Capítulo 59: Chapter 59 A Dragon's Wrath
Harry took out his phone and opened the message that had been sent. He could tell what it was through his technopathy, but he would still look at it before answering the ringing phone. The text message contained a picture of Jade, unconscious and badly beaten up and a sentence. [If you want to see her alive, follow our instructions.] And it was sent to Harry from Jade's cellphone.
Harry steadied his breath, opened the call and answered flatly, "Speak."
"Mr. Potter." I was an older man's voice. "I am sorry we had to meet under such unfortunate circum-"
Harry interrupted, "Despite my public image, I am not one who wastes time so frivolously. You have something I want. State your demands." The cold steel in his voice made it clear he was not in a joking mood.
"Very well. When Miss Chan came to you, I believe she brought with her several objects that did not belong to her. I intend to return them to their rightful owner. I will text you an address. Deliver the twelve stone Talismans to that address in one hour. Do not inform any of your mutant girlfriends. Each is in a class that just started at the moment and each has a camera on them. Should we see them leave the class for any reason, Jade's life will be forfeit."
Harry said, "I have an unbreakable suitcase with an unbreakable lock. I will bring the Talismans but they will be in the case. When I have confirmed Jade is safe, I will tell you how to open it."
"Very well. But Do not try to fool us. Her life is in our hands." The line went dead and Harry was counting off a list of bones and organs a person did not require to survive. Harry wasn't the type to torture others, but he too had a metaphorical reverse scale and a message had to be sent about those who thought they could touch it without consequences.
Between the time Jean got kidnapped and this time, there was a monstrously large difference. Harry got a quest. Quests had map pointers.
Harry opened a small silver portal next to his hand that connected to Jade's room. "Accio Horse Talisman." The talisman flew through his portal into his hand. Harry then made himself invisible through his own spells and teleported directly to the roof of the building Jade was held in. Harry took the Horse talisman and cast a Gemini charm on it, creating a duplicate. He then injected it with a bit of Dragon Chi and focused for a moment to make the chi signature match the original talisman.
While making the copy, he was also using clairvoyance to psionically peer into the building. He didn't need x-ray vision, he could simply shift the position of his viewpoint beyond his physical senses. This wasn't difficult for a skilled psychic and Charles did it to scout for his X-Men whenever he went on missions with them.
Harry found the room Jade was in and pocketed the fake and real talisman before teleporting into the room. The instant he did so, he cast a petrification charm on the room and used his technopathy to make the cameras show re-runs. The spell froze every person in the room and thanks to a lot of practice did not fry everything.
Harry looked down at the beaten Jade and the fire in his stomach demanded something to burn. However Harry was able to suppress the powerful emotions thanks to the mental aspect of his power. He'd still burn of course, but he'd do so smartly. From the difference in the swelling on the bruises between Jade now and the picture, Harry estimated the picture was taken an hour ago and the man who called him from Jade's phone was nowhere close by.
Harry removed the ropes which tied her up and plucked a hair from her head before he used the Horse Talisman on her. There were other ways to heal her, but oddly enough this would be the most effective as she was used to it.
Jade quickly looked up expecting something dangerous and saw Harry. "Harry? Heh. I knew you'd come." She tried to play it off. Harry smiled warmly at her and opened a portal that went directly to her room. He handed her the real Horse Talisman and said, "Wait for me in your room. I'll be back in five minutes, okay?"
Jade nodded and left. She didn't have to guess what Harry was going to do. She was right of course, but she certainly never would have guessed how Harry was going to do it.
When the portal closed, Harry took out a polyjuice potion and put Jade's hair into it. After the potion settled, he drank it down and transfigured his clothes to look like hers.
If Harry destroyed the entire facility and killed everyone inside, the ones he was supposed to meet in an hour definitely would not come and worse, they might try again. However allowing a sixteen year old girl to be held captive a moment longer than possible was not an option for Harry. Since he could be in two places at once, this was the easiest method.
Harry used a simple illusion to give him the same battered appearance Jade had and positioned himself with the ropes around him. He feigned unconsciousness and undid the petrifying spell. The guards weren't looking at watches or clocks so they had no idea anything happened in the last thirty seconds.
The small room had two guards of Asian descent sitting in front of the door, both had knives but not guns. This was not because they could not acquire guns, but because at this range, knives were better. When using a weapon, always take into consideration that your opponent may steal it from you. That was why Harry didn't Basilisk Envenomed Goblin Silver Blades in combat. For these guards, if Jade took their knives, it wouldn't make a large difference. If they had guns and Jade took one, that would be a much larger problem. In other words, they were experienced professionals.
While faking unconsciousness, Harry used the time to read the guard's minds and learn more about the facility and group. Oddly enough, he learned very little. The Hand recruited those with skill from their dojos and trained them with better brainwashing techniques than most cults. They were skilled and obedient. They did not question their orders and only knew what was required to do their jobs. Oddly enough this was an excellent defense against psychics. It made Harry wonder if the group had experience with them.
Eventually the cell phone in Harry's pocket got another text message for the address. However it was not this location which meant that they probably wanted to play games with him. He wanted to say that was the wrong choice, but considering the actions that lead up to this point, saying that seemed rather redundant.
Harry's technopathy had already taken control of the computers at the facility and Harry was transferring the information to his phone so he could read it off from there.
The time for the exchange had come and the guard received a call. The guard walked up to Harry, pulled his hair up and placed a knife to his throat. He said, "I know you're awake. You're going to say what I tell you to say. Otherwise I'm going to cut out your tongue."
The man had just received orders over the phone and he simply followed them.
In total, the warehouse they were in had about thirty people. Harry confirmed over the last hour that none of them were good. Now that Harry understood what they intended to do, the lot of them had outlived their usefulness.
Without bothering to respond, Harry paralyzed both guards once more with spells before taking the phone of the first guard and pocketing it. Harry used some internal magic cycling to burn through the remainder of the polyjuice and return to his normal form. He already ordered all the cameras in the building to run on a loop and had shut down all communications into the building.
Harry opened his inventory and put on a few items including a demon face mask and took in a deep breath. In the next moment his body was surrounded by golden light and he struck the chest of the man in front of him, rupturing all of his organs. Harry then chopped the neck of the second man, severing his spine and denying him all his senses. He would exist in a state without any of his five senses and unable to move until he died.
Rather than opening the door, Harry apparated out and struck the chest of the man guarding this side of the door. His left lung would be completely punctured by the ribs which had pierced through it and he would drown in his own blood in a few minutes. Harry's leg glowed with golden lightning and he smashed it into the door, retching it open and destroying the hinges.
One by one Harry cruelly dealt with each occupant of the warehouse. It seemed to take time but as Harry knew each of their locations and could teleport, Harry had in fact only taken thirty seconds from start to finish. When it was over, he had not killed a single person, but none would survive for very long in the condition he left them in. The reason for this was a very simple message. Harry knew a thing or two about the Hand. They'd left fingerprints all over the world for the last thousand or so years after all. Even if Harry killed every member he could find in New York, it wouldn't hurt them much more than a bruise or a paper cut. Harry needed to demonstrate that he was not the type of person they could afford to fuck with.
Harry became invisible once more and teleported to the top of a building overlooking another warehouse. The phone he'd taken had just gotten a text message, [She must say she is on her way home now and must tell Harry to do as he is told.]
A moment later the phone rang. Harry answered it and used magic to change his voice and said, "Hello and welcome to Good Burger home of the Good Burger can I take your order?"
The line went dead. Harry smiled. He really couldn't resist. A few moments later the phone rang again and he answered it again. This time he changed his voice to match Jade's. "Harry? It's a trap!" And he hung up the line.
The guard had been told to make Jade lie over the phone and would obviously hang up if she did not.
Harry, still wearing his demon face mask, waited thirty seconds and removed his invisibility and charged himself with immortal dragon chi, coating himself with golden lightning. He jumped from the roof down to the roof of the warehouse. Harry crashed through the roof and fell two stories before smashing his fist on the ground and landing on his knee.
He looked up and saw an old man in front of him with a large amount of chi. For a normal person anyways. Behind him were twelve others and Harry sensed a few more opponents nearby.
Harry did not wait for him to react and moved forward. The old man moved far faster than one would expect someone of his appearance but it was nothing to the Chi empowered Harry who thrust his fist into the man's chest cavity and gripped his heart. The old man could only look dumbfounded at the hand going through his chest as he stared up at the demon mask staring back at him. Harry twisted and kicked the man backwards while ripping out his heart.
Those behind him dodged the body of the old man which had been kicked forward and charged at Harry together. Harry dropped the still beating heart and took a step to the closest one who seemed to be attacking in slow motion, even slower than the old man. Harry leisurely struck his armpit to dislocate his shoulder, struck his side to rupture his liver, and step into his while smashing his own hip against the assailant's own, shattering it to pieces.
Before the first victim fell to the floor from his injuries, Harry had already moved onto the next.
Harry knew he was bullying them. A master martial artist that could perfectly control their Chi was ten times stronger and faster than a normal human. A Grandmaster Martial Artist could move twenty times faster. Harry's AGI and STR stats at level 245 were both at 330, meaning his base speed and strength was 33 times faster and stronger than a normal human. And that was without the Immortal Dragon Chi.
Within seven seconds Harry had killed or disabled all twelve and was rushing towards those who were further away. Two of them escaped as they didn't have enough Chi for Harry to easily detect unlike these masters.
Once everything was settled, Harry left out the back and vanished into another warehouse. Once he was sure he was no longer being monitored, he teleported to a safe location and used the Time Turner to go back two hours.
Harry was partially surprised that the Quest had not completed yet, but he knew that he was only part way done. There were three checks next to the first three listed items, but Fool Witnesses needed an extra step to complete.
The fire in his stomach had been satiated. This time was just a warning. If the Hand didn't want to be reduced to the Finger, they would think twice before messing with Harry again.
Once the time matched, Harry teleported back to his University office and left the normal way. He walked down the hall, down the stairs and out the door before crossing the street and entering his own house. He walked up to Jade's room and knocked. A moment later she opened the door and Jade wrapped Harry in her arms and started crying. She had put on a brave face earlier, but once she was safe, she had been able to let it out.
Harry walked her over to her bed and sat at the edge while holding Jade to him. He didn't ask what happened. He'd gotten the answer from the men who'd taken her. They staged a knife mugging in an alley along the way from Jade's walk to school and Jade being Jade ran in to help. The alley was then closed off from witnesses from both ends and ninjas of all things swarmed out from the alley doors and fire escape windows. They had a tool which could detect Shendu's Talismans and could tell Jade didn't have any and though Jade was much stronger than an ordinary expert due to the chi which leaked out of her, she could still be brought down with human wave tactics and was eventually knocked out.
Harry pulled out a cup and said, "This is called a Draft of Dreamless sleep. Take it. I need to finish sending a message to the Hand."
Jade sniffed and wiped away some tears before saying, "You don't have to. Please."
"I'll be fine Jade. They only touched you because they had no idea who they were messing with. After today, that will not be the case." He handed her the cup and said, "I'll be here when you wake."
Jade nodded and drank the potion. Harry tucked her in and took out a heavy duty metal suitcase from his inventory and tossed the Horse Talisman copy inside before closing it.
Harry left his house from the front door and called a cab to drive him to a location near the meeting point. He was aware that at this point, those monitoring him had probably figured out something had happened. They no doubt had monitored Jade's school and her not showing up would be a red flag. Harry returning home in the middle of the day and heading out with a briefcase in a cab to the warehouse district was likely to catch a few eyes.
After about fifteen minutes of New York Traffic Harry got out of the cab and walked the rest of the way. He left early and took a cab of all things so if whoever was monitoring him didn't beat him there, then they weren't going to be worth his time when they finally approached him in the future.
Thankfully his technopathy could sense a large band of monitoring equipment once he arrived. A good show needed an audience after all.
Three well trained men in combat attire walked over to Harry. One of them said, "Mr. Potter. Please follow me." Harry didn't bother the small talk. He already knew how this show would end and had nothing to say to these extras.
Harry was escorted to the warehouse for the meeting from the entrance and once again, Harry saw the old man and twelve experts behind him. A young man walked over from the side of the warehouse with a stone object in his hand that had four dragon heads on it. He pointed it at Harry's suitcase and the dragon head facing it glowed yellow. Harry did his best not to smirk. His copy's dragon chi would not last long but it still fooled the artifact.
Harry said, "Where is Jade?"
The old man said, "You should be more respectful to the elderly."
From what Harry knew, the five fingers of the Hand didn't look that old so this old man was not one of them, just another extra. Harry had no reason to be respectful to him.
Thankfully this was to Harry's advantage. The man had some mental protections built using ancient practices but those meant little to someone who could use Legilimency and Telepathy.
From what Harry learned, these guys worked with Shendu for quite a while. Jade told stories of her adventures when she was twelve with her uncles and the Dark Hand, but it turned out that the Dark Hand was simply the Advanced Weaponry division of the Hand itself. That's why they had advanced tech. Too bad they were terrible are using them and lost to Jackie Chan who fought back with windshield wipers.
This old man did not know what the leaders of the Hand wanted with Shendu, but he knew that they wanted to use Jade to exchange for Shendu and the Talismans. Jade nabbed the Talismans, but Shendu himself was locked away in a laser vault deep within the secret Spy Base of Section 13, the organized crime division of Shield, the guys Harry was 99% sure were monitoring him right now from two blocks down after following him here.
Harry didn't want the old guy to spill the beans on the Talismans with anyone watching so he threw the suitcase to the guy with the detection artifact and said, "I'm not going to ask you again. Trying to open the suitcase without the correct code will destroy the contents." The man who grabbed the case confirmed again with the tool that the talisman signature was within. Of course it couldn't tell the difference between twelve, one, or one fake talisman. He received a nod from the old man and ran off.
The old man said, "You are not in control of the situation here Mr. Potter."
Harry said, "Since it seems I'm going to be teaching you a lesson, you should call me Professor Potter. It doesn't matter how old the Hand is. It doesn't matter how many resources the Hand controls. How many people you have at your beck and call, how many years of training your minions possess, how many lives you've taken, all of it is meaningless because to me, you are weak. Those who hide in the shadows can never reach the strength of those who stand in the light. You never should have touched that which belongs to me so I'll give you one last chance. Give me Jade, and I'll give you the code to open the suitcase and let you go. Otherwise, I'll show you what real strength is."
The men behind the old man subtly adjusted their position for a fighting stance. The man held up a hand and said, "Very well. You have done as asked and she will be released. She is not here now but is on her way back home. I will call her and she will tell you this."
The man pulled out a phone and dialed a number before putting the phone on speaker. "Hello and welcome to Good Burger home of the Good Burger can I take your order?"
He immediately hung up.
Harry flatly asked, "Wrong number?"
He called again, this time it was Jade's voice, "Harry? It's a trap!"
The old man frowned as the line went dead. He looked up with a sneer and said, "You will give us the code to open the suitcase or we will make you experience pain."
Harry faced them down and said, "You seem rather confident you can take care of me without any problem because I'm not a mutant and I didn't come here armed. Well sorry to inform you, but I have a power greater than anything you can imagine."
"Oh? And what is that?"
"I'm rich."
"Hmp. You cannot threaten us with money."
"I don't make threats. Money makes the world go round and with enough of it, I can make anything happen."
Harry pointed at the old man and said, "Kill him."
The roof caved in as a golden lightning clad figure in a demon mask dropped down from the ceiling and landed with a superhero pose on ground. Harry cast a light notice-me-not on himself and casually turned around and walked away.
*Ping*
[Quest Complete: Enter the Dragon
Reward: Dragon's Tear.]
Harry felt the new item appear in his inventory. It wasn't actually a bottle of tears, but a gemstone with an unusual aura that gave Harry some ideas.
Without any fanfare Harry walked out of the warehouse district and got another cab he used to get home.
On the way Harry texted the details of the situation to Jean and the girls. Although Jean was a powerful telepath and could find someone spying on her through a telescope several blocks away, finding someone watching her through a web camera was nearly impossible without luck so there was little they could have done. Not that there was much to do. Harry had Jade healed and home less than a minute after hanging up with the kidnapper.
Two hours later Jade woke up well rested. Harry, Jean, Wanda, and Rogue were all in her room, sitting on her bed.
Jade eventually asked, "So who were those ninjas?"
Harry answered, "The Dark Hand is apparently a sub-branch of theirs'. They wanted to use you as ransom to get Jackie to get Shendu out."
"What do they want with ol' dragon face?"
"Information probably. An immortal demon sorcerer probably has a lot of information they need. Ancient Techniques, lost artifacts, hidden burial grounds. That sort of thing would have been common knowledge a long time ago but is invaluable now. They probably had a decent working relationship with him for a long time until he met the Chans and got locked up."
"But doesn't that mean Uncle Jackie is in danger?!"
Harry gave her a humorous look, "Your uncle is pretty strong and from what I could tell had some uncommon luck. I highly doubt you'll have to worry about him."
Jade considered it and said, "That's true." After another few moments of thought, Jade nodded to herself and said, "Alright. I've decided. I want to stay here and keep training my Chi."
Harry said, "Are you sure?"
Jade smiled, "Absolutely. And it's not just the dragon chi and not just you. I've never had real friends who cared about me. I've only been here a little over a month but this feels more like home than San Francisco ever did. I like my school, I like my friends. I love this house and. I love you too."
Jean leaned all the way over the bed and embraced her in a tight hug, "Welcome to the family!"
Rogue asked, "Do you want some time alone?"
Wanda gave a knowing smile.
Jade shook her head, "No way, he has to at least take me out on a few dates first."
"Is that right? Are you doing anything this weekend?"
"No. Why are you asking?" she asked mischievously.
"Well, I'd like to ask you if you would, say, like to unlock your chi?"
"I'd love t-, wait. What? What about my chi?"
Harry smirked. It was going to be a good week.
*Author's note*
In case you're wondering about the gore, I don't really consider Harry human.
Normal humans wouldn't consider ways to more effectively burn down entire planets in order to get their lovers to come home early from work.
Normal humans don't understand Death.
Normal humans don't have a Yin and Yang half that agree with each other with each other without arguing.
Harry doesn't feel hatred. He feels anger and will take action as his anger dictates, but once the action has been taken, he no longer feels it. If he met any of the survivors from his massacre, he wouldn't have any negative feelings for them unless they did something else to anger him. His Gamer's mind only suppresses strong emotions from affecting his mind and judgement but Harry learned long ago that allowing his emotions to affect him when he has them prevents them from affecting him in the future if he bottles them up. Thanks to that, Harry is the exact opposite of repressed.
Anyways, I'll try for another chapter tomorrow.
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