Chapter 6: Let's Have a Little Race part 3

Lance and the others came to school for once eagerly, anxious to start something with the X-men to see how their week of training would stack up. "Now remember, don't start anything right away, see if we can isolate the Boy Scout or one of the others first, take them out piecemeal." Fred and Todd both nodded but Pietro merely rolled his eyes, yet Lance knew the punk wouldn't do anything to mess this up. Their little 'talk' about Pietro running off and not coming back to help against Juggernaut had gone as well as it could, and he was sufficiently cowed by the other three to go along with things. Lance knew it wouldn't last; Pietro had an ego way bigger than his powers could account for, but Lance would deal with that later if he had to.

Their chance came almost immediately and Lance sent off Todd and Fred to prepare. Evan and Kurt had as normal skateboarded to school and Lance smirked as they saw them coming in late past the gate. A little rumble of his power threw them both off their boards for a second and then Pietro zoomed in grabbing them both and dragging them to a distant part of the parking area with no witnesses.

Surprisingly the two X-men didn't fight this, simply going along with things while internally laughing aloud in glee. Fred and Todd both smirked at the x-dorks when Pietro let them go. "You know, we've been training for the past week, and we were hoping to see how well we do with a bit of a fight. You don't mind do you?" As soon as Lance finished saying this the Blob swung a huge ham sized hand forward at Evan then he howled in surprised pain as Evan went flying away, only to flip and land on his feet. His body was covered in armor right below his clothing, bulking him up a bit and his face, where Fred's punch had been aimed, was covered in small spikes for a moment before they receded back under his skin, which healed as they sank back in.

Kurt suddenly bamfed, appearing right behind the speedster, who turned as fast as his heightened nervous system could allow. His punch though was caught and they bamfed away, appearing in the air where Pietro's speed was negated. A few hard punches to the other German's stomach sent him down to the ground gasping for air, out of the fight for now. Kurt bamfed again, appearing next to Evan with the normal smell of brimstone and smoke. "Oh no mine fruend, we haf no problem at all vith that." With that both X-men charged forward.

Lance was able to hold his own against Evan, keeping his distance with judicious use of his power, and when Kurt tried to join in he found Lance had studied enough martial arts to counter him. Fred and Toad worked well together, but by the time the bell rang all three of the brotherhood were sweaty and sore while the two X-men both seemed they could go on for hours more. By mutual agreement the fight ended when the bell rang, leaving one side exhilarated and the other frustrated and a little scared. Lance thought grimly, their teamwork was the thing that killed us, not just their powers but their hand to hand skills. If the whole team was here we would have been schooled. Mystique is not going to like this. He was of course proven correct in this assumption later that day.

As it was a school night the team had only a few hours of practice but that was enough to tell them that Ororo with her emotions unbound was a very different person. For one thing, she was far more vocal, she was demanding, she laughed a lot and she cajoled them along with jokes at times and abrasive sarcastic comments at others.

Scott in particular received quite a few of these when she ordered him to attack her with only his knife work. Her comments on his skill, as she stood above him with his knife in one hand and twirling her own in the other, were utterly scathing. Scott determined to take that training more seriously from now on, if only in an attempt to not receive any more such comments. He still didn't see the point to them though. Evan too was brought to task on not taking the hand to hand lessons seriously enough and was heard to mutter he wanted the old Auntie O back.

Jean however enjoyed seeing this aspect of the older woman's personality, as did the others, especially after she pranked Kurt in return for a paint balloon aimed at her back during a break in their training. Kitty received the new nickname Kitten, which she liked as it was something her mother called her and Ororo like this seemed to be a great big sister type, and Kurt enjoyed her newfound sense of humor and Rogue the fact she played music in the background of their training sessions.

The next morning Ororo smirked as she remembered that, then her lips widened into a smile as Harry walked in, a smile on his own face. "I see that you're enjoying being able to show your emotions, I'm glad."

"As am I," Ororo purred, standing up and stalking, that was the only word for it, toward him. She greatly enjoyed his gulp and she watched with eagerness as his eyes lit up with a matching desire. She molded her body against his still clothed form, kissing him gently on the lips then nibbling her way to his ear as he did the same. Her skin felt like the finest satin under his touch, and she tasted like cardamom and some other spice he couldn't place. "So" she whispered in his ear, barely controlling a moan as Harry nipped at her neck, "When are you going to take me out on a date?" With that she pulled back and moved away to water her plants, keeping one eye on Harry to see his reaction to her teasing.

She was surprised when he simply shook his head and laughed, showing not a single sign of irritation at her teasing, nor any uncontrollable desire, oh there was desire there, quite a lot of it but it went away as he shook his head, now able to, not ignore nor overlook, just not react to her naked form and she put another large check mark next to his name. Harry seemed, much like her, to not just want a flash in the pants relationship, and was willing to play the game. "Well, I'm going to be leaving in about an hour or so on a trip that may or may not take a few days, so how about this weekend?"

She nodded, wondering what he was up to but supposing it had something to do with his ongoing research projects. She knew his inability to analyze what he still insisted on calling Harrytanium was bothering the heck out of him. "That will be fine. I trust you will be able to find a suitable restaurant on your own? You haven't exactly gone anywhere lately after all. And what do you want our Kitten to be working on while you're gone?" During the school week Logan and Ororo took over all of the student's exercises, as Harry's were bruising in the extreme, something the kids wouldn't be able to hide at school simply because of how they would move.

"I'll talk to Kitty before I go, she won't be working on anything new without me here, runes and magic can be very dangerous to tinker with even if she doesn't have a magical core of her own, hence why my runic workroom is warded as much as I can make it." Well without using one of my hearth stones anyway. "She'll be working on practicing drawing the runes she already knows smaller than she can now. That should keep her busy, and not tempt her to mess with some of the runes I've already powered without me here." Ororo nodded, and the conversation changed to what kind of food she liked when eating out, what she would like and hadn't had the opportunity to try and other things.

Kitty was one of the first to come down to breakfast and was surprised to see Logan there. Logan had not had a good night, haunted by a nightmare, possibly a memory. He was suspended in some kind of amniotic fluid in a tank, then he escapes, is attacked and runs away through the snow, in pain, angry and confused.

Kitty sat down across form him, her lips gripping a pen as she began to write a letter to her parents as she did every few weeks. She looked up as Logan rustled his newspaper, and he glanced at her. "Am I reading to loud or something Kitty?"

Kitty shook her head. "Nah, I just am enjoying the quiet, its so rare around here." Even as she said that the boys came in, talking excitedly to one another about some TV show they had all watched last night and she shook her head. "See what I mean?"

Rogue came in and sat down next to her, handing the younger girl a set of her big headphones. Kitty took them gratefully while Jean and Ororo came in talking about something about flying. They sat down and continued their discussion, with Ororo using her hands to illustrate some point to the redhead, who was nodding her head in understanding.

Harry walked in at that point not partaking of the meal. Teleportation over any kind of distance had a lot of the same issues apparition had, and using either magical method of transportation with food in your stomach was a very bad idea. "I'm going on a little trip" he announced, and everyone at the table looked at him. "I might be gone as long as two days, I don't know just yet."

Jean looked up in surprise, wondering what their most chaotic and unpredictable teacher was going to be doing. "Where are you going Harry?"

"Europe eventually, well, that is if the first part of this little trip doesn't kill me. That's a definite possibility really, should be fun anyway." With that he gathered his magical power, and focused all his thoughts on the image in his brain even as the others all gaped at him or choked on their food in surprise at his statement. He ignored their surprise and waved a hand jauntily. "Wish me luck."

Before any of them could do more than gape he disappeared, making a faint popping noise. A moment later, Hedwig who had perched on the back of Ororo's chair to look at her over her shoulder at the manga she was reading (yes Ah My Goddess was silly, but it was also funny and Ororo liked it), squawked angrily and flopped forward, barely catching herself before she landed on the table, precking irritably.

Ororo frowned. "I take it he ran into a bit of trouble?" Hedwig nodded her head fiercely, not stopping her irritated diatribe. Despite not being in any kind of human language the meaning of her precks came through quite clearly. Charles was almost tempted to say something about watching her language, but realized that in her present mood the owl might well rip his ear off. "Well in that case could you peck him a few times for me as well? He needs to get used to the fact that there are people who care for him now, and he can't just go and risk himself like this." Hedwig recovered herself, precked and nodded firm agreement with that statement then launched herself into the air. A moment later she too disappeared from sight.

Jean chuckled a little, saying "Never a dull moment around here, especially with Potter here." Everyone around the table nodded mute agreement.

The trick to teleportation was that you could only do it to a place you could picture accurately in your mind. If you couldn't do that you wouldn't be able to forge the connection between where you were to where you wanted to go. You could still try to push through of course that was what caused splinching more often than not. Harry had never been to any place in Europe, and he had only been to a few places in London, but he didn't know any of them well enough to teleport to, and when he tried to picture them, it didn't work. There was one place however, that when he tried to create a connection he succeeded. It was the most surprising of all, a place he tried to connect to only on a whim, with no real hope that it would be there, not after Madame Harkness had told him there was no Wizarding World, that magic users had never come together and retreated away from the non magical societies.

Yet Hogwarts existed here as it did in his own dimension. Hogwarts, a huge, massive castle still existed here, yet he found no mention of it on the internet, which made him believe that somehow it was still hidden to non-magical senses. So he tried to picture himself teleporting to land right before the main entrance, the place he could picture the most comprehensively yet still outside so the least likely to run into wards.

This hadn't worked. Instead of just the building being warded, a large area around it was too, and Harry bounced off the outer anti-apparition ward like a tennis ball off a wall, only with the ball in this case being alive to feel the pain and humiliation. "FUuuccckkkk!" He shouted, his mind and stomach assaulting him too much to let him react as he bounced off the wards and then off the water of the lake several times, before his momentum finally gave out about a mile from the shore. He groaned a little while beginning to tread water, thankful yet again that he routinely wore his crisis suit underneath his regular clothing. With a freezing spell he froze a large area of the water's surface, enough so he could pull himself up onto it and sort of lay there like a landed fish as he recovered, his stomach feeling like someone had tried to use it as a battlefield, his mind fogged with pain and his body a little sore, though thankfully not so much. He'd felt far worse, but his stomach and head were new and he had to rest there for a few minutes as the pain in both subsided.

Hedwig appeared overhead, her entire body screaming righteous indignation. After circling him to make certain her Harry was alright she landed on the ice next to his head, her claws sinking in, then she began to chew his ear off. And with an owl that was not a figure of speech.

For a few moments Harry just lay there, letting his body get back to normal. After he felt well enough to stand up he did so, pushing to his knees and after renewing his freezing spell he wobbled over to the edge of the piece of ice, leaned over and fed the fish for a bit. Hedwig turned away fastidiously as her Harry lost a few of his last meals, but hopped onto his shoulder and continued her assault on his ear as he stood up on still wobbly legs to look around.

Harry gave her a weak smile. "I know Hedwig, I was an idiot, I just thought, well I didn't really think this through huh? Guess my family's Gryffindor heritage overwhelmed my Ravenclaw common sense huh?" Hedwig gave the owl equivalent of a harrumph but stopped chewing on his ear after a final far more gentle nibble.

Despite what he said Harry had expected to run into some issues boldly trying to teleport to Hogwarts, but had thought that he would appear nearby, simply deposited elsewhere safely with nothing wrong save a upset stomach. Instead he had bounced off full power wards and nearly hit the other side of the lake from the castle. With a sigh he turned his attention to the distant castle, a smell repelling charm sending the ice over the lake. When he got closer both he stared as tears came to his eyes, remembering how he had first seen the castle and all of the things that had happened here.

The medieval castle sat there, unchanged since some distant past when it was first built. The towers, the turrets, the little overlook which hid the first year's entrance, it was all there. He remembered entering that way with Hermione, Padma and the others, and smiled a little sadly at the fact he would never see any of his old friends among the living ever again. He felt a niggling little tickle at the edge of his senses, and knew he was somehow under an anti-muggle ward of some kind. He then used his mage sight spell and his eyes widened in shock.

The wards of Hogwarts were the wonders of the world for hundreds of years, yet by the time Harry started school there, they were a bare shadow of what they could, indeed what they should have been. They were powered by three things; one, the students ambient magic, keeping magical accidents to a minimum.

The second power source was the teachers, who were supposed to give up a portion of their own magic to power them on a daily basis after they signed their contracts. Dumbledore as the headmaster should have not only given the largest portion of his own power to these wards, tying him into them, but he should have enforced this for all the teachers he hired in his tenure. He didn't do either, and thus by the time Harry arrived the wards were only sustained by the two teachers who he hadn't hired, Flitwick and McGonagall, which was why there were so many dangers able to get onto the grounds and fights inside the castle between students with the teacher none-the-wiser.

The third, and the one which gave the wards most of their power was the fact the castle sat on an intersection of two ley lines, but this option was only to be enacted during wartime on order of the headmaster. Never, not once, not even after McGonagall became headmistress, had Harry ever seen the wards of Hogwarts at anywhere near their full potential.

The wards before him were not only at their full potential, they were at what his world would have called a wartime footing, taking power from the ley lines below the castle. They were so powerful, so numerous and so well layered it was incredible. Harry counted at least fifteen anti-muggle wards, thirty full powered defense wards layered into the ground and the castle, and five anti-apparition wards. The others looked to be a mix of security, (wards to lock access) warning (wards to inform the headmaster or whoever of what was going on under them) and specific wards that seemed to block or dissipate specific spells. Other ones seemed to be things like anti-animal wards, though there were far more of them than he would have expected, and a few whose purpose he couldn't figure out, though they looked like they were versions of an unplottable, possibly much more powerful and tweaked to only block out non-magicals.

"Wow, just wow. That lot would take me weeks to decipher." He was tempted to do just that, but he had other obligations right now, whatever mystery Hogwarts hid would wait for now. He supposed he could just blast his way in, as strong as he was now, but only if he wanted to sink this part of Scotland into the sea, not something he was interested in doing whatever secrets the castles hid in its halls. Still I will be back, he vowed. Something about the castles was whispering to him that whatever was inside was important, that it held secrets he had to decipher, and that somehow the castle was waiting for him in some way. Yet it would have to wait a little longer.

He looked at Hedwig who smoothed out her feathers and jumped off his shoulder into the air, her destination Bern, Switzerland. From here it was in her flight range, and she would be back soon given her ability to 'go between' as she did. Harry still wasn't certain how the hell she did her little jumps, but simply put it down to how magnificent she was, which she of course agreed with.

Harry continued to make his way to shore (which seemed to be empty of squid alas, Chulhey had been a good friend, well he had after Luna introduced it to them all, and a major help in the second task of the Tournament in his fourth year), feeling more and more of the wards hit him and thankfully find him acceptable. The anti-apparition ward hadn't of course but most of these wards were developed to keep the castle hidden, not take out someone who already knew of its existence.

As he stepped onto the shore he remembered how he first became friends with Daphne and Tracy on the shore of the lake. It was at the beginning of their second year, and he and the twins had been spending time together, trying to come to an agreement on a group prank against the teachers when they heard the sound a commotion by the lake. It turned out to be a group of upper year Slytherins fighting two third year girls, whose bodies, much like Susan Bones in Hufflepuff, had already begun to mature. A group of six sixth years and two seventh years had followed them out to the lake and ambushed them there. Harry and the twins had leapt into the fight and with surprise on their side routed the lot of them. Unfortunately later on it was their word against the older Slytherins and as usual Dumbledore refused to hear anything against Snape or the little bigots.

Harry and his New Marauders would run into all eight of that group later, but they would be wearing black robes and masks then, and wouldn't be walking away from that second meeting.

The aftermath was that Daphne and Tracey practically moved into Ravenclaw tower, and Daphne and Hermione conspired to create a few spells to help protect the girls in the Slytherin quarters from their enemies. Hermione showed a certain level of viciousness in her spell creation that made every boy in their group flinch and cross their legs, but it cemented a friendship with the two pureblood girls and started a rivalry between her and Daphne that would last until Hermione was killed by Snape and Draco.

He spent his time waiting for his familiar walking around the grounds for two hours lost in his memories, but Hedwig's return dragged him back into the here and now, and soon, after viewing her memories of their destination, the two were off.

At around two in the afternoon local time a man walked into a bank in Bern the capital of Switzerland. He wore a tailored Armani suit in dark gray colors, a very nice white shirt underneath, but no tie. He was carrying a large backpack, but as the metal detectors at the door didn't ring in alarm, the security guards stationed on either side of the entrance didn't think it dangerous. They watched him, of course, and when he walked up to one of them it was a surprise to hear him speak in fluent Swiss. "Excuse me," he said, "could you direct me to where I need to go to open up a new account?" the guard thus addressed did so, still wondering what was in the bag but being too professional to ask.

Harry smirked a little. When he had mentioned his translation spells to Ororo, she had gotten very, very irritated. Even with her normal control before he gave her the necklace he created a storm had begun to develop outside the house, complete with lightning, thunder and rain. She thought that it was a cheat. That you learned more about a language and its people while actually learning the language than you ever could just by being given knowledge of the language in a few seconds of spell work, especially since that knowledge faded over time. Harry had agreed to only use it when he wasn't around her, but also refused to join the language classes as he had far more important things to do. Ororo hadn't liked that, but had acquiesced.

Harry was shown into a rather small office where a man in his 30s stood up and welcomed him with a bland noncommittal smile on his face. "I understand you wish to open up a new account with us, Mr…?"

Harry nodded. "Harry Potter, yes as I've recently moved out on my own so I really do need my own account. I have made some recent discoveries and I hope to start up my own business soon. I have the capital, some of the items that I'm looking to patent have done very well, but it's all been sort of under the table."

The man looked a little dubious, at that, but nodded. "Might we have your ID please?" Harry handed over the ID the Fantastic Four gave him, and as he had suspected it passed muster quite easily.

While they were waiting for the ID to come back the man talked about the minimal initial deposit requirement, as well as what kind of interest he could expect. Harry replied that he would be depositing quite a lot more than that, but he would allow the interest rate to remain at their set level, until he was proven to be a good investment.

The man frowned a little at that, wondering what the younger man in front of him was going to be doing, but shrugged as the ID came back clean. "So how much are you looking to entrust to us today, Mr. Potter?"

Perry reached into the bag and began to pull out large wads of cash, all of which of course was in the US dollar, but the presentation was all he could hope for. "About 2 and 3/4 of a million dollars US actually."

The man gaped at him and said softly "I think I'm going to have to go get my advisor." Harry frowned a little, but nodded anyway. He could have simply waved his hand and gotten the man to agree to create a bank account for him no questions asked but had decided against it. He didn't want anyone to accuse him of using his magic to influence other people like that when he eventually went public.

The discussion with the supervisor lasted about 45 minutes, but he was satisfied by Harry's tale of continually selling off items of gold that he had discovered in his grandfather's house, as well as selling certain scientific items. Mind you, the items that he described, a wrist mounted taser and a hand sized wide area dispersal pepper spray were ideas that he was going to run with eventually, but he didn't think they would be very big money makers in comparison to some of his other ideas. At the moment though they did well enough to convince the man that the money was real and that Harry was on the up and up. Of course, this being Switzerland they didn't really care what he was doing in America, so long as he didn't do it here. Once they were convinced of that fact it went much smoother.

The upshot was that an hour after walking into the bank Harry walked out with a brand-new bank account, as well as checks. He had asked the man if the checks would be usable immediately, and after another 5 minutes of wrangling, the man agreed and activated his account as fast as he could. He did this happily since Harry informed him that the money he had already deposited had only been a down payment, and that Harry expected to see a massive return in a few days. He refused to divulge where that return would be coming from, only that it wouldn't have anything illegal about it. After all, there's no law that says I can't take gold from one dimension into another is there? Harry smirked to himself.

His agenda today was to buy the various crystals and other items he would need to create a magical analysis to figure out what Juggernaut's armor was composed of, as well as certain scientific devices for the same purpose. The devices he would have to order specially, they weren't exactly going to be sold in stores, and much the same thing would have to happen for the crystals, because they had to be of perfect quality on the molecular level, but certain other items he could buy. "However," he said to himself as Hedwig zoomed down out of nowhere to perch on his shoulder. "I think I deserve a bit of a present, what do you think Hedwig?"

Hedwig seemed to think about this, then nodded affirmatively, and Harry made his way over to a map of the city at a bus stop, and then made his way over to a very specific automobile dealership. He had seen this car online while living with the Fantastic Four, and had immediately fallen in love with it. It wasn't exactly the most utilitarian car, but then again, he didn't care about that. All he wanted was something to have fun with that was fast, and this car would fit the bill nicely. After that he decided to get himself some tea and searched for a good café.

Emma Frost sat alone at a table in a little café off the main street of Bern, tapping the fingers of one hand rhythmically on the table as she read over a few notes from her bank manager. She sat alone because she wanted to, a young woman of her looks and grace would never want for companionship, but at the moment she wanted to be alone. She scowled irritably as she went over her bank notes, looking for some way out of the predicament she found herself in.

Emma was born into the Frost household, its third eldest child, and was expected to do her part to enrich the family. Frost pharmaceuticals, Frost perfume, Frost Industries, Frost import/export, and Frost Telecommunications were all big business, not quite as big as the biggest like Stark Enterprises or some of the other really big names, but easily multi-billionaires. They had become so by making few mistakes and taking care of any enemies with ruthless dispatch. Not that any of that could ever be traced back to them of course. And she was now expected to take her part in the family business, and that was surprisingly as its heir.

Her older brother, their firstborn child, was a lush. He spent his time and money on sex, alcohol and drugs, and anyway was gay, something that was almost as bad these days as being a known mutant. Her older sister was equally unsuitable, she was cruel and sadistic, and was horrible at hiding it. Her father approved of such things in moderation of course, but Adrienne refused to even think that the opinions of anyone outside the family should matter at all, and routinely abused the servants in various ways.

So Emma had been chosen to succeed her father as head of the business. The only problem was, she didn't want to be. She wanted to make a her own way in the world, succeed on her own merits. However, the family had refused to allow that, and Emma was here to see if she could in some way get enough of her money out of her bank account to start up somewhere on her own. Unfortunately, her parents had tangled up her bank account with numerous regulations, rules and expectations, and she was left with no way to get out any significant amount without their say-so. Well her father's say-so, her mother kept herself drugged to the gills so she didn't have to deal with her families issues.

Emma scowled angrily to herself, confident that her powers would keep anyone from actually noticing. It was those powers, the mutant power of telepathy that had awoken during her puberty that allowed her to sit alone in the very crowded café. Despite the fact that I would miss the higher things in life, I'm almost tempted to run off right now. I could convince someone to buy my car, and that would give me enough money to start with obviously. But no, I bet my father would send people after me, especially given certain agreements he's made concerning me! If it was only the fact that she was being forced to take over the family businesses in the future she would've easily born that up. The businesses weren't anything she was really interested in, but that could've changed over time. No it was the other aspect of being head of Frost industries that bothered the hell out of her.

Her father was part of a very old, very wealthy and very influential group called the Hellfire Club that had been around since the 1700s. This group specialized in backroom dealings, insider trading, and working together to profit from the rest of the world. She had no issues with any of that, what she did have an issue with was the fact that it was heavily gender biased and male-dominated. Despite her high birth, despite the money and influence she as the head of Frost Corp. would bring to the group, she as a woman was going to be subservient to a man, one of the so called Kings, which would control her as his Queen. The man in question was named Sebastian Shaw, a friend of her father who had been eyeing her for several years now. The idea of what that man would do once he had actual control over her did not bear thinking about. And unfortunately, he had such good telepathic blocks, developed despite not being a telepath himself that he would know immediately if she tried to influence him, with consequences she did not want to consider.

It wasn't as if she was entirely unused to the attentions of man of course, she had had several boyfriends despite her older sister's machinations. With her looks how could it be anything else? And in fact she had a very brief and extremely pleasant affair with one of her teachers, there was something to be said about experience over youthful ineptitude. No, it was the fact that she was still very technically a virgin. Much like the Middle East still did, and like the Hellfire Club had done since its inception, a woman was supposed to come to it unsullied and her father had basically told her from the very beginning of puberty that she was allowed to fool around in any way shape or form but that. If she did that, not only would she be thrown out of the house with nothing to her name, but he would see to it that she could never work at any level at any business in the world again save as a slut on the street.

Emma had long thought of getting out of it somehow, but had hoped to be able to find a better way forward. It hadn't worked. Calm down Emma, she thought coldly to herself, so you can't get out of it, figure out some angle, you want to influence him, figure out a way to do it, or just take the plunge and run off now. The odds of her successfully running off were slim, but possibly better than being controlled by that neanderthal Shaw.

Her thoughts were interrupted however, as someone sat across from her, something that should've been impossible given the fact that she was projecting a telekinetic field that would tell anyone with a brain that this table was not in fact here. Yet someone still had sat down with her.

She looked up and was caught by the most magnificent emerald eyes she had ever seen, snapping with barely concealed humor and hidden power. The face around those eyes was handsome, dominated by an expressive smile, white teeth, unkempt black hair and a strange fading scar on his forehead. "Sorry about this," he said as he sat down a cup of tea and a large scone, "but if the choice is between sitting with you or sitting with the fat Yank, I'll choose the beautiful blonde every time."

Emma looked around beyond startled and then noticed that he was in fact telling the truth. The only free space in the café was next to a very fat American who was talking loudly into some kind of cell phone. Probably a tourist, she thought scornfully then turned back to her new companion, looking at him in a strange kind of wonder. Pausing momentarily to think about it, she then sent a small fragment of her telepathic power forward to probe his mind wanting to make sure that this wasn't some stooge of her father or someone Shaw sent to look over his 'investment'.

Harry frowned a little as he felt a little nudge on the side of his mental invisibility cloak. It didn't seem to have any malice behind it or anything, and he realized almost immediately that it was coming from the young woman in front of him. Still, he thought to himself if I looked like her I would be a little worried about a complete stranger sitting with me too. He decided to have a bit of fun with her, and very stealthily stuck his mental avatar's hand out from under the invisibility cloak protecting his mind. That hand held a sign saying 'No Trespassing, violators will be pranked mercilessly', then a little animation started on it, featuring a Bugs Bunny like rabbit and a very large mallet coming down on its head several times.

On the outside edge Emma had continued to sip her tea as she sent her probe forward, only to nearly spit it out in surprised laughter at the response she eventually got, though the fact she didn't see anything else of the man's mind was fascinating. Setting down her tea she picked up her napkin and dabbed at her mouth for a moment before speaking. "All right, that was interesting."

Harry grinned at her. "Well, that'll teach you not to probe strange men's minds. I know why you did it, after all a young woman as good looking as you probably does need to be more careful than normal people, but it's still rather rude."

Emma leaned back, taking in more of the man's appearance. The suit was nice, well fitted and very good quality even if it only looked like an Armani, as a Frost of course she could spot a fake suit a mile away, but this one seemed decent enough. The boy, no young man in front of her had some bank information in front of him as well as a map showing the roads down to Italy. He didn't look up from looking at the map intently almost as if he wasn't paying her any attention now that she had stopped trying to probe his own mind.

That didn't feel like any kind of telepathic block, nor did it feel like a natural one. I wonder what it was. Emma smiled, this kind of mystery was precisely what she needed to take her mind off her current troubles. "So what was that little trick just now?"

Harry looked up from the map he was perusing. He had decided that he really wanted to try out his new car before going back to the X-Men mansion. And driving in the US was problematic with the stupidly low speed limits. "Just a little trick," he said blandly, not about to open up to a young woman he had only just met, no matter how good looking she was, not right away at least. "By the way, what is it with mutants and being beautiful? Is that part of the whole mutant thing, I mean really is it genetics?"

Emma smirked a little at the rather blatant attempt to change the subject, the compliment was flattering but oddly informative at the same time, though the man might not have meant it to be. "And have you met many of us mutants?" She had only met one, maybe two other mutants, though she had suspicions about several others, including Sebastian Shaw.

"Several" he said, not going into any detail, "And I've yet to meet a female one that wasn't gorgeous." Inside however, he was wondering how this woman had fallen through the cracks and been missed by Xavier. It would seem Cerebro isn't as accurate or all knowing as he wants me to believe. Or could it be that he doesn't know either? The first would be irritating, but the second would be much more worrisome, especially if it isn't missing because of faults in its detection net, but because of someone else being able to block it.

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