Chapter 13: Do I Speak to a Subject or a King? part 5

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By the time Ororo reached the window from which the shots had come from her assailant had retreated deeper into the building and Ororo landed looking around angrily. In one hand she began to gather the wind, readying the sphere of pressurized hurricane force that had destroyed the Seeker and had finished off Candra. In her other hand little blips of plasma light appeared, lighting her way as she moved out of what looked like a dining room into a office area then into a hallway.

The building some called the gherkin (though why it was called that Ororo could not fathom, it looked more like a metal and glass bullet than a pickle) was a mix of a business building tourist sight, and dining center. The interior of it showed this odd dichotomy, hence how Ororo could go from a dining room that was rather nicely made up to a vision from cubicle hell on the same floor. The stairwell matched the interior as a truly strange design, being marble for 36 floors.

She paused then, letting the lights around her hand disappear for a moment she tried to discern which direction accent had gone, up or down. After a moment she decided that Vixen was the sort who would always go to ground, feeling more comfortable in a place where she could escape from. Decision made Ororo moved down the marble stairwell.

About ten floors down she dodged backwards as shots rang out from below, and with a thought sent a massive torrent of wind downwards. Ororo shook her head, it was rather more difficult inside to use her powers, and the close confines in the darkness was getting to her a little, but thanks to Harry's spell on her eyes, the darkness wasn't quite enough to send their into her claustrophobic hysteria helped by the fact the stairwell was larger than an normal one.

The blast of wind smashed a doorway down below throwing one of Vixens thugs through it and out the other side riddled with the pieces of the door. Despite this he still tried to get to his feet but by that point Ororo was on the same level and she sent a lightning blast straight into his face. The man collapsed headless to the ground and she moved on growling angrily at yet another life wasted.

This was the beginning of a pattern. Every five levels or so Ororo would run into one or two of Vixen's thugs, but thanks to her Orihalcum reinforced suit and her own reflexes the only injury she took was bruises and left check being nicked by marble shrapnel.

The same could not be said of her enemies. Bullets barely slowed her down, and her return blasts of wind and ice (the easiest two powers for Ororo to use inside) killed each group in turn.

At first it was only one or two thugs but as she neared the first floor Ororo ran into stiffer resistance, seven thugs behind hastily erected defenses with a few armed with crew served weapons.

Here however the thugs made a mistake. One of them, slightly larger than the others carried a rocket launcher. Unfortunately Ororo's eyes could spot it even while she ducked back from the heavier caliber rounds of the crew served machine guns. When the man tried to fire it up the stair well, Ororo shot a powerful blast of wind at it, redirecting it sharply into the wall right in front of their defensive position.

The rocket exploded, sending some of the thugs and their defense sprawling. Before the survivors could recover Ororo was down in among them, using her martial arts to disable them in close and using ice and wind to slam them to and fro.

Soon after that Ororo found herself in the entrance way of the tower. The entrance was a large façade of three stories, with aluminum paneled arches connecting the outer plaza to it, and incidentally controlling the flow of traffic in and out.

With the rain and lack of a moon it was also as dark as a hole in the ground, but with the spell on her eyes Ororo could see through it clearly enough. "You cannot hide any longer," she said lifting a hand in sending little notes of electric light through the area lighting it. She sent these little electrostatic charges forward, impacting the walls and aluminum paneled arches around Vixen's current hiding place behind a security desk.

Vixen came out of the side of the desk, raising a handgun to shoot at Ororo causing her to duck aside. Behind her a window shattered, letting in the rain and wind.

A return blast of wind from Ororo took the other woman off her feet slamming her against the wall.

Ororo got to her feet calmly brushing the glass from window off of her with one hand while sending out a small bolt of lightning to destroy the woman's rifle with the other.

"Some people," Ororo said moving towards the other woman, "Might feel sorry for you. After all your parents died leaving you on your own on the street, how else were you to survive but turn to crime? But I am not one of them. I grew up in the same exact environment, only tougher and harder. I never gave into the darkness, to the easy path. You did so willingly. There are no words for my contempt for you, and that was before you joined with this Selene woman. Unlike anyone else involved in this madness, you joined willingly for monetary gain. You were willing to sell the souls and the more than souls of everyone in London for your own monetary gain."

"Are you trying to preach to me?" asked Vixen a fox-like snarl on her face as she stood up one hand going toward a small hold out gun under her leopard skin coat. "I know what I am, keep your sanctimonious opinion to yourself."

"No I wasn't trying to preach to you, I was simply stating why you're going to die now. This isn't a fight, this is an execution long overdue." The woman across from her looked through the dark of the interior of the building's entrance at Ororo's blazing white eyes, and something in them beside Storm's power made Vixen shudder and back away. Even her mentally enforced loyalty to Selene couldn't block the sudden fear, but it was too late.

Ororo charged forward. The woman tried to use her holdout pistol but Ororo slammed it to the side, wincing a little as she felt her pinky break upon impact with the gun, but her other palm shot out into the other woman's throat crushing her larynx.

Vixen went to her knees, her hands coming up to grasp uselessly at her now ruined throat.

Without any emotion on her face Ororo grabbed the other woman's hair and dragged her outside. Being outside among the rain and whether rejuvenated Ororo considerably, and she rose into the air one hand above her head.

Vixen looked up still holding her ruined throat gasping for air as blast of lightning shot out of the sky to impale her to the ground. The bolts went on and on for a full minute, and when it finally stopped Vixen was a charbroiled husk.

Ororo leaned back against the side of the tower wiping the rain and sweat from her forehead wearily. That had been unpleasant, but necessary. Such a woman was a cancer on society, and would undoubtedly have started up again if allowed to escape. After a moment Ororo shook herself and took to the sky intent on helping Jean and then the Gurkhas as they destroyed the runic array around the city.

OOOOOOO

The Royal Guard was not having an easy time of it, but they were slowly clearing out the vampires and mercenaries. The Gurkhas routinely used grapnels and set up enfilading fire to route the mercs or the vampires, though the vampires were tougher. And about an hour into the battle Captain Britain joined in, slamming down from out of the ongoing rain to grapple with the vampires at any position where the battle turned against the soldiers directed hither and yon by his sister's telepathy. The soldiers still lost men, and many more were wounded and evacuated back to the palace, yet more and more runes were crossed out as time went on. Despite this however the ongoing fighting throughout the city was but a sideshow to the main event.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Selene both had distinct advantages going for them in their contest. Harry was immensely powerful, though still unused in many ways to that power, and had reflexes that were beyond anything Selene had ever encountered before. His reflexes were so fast they could keep up with Quicksilver, and he could cast spells far faster thanks to that. He also had spent a large portion of his life locked in magical combat or preparing for said, sometimes against opponents which outclassed him in many ways. His magical method also lent itself to combat against other wizards as easily as mundanes, and was built for speed.

Selene was one of possibly only two or three magic users on the planet that could match Harry in power for a time. He had much greater reserves than her, though she didn't know that. She also, despite having gone out of her way most of her immortal life to not openly fight other sorcerers, had far more experience than him. She was ruthless, with a repertoire of attack spells that just had to be seen to be believed.

Harry could have told anyone that within five minutes of Selene's initial attack. The curses and attack spells she hurled at him from the top floor of the bullet shaped building were imaginative and powerful. Some of the cruse almost looked like a few of the darker ones he had seen the Death Eaters use in his old dimension, but not quite, and their speed was far greater. Still Harry was far too quick in the air to get hit with such, and he had one hand covered with the strongest shield he could create, while using his own offensive spells to negate hers when he felt the need.

Selene also used transfiguration to great effect. Birds, griffins, dragons and other fantastical creatures suddenly conjured out of midair assaulted him every minutes but he destroyed them as they came grimly taking everything she could throw at him. Some of them were illusions, but many of those illusions covered smaller transfigured creatures, and after one of those tried to stab him in the back with its beak (not getting through thanks to his crysis suit and Magia Erebea) Harry made certain to wipe all the beasts Selene sent at him out with extreme prejudice.

But it was the cutting spells she sent him that were the real danger. They were of a variety he had never seen before, jagged slashes of dark purple slicing through the rain swept night coming at him fast and furious. The one time one had snuck through to clip him its edge had sliced through the crisis suit and his Magia Erebea enhanced skin to open a gash on his side. It wasn't serious, and he closed it with a reflexive Episkey, but it was a sign that she could hurt him despite his strength.

Despite this however, Harry had discerned enough of her skills, and her personality on top of that to start to think up a plan to deal with her. Up to this point Harry had used only the barest minimum of his spells to combat her conjured beasts and attack spells, but now he upped the ante. One hand began to glow white and red then he shouted, "Gaudete vento urente!"

From that hand several dozen small multicolored thimble sized bits of light zoomed out, each one targeting a transfigured beast, and when they hit, they exploded like a rocket. His other hand filled with lightning and several assault zoomed out from that hand as well, decapitating the largest transfigured beasts or smashing through a few of the illusions to hit the one bit of them that was real.

The transfigured monsters died under this rapid and overwhelming assault and before Selen could recover from the suddenness of his assault Harry zoomed on, dodging several cutting spells and hammering into the magical shield Selene had raised around the tower's top floors shattering it like glass. Harry landed across from Selene on the top floor of the building, his emerald eyes flaring like green lightning in the dark.

This floor of the bullet shaped building was designed as a bar with a 360 degree view of the city around it. It was supposed to have several tables scattered around and a central bar centered around a few metal and concrete pillars, but that was all gone now. Instead the tables were gone, the bar as well, and the floor was covered with runic script leading to a spot at the center of the room, where Selene stood.

Harry took a moment to look at her, standing there in a leather corset, thigh high boots, and short leather shorts. With that and her white skin, long black hair, sexy body and crimson lips she looked like a sub's wet dream. Harry however saw more than her physical form and shuddered at what he didn't see.

Despite the sudden overpowering nature of his assault Selene seemed more amused than anything else. "What is your name boy?"

"I don't share my name with the dead." said Harry coldly, his hands crackling with eldritch energies,

"Bravado is the hallmark of the young and dimwitted," said Selene scornfully and suddenly from all sides came hundreds of cutting spells slamming and slicing through the air at Harry.

Harry dropped to his knees slamming his hands onto the ground and shouting a spell that encapsulated him in stone from the floor below them. The hundreds of slicing spells cut through the stone dome, but when the dome crumbled Harry was no longer there.

"Amusing," said Selene looking around and activating her own magical senses. This saved her from a rather ignominious defeat as suddenly the ground underneath her shot up in a spear that would've impacted the center of her chest if she hadn't leaped aside.

Harry suddenly apparated directly in front of her his hand lashing out to smash into her face with a punch that sent Selene careening away to slam against the glass behind her, shattering it. She would have fallen out if her hand hadn't suddenly grown claws which she used to dig into the ground.

She stood up, wiping away blood from her mouth. "You'll pay for that." Selene snarled then gestured with a single finger. "Don't you know that you never attack a sorceress in her place of power?" Indeed it was never good idea to attack a sorcerer or sorceress anywhere they had time to set traps. This allowed them to lay traps, and there was nothing so dangerous to a magic user as the unseen.

Harry found this out when the tables that had been thrust to the edge of the top floor suddenly came alive, spitting out's shards of wood and metal at him from behind. His reflexes saved him however, and he ducked out of the way returning fire. "Bombarda!"

His spell destroyed two of the tables, but Selene snapped her fingers again and the floor that he was standing on that did not in fact have any rooms to dealing with the runic arrays she had sent out across the city exploded under them.

"Idiot boy," Selene laughed. "Did you honestly think that you and your puny magics could stand against me?"

"I see," said Harry from out of the smoke of the small explosion. "Ventus Dolor!" A blast of wind caught Selene in the center of the chest throwing her backwards and incidentally clearing the air between them. She looked up from her crouch to Harry completely unharmed though his crysis suit looked a little singed around the feet. "That was dangerous, still I seem to have come up with a solution."

"And that is?" Selene growled.

"Overwhelming force! Terraemotus!" Harry shouted slamming his hands down onto the ground. A magical wave of magic shot out through the floor, they were on, detonating all the traps that Selene had prepared in the floor and the various pieces of furniture.

Selene cursed then began to fire curses and attack spells at Harry, but he dodge them all adroitly returning fire. Selene used the few remaining surprises she had prepared here in the center of her power, but Harry shattered them easily, pressing her hard.

After a moment she realized that in close like this Harry had the advantage, his speed and reflexes made him almost impossible to hit while his return shots were dangerously pressing her magical shields. She had layered three magical about her, but two of them had already been shattered, forcing Selene to do something she hadn't in far too many millennia, dodge wildly.

To make matters worse, the ritual array on the floor had been badly damaged, and it would take at least an hour to put right.

Suddenly she thought up a plan, and leaped backwards towards a window firing two spells at Harry that he had never heard of before. "скелетразбие!, Enu Mekelmu!" One spell was a bright orange bolt, the other a white arrow shape. These spells were made to shatter the targets skeleton or boil his eyes in his skull. The thing about them that was different however was they ignored the target's shields.

Harry, not wanting to chance being hit by unknown spells, a survival trait for magic users, dodged to one side, halting his attack for a second.

This allowed Selene the time to turn and look out over the city gathering the pieces and bits of debris that she had used previously in her transfigured and conjured beasts. This time they were smaller of course, but that just made them harder to hit and with another wave she covered them all with illusions masking their numbers and throwing them at Harry.

Harry started to use area effect spells, uncaring of which was illusion or which was reality simply going for destroying as many as he could as quickly as he could but he was unable to do both this and concentrate on taking out Selene.

Selene used this time to reach out with her magical power to a nearby church, and a second later it began to creak and groan as it took on the aspect of a giant. While nowhere near as large as the building they were currently on, with a bit of magical aid it jumped up onto the floor they were on, shattering the wall further and raining down debris which both combatants quickly used to their advantage to transfigure into beasts that attacked one another and their opponent.

Here Selene again showed her mastery of transfiguration, changing thousands of tiny bits of shattered glass and stone into a horde of ants that sought to engulf Harry.

Harry however wasn't idle and used his own spells to counter many of the attacking beasts, and then used a spell that changed the rain pouring down into ice bits which he then sent at a few of the beasts, before using a wind spells to send the ants directly back at Selene, who snarled and swiped them to the side, trying to get Harry with a cutting spell, but missed when Harry returned fire.

He suddenly took to the air to dodge the giant's fist which crashed down into the floor of the topmost story of the Gherkin laughing a little as it destroyed even more of Selene's runic array.

He flew up the arm of the giant towards its head, dodging its fist again, throwing out a web of fire that caught a dozen conjured birds as they tried to dive-bomb him, and then flew on into the giant's face. "Neque Hasta et Longinus!" This was not in fact a spear spell, simply a far more powerful bombarding spell that contained the explosion into a small area, making it much more powerful. The giant fell back out of the building, taking out more of the wall as it fell to the ground forty stories below.

Rather than be bothered by his skill however Selene laughed having worked out yet another ploy. "Double Jeopardy this time boy!" She shouted raising her hands towards the city. "ayangyn avarga jad!" A giant spear of black lightning appeared in her hand, and she threw it through the rainy night towards one of the apartment buildings nearby.

Harry gasped in shock, and apparated directly in front of the lightning, smashing it aside with a hand reinforced by several shielding spells.

"Now here's the question!" said Selene almost gaily as she sent another lightning out randomly forcing Harry to intercept it before he could slam into another building. "Can you keep defending the rest of the city, and stop me, before time runs out?"

That wasn't a bluff, there was enough of the array left around her for Selene to activate it once the appropriate time came. It was one of the lovely things about Macedonian and Aztec runic arrays, both of them were extremely robust systems. They were wonky in terms of time and the alignment of the stars and other things, but they could still be used if they took damage up to a full third of the entire array.

Harry saw red. There were a few things that really got under his skin, one was trying to threaten children (a surefire trip to the grave if Harry was around), another was threatening people who couldn't fight back, it set his saving people thing™ on overdrive.

For the first time Harry grasped all of his magical power, not just the amount he was comfortable with using p to this point, but all of it and slamming his hands together and then through them apart making a circle around the street containing the Gherkin. "Sciath na BhFéadfadh!"

This was a spell he had taken from one of the books on battle magic from the books in the Hogwarts library here in this dimension. It couldn't block out transfigured creatures, or keep out dark beasts or anything that could think, what it could do was block any attack spell cast on it as long as the power lasted. It was extremely power consumptive, but one of the best shields against magical assault that Harry had ever read about, though the power aspect was possibly why it had never existed in his former dimension. Even Voldemort would not have had the power to cast it without some other power source.

Harry however had no issue whatever with the power consumption. A wall of iridescent magical power sprang up shooting into the sky and creating a dome around the Gherkin and a few surrounding buildings.

Selene gasped at this show of magical power, realizing that the boy facing her might well have been holding back so far, and then had to shield her eyes as one of her attack spells slammed into the shield with blinding force.

In the wake of the noise and fury of that detonation the shield stood strong, and her opponent was nowhere in sight. Selene scowled angrily, waving her hands in the air and intoning a spell to cancel all illusions, but even that was too slow. Before she could do anything further Harry appeared directly in front of her, his hands reaching out to grasp her neck.

Instead of trying to split away immediately she laughed triumphantly and brought her own arms up to grasp his hands, one of the few parts of him that weren't covered by his crysis suit. As soon as their hands contacted one another, inside their bodies their two mutant powers went to war.

Selene was a vampire in the truest sense. Her mutant power allowed her to leech the life force of her enemies adding it to our own. It was only later that she learned how to use that added life force as a magical power source, but in so doing she changed the life force into magical power, which for normal people, even sorceresses like her, was not the same thing.

Harry's power however sucked magic out of anyone or anything he touched. There were a few things that he couldn't drain, he couldn't do it to a spell which had already been launched, and he had yet to try to do on inherently magical creatures like house-elves or demons. Harry's bonding to the house-elves somehow negated his ability to drain them, and Harry was actually very leery about attempting to drain demons seeing as the magic he had taken so far from various enemies had 'flavors' to them, and he was very much afraid of what a demons magic would 'taste' like.

Their powers were in direct conflict. Selene's tried to leech the life force out of Harry while at the same time was losing her magic to Harry's own touch. Unfortunately for Selene, Harry's life force and magic were one and the same. That meant as fast as she could suck out his life force it was reinforced by the magic she he was looking out of her.

Not a minute into the contest she realized what was going on, and deciding that she couldn't afford to lose all of her magical power Selene broke away, using a point-blank cutting spell, which slashed a long gash open in Harry's crysis suit along one of his pectoral muscles, but because of his own incredibly fast response that was all.

Harry fell back, one hand going up to his chest, glowing with a faint healing spell but his other shot out what he might start calling one of his calling card spells "Drill of Light!"

Again Harry poured far more power into the spell than he would normally, but even then he didn't realize how much power he had just taken from Selene. Rather than the fifteen he expected twenty shot out, and the drills of mixed lightning, pure magic and light shrieked through the rain and air toward Selene.

Selene gaped at the attack spell which was unlike anything she had seen before, and barely dodged the first few. The next several however shattered her shields like glass,, and the drills tore into her, ripping one of her arms away, a fair chunk of her side, chest and legs.

To anyone normal this amount of damage would have killed her, possibly immediately, and certainly painfully. Selene however was not moral, and within seconds her body regenerated.

Harry didn't let up however, sending out spell after spell.

Selene's attacks now became more desperate yet at the same time crueler, spells that would flash fry his innards, peel him like a grape, make his intestines burst out and strangle him, his bones shatter or to turn to goop.

However this didn't have any real impact, as all of them were countered and Harry kept pressing her using mid level spells to drive her back, forcing her out into the air where he was not surprised to see that Selene could float.

Selene snarled, wiping on hand over her eyes to clear them from her rain-slicked hair, ignoring the fact one of her breasts was showing, since her outfit didn't regenerate with her body. "You will not beat me BOY! I will ascend to godhood tonight!"

Harry laughed. "I've heard better threats before, and besides I don't think the world needs a goddess of S&M."

Selene snarled and redoubled her attack, but there was no doubt now who was winning their duel.

OOOOOOO

On the streets of Chicago Steven Strange paused, shaking his head as his senses, connected as they were to the ley-lines of the planet, told him something big had just happened in the United Kingdom.

Next to him Clea looked at him. "Is something wrong?"

"Something elsewhere perhaps, though what I just felt might be Mr. Potter dealing with that something major in no uncertain a manner. At least two people are throwing around magic at an amazing scale. Perhaps I should have agreed to aid Harry in dealing with whatever trouble was brewing in the land of his birth. Certainly you two seem to have this well in hand."

Indeed that was rather understating things. Thor and the Destroyer's forced entry from the pocket dimension of Asgard to Earth's had sent shockwaves of weakness through the dimensional wall, culminating here, at the normally weakest point near their entry. The city of Chicago was an odd place, and had been home to a group of demon worshipping Native Americans centuries ago, before they were wiped out by the Cheyenne tribes. The city was still a weak point in the dimensional wall however, yet Steven's presence here and now did not seem necessary.

Clea of course was well up to the task of dealing with demons from imps to greater demons since she came from the Dark dimension, a place ruled by a greater Demon Lord.

It was Wanda who was the surprise. Her chaos based magic might cause some odd reactions, but it seemed as if demons, who generally had some magical resistance (with the amount varying due to personal power and age) were unable to protect themselves from it. Now as the two senior magic users watched she used her powers to rip through the horde of demons around her.

Her chaos magic wasn't pure attack magic, some of them were changed into stone, some into fluffy bunnies, others lost limbs or tripped and were trampled by their fellows. The results seemed to vary, but the outcome did not.

Clea shook her head rather amused. "I think my young apprentice and I need to have a talk about moderation. But other than that yes, I am very proud of her progress."

Steven nodded, and the two rejoined the battle, swiftly routing the demons back into the portal they had emerged from.

OOOOOOO

Natasha grunted as a bullet ricocheted off the rock of the rooftop gargoyle she was hiding behind, sending small pieces of rock digging into her shoulder, one of them opening up her left. She returned fire ducking out one side and blasting away with both pistols and her attacker went down. There was a momentary lull in the action and she fell back under cover banging her head lightly against the gargoyle. "This has not been a pleasant evening." She muttered and got to her feet moving swiftly from cover to cover keeping her eyes open. But there didn't seem to be any more enemies around. That was unfortunately when she heard an unearthly howl from the street below her.

Jean had found that the other woman's control of her telekinetic chains was rather impressive, but she lacked the power and ability to really keep up with her in a telekinetic battle. It was simply the fact that there were over 20 shooters around here and they seemed to want to ignore Natasha to concentrate on her that kept the battle going so long.

Of course Natasha was very thankful for this, but Jean wasn't. Thankfully attrition soon made Vixen's men turn their attention to Natasha and Jean pressed her advantage swiftly, slamming aside with fists aflame the chains of the other woman, red and orange against black and purple. The older woman quickly became desperate, falling back and using her acrobatic ability to stay away from Jean's telekinetic assault. She seemed to have a bit of precognitive ability, and was always moving just a second too fast for Jean's attacks to hit, but it was only a matter of time and they both knew it.

A sudden snarl of fury and pure animal rage came from the dark alleyway beside the redhead and it was only her telekinetic powers that saved her life when a claw came out of the darkness to try and rip out her throat. "Your life is mine mind witch!" Eliphas snarled.

It had taken him some time, but eventually he had been able to reconnect his limbs, and he had come after Jean with single-minded purpose, infuriated beyond all reason at her searching his mind. Of course this hadn't done his façade of being human any favors. He now had fangs poking out of his mouth, green skin over a spare frame and his hair was gone, and his face was much more skeletal than it had been.

Jean pushed off the ground swiftly backpedaling, using her telekinetic power to force her body to move as fast as her mind could force it, dodging Elipha's slashes. He (debatable at this point in Jean's mind, it looked far more appropriate) was faster by far than any human could move, so she had to push her body beyond the limit. Of course she would pay for it later with pulled muscles but at the moment she needed that speed.

The other telekinetic user went to her knees for a moment gathering herself and then attacked Jean again as well.

Bullets cracked out from Natasha above them on the rooftops, but only the woman seems to bother dodging them. A few hit Eliphas but he ignored them pressing the attack forcing Jean backwards, despite the fact that her entire body was now encased in an aura of flames that seem to burn his skin. The man's mind was now completely focused on one thing only, taking revenge on the mind witch that had broken his mental defenses.

Natasha thankfully was able to occupy the other telekinetic just long enough for Jean to gather herself and she grabbed Eliphas's flailing arms in two grips of telekinetic flame. With a howl she threw him away from her, and then while he was in the air sent searing hot column of fire straight into his chest.

Elihpa snarled and growled and tried to move aside but Jean grimly kept her aim on him, and then a bolt of lightning slammed out of the night sky into him from behind. The dual assault did what neither could do separately and at last broke through whatever power was keeping Eliphas alive past death. With a shudder and a last despairing scream Eliphas's ability to heal himself failed, and his body crumbled and burned to ash under their assault, the ash scattering in the rainy night.

Natasha however hadn't fared so well. Already slowed down from a few bruises and several wounds her opponent used her telekinetic chain's end to spear her in the her calf pinning her in place. The woman was about to use another chain to spear the pinned Natasha through the neck, but Ororo used a wind attack to pick her up and throw her head first against the side of a nearby building. The telekinetic chain wielding woman's head cracked with bone crushing force against the side of the building and she collapsed boneless to the ground.

Emma Steed didn't have any of the unnatural vitality of the vampires, she hadn't been made into a full vampire because she had her own company to run and Selene did not want any attention brought to her so had to leave some mental faculty there. It wouldn't have been enough for the other woman to break her bindings, in fact it hadn't been enough to even attempt it, and Selene regularly fed from her vitality besides but it was enough to make her just as vulnerable to injury as a normal human being.

Jean breathed a sigh of relief and would've fallen to her knees if not for Ororo's hands on her shoulders. "Are you well my friend?" Ororo said softly.

Jean impulsively embraced her, their wet chests pressing into one another as she nuzzled into the older woman's neck breathing in the scent of the rain on her skin and a faint hint of cinnamon and cardamom that was simply Ororo to her senses. "I am, thanks to you," she muttered kissing the skin there before pulling away to look Ororo in the eyes.

Ororo at her gaze with a faint smile on her face and firmly hugged the younger woman back, kissing her on the lips slightly before moving away. Jean smiled, realizing that a decision had been made there or perhaps a better way to say was that a decision had been acknowledged. It only fell to Harry to finish the deal.

Which, she thought rather giddily, I'll force him to do soon enough. But it has to be at the right moment, I want it to be romantic.

Suddenly in the distance near the top of the Gherkin building they could see a pinprick of black colored flame shining in the dark, while in the rainy sky above them Captain Britain began to descend toward them.

OOOOOOO

At the same time Eliphas arrived to press Jean so strongly, Harry Leapt back from a exploding spell from Selene, then smashed her from the air toward a building he had alighted on during the initial contest against her first wave of transfigured beasts. As she hit the roof he smiled and sprang the trap he had laid on each of the roofs he had stopped on during that time. "Activate!"

Suddenly a sphere of light surrounded Selene on all sides where Harry had been moving, and he stepped back smiling faintly even as he poured more power into the shield.

Selene scowled angrily. "This will not avail you anything Boy, I can easily break through this." With that she attempted to send out a spell to shatter the sphere or magical light around her. She frowned faintly as her magic seem to sputter and go out for a moment before she could regain control of it. Selene shook her head, this battle had already drained her reserves horribly, and whatever this shield was it seemed to be feeding off her as she had fed off on so many in the past millennia. The irony was not lost on her, but that did not make her any less determined to break out.

Harry gestured, and suddenly the sphere shrunk dramatically, and Selene was lifted off the ground the sphere now encompassing her entire body in about a foot in every direction. It was only now that Selene realized how badly she had underestimated the other young man, as she felt her magic drain out of her. She looked down and realized with a shock that it was also draining her vitality. Where before she had the skin texture of a twenty-something year old woman, now she looked forty, and she was getting older by the second.

The shield Harry had created was a mix of four different runic arrays he knew combined into one something that he would never have even attempted, but Harry had a skill at making things work in combat for him. Harry had an ability to come up with things on the fly that often pissed off his friends back home. It was a skill that particularly irritated Hermione who was a by the book learner and detested the fact that he was able to get such results on the fly without prior planning.

The shield took aspects from a regular Protego shield, which was able to be shaped and molded as the caster wished. Then next bit was a portion of the ward he had used to power the runic array for Ororo, which was even now draining Selene just as she had wished to drain every person in London. And the last bit was taken from the array he had created after trial and error for the workroom in High Note where he created Orihalcum.

He grimaced as he poured more power into it. Selene was throwing everything she had at the shield around her now, desperately trying to find a hole, trying to break at least in one portion of the shield. Even as her power drained from her Selene kept on trying.

"What are you!" she suddenly shouted as one hand now gnarled with age slammed out trying to force her way through the shield just a little bit. Yet even as she did her fingers dissolved into dust. "No magic I know of could keep me here like this! No one could have ignored my touch like you did!"

"To you," said Harry looking at her coldly. "I am justice long overdue."

The crone that was now Selene cackled. "You think this is enough to stop me! I have lost my physical form before, I will rise again! And when I do boy, I will hunt you down and slay everyone you love before ending you!"

"Your soul can survive separate from your body." Harry said nodding and now moving forward, one hand raised pouring power into the shield as Selene kept on trying to break out. The other however began to gather magic for another spell. "But there are spells that affect the soul you know. And I have quite a bit of history killing people who think they are beyond death."

There was just a moment for that to register in the other woman's mind and Harry was suddenly in front of her one hand reaching out to gently touch the outer edge of the shield around her wincing at the touch of his own spell. "Black-Fyre!" he growled and from the palm of his hand shot out the black flame of darkness, the flame that fed off everything including the souls of its victims

Selene had only a moment to look in shock and rising terror at this thing that had suddenly joined her in the globe of light the black flame forming the faces of fiends and magical beasts before closing with her then she began to scream. The screaming went on and on as the flames consumed her body and soul. Harry grimly stayed there, his palms pressed against the shield, one hand pouring more power into the shield itself while the other powered the flames.

It took 5 minutes for Selene's soul to succumb to the flames, but eventually all that was left was a last despairing wail on the nighttime wind, and Selene Galileo, the oldest mutant on the planet was no more.

With a shudder Harry slowly reined in the Black flames, dissipating them as he shrunk the shield with his other hand until it was in the palm of his hand and a last guttering flame went out. When the last bit of flame disappeared he let the spell shield fade as around him the runes he used flared and died.

He fell to his knees for real this time, gasping in air. That fight had taken more out of him physically then the fight against Magneto, and he was covered with wounds. He still had a lot of magical power, possibly as much as a third of his magical reservoir left, but physically even with his Magia Erebea he was drained, since it didn't actually effect his endurance. With a sigh he got to his feet casting healing spells on himself shaking his head in amusement. "More scars for the collection," he muttered wondering what Ororo would think about them, particularly the long slash that crossed one of his pectorals. He actually hoped that one didn't leave a scar, he had enough of those on his body already thank you so much. His ribs along one side were cracked by some spell he hadn't dodged enough of, and one shoulder was sore too. All in all however he had gotten off lightly.

With Selene's death the spells she had cast across the city faded one after another, and Harry watched as the lights came on across the city and the people began to wake up from their magic induced paralysis.

A moment later Ororo and Jean landed next to him, and both of them immediately grabbed him into a hug pulling him to his feet again. "Are you well my love?" said Ororo softly nuzzling into his ear on one side while he felt Jean resting her head on his shoulder for a moment on the other.

Harry chuckled quietly as his arms went around both women. "I'm all right, but I am really looking forward for a few days vacation after this. And if anyone asks for my help in the next few weeks I'm going to turn them down. Every time I agree to help someone these days it seems to pull me into another crisis. My saving people thing is fully satisfied for the moment thank you."

Both women chuckled, shaking their heads wryly.

OOOOOOO

In a place untouched by the passage of time a being totally outside it's purview looked up, her bony countenance somehow showing shock and pleased surprise. Again Death turned from contemplating her suitor's latest attempt to gain her attention to stare at the tiny black and crimson soul spark that appeared in front of her.

"Selene the immortal," she mused. 'I had given up ever seeing you here." After a moment she chuckled, the tone crypt dry and rather disturbing for all of the humor in it.

"Ah of course, the Life Defender strikes again. I really must think of something nice to do for him. He is cleaning up loose ends in the paperwork for Earth rather well, even if he doesn't realize he's doing it."

OOOOOOO

Of course that wasn't the end of things. After Harry renewed the modified confounding spells on all three of them Phoenix and Storm joined the Nepalese soldiers moving around the city clearing out their last pockets of resistance. Without Selene dominating their minds and directing them, the vampires succumbed to their animal instincts lashing out at anyone nearby. Luckily there were only a few of them remaining after the last few hours, and they had already been cornered by the Nepalese soldiers who cut them down and burned their bodies with brisk efficiency.

They also took out any remaining runes from the giant array spread out over the city as they could find. While the opportune time for the ritual had passed, any mage that came along would be able to activate any of the runes that remained until they were destroyed.

While Jean and Ororo were helping the King's Guard, Harry moved back to the Castle and began to help with the wounded. The Gurkha Rifles had a company of two-hundred and twenty troops guarding Buckingham palace before this all began. Fifty randomly chosen troopers had remained in the castle with a lieutenant in command to guard the king and the other civilians (servants were included in that as well) and another 16 dug in around the entrance to the castle with their captain and Betsy. A hundred and fifty-four of the King's guard joined the battle in the city. Of those, thirty died in the battles against Vixen's men (not many) and the vampires (much more than half) and a little under sixty were brought back to the castle, where the captain had already set up a few rooms to house the wounded. The Gurkhas did not have a doctor in their unit, but had grabbed the royal doctor, who lived in the castle to take care of the royal family.

As soon as the spell keeping the city asleep halted the captain sent some of his men over to the nearest hospital to grab as many doctors as they could find and hustled them, some of them protesting, back to the castle. There weren't many, as the hospital was preparing for the influx of injured from accidents across the city.

A few fire teams ran into trouble in the embassy district to inform the ambassadors and their staff what had happened before they began to react. The guards of the various embassies were furious and wondering what the hell had happened to knock them out, and the ambassadors were not much better. The Gurhkas, now with their communication working was able to relay a story the king and his fellows had thought up on the fly: a two part terrorist attack using gas released over the city had hit, but the second part had been foiled by the Gurkhas. The captain and his men were not happy with taking all the credit, but when asked about it once he returned to the castle Harry agreed with the story.

With the communication network up and another spell that Selene had placed over the city to make people outside it not notice anything was wrong, the nation woke up to what had almost happened (the general story anyway) and began to respond. Soon enough dozens of companies of the British army, including an entire medical company from the 3rd Medical regiment landed in the square outside the palace and the forces from the nearest army bases moved into the city grim-faced and angry at what might have happened on their watch. Two SAS squadrons parachuted right down on the Palace, taking up positions everywhere around answering to General Arthur, closing off the whole area.

The rest of the medical regiment was already on the road moving toward the city with the entire 4th Mechanized brigade. William felt that was overkill, but Arthur didn't and the king wasn't going to override him.

The medical teams went to work immediately, patching, sewing and trying to save the troopers lives. But they were astonished to find upon their arrival that the worst of the injured troopers were already on the mend.

Harry moved from soldier to soldier, using his spells and potions to save the lives of the most badly injured soldiers. Most of the wounds were from the vampires, the Gurkhas had only lost five men to the mercenaries, who fought in a way they were used to but simply… well… worse than the Royal Guard.

So the major injuries were caused by the vampires. Instead of bullet or ricochet wounds there were bite marks, torn and rent flesh ranging from minimum to major as well as a few limbs torn off. Now if the cut was 'clean' and within the last ten minutes Harry could have done something about them, his own right arm had been cut off in his fight with Bellatrix, and his godfather had been able to reattach it after the fight ended. Here however that wasn't going to happen. Still his potions could so something for the others.

The blood replenishing potion helped those who were in the most danger of bleeding out before aid arrived, helped by his healings spells to close the wounds. With soldiers that had their arteries cut, one in particular had lost his leg at the thigh, he used Essence of Ditanny, one of the potions he hadn't planned to sell right away to close the wounds with the help of his spells.

He only had limited amounts of all of his potions and essence of dittany was one of the ones he had the least amount of, but it helped with the most major wounds, and his healing spells could handle the rest. Some soldiers had been hamstrung from behind, apparently a favorite of the vampires harkening back to animal instincts. His anti-paralysis potion helped there, growing back their tendons like the Skelegro potion could grow back their bones.

Not that Harry was a miracle worker. Many of the Gurkhas had lost eyes, their faces ripped or bitten by the vampires. Harry could heal their faces but their eyes were beyond magical medical knowledge. That and these that had lost limbs he could not help beyond keeping them alive.

What he could do however was enough to shock the military medical teams that the army flew in, as well as the doctors from the nearest hospital and the doctors from the nearest embassies. A few of the ambassadors had decided (wonder of wonders) that recriminations and finger pointing could wait until later, and had offered their own security teams and doctors to the effort around the city to deal with everything.

Most of those joined the teams of police and EMTs working their way through the city, helping those who were injured when they fell asleep under the influence of the 'gas'. Over forty deaths had been reported so far, mostly in cars whose drivers had succumbed to the attack and crashed. There were also a few who had fallen asleep while climbing stairs, but the number of dead was actually ludicrously low considering. If the attack had happened in the middle of the day, even if the 'second gas' hadn't gone off then the deaths from even the first stage would have been horrendous.

That was only a peripheral issue to the doctors assigned to the Gurkhas wounded. Astonishment dominated everything else, that and professional interest. "How is this possible?" One doctor muttered in his native language, German as it happened.

Yet his tone carried through and an American doctor next to him looking over and nodded. The trooper he had been looking at had five major wounds in his side, as if some wild beast had ripped out his side, just barely missing anything major. The wounds however looked as if they were a few days old. "I know what you mean," he muttered in English, assuming the other doctor would be able to speak it if he was assigned here in London. "What the hell are they using to heal these men?"

One of the troopers smirked and waved his hands in the air. "It is magic, yes?"

The doctors who heard him all scoffed but the troopers seemed to get a kick out of it, breaking out into laughter regardless of their wounds. Even one of them who had a lung injury laughed, his wound having been healed by a lung clearing potion and ignoring the doctor looking at his side in shock with a bit of medical gear.

Another doctor nodded his head over to where Harry was moving through the wounded, still dispensing potions to some of the wounded soldiers, clapping others on the back, joking with even the ones who had lost limbs and making them laugh which was actually pretty easy considering the light hearted yet tough nature of the Gurkhas themselves.

The doctor, whose name was Andre Ivascario and was from the Italian embassy, chuckled at the sight, but his words were serious. "Think that one over there is dispensing some kind of new medicine. I don't understand it but…"

The German nodded. "If there are medicines that are responsible for this, then they've got to be experimental, or we would have heard about them before ja?"

The American nodded. "Definitely, if the Brits had access to this stuff, whatever it is and didn't share it, well I don't doubt my employers would have something to say about it."

One of the army doctors laughed a little hysterically. "Trust me this is something entirely new."

The three of them and a few other doctors around them exchanged glances. While their governments might want this just because it would make their militaries far more effective if they could turn around injured troopers this quickly, the doctors saw it as what it really was: a breakthrough in medical technology that could help countless people worldwide.

The American slowly nodded. "If this is something real, then we owe it to our profession to find out for certain."

The German nodded and looked over at a Swiss. "One month observation you think?"

The Swiss frowned looking around at the troopers moving around who should not have been, the ones who should by all rights have died from blood loss and the ones who going by their wounds should have been crippled but now were walking around. Some of them were limping, some of them looked weak, but they were alive and well.

To call it a miracle wouldn't have been too far off the mark. "I think we should shorten it to three weeks close observation and three months distant. Whatever this is, it's too good to sit on for long." If the medicine went from close to distant observation it would be sellable to the military. The Civilian medical boards would take longer to okay a new medicine, but for some reason the Swiss didn't think that whatever new medicines they were using would have any problems.

The doctors from the different embassies all nodded, while the Brits exchanged glances. They all shared the thought that if this new type of medicine panned out that their county would hopefully be on the inside line to start using it.

It was at this point that the King and a few of his guardsmen dressed for combat not parade as was normal came out along with the general Arthur and Jack Harper.

Harry joined the king along with captain Nebari. He filled William and the others in on the fight, with captain Nebari adding his own bits.

William shook his head. "When we asked for your aid we did not anticipate that the problem would be so large, nor so serious. It was our instincts that forced us to ask for your aid and it has paid off handsomely for ourselves and for our kingdom. We thank you Mr. Wizard," he finished looking up as Natasha limped into the hastily contrived medical area, leaning on to Nepalese soldiers. Behind her Jean and Ororo arrived, looking very weary indeed.

"Don't worry about it," Harry nodding at his two friends. "This is the kind of thing that you needed my help to deal with. While I won't say that some form of compensation wouldn't be nice, I wouldn't be who I am if I could have turned away from this."

He nodded at the captain and Betsy, who was asleep in a chair utterly exhausted from using her powers in a way that no telepath had ever thought to use them. Captain Britain stood by her chair, one arm on the back of the chair protectively. "And if not for your Guard and young Betsy and the captain, this would have been much worse, and we'd still be dealing with groups of heavily armed arseholes and packs of vampires spread out around the city, not to mention a runic array waiting for someone to come along and use it."

"We know this, and we will show our gratitude to our citizens in no uncertain manner." William shook his head smiling slightly. "Still Harry," he said his voice low so Natasha couldn't hear. "You'll not find us ungrateful. If you could come before us here at Buckingham Palace in four weeks time we believe we can start finalizing your companies placement as well as I can show our appreciation."

Harry looked at the King for a moment then nodded moved away toward Natasha.

"What," she muttered, scowling angrily, still not really believing all she had seen tonight. "What the hell happened tonight Mr. Wizard?"

Harry went to his knees in front of her without responding, grabbing her lower leg and pouring the last of the Essence of Dittany potion over the skin. Luckily the ragged puncture wound wasn't nearly as bad as it looked, and the last of the salve was enough to heal it enough that she wasn't in any danger of being crippled or bleeding out.

When she began to speak again held up a hand in front of her face. "Confoundus," he muttered, directing the extent of the spell as it struck. "Something I don't want your superiors to know about just yet" Harry.

Suddenly Natasha couldn't remember his face or anything about his powers or Storm's or Phoenix's only remembering the nature of the threat.

William looked at this a little askance but Harry shrugged. "She might be trustworthy, hell from what I've found out about him her boss might be trustworthy, but I don't trust the people who are funding them. If there isn't anything shady going on why isn't SHIELD a more widely known and open intelligence agency and just its people and offices secret. Why isn't it more widely acknowledged outside of the US?"

William nodded thoughtfully, then shrugged. Your business is your own I suppose." Then he looked out across the city at the sound of sirens and the shouting and yelling as a crowd of civilians and the vultures of the Fifth estate slowly began to make their way toward the palace. "We suppose you are going to disappear and let us to deal with this?"

That's the idea said Harry cheerfully standing up and pushing Natasha into a chair.

Jack shrugged. "We already put out the story of some type of gas attack. It was supposed to be a two pronged assault but we were able to stop the second half and the King's Guard moved out to take apart the second half of the attack. We can put it on Vixen, and stand a few others alongside of her, I understand Ms. Phoenix took a prisoner, so that will do for now so long as we all tow the party line."

William nodded having already signed off on that idea. While magic was well known in some circles in Britain, the majority of his citizens and of course the foreign powers would not be mentally capable of seeing the truth.

Captain Nebari frowned. "My men will not be happy to lie, but I will swear them to secrecy." He looked over at Ororo and said in his own language, "We thank you and your friends, weather goddess." He bowed clapping his hands together. "This has been a most intriguing night, and we all know that we have you and yours to thank for our lives."

Ororo responded in the same tongue shaking her head. "It is by your blood and bravery that this victory was won. We could not have done it alone."

That was the stark truth and all three of the superpowered trio knew it. Harry was the only one that had enough energy to go on, Jean and Ororo were nearly falling asleep where they stood, and they haven't faced more than a small portion of Selene's forces. Oh, with Eliphas, Emma and Vixen in the mix it was probably the best portion, but numbers would've told in the end.

"Still we thank you" Nebari said again bowing a second time to Jean and then a third time to Harry.

Harry nodded and walked over to his ladies but was stopped by William's voice calling him. "Mr. Wizard, a final question: You called yourself British, but you owe us no allegiance. You say you were a citizen of the isle, yet you command as if born to it, and you gather like minded people around you, uncaring of other's laws. So I ask you, do I speak to a subject or to a king?"

Harry paused in his walk toward Ororo and Jean, then thought of his dreams and hopes for the future, and what he mentally called the Israeli initiative. "Eventually, perhaps, but until then, I'm just a man who will do what I think is right, regardless of law or border.")

The King smiled faintly. "We will see you in a month Mr. Wizard, until then." With a final nod he turned to head towards the growing crowd at the far end of the open area in front of Buckingham Palace, his face already sliding into a grave, concerned countenance as he mentally began to go over the speech he and Jack and Arthur had put together. It wouldn't be enough to deflect the reporters, but they would not be getting anything from the palace or the guard. Not that many would try, the Gurkhas had a bit of a reputation for being tough with reporters.

Harry finished his walk toward Ororo and Jean, putting an arm around their shoulders. "Let's get out of here ladies."

Jean nodded, settling her head against his shoulder wearily. "That sounds like an excellent idea, I could sleep for days. I am so tempted to cancel on Emma later today." Jean had never used her power for so long at such a high level before, and was utterly wiped. That didn't even include the fact she had used her telekinetic powers to force her body to move faster than it normally would have been able to.

Ororo too was exhausted. Despite the normal weather of the night having helped her she had rarely had to use her powers to such an extent, and her body and mind were both feeling the strain. All three of them were looking like exhausted, bedraggled rats after this nights battles.

Harry smiled a little. "You've forgotten that there is a ten hour difference between here and California. If we go there now we could sleep for at least 16 hours."

"What are you waiting for then, Potter?" she snarled playfully smacking him lightly on his chest, "let's go."

Harry chuckled then pulled the two women against his body and teleported them to Hogwarts. From there, after leaving a message for Melody, he asked Cory to teleport them to New York since he didn't want to risk doing so on his own with his increase in magical strength throwing off his self control (teleporting was much more difficult than healing spells), and from there they teleported into the Fantastic Four's Baxter building after he asked permission from Agatha. The old woman was fine with it but she demanded the story behind their exhaustion in return. By the time they arrive even Harry was on his last leg, having, rather stupidly admittedly, cancelled his Magia Erebea after leaving London.

Harry barely let go of his ladies and turned his body just enough for him to collapse into the sofa in the Fantastic Four's living room. Ororo and Jean leaned against one another as they made their haphazard way down the hallway collapsing into the guest bedroom their arms still around one another as they slammed boneless into the bed.

Agatha watched this with a raised eyebrow and a faint smile on her face. It was around seven in the evening local time, but if these three were awake before tomorrow afternoon she would eat her shawl.