บท 111: Chapter Twenty Nine: Secret Invasion Part Two.
Chapter Twenty Nine: Secret Invasion Part Two.
Valeria and Rose went eye to eye with each other and already Harry felt that incoming moment of dread coming. Given that all that happened, he did not really have time to deal with this. Yet, he did not have any choice.
"YOU!"
Rose went for Valeria but she put up an arm cannon on her sleeve. Rose deftly ducked underneath the attack, which didn't hit anyone other than Deadpool.
'You son of a bitch, did I piss in your cornflakes or something?' Deadpool asked as he shook off the attack.
'He must have, pissed in your cornflakes something fierce,' one of the voices commented to no one in particular.
Valeria flipped over the top of Rose's head, and grabbed her by the hair. She took her leg out from underneath her. Rose popped back up and tried to hack into her with a katana, but Valeria blocked it.
Theresa watched the battle, nervously biting down on her lip and she slowly turned around to face Harry. "So….do you think we should get involved?"
Harry put up a hand and shook his head. Theresa fell back in line and Harry said one statement. "In a minute."
First he had to put charms up to ensure that no innocent people got caught in the crossfire. The only one who was in danger of getting hit was in fact Deadpool.
'And now people will think that you're bashing me because of all the abuse that you've been heaping on me as of late,' Deadpool thought as he shook his head.
Valeria's eyes flashed open with pure malice as she tried to attack her adversary but Rose bent down and ducked the attack. The two tried to attack each other but they collided with each other, neither breaking their attack.
"You will pay," Rose whispered as she tried to choke Valeria. It was Valeria's father's fault that Rose had that debt of her father that put her in a bind.
"No….it's your fault that my father's plan failed…."
Valeria smashed Rose on the head and hurled her against a wall. She tried to blast her but Rose moved out of the way and avoided getting her head thrown clearly off. She hurled a pair of grenades.
Miranda watched the battle, she had been standing there pretty numb stuck and unable to do anything for the past couple of moments. She looked over her shoulder and saw Harry standing there. She thought she saw some thinly veiled amusement dancing in his eyes, perhaps it was a trick of light or something.
"Do you think we should get involved?" Miranda asked as she had her hand on a gun.
"We better find out what little Miss Doom wants," Harry stated, now that his entertainment was done and no one important got hurt it was time to wrap things up.
An energy barrier manifested and Valeria and Rose struck it. Neither girl could get each other to claw each other's eyes out, even though the look in the eyes of the other girl told the story. Harry gave them a mere moment to cool down.
"So what the hell is going on here?"
"I was sent to deliver you a message, when she lashed out and attacked me," Valeria said.
The simmering tension between these two was much stronger than the tension between Mar and Faora. In fact it burned them.
"What are you doing?" he demanded to Valeria.
Valeria offered a smile, taking a few seconds to appreciate his strength and his power. She then focused on business.
"My father understands that you are working on unmasking the threat on this planet," Valeria stated as she leaned forward, her face mask retracting. Harry tried not to feature on her gorgeous features, her flowing dark hair, her dark burning eyes, and juicy lips.
Harry focused on the matter at hand. "And what does Doctor Doom understand?"
Valeria smiled. "A lot more than Nick Fury, apparently, given the company that he keeps."
'I have a feeling that she was talking about us, that bitch, granted a hot bitch, but still a bitch,' Deadpool chimed in.
'Actually I'm pretty sure that she was talking about Ravager over through, they have some vaguely defined sexual attention because the author of this story has a perverted mind and thus all women are bisexual,' a nerdy sounded and quite snobbish voice commented.
'Hey cool, I tapped into the whiny anonymous reviewer portion of my brain,' Deadpool mused happily.
'We're going to get hated on for that one,' one of the Deadpool voices grumbled.
'It's the Internet, there's no positivity, what the fuck did you expect?' Deadpool asked.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Miranda commented as she looked at Valeria. Doom was at least top three on SHIELD's most wanted list, although his diplomatic immunity caused him to get away with a lot of things that most would not.
"It means whatever you want it to mean, sweetie," Valeria commented with a smile as she ran her hand towards Miranda's hair. She pulled away, turned towards Harry, and smiled. "I believe that you need one vital bit of information to get your neutralizer device to work."
"Yes, I do," Harry told her, as he raised an eyebrow.
"Well, this information should be able to allow you to get what you need in place," Valeria told him and she slapped it down onto Harry's palm.
Harry looked at the drive in his hand. He wondered how much he could trust this and he knew that she knew that he knew that there were many questions.
"Believe it or not, that's your call, but the Skrulls invading us effects Doom's law more than anything," Valeria stated as she watched for his reaction. "And, Doom says that he is looking forward to the inevitable rematch between you two, for he wishes to match wits with a better class of opponent than that accursed Reed Richards. His words, naturally."
"Of course," Harry stated, he knew Doom's song and dance by now, by heart.
Valeria's smile twisted with mischief. "And this last message, isn't from my father, but this is from me."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "And that is…."
Valeria jumped forward to attack Harry. Her juicy lips pressed upon his with a searing kiss. She rammed her tongue down his throat and then in a fluid moment teleported away.
"That fucking tart," Rose grumbled, although there was a voice in her head that stated that she was just jealous that she did not think of shoving her tongue down Harry's throat.
'Well, she's forward,' Jean remarked with a chuckle.
'Oh, she won't get away with a hit and run, just you wait,' Kara stated as she thought about capturing that girl, tying her up, and leaving her in Har-Rell's bed chambers for him to have his wicked way with.
'First, we got to scan this Doom Drive, see if it's legit, and then we'll go from there,' Harry thought and there were nods of agreement.
"So what do you think?" Harry asked as Karen stood next to him. The blonde's face curled into a nice smile as she placed her hand on the side of Harry's arm.
"Well, I think that things are going rather well," the blonde chimed in happily. "I think that Doom's drive….well there is no virus on it or anything. I think that this is an honest attempt to help us without getting his hands dirty."
"That sums up someone like Doom in a nutshell," Susan said, she, along with the rest of the Fantastic Four, prepared for what was going to happen next. They did encounter the Skrulls a couple of times in the past but there was something that told her that this little battle was going to be far more dangerous.
"And this invention, just to clarify, it will unmask the Skrulls," Faora stated. She never cared about the Skrulls, they were right up there with the Kree as far as alien races that Kryptonians had a grudge against. Although the hatred might not be as strong between the Skrull and Krypton as was between the Kree and the Kryptonians.
"It should, of course, we got to do something extremely incriminating to disable their trust," Harry said, before bringing up another point. "And, we've got to really make sure that all aliens don't get tarred with the same brush by association."
That was a dangerous tight rope to walk. Alison walked in with a smile on her face.
"My backup singer overheard that you have a plan to attack," Alison offered with a smile. "So, she's going to tell the Empress about a plan that is never going to happen."
"Do they really think so little of me where I would not have figured out their deception?" Harry asked and Alison smiled sweetly in response.
"Well, obviously, that seems to be the case," Alison commented as she allowed Harry's arm to go around her.
Diana turned up next, taking a moment to warmly greet everyone. Harry got an extended kiss between the two of them, although it was still all too short.
"Just to let you know that the Amazons are ready in case this gets bad," Diana told Harry and he was happy for the confirmation. "But we're…."
"Plan B, or maybe it's C, I have so many balls up into the air, that it's hard to tell, and that is if the Skrulls try something desperate."
"We have a problem," Natasha stated as she popped up on the communication link. She gave this statement with any sort of preamble and Harry raised half of an eyebrow as he looked at the young Russian spy.
"Of course we have a problem, what is the problem?" Harry asked her and Natasha was only too quick to respond with the statement.
"It's AIM….they've got some device, our ears on the inside have stated that it could potentially wipe hundreds out in one fell swoop," Natasha said to Harry.
"Is Jessica there?" Harry whispered to her.
"No," Natasha reported bluntly. She had sent "Jessica" off on a false trail, because Harry had informed her about the truth week's ago. Her and Maria both knew but they were willing to play the Skrull's game, not to clue them in on what was going on.
"Good, take the Avengers and shut the machine down, otherwise a lot of people will die, I'm pretty sure there's a few rogue Skrulls that are going against their queen, thinking that she's too soft and she's forgotten who her duty lies with," Harry concluded.
Given what he found out, he knew that the male Skrulls were pretty much a huge problem over the years, they had lead to the destruction of their own world. Believe what one wanted to about a Prophecy, or whatever, Harry could care less about the babblings of destiny. He only cared about the present.
'Okay, let's see what we can do?' Harry thought.
'Scott left this morning….should I clue in Charles that his golden boy has been replaced?' Ororo thought to Harry.
'You better, if he wants to believe it or not, that's his problem, although we may be having the real Scott return pretty soon if everything falls in place,' Harry thought. He wondered if being replaced and imprisoned would teach Scott a lesson but somehow, Harry thought that it would not. Perhaps he would be proven wrong.
"Nullification Device online in five hours, thirty nine minutes!" the computer commented and Karen threw her head back.
"That's about the quickest that we could go to make sure we could not make it fail," Faora stated.
'Well, nothing there, other than Scott and Magneto showing up,' Amara thought to them. 'And also Kelly's pro-Skrull stance, are people really stupid enough to believe that he's taken such an about face stance on non-humans?'
'Trust me when I say that people can be that stupid, humans, Kryptonians, any race, they can be easily lead by those in authority, power is such a strong thing,' Faora thought.
Harry smiled, that was a lesson that he learned many times but he also knew something else. It was a road that could work in two directions.
"Your plan….it's lacks a fair deal of sense," Magneto concluded crisply.
"Yes, that figures, for a vigilante, they would have no sense…."
"I believe I have given you no permission to speak to me, Mr. Godfrey," Magneto commented. His voice was worse than nails upon a chalk board and if Magneto would have gotten the chance, he would have silenced this fool a long time ago. He just did not get around to it prior to this point.
"Well, I do not need your permission for as I have said, I am answering to someone far more superior…."
"Will be you quiet?" Pepper asked, she had heard Godfrey enough on the radio with his babblings. It was a competition between him and that Leslie Willis girl about who was the far more annoying person on the airwaves. In Pepper's mind, it was too close to call.
"Now it's the moment of truth…."
"We need to find a way out of here, every minute the Skrulls are there, is a moment where they are using our names and our faces to cause damage," Jessica whispered but she had not found any way out six months ago and she had not found any way out six months later, despite she had studied the cell from every possible angle.
"Yes, I believe that's been established," Richard Fisk stated in a smugly superior tone of voice. "My father….."
"Likely could do without a few all you can eat buffets from what I've heard," Clint replied and the younger Fisk glared at the archer.
"Nobody found out we were missing," Scott grumbled as he wondered how his team could be so blind. Surely his leadership had taught them something, didn't he?
"Perhaps not everyone," Magneto commented and he did not qualify that with a statement.
Another Skrull walked through and suddenly there was something of a short circuit in the cell bars.
"Now's the moment," Magneto whispered, the field had allowed him to summon some metal tools. The bars were only down for about ten seconds but that was the ten seconds that Magneto needed to get the necessary items for escape.
He contorted the metal into a large sphere like object and swung it. The sphere smashed against the side of the bars, repeatedly.
"I think it's working," Clint remarked and Magneto's smile was rather prominent.
"Although that's…."
There was another explosion and Magneto busted the sphere through the edge of the cage. There was a huge explosion as he was freed from the side of the cage. The Master of Magnetism looked over his shoulder and he made his way through the panel.
"You better let me out of here…."
"Talking back to the only man in a position to free you at this point, is not a wise maneuver, Senator," Magneto told Kelly with hatred dripping from his voice. "I would think that you as a politician would think these things through a bit better."
Robert Kelly looked silenced and humbled. Magneto made his way over to the control panel and short circuited it.
Scott got to his feet, and he staggered, his head feeling like it was on fire. He felt the complete back up of his power but without any well to dispel it.
"Can't we just leave Godfrey and Kelly here?" Clint asked as he was let out of the cell.
Jessica walked out of the cell. It was a bit humbling to just walk out into the light.
"OsCorp has inventions that we can't let fall into the hands of…..well we can't let them fall into his hands, do you understand?" Donald Menken said rapidly.
"Her hands actually," Jessica said. She recalled it with picture perfect clarity. She had a distress signal, she was sent to SWORD to check it out. The Skrulls attacked her and the Empress had chosen her of all people to impersonate. Jessica should have felt lucky but for some reason, she didn't.
"GET HER!"
Jessica shook her head, she wanted to tangle with that Skrull slut that stole her body. Magneto closed the doors with his powers.
"They will break through, everyone…."
The door burst open and Carol arrived, along with Jen and Jan. The Avengers were here, and there was sounds of combat that indicated that there were more than them.
"Yeah, did someone call for a rescue?" Jan asked as she looked around.
Scott got up to his feet. "How do we know that you're not Skrulls?"
"Ah, you've learned from Harry's paranoia, good for you," Jan replied cheerfully but she shook her head. "Listen…Cyclops, we got to get out of here, the Skrulls are using your faces to cause havoc on the planet. They're trying to get closer to people with more credibility, and if they reach the President or some other world leader…."
"And they could have, we don't know…."
Clint picked up the arrows on the ground. They were a little clunky but they would have to do. He held them up and the Skrulls moved forward.
"There's an escape ship on the other side of that door!" a voice in the shadows yelled.
"I thought you'd be the last person to willingly help Har-Rell," Magneto stated dryly.
"I could leave you for dead…."
"Wouldn't be the first time, Mystique," Magneto replied as he looked at her from the shadows.
"And I have a debt to settle," Mystique commented, although most annoyingly, Harry Potter had his way of charming women into doing certain things.
Clint was firing at them as the civilians were lead out. Pepper was grabbed by one of the Skrull but she gave them a swift kick beneath the belt.
"Well, at least we know Skrulls have working parts," Pepper said, seeing him hunched over in pain and she slammed him head first into the door for emphasis.
"This way," one of the prisoners stated, he looked to be a government agent of some sort, although perhaps not SHIELD. Never the less, the fact that he was there.
"Mutants, aliens, I swear when I get back to Earth I'll…."
"You know, you could be quiet, so you might get out of this alive," Jen snapped in agitation and Kelly took one look at her towering, green, and quite imposing form and knew now was the time to shut up.
The ship was there and the group boarded it. It was not as smooth of a trip as they thought as the ship grinded and whined.
"They're blocking us!" Carol yelled as she tried to pilot the ship.
"Oh, not for long," Hawkeye commented as he dropped down to the ground and reared back his arrow. He went after the Skrulls, knowing that he was fighting a losing battle.
"Go, I'll find my own way out of here!" Clint yelled as he looked at the prisoners on the ship when suddenly the compound began to self destruct. Magneto's Magnetic interference caused this.
"But…."
"GO!"
That was a frenzied statement that pushed them into gear. The doors of the cargo bay opened, as Clint punched one of the Skrull in the face. He did a forward roll.
The ship flew out, opening a warp in time and space to get back to Earth faster, although Magneto and Hawkeye were not on the ship.
There was a large explosion that resounded and the Skrull compound blew to pieces, with many of the male Skrulls still inside. Magneto had apparently sacrificed himself, along with Hawkeye, to take a great number of them down.
"Magneto, humanity's greatest hero, there's some irony," Scott grumbled as he put on a pair of glasses as he felt his powers slowly return.
Now it was time to get back to Earth.
"They destroyed….those incompetents!" Veranke yelled at the top of her lungs. Her plan was starting to become undone and she was slowly starting to lose control.
"Empress…"
"No, don't, don't, I don't want to hear this, and now they went behind my back, and built the device that will cleanse all humans from the planet," Vernake said, raging up a storm.
"I thought that's what you wanted, Empress," one of the Skrulls commented but that was pretty much the wrong word to say to her at this time.
She grabbed the Skrull by the throat and wrapped a hand around her throat. Her eyes almost bulged out as she throttled this Skrull.
"Empress, please, you don't want to lose yourself," one of the members of her guard stated.
"Yes, correct, of course," The Empress stated as she stepped back and shook her head.
"Our plan is becoming unraveled, Harry Potter plans to attack our temporary home world, he knows what we're doing," a figure stated over the loud speaker and the Empress had her eyes widened open.
"How did he….no there….there was no way that he could figure out what was happening?" Veranke asked as she prepared to turn into Jessica Drew to see what was going on.
Then she paused, wondering how long he knew.
Then it hit her, she was played like a dupe and he knew the entire time. Anything that she tried, it was being counteracted, he knew.
There was a blast of the doors and then she saw the angry face of Jessica Drew. Jessica jumped up the Skrull Empress and knocked her into the wall with a loud thud.
"Jessica, Jessica….you've made a mistake child, I know all of your moves, I had to learn them to make the impression accurate," Veranke said, emphasizing that point with an elbow to the face.
"Oh, but do you know this move?"
Jessica slid underneath the ground went Veranke was standing and she blinked.
Suddenly Jessica popped out of the other side and shifted back into M'gann, where she punched Veranke in the face.
"You shouldn't betray the Star Child like that," M'gann said. The Martian looked surprisingly smug. "Of course, you can't directly attack him because he planted a seed of doubt in your mind, not to mention a few other seeds in other places."
Suddenly a few other Skrulls walked over but they pressed bands on their wrists, revealing themselves to be Kara, Jean, Rachel, Laura, and Alison in disguise.
"You're not the only one that is capable of a bit of trickery, some of your Skrulls are a bit hostile, a bit violent," Kara answered. "So we sent them into the Phantom Zone, but given that they tried to kill some of us, no big loss."
"You…you…you…."
"People of the world, I am happy to announce that the Earth has new protectors," the United States President stated as he popped up on the screen. "I hope that the other nations of the world follow the lead of the United States and offer these benevolent leaders access to their countries so they can protect us from the constant threats from the stars."
'So did he get replaced or is he just stupid?' Rachel thought. With the President, it was sometimes hard to tell, he was a notoriously dim fellow.
'Although, unless all of the world leaders have been replaced by Skrulls, they're not going to agree with this, they barely can agree on what to order for lunch,' Laura replied.
The doors blasted upon and this time, Jessica showed up, anger in her eyes. It was the real thing and she had a blaster, that she nailed a distracted Veranke in the shoulder. She flopped to the ground.
The reason why the Empress was distracted was this was not part of her plan.
Her eyes flared with anger and she looked forward as she prepared to evacuate. She was second guessing the entire plan and the entire Prophecy but she could not show weakness in the face of her fellow Skrull, they were trying to already undermine her.
The moment of truth was about to come and Harry hoped that it would work.
"Two minutes, then we'll know," Karen commented as Jan popped up on the holographic projection screen.
"Operation search and rescue, is mostly….a success," Jan commented as she looked a bit frustrated and also a bit disheartened.
"What happened?" Harry asked her, his curiosity getting the better of him. He knew that they were in a pressure cooker of a situation.
"Well….just to put things bluntly, Clint got left behind….."
"He did?" Harry asked as he was surprised. "He didn't do something heroic for you to escape, did he?"
"I'm not sure if he found an escape pod or not," Carol commented, jumping onto the car. The blonde's blue eyes were locked forward. "It's too dangerous to go back however."
"If he finds his way back, he will, I'll have someone monitor all incoming traffic to Earth," Harry stated but it was a good idea to monitor all incoming traffic, with the daily alien invasions.
"We're getting close to zero hour," Susan stated as she looked over her shoulder. Her nerves were already at a heightened fever pitch but Harry grabbed her hand.
"So far, nothing," Reed chimed in from over the communication.
"Yeah, what are we looking for?" Tony asked. "And how do you know what we are looking for?"
Eventually, the masks would be put off, then the moment of truth would be at hand. Harry paused for a few seconds and then he shook his head. His green eyes locked on the two men on the screen.
"Just be careful, because the moment's that those Skrulls are going to start shooting the moment where they get unmasked," Harry replied as he raised his hand into the air. "Just be ready, because a dangerous animal and a trapped animal is…."
'We've got a problem,' Jean thought to Harry.
'Just the one?' Harry asked with a raised eyebrow but he closed his hand and grew even more seriously. 'So what's the problem, Jean?'
'Well, apparently this little device that some of the Skrull are building….it doesn't even work the way that they think it's supposed to,' Jean commented. 'The Queen doesn't know about it, but it's not a device that is used to cleanse all of the humans off of the Planet.'
'Explain, please,' Harry thought as he placed his hand on the back of his head. The green eyed wizard crossed his arms over his chest. One minute, fourteen seconds before the Nullification Device was online.
'Someone called the Master Planner….I think they might have tricked the Skrulls into building something that is most certainly not the device they intended to build,' Jean thought to them.
Needless to say, that came out of nowhere. Harry's eyebrows raised and he started to think this one over.
'So….the Skrulls aren't the threat, well they are a threat, but they aren't the threat,' Harry thought to her. 'Keep an eye on the Empress, although given that she's finding it harder to move against me, it might be a moot point. Just be very careful, just in case I'm wrong.'
'Are you ever wrong?' Rachel chimed in.
'A few times, and I could be wrong this time, so just be careful,' Harry thought as he watched the seconds of the Nullification Device tick down.
Twenty seconds to go but it might as well have been twenty minutes.
"So, we'll know in a moment," Karen stated and Faora nodded.
The satellite launched a beam that was harmless all over the Planet to most. It would target the Skrulls and prevent them from holding their natural form for more than a second at a time.
And it just so happened to right to the President who got blasted with a beam of light. He shape shifted back into his normal form, along with his Secret Service members, all of them shifting into Skrulls, which caused cries of discontent.
'So he is just a Skrull, not an idiot,' Wanda commented but she paused. 'Well, not an idiot for this particular thing, but an idiot normally.'
The Skrulls fired at the crowd but SHIELD dropped down. Cameras dropped down and there were only a few flickering images before there was the sound of shattering glass in the background. There was a loud boom that caused a choking cloud of smoke to show up.
"Something tells me that the Skrulls are going to be done hiding now," Faora replied and Harry smiled.
"We've got another problem, other than the Skrulls, whatever the Master Planner had them build, it could be something that is just as dangerous as the Skrulls plan," Harry stated as he quickened his footsteps.
He made his way down to the main computer at the RAO Corporation and he could see that there was no communication coming from the outside.
'Kara, we might have a problem,' Harry thought to him.
'I'm going to make this perfectly clear, the Skrull did not have anything to do with every technological device on Earth simultaneously failing,' The Empress stated, discovering the backdoor link. 'They will be punished for deceiving me.'
'They were tricked by this Master Planner,' Gwen concluded and that set the Empress off.
'Leave it a group of male Skrulls to do something like that, they got our homeworld blown up as well, it's their fault,' the Empress raged. 'And how long did you know….'
'Since the beginning, Empress, since the beginning,' Harry commented with a smile. 'While I only glimpsed Jessica a couple of times and maybe exchanged a brief conversation with her, I can tell an imposter from the real deal. It's all about the body language. Guess you didn't do your homework well enough.'
With that triumphant statement, Harry tried to figure out what happened, The Fortress, the Stronghold, and the RAO Main Headquarters appeared to be the only places on Earth that were not affected by the hacking of this Master Planner.
The real Secret Invasion was the Master Planner, who had been a background player at the most and had been biding his time for almost eighteen months.
Now he was going to make his move.
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