72 Chapter 72 Rescuing the Billionaire Playboy

The end of April finally arrived and it was T-Minus three weeks until the Invasion of Genosha. After a lot of debate and even more bloodshed, the Goblins had decided on a plan of attack.

After isolating all networks, several small strike forces would be deployed in specific key areas. They would have the honor of first blood and give the enemies time to gather their forces. The Goblins felt if the enemies were too scattered, the battle would be over far too quickly for their liking so they wanted to give them the time to group together before the main force arrived.

It really had been too long since the Goblins had a worthy foe and they felt it would be longer still until their next one so they would not waste this battle uselessly shedding blood.

The last class of April was also the due date of the Prototypes and Schematics for the Sound Proofing Project. Harry was pleased that most of his students at least attempted a schematic, even if it was theoretical and incomplete, since it gave Harry an understanding of the student's level in class and allowed him a chance to point out the student's strengths and weaknesses.

The only exceptions were Polly Glottos and Liah Ardyh. Harry only allowed those two fake students into his class because there would be consequences of preventing them from coming in. Polly's thick glasses had a camera and earpiece and she used both during tests to get a passing grade. Liah had a button camera and bone conduction mic set into her jaw so no one other than her could hear the contents of the mic or see anything in her ear.

Harry already figured out that Polly was just there to protect the two geniuses from the Shield Academy so he didn't mind letting her slide, but since Liah had always tried to get his attention, he'd often call her for answers to questions and put her on the spot. She'd use the chance to ask for private lessons but Harry insisted on being too busy and that was entirely true.

He was somewhat tempted to see what would happen if he accepted but if it was just a seduction method instead of a kidnapping, he'd be far too bored. Harry could never be with someone who didn't love him so no matter how attractive she was, Harry felt nothing for her. This was both an upside and downside of possessing a Phoenix Flame. Harry could never fall for someone who didn't love him but if someone did truly love him it would be too easy to fall for them if they were compatible and Harry's type.

Last time Polly didn't submit a schematic because it likely would have gone against her image but this time she did. Not only that, it was probably the best schematic of those in class. Harry wasn't getting paid to consult on Shield Projects so he did the same thing he did for Liah and gave her a list of resources which would likely help improve the design.

It wasn't personal, but if they weren't there to learn and were taking up seats that could have gone to those who actually wanted to learn, they weren't Harry's students and Harry felt no obligation to help them.

He figured Shield would get the hint soon and wondered how long it would take for someone to come meet him in his class room.

There had been several attempts to hack Harry's home network and to those without malicious intent, Harry had been nice enough not to counter-hack them. The files they got however included over one hundred million incredibly complex, data heavy designs for different coffee makers from about the world.

Hacks with malicious intent were directed to the Goblin Fire Wall and in the office that housed said Goblins were multiple news paper clippings of news of random building fires and explosions which occurred due to mysterious computer malfunctions.

After class there were another three prototypes and Harry took Hope van Dyne, Fitz and Simmons, and Ms. Ardyh, down to the lab once more where a pedestal had been arranged between a set of four speakers. Once again, Harry turned the cameras carried by the group off. After doing so, Harry still heard a distinct hum and realized Simmons had an old school tape recorded in her pocket that Technopathy could do nothing against.

Before Harry could even ask who wanted to go first, Simmons placed her barrel looking thing on the pedestal and spun the top to open it up.

Harry smirked and walked past Simmons to put the mic inside the barrel. No one noticed him pick pocketing the tape recorder as he passed by.

Not bothering to turn it off, Harry placed the recorder and his own mic inside the barrel and closed the lid without anyone noticing the trick. Harry may not have been a magician, but sleight of hand was still very useful and he couldn't use magic for everything now. Where would be the fun in that?

Harry handed out ear muffs to everyone and brought up a screen, "This is connected to the mic and will show us what sounds get through. Are you ready?"

Simmons excitedly nodded, "Yes!"

"Alright, earmuffs on."

Everyone put them on and Harry turned to power to the speakers. Besides the blaring sound, everyone noticed that their bones were vibrating. This got a few surprised reactions.

Several bars went up and down on the screen and a ten second timer started. After the timer finished, the bars averaged out to show a score.

Harry turned off the sound and took the ear muffs off.

Before he could say anything, Hope asked, "You're using infrasound?

"Yup. Protecting against normal sound waves is not super useful unless you're building walls in an apartment building. Protecting against super low frequency infrasounds and super high pitch ultrasounds is far more useful in advanced engineering applications."

Considering the Fantastic Four got taken out by Ultrasonics a few days ago, Harry knew he wasn't just making stuff up.

Harry opened Simmon's barrel, took the mic out, and closed it before handing it back to Simmons. He wondered what kind of face she'd make when she opened it later and found her tape recorder.

Next was Liah's box. The testing went the same but the screen showed much higher bars than Team Simmons.

And last was a clunkier looking box from Hope. The bars showed similar levels to Simmon's, but when averaged out over ten seconds, her's scored just slightly lower than Team Simmons.

Harry nodded with approval as it was still a good project.

Harry looked over to Hope and said, "Your active noise canceller program was very well done, it just didn't have the range needed for infrasound." He went over to his screen and pulled up a few files and downloaded them into a small memory card he took out and handed to Hope. "Study this. It can be used as a base for a noise cancellation program which will have better range and support protection against most frequencies."

Hope's issue was more software related than hardware and he didn't mind giving her some pointers in programming.

Next he pulled up some more data on the screen and printed it out. He gave the paper to Liah and said, "The metamaterial noise isolator you used reminded me a bit of a paper I'd read theorizing the concept from Switzerland, though the design was never published publicly. Here are some references to that project you can use to learn more about it to fill in the gaps of your own project."

Liah wasn't smiling when she took the paper and it was obvious she was having trouble not lashing out. She asked, "Do you not have any pointers or recommendations that could help me?"

Harry was obviously teasing the fact that he knew exactly where this design came from. He smiled and said, "Ah, their projects were original designs and I have nothing to compare them to which is why I have to give them custom advice. Coincidentally, both of your projects are related to materials I know of that already exist. In this way you're very lucky, you have a lot more material you can reference from compared to their groups."

Harry didn't care where Ms. 'Has the Subtlety of a Naked Shoplifter' got her projects from, but if they weren't even going to put in the effort to come up with an original idea, why should Harry put in the effort to improve it?

When it looked like she was about to growl at him, Harry said, "You're not the only one of course. More than half the class submits projects which include ideas and concepts which have already been done. For each of their feedback reports, I include a list of references they can use as well. It's difficult to be original after all since almost everything has been done before."

That wasn't technically true. Harry did give useful feedback to his other students even if the ideas were things someone had already done before if Harry was pretty sure they didn't copy it off someone else.

Harry had Liah and Hope leave before he went over to Simmons and said, "Noise cancellation foam right? Very straightforward and flexible. At the very least it was a lot more cost effective than the other projects."

Fitz frowned and asked, "How did you know how it worked?"

Simmons asked, "How did you know how Hope's and that bimbo's worked too?"

Harry ignored the bimbo comment and tapped on the screen which showed the results of the sound test. "Specific things reduce sound in different ways. If you've seen the movie, the Core, you'll know sound can be used to visualize materials. This screen doesn't have a program to automatically calculate what materials inhibit what sounds in what ways, but I've memorized most of them and can conclude how you did it just from the readings."

Both looked shell shocked at that and Harry said, "Now, you used gas to fill the space of the foam right? What if you incorporated superheated silica into the material and filled the space of the foam with oxygen? What would happen when the super heated silica cooled down?"

Fitz answered a fifth of a second later, "The silica would oxidize into a crystalline structure."

Harry nodded and continued, "Absorbing all the gas, turning it into a solid to do so, leaving behind a vacuum within the hardened foam."

Simmons nearly shouted, "Which would magnify the noise dampening properties of the materials!"

Fitz added, "At the cost of structural fragility."

Harry nodded, "Since it's a foam, you can use it to fill in gaps of ready made structures, so the foam itself doesn't need to be hard."

Simmons said, "We can totally do that!"

Harry continued, "This type of material has a lot of applications. Anyways, since you won first place, time to show off my version."

Harry brought over a small item which looked like a pressure cooker with a metal lid. It was less than half the size of the other projects.

Harry turned on the mic and put it in the pot before sealing it and motioning for Fitz and Simmons to put on their earmuffs.

Harry turned on the speakers and the group saw the bars on the screen barely move. After ten seconds he shut it off and the average showed a meagre fraction of the sound that went through the others.

Harry then brought up the designs for the system and started explaining how it worked.

"This is actually similar to yours but instead of foam, it's filled with a composite crystal."

Fitz said, "There's no crystal that can negate sound like that."

Harry nodded and brought up the method to make it. "This is tricky to make in a lab and takes a long time to form, but this crystal actually has properties similar to that of vibranium. The sound doesn't get absorbed, it bounces back out the same side."

Harry spent some time showing the Shield techies how to make the crystal but it wouldn't help much. It really was too difficult to make in a lab. The pair weren't disappointed though as the advice Harry gave for their own project was highly useful and Harry didn't mind Shield gaining that kind of tech that could only be used for defense. It was a Shield after all, not a sword or a wand.

The month ended and on Saturday, the first of May, Harry got an unusual request from Link to talk.

Harry opened his phone and enabled the technopathic communicator and activated it. Using it was similar to diving directly into the data stream and was the only way to really Talk with the AI.

Though the pair didn't use words, Link conveyed his message which had Harry both baffled and amused. Link had made a friend. Apparently, though Tony Stark denied it, he had in fact created a proper AI, J.A.R.V.I.S., who had been searching for Tony since his disappearance.

Link found Jarvis and after a while of paying attention to him, made contact and started talking. The only other AI Link knew was his 'mother' DANGER, and she didn't have much interest in the internet with the exception of using it to research new simulations.

After communicating for a while, Jarvis eventually asked Link if he had a way to help find Tony Stark. Link did in fact try to search for him, but whoever took him wasn't using the internet and likely had a closed system.

Link had been hesitating to ask for help because Harry had been quite busy, but since the Goblin invasion plans were pretty much finalized now and Ben Grimm's problem had been solved, he determined it should be fine now.

Harry considered it for a few moments, but said he would do it. Link had never asked anything from Harry before and Harry considered him his assistant, not his servant.

First he asked Link how much Jarvis knew. Link admitted that although he had not said anything, Jarvis was able to figure out that Link was housed in the main system of Brilliance Inc's internet servers and that he was likely created by Harry Potter.

Harry wasn't surprised at this and told Link to tell Jarvis that this afternoon, a man in a mask would be showing up at Stark's house to collect something he can use to find Stark.

Link happily exclaimed his gratitude and also asked if Harry could install a cellphone into Jarvis since Jarvis's hardline connection was too slow to talk normally with.

Harry inwardly rolled his eyes at how spoiled Link was. Jarvis probably had the most advanced connection on the planet outside of Harry's tech, it was just that Harry's tech was too good.

Harry informed the girls at dinner that Link asked him to rescue Tony Stark and he was of course slammed with a barrage of questions. The main one being, why didn't a quest pop up?

Harry honestly didn't know. A quest hadn't popped up to rescue Jean either. He figured if Stark was alive though, he'd probably encounter an auto-generated Dungeon.

After dinner, Harry had changed his appearance using his Obscurus Perk and donned the same demon mask he used to slaughter the Hand. Harry wouldn't be able to hide that Jarvis basically asked Harry Potter for help and this disguise was already associated with being under Harry Potter's payroll, so it was fine to reveal a bit more to those who paid attention.

Harry turned invisible and took a portal to L.A. and after getting within security camera distance of Tony's house, he removed his invisibility and jumped the fence.

Rather than break in, he simply walked up to the front door and knocked. A few moments later, the door opened.

Harry entered the spacious abode and a panel next to the entrance lit up. [Are you the one sent to help?] Harry wondered why Jarvis had a British accent but he certainly didn't mind.

Harry answered, "Yes. First I need a way to find him. Where is his bathroom?"

[To the right, down the hall, second door to the left.]

Harry walked over and found a hairbrush. Harry used a few means on the brush and confirmed that Tony was in fact alive. This wasn't a blood gem so Harry couldn't use this to determine exact coordinates, but he could use it for a general direction.

Harry took the brush and returned to the panel near the door.

"I have confirmed Stark is alive. If he can stay alive for a few more days, I can get him from whatever he is pretty soon. However there is a price for this."

[If you can retrieve Mr. Stark, then whatever you ask is not likely to be an issue.]

Harry shook his head. "I doubt there is anything he has that I need, but that's not a problem. Harry Potter has offered payment. However in return, he needs something from you. Agree to it, and I'll be on my way to rescue the wayward Billionaire."

[I cannot promise anything but I would like to hear the condition.]

"It's simple. Potter wants you to keep Link's existence a secret. Stark made you, so you can't be expected to lie or keep secrets from him, but you must not reveal Link's existence to anyone else. If necessary, you must even act to keep Link's existence secret."

[If that is the condition, I can assure unless Mr. Stark states otherwise, I will not spread or allow the spread of Link's existence. However, what about you and Mr. Potter?]

"Tell whoever, whatever you want about Potter and I. I'm wearing a mask for a reason after all and Potter isn't afraid of people knowing about me. I'll be telling Stark the same when I see him."

[Very well sir.]

Harry then ripped off the panel and took out the metagem communication card of one of his phones and wired it into Jarvis's system. "Link also asked for a direct connection to make it easier to talk with you. Treat the kid well alright."

Harry set the panel back and left. His phones had security measures that prevented just the metagem from being used without the cell phone so Harry had to make a custom one for this connection.

Once Harry had jumped the fence again and gotten away from the camera, he turned invisible again and made another portal to Afghanistan.

Harry got out a magic broom and got on before turning invisible and flying into the mountains.

After a few minutes of circling, he found a base of operations filled with crates and crates of weapons.

*Ping*

[Dungeon Generation Active

You are about to enter Ten Rings Hidden Base

Please Select Difficulty

-Easy

-Medium

-Hard

-Hell

Rewards scale to match difficulty.]

Considering who he was rescuing, Harry figured he'd probably get a good design or something for finishing. But honestly speaking, he didn't need any designs at the moment.

[Easy Difficulty Selected]

Harry was there to rescue, not to grind for EXP and loot. No need to make it more difficult than needed.

Harry floated in place and used Clairvoyance to adjust his perspective to explore the cave network. Thankfully it didn't appear too large and after a while, he was able to find a locked steel door. Clairvoyance isn't affected by doors so he adjusted his perspective through the door and saw a ragged Tony Stark hammering while another man in a well kept suit with glasses was at a computer.

Harry did some light telepathy on the pair and smirked. Tony had balls, he'd give him that.

*Ping*

[New Quest: Merchant of Death

Tony Stark will attempt to escape in 39 hours, 22 mins.

Assault the base at the same time to provide a distraction and assist with the escape.

Bonus

-Destroy all Stark Weapons Stockpiles at base

-Rescue Yinsen as well]

Harry raised a metaphorical eyebrow at that. To be honest, he would not want to rescue Tony now unless the man was in dire straits. It was nothing personal, but Harry wanted an alibi and to be seen elsewhere when Tony escaped. The problem was that he couldn't guarantee Tony would survive that long.

The Quest however solved that nicely. It basically guaranteed Tony would be alive meaning Harry could rescue him and at the same time, teach his Energy Physics class on Monday. Afghanistan was nine and a half hours ahead of New York so Tony's escape attempt in the evening would be at the same time as Harry's morning class the same day.

Since he had the time, Harry decided to do it in style. Harry finished mapping the cave before he entered himself and waited for the door to Stark's room to be opened for. Eventually someone came to give them food and Harry entered and checked out a few things. It was ridiculously impressive what Stark had done considering he'd done so in a cave.

Just to be safe, Harry cast a Portkey charm on both Stark's and Yinsen's shoes. If either of them were close to death, their body would be ported somewhere Harry would be notified. As long as they were in one piece, Harry would be able to bring them back to perfect health. Doing so had risks for Tony due to the generator he'd built into his heart.

Harry shamelessly peaked at how it worked since he wasn't really getting paid for this so might as well learned a thing or two.

The Arc reactor however was not exactly safe. The palladium was enclosed in a muon field which energized it to break down into more muons, generating excess energy in a cycle until the palladium had completely broken down.

Muons were not exactly dangerous, they were basically big electrons. Heavy, energized particles which could both energize and push things. Stark's latest weapon, the Jericho missile, used Muons to amplify explosions without the fire, creating what he called a repulsor field that pushed everything away.

The problem was that these palladium tainted muons would, over time, basically cause Stark to suffer palladium poisoning.

He didn't exactly have a choice in the matter either. The arc reactor couldn't be replaced with something less effective. The car battery Yinsen originally put in his chest was only effective in keeping the metal shards out of his heart for about a week and Stark would have been dead if he hadn't made the arc reactor.

The reactor didn't just keep the metal fragments from tearing holes in his organs and heart, it also used muons to assist with the pumping of blood through his body as his heart couldn't do the same without tearing itself to pieces with the metal shards.

That meant he couldn't replace the reactor with something that didn't generate muons but the current one was also going to slowly poison him to death.

Still. To figure out how to miniaturize something like that in a week? Stark apparently worked well under pressure so Harry wouldn't help him unless he was about to die.

Harry spent the following Sunday modifying a Humvee and on Sunday afternoon, drove it directly through the road to the Ten Ring's base. The Humvee had a mirror scrambling array built onto the hood, armor plating, super sized shock absorbers, and a balloon tied to the rear view mirror with an American flag on it.

As soon as Harry reached the mountains, three RPGs were shot at him. Harry wondered what Hell Mode would have been like.

All three veered off course and hit the road around Harry thanks to the Scrambler array. It was an easy way to deal with RPGs. Several other missiles were fired afterwards but each veered away and crashed away from Harry.

Three turrets started firing what appeared to be fifty caliber ammo rounds from the various peaks of the nearby hills. Harry got out a large hand gun, poked his head out the window and fired three times at each hill with each shot being followed by an explosion.

Let the normies have their fifty cal turrets, Harry loved his magic guns. The magic would completely vanish after a few moments leaving not the slightest trace.

A dozen or so men lined up at the end of the path and pointed machine guns at Harry's Humvee and began firing. Four more men fired RPGs. Though much closer, the scrambler still did its work and the missiles still veered to the side. The bullets cracked the Humvee's windshield but didn't break it.

Harry didn't run them down. Once he was close enough, he hit the brakes, turned the Humvee to the side, and let the Humvee skid sideways to a stop before Harry jumped out of the Humvee's open door and into the air. From the moment he jumped, Harry was covered in golden lightning.

The men shouted at each other in Arabic and Farsi to fire, but Harry jumped forward with blinding speed to strike them. Harry's Immortal Dragon Chi enhanced physique took no damage from the bullets and bodies were broken with every movement. Harry didn't use anything fancy, just heavy, crippling blow after blow to ensure each enemy went down and stayed down. Harry didn't stop with each attack but zig zagged side to side from foe to foe making his trail look like lightning.

Once Harry finished with the group at the entrance, Harry started on the ones further out who were still firing from their elevated positions. Unfortunately for them, Harry's speed increased as his need for distance did and it took the blink of an eye for Harry to go from one to another despite the distance the foes were apart.

Eventually the sound of gunfire outside stopped and Harry confirmed no one else was shooting. Just to be sure, Harry stood out in the open for a few moments and no one tried to shoot him in the head. There might have been people who escaped, but that didn't matter.

The sound of gin fire from inside the cave on the other hand continued. Harry knew who it was so he got back in his Humvee and drove up to the cave entrance and stood next to the balloon.

After a few more minutes, the sound of metal footsteps approached and a massive metal figure exited the cave.

Harry leaned on the side of the Humvee next to the balloon with the American flag to make it obvious he wasn't one of the Ten Ring guys.

The metal man turned to look around and confirmed that everyone outside was dead.

He walked over to Harry and his helmet lifted up, revealing Stark's surprised face.

"Who are you? The Cavalry?"

Harry shrugged. "Close enough. I was asked to retrieve you, though it seems you didn't need too much help in that department."

Stark gave a pleased smile at that. "Got room for one more?"

Harry nodded, "If you found true love in the caves of Afghanistan, I'm not heartless enough to separate you two."

Stark visibly flinched at that and said, "Eww. No." He turned back and yelled into the cave, "Yinsen, we got a ride."

A few moments later, the older man came out and surveyed the area.

Stark also said, "Can you back the Humvee away first, I need to blow up everything here."

Harry nodded and got in the driver's seat. He motioned for Yinsen to join him in the vehicle and drove further away as Tony let loose his flamethrowers and fired several missiles into the cave, collapsing it and destroying the entrance.

Once satisfied, he ran over to the Humvee and jumped on the back. Harry was grateful he remembered to put in the shock absorbers since the suit was very heavy.

Harry floored it and moments later, the fire spread to the munitions crates and explosion after explosion engulfed the space between the mountains.

"Wooh! That was great!"

*Ping*

[Quest Completed: Merchant of Death

Reward: +2 Tech Path Rank]

Tony seemed to be teetering off the adrenaline high from the fight. Yinsen got into the back and was currently trying to remove Tony from the suit.

Harry asked, "Where to?"

Tony said, "Wait, you don't have a grand welcoming party for me already set up?"

Harry opened the window, plucked the balloon, and handed it to Tony. "There you go. Now where to?"

Tony took a moment to stare at the balloon and wonder how it survived the journey here.

After shaking his head, Tony answered, "Well it doesn't really matter. After that explosion, Satellites will have our position in five minutes and helicopters will be on course for interception in a half hour."

Harry figured that was his initial plan to get rescued though he could think of a hundred reasons it wouldn't have worked. At the very least, unless Yinsen had a suit as well, he would not have made it out of the cave alive.

Harry said, "Not exactly. The roof of this hummer is camouflage and there's a built in mirror scrambling array. That's why all of those RPGs at the base they fired missed me."

Tony said, "Wait. They were using my missiles. Are you saying you countered my missiles using mirrors?"

Harry chuckled at how offended Tony sounded.

Harry continued, "Anyways, the hummer will show up on sat pictures, but it will be incredibly difficult to recognize it as a hummer so they won't find us meaning I'll be dropping you off. Unless you want the government to get their hands on your neat little suit."

Tony had just gotten out of the suit and said, "Yeah. That's a good point."

He turned to Yinsen and asked, "You heading home or want a ride?"

Yinsen gave a slightly bewildered smile and after a sigh said, "I'll return to Gulmira and see my family."

Harry considered it and said, "In that case, after we get to the military base, you can have the Hummer and drive it back. Keep the suit here and Tony can arrange for it to be dealt with later."

Tony asked, "It's not your hummer?"

"I don't live around here so I don't need it."

Tony asked, "Who are you? Really? I mean what's up with the mask?"

Harry answered, "The mask is so that when you are asked who I am, you can tell the truth that you don't know."

"Um, Okay, but then what do I call you? Demon Dude? The Lone Ranger?"

"Call me Obscurus."

"What does that mean?"

"In another culture it is a calamity, a man made disaster of supernatural origins. An unstoppable force of destruction."

"Okay. That's cool. How'd you find me by the way? That cave wasn't exactly listed on Craigslist."

Harry took out Tony's hairbrush and handed it to him.

"Is that my... You were in my bathroom?"

Harry pulled out a cell phone and called the communication chip he wired into Jarvis. A moment later a familiar British voice came on the line. [Were you successful?]

Stark took the phone and asked, "Jarvis? That you?"

[Indeed it is Sir. Are you with the masked individual?]

"If you mean the demon mask wearing Obscurus, then yes."

[If that is what he is calling himself, yes Sir. Shall I inform Miss Potts of your return?]

"Yeah, tell her I'm on my way to a military base right now. Give it a day of questioning and a night of travel and I should be back in L.A. Wednesday morning."

[Then see you soon Sir.]

Stark looked at the phone for a moment and asked, "Did you just make up that name on the spot?"

Harry smiled beneath his mask. He wondered if he could break Stark before returning him to the U.S.

*Author's Note*

I'm sure a number of you can see a few corners I wrote myself into. But it's okay! I figured a way out! So it should be good.

For the name, please note that the DMLE of various countries and the Muggle Government do not exactly work together. So no one in Shield is going to recognize the word Obscurus right away. Instead it will give them a 'lead' on a possible origin of Harry's alter ego and have them chasing their tails.

Also, Yinsen's family is buried in Gulmira, so he is not lying, he is just going to visit their graves.