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After discussing the various possibilities and Harry's 'educated' guesses, it was decided to call in Warren Worthington III, also known as Angel, the Economics teacher for the Institute. Once he arrived, Angel would take Shadowcat, Pixie, the whole of the third X-Men team, and Harry in the X-Men's Jet, the Blackbird, to Pennsylvania.

Unlike the other teachers, Angel was not fetching students at the moment. Rather, he was still in New York handling various matters of the business he owned.

Harry had learned not long ago that this angel winged Economics Teacher was the owner of Worthington Industries. Since getting into business himself three years ago Harry had pretty much memorized all the largest businesses and their various subsidiaries. Worthington Industries owned the handful of airline companies which produced the most advanced and sophisticated aviation technologies in the world. They also owned several companies that produced alternative fuels which freed their airlines from the oil market. They also owned one company that produced fancy frozen yogurts. Harry was not sure why.

After getting into contact with Warren, Xavier confirmed he was on his way and would be arriving within the hour. Harry used that time to look up the so-called orphanage. There were no public records of it, but the records that mentioned it indirectly stated it was set up a year and a half ago and was called Nanny's Lost Boys (and Girls). Harry assumed it was a Peter Pan reference though not exactly clever.

Warren arrived after Harry finished what little investigations he could and was given the details.

After looking over the paperwork Harry pulled out, Warren said, "I've made it my business over the last five years to help mutants, but I've never heard of a mutant orphanage, especially not one so close to home. This seems more than a little suspicious. In case worse comes to worse, I'll make a few calls now to ensure arrangements are made."

He didn't elaborate but Harry knew what Angel meant. If they had to take the orphanage down, there would be a lot of homeless kids to take care of. Xavier's Institute was a High School level boarding school with over one hundred rooms, but that didn't give him permission to just bring everyone over. There were legal processes required before such a thing could be sanctioned. Thankfully money talks. Between Xavier's connections and Warren's wealth, they were going to make sure whatever was done was done in the best interests of the children.

Before heading into the briefing, Harry went to his room to invite ForgetMeNot. Marrow was with Domino so the members of the second X-men team at the mansion were just Pixie and Shadowcat who were both coming. Harry hadn't gotten a confirmation but he figured ForgetMeNot was as well.

When he entered the room, Goose was sitting on her enchanted bed and ForgetMeNot was out. Harry asked Goose, "Do you know where ForgetMeNot went?"

Goose looked up and answered through their connection, 'He left a few hours ago.'

Harry sighed and was about to leave when he turned back and asked, "Hey Goose, do you want to come fight demons and rescue orphans?"

After a moment of contemplation, Goose asked, 'Are you going alone?'

"No, I'll have backup."

Goose rolled over to get more comfortable and conveyed back, 'Perhaps next time.'

Harry figured as much but felt she would appreciate being asked even if she was likely to decline.

Harry grabbed a backpack and filled it with stuff from his inventory before heading back to the briefing.

Warren said, "Now that everyone's here, let's get started."

The papers Harry had printed out had been scanned into a projector Warren used to explained the details for everyone.

Warren asked Harry, "Do you recognize what kind of magic this could be?"

Harry nodded and took out necklaces and cheap trinkets for everyone before answering, "More likely than not, that's demon magic. Everyone please pick something and wear it. It won't provide much protection against demon magic, but it's better than nothing."

Kurt picked up a chain and examined it for a moment before stating, "This looks like cheap costume jewelry you see pop ups to buy on the internet."

Kitty said, "Yeah, this is like, tacky."

Harry sighed and said, "The symbols on the tacky costume jewelry are legit though. Like I said, It's better than nothing." Someone wearing the charm would be difficult to target with demon magic which was quite an advantage, though explaining how that worked or that the custom jewelry company that made these were ones he owned was more trouble than it was worth.

Warren sighed and put on a charm bracelet and the rest followed.

The plan was to investigate the kidnappings, predict the next one, rescue the kidnapped children, and if necessary, take care of the orphanage.

Harry added several points to the plan including some basic spy gear he had which allowed for hacking. This was added to the plan and once they went over a few contingencies, they headed out to the Blackbird.

The Blackbird, according to Warren, was built by his father's company and could be considered the most advanced plane on the planet. Moreso due to the add-ons Forged used spare parts from an alien ship to upgrade it with.

Jean's mind was occupied with concern over the orphans and the fact that everyone else was concerned over the same matter wasn't helping. Harry invited her into his library where she could spend the rest of the flight in silence going over the various books within Harry's mind.

Harry himself was going over the interior of the blackbird and determining how each aspect worked. He could already tell from the coating on the surface that it had active adaptive camouflage and the engine was using fuel in a way that was far too efficient for normal jets. There was barely any heat coming off it meaning the jet's exterior would be around the same temperature as the air outside.

Warren himself was flying with Scott as copilot. Warren was trying to dissipate everyone's nervousness by teaching Scott how to fly it himself one day.

That thought reminded Harry that he needed to magic-proof Dr. McCoy's spectrometer when he returned. Harry had yet to figure out how to make the ultimate riding broom and he wanted to use tech to do it. The potion that was infused into a boom which allowed it to use a wizard's magic to fly had been changed over the course of hundreds of years, but that didn't mean there couldn't be improvements.

In addition to that, Harry needed to expand on advertising for his Gemstone company. The Goblins had already openly bought the parts needed to make many machines capable of creating synthetic gemstones so now that no one was going to ask where they got them, it was time to start producing and selling them in bulk. Harry also needed to network the Goblins' computers together. They had to spread out the companies into several areas and rather than using existing phone lines to connect the computers in different areas, Harry was just going to use magic powered quantum entanglement connections, just like his hack boxes. The only problem was that he would need to acquire several dumb computers in each office and have them actually wired through the phone lines. If they had nothing to transmit info from one building to the other visibly, then the people who tried to hack them would find nothing to hack which would be suspicious. Thankfully the Goblins shared his propensity for paranoia and would probably enjoy filing the dumb computers with useless info, false info, and terrible viruses.

The flight to the small town was practically shorter than the prep and take off time due to the speed of the Blackbird and the meagre distance.

The Blackbird itself landed in an empty field with its active camo going and quietly landed. Most of the X-Men stayed aboard while Warren, Kitty, Jean and Harry headed to the Sheriff's office.

Warren's wings were capable of pressing almost completely against his back and beneath the long coat he wore, one wouldn't even notice the bulge on his back unless you really looked, allowing Warren to walk around without issue or stares. Unsurprisingly, the Sheriff's office was quite busy due to all the recent commotion. The group headed off to the side of the building and Harry handed Kitty a magic proof thumbstick drive with a timed portkey and said, "just stick this in the Sheriff's computer."

Kitty said, "Umm, this might take a while cause I really don't want to be seen on camera."

Harry nodded and took out a smokey quartz. "Stand still, this will feel like someone is dripping a running egg over you." The quartz glowed with a lumos and vanished back into his inventory as Harry cast disillusionment on Kitty causing her to slowly become invisible.

Harry could still sense her presence in space and knew she looked down at her own hands while Jean gave a smile at the novelty of such a thing and Warren looked impressed. Kitty exclaimed, "Woah, this is like, so cool!"

Harry sighed and said, "You can still be heard and you're not entirely invisible. Light just moves around you so if you stand still you're fine, but if you move, then people will see what looks like a mirage of bending light."

Kitty said, "Still, this will totally make this job a cinch." She then walked directly into the wall and Harry pulled a screen and keyboard out of his bag and waited.

Moments later the screen showed a connection was established and Harry started opening up and downloading files.

The thumb drive had a notice-me-not on it and if Harry had not drawn their attention to it when he handed it to Kitty, they would not have even looked at it. A few moments Kitty returned and Harry cast nonverbal finite incantatem to restore her to the land of the visible. To cover it up he said, "Just in time, I wasn't sure how long that would last."

Kitty looked surprised and said with a bit of heat, "Couldn't you have warned me?!"

Warren said, "Calm down Kitty, everything worked out fine after all. Just don't assume you can rely on stuff like that in the future alright? It's better to rely on your own skills after all."

Without looking up from his computer screen, Harry pointed at Angel and stated, "What he said."

Jean noticed Harry had gone through several pages worth of information and asked, "So what do we have?"

While still scrolling through the details, Harry answered, "Well, the only kid who was actually taken from the orphanage was taken from the street in front of the orphanage. Two others were taken from the grade school the orphans are attending and two others taken from the houses of friends they were playing or staying with. All within the last three days.

Kitty sighed and said, "School is starting early here for them huh? Bummer."

Jean rolled her eyes and Warren smirked at the specific detail she chose to pay attention to.

Jean looked in the direction of the orphanage and said, "Whatever the professor felt from here is definitely coming from that direction. This whole place feels like it is covered in cotton."

Warren said, "So we have our next destination."

Harry said, "I'd like to investigate the site of the other kidnappings to see if I can find anything the police missed."

Warren considered it and said, "Take Jean with you. If you find anyone who knows anything useful, see what you can dig up."

Although the man was clearly advocating the use of telepathy to invade the privacy of the minds of others, no one cared at this point as children's lives were on the line.

Harry and Jean headed over to the school and Harry cast a notice-me-not under the idea, 'do not notice we are not supposed to be here.'

Once they entered the hallway, Jean asked, "What did you do, I'm not even having to use my powers to get them to ignore us."

Harry turned back and smiled but remained silent. They arrived at the location where one of the kids were taken and there was a burnt circle with various burnt symbols on one of the walls.

Harry released some mandalas of dimensional energy and had them spinning and scanning the various energies in the areas.

Jean watched him do this and flatly accused, "You don't even need those gems, do you?"

Harry continued scanning while answering, "Nope."

"Then why continue with the act?"

"A few reasons. Until I'm strong enough, it's best to downplay my abilities and my threat level. I'm also looking forward to the day when someone tries to take advantage of my reliance on gems and gloats to my face that without them I'm powerless. I promise to show you the memory of that guy's face when he realizes the truth."

"Wait, it's a prank?"

"Among other things. You'd know that already if you read a little more about me."

Harry's mandalas glowed red, then grey, then orange. The feeling of the mandalas also provided sensory feedback which gave Harry far more information than just the color did.

Harry let the mandalas scatter and said, "This portal was to a different realm. I can't reopen it from this side accurately so I can't track them down." Harry knew about demons, he knew how to control demons, and he knew how to counter demons. What he did not know was demon magic. Such tomes did not exist in Kamar-Taj, so the makeup of demon magic was unknown to him and trying to track the other side of the portal was like reading directions in an unfamiliar language without a map.

Jean recognized Harry's frustrated face and asked, "Not good news?"

Harry filled her in and they headed back to meet up with Warren and Kitty.

While Harry had been snooping, Warren had directly knocked on the door of the orphanage and introduced himself and asked a few questions. When they met back up, Warren explained to Harry that Nanny was a kindly old woman who looked very worried and said she had decided the kids would have to stay in the orphanage until the mess sorted itself out. If it were not for what he already learned from Harry's investigations, the place would not seem suspicious. Warren claimed through the door he could see various children doing various activities and playing around.

Deciding they needed a second look, the group returned to the orphanage once more. The perimeter had various security cameras so unless Harry made Kitty invisible again, she wouldn't be able to sneak up to the wall and get inside again. However although they were some distance from the building, Jean claimed she could still get a read on the minds inside if she put some effort into it.

They gave her about ten minutes and when she was done, Harry didn't have to be a mind reader to know she was enraged. Warren took a step back when Jean opened her eyes just from an impression of the fury he could tell she felt.

Mirroring Jean from earlier, Harry asked, "Not good news?"

Jean lost all composure and practically snarled, "That woman is a monster. She and her partner, someone who actually calls himself Orphan Maker, find young mutants and kill their parents. They then use some kind of drug, something she calls fairy dust, to make the kids forget their parents and she takes them with her."

Kitty fell backwards in shock, "That's, that's horrible!"

Tears started running down Jean's face as she continued through grit teeth, "My niece and nephew are in that building. They killed my older sister and made my family forget her."

Warren nearly shouted, "What?!"

Jean held back her own sobbing while glaring at the orphanage walls and said, "My sister has been out of contact with my parents for almost a year. They, they killed her. They killed her and took her children."

Harry put his hand on Jean's shoulder and used his own psionic gift to enter Jean's mind and radiate a field of calm. Harry said directly to her mind, "Jean, I promise you, no matter what, they will pay alright. I swear that to you."

When Harry felt the peak of Jean's fury recede, he took her into a hug and held her as she started crying over the loss of her family.

After Jean recovered, Warren said, "The children are our priority here. What exactly is Nanny's plan? She didn't exactly look formidable."

Jean answered, "What you saw wasn't her. There are hologram projectors on the property, what you saw was a hologram. The real... Nanny... is in the basement preparing weapons for a counter attack."

Kitty asked, "What's her deal, I mean why would anyone do that?"

Jean took in a few breaths to calm herself before answering, "She doesn't think she is doing anything wrong. She actually thinks she is rescuing children and giving them a loving home. Her mind is broken. It's filled with nursery rhymes and children's stories."

Warren asked, "What about the other one, Orphan Maker."

Jean said, "I can't get a read on him. He's in the basement too. He's wearing a cybernetic suit and is loaded with advanced weapons. The suit is built into him. He can never take it off."

Kitty asked, "Why?"

Jean shook her head. "I don't know. There's a reason, but I couldn't get a read on it."

Harry looked around and said, "I have a plan to rescue everyone, but it's not a nice one and no one is going to like it." His energy senses could tell that the grounds around the perimeter had been altered and he'd spent the last few minutes analyzing it.

Warren sighed and called the remaining X-Men from the Blackbird. He didn't want to have to listen to a plan he wasn't going to like more than once.

The group gathered on the other side of a hill near the orphanage. There were no buildings or streets, only trees, so it was not being monitored by anyone.

Warren went over the details they found at the Sheriff's office and the orphanage before Scott spoke up, "So what's the plan?"

Harry sighed and said, "There is a transfer circle written into the ground around the orphanage. It's been there for at least a week. It's limited in that it can only be activated at dusk, an hour from now, but when activated, everything within the circle will be moved to the destination point. My plan is to wait at the edge of the security perimeter and gather everyone within the circle before it goes off. That is likely to send us to where the other children were taken and we can mount an offensive to rescue them."

Scott immediately objected, "Wait, you're gonna let the rest of the kids get kidnapped and let them get caught up in a fight between us all?"

Harry nodded, "They're mutants too, they won't be defenseless."

Scott replied, "They're kids! That's not acceptable!"

Harry blankly stared at Scott and said, "Well, since you elected to speak up, you must already have a better idea. I'm all ears."

Scott fidgeted and said, "Well, no, but we're not going through with this plan. We should think up a different plan together."

Harry continued staring blankly at him and stated, "I can't guarantee the transfer circle will activate if the orphans are missing. That's probably why it hasn't gone off yet, they weren't all there until now. I have no means of knowing where the kidnapped orphans are. I'm confident I can get us back no matter where we are taken but if we are not taken, the missing orphans are never coming back on their own. This plan takes into account the limits of everyone here. You can't just hope our limits increase because the outcome of those limits are not acceptable. If you think we should rely on a miracle instead of our own abilities, you shouldn't have bothered coming."

Scott visibly flinched at that and looked over the group in the hope someone would have a better idea. He knew he didn't have one but couldn't accept that putting the lives of others at risk was ever acceptable.

Warren sighed and said, "Scott, we don't have another way to save everyone. If you don't like it, then become stronger and wiser, so that in the future you'll have better options. That goes for all of you," he gestured to the remaining X-Men.

Harry double checked to make sure the X-Men each had one of his trinkets and they assembled at the edge of the orphanage's security field. He layered a weak Notice-Me-Not over the group and waited in silence.

Thirty seconds before dusk, Harry signaled for the group to move in. Alarms echoed from the sirens in the property and flood lights illuminated the area. By the time the group reached the building, the last light of the sun vanished behind the horizon and the sky shifted to dark red.

Once the scenery changed, Harry got out a diamond and caused it to glow for a moment before he conjured more scanning type mandalas. Sorcerer magic was very good at scanning dimension and spacial coordinates. The group quickly noticed that the haunting red sky was filled with winged, purple skinned creatures of various sizes and forms. The moment Harry confirmed his readings, he paused.

The location had shifted to a corridor of Limbo. It was not easy to directly take mortals to another plane, but this corridor was basically created to be a welcoming mat. That was good news, getting them back wouldn't be difficult. The good news ended there however. Harry was pretty certain anyone who wanted mutant children wouldn't be too high up on the food chain when it came to demons but he realized he had miscalculated. Limbo was one of the stronger Infernal Planes and a demon who could make a corridor to Limbo was not someone who could be easily trifled with.

Harry couldn't move very far while paused, but he was able to get a better idea of the surroundings and the enemy numbers. Thankfully the demons were just grunts. He couldn't spot a single elite in any of the groups he spied. Of course those groups numbered about five thousand, but the situation wasn't hopeless. Demons didn't like to share so they wouldn't swarm a group in large numbers. That meant it would be a series of group battles.

Harry unpaused and shouted, "Scott and Jean with me, we're going to rescue the kids, everyone else, hold the position and protect the orphans. Once we've gotten the kids we can get out of here."

Harry technically wasn't in charge but this situation was simply too bizarre and the group wouldn't panic as long as they had a plan.

Warren recognized the situation and shouted, "Take positions and do as he says!" He removed his coat and unfurled his wings in a display that had the demons watching flinch back. Wings like that were intimidating to demons after all.

Harry ran forward with Scott and Jean following behind. Harry activated a spell on his backpack which caused all the gems within to fly out and circle him while emitting light with a constant lumos. It had no effect but looked like a special move to anyone who paid attention. Harry figured he'd use this type of set up to go all out when in front of witnesses.

Harry released multiple cutting spheres which exploded on contact with demons and shredded anything in the area to ribbons. Scott blasted everything in the direction they were heading to clear the path and most demons took serious damage from his blasts though it only had a concussive effect on humans. Jean simply grabbed any nearby demon and psychically threw them into other demons.

A minute into their arrival, a massive magic circle appeared over the orphanage and spun around. The walls and roof of the building were torn to pieces and drawn into the spinning circle, leaving the occupants exposed.

Harry paused once more and rechecked the layout. He confirmed the point of origin of the spell and the position of the caster. It was about eight feet tall with blood red skin and a head that looked like a cross between a horse and a crocodile. Behind him seemed to be a ritual staging area but Harry wasn't close enough to analyze it.

Harry unpaused and said, "That guy's our target, we take him out and we win." Scott and Jean confirmed his position and along with Harry charged forward.

Harry paused every couple of seconds to confirm the situation of the various battles. Angel, Pixie, and Nightcrawler had taken to the sky. Nightcrawler couldn't fly, but he could teleport behind an airborne demon, wrap his tail about the demon's neck, then fall and throw the demon into another demon. Angel's flying abilities did not lose out to the demon's at all in air maneuverability and his punches could knock out any demon who closed in on him. Pixie wasn't a melee fighter but her Pixie dust could cause anyone to hallucinate and she'd been spreading it around the demons causing them to either attack the air or attack each other.

On the ground, Spike had been providing artillery support to Angel by shooting down any targets Angel or Nightcrawler disabled. Rogue seemed to have borrowed a bit of Iceman's powers and both of them were making a wall of ice to provide cover and freeze any demons who got close enough in place.

Not all could, but several demons capable of magic did try to fire or fry the X-Men, but from the perspective of the X-Men, their aim was terrible and it was not a concern.

A number of the orphans were putting up just as much of a fight. There was a giant ten foot tall teddy bear standing over one of the little girls that had been grabbing and tossing demons around. A pair of red headed twins seemed to be working together to freeze some demons in place before shattering them while another kid seemed to be able to control smoke.

Shadowcat was sticking around the orphans and if one was about to be attacked, she would grab them and make them intangible for a moment.

Besides the orphans and X-Men were two rather noticeable figures. One was a person in an egg shaped suit that appeared to have goggles over it and red lipstick where the mouth would be. The other was coated in metal which looked similar to how Colossus appeared when using his power. That one was probably Orphan Maker, the one who Jean said was basically a cyborg. His entire body appeared metallic and he wore a protruding mask and armor. In both hands were what appeared to be advanced weaponry.

Harry decided to ignore them for the moment, but next when he unpaused, the pair started attacking Shadowcat. The egg person shouted, "You wolves are here for my lost little lambs! Get them Peter! They wish to take these children away from those who love them!"

From the metallic suit came, in a voice that appeared to be that of a child's, "Nuh-uh, you bad guys aren't taking away my friends!" He started unloading shot after shot at Shadowcat who had to stay intangible to avoid getting turned into Swiss cheese.

Harry apparated behind the tin man and shot an over powered Stupefy into his back. The force of the magic sent Orphan Maker out of the ruined building into the outskirts where a group of demons quickly descended onto him.

The egg woman shouted, "Peter no! Nanny is coming for you!" and rushed out, but the hordes of demons blocked her path and she could only watch as the demons started ripping the metallic pieces from the immobile cyborg.

Harry apparated back and used a vanishing charm on some of the gems around him to make it look like they were spent in doing that. Although energy can resist magic, that was only true for sentient energy which required lifeforce to be mixed in. This meant that cyborgs powered by external means were as vulnerable to magic as any non-magical if they weren't properly shielded. Moreso in fact as the system which ran that man's suit was now completely corrupted and unless he was dragged to a computer and had his suit's OS completely reinstalled, he wasn't going to move again unless he was a technopath who could fix his OS without an interface.

Jean and Scott continue to clear a path towards the boss demon and finally get his attention. Until this point, the red demon had its back turned and was preparing something within a ritual circle.

The creature growled and shouted, "Incompetents and fools, must I do everything myself?!"

Harry wasn't in the mood for witty banter so he directly shot out a widespread Finite Incantatem at the demon and the ritual circle behind him but it had no effect.

The demon shouted, "You dare challenge I, N'astirh in my own realm? I shall take great pleasure in destroying you all!"

The demon now confirmed to be N'astirh summoned black flames and red lightning which gathered around him. Harry spread his arms out and seven rings surrounded the trio and cancelled out the magics N'astirh had cast at them.

N'astirh gave a nasty sneer and said, "A Sorcerer should know better than to fight a realm master in his own realm!" He screeched into the air and the space itself seemed to warp and fold around the group.

Harry paused and walked over to the ritual circle behind the red demon. That was twice now N'astirh had claimed ownership of the realm, but Harry knew that Limbo was Belasco's realm. However N'astirh was currently giving a display of space control that only the realm lord should have.

Once Harry looked over the ritual circle in detail, he knew what the demon was up to. This was an offering ritual. He was offering the souls of innocent mutant children to Limbo in exchange for its favor and in doing so he would gain power equal to Belasco's within Limbo. Of course, even if they were equal, N'astirh would have to fight Belasco for true ownership of the realm which was easier said than done.

Thankfully the ritual wouldn't complete itself unless the offering was accepted which required more than what it had now. That meant the kidnapped kids were held within and could be rescued. N'astirh actually shouldn't be able to use a realm lord's power before the ritual was complete, but it looked like he was basically borrowing it in advance. If the ritual failed, he'd suffer a debt but he was pretty confident in his success so he probably didn't care about that.

Harry unpaused and used another spell from the Grand Grimoire. He'd practiced a few of them using Wizard and Sorcerer magic with the Ancient One and was one of the reasons he had confidence he could escape.

Six Mandalas appeared around Harry and scarlet red ethereal chains launched from them and spread through the air before fading away. The movement of space caused by N'astirh's domain control slowed to a crawl as the space itself was bound in place. If N'astirh wanted to fight, he'd have to do it like a man.

Scott hadn't been staring off into the distance and Jean hadn't been filling her nails while Harry and N'astirh exchanged blows. Scott had been firing his concussive beams at N'astirh and the demons around him and even the ground nearby while Jean had been throwing everything at the red demon with everything she had.

N'astirh snarled and conjured black hell fire and shaped it into a massive creature. N'astirh shouted orders to all the demons around him, "Destroy them now!"

Their fight however was interrupted by the sound of a massive roar behind them.

The whole group turned and found a behemoth sized, misshapen demonic creature than seemed to be devouring the other demons. It didn't eat them, it's flesh simply covered and assimilated the demons and became larger and larger.

Harry shouted to Scott, "Scott, hold him down for ten seconds!"

Scott nodded and Harry took Jean's hand and entered her mindscape. Within he said, "Jean synchronize your emotions with mine."

Jean didn't argue and felt the righteous fury Harry felt towards N'astirh, Orphan Maker, and Nanny. The complete understanding that the world was better off without them and the desire to see them burn for their atrocities.

Standing behind Scott, Harry rose his hand along with Jean's into the air as a flicker of flames ignited in their palm. Jean didn't know what it was, but it burned with her fury and she focused her emotions along with Harry's into it and the flame grew larger and larger.

Scott had removed his visor and was blasting N'astirh with literally everything he had. The wannabe realm lord was forced back a step but was able to shield himself through the use of his black magic and domain control.

When the flame reached the size of a pumpkin, Harry said, "Get down Scott!"

Scott closed his eyes and collapsed into exhaustion as Harry and Jean threw their arms forward, the flame shooting directly at N'astirh who thoughtlessly commanded his own flame creature to block it. The flame passed through the hellfire construct without slowing down and struck N'astirh who thought to block it with a powerful magic shield in his hand.

The fire burned through the magic and in an instant, his arm was set ablaze. He shouted, "No! How can this be?" He tore his own arm off but his shoulder started burning the moment the flesh was removed. Phoenix fire burnt the body, mind, and soul after all.

N'astirh tore a hole in space and immediately entered it, running for his life.

The ritual circle broke and half a dozen children appeared on the ground. Harry shouted, "Scott, guard the kids, we'll get the others to come grab them and get out of here."

Scott was used to Harry's shouts by now and called back, "Got it."

Harry and Jean ran over to see the titanic creature that was still devouring demons. The army of several thousand had been reduced to only a few hundred.

Nanny was on her knees staring at the creature. She said, "My poor, poor Peter."

Harry asked, "That thing was Orphan Maker?"

Within turning to face him she answered back, "He was covered for his own protection and for the protection of others. His flesh would permanently fuse with the body of anyone he touched, gaining greater strength and power, but his mind regressed with each person and he couldn't control it."

The nightmarish creature would soon finish with the demons and it would start with them. Harry doubted there was a mind left inside that being.

Harry held his hand out, palm face up before Jean and she took it after understanding his intentions. Their righteous fury synchronized once more, and far faster than it had last time, a massive ball of flames emerged. Unlike the demon who Jean didn't like on principle, this Orphan Maker was the one who killed her sister. She wouldn't want to save him even if she could, and he was so beyond saving, there wasn't the slightest trace of remorse for what she was about to do.

The reason Harry was making Phoenix Fire with Jean was that her Psionic Path Rank was far higher than his and even if the Phoenix wasn't awake within her, she was still its Avatar and she was born capable of making Phoenix Flames, even if she didn't know how to before.

The massive fireball became larger than a house and got the attention of the blob of demonic flesh that was already over ten stories tall. Slits emerged all over the creature and they turned to mouths which roared at the fire and their presence.

Without needing to throw it, the fireball lifted from their hands and seamlessly shaped itself into a firebird and let loose a screech of outrage that embodied Harry's and Jean's fury at the monstrosity.

Cords of flesh shot out like spears at Harry and Jean, but the firebird flew forward and every piece of flesh that passed through it was burnt to nothing, not even leaving ash.

Harry covertly pulled out a baseball sized crystal covered in inscriptions and runes and used a switching spell on it with a rock near the demonic flesh to get the crystal near the creature.

The Phoenix shaped blaze collided into the flesh and consumed it in fire. The remaining demons that had not already left fled at their fastest speed as the massive creature was rapidly burning away.

Harry watched the burning monster and could only sigh. The being hadn't consolidated any of its power so it was low density and easy to burn, like a giant pile of papers. N'astirh on the other hand was like an ancient tree and far more dense when it came to power and life force. He'd probably survive, though the backlash from the ritual combined with the damage from the Phoenix fire meant he would be rather weakened for a very long time.

Harry led Jean back to the others and they ran over to where Scott was and took the children back to the destroyed orphanage.

Eventually Orphan Maker had burnt to nothing. There wasn't even smoke or a smell. Without anyone noticing, Harry used the switching charm once more to get the crystal again before placing it back into his inventory. The Switching charm usually can't be used on any item with magic but Harry made the vessel himself so it was an exception. Phoenix fire burnt anything and the result was pure life force. Harry couldn't absorb it to level up, but he wasn't going to leave such a massive amount of Phoenix fire refined life force for someone else to take. It could prove useful later.

The space within the corridor seemed to shudder. Harry did some readings and confirmed that in an hour or so the space supporting the corridor would collapse and force everyone remaining there into Limbo. That of course was only if Belasco himself wasn't trying to collapse it from the outside which Harry wouldn't put past the demon lord.

Using Kurt's teleports, the kids were quickly assembled in the ruined orphanage.

Scott looked around the shaking space and said, "Everyone's here, let's go!"

Harry said, "Ok, give me a moment. Actually there is an extra." Harry sent a banishing charm at Nanny who was mopping in a corner and directly ejected her from the area. Before anyone could say anything, Harry created a red mandala which spread out and caused the red sky to shift to a star filled night sky.

Harry's mandala confirmed that four hours had passed on earth while they were in Limbo which was why it was night though only a few minutes had passed since dusk.

Ignoring Scott's ranting about leaving Nanny in hell, Harry directly entered the orphanage's basement and connected to the computers within. The machine fogging up Xavier's and Jean's senses was in front of him and he wanted to know how it worked and who built it.

Though the computer had scans of the files which showed the blueprints, much of it was redacted. Harry had to use a few filters to get details from the redacted parts. When he finished, he only had one question. "Who is Mister Sinister?"

«

According to the bare fragments of information Harry was able to dig through, Mr. Sinister was a researcher and an extremely dangerous person. The designs for the Mind Cloud system seemed to have been stolen from him when Nanny and Peter both escaped from him, though Harry found no details of why they were imprisoned or how they escaped.

In any case, Harry made a mental note of the name and returned upstairs. Scott it seemed, had not decided his rant was over. He nearly shouted, "How could you do that? Just leave her in that place! She was a human being!"

Harry sighed and decided to close the matter. He answered, "Just because I decided to save the orphans doesn't make me a hero. Helping people is a hobby of mine and I am not obligated to save everyone. Yes, I could have returned her, but that doesn't mean I wanted to."

Harry didn't stop Scott from grabbing his shirt and dragging him close so Scott could yell into his face, "How is that different from killing her?!"

Harry shook his head. It wasn't the first time he'd killed people he didn't have to. He could have left the Death Eaters who tried to kill him years ago alive, but he chose to kill them instead. He did so under the conviction he wasn't a hero. He'd help the people he wanted to help and he wouldn't put any effort into sparing those who acted to kill himself or his friends.

Of course he'd only reach that point if someone used actual killing intent. Both times that pyrokinetic threw a fireball at him, Harry could tell the density of the fire wasn't high enough to kill him, so Harry didn't take his life in turn. If someone just tried to horribly mangle, cripple, or injure him or a friend, Harry wouldn't kill them in retaliation.

Harry looked Scott in the eye and asked, "If they killed your brother, would we be having this conversation?"

Scott quickly released Harry and looked over to Jean who was glaring at him like he was a hypocrite. Harry had learned that Scott had lost his younger brother years ago. Scott knew these people killed Jean's sister yet Scott was protesting the harshness of how Harry dealt with them in front of her.

Harry continued, "That woman completely rationalized that murdering a child's parents was acceptable because she was better at taking care of children. Perhaps she could have been taken to a mental institution, gone through years of therapy, and been released. But if she relapsed or escaped, the lives of her next victims would be my responsibility for sparing her. Maybe, just maybe she could have become healthy, come to regret her decision, and try to redeem herself. But the possibility of that happening is far too low."

Scott yelled, "That's not your call to make!"

Harry flatly said, "I don't regret my choice. If she had regained her sanity to the point she would be willing to repent, she would also have to live with the guilt of what she had done for the rest of her days. That guilt however would only emerge if she regained her sanity. That is the reason it is unlikely she'd ever willingly become sane. She'd be a mental patient living in her delusions all her life, waiting for a chance to escape and orphan more children."

Scott took a step back at the sheer weight of the cold logic.

Harry had not pushed Nanny out on a whim. He'd paused and considered all the possibilities and the weight of each of those possibilities. The best case scenario for the world if he spared her would be if she could regain her sanity, but that would not be the best case for Nanny herself as she would have to live with the guilt. She might even take her own life if that occurred and there was no way her mind could heal without accepting that sort of guilt in the first place. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Since she was damned either way, Harry decided to reduce the possibility of her orphaning children in the future to the smallest acceptable level he could without directly beheading her in front of the X-Men.

Jean had walked over to Scott by now and said, "Look Scott, I was in that woman's head. There wasn't the slightest trait of remorse for what she did. She even took pleasure in killing, thinking that it was evil for non mutant parents to raise mutant children and she was simply ridding the world of evil. I didn't find any trace of her mind that even wanted to heal."

Scott tried to argue, "But Jean, she was-"

He was cut off when Jean shouted, "She was Not Human Scott! She was a monster! And if Harry had taken her back with us, I would have put her down myself!"

Warren and a few of the other X-Men that weren't comforting the children had heard Harry and Scott's exchange. Warren seemed conflicted but decided not to say anything. If Harry really had just left her there out of malice, he would have had words with him, but since he clearly thought out the consequences of his actions, there was nothing more to add.

Once consequence of this was that although Harry would not be punished, in the future, he would not be regularly invited to outings with the X-Men. If Harry didn't feel obligated to save even those who didn't deserve saving, he'd be a liability on the team. Harry had considered this as well and didn't have a problem with it. He never intended to become an X-Men after all.

Warren used a cell phone to call up a few groups he'd set up earlier that had been waiting on standby. Two hours later, several vans and personnel from Child's Services showed up and were briefed on the details.

Harry had run diagnostics on the children and determined that without a weekly dose of 'Fairy Dust,' their memories of their families would slowly return. He'd already found a sample and determined its ingredients earlier. The recipe was similar to some potions but the ingredients had no exotic energy and the processing was far more complicated. Harry figured he might be able to create a potion that could immediately negate the effects, but after some consideration he decided it would be better for the process of returning memory to be more gradual.

Although their memories were suppressed, their minds still possessed them and Jean was able to look through their minds, one by one, to learn where they lived and what their names were. Nanny, it seemed, gave them new names after taking their memories. Jean's nephew for example was named Joseph, or Joey, but had been called Tommy in the orphanage.

Using this information, Child Services would look for other relatives to see if they could be taken in. For those lacking relatives or had relatives that refused to take them in, special priority would be given to grant Charles Xavier guardianship. Jean had already had a tear filled call with her parents about her sister's death and they agreed to take care of their grand-kids. They might have been a dull and dreary couple, but they were still proper humans and cared for their family.

Although she was in pain, Harry watched Jean smile when she was looking after and playing with the orphans. He thought her smile was beautiful and wondered if he was falling in love with her. Harry knew that he liked her and knew he enjoyed spending time with her. He knew that even after her issues with the Phoenix were resolved, he'd still want to be a part of her life and when he thought of the future, he saw her standing with him. Of course he also knew that love was not so simple to quantify. He wouldn't force it but would let it be without interference.

Jean had the children write letters to the friends they made in town and at school which would explain that the orphanage was broken and they would be moving away. When the kids had been relocated, they could send another letter and if the kids at the other end responded, they could continue as pen pals until they had a cellphone.

Once the last of the kids were loaded up, Harry got the ping he'd been waiting for.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Rescue the Orphan Mutants from N'astirh

Reward: Belasco's Ancient Book of Spells]

Harry paused and went over the book that had appeared in his inventory. His quest didn't really have much to do with Belasco, meaning the book had been acquired from N'astirh. That meant the red demon had likely stolen the book from Belasco himself.

The book contained a heavy assortment of Black Magic but Harry couldn't use it. Black Magic was called Black Magic because it required negative energies to power the spells and Harry didn't have any negative energies. Even the soul energy he'd gotten from the slain Dementors had been purified through his own patronus before he'd absorbed it.

Harry considered using the coordinates of the Infernal Plane to head over and kill demons and use their tainted energies to level up. He could do it too once he'd gotten his portal situation resolved. The energy of the few demons killed by his wizard magic when he was heading over to N'astirh were absorbed by him so it was an option. However he decided against it. All magic had a cost and Black Magic's cost was far steeper than normal. Even if Harry absorbed the negative energy, he'd have to put effort into keeping it negative, lest his own positive energies purify it.

Harry remembered that Sorceress Supreme from the future had been filled with both Negative energies and positive energies without one cancelling the other out, but Harry expected such a situation did not come naturally and required special circumstances.

In any case, the details of the book would be useful as reference and would allow him to become familiar with demon script should he encounter it again. Most magics had areas of overlap so the insights into tricks for how Black Magics worked could help him in other areas. Harry didn't have any Dark energy from the Dark Dimension but he still memorized the dark magics in the Book of Cagliostro which gave him insights into the workings of time and space. On the theoretical level, only the Ancient One was superior to him when it came to knowledge on energies on the mortal plane. Harry had spent untold centuries studying the texts within Kamar-Taj's library while paused after all.

At one point to break the tension, Kurt asked Harry, "What was that glowing thing you did earlier? It was really funky looking."

Kitty said, "Yeah, you did a whole bunch of crazy stuff back to back while those rocks spun around you like a rainbow."

Harry lied through his teeth, "Just a trick I can use to use for a couple of minutes. Though I can't use my power again for a few days after doing it."

Kurt gave a sly smile Harry caught and told the blue prankster, "Anything you try before I recover, I will return several fold."

Rogue walked up and said, "Wait, so you just used all those gemstones at once?"

Harry shrugged, "Yep, that fight cost me about sixty-five thousand dollars." Or at least that is how much it would cost to buy all the large gemstones he'd vanished while fighting from his company. His backpack had about thirty of them and since he vanished them instead of putting them back in his inventory, he wouldn't be able to reuse them, they were gone forever. Still, for rocks of that size, it was pretty cheap. His company already had the best machines to mass produce large gemstones after all.

No one had anything to say about that. Although Harry had done a lot, it looked like he'd spent a fortune to do it.

As the group departed for the Blackbird, Jean telepathically asked Harry, 'Can I ask you what that flame was? I've never been able to do something like that before, but it felt..'

Harry replied, 'It felt natural, like something you were born to do?'

Jean turned to Harry with a raised eyebrow and telepathically sent back, 'What do you know?'

Harry cheekily answered, 'Jean, what I know could fill whole libraries.'

Jean rolled her eyes at the answer but Harry continued, 'I know exactly what that flame is and where it comes from. Yes, I could tell you or you could look in that book over there in my mind and it will give you everything I know on that flame. But, you'll gain more if you learn that piece of knowledge yourself rather than learn it from me.'

Jean replied, 'Is that what this has all been about? I know you've been keeping something from me and daring me to ask you what it is, but have you been trying to get me to find the answer myself?'

Harry nodded back. He knew he wasn't being subtle. Especially when he told her to practice the mind folding technique he stole from Xavier to practice mental discipline while also telling her not to permanently use it on herself to repress any part of her mind like Xavier had with his own darker impulses.

Jean sighed and conveyed back, 'Alright Harry, I'll trust you on this.'

Harry smiled and replied, 'Don't let that stop you from reading about my life. You stopped at the bad part last time and it really did get better after that.'

It didn't take long for the group to return and Warren met up with Logan and Xavier to give his report. It was decided that Harry's inclusion in X-Men missions in the future would be as needed only. Logan had no problem with what Harry had done, but he knew the X-Men were being taught to be symbols, not soldiers.

Surprisingly, Xavier never asked Harry or Jean what that flame was. Harry figured the Professor must have thought it was some kind of magic and didn't dwell on it further.

The following week passed by in silence. Harry still spent most of his time in the workshop either on personal projects or working with Forge, but he still spent the evenings in the Study group helping everyone while Jean read through his library. Harry knew even when he was taking his four hours of sleep, Jean could still access his mind and he knew she often did so when she was having trouble sleeping.

The final weekend before classes started had most of the teachers except Logan once more out and about, escorting the last of the students back to the Institute.

In the meantime, Harry had been making excellent progress in two areas. First, Harry finally had access to portals again. Using some tricks he learned from his insights into Black Magic, Harry could once more create a ring which allowed passage through space.

The ring itself however was still a combination of Sorcerer and Wizard Magic. It was different from normal Sling Ring Portals. The first difference was that it had the appearance of a glowing silver ring instead of a swirling vortex of rust colored light. The next was that Harry didn't have to swirl his hand to make the portal. Instead he could use a simple motion to stamp it into the air. When he moved with the intent to form it, a silver light would appear midair and it would expand into a ring shaped portal at his will. Harry could control the size and even make it large enough to drive a semi-truck or a tank through. Opening it, holding it open, and allowing passage however all used magic from his internal reserves so it had some practical limitations compared to normal Sling Ring Portals. Distance it seemed, was not necessarily one of them. However because it was merged with his wizard magic which was still invisible, his portals wouldn't be sensed by any direct energy sensing means.

The second break through Harry completed was he had an approximate understanding of ForgetMeNot's power. His power basically caused him to not exist at the same time he existed. It was as if a parallel universe where ForgetMeNot did not exist seemed to actively overwrite the traces of his own existence in this universe. However it worked through ForgetMeNot himself. If he died, his power would actually stop working. The problem was that unlike Rogue who unconsciously could not turn off her power, ForgetMeNot's power was completely involuntary. It was the universe itself that was trying to erase him.

Harry did discover some limitations of his power. If ForgetMeNot himself met someone and forgot them or didn't pay attention to them, they would forget less of him than someone he paid attention to. This variable meant ForgetMeNot's power had a controllable trigger. Using that as a base, Harry determined that ForgetMeNot had two sets of memories, from both the universe he was in, and the universe he didn't exist in. When he met someone, his own memories of them were actually the first thing to get erased and their memories of him were erased along with it. His second set of memories was fine though, so he didn't even notice this.

This was the key to controlling his powers. If his first set of memories getting erased caused others to forget him, then as long as they were preserved, he would not be forgotten. This however was the tricky part. The universe itself wanted to erase him. Harry tried copying ForgetMeNot's memories onto an external magical artifact, but those were still erased over time. Even if Harry took materials from another dimension, they would still get erased because that dimension was still a part of this universe. The only way to build something that would not get erased, was to use something made of materials from a completely different universe.

Had this been anyone else, that would have been the end of it. There was no safe way to acquire material of any kind from another universe. Harry on the other hand had six DVDs of Star Wars from another universe. He'd copy to content elsewhere so it wouldn't be lost, but the DVDs were in fact pieces of matter from another universe and would not be affected by ForgetMeNot's power.

It would take time to turn the DVDs into a magical memory storage device he could wear, but if it worked, Harry could have ForgetMeNot's memories stored on them and have them constantly refresh his first set of memories, preventing him from forgetting them and preventing others from forgetting him. If Harry could make the external storage interactive, ForgetMeNot could choose who forgot him and who didn't. It was a useful power if it could be controlled after all.

Of course Harry would have to make it indestructible, impossible to get stolen, recoverable if stolen, and make a spare in case it was completely destroyed. Some might call Harry pessimistic and paranoid. He preferred to think of himself as prepared.

There was one aspect about ForgetMeNot's power Harry had discovered and considered a use for. He had been holding back on it for a while, but he decided there was no longer a point in waiting around.

After cleaning up his workstation, Harry went over to the gym he'd discovered ForgetMeNot often spent time at.

"ForgetMeNot, I got a favor to ask."

The seventeen year old with the slicked back hair took a step back and said, "You're not going to ask for more hair are you?"

Harry shook his head and answered, "No, I want to ask if you can let Rogue use your powers. Her's is kinda broken, and I've figured out how to use a copy of yours to fix her's."

ForgetMeNot appeared surprised at that. "You can fix Marie? Well, yeah. I'm in."

Harry smiled and led him over to where Rogue was. ForgetMeNot was a remarkably caring person for someone who got such a bad draw in life. Harry hadn't told him about his progress because it still required a lot of work and he didn't want to get his hopes up only for a delay to occur.

Harry considered getting Xavier to supervise but recalled that he was out of the mansion and meeting some politicians at the moment. Harry didn't need the man, but Xavier witnessing what Harry was going to do would prevent questions about it later.

Rogue was watching TV with a few of the other kids and Harry shouted to her, "Rogue, come over here, we're gonna fix your powers."

Rogue looked over at him incredulously and asked, "What?"

Harry didn't answer and went over to an empty room while motioning for Rogue to follow.

Unsurprisingly she got off the couch and followed him inside along with ForgetMeNot.

She asked with an accusatory tone, "What's this about fixing my powers?" She didn't want someone to get her hopes up for nothing and didn't have a lot of faith anything could be done for her.

Harry pointed at ForgeMeNot and said, "This is ForgetMeNot, remember him?"

Rogue looked over him then blinked, then blinked again. "ForgetMeNot? Oh, Wait, I think. Yeah. I think I do."

ForgetMeNot smiled and shook his head.

Harry continued, "You remember what I said the problem was with your power?"

"Yeah, you said there was too much gunk in there for me to feel how to control it."

Harry nodded and said, "Well, one application of ForgetMeNot's power would allow you to, under controlled supervision, completely erase other people from your own head."

ForgetMeNot asked, "Wait, really?"

Rogue asked, "What do you mean, supervision?"

Harry turned to ForgetMeNot first and answered, "Yes really, I've already figured out a lot about your power and have a few leads on how to get around it without cuticle assimilation." He turned to Rogue and said, "I'm going to go inside your head after you absorb ForgetMeNot's power and assist you in directing it in erasing the remnants of those you've absorbed."

ForgetMeNot asked, "Won't other people forget her?"

Harry said, "Their memories will fade a bit, but they'll return when they see her after the power is gone."

Rogue looked pensive for a moment before giving a determined nod, "So what do I do?"

Harry said, "Well, first ask permission to use his power. I suspect if permission is asked and not refused, your power will work better."

Rogue took in a breath and said, "Alright. ForgetMeNot, please let me use your power."

ForgetMeNot smiled and held out his hand saying, "I freely give permission to use my power."

Rogue took off her glove and after a moment of hesitation, touched his finger.

Harry had seen her take other powers before and usually, both party's flinched. ForgetMeNot however just looked a bit uncomfortable and after two seconds, Rogue released contact."

Harry asked, "Do you feel like ForgetMeNot or have any of his memories?"

Rogue's eyes shot up in surprise and said, "No. I can feel him, but I'm still me." She looked up at him and asked, "How are you feeling?"

ForgetMeNot looked at his finger and said, "Not bad." He looked over at Harry and asked, "Why was that different?"

Harry answered, "Mindset. The difference between taking without asking and taking after asking. That should be the proper way to use her power, though we'll deal with that when she learns to turn it off and on."

ForgetMeNot nodded and said, "Alright, keep me updated," and headed out to give them some privacy.

Harry sat down with Rogue and had her relax. He used his psionic abilities to connect to and enter her own mind.

Rather than do anything himself, Harry concentrated and pulled Rogue herself into her mind where she stood within her own mental space next to Harry.

She asked, "This is my head huh? Kinda empty I suppose."

The space itself was dark, quite dreary, and had something of an inky texture to the floor and sky. Harry knew it to represent Rogue's sorrow and inner self loathing over her powers. He said, "It will look better later. Let's start."

They wandered a bit and found what looked like the ghost of a wild animal covered in metal spikes. Rogue took one look at it and said, "Logan."

Harry said, "Concentrate on that connection you made with ForgetMeNot and use it to ignite a silver flame in your hand. This is your mind so all you have to do is imagine it and it will happen."

Rogue was neither slow nor stupid and had to mature rather quickly due to her circumstances. She was in fact very smart, though due to some much gunk in her head, she was not always able to show it. Within moments a bright silver flame emerged from her hand and without Harry having to tell her, she pressed it against the shadow and it dissolved away.

Rogue felt the effect immediately. She said, "I can't feel him anymore. It actually worked," she finished in shock.

Harry nodded, "I suspect he's not the only one in here. We have to get them all for you to become a blank slate."

"Well what are we waiting for?" She ran off to find more remnants and one by one dissolved them away. The inky black sky slowly started clearing up and the ground started showing more and more color. When Mystique's shadow, a constantly shifting amorphous blob was dissolved, the ground turned into lush grass and stars began to shine in the sky above.

Eventually she found the last one. This one was not a ghost. It was a young teen who appeared to be merged into the ground itself. Rogue knelt next to it and mouthed a silent apologize Harry pretended to not notice and she dissolved his remnant as well.

The empty plot the boy vanished from suddenly sprouted flowers which spread around the field and gently reflected the light of the moon that appeared in the sky like a sea of silver.

Rogue stared wide eyed in shock at the beauty of the scene before her.

Harry smiled and commented, "Not so empty now, is it?"

Rogue turned to Harry and jumped him. They fell to the ground and Rogue took his lips in a passion filled kiss. One side effect of psionics was a strong sense of empathy and it was far too easy to feel the emotions of those close to you. Rogue's emotions had overcome him in the kiss and he unconsciously kissed her back laying down in the field of flowers.

It only took a moment for Rogue and Harry to realize what they were doing and they immediately separated, each blushing the same shade of red. Harry had the mind of an ancient, but his hormones were still that of a fifteen year old teen, the same age as the girl he was with. He could talk big but he had no experience.

Rogue quickly said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

Harry sighed and said, "Your mind has been freed from taint for the first time since your powers awoke and you're not used to your own emotions. It's fine." He wasn't going to tell her that was his first kiss.

Rogue looked over in the distance and saw someone standing there. She got up and walked over followed by Harry and together they found the figure was none other than ForgetMeNot.

Harry asked, "You're still here?"

ForgetMeNot answered, "Well, I did give Marie permission to use my power. Did you still need it?"

Rogue shook her head and said, "Not right now."

ForgetMeNot nodded and said, "Well, if you need it again, just ask."

Harry said, "Wait, so you're gonna just stay here in Rogue's head and if she needs to use your powers, she just has to ask the you in here?"

ForgetMeNot said, "Yeah. This place isn't so bad. I'll leave if you want me to, but I'll stay here otherwise. Later." He turned and casually walked away and looked like he wanted to enjoy walking through the field. Harry wondered if through the nature of his own power would he vanish along with Rogue's memories of him or would he remain. Only time would tell.

Harry left Rogue's mind and they both found themselves back in the empty room.

Harry said, "Before you decide to ask for the powers of our friends, you should take some time to feel out the off switch of your powers."

Rogue nodded with a light blush and got up to run out the door.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Rogue Powers

Reward: +2 Scholar Path Rank]

This was the first time he'd been awarded a Path Rank for a completed quest but his Scholar Path increasing from 42 to 44 was actually a very large increase and very, very useful. His last Scholar Path Rank increase was from making a website which had been considered a lesson to the world. Harry wondered if something on that scale was required to continue increasing his path. Something to think about later.

Harry returned to his workstation to see what progress he could make on his other projects. Halfway through the day, the Brotherhood of Mutants started randomly trashing parts of Salem so the third X-Men group was called to head over. Rogue stayed behind because she wanted to practice more before heading out and when Scott learned what Harry had done, he agreed spending time practicing was better than dealing with the Brotherhood who only acted up because they were looking for a fight.

Thirty minutes after Scott's group left, the Institute's siren's went off. The sirens were a security system that went off when an incoming threat or danger to the Institute was detected. Harry ran out to the TV room where the TV screen would automatically change to the security camera feed and show the incoming danger.

The threat that set off the alarm was not an army or assembled group armed with weapons. It was a single man of staggering size. Almost completely covered in bright red armor was a man approximately nine and a half feet in stature including the dome shaped helmet he wore.

Harry watched the monitor feed of the man casually smashing through the wall and moving forward without faltering at the barrage of weapons fire from the turrets that emerged all over the grounds.

Harry went over to a wall panel in the TV room and pulled it back to reveal a phone. He picked it up and pressed a few numbers before it rang and was answered. Harry asked, "Forge, who or what is that?"

On the other side Forge answered, "That is Cain Marko, the Professor's step brother. Also called the Unstoppable Juggernaut. Stay away from him Harry, magic is completely ineffective against the guy and nothing can halt his momentum."

The monitors already showed Logan had rushed the guy, but his armor held against Logan's adamantine claws and the massive brute was faster than he looked.

Forge said, "I've already recalled everyone so backup should arrive shortly." The line went dead and Harry hung up from his side.

After casting a Notice-Me-Not on himself, Harry entered to an empty room that didn't have any cameras and stamped a silver portal connecting to outside the grounds. When the sirens went off, the mansion went on lockdown meaning the doors were heavily bolted shut, as were the windows so Harry had to leave using nonstandard means.

From a distance Harry immediately recognized the Strength energy from Cyttorak's realm. Harry figured Marko had Cyttorak's Crimson gem, making him the elder god's avatar on Earth. Thankfully he only seemed to be using a few percent of that power. The full power of the gem would grant the power to rewrite reality with every step he took.

Strength energy was not about literal strength. It was about dominance and overcoming obstacles through force. Since Marko was the Gem's possessor, he had a direct, unbreakable connection to Cyttorak's Crimson Cosmos and the Strength energy within. From what Harry read, the gem also provided its user with a field that basically attacked magic with overwhelming force causing magic to dispel on contact. A 'the strongest defense is a good offense' approach. Even Harry's dimension splitter which wounded the immortal black dragon wouldn't have an effect on Cyttorak's chosen.

Of course, that was only if Harry used magic to attack. Marko's ability to use the gem was practically insulting.

Harry got a dozen Smoky Quartz from his inventory and placed three spells on them. The first would cause them to freeze in place in the air when thrown. The next would cause them to glow with a time delayed Lumos the moment they froze in the air. And the last would cause them to vanish with a time delayed vanishing charm two seconds later.

Marko had made it through the trees and turrets and Logan wasn't able to do much to slow him down. Harry got out a hundred dollar bill and smiled. It was time for a prank. He shouted, "Hey, Mr. Unstoppable, I bet you a hundred bucks can't get past me!"

The massive Juggernaut looked over at the kid standing between him and the institute, waving a hundred dollar bill in the air and he gave a feral grin beneath his helmet before he started charging.

Logan half shouted, half growled, "No! Get out of here!"

No one noticed the bag Harry held in his other hand until he swung it into the air and out fell the ten palm sized Smoky Quartz crystals. Each frozen in place surrounding the charging Juggernaut and glowed brightly.

Harry used that moment to cast a massive transfiguration on the ground. The space fifty feet in front of him had suddenly dipped down as if it was collapsing and the Smoky Quartz vanished from the air. The Juggernaut lost his footing and tripped, rolling into the center of the pit before coming to a stop.

The flat ground had turned into a fifty foot diameter perfect hemisphere shaped pit and the moment it finished shifting, the surface of the pit changed to a completely smooth texture. Harry had transfigured the pit into stone with a six inch layer of completely smooth rubber over the stone.

Harry then threw another crystal into the pit where it stopped in place, glowed, and vanished as Harry conjured a large amount of water to fill the pit and drench Marko.

Marko got up and looked at Harry staring down at him from the edge of the bowl waving the hundred dollar bill in the air. Harry sat down to observe Marko who started roaring in rage.

Harry was not completely exhausted but he still used almost all his magic reserves on this prank. There were easier ways to do it but Harry couldn't guarantee the Gem wouldn't break any Portal Harry tried to send Mark through and it had been far too long since Harry was able to prank an asshole who deserved it.

Marko of course tried running up the rubber hill but he didn't make it very far before his momentum faltered and he slid back into the puddle of water that reached his ankle. His wet boots provided not an ounce of traction against the smooth rubber surface.

Such basic use of Cyttorak's Strength energy only preserved a single vector of momentum. If it was a straight line, he could charge through ten feet of rubber and stone without much of an issue. But each step up the bowl shifted his vector to a new angel preventing him from building unstoppable momentum. Because it was a perfect hemisphere, there was no way to travel in a straight line. The best he could do was run up the other side and run down to use gravity to assist his momentum. It was only a half sphere after all and any skateboarder would know how to escape. Of course that only worked if he didn't slip while running through the puddle of water in the middle

Marko tried to do a straight run three times before he realized the problem and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Logan had recovered and walked around the hole over to Harry who was still sitting at the edge of the pit. The warrior observed Marko's attempts and the result with a wary expression. He apparently didn't expect something like this to work.

Once he reached Harry he said, "Why can't I smell him down there?"

Harry calmly answered, "There is an invisible plate of glass over the hole and the pit is filled with carbon monoxide. He's too angry to notice how short his breath is and by the time the effect wears off, he'll be unconscious."

The reason his magic reserves were almost empty was because he'd cast two overlapping transfigurations to make the pit, and when he threw the water as a distraction, he conjured and immediately rendered invisible a fifty foot diameter circle of glass and a lot of carbon monoxide.

Marko seemed to have figured out the skateboarder trick and was running up and down the walls. Though he had no traction, it was still possible to run without slipping if you have good balance and Marko had surprisingly excellent balance for a nine and a half foot tall mountain of a man.

Even if he reached the top, he wouldn't have enough momentum to break through the glass on the first try and if he tried a second time, Harry would break out a Ruby and make a shield using Strength energy himself. Though since the Juggernaut was literally running on fumes, Harry doubted it would come to that.

Marko's strength gave way and he collapsed onto his back. Harry took out a diamond and used Lumos on it before putting it back in his inventory and conjured a scanning type mandala in front of his hand. Harry kept it up and said, "He's still conscious. Give it another thirty seconds."

Logan didn't say anything but watched the Juggernaut closely. Twenty three seconds later Logan said, "He's out."

Harry nodded and threw his last crystal into the air and cast Finite Incantatem on the whole area. Thankfully it was easier to break your own magic than it was another's so the last of Harry's energy was enough to remove the glass, the gas, and return the ground to normal. Harry then collapsed.

*Ping*

[Magic Path has risen to Rank 40]

Harry smiled at that. His magic Path had reached 39 and his Tech Path 32 while upgrading the Danger Room and now his Magic Path had reached the next threshold.

A small airborne drone flew over from the mansion and took a moment to observe Harry, Logan, and the unconscious Juggernaut on the ground. Ten seconds later the continuous sirens halted and the lockdown was removed.

Harry was curious about something and used his psionics to send a mental message to Rogue, 'Come outside, there is something I want you to try.'

Harry put a hand in his bag to use as a cover while he pulled out a potion from his inventory. After removing his sense of taste from his Settings he popped the top and downed the whole bottle. It was something of an experimental magic recovery potion. Usually he would just wait to recover naturally instead of wasting such a potion, but the ward he'd secretly placed around the institute picked up two intruders, not one. The ward was set within the perimeter and zigzagged a bit to avoid the hidden turrets but was placed safely enough to avoid harming the electronics of the area. Five minutes after Marko entered, someone else did as well and was still inside. Harry's ward would stick to the intruder so he knew that person had entered in spite of the Lockdown and was currently heading down the basement stairs.

Forge came over from the mansion first and said, "Harry, you fried every camera and the targeting system of every turret in a hundred feet. What did you do?"

Logan flatly summarized, "Kid turned the ground into a hole filled with gas the Juggernaut couldn't climb out of. After he passed out, the ground changed back."

Forge did a double take and said, "Oh. Well, alright then."

Rogue came out along with a few of the kids who followed Forge after the lockdown was removed. Harry said, "Hey Rogue, ask this guy if you can use his powers, the same way you did earlier."

Rogue did her own double take at the unconscious brute and said, "Wait, really? You think that'll work?"

Harry shrugged. "If not, you can erase it the same way right?"

Rogue nodded and took off her glove and walked over to Marko's shoulder. She asked, "What's his name?"

Logan was watching with interest and said, "Cain Marko."

Rogue took in a breath and said to the unconscious man, "Alright Cain Marko, please let me use your power."

She waited a moment before touching his shoulder. She held it there for another moment before retracting her finger and closing her eyes.

When she opened them Harry was the first to ask, "Well?"

Rogue said, "It sorta worked. Marko here is only ok with me using his power to wreck stuff and fight people. Like he won't let me use it to build hospitals or help little old ladies cross the street. That sorta thing."

Harry nodded. That fell in line with his theory. Rogue was a Sorcerer, but one who made contracts with humans instead of gods. Gods wouldn't let mortals use the powers they lent for things they didn't approve of. Marko for example was also unable to use his strength constructively. If he tried, the power of the gem would wane until he did something destructive again. Cyttorak was a destruction loving god after all.

Harry had considered letting Rogue make contact with the Crimson gem itself to see if she could directly forge a connection to the elder god, but becoming Cyttorak's avatar was not a good thing and using the power through Marko was far safer. Though if Marko lost the gem, Rogue would lose the ability to use that strength as well.

Dr McCoy showed up with some syringes he had been working on since Marko's arrival and pumped the unstoppable force with enough drugs to keep him out until Thanksgiving.

As the crowd dispersed, Harry headed over to the intruder who was now making their way back up the stairs. It seemed the person had just paid a visit to Cerebro. Harry hid behind a corner and when the student he didn't recognize passed by, Harry sent out a stunner directly at his head, dropping him to the ground.

Harry used telekinesis to lift the kid up and take him to another room where he opened the kid's unconscious eyes and used Legilimency to find out what he was doing.

Harry smirked at the results. This was Mystique. She had released Juggernaut as a distraction to break into Cerebro so she could get in and copy the tech. Forge had revamped it several times and it was a very sophisticated piece of technology.

Harry sent another mental message to Rogue, 'Got another one, second room from the foyer.'

While Rogue was on her way, Harry took the hard drive from Mystique's bag and took out his own computer screen and keyboard from his inventory. He easily connected to and copied the content and was trying to decide the best move next.

Rogue showed up and asked, "Who's this?"

Harry smiled and answered, "Mystique here has been a naughty girl."

Rogue's eyebrows shot up before she glanced back down at the unconscious kid and let out a sigh. She said, "Mystique, please let me use your power."

After a moment she touched her and released. She didn't say anything afterwards and left. Harry didn't ask, he already figured out they had a past and whatever the Mystique in her mind said, Rogue probably wasn't willing to share it.

After pausing for a moment of contemplation, Harry opened up the original fire of the scan and made some edits. He was surprised how much the geometry used to build Cerebro could be mapped out using Arithmancy and by using the same formula, Harry figured out what to change to have Cerebro show something completely different. Harry was very satisfied, this was two great pranks in a single day.

When finished, Harry put the hard drive back and moved Mystique over to where he knocked her out. The hall was empty since everyone was checking out the fallen Juggernaut. Harry stood her up using telekinesis and cast Rennervate along with a mild confundus charm to make Mystique ignore the feeling that she had just been knocked out and awoken.

Harry was thankful he'd cast the stunner at her head earlier and not the backpack or else the hard drive would have been wrecked. Harry actually wanted to have a good look at Cerebro for a while but doubted he would have been allowed access even if he asked politely.

Mystique shook her head and continued walking out, making her way to the exit. As someone with a very high vitality and the ability to control her own cells, her resistance to magic was much higher than a standard muggle or mutant reaching as high as a normal wizard. However Harry was quite a bit above normal wizards himself so his magic was perfectly effective against her making it almost too easy to deal with her.

If she were a video game class, she would be a warrior or monk. High resistance against physical damage but nominal resistance against the arcane. The only reason she had resistance against psionics was because she'd manually adjusted her mind against it. Perhaps if given time, she could do something similar with magic, but until then, one stunner was all it was ever going to take.

Since the fun was over, Harry returned to his workshop. He'd learn later than Scott's team had quickly found out from the Brotherhood that they were only a distraction while Juggernaut was destroying the mansion. They tried to return but the Brotherhood had put a lot of effort into stalling them. When Scott's team arrived and found that there was no damage and the Juggernaut was out cold, they were appropriately speechless.

When Xavier returned and had been briefed, he requested Harry to come over to his office to speak with him.

Harry entered and found Xavier alone with another pile of paperwork before him.

Xavier gave an honest smile when he saw Harry and said, "I saw Rogue earlier today. She touched me without harm."

Harry smiled at that. Seemed Rogue had figured out how to turn off her powers already.

Xavier continued, "She informed me of your part in the training of her powers and I have come to a decision." Xavier pulled out a file stamped with an official logo of one of the nearby Mental Institutions and opened it before sliding it to Harry. Inside was a picture of a young girl with brown hair and red bangs. Xaiver said, "Her name is Wanda Maximoff. She is a mutant gifted with a power she can't control, a power that greatly resembles the magic you've shown yourself capable of. I'd like you to meet her."