Chapter 64- War Council

  Citadel- Portal Room- Oct 30, 2008 (Morning)

  Anna Marie Hopewell- (Rogue)

  Anna knew that she and a few others of the Brotherhood were going along to make sure Nath'aniel was protected while meeting the anit-Ice Carvers alliance. Still, out of habit, she tapped her earbud, just to be safe as the doors in front of her opened, and it announced in her ear. "Suppression is currently on."

  Then she looked around the room and was surprised to see that she was the first of the Brotherhood to arrive, the mage was here reading some scroll of his, but she had him to herself. So teen looked herself over quick. 'Sports bra, check, booty shorts, check, bomber jacket, check.' She thought before running up and grabbing Nath'aniel up in a hug.

  Wrapping one arm low and the other high, Anna id her head on his shoulder and asked. "What ya reading, sugar?" She had to suppress her urge to giggle when her breasts being pressed into his back made him cough a little.

  The mage cleared his throat one more time, before answering. "It is the list of changes that were done to my body while I slept."

  She risked a gnce at it while asking. "Why? I thought you were working on the binding thing to teach those other magic users"

  Nath'aniel sighed, making her think that he had hit a wall on that side of things, before he expined. "I have already finished reading the Servant Thesis, and also more than a third of the way rereading it, and by all the writings there it should work. And when I mentioned that to someone they reminded me that I too am part of the equation, and my body has been altered so I figure that they are right and the missing component is in here." As the mage spoke he rolled up the scroll, and then added something she wasn't expecting. "I wanted to thank you by the way…"

  Yet before she heard that Anna read something, well she read a good portion of the list actually. Most of it she didn't understand, like the several entries that said css and then a number, but they were near the top of the list she read. So she was a bit overwhelmed when she read it aloud. "Increased penis and testicle size?"

  He turned to face her, his nose touching her cheek when he admitted. "Yes, the sarcophagus increased the length of my shaft by two inches when fully aroused, and both of my balls by half an inch."

  "Why?" Anna blurted out a little too loud as she saw him flinched at her voice. So she quickly apologized softly. "Sorry."

  "I believe those changes were made to increase my success chances at impregnation. The idea is that a longer shaft allows better access to the womb and rger balls would increase the amount of seed released per mating." He shrugged and her face was pressed against his before he added. "Not that I had any say in the changes done to me."

  Anna was about to ask him about what he had said before she interrupted him, but the doors to the room drowned her out, and the new people shouted at what greeted them.

  "What Do You Think You Are Doing?!" Basilisk demanded from them.

  Yet Anna received defense from someone she hadn't realized was always there. "Rogue hugged him and then they were reading and discussing a scroll together," She-Devil said from off to the side of the room. She was sitting on a metal crate and was running a stone over the edge of one of her machetes.

  The rge four-armed woman wasn't the only one to join them, the three Asgardians were beside her, and then there was Deadpool and Quicksilver behind all of them. The speedster was covering his mouth as he ughed meanwhile the regenerator was making rubbing and kissing motions like he was making out with himself.

  Both quickly tried to police their faces as Bass turned to look at them, while the teenage boy, used his speed to dash inside the room and stand beside the giant seashell, the rge woman punched the merc with one of her lower arms. Deadpool was pushed back a good foot and held himself where she had hit him.

  Anna released the mage and hopped back, as Basilisk walked into the room. "Do you need some healing?" Frey offered.

  "I'm good," Deadpool muttered, and then pulled his mask down over his face, before following the gods into the room st.

  The rge woman scooped up her mage lover and kissed him while the others made it into the middle of the room. She still held onto him, but gave Nath'aniel enough space to breathe and speak, and the mage gave the three gods one st chance to back out. "You can still back out of this if you wish, this is entirely a local matter."

  Frey just shrugged his shoulders, while his sister Freya muttered. "Hunting blue skins may be more sporting than hunting the giant lizards of your homend." Then she pulled out a string and readied her bow. Then she stomped her foot and cocked her head, it took a second for Anna to realize the goddess was counting the arrows in her hip quiver by ear alone.

  She wasn't the only one prepping, as Deadpool was checking the amount of bullets in his four different pistols. And Frey's squire was checking the clearance of her sword stored in her shield, and the three spears strapped to her back.

  "Honestly surprised Exodus isn't insisting on going out with us, or was here," Anna muttered.

  "He was here. I put him to sleep when it was clear he hadn't rested in over a day." The mage muttered. Then the doors opened again, and in walked Psylocke. She had the mage's bded staff in one hand and a leather pouch in the other.

  She walked towards him and nodded at her rival, but waited to hand him his weapon, who then ordered. "Open the portal Citadel."

  The group waited for it to fully open before Deadpool and Quicksilver went through first. Basilisk lowered the mage, and the telepath handed him both the staff and the bag. Again, the rge woman shared a chaste kiss with him, before following Frey and his squire through. Anna knew that the Servants needed to leave at the same time as Nath'aniel so she went through with Freya.

  "That was oddly smoother than the Bi-frost." The goddess muttered before she knocked an arrow and aimed at one of the dozen tribals pointing weapons at their group. Said tribals lowered their weapons the moment that they saw Nath'aniel exited the portal st.

  Most of them were Leapers, the bunny-eared beastkin. Others were human, but like many of the natives of the Savage Lands, they looked like folk out of some terrible post-apocalypse movie from the 60s. Armed with gemstone or gss-tipped spears or arrowheads. Yet the smallest group was a trio of oriental-ish humans armed with scrap-like clubs.

  Nath'aniel walked towards the middle of their group before the portal closed behind them, and then he spoke to the Leapers in an airy high-pitched nguage, to which the bunny people replied back in. One of the rear Leapers barked orders in another nguage, and the tribals all started to disperse and leave them alone.

  "Nath speaks bunny, think he would teach me?" Quicksilver asked rhetorically.

  "He reminded them of their leaders' request for his aid, and asked for them to lead them to the communal tent." Frey transted.

  Deadpool looked over his shoulder and asked the bigger man. "You speak bunny too?"

  "We are Asgardian, we speak all the nguages of the Yggdasill Alliance." Freya corrected, as she put her arrow away. Then the goddess moved to follow the Leapers.

  The rest of them followed her. Still, they were not really sure how that worked so Anna asked. "How does that work, our nguages have changed even in my lifetime, yet you somehow understand it all?"

  Nath'ainel expined instead of the gods. "As the patrons of the Alliance, they are all blessed with Allspeak. They will understand the words spoken but not the intent. Sarcasm, culture, and humor will not transte, only the literal meaning."

  They walked for only a short way given they were technically near the front lines of the war with the Ice Carver Atntean kingdom, yet it wasn't some field of tents or a cave the beastkin led them to, but rather a half-burned-out barn.

  Inside the barn a rge table was set up, above it, a bnket was id out to protect the table from the weather. Around the table were eight people or beastkin, a couple Anna recognized from past Entreatment Days, like the chieftess of the Leapers and the High Shaman of the Gss Talkers. Yet given the fact that the Pterons representatives were perched up in the rafters by the bnket, Anna was surprised by the pair of odd strangers off by themselves.

  One was bulky and had extra limbs like Basilisk, while the other was lithe like a Leaper, but clearly not by the mandibles. However, it somehow did not surprise her when the mage bowed and greeted the strange creatures, in their own odd popping and clicking nguage. Yet once she heard it, she realized what they were.

  'Shell-born. The ones that live in the Citadel did mention something about a chaste system for their kind, but I never would have guessed it was this extreme.' The mutant thought, but remained quiet, watching for signs of betrayal that Mama Raven had taught her to look for.

  Then Nath'aniel dumped out the contents of the leather bag onto the table, small curved stones nded atop the table, and the mage picked out five as he requested. "Would one of you Asgardians expin to them the nature of these runes?"

  Urd'hildi stepped to the edge of the table and gestured to the remaining runes and said. "These are magic stones; by pcing one on your foreheads we will understand each other as if speaking at Entreatment Day."

  The gathered tribals looked at each other slightly surprised that they understood the squire, yet each of them had someone approach one at a time to collect a pair of rune stones for their groups. Then in a fsh, Quicksilver runs up takes the ones that the mage kept for them to use, and pces them all on the Brotherhood members.

  With the stones in pce, when the Leaper Cheiftess speaks Anna understands her, but more oddly she seems to have her sister's French accent. "With your presence, and escort, is it safe to assume you have agreed to loan us some of your champions in this upcoming fight?"

  "While I have confirmed your accusations, the Ice Carver nobility have devolved into tyrants and are beating and hurting anyone they y their hands on. But I will not command my friends to fight where I will not, so instead of them fighting beside you I will lend you the aid of my magic." Nath'aniel expined to the tribals. Anna saw the mixed reaction to his answer, she wasn't sure if Nath did as well but still, he added. "That said I have asked Lord Frey and Lady Freya, from Asgard, and they, and Lord Frey's squire have agreed to fight alongside the rest of you as well."

  Most of them nodded in agreement at this, but the unfamiliar group of humans then spoke up asking. "Magic, aid how?"

  Anna blinked a few times at his odd broken speech, but then had to pinch herself as she remembered that the Savage Lands were poison to anyone not able to use magic. Thus why they only ate the food grown from the Citadel's Greenhouse or the supplies that SHEILD left outside the Savage Lands at the newly built supply outpost, they still hadn't fully paid off the healing that Nath had done for their agents.

  "And you are?" Basilisk asks the stranger.

  The human blinked before he and his companion bowed rather stiffly. Their arms pressed to their hips. He went down to not quite ninety degrees, bend but he was close. "Yori, of the Sam Due." Then the two humans stood back up, their introduction over.

  Then the other Leaper, a shaman the mutant leach thought from her dress, further expined. "Unlike the other beastmen, the Yetis of the Ice Carvers stayed loyal when the rest of us broke away and fought for our freedom, and the Sam Due had an honor debt to the Yetis so they too stayed subjects of them as well."

  "Warlords, not kings. No honor." Yori stated, probably in reference to the Ice Carvers.

  Then the lithe Shell-born spoke up, despite the stone transting the bug's words, Anna could still hear some of the beastkin's clicks and pops. "Yet the human's words are spear true. What aid is your magic mage?"

  Freya then stepped forward and as she gave a death gre at the bugman she stated. "The Magi are infamous for being able to blow apart a stronghold with their magic, so do not think his offer is cking."

  While they had been asking him, the mage appeared to be reading the maps and notes id out on the table, once all eyes were on him however he cleared his throat and answered. "I can aid in several ways, it more is how you see yourselves cking.'

  "The most oblivious thing is I can bombard their forces or fortifications for you, or even create breaches in their walls. Or I can open a portal allowing you to drop some forces behind their front, although between the winged Shell-born and the Pterons being able to fly, I am not sure how helpful that is for you.'

  "Alternatively I could summon a couple packs of wind or ice spirits, who could sow death and confusion among their ranks. Or if you want something more big and fshy I suppose I could let my Servants unleash their Noble Phantasms on them."

  His answers seemed to make the tribals look around confused and unsure of what to ask for. As they processed their options Frey leaned over and asked. "Is that the thing that let Psylocke summon the orb of blood to trap the Sun People's forces?"

  Nath'aniel looked the god in the eye before admitting. "Yes."

  "It's called the Crimson Dawn, and it's my own pocket dimension," Psylocke expined, and then she looked at She-Devil and asked. "Have you looked into what yours is?"

  The blonde tilted her head and seemed to be looking at nothing while she examined herself.

  Yet her search is stopped when the mage points out. "It's possible that she can't even access it, since I have yet to grant her the ability to use it." While the mage and his Servants talked, they missed how all of the tribals were staring at them and Frey with open mouths.

  Eventually, the High Shaman of the Gss Talkers cleared his throat and said. "We have pushed the Ice Carvers so much, that they have retreated to these two forts, which control all access to their capital city of Ice Shard." The human sorcerer said pointing at a pair of markers on the map in the middle of the table.

  "That's not its name." Anna thought she heard the mage mutter softly, but didn't want to bring attention to his corrections to ask him what he meant in front of everybody.

  "Said capital has halved their defenders to reinforce said forts." One of the winged men in the rafters added.

  "If we can take these forts, we can take the region." The Leaper Cheiftess concluded.

  There was a moment of silence before Nath'aniel asked. "How many non-combatants are in the forts?"