Harry did over the next few months was as annoying as the commercial and military sides of things. Several times, Harry simply went flying with Kitty in space. The young woman, in full spacesuit, enjoyed being tugged along by her teacher's magic as the two emplaced new jump rings throughout the solar system, the sights beyond anything she could've dreamed of. He'd also made certain to give all of his ladies the attention they deserved. He took each of them out on dates, sometimes just one on one, sometimes in smaller configurations of the greater quintet.
OOOOOOO
Two months after Harry and his people had returned from liberating Asgard, Harry and Odin stood on a platform passing Mercury on their way to the Sun. Between them, at the platform's center, a crystal ball inlaid with glowing runes sat on a pedestal, which Odin used to direct the platform forward. In what felt like moments, they were deep into the corona of the sun.
The platform, in actuality, was sticking out of the top of a large octagonal structure, about half a mile long, the front point of which faced towards the sun's core. While its exterior appeared almost simplistic in design, its sides rugged rather than smooth, the interior was quite intricate in contrast, lined with pressure plates made of solid diamond, more diamond than could ever be found on Earth. Harry had in fact sent several tons worth of coal and diamonds, taken from dozens of asteroids he'd had farmed, to Asgard for this, a far larger version of Odin's Star Forge, and now he was eager to see his investment pay off.
Inside the forge was a crucible-like chamber, the walls of which would collapse inward when in use, crashing together like a pneumatic forge, only at far higher speeds and with far greater force than any merely mechanical object could ever have devised. Around the most pointed edge of the forge were small flaps that opened, meant as a vent to gather in the power of the sun, funneling it into the forge's interior controllable amounts of time. The walls, in fact the entire forge itself, was powered by magic and directed by the dvergar, who manned various stations throughout the structure and were magically linked to it so that they could use their gestalt senses to guide the smelting process with their combined knowledge and experience.
Above the Star Forge, Lorna followed, dragging several hundred tons of various metals, each of which had been separated into exact portions that Odin and the dvergar had dictated. This was a process they had mastered in the past, it had simply been the size of the operation that had caused them some issues at first. Happily, the consummate smiths had solved those quickly enough, and so here they all were.
Harry kept his magical shield around himself and Lorna above as they closed with the sun. He'd deliberately made it as opaque as possible to save their eyes as they'd pushed ever deeper toward the heart of star, but at such a close distance even his best efforts weren't enough to block out all of the light. But while he, the dvergar, and Odin could take the brightness and heat with aplomb, Lorna was having issues.
"How much farther are we going, Harry?" Lorna asked, her anxiety showing in the use of his first name as she was normally very good about not doing that in front of more formal people.
"We are almost there now," Odin answered instead, sweat beading his weathered brow, the only sign of the insane heat beyond Harry's shield. "If my calculations are correct, the ideal position for the Star Forge here in the heart of Sol will be upon us in moments."
"Can't happen too soon for this girl!" Lorna grumbled, another sign that she was really feeling the heat, pun intended, Harry thought to himself.
A moment later and Odin waved a hand, the forge halting in place, it's magic-based antigravity systems making a mockery of physics. Harry and Odin moved off the platform and over to a series of runes set into the side of the crucible chamber. Odin pointed them out to Harry as they worked, adding that, "How often you will need to charge them is in question, given the forge's size and how much you wish to get out of it. But it will work. A metal that is in no way magical but made through magical means, durable beyond measure."
Nodding, Harry leaned forward, placing his hands on the specially designed receiver runes. His power flowing out into them, and even within the sun itself they lit up like beacons. As he did so, one of the nearby dvergar worked a series of controls, opening the top of the crucible like an iris shutter on a camera. From directly above them, at another dvergar's command, Lorna set to feeding huge, man-sized chunks of various metals down into the chamber. She watched as they passed out from under Harry's shield around them keeping them from melting into the forge below where they most certainly did begin to melt, all forming together. At the same time, the dvergar bellowed to one another in their own tongue, segments of the forge's interior moving and mixing the metal concoction as it flowed under their direction.
When the crucible intake pit was full, Lorna paused her work and waited for the go ahead to descend. When Harry's shield expanded to cover the distance between her and the forge, she dropped down, landing beside Harry with a slight stumble. He touched her shoulder gently, having finished his own portion of the operation, and looked at her with concern. She smiled back at him wanly but shook away his worry. The two then turned as yet another dvergar began to work a different series of controls. Suddenly there came a sound of clanging metalclanging, that almost filled the universe to her, causing Lorna to stumble away from the side of the crucible only for Harry to once more catch her shoulder, holding her upright.