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The merry chatter of laughing children resounded throughout the small jungle at the heart of the former Asteroid X, now the center of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It was here where Harry, through use of expanded space and time dilation arrays, grew enough ingredients for the potions he sold via Magical Minds. This space station also housed the now semi-defunct Orichalcum forge, set aside due to taking too much time and energy on Harry's part considering all the various other demands he had on his waking hours. Pinoptes' physical core was located in the main control room, as this allowed Douglas, Melody, and others who had befriended the AI to come and speak to him in person as it were. If Camelot was the brain of Harry's Avalon Empire, then Babylon could perhaps be called its lungs, working hard to make everything run smoothly. Not heart, though, as that was most decidedly the people Harry had gathered to him, and their locations at any given time was up in the air.
Not that any of that mattered at the moment. Instead, what really mattered was that Babylon was currently functioning as the site of a birthday party. Several hundred children, many of whom Harry had never met personally, were running around the large jungle below, shrieking, laughing and having fun away from the wintry conditions that prevailed over Camelot this time of year. Earlier, the horde of children had been given a tour of the asteroid, and in small groups had even been allowed into the control room. There, they had looked at Earth from on high, a treat they all enjoyed.
Now, as Harry watched, it appeared as if a supersized game of tag of some kind had developed. And if I'm not mistaken, it looks like someone is cheating.
"Illyana, what have I told you about using magic in games like this?" Harry called out from above as Hedwig left his shoulder to hover in the air over his apprentice. The young girl had just used a spell to trip a boy her age who'd been running away from her too fast for her to catch fairly. "If the others can't use their powers, then you can't use magic either. Help Jacob up, and you are still 'It,' young lady."
Illyana pouted at this declaration by her master, but with Hedwig glaring down at her from where she was flying in a circle above her, Illyana quickly decided to take her reprimand with good grace. When the two kids had run off again, Hedwig returned to Harry's shoulder, ruffling her feathers for a moment before cocking her head to one side, listening to the music of her people.
Turning his gaze in that direction, Harry smiled faintly as he caught sight of Melody holding court with a number of birds all around her. His elvish daughter sang along with them cheerfully, much to the delight of some of the other kids who were sitting with her. Seeing Melody so joyful reminded Harry of when he'd first kidnapped her from the Vault and brought her to live in Babylon for a time before he'd moved to claim this dimension's Hogwarts as his own.
As if feeling his gaze on her, Melody looked up, spotting Harry watching her, but didn't break off her song even as she waved at him, somehow not dislodging the two birds that had come to rest upon the young rainbow-haired girl's shoulders. Harry waved back just as happily before turning away, satisfied his daughter was clearly enjoying herself and certain that Illyana wouldn't need any further warnings. In fact, she'll probably enforce the no powers rule now if anything. Illyana can be quite a commanding little so-and-so at times.
Instead, Harry's attention turned to his ladies, all of whom were up here in the master's suite of the space station at present. Hela was resting on the bed, having only recently returned from having gone back to Asgard that morning to argue with Odin about some of the souls he'd 'requested' she relinquish to him. The argument had annoyed her greatly, and Harry had promised her a date later that night to lift her mood. In a sign of how much closer his ladies had become over time, Emma had chosen to sit with the Asgardian, giving the goddess a pedicure of all things. Hela appeared to be enjoying the experience from the looks of it. The two had been arguing quietly and without heat over colors when Harry had turned to look out over the party below and now seemed to be arguing about… dances?
Girls are still confusing, sometimes. I get the impression it's somehow a flirty topic, but I can't tell how…
Nearby, Ororo and Jean shared a sofa, leaning against one another as they each held one of the twins in their arms. Looking at them, Harry's smile melted into something even softer, and he moved over to crouch in front of them, a feeling of awed delight and joy filling him.
Sirius and Rachel were only a month old, but already, Harry had begun to notice differences between the two babies. Not that those differences mattered at all to him, he loved them both equally, but it was surprising to see both of them developing distinct personalities so soon.
Rachel was a babbly, happy babe, but also kind of sedentary. She would play with anything that came into her hands, but she wouldn't go moving said hands around to look for entertainment herself. This, he knew was the normal way for babies this young.
Sirius, on the other hand, was a regular dynamo, always moving his arms and legs around without rest. Such was the case now while Ororo was holding him, the baby boy gripping at her hair and trying to pull on it, his chubby legs kicking fruitlessly. Too bad for him, he didn't yet have strength enough to do much but grab at the white strands of hair. He also seemed attracted to bright lights for some reason, and while he had wailed a time or two, usually before mealtime, he'd never been anywhere near as loud as his sister.
Reaching out, Harry laid a gentle hand on Sirius's head, causing the baby boy to look up at him. Sirius instantly forgot Ororo's hair existed in favor of reaching up to try and bat at the hand that was on top of his head. He couldn't do much to actually remove the hand, of course, but Harry obligingly waved a finger in front of Sirius' face, allowing the baby to grab at it.
"They're a little advanced for babies, aren't they?" Harry asked whimsically, "Physically and mentally, I mean."
"They are," Jean agreed, smiling like a living Mona Lisa as she held Rachel against her breast. The younger twin had started her 'hungry' fidgeting moments ago, and Jean had quickly moved to give her access to her meal.
Thanks to her telepathic interaction with her children in her womb, Jean had a sense of them that went far beyond what normal mothers could achieve. Several times she'd woken and had gone to take care of them before even the house elves assigned to watch over the twins could respond, and she was by far the best when it came to deducing what was bothering the twins or what mood either of them was in.
"I can still feel some measure of mental connection between them, like the one you'd told us you suspected those twins from your home dimension had. And of course, you remember that Rachel did try to use telekinesis yesterday?" Jean smiled lovingly down at her daughter, rubbing a finger down her cheek. "The little prima donna thought I was being too slow opening my shirt…" She gently teased, knowing that Harry well remembered the incident, having been somewhat poleaxed at the unexpected sight of Jean's breasts at the time.
The redhead had opened her shirt to let Rachel have access to her meal while they had been having a serious discussion at lunchtime. The surprise of it had knocked Harry's brain for a loop. And done quite a bit to puncture any lingering doubts about Jean's body image she might have had.
"And Sirius was able to somehow track where a house-elf was going to pop in the day before that," Ororo added, shaking her head as she gently bounced Sirius in her lap. "And have I mentioned today Harry just how thankful I am that house-elves can change diapers and clean baby bottoms with a single snap of their fingers? It makes parenting, especially taking care of babies, far easier. Even if we haven't been getting much sleep of late."
Harry chuckled at that, while Jean simply smiled, looking down at her body in some pride. Thanks to using the time dilation zones in the Hanging Gardens occasionally and a lot of effort, Jean had finally gotten her regular shape back, bar her breasts, which were now almost equal with Ororo's. Hopefully once the kids are good and weaned, that will change. They don't really match the rest of my figure. Thankfully, such a change is considered an expected abnormality post-partum and I'm otherwise cleared for duty, thank every god in existence.
"That, and, although I know I've said it before, but Amelia really should be declared a national treasure. In fact, if I hadn't said that Ororo and Hela would be their godparents, I would have elevated Amelia to fill one of those positions." There was a not a hint of hyperbole in Jean's tone as she spoke of the medic's importance, and Harry cheerfully agreed with her view on the subject. "I can put that into law if you'd like, my lady?"
"I have to admit that I'm much more enthusiastic about the whole process knowing that the pain of birth will not be such a problem," Ororo said, smiling down at Sirius, whose mouth widened into a toothless, cherubic grin in return before he went back to nibbling on Harry's finger.
"Well I for one am still planning to wait for uterine replicators or something before I go down that route mister, so don't you even dare consider it," Emma drawled from between Hela's feet, still doing the goddess's nails. "That Blueballs spell of yours is going to remain a necessary part of our lovemaking for the foreseeable future."
For her part, Hela merely hummed thoughtfully, refraining from saying anything one way or the other. This probably had something to do with the fact that goddesses giving birth was not as simple, or as merely a physical process, as it was for human women.
"Alas, unless Reed, Tony deign to come up with something within the next two months, I do not believe that will be any time soon love," Ororo joked to collective chuckling around the room. She looked up from Sirius to Harry, her light blue eyes effusive with a new kind of joy the inter-dimensional traveler had never seen in them before. But he did know it was a joy that he had put there, and he fully shared in it as he leaned down to kiss his newest wife for a second before pulling back, pressing his forehead against his African queen.
Una had reported that morning that Ororo was now pregnant, a diagnostic that hadn't been at all surprising. Given the timing, the two newly expecting parents had a pretty good idea that she'd probably conceived that night within the ruins in Africa.
Mind you, calling them ruins is no longer accurate, Harry thought ruefully, his mind going down a rabbit hole for a second, leaving the present happy thoughts of his growing family for speculation of what kind of world his children might inherit.
The management of the ruins of Ororo's ancestors had been taken over by various African nations as per the agreements made during the wedding. Each had supplied archaeologists, groundskeepers, technicians, linguists, and ambassadors to study and maintain the lost city. Wakanda and other more advanced nations would also soon be bringing modern electricity, and handle creating flowing water, plumbing, and so forth to the ruins, while also working under orders to keep the majority of the structures intact as much as possible.
Surprisingly, Mary Jane was now part of this burgeoning project, she and Wyatt both. The two had requested the transfer almost as soon as they'd returned from the wedding's afterparty. And Ororo, of course, had joined as well. Several times already the three had been called upon to sooth ruffled feathers and mediate between various African governments that were not on the friendliest of terms.
The former model-turned-secretary had grown a lot during the time that Harry had been away from Earth dealing with the Shi'ar, and instead of simply being his go-to girl for soft-style public relations issues and the second in command of their overall PR department, Mary Jane had now become a highly experienced troubleshooter for Harry, Ororo, Sage, and even Emma occasionally.
More importantly, if not as personally, all of the work being done on the ancient city was doing a lot to solidify the African Defense Organization as an multinational-governmental body. The ADO might've still had a lot of issues, but so long as a neutral meeting place existed where issues could be hammered out on African soil —and so long as Wakanda and several other countries were willing to bring the Big Hammer down on any hint of inter-country violence—those issues were slowly decreasing. There were still vestiges of colonialism and cronyism obviously, and inequality would still be a problem for as long as the continent as a whole struggled with its land-based infrastructure issues, but projections from Sage and other dependable sources projected that eventually Africa would become as strong as Europe. Such a goal was a ways in the future, obviously, but it was a goal that was much more in sight now than even a year ago thanks to Ororo, Harry and the work they had done.
"I must admit that the idea of technology that would allow one to have children without the need to give birth physically is a fascinating one, if only because of the issues I faced trying to stay in the field. I don't think the Phoenix Force basically ignoring all contraceptives was a onetime thing, Harry," Jean said, snorting lightly. "And while it was sweet of you Harry to load me up with so many defensive magics and everything, I still say it's a massive relief that I don't need them any longer."
She smiled over at Ororo, bumping her shoulder lightly against her sister wife's. "It's your turn to be coddled."
"I do not have a problem with that whatsoever. In fact, I will probably bow out entirely from combat missions when my second trimester begins. Unlike you my fiery red-haired love," Ororo countered, before leaning over and kissing Jean on the lips to take any sting out of her words. "I get just as much joy working in the classroom or conference room."
Jean hummed happily, both at the kiss and feeling Harry's desire for both of them rising as he watched them. Feeling a little naughty she deepened the kiss, and then, as Harry's desires rose again, she pulled back and waved a telekinetic finger at him, the telekinetic construct looking like a large foam hand made of reddish energy. "Hmm… that's nice Ororo, and it revs my and Harry's engines nicely. But don't you have a little get together to go to, husband dearest?"
"Oof, getting rid of me after putting on that little show, that's harsh love," Harry mock whined. Then, before his fiery-haired wife could react, he swooped in to kiss Jean ardently on the lips.
Not at all surprised, Jean returned the kiss with equal passion, letting out a breathy little sigh when they eventually broke for air. The last few months of her pregnancy had seen the two of them no longer able to make love as they once had, and Jean was very eager to get back to that particular type of exercise. "But seriously, no more kids for a while, Harry. Four years from now, five, maybe.
Harry ruefully agreed through the telepathic link. "You're right. And honestly, we might be best served to check the box marked ALL OF THE ABOVE in terms of contraception just to be safe regardless. given how the Phoenix basically negated my magic and the chemicals in your morning after pill.
At that point Cory popped into being nearby. The house elf instantly drew Sirius' attention, and he immediately turned away from where he'd still been nibbling at Harry's finger to stare at the little creature. Corey waved to the little master with a wide, ecstatic smile on his face, then bowed to the big master. "Master Harry, yous wanted to know when it was time to get ready. Your first meeting for the day is within an hour."
Harry nodded at his personal manservant, before leaning down and kissing both of the twins on the cheeks. "No rest for the wicked, I suppose."
Rachel opened her eyes from where she had been about to nod off after her meal, as Sirius looked up at Harry as well. Their twin pairs of emerald eyes stared back at him, laser focused, and he winked at them. Taking a step back, Harry reached out to Corey, the house elf taking his hand, and the two popped down to Camelot.
OOOOOOO
That first meeting was with Sage and the various scientists on the biological side at Magical Minds. It turned out that they had been making some interesting breakthroughs lately, ever since Reed Richards had sent them a few packets of information on some experiments he'd run in the past. Now that he and Susan had basically retired from the superhero business with their second child, a little girle named Susanna being born, Harry hoped that the super genius would officially join his company's various think tanks. While Emma might've managed to develop the telepathic power to manipulate her own cells, Harry still hoped to see progress on the anti-aging research. And that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg of projects he hoped to get Reed involved with.
After he'd been apprised of the scientists' advances, Harry left to meet up with Ororo, who'd since helped Jean put the twins down for a nap before starting her own workday. The two of them then spent the rest of that night at a mutant rights rally in the US before bouncing to another in the Balkans, where it was only just early morning. Ororo had actually helped to organize this particular rally, with Harry helping wherever and whenever he could.
While the US had put mutant rights into federal law, some states still fought against enforcing them, necessitating the rallies. In contrast, in the Balkans, it was very much a mixed bag at the national level. Yet even there, much like in Asia, the governments were basically being forced to bow to social and economic pressures. It would still take many years to truly stamp out anti-mutant hatred and its inverse entirely, maybe even decades in many places in the world. But just like Africa's eventual rise to equal prominence with Europe, Harry could see the goal line in the distance a little more with each passing week.
The following days were entirely taken up with a military review on Fortress Mars, which Harry, Jean, and Hela attended. There, they were treated to the Orbital Drop Marines performing first a choreographed march before then putting on a show of combat one evening that impressed Harry greatly. Another impressive feat was that The Oh Damns had grown exponentially since the successful campaign in Asgard. They'd advertised themselves through the grapevines and had brought in more retired veterans, men who'd been forced into early retirement due to injury or who'd left the service for one reason or another from various countries around the world (barring China and several Third World countries anyway), as well as greenhorns who'd never seen more than basic training. But those with injuries or even missing limbs brought with them both experience and buckets of eagerness after gaining access to Magical Minds' technology alongside his and Ororo's healing magic.
A few new tools had also been added to the arsenal of the ODMs since the war in Asgard. First, the 'bolter' rounds from before had been slightly modified; a greater gyroscopic jet function being added, making them almost fire and forget bullets that could home in on their targets regardless of the angle they were fired from in relation to that target. The Orbital Drop Marine's two types of powered armor had been upgraded to now include tiny drones. These were small robotic flying devices could spread out over any battlefield and give any nearby Orbital Drop Marine an extra set of eyes, eyes that were highly mobile at that.
"This is what happens when you put several geniuses together and you say 'money is no object' with a straight face Harry," Jean sent over their connection as she watched the review below going on below, the twins temporarily being looked after by the house elves. She'd been the one to champion the original idea that had led to the drones, although Tony had been the one to ultimately design both them and the jet-assisted ammunition. While Jean was excellent at reverse-engineering already existing technology and coming up with new ideas built on that foundation, even she admitted she didn't have the engineering and designing brain power of Stark or Reed to actually bring those ideas into reality.
"The only issue I have with the drones is that they've added another requirement for more circuitry and fiddly bits. Still, with e our agreement with the Inhumans even that isn't creating a significant bottleneck any longer. Although, that reminds me… I'm growing even more concerned about the issue with China and Taiwan. I'm afraid it's going to be our next flare-up, unless the issues in Yugoslavia rear their heads again worse than before," Harry replied.
Jean answered with an affirmative hum, although she didn't really have as good a grasp on that issue as Harry and Hela currently did. Hela however chimed in verbally, repeating a position that she had said several times over the past few months: that the People's Party was playing to its own people rather than any external viewership with its saber-rattling. No matter their bluster, the upper echelons well understood how outclassed they were ever since Jean had shown how little nukes mattered during the Eurasian War. And now that Harry had taken a position on the issue of Taiwanese independence, they wouldn't—couldn't—push things militarily. Not really, not unless Harry showed weakness or was fully engaged elsewhere. "Which will only happen if the issues in Yugoslavia, Argentina, Venezuela, or any of the other Third World problems that the United Nations has been keeping an eye on flare up Harry."
Harry held back a snort at that, knowing it was true. At the moment, from the reports he'd been getting from Dennis and his network, only the issues in Yugoslavia would truly call for an intervention by the Avalon Empire. Many of the ethnic groups that lived in that federal republic not only hated one another, but most of them hated mutants as well. At least one family whose members included a mutant had been directly targeted by a car bomb in Serbia, and many others had received countless death threats.
When the military review finished it segued into a meeting with Murphy and the other military higher-ups. For this conference Emma joined Harry and Hela, stepping in so that Jean could return to Camelot and a pair of hungry babies.
There, Murphy and Sam, introduced the trio to a stranger, a former Italian officer by his dress. "The ODMs have grown to the point where we really need to start treating them as a full division rather than just a special forces unit. With that in mind, we'd then need someone with more experience at leading larger units," Sam started with after getting the introductions out of the way. "While General Murphy can still handle the logistical side of things, that's going to change soon, and the manpower issues is already getting ahead of me. So we need to have someone who can help us on the logistics side and the manpower side, organizing the ongoing training and everything else to someone. Julio here has that experience from his time as a Brigadier General in the Italian military. Before that, he served with the Folgore, their paratroopers units, which gives him some experience in the as well."
"And you? Would you still be the field commander?" Hela asked.
"Well, one of them, yes. Like I said, we're well beyond even the brigade level now. And I'm more than happy to keep wearing my Head Trainer hat too. But we… well, we basically need someone else to do the paperwork, organize and manage the logistics, and form up the Orbital Drop Marines into larger units than simple company-sized combat teams."
"It's similar to the problem we were running into with the RavenSpires months ago, Lord Potter," Murphy interjected, "We ended up needing to create command teams for each of them to keep things running smoothly rather than have me trying to direct everything from here. Combined with my work here in Fortress Mars it was just too much paperwork and personnel for one man to keep track of."
"Which is where I come in," Julio Cesaro said, speaking up for the first time since greeting Harry. The man's Italian accent almost reminding him of Blaise Zabini. "I may not be known for my combat skills, but I like to think I have made a name for myself in the world of logistics,"
"I see… Well, I will admit I did see this coming. Murphy, if you and Sam vouch for him, then I'm game giving him a chance. I look forward to getting to know you more Julio," Harry said, raising a hand for the Italian to shake. "As your first order, I'd like to see some effort on your and Sam's part to incorporate mixed-unit tactics with local forces. Get with the Oh Damn officers and start writing up a rulebook on how they're to organize aiding native militaries in conflicts on their own soil rather than simply acting on our own. Stemming from that, I want the ODM's to be ready to work with the Custodes at a much closer capacity than we did in Asgard."
"Forsooth, for while all reports agreed and my very own eyes did see that both forces worked together acceptably, that had more to do the fact that Harry, Steve and you were there in person Falcon, able to give orders and keep things running smoothly," Hela added. "Further, one of the greatest measures of a leader is whether or not their subordinates are able to take function without their presence."
Julio nodded. "Give me a day or two, and I'll write up a few scenarios for us to run through after getting an idea on our logistical needs. However, I will admit that I don't have as much experience working with other militaries as I'd like. That being said, I believe Captain America does have said experience, along with his work with the Custodes Mundi. Beyond that, we could probably even bring in trusted observers from various militaries" Julio said, smiled wryly at being thrown such a scenario on his first day on the job. "People who are actually still serving in their local militaries rather than those who have been seconded or retired to join us, anyway."
With the main talking points covered by that point Harry bowed out of the meeting, for he had yet another event scheduled that day. This time, it was a PR stunt. Or rather, Jean had a PR stunt, but one Harry most distinctly wanted to be there for in person.
One issue that had continued to fester in the background since well before the war in Asgard had been the growing cult-like response to Jean as the Phoenix across the globe. From the time she'd appeared in the skies over Florida to when fiery talons had reached down to pluck atomic missiles out of the air during the Eurasian War, the idea that Jean was some kind of deity had taken root and grown. Despite any and all attempts by Mary Jane and the numerous PR staff from Magical Minds and Avalon itself to downplay such an idea as ludicrous and misplaced, it had remained all the same.
In fact, if not curbed soon, the nascent religion was projected to overtake a few of its more traditional peers in the world within months. This wasn't helped at all by the fact that four largest world religions were already being challenged by older faiths thanks to the knowledge that at least one pantheon of gods had been real.
But now that Jean was no longer pregnant, she could be out in public without Harry hovering around, MJ had decided that the 'goddess' could be put to work fighting this issue herself. "Just be yourself Jean, trust me. That, your powers, and the venue itself will do the rest," MJ had said when she pitched her idea to her fellow redhead.
At first, Jean hadn't wanted anything to do with a PR stunt, but that only lasted until Mary Jane told her what this particular venue was. Then both she and Harry had jumped at the chance. Even Emma was somewhat jealous, as she too fought the need for speed…
Less than an hour after leaving his last meeting on Fortress Mars Harry was in London in an airplane hangar-turned-set, watching from within a crowded audience as a very tall, very curly-haired middle-aged man announced, "But now it's time to put a star in our Reasonably Priced Car! And let me tell you folks, this star isn't like the rest, famous for being in the movies or TV show, oh no! Instead, she's famous for being a literal star at times—a fiery star in the sky. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the only woman who can legally say that she is hotter than the very sun itself, the Phoenix!"
Harry was pleased to note that most of the crowd cheered at the reveal, although a few looked a little wary as Jean stepped forward from stage left, raising her hand to wave at the crowd. Instead of her actual gear, his redheaded wife was dressed in a normal set of jeans and a t-shirt, her identity hidden behind only a half-mask inspired by Hela's and a spell that would make it very hard to connect Jean Grey to the Phoenix.
As she stepped out onto the main stage, Jean let her Phoenix Aura flare for a brief moment. Between one second and the next, a visible haze in the air took the form of a large, fiery bird of prey. In contrast, Jean was all smiles as she looked out at the crowd.
The show of mutant power did cause a few within the crowd to backpedal, but once again, Harry was pleased as most of those who did recovered quickly enough. People still looked wary, but Jean reported none of them were feeling terrified or outright furious at her presence. That was excellent progress in normalizing mutant presence in his opinion.
With a thought, Jean turned off her aura and held out an open hand, which Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of Top Gear, shook before gesturing her onto the sofa across from him. Sitting down himself, the man waved the shaken hand about. "Wow-wee look! It didn't burn to a crisp ladies and gents! And even though she's a ginger, I do believe I still have my soul."
That won a laugh from the crowd and Clarkson went on quickly. "Well, I have so many questions Ms. Phoenix. Or do I just address you as The Phoenix? Or—"
"Phoenix will do. Unfortunately, like many of those who have chosen to use the powers we've been given to fight for those who don't have them, by necessity I have to keep my real identity is secret. Not everyone can be Harry Potter after all," the disguised Jean said with a laugh.
Honestly speaking, Jean could probably have maintained a civilian persona, barring two troublesome points. First and foremost, her former high school acquaintances would obviously know who she was, and would recall that she used to live at the Xavier mansion. At the moment, Charles still wished to keep the fact that his Institute catered exclusively to mutants a secret. New York was, unfortunately, one of the states still putting up a fight against mutant rights. The fact that the state's titular city had been the site of numerous battles between mutant superheroes and supervillains did not help the mutant rights cause at all.
Secondly, while Jean no longer really wasted any thoughts on her parents, she doubted that any villains looking to make a name for themselves would realize that. Outing herself would make the dull man and woman who had raised her defenseless targets, and she really didn't feel like having that on her conscience.
"True. While you do work with him, no one can get away with quite the same sorts of things that the greatest man of our age can, I suppose. I do believe we can safely call him that, can't we? And I'm not just saying that just because he's British. Not only was he borne driving on the right side of the road—and by that I mean left—but he's done a great many things for veterans and mutants the world over. And he owns a Huayra, correct? That's all that's really important, isn't it folks?" Clarkson asked the crowd at large. The man looked around at the audience, and the men and women cheered. "But what kind of car do you drive Phoenix?"
Jean smiled, scratching at her half-covered cheek in mild embarrassment. "I actually have a few Jeremy. My first was a Bugatti Veyron, which I bought with my first big paycheck from the Custodes. There've been a few others since, but that was the first. I have to admit though that I don't really like driving the Veyron as much as I thought I would. It's too good at removing the sensation of driving except at high speeds. That being said, I do occasionally break it out now and then just to beat some of my friends in races."
"Good lass!" Clarkson cheered over a chorus of oohs from the crowd. "And what do your friends have that take such a well-deserved beating?"
"Typical rich girl cars Jeremy, Lamborghinis and Ferraris for the most part. You know the type." Actually, it was only the one friend, but considering that Emma did count both a Lamborghini and a Ferrari among her toys Jean thought it was fair. And Mary Jane had said she'd been thinking about getting a sports car too right? So who knows?
"My word! Heroism does seem to pay doesn't it? Or do heroics just let you rub elbows with the filthy stinking rich?"
"Both, really," Jean laughed. "Harry—we all call him Harry—was very particular about that at the very beginning. He said just because we are fighting for a cause that we believed in was no reason for us to not be making money while doing so. And the work is insanely hazardous so he pays us very well. All of the Custodes have nearly died at least two or three times in our short careers so far." She then shrugged. "At this point though, I basically donate most of my money to charity. The Custodes take care of most of my needs since I live at Headquarters along with most of the team."
"And is it true what I've heard that you had something to do with those hover ambulances that rescued Saab from needing another bailout?"
When Jean answered with a nod and a shy smile, Clarkson began to clap—and was quickly joined by the rest of the crowd—while shaking his head and saying, "Well damn! Excuse my language, but Ms. Phoenix here is not only a superhero, but an engineer as well."
"I can't take all the credit for them though, I only reverse-engineered it from some alien technology that we ran into when they started kidnapping humans to their world," Jean admitted. "For more information on that particular incident, I would suggest anyone interested go online and read some of the Fantastic Four's official After Action Reports. It was kind of a minor event, but that technology, well… let's just say the original owners weren't using it very well, and I had no hesitation whatsoever in stealing it."
She shrugged. "As to being an engineer; well, at the beginning that was very important to me. I wanted to be known for more than just my powers. I wanted to make a difference with my mind outside of combat. Too often we mutants are defined by our mutations, both by the outside world and by ourselves. I didn't want that to be all I was, and I didn't want my Phoenix persona to be all anyone ever saw of me. Now, I like to think I have done that, even if my role as a Custodes still overshadows my engineering skills in the wider world."
"I think if you asked any of the soldiers those hover-ambulances delivered to hospitals during the Eurasian War which was more important, you'd find they disagree with you about that. But since you mentioned it, what is being a hero, a real life superhero, like exactly?"
From there Jean readily admitted that at first, she'd been a little overwhelmed. "My powers are tremendous, but they didn't come in all at once, thankfully. If they had, well… I would've been a disaster. I mean literally, a disaster. Can you imagine a pre-teen girl going through puberty with all the powers I wield? Ugh."
Jean paused a moment, letting people imagine such a thoughr while laughing awkwardly, and when more than one person present shuddered she went on. "That being said, as I grew into them, I realized that being a spandex wearing superhero is just like any other calling; you have to take joy in it, or else it will just wear you down. And so I do take joy in my powers. The places I've seen…I mean, I've walked on the surface of Mars, traveled to other solar systems, helped so many people in so many ways. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I hope to continue to use my abilities to give back to other people going forward."
From there, Clarkson asked a few more questions about the adventures of Phoenix. Through it all, Jean came off as quite down to earth despite being incredibly rich and superhumanly powerful, highlighting that she liked to tinker with cars and that she had a soft spot for a few French models in particular. The fact that she liked spending time with kids, also came up, which led into her describing how Camelot was organized, an organization that was quite strange to most: part elementary school, part apartment complex, and part headquarters for the Custodes.
The idea that one location was serving so many differing roles seemed to take Clarkson and a lot of his audience aback, and Jean then fielded numerous questions about the castle and its goings on for a time, causing many to laugh at how much chaos occurred every week almost like clockwork. "But we wouldn't have it any other way."
From there, Clarkson moved along and asked about how Phoenix spent her time on a daily basis, and Jean answered that when she wasn't training, she still spent most of her time with the rest of her team if she wasn't puttering around the workshop she'd designed for herself within Camelot. "That or watching the kids. There is nothing like spending a few hours working on old cars or trying to wrangle kids to bring you down to earth."
"Oh my, I can hear James May going 'hello' from here. So let me do us all a favor and get it out of the way before he can embarrass us all and ask, are you single?" Clarkson asked, clearly joking in a manner.
"I'm afraid I'm not," Jean responded, laughing at the audience's gasp of shock and some dismay from both genders.
"Truly?! My my, who's the lucky bloke then? I have fifty quid on it being one of the Custodes, specifically Colossus," Clarkson announced with a grin. He made a waving off motion with his hand. "Hamster always says he thinks there's something going on between the big guy and that girl who can turn into lava, but honestly, from what little I've seen recorded of your team outside of combat, how can he say that?"
The audience's enthusiastic response wasn't so much in agreement as it was purely being excited about learning some gossip about such a prominent superhero straight from the horse's mouth. Clarkson, feeding on and into the energy stood up from his seat and gestured to various people in the audience repeatedly saying, "Right? Aren't I right?!"
"No it's not Colossus. In fact, when did I ever say I was with a bloke?" Jean eventually threw back teasingly once the noise had died down. Such a simple question caused Clarkson to fall back into his chair and stare up at the ceiling for a moment, a blank, dazed look on his face. Jean had to snap her fingers in front of the presenter's face a few times before regained control and looked at her again.
"Ooh, I think I went somewhere there," Clarkson muttered, his amplified mumbling pulling much laughter from both the audience and Jean. Although the revelation of a facet of her relationship made her feel surprisingly embarrassed, she found that she was enjoying this quite a bit, just as much as she had enjoyed racing around in the Reasonably Priced Car the day before.
Looking around, Clarkson decided that it was time to change the subject. Such bombshells were best left for the mind to chew on later rather than follow down a rabbit hole. "Well, on that high note ladies and gentlemen, let's drag our minds out of the gutter, and ask the lovely Phoenix how you felt about your time out there on the track with the Stig?"
Meanwhile, back in Camelot, the children who'd been rescued and enrolled in the school had been allowed to stay up to watch Jean's performance. Indeed, a large portion of the castle's population had come together to watch. Many of those who were present in the team's TV room were given additional entertainment, as they discovered they could both watch the show and Mary Jane make a fool of herself as she whooped and hollered about, staring not at Jean, but at the crowd around her and Clarkson. "Yes! I can feel the memes growing from here! Take that you anti-mutant asshats! And take that you religious nut jobs! All of y'all can go suck on a—"
"Language, Ms. Watson," Ororo said, cutting off the younger woman's celebration with a mild reprimand. She reached over to ruffle the younger woman's hair for a moment, taking any sting from her words, knowing that the girl had been trying to combat the growing online influence of the Church of the Phoenix for months now, mostly on her own. Even Sage could only concentrate on so many things at once, and the PR department was the one area of the Avalon Empire that was still too small for it's importance, specifically when it came to the online sphere. Ororo had also looked over some of the 'tenants' of the Church in question, and found them far too violent and militaristic for her peace of mind. Something that Mary Jane would also have been trying to combat with scant success.
Turning away from MJ, Ororo watched her redhaired lover zoom around Top Gear's racetrack. I must admit I was against this at first, but Mary Jane seems to have been correct. Judging from the very small sample size of the audience at least, I think we can safely say that the idea of the Phoenix as a high and mighty deity who we should all start worshiping has been well and truly put to bed… A bed, I am seeing, already occupied by several dozen salacious theories on who the entirely relatable Phoenix is going out with. But I can't exactly complain. And this is just one of three similar shows airing today. The other two were the Tonight Show and a Polish talk show of a similar bent.
Within a few days of Jean's first appearance on Top Gear, these public outings had a marked effect. The Church of the Phoenix which had previously only been growing in strength and numbers ever since Jean had first burst into the spotlight over the skies of Florida very publicly began to fall apart. A large portion of the church walked away, returning to their old religions and lives. Construction on churches and other places of worship to the Phoenix stopped, while many of the more zealous followers outright refused to believe that the Phoenix who had been broadcasted having fun and spilling tea on Top Gear was the same Phoenix that they revered. The true believers and those with a working brain had several dozen clashes the world over as people began to demand their money back from so-called priests and rectors who had been gathering money to pay for them and their still existing flocks defending them.
Others had turned to anger, loudly proclaiming their once-god a false prophet. Calling themselves the Church of the True Fire, these idiots started calling for her death and the death of all mutants.
This just proved to Harry that a basic part of being human was being just a tiny bit insane. That didn't stop him from sending Jean down to deal with the newly formed hate group personally, however.
She did so by flying down in her full uniform and picking up the entire gathered crowd in their own separate little telekinetic bubbles, then twirling them around until their stomach's collectively rebelled and they were sick. Then, she handed them over to the authorities. After such a public display, the fledgling church didn't just stop growing, but began to noticeably shrink. There would always be nutters out there, but not nearly as many any longer.
With that issue being taken care of handedly, Harry was well pleased with how everything was going. In particular, he was very happy to receive a missive, from Asgard that told him Odin wanted to speak to him. That could only mean one thing. The Sky Father had finished his pondering and research into what kind of magical runes he'd have to design for the missing runic portion of the Titan Transformation ritual.
OOOOOOO
After traveling for so long through hyperspace that he had begun to question his own sanity, Loki finally arrived within the Sol System.
His arrival went completely unnoticed thanks to the cloaking technology installed into the small yet extremely expensive ship that he had been given for this mission. As advertised, the ship had no hyperspace footprint, and thanks to a series of devices called gravitic degraders, there wasn't even a noticeable shift in the local gravity to be picked up on any potential long-range scans.
"And now comes my favorite part… the slow approach. What joy," Loki murmured to himself as he lay back in the cockpit. As he spoke, most of the remaining lights still blinking away in the cockpit dimmed out, indicating that the ship had automatically powered down once it recognized it had re-entered real space. Even the viewing port in front of him had gone opaque so as to not potentially reflect light. Within a few scant minutes, everything but the very basic level of life support had powered down. Technologically speaking from the perspective of most any scanning equipment, the ship was now a patch of nothing in the middle of space. Only a close physical examination of the space the ship was passing through, via telescope or flyby, would have a chance at spotting it.
To keep even that from being a possibility, Loki had also done his part in making the ship impossible to find magically and invisible to the naked eye. He had covered in glyphs that acted as a ward which gave off a feeling of utter boredom and normality to anyone who somehow managed to look in the ship's direction. And the magical means of detection was even more impressive.
Loki rummaged through one of his many pockets and pulled out a small, enchanted ball, which appeared to be made of various colored and sized eyes mashed together. This little artifact, the Many-Faceted Eye-Binder, was a long-term project. He'd worked on it for months since finding himself in the service of the Mad Titan, layering enchantments into it carefully, redoing it all from scratch several times over when the different enchantments began to fight one another.
It was an achievement he was quite proud of, one that relied on a single truth; that at base, all magic designed to scry the location of an individual had to be cast by someone interested in said individual, something in his presence, or his doings. The Many-Faceted Eye-Binder was designed to block any magic, regardless of the specific spell, of anyone looking for the person who held it. It was a very subtle, very theoretical concept to Loki, but he hoped it would block or blind the attempts of anyone trying to use magic to defend Earth from intergalactic intrusion.
Ironically, this spellcraft had created a type of Notice Me Not, one that was admittedly many times more powerful than the spell that Harry Potter and his fellow wizards from back in his own dimension could have cast. Not to mention it worked on magical means of perception as well as the normal senses. Even Mad Eye Moony would not have been able to see the user of such an item, and even Voodoo or Blood Magic would be blocked from discerning the location of the user.
With the Eye-Binder in one hand, Loki's free hand created a spell to push the ship towards Earth.
"It would never do for the Trickster God to be caught so easily," Loki mused to himself as he tied off the spell. "So insurance is always better for one such as I to have. Yet even so, given the number of different schools of magical out there I can't help but find myself a bit anxious regarding this aspect of my mission…"
Shaking his head, Loki laid the enchanted sphere in his lap and pulled out a datapad that he had requested from the Skrull. The device ran on almost no power while still lasting days on a single charge, and had therefore at his demand been crammed full with as many games as the green-skinned idiots could find to put on it. "One can learn a lot from a species from playing their games," he murmured, flipping through a series of interconnected nodes marked with the headings of different game genres. "And the more I know, the more II'll be able to protect myself when Thanos and I inevitably part ways, regardless of how that parting of ways actually occurs."
Loki then blinked and laughed ruefully, the sound rebounding throughout the cockpit. "And now I'm talking to myself, and in a most dramatic manner at that. Oh dear. I think I might need to break myself of that habit before I arrive on Earth."
As expected, Loki's journey through the Sol system was by no means a fast one. Indeed, it took him several weeks. All of it cramped in a ship smaller than those that the humans had designed to fly around in, a fact he discovered when he saw several Earthling ships throughout his journey, sometimes at javelin range. Thankfully, Loki was a god and did have magic, no matter how self-restricted, to keep himself entertained when the games on the datapad became boring. Else he might well have gone insane as a human would have under similar circumstances.
Thanos had told him much regarding what the humans had been doing since his last…visit… to Midgard. And watching the comings and goings through space, Loki found that the Mad Titan's descriptions were somewhat accurate, if only int terms of the sheer industry the humans had begun to build up in space. However, as he drew closer to where Earth should have been according to the ship's starmap, he became aware of the final protection the humans had created against space-borne threats: an illusion of their planet surrounded by real defenses. "For humans that's quite clever. Luckily such phantasms hardly distract one such as myself, but I do wonder how such a defense will affect Thanos' plans? It's such a pity that I find myself unable to send out any information due to the risk of discovery. All I am able to do is to build the secondary beacons from local resources and turn the primary one the Chitauri need on. Which isn't a very detailed communication, is it?"
Shaking his head again and mentally reminding himself that he needed to stop verbalizing his thoughts, Loki searched along the projected orbit of Earth around its sun for the real planet. In that manner he found a few more fixed defenses elsewhere, seemingly situated around a series of non-descript asteroids. However, the asteroids were clearly not real, and in the center of the globe-like formation was an odd blankness in space.
No, it was another illusion, this one of nothingness. My word, that is quite the excellent illusion, even more so than the previous one. Humans truly have taken the idea of using magic to defend their planet farther than I ever expected them to. And for my own purposes, that is all to the good.
To say that Loki was reluctantly subservient to Thanos would've been an understatement. That was why he'd made sure his oath to the Titan had been so very carefully worded. So while all of these advancements to the local magical and physical defenses were annoying in the here and now, Loki was still quite pleased to see them. All the better to weaken and block Thanos from victory. And if there is but a chance he may fail…
Slowly entering the atmosphere of the invisible planet, Loki soon passed through the illusion. Now able to see the real thing and his presence once more obscured by technology, in this case super advanced heat sinks that soaked in the heat of his reentry on top of his craft itself, he descended toward the ground far below. Soon Loki came down in an uninhabited portion of what was, unknown to his limited knowledge of Earth outside the areas of the old Norse explorers reached, the continent of Asia.
Running a low-powered scan of local communications traffic allowed him to discover that the mountain nearest him was set in the deepest part of a country called Nepal.
Once certain that no one could stumble over his vessel, Loki set off overland, still not using any of his magic for fear of being discovered. Thanos' information regarding Earth itself was sparse in comparison to what the Mad Titan knew of the doings of the humans in space. Because of such lacking intel, neither his current master nor Loki had any idea where exactly Harry Potter and the other magic users who defended the planet were based. And as the universe just loves irony at my expense, my stumbling around using magic would inevitably land me right over them. It would be just hilarious.
It took Loki several days to move from the near uninhabited areas of Nepal to a city where he could begin gathering information. From there, it took another handful of days using locally procured resources—read stolen—to continue on from there. Secrecy had demanded that he land his ship in an area of Earth that wasn't very connected to the rest of the population, one where access to the worldwide media apparatus, or the Internet, as the humans called their growing web of sharable information, which he needed to plan out his mission from now on, was sparse.
Two weeks after his initial arrival, Loki sat in a shop the humans referred to as a café in a bustling city called Lisbon, Portugal. Sipping at a drink that had to be some sort of mortal ambrosia the menu had named an espresso, he read over a sheaf of printed news as he considered his options. He'd long since completed the task of obtaining clothing from the local population so as to not stand out; a good set of short pants made from a material he thought had been called khaki and a rather dapper shirt. He'd also trimmed his hair much shorter than he normally would, assuming that the mortals now were by and large still of lower intelligence than himself, as they'd been ages ago, and therefore a simple change in hair style would additionally throw off any possible pursuers.
Normally, Loki would've simply used his magic to conceal himself. However, given the number and quality of magic users on the opposing side—the Sorcerer Supreme, Harry Potter, and of course any other Asgardians currently in Midgard such as the Enchantress—meant that he needed to do things the mundane way as much as he possibly could before beginning his real activities. In the pocket of his short pants, the Eye-Binder thrummed as it did its job.
He'd actually prepared another as well, hopeful that layering two over each other would continue to stop anyone from being able to magically detect him even if he did cast spells. So long as he kept his magic on the lower scale of things of course.
Seeing images and recordings of Thor and Sif, and even Balder was something of a shock, Loki admitted to himself. The first two had been sighted at an Althing in the country of Norway. Odin's Golden Boy had been filmed speaking to Midgard's council of nations, which, from his previous interactions with human culture, Loki knew was the extremely loose confederation of sovereignties that attempted to keep the various human governments from annihilating each other.
In his opinion the council hadn't been doing a particularly good job. But since he'd left the whole thing had seemingly been nearly replaced entirely by several smaller polities. If the stories I have read from the continents of South America and Africa are to be believed, then they apparently do a much better job of upholding their charters. Still, there do remain cross-cultural issues and egos galore to keep things interesting.
Yet from everything he'd been reading, Midgard was more united than it had ever been before, and it was all purportedly due to the various external threats that had apparently reared their heads since he'd last visited. The so-called Eurasian War having been started by curiously Skrull-like infiltrators, the number of attempted space invasions by Kree and even Badoon. All of these had then allowed Harry Potter to rise as a worldwide figure and create a unified front that included the majority of humanity.
Which made it a problem for his mission. And then there is the fact that I have felt… somewhat off… since my arrival. It is not as if some exterior force was in play, or the creeping feeling of being watched, praise be, but… It is as if something within me has somehow… changed perhaps? As if a weight has been added upon my shoulders?
Magically speaking, the last tether to the Shadows was still there. Even though the Shadows no longer had any consciousness to use it any longer, a small amount of Loki's magical power was thus still being syphoned away. And unknown to him, Loki's sacrificed memories were also still gone, and the mental and physical reconfigurations forced upon him by the Shadows wrought were still within Loki's mind.
Thanos ordered me to cause trouble on the ground, to sow discord while readying at least twelve beacons so as to allow the Chitauri to invade through their dimension-jumping technology. And while I spent weeks being trained on how to construct those blasted things, and I still recall the parts I'll need, that is still a tall order. I suppose I could use the one pre-made beacon my ship came with and leak its designs on the Internet so that fools the world over unable to contain their curiosity would build them for me…
Loki smiled at that thought for a moment before shaking his head. No, that would not be the best plan, hoping for the idiocy of my opponents to do my work for me. Nor would causing any trouble on my own be advisable. As much as it pains me to admit it, the Custodes could handle me with ease. No, if I am to cause trouble, I think that I will need a few catspaws to assist me. All war is deception after all, and the humans will soon rediscover that Loki im the best deceiver of them all.
Smiling cheerfully at the thought of causing chaos, Loki stood up, winking at the young wench behind the counter as he returned his cup, causing her to blush, and walked out of the shop. A few very judicious uses of magic later, and he was driving a small, nondescript car out of the country of Portugal and into Spain. His brain felt somewhat buzzy the whole way, the knowledge of how to drive having been freshly ripped from the salesman's mind and still settling within Loki's brain.
Once in Spain, Loki set to causing a few incidents between mutants and non-mutants, the two groups his information gathering had allowed him to divine would undoubtedly pull Harry Potter's, or at least his Custodes', attention. Using subtle mind magics, he dominated one group that had as of yet stayed in one area of Spain to become a little more violent than their norm. Then, he matched that with agitating the other group from another area of the country. It was almost too easy.
Unfortunately, he did run into the issue that most mutants didn't have much in the way of combat application for their mutations. Truly, how helpful was it for one's survival to have three extra eyes, or just scales on your hands instead of flesh? Still, ultimately trouble was trouble, and Loki knew that there were news agencies out there that would jump at any chance to demonstrate that there was still trouble brewing between humans and mutants.
And so it went.
Traveling through Europe and the Mediterranean and elsewhere, Loki caused small issues here and there, always randomly, always moving on quickly. Most of his efforts were usually dealt with by a country's local authorities to be sure, but occasionally,the sparks he lit led to bigger issues. The tiny slice of land called Yugoslavia was one such example.
Here, Loki had instigated what would cascade into basically a pogrom across the country. Although, admittedly, Loki had to concede he'd only pushed up the timing of things there. The land's bigoted president had intended to launch his own coordinated assaults in the near future regardless of outside influence.
Other instances flared up specifically because of his attentions. A particularly bloody riot in Egypt. An unexpected food crisis in Bengal. Reignited tensions between extremists in Iran. And masterfully even for him, the manipulation of the People's Party in China into convincing them that testing a new series of missiles by firing them near Taiwanese waters was a good idea.
While he spent of his time traversing the globe and causing incidents or heightening local tensions, Loki also prepared for the future. Since he had yet to be found, Loki knew his Eye-Binder was working, at least as long as he kept his magic usage to a low, basic level anyway. Based on the Eye-Binder's complexity, and the fact it even existing hadn't led to discovery yet, it was implied to Loki that enchanted items were the way to go for larger uses of magic as well. To that end and knowing that in the future his ability to avoid capture would be paramount, the Trickster began to prepare a series of bracelets and necklaces composed of varicolored beads. Each bead was imbued with specific enchantments over a series of days, so as to keep his overall magical output at any one moment low enough to avoid detection.
The magic involved in the beads was Loki's equivalent of teleportation spells. Originally, such spells were used to send Asatru home to Midgard once they had fulfilled a contract or deed for the gods. Their potency was such that the enchantments in question would destroy the beads, but that was all to the good in his mind. Less evidence of his existence for any enemies to discover. Given the sheer number of magicals the other side could call on – just by looking at video recordings of their activities he had seen at least five - Loki eventually organized the beads in an interesting manner. Any gray beads used were enchanted to send the user to someplace else randomly. Other beads, the reds, greens, blues and so forth, would teleport to specific places he had been to on his journey and had not caused trouble in. And there were only a few non-grey beads.
Once he was satisfied with his preparations on that score, Loki decided to cut short his prep time and get on with things. Now that he knew most of the world's eyes had turned towards the troubled waters he'd stirred up, Loki set out, traveling from Japan to America to hunt down a series of specific persons of interest he had worked with before. As their powers depended on an enchanted item he'd ensorcelled himself, Loki was easily able to triangulate their location.
The group in question went by the moniker The Wrecking Crew. Previously, Loki had empowered the simple crowbar of an ambitious but smalltime thief with the help of The Enchantress, in exchange for helping her against one of her rivals back on Asgard. That joint venture had admittedly backfired, and it had eventually led to the woman being sent to Midgard semi-permanently in order to pursue Thor. Although judging by the fact that Amora had not been seen in the recordings with Thor, who had shown up in the news several times since Loki's arrival, her pursuit of him didn't seem to have continued. I wonder if she is still around. Regardless, I'm certainly not going to look for the wench. I have no need for a tool that would inevitably turn in my hands.
T In contrast, he Wrecking Crew,, might yet prove to be useful tools. Very blunt ones admittedly, despite the fact that some of them were quite intelligent, but ones Loki was sure he knew could control.
Wrecker, or Dirk Garthwaite as was the name the man had been born with, was still their leader by all accounts, and the strongest of the group given that it had been his crowbar that Loki and the Enchantress had initially empowered. Garthwaite was also the most ruthless, which would make him an even better tool for Loki's present needs.
Bulldozer had been the tallest of the rabble from what Loki remembered and had looked like one of the mechanical monstrosities given human shape, with metal covering his head and arms. Like the others of his crew, his powers were linked to the magic cast on Wrecker's crowbar.
The one who went by Thunderball had been something of the brains of the group, for what that was worth, having been a former doctor in gamma radiation. He'd also wielded a huge wrecking ball as a weapon for some reason, which in Loki's opinion just went to prove that in every male lay the urge to break things in an overblown manner.
The final member of the quartet was also the strongest member save for Wrecker, who'd gone by the alias Piledriver. Loki could not remember much about the man except that he'd been a blond with skin that had looked as if the sun had only rarely made his acquaintance. He'd also spoken with an uneducated drawl, a sharp contrast to the dark-skinned Thunderball's sharp, enunciated crispness.
Five days later, Loki began his journey across the sprawling country of America to where his magical senses told him the enchanted crowbar was currently located. As the item hadn't moved since his arrival, he correctly assumed the four men empowered by it must've been detained for some crime since he'd last been on Midgard. Which meant to be able to use them, Loki would first have to break them out.
Loki didn't want to draw attention to his movements, especially now that he had gone to all the trouble to make certain that Harry Potter's eyes would be elsewhere. But it couldn't be helped if his prospective tools were being locked up in someone else's shed.
Eventually, he arrived outside the jail, as the Midgardians sometimes called their prisons. This specific one had been named, amusingly enough, Final Destination.
Loki spent most of that night and half the next day examining the area around the jail and the prison itself, making absolutely certain that there were no magical defenses in place, seen or unseen. When he was as sure as he could be that there were no surprises waiting for him, Loki set off a collection of small electronic devices he had been given by Ebony Maw that were designed to dampen all outgoing signals from the area surrounding their activation. Just to be sure, he used all of them at once instead of just one, believing that if one worked as advertised then several would work even better at a single moment.
With the Final Destination Penitentiary cut off from calling for help from the outside world, Loki used a trickle of magic to cover himself with the illusion of a demon, an image of Lucifer he had seen in a commercial recently of the devil dressed in a decent suit, but with spindly tail and a conjured trident in one hand to go with his habitual red skin and horns. "Now to indulge in my own urge to break things in an overblown manner," Loki chortled to himself, remembering his thoughts when he had initially decided to recruit the Wrecking Crew several days ago.
With that, Loki bellowed an animalistic battle cry and charged forward, racing out of the woods that surrounded the prison and smashing into the outer wall before any of the guards on watch could react, let alone target him. The wall shattered at the point of impact as if the obstacle was made of thin wooden plates rather than thick concrete and steel.
"Holy shit! What the hell?! Kill that fucker!" came the discordant shouts. The guards on duty, all apparently military men rather than normal prison guards, quickly rallied and opened fire without any attempt to tell him to stand down.
A magical bolt from one hand hit various men on the wall, blasting through each one in turn, causing them to slump in place even as their compatriots continued to open fire. Unfortunately, their bullets did nothing to Loki who kept his illusion up with ease. Another blast of magic, this time thrown at a wide angle, hurled many of those remaining off the wall to break bones as they fell and hit the ground. This was a mercy however, as several others less fortunate went up in flames as another magical spell lashed out just as quickly at those who'd come charging from the prison itself.
Then Loki was moving on, smashing his trident into the side of the prison's main building. The wall shattered and Loki hopped in through the resultant hole. Finding himself in the center of a random multi-story hallway lined with jail cells Loki shouted out, "Freedom for all, freedom for all, say I! Fly, fly free! I, Asmodeus, declare this! Free, fly free and cause chaos and carnage!"
Several security guards rushed down the and began to fire him once more. Or rather most fired from a distance, while a few charged forward, large shock batons in hand. These would have worked on most of the prisoners to keep them under control, and had in the past, but Loki was not the average assaulter. In short order he'd slain the arrogant mortals who'd thought they could take him at close range, each falling to nary but a negligent flick of his trident as they split in two on its tines with ease.
A short spell chain later created a series of magic bolts which immediately launched forward, catching those remaining guards that were firing from above on the second floor and at the far end of the hall in their faces, leaving naught but headless corpses. With that, Loki moved on, slicing open cell doors as he passed them by.
Several superpowered criminals burst out of their cells behind him, quickly racing away with whoops and hollers. The majority of these shouts highlighted precisely what sort of horrible scum had been sent to this prison so far, and why they'd been separated from the general population of Midgard.
"Hell yeah, freedom! Death to the Man, man!"
"First thing I'm gonna do when I get outta this fucking shithole is find a pig on the street and fucking slice his throat!"
"Bang, bang baby! Wait for me ladies of the world, your man is coming! And soon you will be too!"
"Hail Asmodeus! Don't know who the fuck you is, but you got my vote!"
Snickering internally at the sheer variety of shouts, Loki only paused once throughout his entire journey through the prison. On the second floor three halls over from where he'd first began, an elderly man with a bald head and a rather patrician nose remained where he sat despite Loki having sliced apart the door of his cell. When Loki looked in at him, the older man nodded respectfully but waved him off just the same. "No thank you, oh, original sinner. This old man only has a few more months on his jail time before he'll be able to walk out of here a free, if monitored man. And he is far too old and far too tired to care about going wild like those youngsters seem to. Better to wait and leave legally rather than in this manner and have the supers coming down on me."
Respecting that somewhat, Loki, nodded back, and continued on, slicing and smashing still more doors, slaughtering more than a dozen soldiers and guards as he went. This number might've been higher, but by that point most of the surviving staff of the prison were fighting it out with the prisoners he'd already freed. And like in most prisons, the prisoners outnumbered the guards severely.
Turning a corner on the second floor several sizable guns came down from the ceiling and began to automatically fire at him. At first, Loki had thought to just withstanding the hail of bullets like he had been doing, but after feeling the first few Loki dodged back around the corner, wincing a little at the impacts of high velocity bullets. My, those sting.
While Loki wasn't as physically powerful as Thor, nor as durable, he was still an Asgardian, and no handheld mortal weaponry was going to harm him overmuch. That didn't mean he wanted to feel the bite of those rare arms that could match up to his godly physicality if he didn't have to.
Instead, he tossed a cell door out towards one of the ceiling guns, smashing it in its pintle mount. Then sticking one arm around the side of the corner, he let loose a series of small magical blasts from the end of his trident that destroyed several more of the guns.
Two more were taken out by other prisoners, although thirteen of their number lay dead scattered across the floor of the prison. Final Destination was not just the name of the prison, but an apt description of its intention towards anyone trying to escape.
Still more prisoners and guards died as Loki made his way around the second floor but after about five more minutes of wading through the combat Loki finally ascended to the upper-most floor, where he was forced to use a little more magic than he'd wanted just to slice through a series of solid steel doors that blocked his way forward.
Once past those obstacles, he ran into true opposition for the very first time since instigating this prison break.
Two large mechanical figures of some kind, operated by people riding high up on their backs, were stationed in this area. As he entered, they zeroed in on him and fired large plasma pulse cannons in his direction, their ammunition far larger than even the ceiling guns on the previous floor.
Loki hastily conjured up a shield, but one of the shots got through before it fully formed, smacking his leg out from under him and dumping him ass over teakettle to the floor. For a moment, Loki's illusion flickered, but he quickly gathered himself and rolled into cover behind the doorway he'd just blown open. , recasting the illusion as he did before rolling back out of cover and returning fire.
The human-piloted machines proved to possess quite a bit of speed, leaping around quickly despite their size and the awkward position of their drivers, and they continuously fired back instantly. Another hastily cast protective shield flashed up and Loki took a moment to examine the area he now found himself in. The upper-most floor appeared to be laid out differently than the others.
First, it was circular in nature, the cells set around a single, wide open area at its center. This was where the mechanical guards and their drivers stood, moving around quickly. Second, judging from the number of security doors, each cell was separated by far thicker walls between them than the floors bellow. The doors to the cells were also solid here rather than barred. This was both solitary confinement and heavy security it seemed, and it was commensurately protected as such as well.
However, that being said, there weren't any cells directly across from the stairs leading up to the floor, and realizing this, Loki let loose a bit more in terms of magic. Throwing out a cutting spell sent a buzzsaw of ravening energy across the floor, slicing into and through the feet of the droids and causing them to tumble to the ground. The buzzsaw continued on its way until it hit the outer wall, finally dissipating. Another spell, directed at the ceiling, sent fire down upon the droids, burning their operators alive and destroying the various video cameras on the floor in one fell swoop.
Within the jail cells, shocked exclamations could be heard as the small glass panes set into the otherwise solid metal doors melted under the blast of heat. The defenders taken care of, Loki made his way forward, smirking viciously as he tore one particular door off its hinges with his bare hands. Inside the cell, he found Wrecker standing with his fists clenched, and smiled. "Tell me Wrecker, if I were to offer to get you out of here, would you be willing to make a deal with the devil again."
Loki couldn't have stopped his theatrics even if he'd tried. Impulse control had never been his strong suit.
"Get me and my crew outta here devil man, and we'll make any deals you need,"Wrecker said after a moment's hesitation. Pushing off the wall, he quickly stepped forward and out of his cell for the first time in more than two years. "Although, I can't say our souls would be worth much to you devil man, knowing me and the boys."
"Then we have an agreement. Just remember the other side of making a deal with the devil, Wrecker," Loki warned, moving over to the other jail cells and ripping all of them open. Still covered in his glamor, Loki made the same speech he had down below on the first and second floors before sending most of the inmates off. As the small group of high-level criminals walked away, Wrecker called Bulldozer, Thunderball, and Piledriver to him.