fics I read

Within a field of kaleidoscopic color which marked the astral battlefield Harry's Battle Meditation took place in, Harry was standing off to the side while he watched Rogue, Wanda, and Jean fight off a group of twelve tiger sized wolves.

It had been a little over a month since the girls were added to the Multiplayer function and every night since they had used Battle Meditation with Harry. The girls themselves could not initiate Battle Meditation so Harry had to do so first and only then could he invite them into the astral plane to take part. Of course he had to lower the level of the conjured constructs so the wolves they were currently facing were about level fifty a piece.

Jean was probably the most excited to take part in Harry's Battle meditation because she knew how to access the Astral plane on her own, though she had no intention of finding and killing beings within to level up. She knew that Harry leveled up in this space and had tried to find it a few times so she could watch him, but Harry told her he was using a concealment formation to prevent Xavier or other telepaths from interrupting him while he fought. Having the Ancient One find him that one time was awkward enough, he wasn't going for a repeat performance.

All three girls were floating above the pack and raining hell down into the poor wolves. Jean had already figured out how to float using telekinesis and Rogue was copying her. Wanda had invented her own Chaos Magic spell that allowed her to float as well which proved to be a great advantage against opponents incapable of flight.

Jean had three forms of attack. She could attack the target's mind to stun then, use telekinesis to hold or throw them, or create psionic blades to physically attack them. She could use Phoenix Flame as well, but they wouldn't get Experience for defeating enemies with those so she refrained from using that. While defending she could create barriers and move debris or enemies into the way of oncoming attacks.

Wanda's fighting style was mostly about controlling the enemy and the environment. She didn't have anything to transfigure into allies in this space but she could transfigure the terrain and apply various status ailments against her opponents. Her Hex Bolts were no longer unpredictable and she could directly transfigure weaker targets into whatever she wanted.

Rogue's combat style was more unpredictable. At a distance she would use Cyclop's eye beams, Iceman's Freeze rays, Pyro's Pyrokinesis, or Storm's wind or lightning. When up close she could cover herself in Spyke's spikes or Colossus's organic steel and use Juggernaut's Unstoppable Force or Quicksilver's Speed. In a pinch she would use Wanda's Hex Bolts.

None of the three were particularly stronger than the other two. At first, Wanda and Rogue were stronger than Jean but with the Autocorrecting properties of the Path System combined with her own Phoenix Flames perk which acted as a multiplier in the speed at which the Path increased in rank, eventually she found herself nearly matching them most of the time.

All three had their weaknesses of course. Rogue's weakness was the duration she could fight. Most mutant powers come with passive physical enhancements which allow the mutant to use them easier but Rogue didn't get those so her use of a power was always less efficient than the original's use. For example she could run at the same speed as Quicksilver but she would tire herself out long before Pietro reached his limit. When she used multiple powers at the same time she tired out much faster so when she sparred with Wanda and Jean, they would use everything they had to force her into a corner and make her use multiple powers at the same time, then drag the fight out until she was exhausted. Neither considered it a cheap tactic as Rogue could use Wolverine's healing and could become invulnerable using either Colossus' or Juggernaut's power.

Wanda's weakness was her lack of fast, strong, single target attack moves. Her casting for lesser spells was near instantaneous but if she wanted to take down someone like Logan or any of the other first generation X-Men, she would need something stronger which took more time to cast. She had been getting around this by using stalling tactics and learning different strategies while increasing the strength of her Hex Bolt's ability to disrupt other mutant powers.

Jean's only real weakness was her lack of experience. In that sense, Wanda and Rogue were perfect practice partners for her and she was learning something new every day. Harry offered to allow Jean to copy his own understanding of physics into her mind which would allow her to easily learn it herself using Harry's understanding as a reference. Jean could use telekinesis and astral creation to mimic many other powers and with a connection to the Phoenix Force, using those powers didn't drain her even when she tried something big. However maintaining a constant connection to the Phoenix Force would change her intrinsically so she only maintained brief connections at various times.

In addition to facing off against monsters in Battle Meditation and sparring against one another, Harry himself would sometimes fight against them either individually, in pairs, or against all three. Although the girls were strong enough to whittle away at the pack of level 50 wolves without issue, Harry could still clobber them all no matter what they tried. Harry found that close quarters combat was a general weakness for each of them so he would stack Strength Energy from Cyttorak's realm with Immortal Dragon Chi and use his Dimensional Long Sword along with Sorcerer style physical enhancement. In this way he used his Warrior, Magic, and Dragon Path all at the same time and proved to be too strong for them. For now anyways. Harry suspected in two years or so they'd be able to give him a very good fight. Though he still wouldn't let them beat him.

Harry couldn't fight the monsters the girls were against or else all the energy would automatically go to him, so he had to just stand around the whole time. Instead of wasting it, he would invoke his Immortal Dragon Chi and practice using it to raise his Dragon Path. Other times he would use Astral Creation to practice making AstralTech. The AstralTech of Lockheed's race was fascinating in more ways than one. Apparently Lockheed's race had actual ships they used in the Astral Plane they could use to fly from one world to the next and would move their physical bodies with their astral selves.

Harry's interest in AstralTech was due to the fact that he could not use items from his inventory in the Astral Plane but he could place AstralTech into his inventory once it had been completed and he could take it out when he returned to the Astral Plane. That meant he could make weapons and pieces of equipment that he could use in the Astral Plane.

Harry's Tech Path apparently loved AstralTech as well as it had gone up two ranks to 34 since Lockheed's tutoring in the subject had started. That along with some other breakthroughs of his allowed Harry to complete several projects he'd been working on.

The final wolf died and the natural energy they were formed of scattered and was absorbed in equal parts by the girls to Harry's satisfaction. Wanda who had the lowest level before had reached level 40 and Jean and Rogue were already at level 41. Even though they shared the Exp, they were leveling up faster than Harry did at Hogwarts because they already had Path Ranks higher than their levels and Harry was getting them access to monsters at higher levels than the girls.

The Multiplayer function had three main features which benefited the users. The first was the recovery properties of the Obscurus cells. When injured, their natural recovery increased depending on the ratio of Obscurus cells they had in their body which increased the more they leveled up. When they reached level 50 they could likely survive being stabbed in the heart and at level 100 they could shrug off such a wound without decreasing their combat effectiveness. Even Rogue couldn't channel Logan all the time after all.

The second function was that they could exceed the limits of their body through leveling up thanks to the Obscurus particle's propagation. Even if they all trained at a spartan style boot camp from hell for a year, they had no chance of even reaching level 35 from level 25, yet Harry suspected they would all reach level fifty in the next two months.

They could even distribute the stats they gained however they wanted. Wanda for example used a lot of her stats to boost her Luck and Rogue and Jean did the same with a goal of getting the Luck to 50 each. Harry didn't want to increase his own Luck for the simple reason that he might get bored if he was too lucky, but he had no problem with his girls boosting their Luck since they would not come back from the dead if they got unlucky.

The third and biggest benefit of the Multiplayer status was access to the auto correction of the Path System. Their skills naturally increased with use and skills within the same Path also became easier to use even if they didn't practice them thanks to the autocorrect.

For the Path system, Jean chose to focus on the Psionic Path and Wanda focused on the Magic Path. Rogue however decided to walk a similar path to Harry's and used the Magic, Psionic, and Warrior Paths at the same time to try to stack them together. Most mutant powers fell under one of those three Paths anyways. Spyke's, Colossus's, and even Wolverine's power fell under Warrior. Iceman's, Storm's, and even Scott's power fell under Magic. And Pyro's and Domino's powers fell under Psionic. There were also powers that fell into multiple categories like Quicksilver's and Juggernaut's which were both Magic and Warrior since their power used Time or Strength Energy to enhance their physical combat abilities.

The girls loved getting stronger faster but under Harry's suggestion they had to hold back in the Danger Room when showing off to others. Rogue and Wanda had been doing so already and Jean was starting to get used to it though she didn't like it. Harry mollified her by informing her about Sinister who knew that she had lost interest in Scott and that was why she was kidnapped. The fact that he could find that out meant he had means of monitoring inside the institute and the reason Harry was able to get her so fast was because Harry had hid all the useful information about himself behind covers. Jean didn't like it but she understood it.

The fall semester of Harry's first year at the Institute had ended and today was Christmas. Forge and Xavier both had very pleasant smiles on their faces as Harry had shown them his gifts for some of the students and teachers in advance and both were incredibly happy for everyone.

Harry had started openly going out with Jean and had confirmed they were boyfriend and girlfriend. This was something Rogue and Wanda suggested as they wanted to make sure the few eyes coveting Jean knew to stand down. Thankfully since Harry removed Sinister's influence, Scott had only been treating Jean like a sister and he had given up on all other ideas. He knew that Jean was happy which made him happy.

In exchange for this, Harry would often share Rogue's and Wanda's bed at night. Nothing X-rated happened but they were enjoying the skinship and closeness. Occasionally Jean would sneak in as well and Harry would enlarge the bed.

Jean was not exactly a different person after the mental locks were removed and she regained her full ability to feel love, but everyone could see how different she was since she started dating Harry. She was more colorful and vibrant and seemed both softer and stronger at the same time. Thankfully everyone attributed it to Harry being an awesome boyfriend which was not entirely inaccurate.

Storm and Logan did of course take the two aside and give them the Adult Lecture about hormones, consent, and love in general. Harry did his best not to point out that the Goddess of Nature and the Feral Animal required a soundproof room when they chose to sleep together.

Storm herself had taken an instant liking to Laura and Dr. Kinney, often chatting with the latter over coffee in the morning with Domino. Both appreciated some new female friends as they felt being the only mature women in the institute became droll after some time. They also enjoyed grilling her viciously about how close she was getting to Dr. McCoy. The two geneticists had many things in common after all.

When they started opening presents, Harry was given many small knick knacks, a cool poster of Captain America, some books and some t-shirts.

Near the end of the gift unwrapping Harry had Xavier bring out gifts for Kurt, Dr. McCoy, Josh, Sarah, and the others who had features which prevented them from going out in public.

Kurt was the only one Harry had told about this project beforehand and when he saw the watch and who else got one, he teleported over to Harry, took the forehead flick without complaint, and hugged him much to everyone's confusion.

"Thank you thank you thank you! How does it work?"

Harry answered, "The instructions were in the box, but you just tap on the glass three times to activate it and tap on it five times to deactivate it."

Kurt put the watch on and tapped the face of the glass three times which caused his appearance to look like static for just an instant before he was suddenly no longer blue. Kurt looked caucasian, seemed to have five fingers, and no tail though his hair remained its trademark blue.

"Ah, my tail is getting pressed against my leg!" Kurt look back to where he tail had been and didn't see it. He tapped the glass five times and his image returned to his loveable blue demon form. He then wrapped his tail around his waist and tapped the glass three more times and looked normal again. "Ah, much better."

Harry got out a large, full length mirror he already had in the corner and got it out. Kurt didn't bother walking over to it, he just poofed in front of it and started admiring his reflection. "Oh! My hair is still blue! It's perfect!"

The other kids put their watches on and tapped it three times as well. The gold skinned Josh became caucasian as well. The bone-like horns on Sarah's face were gone. And Dr. McCoy was suddenly a very bulky man who nearly matched the Juggernaut in profile, though he was not nearly as tall and one would only think he was incredibly fit.

McCoy's surprise when he saw his reflection was the strongest. He asked, "How did you know what I looked like before I changed?"

Although Dr. McCoy considered Harry a student and colleague, he didn't tell Harry much about his past. Harry had in fact used some of the man's fur and what he knew of removing the X-Gene combined with a variant polyjuice potion he used on himself. In other words, he made himself a copy of without his mutation and took pictures of himself to be scanned and used for the Hard-Light construct.

Not exactly wanting to lie, Harry answered, "It's a secret, though I'll tell you later if you really want to know." Making that particular batch of Polyjuice was gigantic pain, but perhaps Dr. McCoy would learn more about his own mutation if he used it himself.

Not just the children gifted the watches, but everyone in the mansion was happy and many had tears running down their faces. They all knew what this really meant for the kids and it took away much of the hidden burden that being a mutant entailed.

While everyone was laughing and showing off, Harry walked over to a corner and got out his last present. "No, I didn't forget about you."

ForgetMeNot rolled his eyes and opened the package to find a metallic bracelet and a tablet.

Harry said, "Keep that on for the next four hours. It will scan your memories and connect to this tablet. The tablet will display events and people you've encountered and you can select them. Any person you select will remember you. Any event you select that you took part in will be remembered by everyone who took part in it. I can make a new tablet if it breaks and there is an extra bracelet if you lose this one, but try not to as this bracelet and the spare are the only ones in existence and I'll never be able to make more. As long as you wear the bracelet, you will not be forgotten."

ForgetMeNot stopped moving about half way through the explanation. He was in too much shock. Sure, he knew Harry was going to try something, but he didn't expect him to actually succeed. No one succeeded. He wanted to rebuke Harry for getting his hopes up but the swarm of smiling children Harry had already done the impossible for today held his tongue. He stared at the bracelet for what seemed like hours before he put it on his wrist and felt someone inside his head. He understood that this was whatever was copying his memories.

Not really knowing what to do, ForgetMeNot softly said, "Thank you.."

Harry patted his shoulder and said, "It's an honor. I look forward to working with you in the future."

Harry had to practically use Alchemy in order to turn the DVDs into something he could store memories on but eventually he succeeded. The big breakthrough was actually a paired component of AstralTech Harry made that connected the Tablet to the bracelet through the astral plane. That meant they didn't need to be close to each other and the astral plane could easily access and transfer mental information like memories.

ForgetMeNot carefully pulled out the tablet and the large instruction booklet it came with and started reading it. Harry knew he wouldn't accept that this was real until later so he wouldn't bother him for now.

Sometime in the afternoon, Harry's own watch started blinking. Harry kept his homemade cellphone in his inventory so he used his watch like a pager to inform him of incoming calls and messages.

Harry pulled out his cellphone and was quickly called by the Goblin Bloodclaw. He was basically Harry's secretary. "Mr. Potter. A voicemail has been left on the company line by one Winston Frost."

Harry asked, "As in CEO of Frost International, Winston Frost?"

"The same. He has requested a meeting on the 27th at the Headquarters of Frost International in Massachusetts at 10am."

Harry tried not to laugh but did not succeed and he could practically hear Bloodclaw's razor toothed smile through the phone. Both knew the type of man Mr. Frost was known to be and both knew it was unlikely for things to end peacefully. Harry felt the Goblins were probably rubbing off on him in the wrong way because he was looking forward to it.

Harry said, "Call back and confirm I'll be there."

"It shall be done."

Harry hung up and smiled. It had been about six months since Brilliance Incorporated started selling gemstones. Harry wasn't too sure about the name but a company that made gemstones and would soon make tech had to have a catchy name and he didn't want to call it Potter something. He felt with things like Worthington Industries, Stark Industries, and Frost International, putting his name up like that would feel just too weird and he already had Potter and Gold Bank and Trust.

The Goblins had pretty much figured out how to get around all the annoying laws that prevented them from earning among the muggles. Each leader among the Goblins had a human counterpart and that human's name was on record as the one who was employed doing whatever it was that particular Goblin did. These humans were employed in shell companies that looked like they did things but in reality they did not. The so called human board of directors were all squibs or muggleborns who knew about the Goblins and also knew they were just proxies. They had signed magical contracts to fulfill the role of proxy and were paid relatively well.

Thanks to this however, it was impossible to steal the secrets of the company. The hiring process for most positions that were just covers included magical means of weeding out the criminals and spies so no one who wanted to look was able to find anything as they would always look in the wrong places.

As long as you ignored a few breeches of the Statue of Secrecy and squinted a bit, it was all still just barely considered legal.

The company itself had actually garnered great success so far. Nearly indestructible sapphire panes to be used as windows, diamond drill bits and cutters, large rubies for lasers, there was indeed a market for Harry's synthetic gemstones that could be crafted to nearly any size and shape and many groups were starting to take notice. Most companies had things they wanted to make but could not as the resources to make them were too scarce for the product to sell profitably. Projects that fell under this category that required gemstones were now suddenly profitable as long as they purchased those gemstones from Brilliance Incorporated.

Harry informed his girls of Mr. Frost's invitation and though Jean looked just a little worried, Rogue and Wanda wished him happy hunting.

On the morning in question Harry wore a custom made acromantula silk business suit with silver cufflinks and his Potter family signet ring. The smile received from his girls at his appearance was a show of how he looked which was good enough for him.

Harry used a Portal to head to MIT, a place he had been to before and got a cab to take him to Frost International's main building, a humble sixty seven floor tower thirty floors higher than anything else in the nearby five square mile area. Harry figured the man needed lessons on subtly.

The guard at the door motioned for Harry to come to him first as the door wouldn't automatically open for anyone without a badge. Harry said, "Harry Potter, meeting for 10am?"

The guard didn't look through any schedule or paperwork, he just gave Harry a once over and directed him through the door behind him.

Inside there was another guard who said, "Mr. Potter. Please step through here." There was an open ended box-like path Harry followed the guard through to the elevator on the other side of the room. He sensed the X-Rays that traveled through him and confirmed he only had a wallet, pen, cellphone, keys, and a watch on his person. Some of the keys looked fancy and high tech but there were toys Harry made that didn't unlock anything. Nothing Harry secured used actual keys, but not having them would be suspicious.

Once he was through Harry saw the woman at the counter was speaking on a phone, likely notifying others of Harry's arrival. Several others seemed to be coming and going from the entrance but they used key cards to both enter and exit. There were no doors to be used by guests without going through a guard first.

The guard escorting Harry to the elevator seemed to be the most muscular. He seemed to be the type who would never smile and his silence had an air of intimidation.

Harry found the entire setup amusing. Compared to meetings with Harry's actual board of directors, these guys were positively adorable. That board did not have a Voting process when there was a difference of opinion. Their arguments were carried out through battle and the shedding of blood.

Adult Goblins that survived growing up among other Goblins had a Warrior Path Rank averaging between 15 and 25 with the strongest ones being above 30. That combined with their Goblin forged weapons and armor meant they were very hardy and Goblins themselves were far faster and stronger than their size gave away. Goblins matured slower and reached their prime between the ages of 50 and 75 with the best maintaining their strength when they were over a hundred. However, although the strongest Goblin Warrior wielding the finest Goblin armaments would likely defeat most wizards, there were far too few Goblins who survived the number of battles required to reach such standards making them weaker than Wizards overall and thus forced to abide by their laws.

Unsurprisingly, most of the strongest who had in fact reached that standard were on Harry's board of directors and none of them were meat heads or younger than sixty. Harry did have to kill one particularly stubborn Goblin during his second board of directors meeting but that asshole had it coming. He thought that because Harry hadn't killed him up to that point after all the times he tried to cheat him and fail that Harry was a pushover. The remaining board members and that Goblin's replacement knew not to make that mistake again.

So compared to that, Harry had to stop himself from laughing at Winston's so called intimidation tactics.

The elevator ride was unsurprisingly all the way to the top and the security guard motioned for Harry to continue into the following room while he stayed behind.

Something that was slightly surprising was that Harry's mental trip wires went off just before Harry entered the room at the end of the hall. Someone was listening to his thoughts and was very discreet about their entry. However even Xavier couldn't get in without tripping Harry's alarms because those alarms were made using wizard magic and invisible to even the strongest telepath.

Harry smiled at the opening move of his opponent and figured this meant it would not be boring.

Harry opened the door and saw Mr. Frost on the other side of a large, apparently hand carved desk sitting in a large, leather chair. Behind the man was an open view of the Boston cityscape and in front of the desk in what he supposed was reserved for him was a smaller chair. Winston himself wore a three piece suit and the grey hair on his head was slicked back in a way that both appeared professional while giving the aura of experience and wisdom.

Fully knowing that his thoughts were being heard by another party, Harry thought that Winston was very stereotypical and without a dead body in the room or bloodstains on the desk this entire charade was cute compared to what he was used to dealing with.

Harry had already sent a reverse tap to the telepath and confirmed it was a teenage girl in another room, not the man himself.

The man looked up from his desk as if he only just realized Harry had walked in and said, "Ah yes, Mr. Potter. Thank you for accepting my request for a meeting."

Harry didn't bother sitting in the provided chair, instead he just leaned against it and answered, "Now why would I turn down such an interesting invitation from a man such as yourself?" As in, why should I fear you? I obviously don't. Harry could swear he heard a giggle coming from the other room which was quickly stifled, though didn't make anyone aware he had noticed it.

Harry continued, "You are also the first person to successfully reach my voicemail. I'm most certain I didn't make that number easy to find so it would be quite improper of me to decline your request."

By law, contact numbers have to be somewhere but the Goblins knew how to hide things within bureaucracy and Harry knew computers. The FBI hadn't found his contact number yet and he knew they were still looking.

Winston seemed to attempt a smile but it was strained. He didn't ask Harry to take a seat as Harry already seemed quite comfortable leaning over the back of the chair and was standing above the seated Winston. The old man said, "Quite. Your company, Brilliance Incorporated, is certainly interesting. There is potential but only if handled well. I called you over to discuss the future of your company."

Harry only laughed in his head instead of out loud that the man thought anything he said or did would have any say in the future of his company. Outwardly, Harry said, "Of course it has potential. Nobody has my company's techniques when it comes to producing gemstones. No one can even come close without burning more money than they'll ever make competing with me so my company's future is, well, Brilliant." Harry said that last part with a smile that showed his supernaturally clean teeth. Brilliant was such a fun word to say with a British accent and a smile.

Winston didn't bother smiling back, instead he seemed to decide play time was over and said, "Indeed. It's that potential that has me interested. I called you in here to buy controlling interest in your company. Frost International has a clothing and jewelry line that could use someone with your manufacturing capabilities and I already have everything here you'll have to sign."

Within Harry's head he heard words which sounded mostly similar to his own voice, 'It is a good idea, it is-,' Harry interrupted the false thoughts and thought to himself, 'no, that's a terrible idea. Gemstone manufacturing is the tip of the iceberg. Selling now before I make my true play isn't an idea worth considering.' Harry was immune to telepathic persuasiveness as long as he wasn't dealing with an Elder God within their own realm, but he didn't want others to know that so thought to himself a logical reason to ignore the thought along with some juicy bait to keep the telepath interested.

Harry blandly said, "I refuse. Was there anything else?" Harry didn't hide his thoughts that this man was already boring him with his cliché gimmicks. He hoped that by thinking such thoughts, he'd draw out the telepath directly.

Winston didn't appear to expect a refusal, but added easily, "You should reconsider. Young companies such as yours often face difficulties which cannot be recovered from. Becoming a branch of Frost International would protect you from such things." He didn't even bother trying to hide the various threats within that statement.

Harry knew that the Goblins had become a bad influence on him when his reflexive response was to give a toothy smile and answer back, "I look forward to the challenge."

It was clear they had nothing else to discuss so Harry turned to leave. The telepath from before seemed to run around the hall and after reaching the corner where she was in view she started calmly walking as if she hadn't run up to him. The guard didn't block her and she opened the elevator and said, "I'll escort you out, I'm certainly better company than Mr. Orth here."

Harry said, "I'd be a nutter not to agree with that. Harry Potter, at your service." She appeared to be a little older than Harry at about sixteen though matched him in height which was impressive as he was quite tall for his age. She was completely lithe in form but showed no weakness in movement meaning she had a well conditioned body. That and the whole flawless white skin, golden blond hair, and perfect blue eyes made it very clear this telepath would not have to rely on her powers to get herself a man, as long as she didn't get greedy that is.

The elevator door closed and she said, "Emma Frost, charmed. I'm impressed with the way you dealt with my father. Most have difficulty looking him in the eye, much least denying him so outright."

Harry's internal thoughts about Emma's appearance was simply that she was beautiful and he wished she had been sitting at that desk instead of the grumpy old man. Sharing the company of a beautiful woman was far more pleasant than staying in a room with an irritable grey haired old fart.

Harry said, "Compared to my own board of directors meetings, that was outright boring. Every member carries at least one weapon and the better parts of our discussions and negotiations over disagreements don't start until first blood is drawn." Harry thought back to a few of those meetings and the sparks that his own personally crafted knife carved out of his opponent's blade before biting into their flesh.

After thinking about it for a moment he Paused and turned to see Emma's face comically distorted in utter shock. Harry couldn't help but laugh at that. She didn't see Goblins in Harry's memories though as the Contracts he signed prevented him from telling others he worked with Goblins and the secrecy within the magic of those contracts prevented that information from being taken. What she saw would then be appropriately altered to look like old balding men snarling at him while rapidly exchanging blows with exotic blades.

Harry unpaused and turned to see she had corrected her face so that he wouldn't see her gaping. She said, "That.. would certainly put some things in perspective."

After a moment of silence she said with worry clear in her voice, "I just hope you are not underestimating my father. He has many ways of bringing down companies that go against him and I understand that Brilliance Incorporated doesn't have any military contracts yet."

In most countries, military contracts were shields of protection. If someone went against a company that was contracted to sell products to the military the government would likely step in to assist.

Harry thought, 'to himself,' that her mention of yet implied she had a way to get him a military contract through her. Harry wondered if she was poaching or if Winston put her up to it as a plan B. However it didn't matter.

Harry said, "I don't need them. Although it was hard to find out that I am the CEO of Brilliance, it is not impossible. What is impossible is finding out what else I am the CEO of. I wonder how silly your father would feel if he knew I am also the owner of Potter and Gold Bank and Trust. I had trouble not laughing in the man's face."

P&G Bank and Trust had partial ownership of thousands of Businesses and was an unstoppable stream of wealth that spanned most of the UK, much of Europe, and was rapidly expanding in the U.S. Even if no one purchased a thing from Brilliance Incorporated, he'd never go into the red.

Once more Harry thought 'to himself,' that this would be a fine test. If Emma told her father of this, it would come to nothing for either of them. If she kept that from him, it would be a good sign she might be trustworthy when she takes over the Frost International in the future.

Harry didn't look, but he did Pause again to see her smile a bit at that. The fact that Harry clearly believed that she would lead the company in the future was something she likely enjoyed hearing.

Harry unpaused and Emma said, "In that case I can't imagine you'll have much to worry about. There may be some.. Personal attacks. Slander, libel, that sort of thing. But your board of directors doesn't sound like pushovers so I don't think there will be an issue."

Harry said, "Well, I don't want to get their hopes up. They sharpen their blades enough as is without knowing they are being targeted."

"I see. I must say, you are far more interesting than most I've met. Would you mind meeting me another day for a longer conversation?"

She added a mental suggestion that Harry would like to ask her out on a date. Harry smiled and asked, "Are you asking me for a date? I don't mind."

She frowned, just barely, that he thought she was asking instead of getting him to ask but endured it.

Harry continued as if he didn't notice, "I know a nice restaurant in New York. Would you be able to make it for oh say, the 31st?"

Harry was clearly implying that he went to Massachusetts for their invitation so she should come to New York for his own.

Emma smiled and asked, "Where and when?"

Harry pulled out his wallet which contained a business card and his pen. He wrote down an address and a time on the card and handed it to Ms. Frost.

An eyebrow raised at the address which told Harry she recognized it. The fact that Harry could get a reservation on New Year's Eve, just four days from now showed his capability.

She gave a beautiful smile and said, "I'll be there."

The elevator reached the ground floor and Harry left for the exit. Once he was further down the street and away from any cameras, he directly apparated back to the institute and told his girls of the meeting with the young telepath.

Jean asked with a mischievous smile, "So, a date huh."

Harry said, "Well she did ask me for a date and I do plan to deliver. First things first though."

He turned to Jean and asked, "Would you like to go on a double date with me?"

Wanda realized what Harry was up to and started giggling. "Ah, so you'll give her a date. It just won't be you who will be taking Jean who is also a telepath. I want pictures."

Harry said, "I'll show you the memories."

Jean smiled and asked, "So, Scott?"

Harry nodded, "Yup. Scott."

"You want to set me up on a date?"

Unsurprisingly, Scott was looking at Harry as if he had grown a second head which started singing Opera. Perhaps not the strangest request he had ever been asked, but Harry was certain it at least made his top five.

Harry confirmed, "Yep. Miss Frost asked me for a date but as you know, I'm already dating Jean. So I told her I'd get her a date so my options are you, Kurt, or Bobby. We're going to a fancy restaurant so Kurt is out of the question and although he hasn't said anything, I'm ninety percent sure that Bobby has zero interest in girls, if you catch my meaning."

Scott shrugged. That was something of an open secret that no one really cared about. Still trying to get out of perhaps the most awkward conversation of his life he asked, "Why would you agree at all?"

"Two reasons. First, being the daughter of a CEO, it is unlikely she has any friends that are not trying, in some shape or form, to take advantage of her." That made Scott frown. He had some serious protective instincts. Harry continued, "And two, she happens to be a mutant and I doubt she has any friends who are also mutants."

"Wait, really? What's her power?"

"Sorry Scott, I'm not sharing a girl's secrets behind her back. If she decides to tell you, she will. And if you agree to this, I'll give you a watch."

Scott was about to refuse before he remembered some Christmas presents. "What kind of watch?"

"I actually just finished it. It will assist you with turning your powers off and on."

Scott froze at that. Harry figured he was being just a bit too dramatic. He had problems but his life was in no way worse than a dozen others in the Institute before Harry's arrival. ForgetMeNot literally had nothing and no one and yet he still moved forward. Harry truly admired the guy. Rogue feared growing up without being able to touch another human being yet she still trained every day to control her power. Wanda had problems caused by a megalomaniacal father and an Elder Demon God of Chaos but she didn't ask for pity. And then there are those like Kurt who couldn't show their face in public without being screamed at and yet he always maintained an upbeat attitude and tried to make others smile with his pranks, not frown at his misfortunes.

After holding the question back for a few moments he asked, "How does that work?"

"Well, as you know, I am familiar with magic, among other things. Certain forms of magic I am familiar with channel energy through your body to use its power. There are forms of Anti-Magic which can prevent a person's body from channeling that energy. The watch is a project I worked on with Forge and a certain Wizard I know to inscribe it with an Anti-Magic seal that can be enabled and disabled."

What Harry wouldn't tell him as he would rather the drama king figure it out himself, was that the watch was basically a set of training wheels. If Scott could feel his power getting enabled and disabled, he could replicate that sensation to control his power on his own. If Harry just wanted to turn Scott's power off, he had some anti-magic manacles when he arrived that would probably work just fine. Instead, he wanted something that Scott could use to train himself. Harry considered himself a teacher, not a babysitter.

After asking to test it first, Scott agreed to the double date.

The fallout from Christmas and Scott walking around without sunglasses was a large amount of laughter and smiles. Even Xavier was shocked that Harry had made something for Scott as blocking a mutant's power was very different from making a disguise. There was a possibility for misuse. Forge of course informed the Professor that Scott's watch only worked for Scott and anyone trying to analyze it would get nothing for their troubles. Harry had asked Forge to check his work as he was fully aware of what could happen if such technology fell into the wrong hands.

On the 30th, Harry took Wanda, Rogue, and Jean out to New York for clothes shopping. Twelve hours later Harry was able to convince the girls their respective closets were not big enough to hold more and they would likely outgrow anything else before they wore half of what they purchased. Having been defeated by the evil that was logic, the girls grumpily decided to call it a day.

The following evening Harry wore a tuxedo that looked both simple yet classy. Jean wore a green dress with gold highlights she'd gotten the day before and Scott wore a slightly snazzier tuxedo Harry bought him to look good for his date. Harry told him he should keep the habit of wearing his sunglasses outside but could take them off indoors now.

Emma apparently was neither the type of person who was late or early. She walked up to the entrance right at the second and easily spotted Harry. Just as easily she spotted the redhead in his arms and the guy standing next to them gapping at her beauty. Harry said, "Ms. Frost, I'm glad you could make it. Here is the date I promised you. His name is Scott. And this is my girlfriend, Jean."

Jean smiled and extended a hand. Emma paused only for a moment before she took it and gave a friendly shake. The smile that appeared on Jean's face and the shock that flashed across Emma's eyes clearly showed Harry that the blonde telepath had attempted to access Jean's mind and had likely been politely told off.

Once she realized things were not as they seemed, Emma gave an impish smirk and said, "Thank you Harry. I have been looking forward to this. You didn't tell me he was such a dreamboat."

Jean reached over to Scott's chin and closed his gaping mouth and said, "Scott, aren't you going to take your date's arm?"

Scott blushed but composed himself rather quickly and presented his arm. "Ms. Frost, would you do me the honor of accompanying me as my date this evening?"

Harry and Jean shared a smirk. Scott had met Deadpool before so although he could be rattled, he could still pull himself together.

Emma seemed to raise an eyebrow. Not at the display of chivalry, but likely because of what she was seeing in Scott's mind. She now knew that Harry had told Scott she was a mutant but had not told him her power. The lack of surprise from Jean at her mental intrusion told her that Jean was certainly a telepath and knew that she was as well. Scott was a mutant but had no great defenses against psychic intrusion meaning she could get everything she wanted to know about the group from Scott's mind, and Jean and Harry appeared to be inviting her to do so.

Not one to turn down such an invitation, she took Scott's arm and Harry walked the group up to the reservation desk and moments later the group was escorted over to a table for four adjacent to the window overlooking Times Square where the ball would be dropping in a few hours.

Emma hid her surprise well but knew this table should not have been possible to get with just a couple of day's notice.

Jean, acting the part of the sister enjoying watching her brother squirm, said, "So Scott, get the ball rolling and tell Ms. Frost a little about yourself."

Emma said, "Please call me Emma. I don't believe I've ever been on a blind date before so I think I'll start. I like art museums, moonless nights, and rock music."

Scott responded with, "Well, you are clearly more cultured than I am. I do like walking through parks though. Dogs are also good. Who do you listen to?"

Harry could tell that Emma was going through Scott's head. At some point she tried once more to enter into Harry's mind. The last time she was there, she was completely taken aback at the level of organization. She was tempted to take one of the books from the shelves but her instincts told her not to. This time when she entered, she found that a representation of both Harry and Jean were there, waiting for her.

Within Harry's mind she asked, "So Mr. Potter. What exactly is this? A recruitment for Xavier's cub scouts?" She had already learned much from Scott's head.

Harry shook his metaphysical head and said, "Nope. More like an offer of friendship. If you actually are interested in me you'll have to get Jean's permission. And Rogue's. And Wanda's."

"A Harem? Really?" she asked with amusement.

Jean answered, "For reasons I don't want to go into at the moment, I am ridiculously empathic and need a healthy dose of love to keep sane. And grounded. On earth anyways. I fell in love with Harry, but so did two others. Both however have had isolations issues in the past so both are comfortable having more people to love than less as they don't want to be alone. They love me and for that I love both of them. It is all very warm and fuzzy."

Emma frowned at that. Problems with isolation and the need for people to care for you were things that hit just a little too close to home. That being said she was selfish and didn't intend to change. She said, "Thank you for the offer of Harem membership but I'm not the type who shares."

Jean shrugged and said, "It wasn't so much an offer as a warning of what you'd be in for. But declining is fine too. Also note that I'll be able to tell if you try anything to Scott and so would the Professor. Harry hasn't told him or anyone else in the institute about you though so you won't get his attention as long as you don't try anything funny."

Emma tried not to roll her eyes. Scott didn't need the slightest bit of manipulation. A naïve boy scout with a hero complex who only felt valued when he was being useful to someone else. She had noticed he was sincere too. He didn't know that Emma was a telepath, but likely due to his experience working with telepaths, even his thoughts were polite and well mannered. Very different from men her age she was used to dealing with.

Deciding to change the subject, Harry asked, "So what did you tell Mr. Frost about me?"

"Nothing I doubt you didn't want him to know. Exceptionally well organized mind and heavily resistant to outside influence. Large plans for your company in the future. Oh, and the fact that you found his intimidation tactics cute." She smiled at that last one. Likely reveling in the memory of whatever expression her father made upon hearing that.

Harry shook his head and said, "I wasn't lying about my Board of Directors."

Jean rolled her eyes and said, "They are a bad influence on you." She knew Harry's company was run by Goblins even though Harry hadn't told her and any viewed memories of them didn't show that. However someone who had read Harry's memories from start to finish could put two and two together and figure the rest out without breaking the contract.

The waiter came and the group ordered some appetizers and drinks to munch on until their main order was ready.

Scott was somewhat hanging on in the outward conversation as Harry and Jean both brought up various things about the X-Men and their training so Scott figured it was ok to talk about those things. The only problem was that Scott was just a little too enthusiastic about one particular subject.

Within Harry's mind Emma blatantly asked, "Does Scott have a hard on for Xavier or something?"

Jean rolled her eyes and Harry chuckled. He answered, "Xavier has sacrificed a number of things to put himself into a position where he can help as many people as possible, including Scott himself. Scott admires him more than anyone else. In my opinion though, the Professor gave up things he should not have and the man is ignorant of the fact that he can be a hypocrite at times."

Jean shook her head and said, "Yeah. Sometimes he'll discourage us from getting our hands dirty because he wants us to have a normal childhood and other times when we are enjoying ourselves doing something childish, he reprimands us for our childish behavior."

Harry turned to her and said, "You're just upset he doesn't allow food fights."

"Food fights are awesome," she countered.

"As long as I didn't cook it, that's fine."

"Of course not, that would be sacrilege." Jean turned to Emma who was quite amused by the conversation and said, "Harry is a very skilled chef."

Harry said, "There are better. This restaurant has chefs better than I am."

Emma couldn't keep a smile from forming on her lips. She could not remember the last time she took part or even listened to such a warm hearted conversation.

Emma was a very skilled multitasker so it was possible to converse with Jean and Harry in Harry's mind while talking part in the conversation at the table while also looking through Scott's mind. She found it interesting that Scott had been infatuated with Jean for some time but seemed to have completely given up on her, though he still cared for her greatly.

All in all, she could not find any deception. She knew from Scott's memories that Harry was a very powerful mutant that could use Telepathy, magic, and other skills. He was also ruthless to those he felt didn't deserve a chance but he was very logical as well. Emma had gone over Scott's memory of that mission to rescue the Orphans several times. She also knew Harry was a genius scientist who had unlocked the mass production of hard-light technology. It didn't take a genius to figure out the direction Harry's company would go in the future and that he didn't need anyone's help.

In other words, this evening really was just an invitation for friendship with Harry along with an introduction to someone who would likely become the leader of the X-Men in the future. Emma was entirely unused to dealing with people who offered help and information so freely.

On the table part of the conversation Emma did eventually speak more of her own life. She had an older brother who she cared for but he didn't care enough for himself. She had an older sister who cared for no one and seemed to have caused several staff members to vanish. Then there was her youngest sister who was in her rebellious phase, though with a father who cared only for his legacy and a mother who used alcohol to escape from the reality that was her life, calling her younger sister rebellious didn't seem entirely accurate.

Emma's older sister worried everyone on the table but no one asked further on her as it would be improper to ask for more than what was given. Especially as the subject was likely not appropriate for dinner conversation and the waiters had delivered their orders by that time.

Emma had much to discuss with Jean both at the table and inside Harry's head. She was the first and only mutant telepath her own age she had ever met and though they lived different lives they had much in common. Emma did show interest in the Occlumency practices Harry had created for Jean and Harry offered to let her copy the material into her own head which Emma was happy to accept.

Within Harry's head and around the time they approached the end of the meal, Emma said, "You know my father will want to know what we spoke of. He seemed to be under the impression I would have you wrapped around my finger by the end of the date. He even gave me a copy of the papers you'd need to sign to sell your company."

Jean laughed at that and added, "Harry's business partners cannot legally operate a business due to laws you'll never hear about. Harry owns everything on paper, but even if he signed away his ownership, nothing would come of it."

Harry nodded and continued, "You can tell your father that Brilliance Incorporated will be expanding soon which is why I cannot be persuaded to sell. You can also hint that I seem to possess technology that grants resistance to mental manipulations."

Emma asked, "Do you have technology that grants resistance to mental manipulations?"

Harry considered it and said, "I can probably put something together."

"Is there a way around it?"

"Hmm. Subtly I suppose. Brute force could technically work but would alert the user. You seem pretty good at subtle though."

She gave a smile that was not a smile at that and said, "Years of practice."

Jean frowned and said, "If you do need help with something, don't hesitate to ask." She didn't like that someone like her was forced into a position to use her powers.

Emma understood that Jean was being genuine but decided not to answer. She hadn't made up her mind at this point.

Dinner had finished and no one cared for dessert or staying to watch the gathering crowd admire the ball drop. Harry was fifteen, and Scott, Jean, and Emma were all sixteen so they did not order any wine though the restaurant was known for it.

Other than offering assistance, they didn't ask anything of Emma and she had long since figured out why. They were basically trying to save her. You didn't need foresight to see what someone with powers like her would grow up to be in an environment like hers without assistance or friends. They were offering her a way out of that future she seemed destined to be in from the day she was born.

When they parted, Harry gave Emma a rectangular compact mirror that was actually a disguised touchscreen cell phone and a wireless charger she could set it in. The contact list Harry programmed it with included Harry's, Jean's, and Scott's phone number though the latter didn't know Harry would be giving him a phone later that night. The phone could not be bugged, tracked, or monitored, but he did recommend not using it to call others her father knew of if she didn't want her father learning of her possession of such a thing.

Harry showed the use of a Diamond to make a portal back to the institute where they had set up their own fireworks and were waiting until midnight to set them off. Harry explained to Scott how the cellphone worked and that it was a prototype his own company would be producing one day.

Overall, Jean and Harry agreed it was an enjoyable date, though Jean did feel a little bad about Harry's trick against Emma. The watch Scott used set a ward inside his own brain that would prevent intruders from thinking of doing bad things to Scott while under the ward. So the entire time Emma was inside his head, she was being conditioned not to feel any urge to do anything that could harm Scott using the information she was learning from him. Harry countered that such a trick was the only reason he allowed Emma into Scott's head in the first place and all he did was prevent her from thinking of ways to use him as a tool. He didn't do anything to make her think more of him so anything she felt about him would be real.

The fact that both Harry and Jean knew that the energy Scott produced was attractive to psionics was left unsaid. Harry didn't consider it cheating in the same way he didn't consider how attractive many found his eyes to be cheating.

Unsurprisingly, Forge went all out on the fireworks and at midnight the sky above the institute could probably have been seen from the space station in orbit.

With that the year 2008 started and for a while everything returned to routine. For the spring semester Harry was released from his position as Teacher's aid in all classes but Forge's and Dr. McCoy's. However, Harry had successfully installed a Hard-Light platform in Forge's class and granted remote access to that system for DANGER. Forge and DANGER were able to make Hard-Light demonstrations that showed off more than he ever could before and DANGER acted as assistant as she had nothing better to do during class period. Dr. Kinney likewise acted as Dr. McCoy's assistant in class meaning Harry was suddenly left with a large amount of free time, and that was without counting the Time Turner.

Eventually Harry decided to act on his girl's advice and with a camera and his own Hard-Light platform, Harry started making Teaching videos. Due to the autocorrect of his Scholar Path, Harry was perhaps one of the best Teachers on the planet so he was told to expand his audience.

After several brainstorming sessions Harry decided to make another website. Unlike the server for his magic website housed in Kamar-Taj, this server would be housed underground with the Goblins. He'd make a fake server room and put it somewhere in one of his companies but for the real one he would use the same tricks Forge taught him when making DANGER's CPU.

Over the course of two months, closer to four if you count the Time Turner usage, Harry had created over a thousand videos on various math and science subjects. The main line of videos however went over Harry's new branch of science, Metaphysics. You couldn't understand a thing if you just watched the last video but if you watched them all sequentially you'd gain a surface level understanding of what it was and how it worked.

Of course no one could truly learn a subject from a video, no matter how interesting. So each video also came with a little twenty question quiz at the end you could use to test yourself. If you got a question wrong, the site would tell you how to get it right and the system generated problems randomly so taking it repeatedly was actually a decent study method.

Just for kicks, Harry wore a larger version of his Hogwarts robes and used a wand looking stick when pointing at things and would use his Hard-Light holograms to cast 'magic-like' effects using the stick. The videos included disclaimers of course. Since he wore a collared shirt and tie beneath the robes it actually looked very Professor~ish so he doubted anyone would give a negative remark. Other than the standard, 'Aren't you fifteen?' comments.

Harry had already invented his own magic keyboard that could type pure programming code far, far faster than a normal keyboard so the longest and hardest part of setting up the site was the videos.

In addition to his own videos, the site also allowed others to upload their own videos for others to watch. Another similar site, youtube, had popped up a little over two years prior and Harry wanted to replace it. When evidence that would reveal the magical world appeared, it was likely a video sharing site like youtube would be the source so if Harry controlled such sites, he'd be able to buy more time. Google bought youtube not long after it came out but Harry's servers would be far faster and more secure than youtube's would. The only catch was that unless he built his own internet, he wouldn't be able to control the default search engine directing everyone to his competitor.

Thankfully a number of Goblins were getting very good at not just using computers for hacking, but making them as well. Once there were enough Goblins capable of crafting his magic servers, Harry intended to spread their use around the world and become the hub of centralized internet usage.

*Ping*

[Business Path has risen to Rank 28]

Harry smiled. That one was rising pretty fast these days.

On March 5th, Harry launched the site, submitted his findings in Metaphysics as a dissertation to a Doctoral committee with McCoy's, Xavier's, and Forge's recommendation, and had some publishers he paid release his textbooks which some stores and his website sold.

Other than his Scholar Path raising by 1, nothing happened. This wasn't surprising. Even with world famous geniuses like Dr. Hank McCoy, Charles Xavier, and Johnathan Silvercloud backing his paper, it would take weeks and months for others to check his findings and once they determined he was not talking out of his ass, he'd be asked to defend his dissertation in person and only then would his dissertation get published. The fact that McCoy and Silvercloud basically signed off on Master's degrees for him through their own accreditation a week prior would probably cause a few heads to turn, but Harry looked forward to the faces everyone would make.

For now he would wait. Harry didn't advertise his website so unless someone searched for something and the website was relevant, no one would randomly get directed there.

Two week later however, someone did notice. While Harry was in his study group with Jean, his own cell phone went off and he excused himself to answer it. The caller ID had a picture of Emma on it.

Harry casually answered, "Evening Emma."

"Same to you I suppose. Interesting website by the way. I'm surprised 'video share .com' wasn't already taken as a domain name."

"It was. I bought it. Made a random dude very happy. Watch any?"

"Your lesson on variable probability was certainly more interesting than my private tutor's. In any case, that is not why I'm calling."

"Something wrong?"

"Most likely. I am not sure if it has any relation with your site or something else, but my father asked me to contact you and get you to come out somewhere. He didn't say it directly and I cannot read his mind, but it sounds like in some way, shape or form, you won't be coming back from where I am to invite you to."

"Ah. I suppose the fact that I haven't left the Institute in three straight months would make any would be kidnappers or assassins quite irritable."

"Indeed. However my father is a member of a group called the Hellfire Club. They have muscle that is not easy to go against and I believe there is a mutant within the club my father is asking assistance from."

Harry Paused and went over a few worst case scenarios. Winston would not know he was a mutant but would know he had tech that could defend against telepaths. Xavier did a surprisingly good job of covering for his Institute and it was not anywhere close to public knowledge his school was for mutants. Emma had told them she was almost certain her father wasn't aware of them. Worst case scenario should be a team sent to injure him in a show of force or a team to kidnap him for his tech. Worst case for that was that they were all mutants. However they shouldn't be too powerful. Mutants at Sinister's or even the first X-Men team's level would not be grunts.

Harry was tempted to go in alone but he knew he would never be forgiven for that, even if he was immortal, and he knew he would not be able to talk his girls out of coming. Ah, that's right. There was someone else he could take who could provide assistance if everything went horribly wrong.

Harry unpaused and asked, "You'll call me back on a line you know he is listening to right?"

"Of course. Can't let him know I have a private way to contact you now can I?"

"Alright. Invite me to go clothes shopping. I'll refuse citing that I am too busy but you'll counter that you'll buy several swimsuits for the summer and want my opinion on the best one. I'll agree of course and pick you up from where-ever and you won't tell me where we're going until I get there. Then your father can tell whoever, they'll give you a destination and we'll be attacked either at the location or on route."

"Wait, what do you mean pick me up? You can't drive."

"Well, I know how to drive and do have my learner's permit, but I don't have a car. I'm sure you remember that Scott is seventeen though since you spent all of his birthday a few weeks ago 'together,' so he'll be driving. You'll need to call him and tell him to invite me, Rogue, Jean, and Wanda as well. Six is too much for a car so that will get him to take the van we have which happens to be armored."

"Hmm. That sounds like a plan. What about the fallout from what my father learns his attempt was rebuffed by mutants you are associated with? He won't be pleased with me once he discovers I was unaware of that information."

"Hmm. Tell him that everyone who I invited had a telepathy blocker as well so you couldn't tell they were mutants."

She sighed over the call and said, "Alright, I can work with that."

A few minutes later Harry got another call redirected to him from his 'work' line and Emma invited him to go swimsuit shopping. Harry said he had a few other girls he wanted to invite and Emma playfully asked if she was not enough for him. Harry said they were people he liked too much to leave the house without and he wanted to see them in swimsuits as well.

If one listened to the call in hindsight it would seem that Harry had special bodyguards he paid to keep him safe, but that would only be obvious after everything happened.

Harry told his girls and Emma called Scott though he wasn't given the details of the trap. Harry found the last person he wanted to recruit for this possible ambush lounging in the garden.

"Hey Goose. I'm going to get ambushed tomorrow by parties unknown and likely kidnapped. Want to come?"

The orange tabby cat shaped Flerken lazily looked over to Harry and conveyed, 'Might as well. I have been getting bored lately.'

The following weekend Scott took the X-Van out for a road trip. Harry used a bit of magic to hide the big red X on the side to make it look like an ordinary van and along with Wanda, Rogue, Jean, and one flerken, they were driven by Scott to Massachusetts.

Scott did ask Emma why she wanted Rogue and Wanda to come as she had not met them and she simply answered that Jean spoke well of them and she wanted to see them in swimsuits too.

Scott also asked Harry, "Why are you bringing your cat?"

Harry answered, "I haven't taken Goose anywhere in the time I've been in the states and she has been getting bored lately. Don't worry. She isn't a normal cat."

"Is that why I've seen her hanging out with Lockheed?"

Harry smiled but didn't answer.

Eventually the van pulled up to where Emma was meeting them and the blonde heiress hopped in and introduced herself to Rogue and Wanda. She told the group where they were going and gave instructions on how to get there.

Emma informed Harry through telepathy, 'I'm almost certain we'll be attacked on route. I don't suppose this van is armored is it?'

Jean answered back after eavesdropping, 'It is.'

Harry asked, 'Did you find out what the goal is?'

'Kidnapping, yours of course, but I'm not sure if my father asked for it or if you've gotten the attention of another member of the Hellfire Club and they asked him to arrange this.'

Jean confidently said, 'Regardless, we'll be enough to take them.'

Emma asked, 'Is that a cat?'

Harry answered, 'She does look like a cat doesn't she.'

After a few minutes Harry's senses pick up on a few forms of energy. They were directed through a street which appeared to have construction work done and a man in what seemed to be a city worker's uniform and hard hat directed them through.

After driving past, Harry said aloud, "We're going to be attacked within the next couple of seconds. Do brace yourselves."

Scott tensed and said back, "I knew something was up."

From the side a massive burst of green energy slammed into the van tipping it over and putting a decent dent into the frame.

Once the van stopped sliding Harry Paused and confirmed everyone was ok before he unpaused and asked, "Everyone alright?"

Jean sends a telepathic message to the group, 'Emma is fine but unconscious. There are several hostiles outside and they seem to be targeting Harry.' She wasn't but they didn't want Scott to ask why she wasn't participating in the fight.

Harry says aloud, "I'll get some info and draw them out first and then we'll go blitz tactics."

Harry opened the van's side door which was now above them and Paused again. While Paused he hopped out and surveyed the area. He saw three people. Two girls, one with short cut brown hair and the other with shoulder length blue hair. They looked around the same age as Harry's own group and behind them stood an balding older man wearing a red shirt and a lab coat. The futuristic rifle shaped sidearm he was holding looked moderately disconcerting but he wasn't pointing it at the van. Instead he seemed to be directing the girls at his side.

After confirming no one was likely to blow his head off for doing so, Harry unpaused and popped his head from the van and asked, "I don't suppose this is a mugging is it?"

The middle aged guy in the lab coat chuckled and answered back, "Not quite Mr. Potter. Get out of the van and follow me and your friends will not be harmed."

Harry got out and both swiftly and smoothly removed two handguns from behind his back and said, "You're going to need more than that to take me you know." One gun was already pointing at the guy in the lab coat and the other pointing at the teen with the short cut hair Harry sensed was the one who hit the van.

The man in the lab coat smirked and said, "My my, how disrespectful. I'm Dr. Redman. This here is Surge," he said pointing to the girl with the blue hair. "And this is... What were you calling yourself again dear?"

The brown haired girl who hit the van sighed and answered, "Negasonic Teenage Warhead."

"Right. That. And over there we have Cannonball."

From behind the van came a loud smash of who appeared to be the guy in the city worker's uniform. He seemed to have shot himself into the air from where he was and landed just behind the van.

The redshirted villain continued, "And Magma and Firestar."

Two more girls walked out from a nearby abandoned building. Harry felt one of them was filled with thermal energy and the other was actually saturated with microwave energy.

"And finally we have Tarot," he said once more, gesturing to the side to a black haired woman who walked out from behind a car and seemed reluctant to respond.

Harry raised an eyebrow and asked, "All this for little ol' me?" What surprised Harry was that, with the exception of the labcoat wearing Redman, none of them looked old enough to vote with the oldest looking about seventeen and the youngest fifteen.

Dr. Redman answered, "Honestly I was going to meet you alone but my Hellions do need a chance to stretch their legs so I thought this would be a great chance for some fresh air and exercise."

The one called Tarot added from the side, "That and I couldn't predict anything about how this would end and he is a coward."

That earned her a glare she nearly flinched at. Dr. Redman said, "Someone needs more training it seems. Luckily you'll have a training buddy. Now I won't ask again. Surrender-"

Harry fired three shots, two at Dr. Redman's head, one at Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Rubber bullets of course, however they were enchanted with a powerful Stunner which should have knocked the targets out. Harry liked enchanted bullets because they traveled so much faster than cast spells and didn't look like magic from an observer's perspective.

Jean and Wanda simultaneously jumped out of the van and took to the air. They had been in telepathic communication to discuss their plan of action since first contact and already had a formation in mind. Rogue was staying inside to protect Emma and to be used for backup.

Less than a second after Harry fired and the girls jumped out, the aptly named Surge countered with a bolt of lightning which Harry had no time to dodge. What surprised every one of the Hellions was that Harry responded by firing several rubber bullets back at her instead of going down. Harry's magic and energy attack based resistance was determined by his Wisdom which was over forty times more than a normal human. Even a normal human can survive getting struck by lightning, much less Harry who barely flinched.

What surprised Harry though was that the lab coat wearing Redman and Negasonic Teenage Warhead didn't go down from the stun bullets. Harry could understand the latter who seemed to be some kind of mutant Gamma Sorceress if his senses were right as magic was less effective on such people, but Harry didn't sense any type of energy from Redman and he hit that guy twice in the head. Surge wasn't getting back up because Harry got her three times in the head which even without magic would knock her out cold.

Jean used a powerful telepathic wave to launch Cannonball back to the end of the street and she floated through the sky after him. Wanda fired Hexbolts at Firestar and Magma while Scott suppressed them with his optics beams. Watch or not, he never left home without his visor.

Before Harry could unload the rest of his clip into Dr. Redman's temple or groin, three beasts that felt like real illusions materialized and pounced at Harry from the side. Tarot had three cards in her hands which were glowing and seemed linked to the beasts.

Harry shot them but the bullets had no effect forcing Harry himself to have to jump out of the way. He tried shooting Redman again but this time a green energy shield was formed in front of him by the Gamma Sorceress with the excessively convoluted call sign.

Harry Paused to get a closer look at what was happening. He saw that Redman had two syringes next to him implying he had just injected himself with something. If the man already had something in him before Harry shot him, that might explain why he didn't go down with the bullet stunners.

To the side Harry saw Jean was throwing things at Cannonball but the guy seemed to have some kind of barrier over his body that prevented impact damage. That however was a cover as Jean was navigating though the man's head and once she found a weak spot she'd knock him out. Invulnerability doesn't stop telepaths after all.

Magma seemed to be turning the street into.. well, magma. And Firestar was shooting microwave beams at Scott but the X-Man was holding those beams back with his own optics blasts. Magma however was also getting tripped up by Wanda as her Hexbolts made the geo-thermal-kineticist lose control of her powers and Wanda herself was transfiguring various things around the pair to control the fight.

Harry unpaused and Dr. Redman said, "So you didn't come alone. Well you're still outnumbered and your body guards will make an excellent addition to the Hellions once I'm through with them. Take him out girls."

The expensive looking rifle type weapon Redman was carrying turned towards Harry and fired bolts of energy while Negasonic Teenage Warhead fired gamma blasts and Tarot ordered her beasts to attack.

Harry did his best not to smile. These days he wasn't invited with the X-Men when they went to rescue a mutant or fight the Brotherhood so he had accumulated a number of toys with no one to play with. Sure, he could just go all out but where would the fun in that be?

Harry dodged the incoming shots fired and blasts. Unlike lightning which tracks its target and is far more difficult to dodge, Harry could easily dodge guns by pausing and checking the trajectory and unpausing. He could also sense the gamma energy which moved far slower than lightning and wasn't difficult to dodge.

Harry took a metal sphere out of his pocket, pointed it at Redman, and squeezed it. The hard-light tech in the sphere created a hologram around the sphere which matched the exact appearance of Dr. Redman's head, hair, and face. Then it was set on fire. Then, in Dr. Redman's own voice, it started screaming. Harry threw the screaming on fire head at Dr. Redman who foolishly looked into its eyes and saw his own face distorted in pain and horror screaming in his own voice back at him. Dr. Redman jumped to the side to dodge but the head did not fall. Instead it continued to fly and turned around to make another screaming pass at Dr. Redman.

Harry noticed Goose had hopped out of the van and was making her way over to Tarot so Harry started shooting Negasonic Teenage Warhead with more bullets. Her shield was holding up well but she couldn't attack while defending and Dr. Redman was running from his own screaming, on fire head that was chasing him.

Cannonball launched himself at Harry in a bad attempt at a sneak attack. The man's power seemed to generate an explosion at his feet to launch his invulnerable body like a rocket so it was not compatible with subtlety and though he was able to adjust his trajectory while in flight, Harry was still able to move out of the way fast enough to dodge.

Firestar and Magma had started pushing back against Wanda and Scott. Firestar had used her own powers to superheat the asphalt of the street and once it was molten Magma was able to control it.

At that point Scott shouted, "Rogue, now!"

Rogue flew out of the van and used Iceman's ice powers to freeze the molten ground back to solid state and Scott used the chance to take Magma out with a well placed optic blast. Jean started attacking Cannonball's mind as he had actually lowered his guard against her when he targeted Harry and she was not going to let the opportunity pass.

"What the hell is that!?" Tarot of course was now enjoying the company of Goose the Flerken. Goose's unspeakable mass of razor toothed tentacle flesh were shredding Tarot's monster's to pieces.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead unfortunately looked to check what Tarot was screaming at and was appropriately horrified by what she saw. Her shield wavered and Harry's bullets pierced through and Harry got her twice in the temple, knocking her out as cold as her friend.

Scott and Rogue were now suppressing Firestar and Wanda was preparing to capture her using transfiguration.

Cannonball had been knocked unconscious by Jean who started going through the minds of the two Harry knocked out.

Dr. Redman had got a lucky shot and destroyed Harry's toy and shouted, "You bastard! I was going to treat you well but now I promise you that once I've gotten my hands on you that you'll never see the sun again!" The man obviously had not gotten a good look at the state of the rest of his group.

Harry felt some serious mad scientist vibes come off the guy as he took out another needle and moved to inject it into his arm. Harry shot it of course before the man could press the plunger. Though Harry wanted to enjoy playing for a bit, he was not going to let someone else control the battle with a stereotypical last second drug induced powerup. For good measure he also shot the man's gun which seemed pretty high tech.

"You bastard!"

"Help me!"

Dr. Redman looked over to where Tarot was screaming. She was suspended in the air by one of Goose's tentacles and being waved around. Goose liked to play with her food it seemed.

Jean saw this and shouted, "Not her Goose. Him!" She pointed at Redman.

Goose tossed Tarot into a wall and knocked her out before she walked over to Redman, the various mouths at the ends of the grotesque tentacles snapping ominously in his direction.

The lab coat wearing Doctor finally took a moment to assess the scene. Wanda had just transfigured some concrete around Firestar and Scott had knocked her out. Rogue, Scott, Wanda, Jean, and Harry were all walking over to Redman along with the terrifying Flerken.

Instead of surrendering, Redman sneered and said, "Fools. Do anything to me and all the mutants you've just spared will die. Surrender or I'll kill them all right now."

Jean said, "You can't hurt them with anything you have on you and the explosives in their necks won't go off unless they receive a signal from your heart after it stopped. If you aren't around when your heart stops, nothing will happen."

Harry smirked and said, "Goose, lunch time."

The mass of tentacles coming out from the cat's mouth whipped around menacingly and approached Dr. Redman from all sides.

A look of horror formed across the man's face as it dawned on him he wasn't going to survive this.

Scott also seemed to figure out what was going to happen but before he could say anything Jean seemed to send a mental message to him. Scoot gave the soon to be Flerken food a hard look and then looked away, deciding not to interfere.

Redman pointed his gun at the Flerken and pulled the trigger but nothing happened. The magic in Harry's bullets fried whatever sensitive electrical components were within the gun making it an expensive paperweight.

Serrated tentacles wrapped around the man's legs drawing blood as he struggled to pull himself free while shouting that he was lying before, that he was sorry, that he would work for them. No one moved to help as he started screaming hysterically.

Goose then quickly yanked the man into her mouth causing him to shriek like a little girl which was then silenced as the jawed appendage closed and retracted into Goose's mouth.

After a few moments of silence, Scott said, "So.. Definitely not a cat."

Harry smiled. Goose conveyed through their familiar bond, 'Sour. But not in a bad way.'

Jean explained to them what she had learned from their minds. The leader of the Hellions, Sebastian Shaw, used a machine called Multivac to find mutants. Unlike Cerebro which used a telepath, Multivac used a mutant called Cypher who could mathematically predict things together with Tarot who could use Tarot cards to predict things. Multivac amplified their powers to find mutants for them to approach and recruit into the Hellions. Most were not aware of what type of group it was and those who did not want to do bad things were persuaded.

Dr. Redman was a chemist and engineer who used drugs combined with implanted explosives to ensure those who didn't want to stay didn't have a choice.

From Tarot's mind Jean explained that Shaw found that the growth of Harry's company was directly impacting Multivac's prediction capabilities and they couldn't figure out why. The only way to fix the issue was to kill or recruit Harry but they couldn't predict the outcome of any plan involving Harry so they sent every one of their heavy hitters.

Luckily, this entire group also included everyone who wanted to leave but could not due to the explosives. Others who wanted to stay were Empath who was a terrible excuse for a human being and Cypher who didn't mind doing terrible things as long as he got paid.

The explosives seemed somewhat shielded against energy which was why they didn't go off when the Hellions used microwaves, lightning, or gamma radiation. That also seemed to be why they didn't go off from Harry's bullet which made him sweat a bit as if they were not shielded then the teen's heads may have exploded when Harry shot them.

In either case Harry wouldn't use magic to remove them, it was better to take them all to Dr. McCoy.

Emma was only pretending to be unconscious so she would have an alibi so she was still laying in the van in an uncomfortable position waiting for the group to finish up.

After some discussion in their minds Harry decided to call the shopping trip off. He used a portal to take the girls and all the soon to be former Hellions to the Institute and called Xavier and Dr. McCoy. After Wanda used her magic to fix the road and the van, Scott took Emma to the hospital because that was something normal people did after someone was injured.

Harry got a call later from Emma informing him that she called her father right after being dropped off at the hospital and she told her father the 'story.' She met up with Harry's friends who he insisted on bringing and she didn't suspect anything because they were all around the same age, though they did have telepathy blockers as well. She was knocked out when the van was hit and woke up with Scott driving her to the hospital and Scott told her they were attacked but not much else. She pleaded ignorance about anything that happened including the fact that the Hellions were defeated.

After Scott dropped Emma off Harry had made a portal for him to drive the van through to skip driving back to New York. Scott was still under the impression Harry used diamonds to make portals so he didn't question why he didn't use that to get there in the first place though he did grill Harry on what happened.

Dr. McCoy and Dr. Kinney easily removed the explosives from the Hellions and even flushed their system of drugs. Once they were conscious Xavier had agreed to offer them a place at the institute.

From what Jean had told him, Sebastian Shaw's Hellions were under his own banner and were not truly a part of the Hellfire club. Shaw was considered new money but was already in a high position in the Hellfire Club due to his Hellions and his machine that could predict the future. Both of which were taken out as the ripples of Harry's influence on the future would make anything he saw useless and the Hellions were the strongest force under his control.

Shaw himself was a mutant as well and not a weak one. He was strongest when facing energy attacks as he apparently could absorb all forms of energy and use them to make his own attacks. He used this power to assert dominance over his Hellions to make them understand they could never defeat him. Harry wondered if he could absorb Phoenix fire or if the latter would burn his power, his flesh, and his soul away for even trying. Harry could also just pick him up with telekinesis and gently toss him into a portal to the North Pole. Without the ability to fly or teleport, that was a one way trip.

The Hellions woke up surrounded by the X-Men and Xavier who explained the situation. Unsurprisingly, they all started crying. What was surprising was that it was the only guy, Cannonball, who cried the hardest. Apparently he was a softie and couldn't stand hurting people.

Harry felt they were still a bit too trusting and naïve as they all agreed to join the X-Men without checking them out first. Harry figured that was Scott's influence as he was the one who stayed with the group and conveyed to them what the X-Men were.

Jean told Harry to stay out of the infirmary as she didn't want any of the girls to get nightingale syndrome over Harry for saving them though she apparently didn't mind leaving Scott in there for the same fate. Harry figured once they found out Goose was his familiar any chance of that was nil or less but he didn't argue.

Things got exciting for a while with the new arrivals but once more calmed down at the Institute.

On April 1st, Harry's tech company had launched two models of cellphones and cellphone plans for said phones. Both cellphones could be used nearly anywhere. The Goblins were able to mass produce crystal terminals housed in magically hidden spaces in various cities which acted as cell towers with far greater range than standard ones. Each cellphone included an extremely tiny Quartz which had its material physics altered by the knockoff sonic screwdrivers Harry showed the Goblins how to make. The new properties of the crystal massively increased the range and if they wanted, they could have it cover the planet. The only reason they didn't was because if they did they would have nothing to work up to.

The first model was for calling and texting and their plans were reasonably rated while keeping their competitors in mind. The second model however had a rudimentary touch screen with limited data internet browsing capabilities, Wi-Fi capabilities, and a built in link to Videoshare. Future phones would be able to record videos and upload it directly to Videoshare, but that was only after Harry had made a system to scrub the phones and sites of any videos that could endanger the secrets of the world if posted.

Thanks to the existence of companies like Stark Industries, any newcomer to the tech world was thoroughly checked and when the people who knew their stuff realized the physics behind the phone was impossible from their own understanding, things got interesting.

Harry had of course included in the instruction guide links to his videos on Metaphysics and references to his textbooks to explain how the phone's range could be what it was and why the phone was not hampered by being underground or even inside a faraday cage. The fact that his phones seemed to even work while on an airplane really stumped a lot of people and got many talking. What really got people's attention however was that the phone's signal could not be intercepted, tracked, blocked, or monitored without the ability to produce the same type of altered Quartz.

Eventually Harry's dissertations were noticed and in the middle of April, two weeks after Harry released the phones, he was asked to come to MIT to give his dissertation and defend it. The fact that he was already selling products which proved the physics behind his dissertation was left unsaid.

For Harry, the best part was that every branch of Metaphysics was useless without the Sonic Screwdriver. In order to use, measure, or even detect the new energies which Harry had shown existed, a material physics modified gemstone was required and only Harry could make them. This meant only his company could use the magic like technological advancements he was going to display.

Harry fully expected people to buy his products in mass and take the stones to use for their own projects, but Harry had contingencies in place for that as well. He also made it illegal to use his phones for anything other than their intended purpose. That wouldn't stop people from doing so, but it would justify what he could do in response.

Xavier, Forge, Dr. Kinney and Dr. McCoy wearing his disguise watch along with a number of the students went to MIT with Harry so they could watch him defend his dissertation. Harry gifted the teachers a free cellphone with internet access and gifted students with high grades the same under the condition they maintain their grades if they want to keep using the phone.

The Goblins had already mastered the art of the assembly line so assembly lines crafted by Goblins mass produced flawless tech. The only problem that eventually popped up was that they found they would eventually be making more money than they had to pay their employees and Goblins did not accept anything but their own coin and did not work for free. After another boardroom meeting which left several Goblins almost mortally wounded it was agreed that two new forms of currency above the Galleon would be created using Harry's altered Gemstones as a base. The altered Gemstones had great use in magic as the Goblins themselves were delighted to experiment with therefore it was accepted as a form of payment for the thousands of Goblins now working under the banner of Brilliance Incorporated and Potter and Gold Bank and Trust.

Thankfully Goblins were just as interested in technology as mundane humans were and thanks to Harry's servers they could purchase personal computers and cellphones themselves meaning they were spending what they earned instead of hoarding it. Harry would later learn that many of the toxic players on the online video game communities were shamed and disgraced by the Goblins who enjoyed playing online games.

At MIT Harry was met by a committee that wanted to show him around the place and squeeze a few questions in before the dissertation. Forge and McCoy led the students and staff off to show them around and Harry was escorted to meet some VIPs.

Harry didn't mind answering questions, getting to know the various geniuses of their fields, and exchanging numbers with many of the brightest minds in the world including a few fellows sent by the government to ask for military contracts Harry had no problem arranging a date for later discussion with. A number of notable names were not there and Harry was slightly disappointed Tony Stark didn't show. That meant either the man had cracked Harry's tech and didn't feel like asking more questions or he was off in his own little world and didn't even know the existence of Harry's tech. Considering what Harry heard of the man, he figured it was the latter.

Fifteen minutes before Harry was scheduled to go up on stage one of MIT's staff insisted he meet one of the key organizers for the dissertation. That wasn't a problem for Harry but his watch getting a text message was. The message said, 'Bill and Ted BJ Cage, RB MK5. Double KO.'

Harry did his best not to tense at the message and politely followed the staff to an off to the side room the staff member showed him into but did not enter before closing the door.

"Hello Mr. Potter. I've heard a great many things about you."

The woman walking towards him from the shadow of the room was an unmistakable beauty with sleek black hair that went past her shoulders and a sculpted face that was difficult to describe as anything other than perfect. It was a face Harry and seen before in pictures drawn hundreds of years ago and though Harry sensed nothing from the woman that meant little for someone as skilled as she was known to be.

It was Selene Gallio.