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Elsewhere, another was looking on, cursing herself for having missed an opportunity to introduce herself to Harry. Hela leaned back from her scrying pool irritably. It wouldn't have been ideal with Balder there, his opinion of me is like most Asgardians, but still, it would have been the best chance to meet Harry out from under those massive, and rather scary even I have to say, wards of his castle. Thank the fates that my Lady did not give me some kind of hard time frame for presenting her gift to Harry.
She frowned again, then looked at the faces of those inside the castle, something niggling at her senses. She paused her pool as an image of a young Native American girl appeared, sitting in the lotus position as she meditated. Something about the girl called to her, and she began to smile. "Danielle Moonstar, hmmm?"
OOOOOOO
Harry arrived as quickly as he could at the small café that his next appointment had decided to use as a meeting point, covered in his George Frederick Weatherby magical disguise. Thankfully, she too was running late. They actually almost ran into one another as they stopped right next to the small gate separating the outside portion of the café from the street. Harry smiled faintly, bowing from the waist getting into the 'George persona'. "And here I was all prepared to give you my most profound apologies for being late Ms. Potts. How are you doing?"
Shaking her head, Pepper smiled at the younger man's urbane air. "I'm well Mr. Weatherby. And please, call me Pepper. I was thankful to get out of the office, but your message was rather vague on what you wanted to meet me about."
"In that, case, please call me George. Shall we sit down first, I believe I promised you lunch." Seeing Pepper's slight frown even as she entered the café, Harry laughed quietly. "Don't worry, I am not trying to flirt with you or anything of that nature. Believe me, my girlfriend wouldn't like that at all, she would come down on me like an angry goddess."
Pepper smiled at that, and the two moved through the café interior, ordering up some food before heading back outside carrying their food. Harry chose an empty table that was hidden from view of the passerby and had only a few places where people could even get a view of their lips moving. After that, he hit the table and chair set with a mild notice-me not, which would impact everyone trying to listen in on them.
The two of them exchanged small talk as they ate, mostly Harry asking questions about Stark Enterprises, including several of the products the company was preparing to sell in the near future. After they were finished eating however, Pepper became more serious. "Alright, now that, what was that term I heard once, we've fed and watered, what exactly did you want to meet with me about?"
"Two things really, the first is, I wanted to ask your opinion on Tony Stark's mental stability. Whatever I said in front of Obadiah, I think that he is the most important piece in the SE puzzle. It's his mind and his research that powers it to a large degree. And this whole Iron Man business is rather… strange, I suppose is the only word that covers all the angles there." Harry began, finishing the last of his grapes.
Pepper winced. She really didn't like the fact Tony was risking himself all the time with his Iron Man antics, nor did she like the rumblings she was hearing from congress about pushing for the Iron Man suit to be handed over to the government. It didn't have the backers such a move would need to go against the Stark lobbyists, but it was worrisome that her boss wasn't taking it seriously.
Still, Tony was her boss and her friend. "I think Tony is doing much better. I don't honestly like the fact that he is risking his life so often, but it seems to be therapeutic. He feels that he can do better with the Iron Man suit than anyone else, and certainly isn't willing to trust anyone else with that power. It's also in some fashion penance for all the lives Stark Enterprise weapons have taken in the past."
"Hmmm… I still think he should see a psychologist, even if he is getting over his PTSD, he could always regress." Harry murmured. Pepper winced again, but didn't gainsay that. "I also have to say that the cat is jolly well out of the back in terms of other suits. I don't suppose you know about my past profession?"
That made Pepper snort. "British SAS, someone major in their anti-terrorist division is our guess, we've found your name and that's it, even our own contacts in the intelligence community couldn't find out more."
"Indeed. Suffice to say that once you are in, retirement is only for a given value. In any event, I've seen reports of dozens of governments the world over trying to create their own, Tony's and Dr. Doom's suit have seemingly begun a trend. There were actually two working versions spotted in Russia, but they have since been… disposed of." Harry smiled thinly.
"I… I see." Pepper said, looking even more wary. "Is that what you wanted to say, to pass on through me to Tony that there are other armor types out there?"
"No actually, that was just a bonus. As I said, I have various connections, including ones that deal with out of the ordinary things. I speak for a group that handles things that SHIELD is supposed to deal with, yet lacks the manpower or the drive to do so. There was an incident recently, and a British citizen was kidnapped. I won't tell you her identity, but let us just say that her abduction has otherworldly origins. To rescue her, and to make certain that there are no more such incidents, I have been tasked to find certain resources."
Pepper frowned. She could tell where this was going. "I'm afraid SE no longer keeps stockpiles of weapons on hand, nor would I be willing to sell them to you with such a vague description."
"You know, looking back on my interactions with him at the Fireman's ball, I could see a fragility to Tony's boisterousness, as if he was having health issues." Harry murmured, as if changing the subject, watching Pepper closely. Thanks to his learning to read Emma, Harry's ability to cold read people had gone up immensely, and Pepper Potts was no Emma Frost.
He saw the minute twitch and the paling features, the concern she couldn't keep out of her face. "I see. It was always strange to me how Tony didn't seem to have much in the way of wounds after he was rescued. I won't ask you to betray his confidence. However, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I have access to medicines and medical abilities that are well above the norm."
Pepper leaned back slightly, her concern for her boss's life and her worry about selling weapons to an almost unknown for no reason warring within her. "I don't like being coerced like this Mr. Weatherby."
"Don't misunderstand me. If Tony needs medical aid, I will gladly set it up, regardless of whether you and SE can get me the supplies I need." Harry smiled thinly. "I'm not that much of a hard ass. No, you said SE doesn't stockpile weapons, and I'll take your word for that. But body armor, surely you have that?" Harry had hoped for both, but Pepper was right, she couldn't just sell him the weapons he would like to have, not without a lot more information than he, in his Weatherby persona, was likely to have.
"Why don't you tell me more about this girl whose gone missing and why you require these weapons Mr. Weatherby. Nice trick you've got by the way, I almost didn't notice you, but Pepper's hair is thankfully distinctive. Mind telling me what kind of tech you're using to get that effect, even now I'm having trouble actually noticing you or the table at all." A voice interjected into the conversation.
Harry and Pepper both looked up in surprise as Tony Stark suddenly pulled up a chair. Harry wondered how the man had been able to power through his notice-me-not, but in the end this made things simpler. "Well, it is the man himself. Taking a break from the hero business?"
"What can I say, I'm an adrenaline junky and it gives me my fix." Tony said blandly, smirking at the other man as he leaned back, seemingly at ease. "So again, why exactly do you need 'supplies'? I like how you've gone out of your way to not say weapons by the way, very diplomatic."
Harry cocked his head to one side. "You're certainly not acting like someone who is still suffering from PTSD I will admit, but what guarantee do I have that you will not share with other people that I've talked to you?"
"You came to me friend." Tony smirked leaning back even more and putting his hands behind his head. "And I think that you're the one that needs me, not the other way around."
Harry frowned a little. While there were other means he could use to get the weapons they would probably need for the rebels when they assaulted Mojo's realm, all of them were time consuming. Nor could a replication spell work on something like a gun. There were just too many parts to it. You would have to replicate each part in turn and then put it together that way. So while Harry's conjuration appeared to no longer have any kind of half-life (which was utterly surprising given everything he had known back in his home dimension about it) he was loathe to take the time to do that.
And I was hoping to open up a line of communication with Stark in any case. I suppose it could be worse. Besides, if he comes to me for medical aid, I'll know something he's gone a long way to keep secret, while in turn, Tony will only know about this current crisis with Mojo.
Finally Harry looked up at Tony searching his face for moment then he nodded. "All right, I'll trust you to keep this under wraps. As I said, the people I work for are connected to a group that deals with esoteric threats. At present, they're working against an otherworldly kidnapping group, one that recently stole away Betsy Braddock, who had a certain connection that could call upon the group I work for. This kidnapping group is large, and has already gathered hundreds, possibly thousands of slaves."
Pepper and Tony both looked skeptical, and Harry shrugged. "What government in the world would notice one or two people disappearing per year, with no hint of what has gone wrong regardless of their circumstances?"
"You're not talking about demons or something like that are you?" Tony said skeptically. "That kind of stuff doesn't exist."
Harry very carefully kept his smile off his face. Evidently Tony was a skeptic, well that was fine. "In this case, other dimensional doesn't mean daemonic no," he replied dryly. "I'm certain a scientist like you who has heard of Mr. Fantastic's experiments on the Negative Zone? There are other dimensions out there like that."
"And one of them is stealing away people?" Pepper said, not looking quite as skeptical as her boss but still disbelieving. "Why?"
"Does it really matter?" Harry said coldly and Pepper shivered a little at his tone. "All that really matters is that they be stopped from doing it any longer, and that the slave that have been taken from Earth and from other places be able to either return or form their own government there."
"So you'll want things like infantry weapons." Tony mused, leaning back, no longer questioning what Harry had said, something about the other man told Tony he was telling the truth. Not all of it, but enough.
Tony pulled out a slim hand held computer, which would in a few months become the Stark-pad, and take the computer industry by storm. He looked up after a moment and nodded. "I can get you about two-hundred assorted infantry weapons. Give me a few days now to make it so that they can disappear without anyone noticing."
"You believe him?" Pepper asked looking at her boss. For some reason though, she believed George too. There was something in George's tone and the way he was sitting that said he was being honest with them, for a given value of honesty at any rate.
Her boss smirked at her and nodded equably before looking back at Harry. "That being said George, I'm not going to do it for free. You mentioned medical aid. What exactly are you offering? And are you connected to that new medicine that's coming out, the stuff that was apparently tested after that terrorist attack in London?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Harry said mildly, smirking slightly which showed through his illusion of course. Both Tony and Pepper actually chuckled at that. "In any event, I have access to certain people who have medical knowledge beyond the norm, beyond even what someone such as yourself would be able to call upon. I can get you in touch with one such individual, and you can explain what you require to him."
Tony leaned back again, tapping his fingers on his Stark Pad while Pepper looked at him, hoping her eyes. Pepper knew precisely what the problem was. She had walked in on him replacing the small prototype arc reactor that powered the electromagnet keeping the shards of shrapnel moving towards his heart still with a new one, and helped him do so. After that, Pepper had forced Tony to tell him what it was doing, and that knowledge horrified her, made worse every time Tony used his Iron Man suit. If there was some way to reverse that damage, which was beyond current medical knowledge indeed any attempt would kill him, then she was going to jump on it with both hands.
After a moment Tony's eyes opened. He wasn't happy about asking for help, but he had run into a wall. Tony knew that his solution to the shrapnel in his chest was slowly killing him. The palladium he was using for the core of his arc reactor was slowly poisoning his nervous system. And despite how prideful Tony knew himself to be, he wasn't so prideful as to turn down help that might be able to keep him alive.
"All right." He said finally. "If you can give me some contact information, I'll have the weapons at a designated drop-off point in two days. I'll schedule an appointment for your contact to come by the house in Malibu next week."
Harry agreed, then stood up, causing both Tony and Pepper both to stand up, with Pepper excusing herself to go to the ladies room as the two men exited the café. "Were you connected as well to that odd message that I got that evening?" Tony asked quickly, looking at 'George' sharply.
Harry's illusion didn't even flicker. "I'm sorry, what message?" Harry asked, cocking his head quizzically to one side. Make a note Harry thought, just because Tony has mental issues, and I'm thinking his ego is worse than any PTSD issue, does not in any way affect his intelligence. Still I can come clean about that later, just keep my 'George' persona away from that aspect, make him think George is merely being used as an intelligence operative. It could be really useful later, and not just with Stark.
Tony's eyes narrowed, but he could detect no falsehood in the other man. The two men then shook hands and went their separate ways, though Tony did try to slip a small tracker into George's pocket as they passed one another. It fried immediately however when Harry portrait out moments later in an alleyway, and the house-elf on duty took care of it after informing Harry about it.
OOOOOOO
Jean smiled eagerly as Harry and the rest of the team trooped out of the Castle to join her and Kitty down by the shore of the as yet unnamed lake. Harry's name for it, Squid Lake, had been soundly rejected until he could prove that there was indeed a squid living in it like apparently had existed in his old dimension, something Jean felt was probably a tall tale he had come up with for the kids. She looked over at Kitty and smiled. "You ready for this?"
She caught Kitty mid-yawn, and Jean frowned slightly before wiping it away before the girl could notice. Kitty was up to something, she was definitely burning the candle from both ends. First she worked on the projects for Harry then went back to the X-men mansion. Once there she got up at the normal hour for there without taking into account the time change. Whatever it was however, Kitty hadn't told anyone what it was, so Jean figured if she wasn't going to ask for help, it wasn't any of her business.
She asked again, "Are you ready for this?"
Kitty grinned giving Jean a thumbs up. "You bet! I can't wait to see their faces after they see what we've come up with."
"Neither can I." Jean's smirk widened. To say the toys she and Kitty had come up with in the past few days would revolutionize warfare would be to make a supreme understatement. Of course none of the toys they were currently playing with would ever get out to the regular military, but from Jean's perspective that didn't matter.
Harry had hinted a time or two at further plans for the future, and she knew the outline at least for his plans for space, and she was already thinking of ways that her current toys could be used in that environment. Especially since heat dissipation is such a big issue in space, she thought, looking down at one of the toys on the large table that she had a few house-elves bring out for this demonstration.
By this point the others had come up, and were all standing nearby waiting to see what would happen. Harry conjured a few simple chairs and everyone took a seat while he smiled at Jean, sharing a light kiss on the cheek with her before sitting down with the others. "So what magnificent toys have you two come up with, Jean?"
"Oh, quite a few that I think everyone will get a kick out of! First, is this one." Jean laughed before reaching down to the table, picking up the first item. It looked like the sniper rifle that had originally been assigned to Vanguard, but the stock was different, the cooling coils were much smaller, the magazine in turn larger. "This is a plasma rifle."
"You said plasma rifle." Nikolai leaned forward quickly. "Not sniper rifle? Those things were slow hell between shots, use as a regular rifle would be impossible even the one you made before."
"Not a problem anymore." Jean replied simply. "The issue with the old design, above and beyond its bulky nature and quality control issues, was heat dissipation. That will always be a problem for any plasma-based system. However, Kitty and I came up with a solution. Or rather Kitty did by herself, and I merely helped her put into place."
Kitty took over at this point gesturing out into the lake. "Water, most particularly saltwater is one of the best cooling elements found naturally in nature, and we've got an seawater lake here. What I did, with Jean's help, was to reimagine the array from the runic doorway so that the surface was in some way connected. One end of that loop is on a large stone column that Jean placed on the bottom of the lake. The other end is in the cooling device that is part of the rifle. Nikolai, if you would like to try a few shots? Fire as fast as you can."
With a shrug Nikolai stood up and took the rifle from her expertly lifting into his shoulder and sighting down the barrel. At first he fired six rounds from that way, then he changed it to holding it at the hip, and fired the rest of the magazine away in a single burst over the lake. All in all it only took about 17 seconds fire the full amount, each shot making that "FZZARKK" sound.
Not once did the gun even become hot. After he popped the magazine Nikolai plugged in another and did the same thing. At the end of that magazine, he whistled appreciatively. "Damn, this is incredible!"
"Yep." Kitty grinned and took the rifle back, expertly removing the second magazine from it and slamming in a third. She then took out the cooling unit, and held it up handing it to Nikolai to hold with her bare hands. It was very mildly warm to the touch, but it was cooling rapidly even as he held it.
Harry stood up and moved forward to examine the runic array on the cooling coil closely. He smiled approvingly at Kitty while Ororo affectionately ruffled her hair.
"What's this one?" Nikolai said having passed the sphere over to Harry to examine more closely. He was now tapping the second rifle that was on the table. This one was leaner and longer barreled then the plasma rifle, with a slightly larger stock, and a side magazine of some kind as well as a sniper scope on top.
"That is my baby." Jean grinned evilly. "Why don't you try it?"
Nikolai gave her a skeptical glance, wondering what he was being set up for, but picked it up anyway. He turned, holding it to his shoulder, noting absently how light it was as he sighted over the lake. He whistled as the scope on it zoomed in on a large tree stump on the other side of the lake, nearly two miles away. I wonder what the diabolical one has done to this?
The current team sniper breathed in, removing all of the irritants from around him, and then breathed out, breathed in, and fired. There was a buzzing sound by his ear, not the electrical discharge noise of plasma, for just a second then a whooshing sound as something very small and very fast zoomed downrange.
Nikolai was still watching through the sniper scope as whatever he had just fired hit the tree. Whatever it was not a regular around, since even if a regular 7.62 round could be fired that accurately from over two miles away, it would have only made a single, albeit large, hole in the tree.
Whatever he fired went through the tree stump and slammed into a boulder on the other side smashing a large chunk out of the rock after shattering the tree trunk entirely as it passed through. "What is this?" Nikolai asked, slowly leaning back from the sniper scope to look at Jean, his eyes wide.
"That is a gauss rifle." she laughed. "Another word for it is railgun. The bullet is fired at near to 910 m/s."
"That didn't come from anything we got in Russia." Harry murmured looking appreciatively at the rifle. "Did you think this up all by yourself?"
"Not really no, the American military has been trying to produce a version of this for combat purposes, but miniaturization is a real problem. From what I read a few months back, they've only gotten it down to a size where they can put it on a battleship."
"You wouldn't happen to know what company came up with that would you?"
"Yes actually, and before you ask, no it wasn't Stark or Hammer. It was a small beltway bandit company, that works exclusively for the American Navy. Why?"
Harry gestured upwards and smirked a little. "Just thinking ahead."
At that response, Jean joined him in smirking. Whatever she, Harry and Kitty came up with, to produce anything in large amounts they would have to either develop the ability to manufacture it themselves, which would take a long time, or buyout other companies and use the infrastructure already in place. That had been a very interesting conversation, when Emma was informed about the long-term space based plans of Harry, not they were really as far along as actual plans of course.
Kitty smirked, and pointed to a small switch on the side of the Gauss rifle. "This is my contribution. I found a runic array in one of Harry's books that basically enlarges things that are place on top of it. Unfortunately it doesn't work for organic matter, but for inorganic it works great. There's an upper limit to how large it can get of course, according to the book, 3.737373 times the normal size, but even so…" she shrugged. "I don't care who you are, if you're hit by that, you will feel it!"
` Harry made a humming noise for a moment, then asked for a house-elf to stop by the training area to get the Juggernaut armor that Rogue had given back to him. He had already sent her a modified version of the heavy armor back.
"Let's see what happens." he said simply, though he honestly wasn't expecting much. With that, Harry flew over the lake to the other side, placing the armor on a conjured mannequin made of rock. After that, he moved to one side and waved his arm in the air to indicate that he was clear, covering himself with a shield just in case.
"I'll try the regular setting first." Nikolai murmured before siting downrange. Once more he went through the sniper's routine, firing on his second exhaled breath.
The shot hammered the red juggernaut armor straight in the center of the chest, and he watched in disbelief as the round noticeably bounced off, heading up at a diagonal deeper into the woods. "Good God!" he murmured. He hadn't actually realized how strong the magical metal was before this, but seeing that was putting it in perspective.
The impetus of the shot however was enough to shatter the granite outcrop that Harry had conjured up. Harry moved over to it, lifting the armor up and examining it closely shaking his head. Casting a spell on his mouth he then yelled out "no damage!" heard clearly from the other side of the lake. He then set it up again and moved to the side. "Try Kitty's modification!"
Kitty gulped, reaching over and flicking the switch on the rifle. "You'll only get two shots of this max. I couldn't figure out a way to connect it to the runic arrays here, so there's no way to transfer magical power or anything like that. You put your hand here." she instructed, moving Nikolai's hand up the stock a little to a series of small indents, where his fingers found tiny runes underneath the tips of his fingers. "Do more than two shots and you'll probably collapse. Even after one you're going to feel the burn."
Siting once again through the scope Nikolai murmured and absent minded affirmative before going into his routine. Breathe in, breathe out breath in, breathe out, fire. This time he was able to actually see the round as it traveled, because it was that much larger, but it wasn't moving appreciably slower. He watched as it slammed into the armor dead center.
There was a massive booming sound, and the new piece of granite, still covered armor tumbled away into the woods end over end. It took Harry a while to find it, and when he did he whistled in surprise.
Back with the others however Nikolai had dropped the rifle, going to his knees and gasping as if he had just run a hundred klick marathon. "I think…" he gasped, while his stomach rumbled as if he had been starved for months. "That your calculations were off Kitty."
Piotr came up from his chair and quickly knelt beside his friend, lifting him up by one shoulder, with Paige quickly moving to other. Kitty had already asked aloud for a house-elf to get some food, hearing the rumbling from where she had been standing by the table. "Okay!" she announced quickly. "So that one is a no go."
Harry landed beside them carrying the armor. Once again it was undamaged, though Harry wondered if that would've been the case if he had been able to imbue the round with some kind of magical energy. Still, it certainly proved the efficacy of the armor itself, though he wondered what it would do to the yellow armor. That however would keep for another day.
As Nikolai began to eat ravenously, trying to settle down the void that had replaced his stomach, Harry shrugged. "Not bad Kitty, but sort of a weapon of last resort I think."
Kitty nodded distractedly, looking over at Nikolai worriedly. "Sorry about that, I don't know where my calculations went wrong there!"
"Show them to me later, and we'll go through them together." Harry promised. "For now however, it wasn't that big of a deal since we're here at home, but I'm going to have to forbid that you use that setting. Make a note to remove it from the rifle until further testing, and let's move on with the rest of the presentation."
Jean nodded, moving over to the next few items. She held up what looked like a leather bracer, pulling it back to show the inside which was lined with a complex runic array that Harry recognized. "This is Kitty's other addition to this show."
"I don't know if we should do that." Kitty said looking over from where she had still been staring at Nikolai in dismay. "If my calculations were wrong on this one." she gestured to the rifle, "they might've been wrong on that one as well."
Ororo moved over holding out her arm. "In that case, I volunteer to try it. Will it automatically feed off magic rather than bioenergy, and what does it do?"
"During that first dinner together where Harry asked us to start thinking up ways of combining science and magic he showed us something really cool. What Harry did was to tattoo a runic array into the back of his palm so that he could summon things by name from a bag of holding."
"That's not what the bags are called." Harry muttered but Jean ignored him with the ease of long practice and a smirk on her face. Whatever Harry called them, she much preferred the old RPG names for those kind of things. "Luckily, Kitty was able to use Harry's notes, and she was able to re-create array easily enough, though adding a way to power it via bioenergy was much more difficult. Luckily the bag of holding spells are self-sustaining for some reason."
Here she but did look over at Harry. "Eventually we might wish to sit down and really figure out the science of magic you know, why one spell works and another doesn't for long, why one runic away array takes so much more energy to power it, why the magical energies dissipate at all."
Harry nodded a little "True, but that would be a task I would rather assign Dr. Druid eventually. Once I have someone to replace the potion oversight aspect of his current job, as well as pediatric for the children. Too many jobs for too few hats, though at least that first one can be handed over to the elves eventually."
He smiled slightly. The Big Book of Students was still compiling names, but most of them were in the green or yellow, which was acceptable. A few names were on the yellow/orange line, and those had been set aside to be brought in first, once they got in a few more teachers and Harry was finished with a few projects in the Castle.
Specifically Harry wanted to put up an exclusion ward around the basement and upper levels so that only faculty could enter. He knew eventually that they would bring in children who would be problems. It hadn't happened just yet, despite Paige and Amaras ongoing feud, they weren't actually problem children, but he wanted something in place before that. For the moment however, no name had gone into the red zone since Paige's, so getting Magical Minds up and running took priority.
Jean nodded and moved over to the other things on the table for a moment. "The bag of holding contains a combat knife, a few emergency potions, one example of each type that Harry's created so far." She lifted up a handgun that looked like some kind of water pistol mixed with a phaser from Star Trek. "And there's this."
She smirked a little. "With Kitty's help I was able to minimize some of the systems on this one a design I made myself. The shots aren't as powerful as the rifle's, and the magazine is much smaller. For some reason, the cooling array somehow interferes with the enlarging array for the magazine working. Again, something that you wizard types will have to figure out in the future."
Jean turned, holding it inexpertly, she wasn't exactly a gun user by preference, and fired several rounds out over the lake. The bolts were distinctly more yellowish, and far slimmer. The loud 'FZAARK' sound was also somewhat more muted.
Harry nodded approvingly. "The pouch I assume will have some kind of notice-me-not charm on it?"
Here Kitty joined rejoined the discussion, having gotten over her shock and guilt at what had happened to Nikolai, worried at how badly she had screwed up and how badly it could have gone. Mostly because Nikolai had kept on waving her off with a smirk. "Actually, I talked to Clare, and she says there is a house-elf spell that will do the same thing. That will need to be renewed, but the house-elves will remember to do it as necessary, and that way it'll actually be invisible to most magical senses as well."
Harry blinked at that and smiled. "Tell Clare well done for me would you?" He smirked internally, shaking his head. Apparently Claire and Kitty had bonded somewhat, much like Cory and him, which Harry was quite happy about. "And what's this?" he asked motioning over to what look like carapace armor of some sort.
Jean took over from that point nodding at it. "This is one of mine. I took the vulture's flight pack from him, I wanted to see what I could do with it."
She picked up the gauntlet that was lying next to the armor and held it up, showing a several thin wires connecting it to the backpack. "I've been able to re-create what his suit could do, the only problem is that controlling the flight aspect is really hard. Even for someone like me who's become used to flying it was pretty difficult, you have to have real instinct for it. At this point I'm afraid that the best use of this suit is to augment someone's strength. I want to talk to Reed about his teleportation technology, may be something there can be done with this suit. After all, if Wyatt's going to be our sniper, then he shouldn't be staying in close. An emergency way of getting away would be a good idea."
Jean moved down again, picking up what looked like half of a helmet. "This is the scientific method of creating a HUD system."
She handed it Harry, who put it on his head and at her direction flick the switch on the side of the helmet.
"It's a prototype for now. What we'll eventually do is create a system of circuitry in the uniforms that will tell the user of this our status by monitoring our heart rates and other things, possibly tie them into a emergency portkey like the one you made for Emma, Harry. Unfortunately that kind of programming is way beyond me, I can create the devices, but not the programming to actually display the information."
Kitty joined in again shaking her head. "I've tried to read a few computer programming books in my spare time." That was a laugh actually she didn't have any spare time these days. What little she did was spent taking meals with the X-Men or the team here, making sure that she stayed in touch with them all. "I'm afraid that it's beyond me as well for now."
Jean took up the conversation again. "I had hoped that one of the armor suits we took from Russia would have that kind of programming already on it for their users, but they didn't." She looked over apologetically at the two Russians. "Sorry, but it's kind of a fact that your government really didn't care all that much about its citizens, even if soldiers."
"You do not have to be sorry" Piotr said firmly looking over at Nikolai who nodded. "We have no delusions left to us about our government. In point of fact we are both ecstatic that we have not been called back to Russia to deal with mutants in danger."
"So am I." Harry murmured.
Jean shrugged, wrapping up her presentation. "Other than the armor that Harry's been working on that you're already familiar with, that's pretty much it. The command for the teleportation gauntlet as were as two open slots for everyone, get back to me and Kitty, and we'll put them in."
She looked pointedly at Paige who blushed a little. Paige had accidentally ripped her uniform again the day before, and could take a hint when it was delivered with hammer.
She glared at Amara who snickered a little, then looked away pointedly.
"I think this is was an excellent display." Harry said simply, hugging Jean fiercely and then reaching over to rub at Kitty's hair with his free hand. "Well done you two, we'll see a good all of this works in the field when we head down to Greece."
After that the group broke up, with Harry staying by the lake with Kitty, talking quietly to his runic apprentice and cheering her up from her first screw up by telling her about his own: a foul up that literally exploded in his and Hermione's face and slagged two desks. And all they had been doing was trying to make a simply lumos runic array.
No one noticed Paige's sudden smile, as an idea occurred to her.
OOOOOOO
True to Harry's prediction, he had the next day free. The day after however, Harry would once again be incredibly busy with business related items again. The work on the Magical Minds building had finished and he was going to have grand opening.
Today that did not matter, much to Harry's relief. Instead, he and the team were on an enlarged version of the carpet that Harry had taken to using as mass transportation to places they did not know. It wasn't quite as quick as he had hoped for, and he already had plans in mind for something else to replace it, but that would have to wait a while. The only person on the team that wasn't with them at present was Jean. She had been able to make an appointment with Dr. Pym the creator of the medical beds at the Xavier Institute, to pick two of them up. But they had been reinforced for this task.
He looked over at Wyatt, who had agreed to join them for this mission, and was hefting the sniper rifle affectionately, having fallen in love with the weapon upon first use. At present, he had only a minimum armor, but that would not last for long. Reed had taken one look at the work Jean had done building on Vulture's backpack as well as her notes about it, and appropriated the project, saying he had a few ideas.
Then he looked over to where three other newcomers were sitting, smiling slightly. He had gone over to talk to Dr. Strange that morning about a long-term project, one which he had wanted to see was feasible before talking to Gaia about, and had been surprised that Stephen had wanted to along on this mission. He had said at the time that he wanted to examine the items that Harry had found before moving them out of the area, and that anything strange and unusual in Celine's mind might require more local magical knowhow than Harry could call on.
With Stephen had come Clea and their apprentice Wanda. Harry was pleased to see Wanda, glad that she was having this time to get to know teens her own age. She and Jean had seemed to hit it off a little, and she and Paige and Amara also seemed to get along. How much of that had to do with the fact that she wasn't part of the team and the two girls didn't need to figure out where she was in their little strange female hierarchy thing Harry didn't now, nor did he care.
He let his eyes rest on Paige for a moment, who was talking excitedly to Piotr holding onto his arm and leaning over the side of the carpet as they zoomed over Italy. Harry had teleported them over Barcelona, and they were flying down toward Greece from there, cutting out more than half the journey. Paige's mother had given her the okay apparently, but Harry had to wonder how much information about this little jaunt Paige had actually shared with her.
Still, he thought to himself, trying to make himself believe it really, with Stephen Clea and myself along there shouldn't be any kind of magical danger we can run into that will be at a real threat to the team. Or at least, I hope not.
Sir Dennis had taken a break to direct them to the mark on the map back in Hogwarts Harry had made. At present, his work was simply compiling notes about different anti-mutant groups in the world and anti-human mutant groups of which there were alas too many. With his help they arrived at the target location after only an hour and a half of flying. Still, Harry had enjoyed the looks of simple pleasure and wonder on the younger set's face at flying.
Selene's cache in Greece was covered by a monstrously powerful illusion which was being fed by one of the same ley lines that made is ponderous way through the earth under Hogwarts. The illusion made it seem as if the peak had begun to lose the battle with erosion, crumbling in place, still barely standing yet far too dangerous for anyone to try to build anything on.
They hovered in the air for a moment while Stephen and Harry stepped off the carpet, their mage sight activated so they could see through the illusion and could also now see the traps laid out everywhere underneath. The two of them floated down and around the area, taking note of several nasty looking traps here and there.
Steven shook his head at two in particular. One was designed to make stone spikes shoot out the side of the hill to skewer anyone trying to climb up it, coupled with another portion below it to make it look as if they had simply fallen and been killed by a small avalanche. The other was in a line right near the top of the hill, which would attack the mind of anyone stepping over it with their worst nightmares, driving them insane. "How distressingly imaginative in its nastiness, yet irritatingly thorough at the same time. One feels that Selene should have acquired a hobby over the centuries." He murmured looking around.
"Selene was all of that and more." Harry said, remembering that night in London. If he hadn't drained magic from Juggernaut and Cyttorak, that battle could've gone either way.
The two quickly got to work, zooming here and there to take out the traps they could see along the outer shell of the illusion area. After that, Stephen dissipated the illusion with his own spell, which was akin to the ones Harry learned from Blaize.
Above them they could hear the gasps of admiration from the people still on the carpet who could see through the illusion. Where before there was a bare hill that looked like it was ready to collapse, now stood a spire of rock that seemed to have only eroded slightly near the base.
The very top of the mount had a small monastery of some sort that Selene had appropriated. It was a series of buildings, two large ones, one medium sized, and a small one right by a tiny path going up the only side of the hill that wasn't a sheer cliff face, all of them connected by covered walkways. They were set in a square around a central garden which was in turn enclosing a small well, which was so deep that they couldn't see the bottom.
"Let's head down now." Clea murmured, directing the carpet with ease.
OOOOOOO
Jean knew that her teeth were grinding noticeably together. She knew it, but she couldn't stop it, not that her 'host' noticed. When I said to Harry that he was spoiled by Reed in terms of geniuses and their quirks, I didn't think I was spoiled by it as well!
The man leading her through a labyrinth of tables, engineering and scientific equipment and occasional mountains of paper was a genius, just ask anyone who knew Dr. Henry Pym. He was one of the world's foremost experts on biochemistry, hailed by many to be the only man in that field who was more highly regarded than Reed Richards or Tony Stark, who tended to be more jacks-of-all trades.
And oh boy did Henry know it. He was egotistical, brusque to the point of rudeness to anyone he didn't know well, and abrasive on top of that. He was also, and this was the point that was forcing Jean to clamp down hard on her teeth, plus the need to stop herself from using her power to rip off his limbs, a raging sexist.
This was made clear in the first five minutes of conversation with the man. Jean had opened up the conversation, while Henry led her through the warehouse he had taken over as a laboratory. She had told him about her own aspirations into engineering.
Henry had responded by saying. "Oh, well if you want to waste your life I suppose that's up to you, but everyone knows no woman is ever going to make it in the hard sciences. Your brains just aren't wired the right way for it, better to find yourself some other profession."
Of course Jean had taken umbrage at that, and sited several dozen names in the scientific field that were women, but Henry had replied that a few small outliers did not change the basic premise, and indeed felt that many of them were only building on the work already done by a man. Then he had brusquely dismissed her anger as being one brought on by the inevitable weakness of the female mind, before turning to lead her to wear the two medical beds and their accompanying equipment were being stored.
Silence after that had been welcome, allowing Jean to get control of herself before she either blurted out something of her own accomplishments to prove Pym was wrong, or to use her powers on him in some humiliating and painful manner. Especially since he'd take such an assault as proof of my 'female mind's weakness to emotion'. Ugh, I hate sexists, chauvinistic assholes, especially ones who really should fucking know better!
Jean breathed a sigh of relief as they finally found the two medical beds they had ordered through Charles.
"Here you are." Henry said. "I trust you have a jeep or some such to transport them? The two large boxes are the beds themselves, the five smaller is the equipment you need to hook them up to, including the two screens that will display the information of your patient. There are instructions inside, any halfway decent electrician or engineer should be able to follow them easily enough."
His tone seemed to imply that he considered Jean barely adequate at that task, and her teeth ground together even harder to keep her from shouting something she would likely, no, she wouldn't regret it at all come to think of it. "Thank you doctor," she replied instead. "I do have transportation ready, thank you. I trust the check cleared?"
"If it hadn't, I wouldn't have even let you through the door." Henry replied bluntly, rolling his eyes. "Now I have work to do, I trust you can use the lifter to get the packages out to your car?" Without waiting for a reply Henry walked off, pulling out a sheath of tightly cropped notes and looking them over as he walked.
I could use my telepathy, Jean thought wistfully. I could lobotomize him, make it seem like some kind of experiment gone wrong. Stop that Jean, let's just get the goods and get out of here. Leave the pig to his own devices.
With that thought Jean got to work, not using her telekinesis since she didn't know if Henry had recording devices around. It took her only twenty minutes to load the boxes into the small moving van she had rented for the day. Cory was waiting inside, whisking each piece away to the castle in turn. The van would stay at the mansion for the evening, then one of the X-men would return it the next day.
As she rode away, Jean was still dealing with her irritation at the man she had just left. Her last thought when leaving was: that man needs a good woman to smack him into shape, good luck to whoever takes on that job!
Jean never noticed that a few cars had stopped outside the warehouse as she was leaving. And even if she had, she would never have been able to see the people inside the cars thanks to their specially tinted glass. Two men came out of one of the cars, while their fellows remained in their cars, waiting. If someone had been in position to look into the car the two men got out of, they would have seen a flash of a baggy yellow pant leg.
OOOOOOO
Clea moved forward quickly to join her lover and Harry in going over the outer defenses, removing what they could. All three of course knew that they were missing one or two here and there, traps like this were very hard to spot even with mage sight. The three of them briefly debated the idea of making their own entrance or simply landing in the small garden in the center of the structure, but none of them thought that a good idea. Traps set into the masonry of the walls or hidden in some other fashion could still eb there after all.
When she joined them at the entrance to the monastery, Ororo had much more luck. Calling on her skills as a thief, she spotted several pressure-based traps and pointing them out right by the doorway. Behind them, the teens spread out waiting, in a few cases eagerly, for trouble to appear.
After removing the door carefully from its frame, Harry, Stephen and Ororo peered into the interior of the small entrance hall. It was bare save for a few statues made of stone, though Harry could sense something magical in them. Still at present he was more concerned about less obvious traps. The floor was made of rocks set into concrete, and there was a small chandelier with places for candles long since gone for light. Two open doorways lead out to either side to the covered walkways leading to the other buildings.
"Those are all pressure traps." Ororo said definitively, pointing them out one after another from where she crouched low to the ground. "I can't tell what kind of surprise they are linked to from here however."
"How can you tell?" Harry asked.
"Each stone is raised just slightly above the others, much like a primitive pressure plate would be, and I gather that this place was built quite a while ago so that makes sense. Another portion of it is the placement of them. You can't enter either of the walkways heading deeper into the monastery without stepping on those stones. The central most point, the one that isn't in front of the walkways, is probably designed around a larger trap, one to encompass the entire room."
Ororo frowned momentarily straightening up and looking up as far as she could at the ceiling of the entrance way without actually poking her head over the doorway. That line was worrying all of them, but they couldn't detect anything on the actual doorway itself. Nor could Ororo discern anything up above them in the way of nasty surprises.
After a moment all three of the adults pulled back and looked at one another. Harry shrugged. "This is why we brought the team in the first place, to get them all some experience out in the real world. Let's see how they solve it."
Stephen shrugged. "As long as we are here to protect them from anything purely magical, I suppose that makes sense."
The others nodded and the three of them moved backwards waving the teens forward. Ororo instructed them on what that she had been able to discern from the interior and then the adults stood back, letting the teams solve the problem if they could. Problem solving, teamwork, and the ability to think on their own were incredibly important, and this would be a real test for all of them.
Colossus changed into his metal form gesturing into the entrance way. "Regardless of anything else, I am in the lead."
Paige however was quickly ripping away her normal skin, and now stood there in a metal form she had been working on for a while. "Me too. In fact, why are we so hard up on entering this way, couldn't we take out a portion of the outer wall and enter that way?"
They all looked over at Ororo who shrugged. "It's a thought, but we can't tell you if it's a safe one or not. That will be up to you to find out, the way the entrance area is shaped none of us can see inside it."
"And I'm not about to risk sending in Hedwig even on the wing." Harry replied firmly.
Amara frowned a little knowing this was a test of the team, and the adults would only help so much if they could. They would block any direct magical attack on them while letting the physical and mental ones to the team. However she thought that Harry conjuring up some tea and biscuits for himself and the others was a bit much.
"Remember what I said back of the Castle." he said looking up at them all and smirking evilly at the look Paige was sending him. "Don't touch anything inside until we've given you the okay."
"In that case." Amara said taking charge. She transformed herself into her energy form, and small bits of fire and magma appeared in her hand. "I'll hit the pressure plates from here, that'll give us an idea of what kind of trap is in place. Piotr, no damnit, need to get into the habit, Colossus, stand by the doorway. Husk and Vanguard can try to break through the walls somewhere else. "
Husk was the name they had assigned to Paige. Given her powers it was an accurate description, but it wasn't a name Paige was particularly happy with. Until she came up with something better however, Husk it was, no matter how much she glowered at Magma. Wyatt hadn't yet been assigned a nickname, having shot down Longshot, which was Harry's idea for his name, quickly, promising to come up with something in the next few days.
With Vanguard now able to call up his shield at will the two assigned to breaking in would be pretty much invulnerable, or so the teens thought anyway. "Scarlet Witch, you go with them, Wyatt will stay here." Magma ordered. While her knowledge was still lacking badly, Wanda could wield magic, and her powers made her very adaptable.
"Don't go too far though." Harry cautioned, speaking up now. "Just on the other side of one of these covered walkways.
"One moment." Wyatt said raising his hand in which he held a small rock he had picked up from the pathway leading down the hill. He threw it at the area between the small exterior wall separating the covered walkway from the outside of the structure and the slanted roof. Then he nodded in satisfaction when it was immediately hit by some blue-black sphere of energy. "Thought so."
At the sign of that waiting 'surprise', Clea opted to follow her apprentice, while Ororo and Steven took up position behind the others just in case. Amara waited until Piotr was directly in front of the doorway, with her crouching behind him aiming between the doorway and his large, rather sculpted metal thigh. Despite what she was about to do, and what she should have been focused on Amara couldn't help but wonder if he was as well built in his human form.
She then hurled her makeshift missiles inside, smashing into the three pressure plates that Ororo had noticed. Several dozen scythe blades came out of the walls at various points, sweeping the room from end to end. A blast of fire at head height immediately followed, filling the air of the room right in front of the two open doorways.
Ororo nodded in satisfaction. "I thought the walls seemed too thick." she said smugly. "The scythes are just one shots, they'll have to be reset if they're mechanical. If they're magical I have no idea though." Harry and Steven both shrugged at that, having no idea how to do such a thing magically.
Piotr sighed explosively, then after sharing glances with the other teens behind him moved forward through the doorway. A magical barrier appeared right in front of him before several dagger shaped bolts of pure black were about to strike him, and Harry smirked at him, the tea and biscuits nowhere to be seen. "I've got your back Colossus."
"Normally that would be a comforting thought." The former Russian civilian responded dryly. "At present, it just means I'm in front of you, ergo more liable to be shot at." Still he stood still, waiting as Harry sent spells past him toward the places where those attacks had come from disabling wards that he had not been able to discern until they fired off.
With that, Piotr stepped forward three paces into the entrance room. He waited again, but nothing happened and he moved forward. Ororo came in after, glancing around and nodding in approval at what she saw. The traps she had noticed did indeed have to be reset. None of them were foolish enough to come near the small statues set in each corner.
Further along the outer wall, Paige grunted as she smashed a fist into the low wall, watching her fist bounce off as if it had struck rubber. "We'll have to head back to the others." she said irritably. "There's some kind of spell on this, unless you can remove it for us, Scarlet?"
"That's what I'm here for Blondie." Wanda needled, moving past Paige who smirked, tossing her hair. She knew envy when she heard it. Wanda however quickly found herself out of her depth. "I can barely feel any magic in the wall at all, I have no idea what it's doing, it might be part of the preservation spell that's kept this place so well-preserved, or the spell that makes your punches bounce off like rubber."
"Let me try." Nicolai said, raising his rifle firing at both the wall and the air above it below the slanted roof. His bolts whizzed through the air with no effect, but the plasma rounds that impacted the wall also bounced away. "Interesting, I think Harry might want to study this, that is a pretty cool defense."
Paige grunted irritably, but Wanda had been studying what the magic in the wall did when struck, and she nodded now, pushing forward a bit of her magic, her utterly chaotic, ever changing magic into the wall, joining the magic already there. Wanda had hoped that this would destabilize the magic there, letting them to smash the wall down.
What she had not expected was to have the magic suddenly cascade, causing a surprisingly large explosion. "KRAKOOM!"
It was only thanks to Vanguard's fast reaction time that Wanda escaped with only minor wounds. The moment he saw her suddenly panicking face, he reached out, grabbing Wanda and tossing her behind him and Paige. Thanks to his force field and her metal body, the two of them weathered the explosion, which demolished the wall from one building to another.
All that was left was a few bits of rock spreading out everywhere. The bits that had flown back into the covered walkway triggered more traps, causing dozens of varying magical and machine traps to go off, one after another. The whole corridor was thus demolished, in peals of thunder, flashes of utter blackness, beams of purple, and, of course, poisoned darts, scythe blades from the ceiling, spikes from the floor and the odd pit suddenly appearing.
All in all, it was the most impressive piece of destruction Nicolai had seen. "Boshemoi, Scarlet, I think that if there were awards given to explosions, that one would take away the most artistic award, yes?"
"Oh shut up Vanguard, all I did was the first bit, and even that was accidental." Wanda groaned, rubbing her rear as Paige helped her to her feet while Harry and the others turned to look at what had happened, peering out from the door to the entryway. Harry and Steven made their way through the wreckage, both of them looking oddly at the trio. "What the hell happened?"
Clea sent her apprentice an admonishing look, standing there immaculate thanks to a hastily conjured shield. "My young fool of an apprentice here decided that instead of unraveling the runic array set into the fabric of the wall she would simply pump some her chaotic based magic into it to see what happened. This was the result."
Paige tried to speak up for her new friend. "Er, to be fair, I don't think that a lot of that was on Wanda, I mean, yeah the initial explosion was but the rest was just because of you know, the fallout…" She trailed off under the look Clea was giving her.
"I assure you young one, I am well aware of that, but think for a minute." Clea reached over, one hand glowing with one of the healing spells she and Steven had learned from the Hogwarts library. Wanda gratefully leaned back into her teacher's hands as they worked at her lower back, where she had felt a large bruise forming from where she had landed, then her shoulder and arm.
"In any well-crafted warding scheme, the defenses are more often than not intertwined. If one goes off or dissipates for any reason, it can cause the others to respond in similar fashion. If that had been the case here, then my apprentice could well have caused this whole edifice to explode as spectacularly as the wall, or triggered all the magical traps all at once or any number of other outcomes that would have bene decidedly unpleasant for all of us, and possibly the surrounding area."
So saying, Clea finished healing Wanda, save for one rather spectacular bruise on her bare forearm. Her hand hovered over it as she looked sternly into Wanda's eyes. "I should let you keep this little mark, the better to remind you of the folly of not thinking things through. You know your magic has strange effects on other types. My uncle believed that pain was an excellent teacher."
She laughed quietly while the other teens looked on in dismay, but Wanda merely nodded and Clea's hand once more glowed the light green of healing. "Luckily for you, my dear, I am not my uncle. Still, don't worry me like that again, I have no wish to have to go to the bother of finding another apprentice."
Wanda blushed under the gentle remonstrance, but nodded, smiling faintly at the older woman's concern. While to the others it may have sounded harsh, Wanda appreciated it more than she could say. Someone who taught her to learn from her mistakes while expressing concern for her, like a parent ought to, was something Wanda treasured.
Harry however simply shrugged and moved on. Magical teens were bound to have a few explosion type accidents after all, he certainly had more than his fare share. "Well, on the bright side she cleared this whole passage of traps. I guess we're going to see what this building contains first." He indicated the medium sized building that made up the leftmost corner of the diamond shape of the monastery.
While the majority of the teens busied themselves removing the remains of the various traps, and Wyatt and Vanguard set up at the top of the path leading down the hill just in case, Steven and Clea joined Harry and Ororo at the arch leading into the next building. Ororo was the first to speak and when she did, she sounded puzzled. "I see the same setup of pressure plates here as elsewhere but…" She frowned for a moment, then went on. "I think that there are at least five traps set along the ceiling linked to…"
She waved a hand slightly, sending a tiny breeze through the doorway at ankle height, carrying the dust of the explosion in. When it settled, they could all see very slim, nearly invisible wires crisscrossing the room. Ororo smiled. "Tripwires. The problem is, I think that they are all dead-man types, the ceiling looks like its going to fall inward if you trip any of them."
Harry and Steven exchanged a glance and Harry shrugged. "Ok lads and lasses, it's your turn…"
This time the teens showed off more in the way of problem solving. With Ororo's aid, they once more destroyed the pressure plate traps, then Paige and Colossus got to work on removing the roof entirely. They cut around the top of the wall about a foot below where it met the roof, then the two powerhouses lifted it off entirely. Selene had neglected to put any triggers on the roof or that high up the wall, so they were able to remove it easily. After that, they entered, but still tripped one last trap which was purely magical in nature.
There was a tapestry lining one wall from end to end in this room, along with numerous paintings and over a dozen very odd looking items. At the moment, the only one that mattered was the tapestry however. It depicted a hunting scene, a large lion, a bear and other animals, followed by the hunters, two human men of rather heroic good looks and a dozen hunting hounds.
As Colossus set foot into the room the image on the tapestry came alive, jumping out of it to attack. Harry blinked in surprise. "Huh, hadn't thought of that one."
"It's a rather old-fashioned way of holding golems in stasis." Clea said analytically, looking on. "I much prefer simple statues myself, that way they can react individually, but this way is rather more visually impressive."
"Wait, so these are golems!" Paige shouted, from where she, Magma, and Colossus were busy fighting off the beasts as they tried to swarm out of the entrance into the walkway. "I want to be clear on this!"
"Oh yes, magical constructs, I would guess a mix of bone, wood and steel judging from how quick they are. This isn't the first time I've seen such. In my old dimension it was considered the thing to do to, if you found your lover cheating on you, to capture his or her soul and put it in such a golem, then trap it in the painting." Clea said, smiling as she and the other oldsters flew up into the air over the battle to land lightly in the room beyond.
Steven smiled faintly, shaking his head at Clea's odd sense of humor, after all, he was a one woman sort of man regardless of such threats.
"Good!" Paige shouted, slamming a fist through the body of one of the hounds. "Then we don't have to hold back."
"Seems a pity in some ways." Wanda said, raising a shield to block a few of the arrows from one of the hunters while returning fire with her other hand. Her spell struck the golem, causing the thing to trip and lose it's bow, which turned into a snake which proceeded to try to bit the thing. "Those two hunters at least are awful sexy, like movie stars."
"Get your head in the game girl!" Magma roared, sending out a stream of flaming magma from her hands which burned a few more of the hunting pack. The bear and lion were fully engaged in trying to eat Colossus, but were not having much luck. "They can still hurt you!"
Wanda nodded seriously, and the quartet made short work of the golems while the magic users removed the remaining magic traps, both from this room and the corridor beyond that connected it to the backmost building from the monastery's entrance. That room however, both Steven and Harry had determined contained even worse magical traps than the rest they had run into. In fact the teens were not going to be let near it at all.