That night, after Harry spent most of his day on his various projects,and building his knowledge of the technology in this new world, Hedwig returned with the first five of their teleportation points around the US. The two stared into one another's eyes as Hedwig imprinted the location into Harry's mind. This was something they had done a few times back in their home dimension. Hedwig would scout out an area around their target, then imprint a place on Harry's mind. He would apparate to that location, often taking other people with him. Most of the time, the image had been of a clearing in the woods somewhere, but this time it was of a flat rooftop in a city in Texas, at least that was what he thought. It really didn't matter—Hedwig would be the one guiding him to each successive stop. After about ten minutes he was able to picture the rooftop well enough and he nodded, breaking their connection. Harry picked up a large sack of galleons and several gold bracelets and things made from melting galleons down, gathered his magic around him, and a moment later was somewhere else.
The sun was still high in the sky here, and Harry found himself on top of roof, maybe five stories in the air, with a few shorter building around him and a few taller but none with windows facing him. Hedwig appeared in the air a moment later and Harry walked over to the edge of the building down the exterior fire escape, a Notice-Me-Not spell already in place on both of them. As soon as he touched down on the street, he cancelled the spells. Harry didn't have anything he particularly wanted to hide, and Hedwig would probably garner much more attention than he would.
About five minutes later, he walked into a pawn shop that specialized in buying gold for cash, a small smile on his face. He swiftly moved up to the register at the back of the store and greeted the worker, a large, heavily muscled man with numerous visible tattoos. "Hello, I have some gold coins and other heirlooms that I would like to sell." Later, he walked out with $110,000 in cash. It wasn't quite as much as he would have gotten at a more reputable place, but this store was not part of a chain and was locally owned, so wasn't connected to any other store elsewhere. The owner might be, but probably not; pawn shops tended to be a little shady, and this one had been recommended for just that fact by Logan in any case.
Harry hit up two other places that night with similar results, ending the night with a little under $400,000 U.S. Two more nights of this and a few gold bars and that should be enough to get a bank account started, hopefully in Switzerland. Or somewhere else they don't allow foreign interference.
OOOOOOO
The following few days fell into a new pattern for everyone at the institute. The kids were working almost exclusively with Logan again on physical exercises, but Harry had also assigned Scott and the rest some research to do on small-unit tactics and strategies. He was hoping that one of the others would step up and challenge Scott for his leadership position, but that wasn't happening just yet. Evan was willing to challenge him physically, but it became apparent he wasn't willing to do the mental work needed to really become the leader of the group. Say what you would about Scott, he was a hard worker and he ate up the work.
Harry interspersed working on his various projects with playing pranks on all and sundry and getting to know the kids. Jean (or Red, as Harry continued to call her), buoyed by the fact her new defenses had finally blocked out other peoples thoughts from her mind, actually began to prank back, using her powers to shift items in the kitchen a little when Harry reached for them or tripping Harry and planting paint balls in places then exploding them as he neared. He hadn't yet gotten her badly in return yet, but it was an amusing escalation of their breakfast wars, and she enjoyed a day of being a blonde once. Kurt joined in enthusiastically, and he and Harry eventually forced Charles to ask them to tone it down.
Harry learned that Jean, while having normal middle class parents, had been more than happy to leave them behind—not just because of her powers, but because they were not exactly the most loving parents. They were kind and nice, but were also aloof, demanding, and unprepared to deal with their daughter's mutant status. They had known Xavier for a while before her powers awakened, and it had been an easy choice for them to let her go to the institute. Kurt, on the other hand, was an orphan, and had been taken in by a band of gypsies. They had been his family until Charles had found him and brought him to the institute.
Kitty came from a well-to-do family, and she regularly wrote to her parents, preferring to do that rather than phone, as it let her tell them more than she would otherwise without worrying about long-distance fees. They were proud of her, both for her grades in school and choosing to learn how to control her powers, and they were all very close. Evan's parents were regular humans, too; his mother was Ororo's older sister, who had been left behind to finish her school year when their family moved to Cairo. He was close to them, but they had been ill-prepared to handle his powers and trusted Ororo implicitly to watch out for him, so had let him go to the institute far more easily than Kitty's, who had put up a fight before letting her go. Evan had a bit of a problem with authority, but was a good kid nonetheless and, as Harry supposed, the most physically fit of the X-Men thanks to being a basketball player and skater.
Harry got to know Rogue by asking her about music, something she was the acknowledged master of in the household. Harry didn't really care for music one way or another before, but he found he liked some of the hard rock of America and of course the U.K. He had also gotten to know Rogue a little more, finding out how much of a problem her powers were for her. She couldn't even brush against someone else in the hall, lest she drain them of their vitality and memories. It made her aloof and standoffish in most social situations, wary of letting anyone get close physically or emotionally.
Her family, too, was a sore subject. She had been raised by Mystique ever since she was a toddler and didn't know who her real parents were, only that she had been left at an orphanage before Mystique found her. Rogue refused to talk about those years, and Mystique in general was a sore subject. Harry hadn't yet figured out a way to cancel out her powers and still let her have the feeling of touching someone, but he vowed to make it a priority moving forward.
Scott, too, was an orphan, though he remembered his family: his mother, father, and a younger brother named Alex. They had been flying in a private plane, apparently the father was a pilot, and they had been struck by lightning or something and had crashed. It seemed that Scott was the only one to walk away, and when he did, his mutant powers had manifested due to the extreme duress he had been put under. That could have been the reason he was such a, well an emo really, yet it did not really excuse him having as little empathy as he did. After all, he wasn't the only orphan in the group. Yet Scott seemed to think that because his eyes were deadly weapons without his glasses, it should let him get away with his pity party. It almost reminded Harry of Remus Lupin and how he acted; rather than trying to overcome his disability or turn it to his advantage, Scott allowed it to dominate his life, much like the werewolf had.
Of course, all the kids had noticed the tension between Xavier and Harry, which built as the days went on. Most of them had decided they didn't want to know what was causing it, which was rather prudent of them, a path of wisdom that Ororo and Logan also followed. Scott, however, had very obviously taken Xavier's side, and was frosty and unfriendly to Harry, even when Harry was instructing him in small-unit tactics. Kurt took Harry's side, however, and had begun to target Scott even more than usual with his pranks.
The routine of the day had no impact on Harry's nighttime activities, however. Every night, he went out to a few different cities, unloading galleons (which looked almost exactly like Spanish doubloons and so did not cause much comment) and the jewelry he made from melting some of his coins down. Harry figured that if he kept this up for two or three months, he might make a dent in his available gold, but not before then.
OOOOOOO
It was Friday, and Harry was hitting up the last city he wanted to sell his gold in before he would have enough to head to Switzerland (and wouldn't an apparition that far be interesting . . .)—around $3 million U.S. The city this time was New York, and for the first two stops, the trip went as the others had. Only the story ever changed when he went into these pawn shops. He was either a collector who had decided to start a family and needed the cash now or he had found them in his grandparents' attic when he cleaned out their house, etc . . . This time, however, he stopped halfway to his last target, his magical senses tingling. He looked around, then turned and began to walk in the direction he had felt magic come from.
The feeling was as if he had hit a very low-powered warning ward set throughout an area to detect other magic users. Yet as he moved to the center of the area covered, he found a normal looking house. Well, it was normal to his regular eyes. To his magical senses, this place was singing with protective wards and enchantments. Definitely not a place I would want to try to break into. Despite the fact most of the wards looked relatively low-key and forgiving, there were so many of them and some were so powerful it reminded him a little of Potterstead. Well, without the instant-death dealing wards or any of the more dangerous traps. Still, what was there was dangerous enough and Harry could tell there was more hidden underneath them. Harry resolved to be very friendly to whoever lived here.
He walked up to the door and knocked twice firmly. After a scant minute, someone answered the door. The man who looked out at Harry was short but extremely fit, bald, and Asian, wearing some kind of Asian monk outfit Harry had never seen before. "Yes, may I help you young one?"
Harry's eyebrows quirked at the 'young one' bit, but he smirked too, knowing that the man was probably even older than he looked by a wide margin if he was magical. "I hope so, are you the owner of this house?"
"I am not. I am afraid that the owner, Dr. Steven Strange, is out at present. I am his manservant, Wong. May I be of assistance?" Actually Dr. Strange was completely out of the dimension, dealing with a magical threat. He had been gone for several days, and Wong was beginning to get worried about him. Still, that was not something he was going to share with this young stranger with the glittering emerald eyes and confident air belying his age.
Harry frowned a little then shrugged, leaning in so that even if someone were nearby, he or she wouldn't be able to hear his words. "Well, tell him that another magical user came by and wanted to talk shop. My name's Harry Potter, and I'm a new bloke on the block, so to speak." He flicked his fingers and small bits of light glittered off his fingers. "I'm at the Xavier School for the Gifted upstate if he wants to meet me. Complement him on your ward scheme for me, will you?"
Wong blinked a little, unused to seeing someone steeped in the secrets of magic so open with his gifts. "I will tell him you stopped by, Mr. Potter. Have a nice day." Harry nodded and left, finished up his errand, and left New York City without further incident.
OOOOOOO
The next day was Saturday, the first day of spring break, and the kids were heading out to some kind of endurance campout of some kind. The choice had been between a week at this campout—supposedly to build teamwork, toughness, and to get them in touch with nature—or going on a backpacking trip with Logan. Harry was amused by how quickly the kids had chosen to go to the camp, and also how training with him for that amount of time hadn't been discussed. He wasn't that much of a hard ass, was he? He waved the kids onto their bus and turned back, looking forward to spending some time studying his runic arrays and hanging out with Ororo. Ororo, too, was looking forward to having a day to herself and Logan had already called the TV, wanting to curl up and watch some kind of spy movie marathon. Charles was looking forward to a week of peace and quiet. Little did any of the adults suspect that their peaceful day would soon be interrupted.
OOOOOOO
Mystique had been slowly becoming more and more concerned by the changes she had been seeing in Xavier's charges. Not only were they becoming more individually dangerous, they seemed to be bonding as a team more. Evan had clashed with Pietro earlier in the week (something about Evan claiming he was the better athlete or some such nonsense), and rather than being evenly matched, or simply unable to actually engage one another, Evan had sneakily taken Quicksilver's feet out from under him with a single, well placed spike of bone. Pietro's own momentum had slammed him head first into the lockers along one of the walls, knocking him out. Pietro simply thought 'the punk got lucky' and Mystique would have, too, if she hadn't heard Evan mutter something about 'targeting weaknesses', something that showed he was thinking about how to fight, not just getting in and mixing it up.
Fred Dukes had also had a run in with Rogue and Kurt when the huge teen tried to punch a soda machine to raid the soda inside and the two had stopped him, an incident she had seen from her office on the third floor. The two X-Men had worked together almost seamlessly to confuse, disorient, and then take out the massive Blob, teamwork that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago. Mystique knew it had to be something to do with the new tenant at the institute, yet she hadn't been able to find anything out about him. For some reason, every time she tried to spy on the institute, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary, or she suddenly had to leave. Nor had she figured out a way to get in and steal Cerebro, which was still one of her ongoing objectives.
So she had decided to get some other help, both to get her the computer and to see what the emerald-eyed young man's power was. So while her charges were at the same camp as the X-Men and hopefully keeping them busy, she had infiltrated the Vault and now stood in front of her target. She stepped past the other guard, whom she had knocked out with a chop to the neck, and, still wearing the body of the guard she had replaced to get in, pressed the button that would halt the flow of sedative into the water of the tank.
Within seconds the man, a monstrous giant almost as large as Fred, but covered with muscle rather than fat, roused. His brown eyes snapped open to latch on Mystique in her morphed body. "What the hell are you playing at, a guard trying to have fun with the prisoner? Wake him up then knock him out again when he thinks he can get free? Well fuck you!"
The man began to thrash in the water, but stilled as Mystique raised one hand to hover over the sedative button. "Now, now, not everything is as it appears. I want to make a deal, Cain. I understand you have an issue with your brother Charles?" the man's eyes narrowed and he stilled in his tank, save for his clenching hands. "Well he has something I want. If you follow me, I'll lead you straight to him, but after that I want you to give me an opening to get it okay?"
Cain nodded. "Lady, if you know where my brother is, just tell me and I'll do the rest."
Mystique smiled and twitched her hand over to another button. The water emptied out of the tank. As soon as the water was drained a change occurred in the man in the tank, starting from a strange red jewel imbedded into his chest. Red armor began to appear on him, covering his chest, legs, and forearms, culminating in a massive dome-shaped helmet heavily bolted to the torso armor. "In that case, make us a hole out of here, and I'll direct us from there. I've got a plane waiting that'll get us to our target much faster." With that, she changed shape into a crow and flew up to latch onto one massive shoulder. Cain grinned, turned and, barely slowing down, slammed into and through first one wall, then another as alarms began to wail throughout the Vault.
OOOOOOO
Harry was lounging around in the solarium with Ororo, both of them simply enjoying being around one another, with no real need to speak. Ororo was wrapped around a book written in Chinese, some kind of romance or other, and Harry was reading through a book on runic body inscriptions Sirius had recommended to him when they were discussing Harry's crisis suit ideas. Between Harry and Storm was a plate of sandwiches and fruit that one or the other would reach for from time to time. Hedwig was also there, reading the second book in the Fellowship series. Harry wasn't certain, but he felt she was developing a little too much interest in Gwaihir the Windlord, though what kind of interest it was he couldn't say.
Their peace was broken as alarms began to blare throughout the mansion at the same time that Harry grasped his head, wincing. "Buggering shite! That is painful! Something just shattered the wards around this place—something really powerful."
Maybe it was a bad idea to link the wards to me personally, but I didn't want to use one of my hearth stones. I've only got two of them, after all. Ward stones were simply stones with wards on them, to really create a warded dwelling, they were only part of the equation, the other half was the hearth stone, usually a massive slab of specially prepared and spelled granite that contained the power portion of the runic array, as well as connecting to all the wards and weaving them together. Harry hadn't wanted to waste one of his two slabs, and had only put down his initial two stones and a low powered intent ward that would warn him whenever anyone came near the property with violent intent, rather than merely too much interest. Someone had just smashed through that ward like it wasn't even there and the backlash had hit Harry like a bludger to the face.
Ororo helped him to his feet as Charles' voice came on over the intercom. "Attention everyone, we have a situation approaching, please come to the security room."
Harry and Ororo met up with Logan and the three of them went down to the security room. They found Charles there waiting for them, looking at video from a camera installed in a rock near the far back of the property. On the screen there was a massive man in red armor thundering his way through the forest toward the mansion. Luckily, he had started at the far back, and had about ten acres to cross before he hit the mansion. Harry asked the question on all three of the younger adult's minds. "So who is tall armored and smash-happy?" The last word was added as the man ignored the trees in his ways, crashing through them without even noticing them.
Charles sighed. "That is my half-brother, Cain Marko. He was once an explorer, a treasure hunter—more of a grave robber if I am honest, but he found some kind of ancient mystical device that somehow jumpstarted his mutant gene. He has hated me since we were children for, well, normal childish things really, and he used his powers for his own selfish ends before I incapacitated him with my telepathy. Since then, he has been locked away in the maximum security prison, the Vault. He must have escaped somehow and has come here seeking me, though how he knew where I lived is beyond me. He is nigh on physically unstoppable, and when he starts moving, literally nothing can stop him."
On the screen, the giant man had nearly covered five acres already, moving in a straight line and at amazing speeds for someone so huge. He stopped and turned when a blue-skinned woman came out of the woods behind him. She was too far away for her words to be heard, but Juggernaut's reply was. "Lady, I ain't one of your brats; I do what I want to do, and no one gives me orders!" A fist the size of a ham flashed out and connected with a wet smack and the blue-skinned woman flew away through the woods.
Harry's eyebrow rose. "And that would be this Mystique woman who is the leader of the Brotherhood?" Logan frowned hoping the broad was alright. Despite their differences now, they had often been on the same side after all.
"I'm afraid so. She must have thought Cain would help her achieve something, possibly steal Cerebro, but Cain is not a team player." Charles sighed.
Juggernaut saw the security camera in its tree as he turned and he looking into it, smirking evilly under his massive helmet. "Hah, I know you're watching, Charles; get ready to meet your maker because I'm coming for you and you know nothing stops the Juggernaut! "
Harry pushed himself off the wall, one eyebrow raised in an almost amused query, as if he didn't really understand the danger of the present situation and was more intrigued than anything else. "'Nothing', huh? Well that sounds like an interesting experiment. You stay here nice and safe Baldy, I'll go out and see what some magic can do to the big red wolf."
Ororo shook her head, looking at her friend worriedly. "I don't think that he meant it as a challenge."
"Doesn't matter how he meant it, luv, just matters how I take it." And with that, Harry walked out of the security room, fingers twitching in anticipation. It had been a while since he had gone all out, maybe this big red bloke could give him a bit of a challenge. He stopped for a moment, channeling his magic power into his crisis suit, which he routinely wore underneath regular clothing, a holdover from his days in the negative zone. "Magia Erebea," he whispered and his active magical power dipped a little as he shunted some of it to reinforce his body's durability and speed.
Behind him Charles ordered Ororo to take the quinjet to pick up the X-Men and bring them back to help, while Logan went to change before going out to assist Harry in holding off Cain.
Juggernaut had just reached the clear yard behind the mansion when Harry stepped out to bar his path. "Hey big guy, you said nothing stops you right? I want to be clear on this: you literally think you are unstoppable?"
Cain laughed low and deep, his chuckles echoing around to the crash of falling trees behind him. "Heeheheh, that's right punk, nothing can stop the Juggernaut, not you, not my brother, not anyone!"
Harry nodded eyes and hands beginning to crackle with magical power. "That's what I thought. Challenge accepted."
"Hah, make your move punk!" The Juggernaut charged forward, disdaining the mouthy little pipsqueak that had just challenged him. Harry stepped back, lashing out with first a Stupefy, then a Reducto and Bombarda in quick succession, testing the waters, so to speak. He wasn't surprised when Stupefy did nothing but the Bombarda not working at all despite actually exploding against its target did surprise him. "Huh." Harry said ducking and rolling away, before apparating behind Cain.
Another round of spells, this time less direct ones, like the Wingardium Leviosa, designed to incapacitate in some way were equally ignored, and Harry had to teleport away again as Cain turned, trying to hammer him again, moving faster than Harry had initially thought. "Hah! I don't know what you're trying to do pipsqueak, but it ain't working! The shield of Cyttorak protects me from everything; I'm invulnerable!"
Okay, so he's immune to low level attack spells. Let's take it up a notch. Now taking this far more seriously, Harry first cast at the ground, softening it directly below Cain's feet. As the man began to sink into the bog that had suddenly appeared below him, Harry began to cast some of his more powerful spells. A shatter shaker shot out, but dissipated right before impacting Cain, and Harry's eyes narrowed. He worked his way up his repertoire, his family lightning spells, some other elemental attacks, and lashing out with a siege spell he had created along the same time as the shatter shaker, a penetrating spell called Drill of Light (Harry's naming sense was vile, he knew it, but during his travels in the negative Zone, there were no one else around to comment on them).
None of them, not even the Drill of Light, worked and Harry was barely able to duck in time to avoid a punch that would have ripped his head off as Cain leapt free from the conjured bog. He wasn't able to dodge the kick that came up off the ground into his stomach, however, and Harry woofed in agony as he was lifted and thrown back a hundred feet to crash into the rubble of the mansion.
"FFUUUCCCKKK!" Harry groaned in agony. If it weren't for his crisis suit and his Magia Erebea reinforcing his body magically, that one shot alone would have finished him. God, that bastard packs a wallop. That was like getting hit by one of Blastarr's blasts back in the Negative Zone! I really need to step up my own training; I've gotten soft if he can tag me that easily. By this time, his magic had already healed him enough to move and he got to his feet.
Wolverine had shown up and was keeping Juggernaut busy; his speed and claws were able to keep him in the fight, but couldn't do anything but irritate his adversary. Harry frowned, sending some more spells downrange at Cain then took a moment to think.
Most combat was based on learned or instinctive responses, but mage combat was different. A mage was most dangerous when he was able to stand back and think about his next move, his next spell, while his instincts kept his body alive for him. So Harry took a moment to analyze his earlier failures to do more than irritate the man in red armor. Okay, so that shield of his protects him from direct assault, as well as anything that is cast directly at him, but that spell shot at the ground below him worked. What about spells that's aren't direct effect but still attack him indirectly? Does that shield protect his senses?
Harry began moving his hands in a complicated gesture, and suddenly dozens of red envelopes appeared all around him. This was a spell that Hermione and he had worked out during their second year, after watching the rather humiliating and incredibly bad idea of a howler in action. Honestly, what kind of parent thinks shouting second hand at someone in public does anything other than humiliate the victim? Harry, however, had seen how useful a spell like that could be, and Hermione had wanted something to do, bored out of her mind already by how slowly their courses were moving. Now Harry used it, magnified many times over.
A sudden thought occurred to him and he sent a few more spells at Cain with his off-hand as his right continued to work on creating the howler spells. "Hey Logan!"
"What do ya want, Bub? Can't ya see I'm busy?" The Canadian shouted back, ducking under another wild swing and trying to stab the arm before Cain could pull it back. Again, his claws seemed to skitter off something unseen before they could touch skin and he cursed. Fighting Cain head on was a losing proposition, but with that helmet on, his head he was immune to the mental attacks that could take him out.
"You said once that you had heightened senses right? Sight, smell, hearing?"
"What of it?"
"Well then, you might want to cover your ears!" Logan jumped back and looked around at that, raising an eyebrow behind his mask as he saw something like thirty large, red envelopes, seeming almost alive in some fashion, moving and trying to open as if something were inside. For some reason, the sight filled him with dread, and Logan jumped back again as Cain tried to close the distance then brought his hands up to cover his ears.
It was well he did; as soon as the red envelopes were around the Juggernaut, who began to try and hit them, ineffectually lashing out only for the letters to move aside, they all exploded. That was really the only word for it in Logan's opinion. They all went off like sound bombs, screeching and yowling at just the right decibel to produce the most pain in their victim. Cain screamed, feeling pain, real pain, for the first time in a long while as his ears throbbed, then his eardrums burst under the assault.
Logan howled in agony, then a hasty Mufilatio hit him and the blessed silence engulfed his battered ear drums. Despite this, he had already fallen into his berserker rage; the sudden and surprising pain went straight through his hard-earned control and awoke the beast inside. Harry gasped in surprise as his supposed ally turned and charged him, claws out and seeking his life.
"Logan, what the bloody fuck are you doing?!" Harry snapped, trying desperately to stay ahead of the weaving claws coming for him. Christ, he's fast; he obviously held back as much in our spars as I did! Harry gasped in agony as Logan's adamantium claws slashed across his side, stopped only by the protective shielding of his crisis suit and even that began to fail.
He jumped back, summoning a Lacero fire whip into his hand and he lashed it forward, catching Logan in the chest and throwing him backward. He rolled on the ground howling like a wounded beast.
Harry turned and started to fire mid-level spells at Juggernaut, trying to see if he could get through that armor. A overpowered Lacero did nothing, and Harry stopped using element type spells, instead going back to using penetrating spells. The only one that even rocked Cain was one Harry called the Railgun. It was basically the monster version of a Rifela. It summoned up a small bullet of magic and sent it out via magically created electromagnets between two of his fingers. The thing hit like a freight train despite its size, but all it did was stagger the big red bastard despite his ears not having healed just yet. Harry just couldn't figure out a way to knock him down.
And a second later, he didn't have any more time to think; Logan rushed toward him again howling. "Holy Hell! What the bloody fuck is wrong with you!"
OOOOOOO
"Ah can't believe ya'll wanted tah do this instead of try and hot rod the bus tah get back tah civilization." Rogue muttered as they finally sat down on the top of a summit where the camp counselor, Sgt. Hawke, had put a flag for them to get. Well them and the Brotherhood. Why the hell had both our groups come to the same survival camp? After several different issues, trials, and tribulations mostly caused by their ongoing rivalry with the Brotherhood, who just didn't have much teamwork or common sense,both groups gotten to the summit.
Jean pushed Rogue's shirt clad shoulder playfully. 'I'll admit in retrospect that was probably the best idea. Certainly would have saved us a lot of trouble."
Rogue smirked at her and Lance and Toad of the Brotherhood laughed a little at 'miss perfect student' thinking breaking the law was a good idea.
Scott frowned. "While it would have been easier, it would have broken the law and probably gotten us in trouble not only with the authorities, but the Professor and Logan as well."
Kurt shook his head. "We vere just joking, mine fruend. Though I am missing Harry's cooking."
The Brotherhood all looked quizzical, but Evan rolled his eyes. "I hate to admit it, but he does actually cook better than Auntie O."
Kitty reached into her backpack and pulled out a small lunchbox. When she opened it, she gasped, then laughed. The others looked at her quizzically and then in shock as she reached into the small, four inch box and her hand disappeared. After a moment, she pulled it back out holding a huge turkey club. She set it down and kept bringing out more and different sandwiches along with other lunch items, giggling all the while.
Jean frowned a little. "I see he has stepped up his anti-diet warfare. I must think of a way to respond to this."
Kurt laughed as he grabbed a beef sandwich and passed half of it to Fred, who looked as if he were going to start drooling any moment now. "Harry again, jah? Taste this. See what we mean, ya?"
Quicksilver shot over to look over into the small lunchbox and gaped at the space inside. "Wh-what kind of mutant power does this guy have, anyway?"
Kitty grinned at him. "Now that is a secret! Heheheh!"
The others all sat down to eat for a bit, even Scott and Lance forgetting their rivalry for the moment to enjoy the nice view and the good food. Pietro continued to try and find out what powers the new guy had, but couldn't get a straight answer out of any of the X-Men. As they were finishing their late lunch however the x-jet suddenly roared up with a Storm at the helm, dressed in her X-Men suit, her face grim.
OOOOOOO
Harry had been holding off both Logan killing him and Juggernaut getting behind him, hammering the latter every time he got to his feet with another sound attack for over twenty minutes, but Logan had closed in again and was forcing Harry back. At this point, the X-Men arrived in the jet with the Brotherhood, and were astonished to see the Juggernaut holding his head in agony while Wolverine and Harry seemed to be fighting a few spaces away. Even as they watched though, Juggernaut got to his feet yet again and rumbled toward the two combatants, slowly, weaving like drunkard, but still in motion.
Harry looked up at them and shouted. "Get this bloody idiot off me, I nearly had the big baddy down and he goes and attacks me! He hasn't stopped either, even though big and armored keeps bloody getting back up!"
As Kurt teleported down and Jean lowered herself to the ground telekinetically, something she hadn't been able to do as little as a month ago. They all heard the Professor's voice inside their heads. Mr. Potter tried some kind of sound based attack on Juggernaut, but Logan was caught in the area of effect before Mr. Potter could protect him. The pain of the attack has thrown Logan into his berserk state, and unfortunately I can't get through his rage to calm him down. Immobilize him if you can. Juggernaut's only weakness is his lack of mental defense. If you all can somehow remove his helmet, I can restrain him.
"Harry!" Kitty yelled, already jumping out of the jet, phasing out to touch down lightly. "Mr. Logan's in a berserk state, use a spell to knock him out of it somehow!" Behind her the Brotherhood members all looked at one another, mouthing 'spell?' in wonder. They had come along when Storm informed them that Juggernaut had knocked out Mystique. None of them really liked her all that much, but she did pay the bills.
As Harry followed Kitty's suggestion via a cheering charm and a tickling charm in succession, Jean, Kurt, and Kitty engaged Juggernaut. Kurt started teleporting everywhere around the giant trying to irritate him, while Jean started hitting him with TK blasts at range. Storm joined in as well, and massive bolts of lightning hammered into Juggernaut. Unfortunately, all this martial bluster amounted to absolutely nothing; only Storm's blasts even made Juggernaut pause. Cain knew who the main threat was and barreled through, ignoring their attacks toward Harry.
Evan pulled out as much of his bone armor as he could, literally covering himself in it, and jumped down to get in Juggernaut's way along with Blob. It was good that Fred was there, as Evan was knocked aside easily. Blob, though, was pretty unmovable even by the Juggernaut and stood his ground for a few moments.
This allowed Harry to push the now wildly laughing Logan to the ground and take stock of the situation. He paused a moment to take in the rather fetching sight of Ororo in her X-Man uniform but shook himself, concentrating on more important things. "Who are the new blokes?"
Kurt bamfed in right next to him, gasping a little from all the teleportation he had been doing. Juggernaut might look slow, but his punches came out quickly and even one would paste Kurt. "Zhey're . . . Zhey're zhe Brotherhood. Zhey're our, vell, our adversaries normally. Ve ended up at zhe same camp, und zhey came along vhen Storm said zhat Mystique, zheir leader, vas in trouble."
Harry frowned and surreptitiously pointed his fingers at each of them in turn, placing a spell on them to be activated later.
As the jet landed and let out those who weren't able to get to ground safely already, Scott tried to take control of the ongoing battle, but Harry was well ahead of him. "Cyclops, start hammering him, aim for his head. Try to blind him if nothing else. Kurt, you're looking a little knackered, you're on rescue duty, if he gets too close to any of the others, port them out of there. Big bloke I don't know, try to hold him in place, but get ready to not hear anything; I'm going to use a sound based attack on him; it seems to be the only thing that gets through and I don't want you caught up in it. Anyone got something to rattle him with, maybe get him off his feet?"
Lance spoke up from next to Toad, who was gulping fearfully at the sight of the big monster locked in combat with Fred, who now appeared to be losing. Quicksilver had already streaked off to look for Mystique. "I can. My power's based on creating earthquakes."
"That's handy. Alright laddo, rattle his bones!"
Lance grinned and complied as Jean and Scott took turns hammering away at the red armored giant, who, despite the rumbling of the ground underneath him, stayed on his feet. Harry noticed now that red crystal set into Juggernaut's chest seemed to glow a little brighter when the attacks impacted that shield. So, part magical, part mutant, all nutter. Lovely! His next sound attack went in, and again Cain howled in agony as his newly healed eardrums burst once more.
This time, though, it didn't incapacitate him, and Fred was at last toppled off his feet. Two blows landed on Fred, knocking him out before Kurt arrived and ported him to safety.
With The Blob out of the way, Lance really went to town and Juggernaut collapsed to his knees. Rogue, who had been about to try to rush in and touch the big bastard reached forward and shrieked as his shield threw her away smoking. Kurt grabbed her out of midair and plopped her down, but she was out of the fight for now.
"We need to get his helmet off!" Jean yelled and upped the power of her attacks, thankful once again to Harry for putting her though his training. It was really paying off in terms of her endurance and telekinetic projection.
"We need someone to manually unbolt it from the rest of the armor." Scott said, still firing continuously. Cain still hadn't gotten back to his feet; the loss of his inner ear and the constant earthquakes combined to make it impossible for him to stand up, but eventually his Cytorak given healing factor would heal the damage to his ears and he would be able to get to his feet regardless of anything Lance did. Well, unless he wanted to make a new San Andreas Fault, but even that might not do more than slow Juggernaut down.
Harry shook his head. "It's the crystal that's the main problem. It's generating some kind of magical shield. Take it out of the equation and he'll be much easier to deal with."
Evan got too close at this point, a rookie mistake that cost him as Cain lashed out, smashing him to the ground. Kurt tried to port in and get Evan out of danger, but Cain had anticipated this and another swift blow lashed out, catching Kurt where he teleported in. "Kurt!" Kitty screamed as Kurt arched away, his body twitching and bloody.
Before anyone else could react, Kitty phased in, trying to do the trick to Juggernaut that she had done to the tree last Sunday and hoping her phasing ability would save her from what happened to Rogue. It didn't. When she hit his magical shield, she screamed and fell to the ground, convulsing. Toad and Storm's intervention saved her from having her head caved in from a kick. Toad grabbed her with his tongue and pulled her to safety. Storm roared in anger, seeing some of her students and young friends down and injured and her self-control disappeared. She began to attack with a fury that was amazing to see.
And suddenly this isn't a game anymore, Harry though. His mind suddenly went blank and slipped into full combat mode, something it hadn't done up until this point. "Cover me." he said, his voice flat and emotionless, sending a shiver up the spine of everyone who heard it.
As Jean and Scott lent their firepower to Storm's monstrous assault, huge gusts of wind hammering into Juggernaut along with massive bolts of lightning slashing down from the sky, Harry summoned the sword of Gryffindor, a memento from his time in his original dimension, and teleported forward. This was the sword that had been made by goblins and had been dipped in basilisk venom, the most lethal poison in the universe. It had become a sword whose tiniest slash would kill, no ifs, ands, or buts. The sword slashed out and rebounded off Juggernaut's magical shield, but the impact threw him back slightly. Harry kept at it, dodging blows by bare centimeters and hammering back with all his power as all around him, the others tried to strike Cain while still missing Harry. He poured out his magic in now higher-end spells and simply pure magic bolts of power slamming into Juggernaut. His shield began to flicker, failing at last under the constant magical assault.
With a wave of his hand he solidified the ground and yelled "Earthquake boy, full power right under him. Now!" Lance quickly obeyed, and as the ground solidified Lances power lashed out, forcing the big man to his knees.
Harry apparated up, dodging another punch to stand on Cain's knees and slam his hand down on the crystal, his hand glowing with the power of a fully-powered shatter shaker, a spell that would normally shatter a whole castle of stone or metal or anything else. Yet as soon as he touched the crystal it dimmed suddenly, and Harry found his mind elsewhere.
OOOOOOO
Purple mist surrounded Harry and he looked around, wondering where the hell he was. That Crystal thing was obviously some sort of connection to something or someone else since the magic here was based on invocation, but whom it was connected to and where he was now were a mysteries. He seemed to be floating in midair, but there was no air around him, only the purple mist, reminding him of the Negative Zone. Let's see, he thought to himself, the crystal dimmed when I touched it, and I felt my magical reserves increase. But I didn't cast a spell or anything, could that be my mutant power? Taking the magic out of other people to add to my own? That would be certainly amusing, and it would explain why Charles couldn't figure it out; it only comes into play against other magical things, and maybe other people. Maybe all those times I cast Praedia Bellica made the effect permanent? Not that I'm going to complain or anything.
"You are in my realm, little mage." A voice sounded all around him and just as suddenly a bit of the mist disappeared and Harry found himself facing some kind of extra-dimensional being. It was made of mist like the purple mist all around for a moment, then it solidified into a formless man wearing red armor. His features were blank, his eyes empty sockets, and it seemed the only thing that defined his form was the red armor. And the giant jewel set into a gold circlet around its head. Even with the body of the being in front of him, the voice sounded out all around. "I am Cyttorak, little mage. I am power!"
Harry looked around, pushing out his magical senses as far as he could. This realm may have been dominated by the being in front of him, but it certainly wasn't made by him. He seemed to have been pulled, or at least his consciousness was pulled, into a pocket dimension of some kind. "Uh-huh, so what do you want with me? Only I was sort of busy you know, beating that other big ruddy bastard down and hopefully ten feet under, and I'd like to get back to it."
"You cannot beat my avatar like that, little mage. Despite the power you wield being so strange, it will not overcome the power I have invested into my Avatar in the universe. Yet your power intrigues me and the idea of seeing what you could do with my power backing you would be most interesting. Thus I would bargain with you."
Cyttorak began to make an appeal for Harry to become his avatar, but Harry had already tuned him out, taking in the memories of Cain as they were flashing around him, showing how he had become an avatar. He had been a gangster while younger then joined up with a particularly shady group of explorers. The man had murdered all three of the other expedition members as soon as he realized there might actually be something there, and he had killed several people in his rampages since. That was enough for Harry; he decided that the Juggernaut was going to die.
As the being wound down and seemed to stare at him expectantly, Harry turned back to him his eyes hard emerald chips of controlled fury. He walked forward and suddenly shot his hand out grabbing the other entity by its arm. As he had expected, the magical power of the being began to flow into him and the being tried to get away shouting angrily and smashing a fist into Harry's face.
Harry moved with the blow easily maintaining contact. "What do I think?" he yelled. "I think that Earth is for humanity, and I want you and all those like you to get the fuck out of my dimension!"
With that, the being gasped in agony; his powers had been almost entirely taken by Harry already. Cyttorak broke contact with a viscous kick to Harry's chest. With a very weak wave of his hand he banished Harry, vowing never to come close to him again. He would have to ignore that dimension from now on, so be it.
The youngster's touch had seared like fire and it had also drained him of much of his power, although it was flowing back into him now that the human was no longer touching him. Still, best to not go near one who had all the makings of a Defender of Life, especially one who could drain his power like that.
OOOOOOO
Harry's mind came back to the real world where nothing had happened for a few seconds, then the gem on Juggernaut's armor shattered into a million pieces.
Cain cried out in agony and then fear as he began to shrink inside his armor, his Cyttorak-given strength and size boost gone, leaving him with only his mutant strength which, while formidable, was nowhere near what it had been. As the others faltered in their attacks at the sudden reversal, Harry grimly latched onto Cain's helmet and using his new strength, ripped it off his head, tossing it aside to de-power later. Harry twirled away, bringing his sword up in a vicious arc, aiming for Cain's neck.
Yet before he could finish the swing, Charles shouted aloud from where he had just exited the mansion. "No! No killing, not here!"
Harry turned to him angrily, but seeing the youngsters looking on, saw his point. None of them were ready to see death first hand. "Fine. I'll take him somewhere else to do the deed."
"NO!" Charles shouted again, rolling up to him and staring angrily up at him. "No killing at all! You've beaten him and somehow taken the majority of his power, let him be returned to he prison he came from and that will be an end of it."
Harry growled. "Charles, I know he's your brother, but he's a murderer dozens of times over, and look what nearly happened to the kids!"
"It is not that, Mr. Potter." Charles said sternly. "At least not just that. You cannot simply kill your enemies all the time, Harry, you must give them a chance to reform. More you are not judge, jury, or executioner. That is the power only of the state, not us." Scott and the other still moving X-Men nodded at that, seeing it as simply good sense. The Brotherhood shrugged, uncaring, and just stared on at the discussion.
Harry nearly did it anyway, but refrained, more for the kid's sake than anything else. "That's strike two ,Charles. On your head be it; every life he takes from now on, because you stopped me from ending it right here and now is your responsibility." Charles flinched at the grim certainty in Harry's tone, but he nodded anyway.
Without another word, Harry turned and shot a full powered Stupefy into Cain's chest since he was trying to recover from the agony of his magical power being ripped out of him, knocking Cain out. Then Harry moved over to Rogue, who was now standing on her own despite the shock she took. "Rogue." She looked at him questioningly. "Drain him." Harry ordered, pointing over his shoulder at Cain. "Completely."
Rogue gulped a little but nodded and moved forward, laying her un-gloved hand on Cain's head. After a few moments, she pulled away her body a little taller and stronger looking, but that was all. She moved over and lifted up a downed tree with ease, shocking all those who were looking.
Harry nodded grimly, then went over to Kurt and Kitty's comatose forms levitating them off the ground as Storm picked up her nephew. The two turned to go inside, but Harry paused momentarily to look over at the group of brotherhood mutants clustered around one another seeing to Fred's injuries. "Tell your leader I'll be in touch. I've heard Xavier's spiel, I'll want to hear hers too." One or two of them nodded their heads, but Quicksilver simply looked a little distrusting and Harry shrugged, waving a hand and activating the spell he had set on them previously to erase everything about his fighting abilities from their minds and then moved inside, levitating Kurt and Kitty before him.