The War of Titans 21

“Oh my fucking God,” Peter whispered with his hands on his head, as he saw Ross execute himself—after the world-shaking confession of course. The whole thing was done live all across the world, if the way all billboards had shown the same thing meant anything “This is not good. This is so not good.”

“What do you mean it is not good?” One of the policemen he was assisting in moving the rubble asked, cocking his head to the side, “That bastard admitted to his crimes and offed himself. I don’t see that problem, especially after the shitstorm he left for us.”

“Lad is right,” the Thing grunted out, lifting up a whole column so that the Rescue team could get to the parking lot built beneath them, “After this stunt, mutants will strike against the army and the government. America will suffer internal as well as external attacks on its reputation and morals. Countries will back out on deals, and the whole world will demand explanations. In turn, the President will shift the blame on how the mutants and we enhanced are destructive forces in nature, with video clips from several incidents to back them up. The populace will believe him in an instant, after all, for years it has been said that mutants and enhanced are no longer humans…and no offence, Spidey, but that Jameson man will make your wall-crawling even more difficult.”

“Well fuck,” the policeman cursed, glaring at the dark billboard above them. “That was just what the world needed. Another fucking “disagreement” between mutants and enhanced and humans. Fan-fucking-tastic!”

“Well, it isn’t as if the situation wasn’t already heading towards that,” Reed Richards said as he jumped down to join them, hands reaching out to grab the rubble and lift it away, “However, I must say I hadn’t thought Magneto to be capable of restraint while standing in one of the most important cities in the world. He could have simply toppled buildings over to crush the army as well as the people themselves.”

“Because you are disconnected with the world most of the time Strech,” Ben snorted, hauling a car out of the cave-in. “That would have resulted in more mutant deaths within moments as that Humanity cult and even normal citizens would have flooded the streets with pitchforks and torches.”

“On the topic of mutants…anyone knows why the X-Men didn’t come today?” Peter asked, taking the car from Ben and placing it down on the road, sighing as he saw the crushed bodies inside, “And this one also goes to the morgue, Captain.”

“I don’t know, but we can presume that Phoenix has gone to check on her teammates,” Reed answered, pressing a button on his watch before he looked at him. “You sure you are upto the task Spiderman, you are walking around with three cracked bones.”

“Holy shit,” the policeman murmured, looking at the resident superhero with horror and awe both, “Fuck what Jameson says, you are definitely the best thing that ever happened to this city! Go and take some rest son, I don’t think it is any good for you to lift cars and beams in this state. You do no one any good by aggravating them any further.”

“I can han-”

“No, you can’t kid,” the Thing grunted, lightly pressing his finger on Peter’s chest, making the younger man groan in pain, “See, now get out of here before I pick you up and throw you into an ambulance.”

Seeing no support around him, Peter threw up his hands, “Well stop glaring at me, I know how to take care of myself! Hell, I have taken out bullets from myself, NYPD issued ones to be precise,” he scoffed, taking some measure of satisfaction in the shame that washed over the uniformed men around him, their eyes lowering to the ground uncomfortably, “But since you guys are so insistent, I can go save some cat from the tree. Toodles!”

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“I am hom-huh,” Harry blinked as he reappeared in the living room of Charles’ mansion, his grin evaporating away into a frown as he saw the grim faces around him. The field team was all sitting with their heads in their hands, and Jean was arguing with Scott regarding something in the corner. Charles and Logan were nowhere to be seen, but based on the shredded walls and the dust still in the air, they weren’t far off, “What in the name of Morgana’s tits happened here?!”

“A fucking disaster is what happened,” Ororo muttered, and a terrible realization began to settle in his mind as he looked around himself again. Other than the people in the room with him, and Charles and Logan somewhere in the manor…he couldn’t detect anyone. Sensing out the whole mansion through the wards he had put up, he stumbled in shock, and grabbed the nearest wall for support as his worst fears were confirmed.

Someone had come into the mansion, and taken away every child under its roof. But the wards were undisturbed. The grounds were clean, and the mansion was undisturbed from what he had been able to see, so there was no struggle from the mutants here. His mind already frayed with the events of the day and the horrors he had witnessed in Ross’ mind as well as computer and hard data, Harry felt the remaining patience within him snap as Scott and Jean continued arguing in the corner,

“Silence!” He snapped, and even without magic, something in his voice instantly stopped both of their mouths, their eyes widening as they looked at him. The others sitting on the couches also looked at him with surprise, their faces paling a moment later as they saw him fully. Unknown to him, his eyes darkened into pools of blackness as his wings flared out behind him, cutting through the walls with ease as crimson electricity ran through the feathers, “Stop this bickering right now and sit quietly. Kitty, get Logan and Charles.”

The girl mutely nodded and sank into the wall behind her, and finally realizing the state of his own body, Harry took a deep breath and retracted his wings while his eyes returned to their original color. Repairing the whole room with a wave of his hand, Harry conjured a chair and sat on it, his ears picking up the sound of Charles’ wheelchair approaching them. He met Ororo’s eyes as the man finally entered the room, Logan and Kitty hot on his heels, and with a sigh, dispelled the storm clouds that were hovering above them.

“I see you have been busy today,” Charles began, giving him a nod as he stopped by the television, which started showing the repeat telecast of Ross’ death a moment later, “No one can trace you back to us?”

“None,” he shook his head, his respect for the man rising even more, while the younger mutants all looked at the telepath with surprise, “But I think we should discuss that after someone tells me what happened here. Where the fuck are all the kids?!”

“Gone,” Logan growled, pacing back and forth as his claws once again exited his hands, “Someone came here, and without disturbing a single thing, kidnapped all the kids within twenty fucking minutes!”

“I assume you all were out when this happened?”

“Of course we were,” the feral mutant growled back, motioning at the girls sitting on the couch, “Ororo took one team to Louisiana on Blackbird, while Scott took another towards DC, and Charles and I airdropped midway from the plane. We all came back roughly at the same time, but the kids were gone, and I can’t find a single goddam FUCKIN’ THING ABOUT THE ASSHOLES WHO DID IT!”

“Stop shouting Logan,” Ororo muttered, electricity arcing out of her eyes and hair as a small wind blew through the room, “For now, at least we can rule out Erik and his Brotherhood.”

“Even if he hadn’t been busy with the army, kidnapping mutants against their will isn’t something he’d do,” Charles murmured, glaring out of the window with his hands in his lap, and Harry shivered as for a moment as he felt the full power behind the man’s mental barriers explode out before it was contained back, “No, this is someone else. I would suspect Ross with what he attempted and admitted today, but he is dead, and we would have known had the children been taken to his base.”

“I can track them down with my abilities,” Harry offered, taking a glance at the others, “Find me something of theirs. A hairbrush, a toothbrush, something which will have…their DNA on it I suppose.”

“Reall-”

“We can ask him about the specifics later,” Charles interjected in a firm voice, ending Rogue’s question before it even began, “Ororo, bring something which satisfies Harry’s necessity. Logan, take everyone else and do a top to bottom search of the mansion. Look for anything which the kidnappers may have left behind. And Scott, stop blaming Jean for something that isn’t her fault. If she hadn’t gone on a date, then she would have been on one of the teams. Either way, the result would have been the same.”

‘Oh you little shit,’ Harry thought disdainfully as he glared at the frankly narrow-minded, loudspoken, arrogant mutant. He knew about Scott’s love for Jean, and how pathetically…whiny he was about his eyes. To be honest, it reminded him far too much of Remus Lupin in some ways, which certainly didn’t do anything to make him see the boy in a positive light. Then of course, there were the glares he was sending at him every now and then, as if it was his fault that Jean liked him better than she ever did Scott. The boy practically had years to make a favorable impression of himself before he was shat out by a dimensional tear! Hell, forget about dating Jean and being her ‘love’, the boy wasn’t even a good team leader, or at least, not with how his brain was wired right now. Kitty and Kurt on the other hand, were far more suited to the role, with an instinctive understanding and adaptability to behave and react on the fly.

Standing up from the chair and vanishing it, he walked towards Jean, smirking as Scott bumped shoulders with him, only to stumble away shakily. Stupid kid. Ignoring the way Ororo and Kitty were staring at him and the fuming teenager behind him, Harry stopped in front of his…girlfriend and cupped her face. Leaning down to press his forehead against her, he took some satisfaction in the angry grunt that left Scott’s lips, as well as the delighted gasp Kitty let out. Ororo ushered the two kids out of the room the next moment, and as the door closed behind them, his eyes met Jean’s.

“You used magic on Ross,” she mumbled, looking into his emerald eyes as her mind reached out to his, gently touching his barriers. “You made him admit all that before he killed himself.”

“I did,” he admitted without hesitation, lowering the barriers and sharing the memories of that half-hour he had spent inside Ross’ office. He showed her the papers, the video logs, and the irrefutable evidence that the most decorated General of the US Army was nothing but a power-hungry, psychopathic genocidal monster. He shared with her how he had felt, watching the skin peel off the captured POWs or terrorists, blood erupting from their eyes as their skin glowed and bodies combusted. He showed her how Ross experimented on children, dosing them with chemicals and splicing their genes until they died in a tube. He shared with her his anger and disgust for the general, and the satisfaction he had felt when he had controlled Ross into admitting his crimes, “Would you have done any different had you known about all this?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, shuddering as she immediately banished the memories into the underground cellar of her mind’s astral representation. Some things were better left alone, especially after what that single glance at the lab videos had shown her mind, “I would have destroyed the whole base in a fit of anger, burned it all down to ashes!”

“Hey hey, calm down,” he raised an eyebrow as her eyes burned with flames, and her voice turned into a layered, rageful tone. Calming down her mind by sharing his feelings for her as well as the memories of their date, Harry sighed as her eyes went back to normal and she gasped in her own voice. Her arms wrapped around his back as she hugged him tightly, and he frowned as he felt her shake slightly. “What happened Jean? Was it something Scott said?”

“No you stupid man, it was the fact that you dropped out of the sky several hundred feet above the ground,” she mumbled angrily, pulling back to look at him with teary eyes, “I mean, I know you are fine now, but those five seconds when you kept fa-falling….I can’t stop think-”

“Oh Jean,” he sighed as he brought her close, tucking her face under his chin and laying a palm on her head, a calming charm following right after as he continued, “Nothing happened to me, and I promise you, you will never have to see me like that ever again. Now, do you think you can handle the Cerebro for now? I need to have Charles with me when I find the kids.”

“Let me take a bath first,” she muttered, sighing as she pulled back and grimaced, “I smell awful, don’t I? Jesus, you won’t believe how many times I flew through smoke while you were chatting with Magneto.”

“Is that a trick question?” He asked in return, making her give him a withering look as he chuckled, lowering his hands from her shoulder to her waist. Pulling her in, Harry swallowed her gasp with a soft kiss, pressing his lips against plush ones, his thumb lightly running over her skin. Jean moaned softly, a low sound that sent blood rushing to his pants as she molded herself against him, parting her lips slightly and breathing heavily. However, just before Harry could resume things from where they had left off an hour ago, he caught the sound of footsteps coming towards the living room.

“Fuck,” he cursed, pulling back from the kiss and glaring at the door right as it opened, revealing Ororo and Kitty standing on the other side, with the latter looking rightfully embarrassed, “You got the items so quickly?”

“It doesn’t take long to go to the adjacent rooms and get their things you know,” Ororo raised an eyebrow, a knowing glint in her eyes as she looked at them both, “Now, what do you need to do with these? We have toys, favorite books, and hairbrushes.”

“Now? Now we do some spying, and for that, I need these things,” he said, moving towards Ororo and raising his palm, levitating the various objects to himself. ”Tell Charles to join me by the edge of the forest, and keep everyone away. Jean, once you are connected to Cerebro, tell me, and we will find the bastards who kidnapped the kids.”

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“I still can’t believe not even a single camera or voice recorder has anything for us,” Charles muttered as he followed Harry into the forest, towards the clearing which was hidden by…Fidelius, if he remembered correctly, “Do you think someone with your abilities could have done this?”

“There is no one like me Charles,” he chuckled, looking up at the barely visible moon with a wistful look, “I found no signs of any magic user in any of the most probable sites, or any hint of there having been a community of wizards. Sure, I found a group that uses magic, but it is vastly, inherently different from my own brand, and they call themselves sorcerers. Though…her magic felt similar to what my world had practiced, but why would sh-”

“Who are you speaking of?” The telepath inquired, reaching out with his mind to confirm that the students were in the mansion instead of following them outside, “Would they know of the fact that there are several mutants living here?”

“I doubt Morgan would care about this place, to be honest,” Harry shook his head, and Charles blinked at the name. Surely this was not the Morgan from the Arthurian tales. She had lived hundreds of years ago, and even if she was alive, why was the Royal Family sitting on the throne of the British Isles instead of her?! It did-, “But I can check in with her after this, just to be sure. Now, what about the trips you people went on, I don’t see any new faces around me.”

“One was a false alarm, probably by the kidnapping group itself,” he sighed back, rubbing his eyes tiredly as the thought of what the children must be undergoing went through his brain, “and on the other two…we were late. Betta, a girl of twelve got her pyrokinetic mutation triggered when she witnessed her dog die in a car accident, and by the time we reached her house, she had almost been beaten to death by the teenagers around her. Evidently, half of them were regular attendees of Friends of Humanity sermons. The second one, a boy named Joey, was found by Ororo, dead and mutilated beyond recognition in the woods. From what she was able to gather, his mutation was attracting animals to himself, and communicating with them…however, he was barely six years old, and alone in a forest. A pack of wild dogs came to him, and he panicked.”

“And the dogs panicked too,” Harry concluded, shaking his head in sorrow, “Still, I somehow find that more…merciful than the ones that die by human hands. At least Joey didn’t experience his friends and other humans turning on him because of bigotry and hatred. Wild dogs are wild, they attack anything they deem as prey. But these….fucking Friends of Humanity, they deserve what Magneto did to them today.”

“And what did he do exactly, I didn’t have the time to watch the news before we left.”

“He crushed buildings full of those scumbags, and the public supported it when he brought out the proof this time,” he explained as they came out into the clearing, a small pond right in the center reflecting the moonlight in all directions. “I am rather surprised you took my indirect murder of Ross so well. I was fully expecting you to call me out on it in front of everyone and well…preach some morality to me.”

“I am a supporter of mutant-human peace and coexistence, not a supporter of inhumane torture visited upon either,” Charles frowned, turning his face to the side as he closed his eyes. “I raised the topic of Ross persecuting Magneto once in the Senate, and several times with various Government officials. I cited that it would only turn public opinion against mutants, and Ross was clearly causing destruction on a scale that was insane at its best. But had I known that Ross was experimenting upon children, hell even adults captured by him…I would have ended his career, his life, his everything.”

“Hmm,” Harry just hummed in response to that declaration, feeling the weight of Charles’ complete, overwhelmingly strong psychic presence radiate out anger and loathing for a moment before the telepath reigned it back. “Stop right there, and stay connected with my mind. The scrying spell will lead me to the children, and you will be hitching a ride on my eyes, but don’t try to encroach any further into my psyche. Once I find the children, you will see them too, and you can use Jean to trace them by Cerebro.”

“And in case the spell fails?”

“Then either it means that the children are dead,” he answered, sitting down upon the water—and much to Charles’ amazement, without disturbing the surface in any way. The objects Ororo had brought for him appeared around his firm, revolving slowly as white lines began to burn and sizzle across the ground, “Or they are behind anti-scrying wards, which with all these articles to hone in on them and my own power would still break through those enough to get us a location anyway. I somehow doubt that whoever took them would be able to compensate for not only the scrying technique that my people have developed, but also for the power that will be behind it. .”

“Your people's technique?”

“The efforts of thousands of people over thousands of years went into studying and refining magical techniques and know-how on my world. I’ve already said that there really aren't any obvious signs of any long-lasting magical communities in this world. And Morgan told me that there are other magicals on this Earth. However, in an absence of any structured community, they learned by trial and error, by texts, and at the feet of the other wizards and witches. They may be powerful for sure, but their learning and skills won’t be as diverse as mine.”

“And that diversity allowed for different perspectives when studying a certain field, and thus led to a greater understanding of something. But it likely took longer to get there…” Charles nodded, finding the differences enlightening. Harry acknowledged his deduction with a nod, but said nothing more as he started the ritual.

He watched with fascination as the lines shifted and curved, forming archaic, unknown glyphs and letters on the ground. Overhead, the moon seemed to shine just a little bit brighter as Harry’s eyes began to glow brilliantly, two orbs of emerald fire staring out into nothingness. The revolving objects came to a stop above the runic circle, and lowered down into the circular gaps left between the glowing glyphs, and Charles’ hair stood on the end as he felt something.

A bluish-black aura began to coalesce around him, rising off his body like the flames from a bonfire, and Charles took that as the signal to reach out to Harry’s mind. Closing his eyes, he slowly approached the wizard on the astral plane, noting the flow of something primal around his psyche, much like what happened when he was using psionic energy on a massive scale. The storm of what he guessed was magic, parted away in front of his tendril of thought, and Harry opened his walls just enough to let that connection between them form.

Charles’ vision immediately shifted, the glade he was in disappearing from his eyes as instead he was transported to a dark, empty void—or maybe it was Harry’s mind or soul or whatever, and he was just seeing it? Colors bled into the blackness, rotating and shifting as if someone was stirring a bucket of paint, and overlapped, warbling voices began to echo around him.

‘-gan, save me!’

‘I want to go home!’

‘-ean! I want Jean!’

‘Please leave us, take us back to the Professor.’

‘You don’t know what you are dealing with, you ignorant cunts!’ Hank’s voice echoed amongst the children and Charles breathed a mental sigh of relief. He had feared the worst for a moment regarding his old friend, thinking that the kidnappers would have no use for a mutant with enhanced strength at the best, ‘You don’t know the disaster you have invited on yourself. Monsters are going to knock on your door very so-’

“My My, what a surprise,” a regal, beautiful voice purred, the breathy voice echoing around them as the woman behind it chuckled, “Hmm, scrying, are we? Tut tut, I can’t have that and let you ruin my fun now can I? Off you go.”

The colors around them, which had finally begun to make sense to his eyes began to dissolve away as the female voice cackled with glee. He felt Harry push harder, feeling every iota of focus and power he was putting behind the scrying. And it worked too, the images suddenly clearing up enough to show him Hank and the children, chained and cuffed into a dark, damp cellar. However, they once again began to dissolve away, and this time, it all happened so fast that Charles lost sight of them before Harry could even do anything.

His presence slammed back inside his body with a jolt, and Charles groaned as he experienced a migraine for the first time in decades. Rubbing the spot between his eyes tiredly, he looked up just in time for Harry to gasp and fall on his back, the magical circle around him dissolving away into motes of light. The items around him disintegrated into ash, which blew away into the wind as the wizard groaned and stumbled back to his feet.

“Fuck that was not good,” he muttered, glaring at the spot where he had sat just a few moments ago. “We are dealing with a powerful sorceress. At least as powerful as me if not more. Tell me you got their location though, before that witch warded off the structure.”

Reaching out to Jean, who herself had been hitching a ride on his mind, Charles chuckled as she responded with a single word. He smiled at the younger man, and Harry grinned back as lightning crackled all over his form, while the grass around his feet withered and died.

“London, she is in London.”