Harry found that it was very easy to relax once he was on the jet, he had never really been comfortable around normal people and it was comforting to know that everyone here was a mutant like him even if they weren't quite as freaky. The woman that had been having the problems with something in her mind was one of the pilots and whatever she had been having problems with was still there, steadily getting stronger though it seemed to be calmly reaching out to him instead of the violent pushing it had been doing at the museum. The other pilot was Ms. Monroe and she looked shocked at Harry's presence before she nodded sharply once and started the lift off. The man that had been with the woman with control issues was also there but he seemed more than content to glare at the feral and ignore the fact that there was anyone else even on the jet.
The only other mutant on the jet when they stepped on was a rather unusual looking fellow that was content to pray almost constantly. His appearance clearly marked him as the mutant that was accused of attacking the president and he carried the same mental disturbance that Magneto had. Harry had no doubt that the Stryker human was the one to force this mutant to attack the president, probably so he could gain clearance to attack a school of all things.
Most of the ride was pleasantly quiet, especially sitting next to Magneto, all Harry had to really deal with was when Magneto made a show of playing up to John's, Pyro's, ego and making him think that he was too good to go to Xavier's school. Harry found himself mildly impressed with how easily Magneto played the boy, gaining not only his trust but managing to separate him from Bobby.
Jean found the young man that took the seat next to Magneto to be highly disturbing though there was something about him that drew her to him despite that. He didn't show very much emotion on his face and hadn't said a single word since he got on but he observed everything with a keen eye and seemed to be passing judgments on them all and she found herself hoping that he did not find her wanting. It was the same feeling that she had had when she first arrived at the institute towards the Professor and she still felt that way whenever she was alone with him.
Storm was undoubtedly worried about the presence of the young man that the professor had been trying so very hard to find. The professor hadn't even been able to pick up the slightest ping from the young man's mind but when things decided to go wrong he showed up with Magneto of all people. She didn't think for one moment that the young man had had anything to do with the professor's disappearance but she knew that he had to have been watching them closely to know when they needed help and the thought that he could do that from such a distance without the help of Cerebro was more then enough to make her very uncomfortable.
She watched them out of the corner of her eye the entire trip until they decided to stop for the night and found that she was more confused about the reasons that they showed up together then she had been at the start of the flight. Harry, if she remembered correctly, didn't even try to talk to either Mystique or Magneto but he also made no attempt to talk to anyone else. It was almost as if he didn't even notice that they were there; he stared at several of them for a moment or two as if sizing them up before he lost interest in that and started to drift off until he looked to be almost asleep in his seat even though she had the distinct impression that he would still notice even the slightest movement in his direction. She sighed lightly as she stepped off the jet and got ready to give them a bit of weather coverage for the night; as long as the group helped them save the professor it didn't really matter what the reasons behind it were.
Scott hardly noticed that their group had gotten bigger as he glared at Logan. He should have been at the manor when it was attacked but he had trusted the animal to be at least capable of protecting a fortified base and he had failed. The professor was captured and they had to deal with help from the enemy to get him back. There was no way that he was going to trust the feral with anything important again.
Harry sat as far from the group of teenagers as he possibly could; they were noisy and spent more time arguing then anything else. He focused most of his attention on the conversation that was taking place between the adults around the campfire. They seemed to have a somewhat descent plan but he could tell that none of the 'X-men' trusted Magneto and Mystique as far as they could throw them and he was included with them in their mental list of variables. The only mind that was closed to him was the mind of the feral one, Logan.
Logan's mind was like a mine field that had already been run through several times explosions and all. The memories were broken and scattered all over the place with no sense of order or direction though his personality seemed to be perfectly intact. There were also emotions floating around that were highly confusing and they were all directed at Harry. There was an emotion that felt vaguely like what he often found within his family but stronger and with a primal edge that caused butterflies to fill Harry's stomach.
Magneto found most of Xavier's 'children' to be highly annoying. The girl, Rogue, that he had almost succeeding in using in the Liberty Island plan seemed to be amusingly high strung and easy to completely fluster but showed very little ambition just like the little snowman of hers. The fire bug seemed to be the normal teenage boy, easy to manipulate with a stroke of his over inflated ego. The boy would no doubt find a way to separate from the others to join him. His powers weren't overly useful but it would certainly be a blow to the X-men's pride. The older group were every bit as distrusting and hateful as they normally were with the exception of the feral who spent more time staring at Harry then he did anything else; hopefully he had the intelligence to only stare.
When the woman, Petunia, had first started talking to him about her little plan he had only paid the bare minimum amount of attention until she got to what he would get in the deal. The boy was certainly an excellent bargaining chip. His powers seemed to know no bounds and he doubted that the boy had even shown half of what he was capable of. Harry also seemed to be emotionally crippled which made him excellent at viewing everything logically.
The woman also surprised him with another little revelation that had stopped his breathing for a moment before he had had to reassess everything that he had planned which was an inconvenience but it opened up new pathways and futures that would have been forever lost otherwise.
To think that modern mutants were actually products of the second splitting of the human genome and that there was an entire world full of the products of the first split living right under the humans noses. He found it fascinating that instead of becoming the leaders of the inferior race these 'magical' beings decided to hide themselves from the normal people. What would cause them to separate themselves and hide from weaker beings? He had no doubt though that they would view mutants as a threat that needed to be eliminated and until he found a way to neutralize the threat that they represented he would need to keep mutants off their radar, but as soon as he had a couple of aces up his sleeve he would do everything in his power to make sure that no mutant was ever put through anything like what he had went through as a child.
"Harry, why don't you join us over by the fire, you don't have to sit over here by yourself." Rogue approached Harry very carefully; even she could tell that he wasn't a person you snuck up on.
Harry turned to look at her with a calculating look in his eyes that caused a shiver to crawl up her spine and that seemed to be what he was looking for. "No thank you, I have no reason to desire any company at this moment in time. We will leave early in the morning so it would be best if we all retired anyway." He stood gracefully and entered one of the tents that the adults had set up without a backward glance and Rogue was left with the impression then she had failed some kind of test and she returned to the other teens without noticing the furious look on Bobby's face or the interested one on John's.
Harry had never been a particularly heavy sleeper, his early childhood with the Dursleys had beat a schedule into him that always started at a different time in the early hours of the day and even now he slept lightly as if to hear when his aunt came down the stairs to get him. He was instantly awake the moment that his tent flap was opened and he sent the intruder flying out of the tent to land ten feet from the entrance with Harry following after him with a blank look on his face. The intruder turned out to be a rather angry looking Bobby.
The sound of Bobby's body hitting the ground brought the rest of the residents out of their tents while Bobby righted himself and glared at Harry. "What the hell is the matter with you? You insulted my mother and brother yesterday and then when Rogue asked you to join us around the fire last night you made it seem like it would be too much of a bother for you to spend time around us."
"Bobby..." Storm made to step forward only to find her path blocked by an amused Magneto.
Harry cocked his head to one side and looked at Bobby like he was a difficult puzzle that he was trying to solve. "I told your mother the truth about not only what your brother was likely to do but also the reaction that would be most likely if the police were summoned. Just because you cannot understand the fact that most humans are not accepting of mutants does not justify coming into my personal space while I am sleeping."
"What makes you think that things would have happened that way?" Bobby's voice rose in his anger and his face turned a bright red.
Harry was still unfazed as he looked at Bobby without a single shred of sympathy. "You are a child that honestly believes that your parents will always love you and that the police are there to protect everyone." Harry's eyes seemed to glow for a moment before it faded slightly. "Not all people in this world are going to accept someone unlike themselves. Do you honestly believe that a normal person would accept what Marie is capable of if they knew that she could suck the life right out of them with a kiss or a hug? I am a telepath, one of the most feared manner of mutants as we can not only view someone's deepest secrets without their knowledge, but we can also change the very structure of their mind and turn them into someone completely different or make them bow down to our will. Your mother's mind was constantly swirling around possible cures for your mutant problem while your brother could only think about how this was his chance to prove that he was a better son then you were. Your father was in a state of shock and seemed to be going over his family tree in his head trying to find out where the taint came from."
Harry looked at the shocked face of Bobby before glancing around and finding that the faces around him varied greatly. Magneto looked pleased as did Mystique while Storm, Scott and Jean looked to be confused as they had no idea what they were talking about. Rogue was shaking as tears slid down her face, perhaps he should have left her out if she was so unready for the truth. John seemed to be deep in thought as he looked over at Magneto. Nightcrawler, Kurt, seemed to be mumbling something under his breath that sounded strangely like scripture and clutching beads in his hands. Logan was the most unusual face in the bunch, he seemed to be focusing all of his attention on Harry with a look in his eyes that Harry was unused to and it made his stomach flip in a pleasant way.
The morning was extremely quiet after that, no one quite knew just what to say and no one was willing to try. Bobby kept himself as far from Harry as he could with Rogue practically glued to his side as he seemed to be trying to burn holes in Harry with a glare that Harry didn't even notice. Magneto and Mystique kept positions on either side of Harry as he went over plans in his head about what they would need to do to get the professor out of Stryker's grasp. Kurt was still praying though he wasn't as fidgety about it this time. Logan was sitting as close to Harry as he could with his two guards on either side and he was staring and it was making it hard for Harry to concentrate.
Logan was a feral mutant and he both knew and respected that fact, it was one of the only things that he knew was a part of him even before his memory stopped. If you were feral you were always feral. The moment that he caught sight of the beautiful little telepath that was following Magneto his feral side went into its own little world that contained a pack with him and the little beauty at the center. The slight male form that seemed to hover between male and female while still being wholly male was unbelievably alluring and blew every thought of Jean out of his mind.
The power that the little one seemed to use like a third hand made the hair on the back of his neck stand up in all the right ways and his inability to understand the way that other people felt called to his natural urge to protect him. He wanted to form his own pack and he wanted the powerful little flower to be his mate.
The biggest obstacles were Magneto and Mystique. They seemed to know exactly what he was planning and were going to get in his way. The night before Mystique had come into his room looking like Jean and smirked when she noticed that he wasn't interested before transforming into Harry and her smirk grew when he barely controlled his reaction. Now they were making very sure that he didn't get close and it was starting to get on his nerves. They would either let him get to the little one or he was going to go through them, ability to control metal or not.
Magneto was never what could be called a stupid man; he knew that the feral was interested in Harry. The man barely took his eyes off the boy and you could practically feel the hormones coming off of him in waves. A feral was probably just the thing that the boy would need to ground his powers but the metallic animal would have to prove himself worthy before he would even be allowed to get close. Time would only tell if he would be able to pull it off.
Tensions were high as they drew near the base under Alkaline Lake, no one in the group trusted every member and it showed. Harry watched as the teenagers argued about being left behind and how they had just as much right to join in the fight as anyone else. "Why not let them come along if they seem so set on putting themselves in danger?" His voice drew the attention of everyone and Bobby looked almost offended from having him speak up on their behalf, however insulting he was. "They would probably get in the way but they are just as much of a liability out here where they could end up getting caught or revealing our presence before we even get in." No one really had a come back for that though the look on Bobby's face told Harry that there were many things that he wished that he could say.
Mystique volunteered to be the one to infiltrate the base as Wolverine as she was the only one that knew how to operate the door controls and managed to pull her part off without a hitch though the enemy knew they were there. Most of the remaining soldiers were taken out by the X-men while Magneto and Harry walked through the door like they owed the place. The teenagers followed behind like lost ducklings.
Harry could have helped the others out but they didn't trust him and he was devoting most of his energy to finding the Professor and making sure that there weren't any other mutants trapped by this Stryker. "There are only three other mutants in the base. One is controlling the Professor through illusion and is being controlled himself. There is a female that is being controlled the same way wandering around the lab area. The last mutant is slipping in and out of consciousness and while it appears that similar methods of control were used on him he is still in control of his own mind."
Magneto made a humming sound as he completely ignored the others. "Do we have enough time to get to this elusive mutant before whatever insane plot the human has bears fruit?"