Chapter Fifty Six "One and the Same Part Two."

Chapter Fifty Six "One and the Same Part Two."

The girl known as Tea stood face to face with the Team. It was a showdown and she was getting more annoyed by each second that they were there. She could tell their annoyance was as well but she clutched her first, a haughty expression going across her face as she watched them and kept a close eye on their movement.

"Do not make me attack you," she told them viciously as her eyes glowed but Kara put up her hand. She stared down her younger counterpart along with the rest of the team. The young blonde stood up against her double, boldly and stared her down without blinking, without backing off, without doing much of anything.

"I won't attack you, unless you force my hand," Kara said and everyone else in the group nodded in agreement. "Force my hand and you are taking your chances."

Galatea scowled as her eyes glowed for a second but the blonde returned fire with a burning red gaze with the teased heat vision. Harry looked from one to the other, and he was not the only one, Kitty Rogue, Betsy, and Jean were viewing the battle between the two blondes and Galatea backed down.

"Just what were you up to?" Rogue demanded and she shook her head and muttered something. Rogue did not quite hear what she said, but she got the gist of what was said, never the less. "I'm sorry…..what did you say?"

"I said that you don't get it, you all don't get it, we're running out of time, I escaped, but he's right behind me, and he's already planting it somewhere in the city, and Warren knows where it is," Galatea said in a cryptic voice. "Essex has been played for a fool, a dupe, a pawn, he's nothing but a patsy with his plan."

"Whose plan?" Harry asked keeping his voice calm and even, although things were getting to be extremely intense. The green eyed wizard watched her and he could hear her heart beating against her chest. She answered carefully and calming, never breaking eye contact with Harry at all.

"Essex, he is a dupe, for him….he is going to take it all, and he doesn't care who perishes, everyone is just pawns for him," Galatea said as she had heard things and Kara, reaching the end of her rope, managed to step forward and grab Galatea by the shirt.

"WHOSE PLAN!" she screamed but Galatea relaxed.

"His plan….I can't remember but he's giving directive to Essex, he has the device and Essex doesn't even know how much he is being played," Galatea said as she felt a headache coming on.

Harry looked over to the cell and he saw Norman Osborn giving a slight grin from his cell. There was something extremely unsettling about that smile but Harry was not going to keep his eyes off of Galatea. He did not want to have another Madelyne Pryor type situation on his hand and the green eyed wizard turned off to the side and motioned for the girls to follow him.

Rogue, Jean, and Kara kept Galatea by their side, the girl looked completely annoyed by the fact that she was being marched over to the side in such a matter. The blonde had a set jaw as she kept staring forward.

"So, you've decided to visit me once more, how quaint?" Osborn asked with a wide grin that got even wider but Harry was not in the mood. He placed his hands on the other side of the cell and stared the man down.

"What exactly do you know about this?" Harry asked Osborn and Osborn paused and he once again kept his gaze locked onto Harry's.

"I know precisely what I told you, no more, no less," Osborn said to him and there was a few seconds where he could feel Jean combing into his mind. "Yes, because that will turn out to be among the smartest things you could do. Then again, I suspected better from you."

"He's telling the truth the best I can tell although we should really investigate that lab of Warren's," Jean said.

"A sensible decision," Osborn said crisply as he leaned back and the smile that went across his face got wider and wider yet. It was to the point where Harry would have been inclined to smack it off of his face if he had received the chance. "Although like I told your blonde young friend here, you can look, but you might not like what you find."

"I'll take the chance," Harry said as there was something about this entire situation, that was raising more questions than giving him answers.

'Harry, not to pile even more shit onto what happened but….Jameson has been visited by another friend,' Lois thought to Harry. 'I came in just in time to see him slip into his office.'

'I'll discuss it with Jameson soon enough, but keep your ears and eyes peeled for anything that you could hear and let me know when you can,' Harry thought to her and there was a moment where he paused. 'And be careful.'

'I'm always careful, when am I not careful?' Lois asked and there was a smile and a knowing nod directed by Harry. 'Yes, besides the many times where I'm not careful but other than that, careful, extremely careful, very careful.'

'Yes, I get it, thank you,' Harry thought to the dark haired woman as he shook his head. There was a second where he figured that something was happening but perhaps he could have imagined things.

The group, along with Galatea, moved off to investigate the lab. Harry was also keeping his ears in Gotham City open, although Maddie was on the move right now.

"You might not like what you find out, any of you," Osborn said and he knew that there was a chance where he could perish where he sat. All he had to do was wait.

Gwen had a heaping cup of coffee at the edge of her desk and slowly drank from it. To say that she was burning the midnight oils was in fact a gross understatement to end all gross understatements. Regardless she took a nice drink of the coffee, putting it up to her lips and sighed.

'Long night for you as well?' Harry asked.

'Well, it's about the same night, isn't it?' Gwen asked and that point could not be disputed. 'And Warren….this just takes a flying turn into the realm of the weird, doesn't it?'

'Exactly how so?' Harry asked, the group was on their way to the lab right now.

'Well Warren has these….random disappearances where his whereabouts could not be accounted for at all, his latest one he was gone so long that people thought he was dead, but he showed up at ESU a year before last, as if nothing happened and given that he has powerful friends on the school board, he wasn't going to go down that easily,' Gwen thought to the group.

'The lab has been cleared out,' Kara thought in a frustrated voice and Gwen let out a very prominent sigh.

'Figured as much to be honest,' Gwen admitted as she slowly drummed her fingers off the table, the smile growing over her face as she leaned back and paused, thinking, pondering, doing everything that she could to shake off the thoughts of doubt.

'What is it Gwen?' Harry asked and there was a second where he thought that Gwen tensed up for a moment.

Gwen got up to her feet and looked outside of her window, pulling the curtains back. There was nothing there.

'Just an over active imagination from a lack of sleep,' Gwen said as she reached over and the cup of coffee that she had was levitating in the air. 'Or maybe not.'

Gwen suddenly turned around and saw the redhead girl standing there in the shadows. She had a hood pulled over his face.

"You've been looking for me," Maddie said as she stared down Gwen.

"Yeah, I've been….look no one believes you killed Scott Summers the other night," Gwen said as she backed off. She could see the girl and wondered if her father had gotten back from her shift.

'Harry, Maddie's here….Harry? HARRY?' Gwen thought but there was no answer. 'Well that's just fucking great.'

"Our lives, they are all lies, we were all created for a purpose," Maddie said quietly from the shadows. "Something sinister stalks us all. They thought that I was mad, but I died, didn't I? I should have never been here to draw breath. And four people are dead because of me."

"Four people?" Gwen asked and there was something that clicked through her mind. There were only three people that were killed and then…..

"I'm sorry, but if he comes for you, and sees me here, he's going to kill me," Maddie said as she stepped forward. "I might have done terrible, terrible things"

Gwen was backed against the wall and she stood across from her. For a second, Gwen thought that she was going to be killed but seconds later, Maddie was gone, just as quickly as she appeared.

"You seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot of the time, aren't you Miss Stacy?"

Gwen was grabbed around the back of the neck and she screamed out loud as she tried to fight it.

Harry burst through the doors, turning out and he saw Gwen slump down to the ground, her eyes looking like they were gazed over. The blonde was there on the ground and Harry thought that if it was not for Extremis, she would be deader than dead right about now.

The blonde was on the ground and her pulse was very faint.

'Mother, I'm taking her to the Stronghold, she needs medical assistance right now,' Harry said to Lara and Lara nodded somberly, in understanding, she understood.

Gwen had seen something and the fact that her connection was roughly aborted the moment that she was talking to him, well that was something.

"What happened?" Atlee asked as she saw Harry turn up and she saw Gwen who was barely breathing from what happened.

"I'll know in a minute," Atlee said and she stepped back, to give Harry some space. She could see Rose Wilson arriving at the moment but there was a note of urgency on her face that could not be mistaken.

Gwen was taken into the medical area and Lara appeared, along with Lily, Peve, and Alura.

"It was him, it was him, it was him," Gwen murmured as her eyes glazed over and Lara managed to notice the dark incision marks on the back of her neck.

"This was not a standard attack, this was a matter of vengeance," Lara said grimly and Harry nodded, as he swallowed a lump in his throat.

Gwen kept muttering that "it was him" until she was sedated. Harry held her hand as Lara did what she needed to do, the process becoming rather prominent. The blonde's eyes flashed for a second as Harry saw a strange looking binary code flash through it for a moment.

It was not Extremis…..although Harry was concerned that something was going to happen.

"I see it," Peve whispered. "She's been infected by a virus….a computer virus."

'But that doesn't make sense,' Chloe said somberly.

"IT WAS HIM!" Gwen shouted, but suddenly there was a black blood that oozed out of the side of her mouth.

"We got her stabilized, quarantined, we're working on a solution, but time is of the essence," Lara said seriously. "You may have to find the source of virus."

'Nothing on Earth could even put a dent in Extremis,' Kitty thought and Harry nodded, the phrase nothing on Earth kept flashing back to him over and over again, tormenting him.

Words were something that failed him and he inclined his head. The lump in his throat grew with each passing moment and he turned over, looking over his shoulder.

Nothing, dead ends, nothing and Rose stood there, waiting in the shadows, and Cassandra was there as well.

"Sorry to keep your girls waiting," Harry told them quietly and the two girls nodded.

"This isn't a social call unfortunately," Rose said as she looked at Harry. "The old team was brought together, two high powered fusion power cells have been stolen from a research facility."

"And one has been stolen from Gotham," Cassandra said as she looked at Harry. "Batwoman would have told you herself personally but she's been getting a lot of psychic static on the bond link."

Harry wondered briefly if someone had found a way to hack into the bond but the three power cells that gone missing were interesting. There were a lot of chilling puzzle pieces that were put together.

'So, I'll see if any other parts might have gone missing,' Chloe offered, she needed to keep her mind off of what happened to her friend and that was something that was appreciated by Harry, because he knew that if they did not find out what happened to Gwen, then things would be doomed.

Miles Warren had disappeared over this Spring Break period, and he wondered if it would take a miracle to track him down. He might be the key and he had one more person that might have that vital piece of information.

"Rose, bring me to Nick Fury," Harry said and Rose blinked in surprise but she agreed.

Lois Lane knew a story when she saw one, she had a sense for these type of things and her heart was racing a million miles a moment as she watched out for anything. The dark haired reporter gritted her teeth and threw her head back. There was something that happened and she needed to keep to the shadows.

There was a shady person walking in Jameson's office and she ducked behind the desk, as the shady person walked out.

Then he was gone just as quickly as he walked out and Lois's eyes widened. She got up to her feet and she came face to face with Jameson.

"Lane," Jameson whispered harshly. "What in the devil are you doing here?"

"I've got a story….it's about that Pryor girl," Lois said and Jameson shook his head, he was only half interested in what he was saying, he looked over his shoulder. "I know, she disappeared six months ago but she kept turning up…."

Lois paused after a second and then she saw the reflection of the red head girl in the mirror and Jameson saw her soon. There was no question about it, both of them were numbstruck and Jameson took half of a step back into his office.

Maddie stared down Lois and there was a flash of fire and then she was gone. Then Lois heard the next noise and immediately slipped on her green lantern ring.

CLICK. CLICK. BOOM!

To say Lois was rattled, well that would be putting things mildly. Jameson was on the phone to the police already and suddenly, there was an explosion from a floor beneath them at the Daily Planet. Lois put a shield up and she was gagging on the smoke and debris.

She managed to stagger over and Jameson was rocked as well. Whoever had planted the bomb, they did not do it very professionally, although the floor looked like it was about to cave in. The dark haired woman staggered forward and Jameson's office caved on right on top of him.

She heard a grunt and then heard the frantic struggle of him trying to get out of the office. A second bomb went off and caused the glass to shatter, with Lois managing to block it in a stasis bubble. The Lantern Ring would not offer her full protection but she thanked her lucky stars that she was getting the hang of it.

Iris managed to get up the set of stairs before a third bomb had blew them up. She raced against the explosion. She stopped and she saw the same message that Lois glimpsed from across the street.

There was a message written on the warehouse across the street in dried up blood.

JACKAL SENDS ITS REGARDS!

'Lois are you there?' Chloe asked suddenly as she had been interfacing with her cousin as she was conducting with research but there was nothing.

'There has been a really bad explosion at the Bugle, Jameson might be trapped in the basement, and Madelyne Pryor showed up and disappeared in fire,' Lois thought and suddenly Iris looked up.

The girl was someone that whether intentionally or not, brought bad luck and misfortune no matter wherever she went. Lois felt a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach and she saw someone go down as subway tunnel across the street, shady looking and in a trenchcoat.

The police arrived and Kara did arrive as well, flying into the Bugle building like a bat out of hell.

"Sorry, Harry couldn't come," she whispered for Lois and Lois nodded, glad that help was here, no matter who was there.

"Yes….well….could you help me?" Lois asked her urgently and Kara nodded, she did in fact help Lois dig through the debris and find Jameson.

The weirdness was just beginning for tonight, in fact the weirdness was just escalating even more time. The dark haired female saw someone web sling away from the scene. At first she thought that Spider-Man was here to help but then she looked at the person.

She was most certainly not Spider-Man. The fact that she was in fact a she was the biggest indicator to this.

Kara saw it too and her mouth hung open. She had one thing to say to herself.

"I really, really, hate clones," Kara whispered through gritted teeth and her double had been put underneath twenty four seven protection as more of her memories came back and her memories were hopefully vital to what was going on. Right now, they found Jameson, he was badly injured but still breathing. Kara and Iris helped clear a path for the medics to come in.

Harry was going to give up saying that things could not get any weirder than they were now because every time that he said that, things were most certainly getting a little bit weirder. And he knew for a fact that he was not going to like it. He knew that if Nick Fury had put together members of his old team when he was dealing with the Skrulls, that was far from the best news that he could have and Harry knew that they were running out of time. His eyes locked on the prize as he kept walking, along with Rose.

"This is where he told us to meet," Rose whispered although she had her hands on a weapon. She was not about to trust something at face value although she supposed that if it was Fury, then he did not call them here without a good reason.

And if it was not Fury, well she would not leave enough of him left to explain why he had lead them there. Regardless, her eyes locked on the situation with a frown crossing her face. The doors were almost open and Harry paused as he held his hand up.

"On the level so far," he whispered and she nodded, her jaw set and she was ready to go.

Harry got another call and he picked it up wordlessly.

"JACKAL SEES YOU, HAR-RELL!"

Now Harry wondered about this thing and it was a call that would have spooked any normal person but after all that Harry went through, he was almost amused, albeit in a morbid way, about such a thing. He managed to patch into the line and this time, he had a trace on it. He sent it to the computers at RAO and at the Fortress, he was going to find out what happened. His green eyes locked forward and he turned to Rose.

"He's trying to fuck with your head," Rose said as she let in one breath and let out a second breath. There was the implied….don't let him do it. Actually come to think of it, Rose thought that this entire Jackal mess would be something that her father would be involved with to test people.

There was a figure in the shadows, pointing a laser blaster at Harry and Rose and both of them turned around to fight her. They saw her standing there in the shadows, and they spotted Miranda Fury standing there. She relaxed her grip ever so slightly but she did not back off for a second.

"So, they called you here," Miranda said and she frowned. "My father….has made two phone calls in the last seven weeks, he's investigating…..well he's investigating the Jackal thing."

"So Fury knew about this longer than anyone else," Harry said but he had no time to make accusations, all he had to do was figure out who called them.

"Where are the rest of the team?" Rose asked as she looked around. This was eerie, she expected Quake or Plastique to show up and help them out at the very least. She would have even gone for that nutjob Wade Wilson if she had the chance.

She looked over her shoulder and there was a rustling sound in the distance. There was no question about it, they should have stayed alert.

Harry spotted her standing in the shadows, and he had seen her arrive there, much like the photo. The one, the only Viper stood before him and she held a weapon at him, although there were a quartet of armed guards that joined him.

"So it's you," Viper said as she ran her eyes over him. There was a moment where the wind rustled all around them and blew leaves everywhere. "Stand down for now"

"You're one of SHIELD's Top Ten Most Wanted and you're not going to fight," Miranda said, wondering if Viper had lost her mind or perhaps had gained some kind of sanity. Really given the situation, she could go either way.

"Yes, I'm sure that I'm the criminal here, when some of my equipment had been stolen by this….knockoff who calls himself the Jackal, and by that traitor Nathaniel Essex," Viper said and she had an interesting tale to tell the group. "You seem to be interesting in Miles Warren, but the man you seek is not who you think he is."

"Oh, and I'm sure you have some insight to share on the situation," Harry said as he stared her down and she nodded, her arms folded.

"Yes," Viper said as she took half of a step forward. "You see, once the Red Skull….was indisposed, HYDRA splintered into a few factions, and one of them was a group called JACKAL. I actually had been running the project and we were in contact with three individuals working to replicate the Captain American super solider formula and also to genetically enhance our operatives. Those three men were Norman Osborn, Miles Warren and….."

There was a loud squealing sound that caused everyone to drop to their knees at that point. Viper in particular felt like her head was about ready to split open and her operatives began to shoot into the bushes.

Harry thought that they had the right idea and if his head had quit splitting wide open, he might be able to find out the person.

He could see someone run into the shadows and they were moving rather quick. He could see the face in the shadows and suddenly, it all became so much more clear to him now exactly who was the entire mastermind behind this.

Essex, Osborn, and even Warren, they were all pawns in a cleverly constricted game of chess from a superior mind.

Harry followed him into the night and into the shadows. He realized that the psychic static that he hit indicated that he was all out there alone.

Nick Fury showed up a second later but he was much too late to inform Harry Potter or anyone else of what he found out. Viper had been carried out by another squad before she had been brought to justice and Fury saw someone else leading them as well.

"Hill, shit's just hit the fan, meet me here in ten…." Fury said but the two way radio he had blew up and suddenly he turned around to the ship that he took, just seconds after he saw the face of Madelyne Pryor in the mirror.

Fury was flung backwards from the explosion and he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, without any radio contact, not even sure that SHIELD got his SOS. Which admittedly was not the worst situation that he ever had been in.

It was very late at night and Karen was getting some last minute work done at the STARR facility. She was going to see if there was any leads on the Pryor situation, although that entire mystery baffled her. She had tried to get in touch with Harry at least two times but when she hit a wall, she figured that he was in a high tense situation and could not be bothered. She understood that there would not be times where she could reach im.

'Karen,' Kara whispered to her mentally. 'Have you been able to get in touch with Har-Rell?"

'I can't say that I have, but I'm sure….' Karen thought and then she looked up, she could have sworn that she saw someone standing in the hallway. 'Could you hold on for just one second?'

Karen was on a hair trigger tonight and she stepped forward, locking her office door behind her. The blonde made her way towards the source of the problem.

'Is there a problem?' Faora asked as she was downstairs, having just returned from the Church, where they were conducting a wide search on Madelyne Pryor.

'There's someone around here,' Karen thought as she kept walking forward. The blonde placed her hand on the side of the wall and moved forward and she saw someone make their way to the elevator.

The blonde got her facilities together and scrambled after her. She could see that whoever she was, she had a hood pulled over her head.

'Karen, if it's Maddie….you could be in horrible danger,' Jean warned her but then she was cut off mentally.

Karen understood that, she knew what seemed to happen every time Madelyne Pryor showed up, horrible accidents seemed to follow. She was a harbinger of death and violence, mayhem and destruction. Those doctors dropped down, Summers vanished, presumed dead, Gwen was seriously injured, there was the explosion at the Bugle, and who knew what else.

'Nothing,' Faora thought as she met Karen. They knew that things were going to get really bad really soon.

Karen had to return to the top floor with her office and Faora would search the other floors.

"Security, there is an intruder in the building, red hair, green eyes, and she has a hooded shirt on, be careful, call for me, do not try and apprehend herself if you see her, for she is confused and is very dangerous," Karen said as she stopped at her open office door.

The blonde saw the person behind her desk, sitting at her desk, drinking her coffee and she could not believe it. She spoke in a voice that was identical to Karen's, yet somehow even more chilling.

"You are obsolete, goodbye."

Madelyne Pryor walked with a purpose to her next destination, there was no fear in her eyes, only eerie calmness. She walked past a display of a city in a bottle as she made her way to the place where she was going to meet her guest.

Her voice was quite chilling as she spoke. "So, you've arrived."

"Yes," Warren said as he turned up. "You do realize that Fury is onto us, and Potter….and….."

"Yes, I am blessed with mental capabilities beyond that of a normal human," she said coldly as she stared him down. "It was all part of my plan, they think that the clones are the plan but…..they are merely only a means to the end, his end."

"Yes, that's all well and good, but we had a deal," Warren reminded Maddie.

"Annoying human, do you lack even the slightest bit of decorum?" she asked him and Warren opened his mouth but she waved it off. "We did have a deal, that is one thing that you are very much correct about. Our deal indicated that you follow my plan to the letter and you are reunited with your loved one. I will give you the means to bring her back, am I correct?"

"Yes, Osborn took her DNA ,the only remains of her, and I could never bring her back," Warren babbled and Maddie frowned.

"The only means to bring her back, but there is another way for you to be united," Maddie said and she lifted up her arm. There was no way that Miles Warren would be able to block this. "I am someone of my word. I will send her to you. Good bye, Miles Warren."

Warren suffered a fatal brain aneurism, dropping to the ground. Maddie turned around and stepped forward, picking up the radio that Warren had dropped off of him.

"This is Jackal," she said to Essex, in the same modulated voice that Warren had used. "I require one last thing for you and you will have the weapon that you wish to have."

"Yes," Essex said.

"It will be your legacy, the legacy of all mutantkind," Maddie said with a wide smile on her face. "But I require your men to detonate three devices that I have planted in strategic locations. It will destroy the Morlocks as you have sought for some time."

"Yes, it is much appreciated," Essex said as he received the layout and knew that particular device would wipe out those blemishes on the mutant race.

"You will have your weapon by the morning then, I can promise you that," she stated as she stepped away.

Madelyne Pryor opened up a secret panel and smiled as she came face to face with the unconscious form of Madelyne Pryor in suspended animation.