Chapter 92 Enter the Reds

*Author's Note*

There is still a year until Avengers so don't mind if you see some time skips to get there early. These chapters probably feel a bit cramped because I'm winding down Arc 4 New York and soon we'll start on Arc 5, Avengers

The moment the portal closed, Blastaar shouted, "You should have returned when you had the chance!"

Harry responded by firing a bolt of black light at the massive brute which caused Blastaar to cry out in pain.

A black rash appeared at the point of contact which Blastaar covered with one hand while pointing the other at Harry and firing his energy blasts once more.

Harry apparated at the last second behind Blastaar and with a fist coated in golden dragon chi he smashed directly into the rash he created earlier forcing Blastaar to release another bellow of pain and anguish.

Before Harry could follow up, Blastaar spun backwards with a reverse elbow strike forcing the wizard to distance himself from the wounded tyrant.

From what Harry could tell, Blastaar was something of a combination of Wolverine and Captain Marvel. His energy blasts when not holding back were powerful enough to tear through tanks like tissue paper and he had what Harry figured must've been decades if not longer of combat experience.

According to Harry's senses, Blastaar was about level 380. A bit weaker than Apocalypse, but not by much. Harry's Sorcery in the Negative Zone was only partially effective, so channeling Strength energy to increase his defense and damage to fight as he did against the Black Dragon wasn't an option.

Thankfully, Blastaar's stats seemed quite skewed. He had strong energy attacks and powerful physical defense, but his energy defense was not as strong as his energy attack or physical defense. It wasn't so much a weakness, but more of the weakest link most wouldn't even be able to take advantage of.

Since Sorcery would not be common in the Negative Zone, even the strongest of beings who evolved here may not have developed high end magic resistance.

Harry may not have access to Sorcery, but he did have access to Wizard magic. What Harry used on Blastaar was a debilitatingly painful curse. But what really caused damage was the Dragon Chi. Harry used a rudimentary form of Chi Magic to purify his own curse within Blastaar, but he did so incorrectly on purpose.

The wizard magic curse and the dragon chi magic purification would heavily conflict with one another within the mighty brute. In essence, Harry was copying the Goblin's form of combat, stacking curse effects to subdue immortals and kill gods.

Blastaar, having recognized the threat of Harry's attack style, flew towards Harry at lightning speed forcing Harry to dodge with apparition once more. He reappeared at the side and fired off consecutive curses which caused all manner of painful damage and slowed Blastaar down. The energy Blastaar used could only cover his hands, so he couldn't use it effectively to block the curses by doing anything but using his hands as shields. Any curse which got past his massive hands struck him directly causing further groans of pain as Harry went down the list of all the wonderful and terrifying spells he'd learned in the Black Family library.

Blastaar continued firing shots from his fingers in a scattergun like pattern and Harry continued apparating to dodge. Multiple times the self proclaimed King would turn around to anticipate Harry's return spot and fire, but often Harry would pop in above or below him instead of behind. Blastaar's scatter shot only worked in one direction and Harry had many options to choose from.

Moments after the fight began the last of the pillars holding the palace roof up had collapsed and Harry apparated out of the building and watched Blastaar pierce through the roof at Harry to continue the fight.

There were many instances where Blastaar would feign an opening to draw Harry closer, but someone raised on decades of daytime television knew the definition of prudence by heart, and Harry would fire a blast of purifying chi magic from a distance at those times rather than go in close to deliver a punch.

Blastaar himself was becoming more and more aggrieved. If it was just the damage from the Curse magic and Chi magic, he could probably outlast Harry by fighting defensively. Blastaar could fight at full strength for a week straight without pause and all forms of magic besides Sorcery require using up internal magic reserves. If necessary, Blastaar would welcome a chance to simply drag out the combat until Harry was too exhausted to continue. Then he could capture him and make him work for Blastaar and then take over the new dimension.

But Harry wasn't attacking with just magic. Every couple of seconds Harry would attack Blastaar's mind with a psionic assault causing severe mental anguish. Blastaar had never encountered a being capable of such diverse attacking methods. The mental barrage would cause Blastaar to expose an opening Harry would exploit to inflict terrible damage, not allowing Blastaar to properly fight defensively.

The most aggravating part of course was that Harry had yet to sustain a single injury. Blastaar knew he only needed one hit to grant him the opening needed to finish Harry off, but he wasn't getting his chance and Harry's fighting style countered his own.

This wasn't Blastaar's fault. The Energy sense Harry possessed was a cheat level ability only found in high concept existences that were usually composed of pure energy. Harry trained rigorously to use his Energy sense to predict energy attacks so Blastaar's frightening attack speed and terrifying damage output seemed far more useless than it actually was against Harry Potter.

Seeing where this battle was going, Blastaar knew that there was only one way to kill Harry, and he knew what he had to do.

It was at that point Blastaar did something Harry had not expected. His hands glowed to the maximum and fired down, propelling himself through the air like a rocket. in the opposite direction...

Harry used a myriad of spells and everything he could think of to catch up, but the speed of Blastaar's acceleration outstripped anything Harry could accomplish unassisted and he certainly had not thought to bring his flying broom out from his inventory before coming here.

Eventually Blastaar lost Harry's trail and Harry could only lament the one that got away. This was always the problem with big fishes after all.

Although Harry had a map now, he didn't bother returning to the asteroid and just made a portal out of the Negative Zone.

The other end of the portal connected back into the Baxter building and Harry entered calmly. The only thing which touched his armor was the falling debris of the collapsing palace so he was pretty much fine. Had he not been a video game character, he would likely either be completely out of breath, sweating buckets, or close to collapse. Harry exerted 100% of every bit of strength he had access to for the duration of the fight. Although he didn't win, his Warrior, Magic, Dragon, and Psionic paths all noticeably got closer to their next increase in rank thanks to fighting someone who by all accounts was much stronger than Harry was.

Upon exiting the portal, Harry saw Johnny clad in flames pointing threateningly in his direction, but once Harry emerged, he released his flames and shouted, "The Professor's back and he's alright!"

Harry fought against Blastaar for about an hour after the palace collapsed and the former King ran off, but considering the time difference, it should only have been a few moments since the rest returned.

From another part of the room Reed said, "Was everything alright Professor? What happened to Blastaar?"

Harry answered, "When running he was capable of accelerating to over 20,000 miles per hour and ended up getting away."

Johnny shouted, "Woah, that fast?!" Johnny's top speed was less than a hundredth of that. Harry figured with more practice he could crack a few multiples of the sound barrier but not even Harry knew if the male Storm sibling would ever be capable of that speed.

Reed asked, "What of the rebels?"

Harry rolled his eyes and answered, "I doubt Blastaar would return quickly after I chased him but even if he did, those guys lived on an asteroid, not a planet. They may have been orbiting a black hole, but gravity in the Negative Zone is weird, so they could probably relocate the whole thing before Senior Flashy Fingers returns."

Reed considered it and frowned. "A shame. I was hoping to discuss more with them after dealing with Blastaar. Think of what we could learn from them."

Harry sighed and said, "Reed. If they ever see you again, they are just as likely to shoot you as they are to ignore you."

Johnny asked, "What, why? After all Susan and Reed did for them?"

Harry explained, "From what I observed, the former king that Blastaar overthrew to rule them was not the slightest bit better than Blastaar himself. The reason the rebels wanted him off the throne wasn't because he was an ineffective ruler, but because they were xenophobic racists who would rather die than serve an alien."

Reed surmised, "So they never had any intention of forging any relationship with us?"

Harry added, "Let me put it this way. Before we got there, did they offer plans which required you and Susan to confront Blastaar?"

Reed nodded, "They did."

Harry finished, "Those suits you wore prevented you from becoming a matter-antimatter annihilation bomb. It wouldn't take much to sabotage them and make you explode at the right time. In fact both Blastaar and the rebels likely had this use for you as a plan B if they could figure out a way to use you to lure Blastaar far enough away for the damage from the explosion to not affect their home."

Reed looked pensive for a moment before sighing in defeat, likely recalling the obvious signs that Harry was correct.

Still, Reed looked over to Harry and asked, "Will you be making another trip into the Negative Zone in the future?"

Harry answered, "Likely. Though I'll need quite a bit more prep before that."

Before Reed could ask, Harry added, "I'll only let you go if Susan allows you to, so make sure to start sucking up to her." If Harry did find a relic site, a second set of observant eyes may be useful.

Besides, Harry guessed that Reed had a Luck stat well over 100 or more. That would explain how he got Susan in the first place and explain how all the horrible things he's gone through haven't killed him yet. Bringing him along should increase the chance of either finding something there, or something there finding them. Luck was fickle like that.

The remainder of the summer was uneventful and the fall semester started. Harry's higher level Metaphysics class was joined once more by Hope van Dyne, Fitz and Simmons, and Mockingbird was accepted back into class as well. Liah Ardyh was not admitted back in. Harry may or may not have accidentally deleted her records prior to the admission period and though the copies were resubmitted, the enrollment period had ended by them and she wasn't able to return.

Jade, Mary Jane, and their friends were all in their final year of High School along with Peter and deciding what they would do with their lives. Their frequent returns to Harry's house continued and Harry wondered if it would continue into college as well.

One of the reasons they continued it, besides Harry's food, was because they had less time to spend together otherwise. Gwen had gotten an internship at Oscorp since Harry didn't have a place for non magical human employees in his company besides placeholders at the moment. Felicia had gotten a new hobby which caused her to become more and more fit. She told everyone she was also interning somewhere, but Harry could tell she was lying. Not that he'd call her out on it or pry deeply. It was her business after all.

It was October when things started getting tense for the citizens of New York. The weirdos the Fantastic Four often fought had decided to team up. The Beetle, Trapster, Hydroman, and Wizard called themselves the Frightful Four and went together against the Fantastic Four.

The cops couldn't do anything useful as the Trapster's Glue gun stuck a number of officers in place, basically using them as hostages and human shields, forcing their heroic rivals to come personally.

The villainous quartet obviously had a plan and sprung a trap, but their team work wasn't anything special and Reed had developed a number of counter measures to their tech based foes and eventually emerged victorious.

Harry had a bad feeling that Peter's six usual foes would have the same idea soon.

After using money to get himself out of jail, Kraven the Hunter had decided to stick around New York and decided to occasionally try his hand at killing Peter along with Sandman, Doctor Octopus, Electro, Rhino, and Scorpion. Harry wasn't sure how they decided whose turn it was each day. Did they draw straws or were they assigned shifts?

It was on the last day of October of course that something even worse than Harry's expectations occurred.

On live news, Spiderman and the Fantastic Four were lured into a trap together and it was revealed that Peter's six foes had teamed up with Reed's four.

Of all things, they actually called themselves the Terrible Ten, and on live TV after defeating both the Fantastic Four and Spiderman, they declared that New York City belonged to them now.

While watching this on TV, Harry could only sigh and send the text message his girls had been waiting for. He gave a silent moment of prayer out to the Terrible Ten and hoped they enjoyed it while it lasted. Escalation was a terrible thing. One moment you are at the top of the world. And the next, everyone and their grandmother is right up there with you and some were even higher.

In Times Square, Otto Octavius continued reading from his list of demands on camera. Of the assembled villains, he was the least camera shy and least likely to stutter embarrassingly on live TV. Wizard had already used his anti-gravity discs to arrange many floating cars around them which, according to Otto's calculation, blocked all the prominent sniper vantage points meaning Otto and the others didn't need bullet proof helmets to appear in public. Each car was even floating over a trapped citizen or police officer stuck there by Trapster's glue gun, so each was both a shield and a threat to the hostages.

Otto was duly enjoying all the attention when a news reporter turned to the side and everyone glanced to see what he was shouting at.

Still sitting on his couch, Harry wasn't the least bit surprised when the Boobmail wearing Red Sonja captured the eyes and cameras of every person in Times Square the moment she was spotted. It was MJ of course, but she could shift back and forth into her old form of Red Sonja which made for a good cover to prevent others from easily figuring out her secret identity.

Still, Harry didn't think he'd be able to sell toys of her to children without giving her a cloak or something. There was barely more metal in her two piece chainmail bikini than there was in her sword.

Though every eye in the city had just turned to her as she approached, Red Sonja had led armies against the darkest of creatures so this pressure amounted to nothing in her eyes.

She called out, "You damnable villains shall not find victory this day. Now stands before you Red Sonja, she-devil of the Hyrkanian Steppes!"

The manner of speaking combined with the wardrobe should have elicited a stream of laughter, but the confidence and strength of her words left the audience silent.

Scorpion was the first to recover and walked forward asking maliciously, "Hehe, it looks like an example needs to be made. What kind of idiot actually challenges us with a sword?"

Red Sonja smiled confidently and shouted, "One who does not fight alone!"

Jade, who had been intangible and invisible, revealed herself next to Red Sonja, floating to the side. She was of course in her adult mode wearing her red cheongsam with a golden dragon embroidered over it and a red silk mask over her mouth and nose.

In a burst of brimstone smoke appeared a tall well toned blonde standing to Jade's side. She looked about twenty five as well but had no mask. Instead she had a black costume and black long coat, both bearing a large crimson X. This was Rogue who'd used Mystique's power to shapeshift.

Wanda apparated into the space the next moment and started floating. She had a completely red suit, red witch's cloak, and red crown-like mask which covered the top half of her face with a visor to hide her identity. Her hands glowed a dangerous scarlet as a warning to others.

And from the sky descended a floating Jean in a red and gold suit. She used a simple illusion over her face to appear older and different enough not to be recognized.

They all appeared together at Red Sonja's call in a grand display of showmanship likely to be rerun on air over and over for the rest of the year.

Harry smiled and shook his head. He doubted many of those 'terrible' ten had adequate mental defenses to block Jean from rendering them unconscious, but Harry was an advocate for hiding your true abilities so he couldn't tell if he was a good influence or a bad influence on them.

Red Sonja shouted, "Engage!" as she charged forward. With a single sweep of her enchanted blade, Scorpion's tail had been cut off before he'd had time to react and the acid connected to his tail in the suit started pouring out.

Scarlet Witch had teleported to the bound Peter and the Fantastic Four and shot out bolts of chaos magic at their bindings, destroying them and allowing them to free themselves.

Thing shouted, "It's clobberin time!"

Spider-Man however stopped him, "Wait! We're not needed!"

Johnny asked, "What? They're still outnumbered!"

Peter continued, "Trust me. Let's just make sure everyone else is protected from the fight and get those hostages free while they're distracted."

Susan and Reed shared a glance and nodded. They separated and surrounded the fight to keep the collateral damage to a minimum and free the hostages under the floating cars.

Jean had already telekinetically lifted Scorpion as he drained of acid and pointed him at Sandman. The latter was too slow to dodge and much of his mineralized cells were damaged, forcing him to concentrate his form rather than spread out.

Hydroman turned into a massive wave and rushed Jade. The latter didn't bother to dodge and simply turned intangible by shifting into the astral plane as the wave passed over her. After shifting back she turned to Rogue and shouted, "Crimson X, you take care of him."

Rogue shouted back, "You got it Dragonheart," and shot a harsh beam of intense cold at Hydroman. Before he could respond he had already turned into an ice sculpture.

Still watching from his couch, Harry nodded. When working together, it was best to assign the right person to the right job. No need to inefficiently fight someone that a teammate can one shot. As for the names, it was something the girls already came up with. Rogue and Jade called themselves Crimson X and Dragonheart respectively. Jean and Wanda called themselves Phoenix and Scarlet Witch, and Red Sonja just used her name as her call sign.

Dr. Octopus was already mad that these girls were taking away his attention, and now that they were disrupting his plans he was furious. He charged Red Sonja as she drew his ire the most and seemed the weakest. He launched his metal arm at her with a force strong enough to crush bedrock, yet when the tip of her sword intercepted the blow, it swiftly turned and angled the fierce strike a notch to the side just as the swordswoman did a half step to dodge. It seemed simple yet the elegant motion was done in an instant. Faster than Otto could command his other arms to follow up, Red Sonja had closed in on the scientist and spun around. Once she reached him she slammed the hilt of her sword against Otto's forehead, knocking him out cold before he understood how he had lost.

Her next target was Scorpion. He'd lost his tail and acid but he was still much stronger than a normal human thanks to the crazy lunatic's experiment on him and he was already charging her from behind. He would join his partner in dream land moments later.

Rhino and Sandman both charged Wanda once they noticed she released the prisoners. She responded by sending a tripping jinx at the pair, causing them to collide into each other. Sandman popped into a pile of sand and Rhino fell over and rolled to the side. Wanda transfigured the ground into a deep mud pit that Rhino quickly started sinking into. He tried to swim and wade but Wanda had stacked a number of other jinxes and curses preventing him from moving any direction but down, deeper into the mud.

Sandman came back together in time to see Rhino sink to his neck into the mud before he stopped getting deeper. He shouted at Wanda and turned his fist into a mallet and struck forward. Wanda apparated behind him and charged a powerful Hex bolt she released point blank. Sandman's sand exploded like someone buried a firework at the beach and scattered around. This time though, he didn't reassemble quickly. The scattered grains of sand moved towards each other very, very slowly. Wanda smiled and floated into the air to watch Jean finish up her share.

Jade used the intangibility gained when shifting into the astral plane to dodge the Glue gun of the Trapster while Hunter tried attacking her close up and Electro tried shooting her with electricity. She would fade like a ghost out of sight with each use giving her a mystic, eerie feeling.

Kraven shouted, "You can only hide, you are not worthy of being my prey!"

Jade's eyes narrowed at the provocation and she took a stance and made the universal motion of, 'Come here.'

Kraven pounced on her but was stopped by Jade grabbing and lifting him by the neck and floating into the air. He tried to free himself, but the super strength granted by the Bull Talisman's incorporation into the Dragon Heart which granted her its powers was not something he could counter so easily.

Jade flew behind Trapster and threw Kraven at Trapster's pack with enough force to crack Trapster's glue storage tank. The tank shattered and covered Kraven and Trapster in glue, sticking them to the ground and to themselves.

Electro used the opening to fire another bolt of lightning at Jade, but she blocked it using a Sorcery Shield. Even though she was wearing a mask and Harry was watching her from the TV, he could still see how proud she was that the Shield worked. It was the first Sorcerer skill she had mastered.

With one hand up and blocking the continuous lightning barrage, Jade made a hand sign with the other and seemed to be chanting beneath her mask. A moment later, the fire hydrants around the block burst forth and the water coalesced into an oriental dragon. It roared into the sky and charged at Electro. The man fired at it but his powers were of no use and he was rammed by the water stream into a wall where he lost consciousness. Though she could only use one Sorcerer skill, the Dragon Heart granted a massive boost to the Chi magic she was capable of using in her adult form.

From the beginning of the fight, Wizard and Beetle had been fighting the floating Jean in the air. Wizard stood on a floating disk and Beetle's suit had insect-like wings and a small jetpack to allow him swift flight.

Wizard fought by throwing discs at various objects such as cars and people. Those discs contained remote controlled antigravity mechanisms he could control with his helmet and use like pseudo-telekinesis.

Beetle used his flight and armor to execute high speed hit and run tactics.

Jean was playing with them both. It was only when she noticed everyone else had been taken care of that she ripped Beetle's jetpack off his armor and removed Wizard's helmet off his head. Without the helmet to control his disc, the one he stood on fell to earth and along with Beetle, both landed with a harsh bounce.

Watching this entire fight from the side, Spider-Man could be seen shouting at various moments, "Yeah! How do You like it! Hurts doesn't it! I Know that will leave a Mark! It's gonna hurt for Weeks!"

A few of the bystanders watching Spider-Man slowly stepped away from him, not understanding why he was so emotional over seeing these villains get beaten up by the girls.

Once Jean had finished, Red Sonja shouted up, "Good work Phoenix." They'd made sure to call out everyone's name at least once to ensure no one else would decide their names for them.

As a final measure, Jean gathered some wreckage and Wanda transmuted it into a container for Sandman's sand and Hydroman's ice. Jean also lifted Rhino out of the mud and Spider-Man came over and wrapped him up in a big cocoon.

Although the fight from start to finish lasted less than two minutes, each girl should still be mostly satisfied with how much they showed off. Besides, they still had plenty still hidden. Jean didn't show her telepathy, precognition, or phoenix fire. Jade didn't show her ability to animate inanimate objects or shoot energy beams. Wanda barely showed off the power of chaos magic, and Rogue only showed two of the massive assortment of powers she possessed.

MJ technically showed everything she was capable of after knocking out Dr. Octopus and Scorpion, but as a Goddess blessed Swordswoman, her strongest power was, according to Harry, plot armor. That was also one of the reasons she was their team leader though technically she could be considered the weakest among them.

Plot armor isn't something you can plan against. In fact doing so usually makes things worse, so he wasn't too worried about people looking down on her and thinking they can beat her easily.

Harry and his girls spent the remainder of their day watching the news and enjoying the reruns of their heroic debut. The news had collectively dubbed them the Reds and many aspects of the fight were analyzed for hours on end. Harry smiled every time Red Sonja got screen time. Her blade work and combat style wasn't flashy but it was beautiful and easy to watch on TV.

MJ noticed this and asked, "Is it weird I'm getting jealous of you watching me on TV?"

Harry turned and answered with a searing kiss that promised more to come later.

The following day, Harry's Insurance company got more business than the prior length of its existence. The idea that ten villains could team up and defeat the local heroes and police was enough to make anyone with doubts reconsider the Insurance Harry was offering. The prices weren't bad for what he was offering but it still increased the cost of living in New York, though since cost of living was always increasing, few would notice or pay that much attention.

After their debut, the Reds would occasionally patrol various parts of the city. Everyone but MJ could fly so they would patrol from the rooftops while MJ would just walk around looking normal and shift into Red Sonja mode when she spotted an Injustice that needed handling.

Link the AI acted as their manager and supervisor. He had a few invisible drones throughout the city monitoring variables he felt needed attention and would give the Reds a schedule of patrolling that increased the likelihood of effectiveness. Not that Harry felt such a thing may really be needed. Each girl had a Luck stat over 80 meaning they attracted events when they wanted to or not.

The sudden appearance of five new heroes, four of which had amazing powers stunned the criminal element of the city into a momentary silence. It almost seemed like for every hero that popped up, a new villain would appear, and for every villain to appear, a new hero would pop up. Those considering becoming one or the other couldn't stop themselves from wondering if they entered the scene, who would enter to oppose them?

Thanks to this, New York experienced a period of calm.

Harry on the other hand worked harder than ever. He couldn't help but feel it was the calm before the storm.

Every weekend he'd take the girls into the Negative Zone for three days, which amounted to an hour in New York. Although he never found Blastaar, he did find a number of sites filled with monsters eager to rip intruders to shreds.

Harry's goal was level 290 before the end of the year and level 300 before next summer.

At the moment he wasn't too far off.

[Harry Potter

Level 285 Age 17

STR 375 AGI 375

INT 600 WIS 550

LUK 50

Warrior Path Rank 40

Scholar Path Rank 47

Magic Path Rank 47

Tech Path Rank 43

Business Path Rank 39

Crafting Path Rank 39

Dragon Path Rank 35

Psionic Path Rank 36

Sex Path Rank 40]

And the girls were getting stronger with each week as well. Jade was catching up nicely and Jean was making up for her absence while MJ was blazing through levels one after another.

Jade Chan: Level 155. Age 17

Anna Marie: Level 173. Age 17

Wanda Maximoff: Level 173. Age 17

Jean Grey: Level 161. Age 18

Mary Jane Watson: Level 103. Age 17

It was after the end of the fall semester near Christmas when Harry felt something he'd been expecting for a long time. The Portkey he gave Thor was on its way back. When it arrived, Harry would have the coordinates of Asgard.

*Author's Note*

I think I'll put in one more chapter of filler before I start with Loki's invasion. Stones Recharge my will to write.