A/N. This is more of a `filler' chapter, so if you have some question that you really want answered ask them and I'll try to answer them in the context of the next chapter, or if you want to see certain aspects of either world.
Eight Years
A silent wind rustled the short grass, flowers swaying with a sad motion; it had been eight years, eight years since he had left them, trying to defeat the very thing that was now consuming the world. A woman knelt before a grave crying silently, the four people around her stood up, the two women also wept while the men stayed strong but it was obvious that they were hurting. Three kids stood with them, one of the boys tightly hugged the kneeling woman.
"Don't cry mommy, please." He sniffed.
"James…" She hugged him back fiercely.
"Tell me about daddy." There that should do it he thought, she always got happy when she told him great stories about his dad.
"Ok." She said through a sob, she could never refuse him, whenever she looked at him those emerald green eyes would look back, and she could never refuse. She brushed his curly brown hair that could never lay perfectly right and smiled at her pride and joy.
"Today we're going to give you all some very special things." Said Ron. He had changed, he was hard, cold, brutal and excessively violent to deatheaters, out of the original founders of the D.A he had probably changed the most. His wife Luna was at his side, holding onto their son Sirius's arm, his dirty blonde hair had a sort of red tinge to it, immediately recognizable as a Weasley.
The other couple was Neville and Ginny who had a beautiful girl, a redheaded beauty named Lilly whom James secretly fancied.
They went to the new Burrow, the old one had been rebuilt near Hogsmead, as had a lot of houses, and now all of the Weasleys, two Potters and Longbottoms lived there. It was very large and spacious for a house, but when you had around thirty people living there it got a bit crowded at dinnertime. A lot of things had changed, everything in fact, Hogwarts now accepted student as young as seven years of age so that they could learn even the most rudimentary of spells, to give them at least some hope of surviving an attack.
The trio sat on a large comfy couch as their parents got their presents for them, they were to be going into first year very soon and so had expected some kind of surprise.
"We are passing this down to you, some of these things are very old so make sure to be careful with them." Ginny told the three of them and gave little Lilly a memory ball. "Now you can't say you forgot to your homework." Neville warned. Lilly also received a small charm from her mother that she had gotten from her grandmother.
Sirius received a set of magical dragonhide gloves and a special quill that could encode all sorts of messages as you spoke to it.
When it was James' turn Hermione stifled a sob as she sat on her knees before her son. "This had been your father's very first broom, he got it from his god father Sirius." She said softly handing him Harry's old Firebolt.
"Wow…thank you mom." He said giving her a kiss on the cheek.
Next she took out a glimmering cloak that felt like water in her hands. "This was passed down to your father from his father, may it serve you well as it served him."
"An invisibility cloak!" The trio gathered around it.
"And finally for all three of you is this." She handed them the Mauraders Map. "You already know how to work it, so now it is yours and you may use it."
The trio marveled at the things that they had all received, imaginations running wild with all sorts of possibilities. Hermione's eyes welled up as she saw the happiness on her son's face, if only Harry could see him now, he would be proud. His son was growing up to be just as courageous as he was, just as handsome and just as clever as her.
The fireplace began to blaze and then a split second later Dumbledore stumbled into the room, tired and weary, the past eight years had been very hard on him and it showed.
"Any luck?" Ron asked, noticing Dumbledore's pink muggle suit.
"No, not a thing." He said sadly, resigning to an old chair.
"There is a convention in a weeks time that I would like Hermione to attend with me actually." Dumbledore informed them.
"Ok, how should I dress?" She asked.
"It will be a big gathering of various muggle leaders, it is a UN meeting that is to be called regarding Voldemort's most recent attacks. They are catching on, many feel that something is wrong, it has gotten very obvious even to the foolish...It is only a matter of time before we will not be able to cover things up and then the world will plung into the greatest war seen in all of history."
"I will try and be of as much help as I can professor, just tell me what you need."
James took advantage of the small pause in their conversation to show Dumbledore his new treasure. "Look Professor." He held up the cloak and broom.
"And this." Added in Sirius, showing him the Mauraders map.
"Well isn't that nice, I was wondering when you would recieve those things, but why I seem to be forgetting something…I just can't put my finger on what that may be, I am getting old you know." He said playfully to them.
"Well we haven't received our letters yet." Lilly said sadly.
"Letters, yes that's it, I have three letters here." He pulled out three envelopes. "Lets see now. Miss Longbottom, Mr Weasley and Mr. Potter." He announced giving each one of them their Hogwarts acceptance letter.
Watching them so happy, so joyous, brought back the same old twinkle to his eyes as they read their letters. How things had changed…It was full scale war now, the light versus the dark, towns switching alligances, anti apparation wards causing bloody battles between witches, wizards, warewolves, vampire, trolls, and all sorts of other creatures. Witches and wizards had come to Europe from all over the world, many to come fight for the dark, less for the losing light side. In fact things had gotten desperate, at the rate that things were going it was only a matter of time before Voldemort won, ever since he had taken London things had gotten bad, there were rumours now that he had his sights on Moscow, in all wars the city had never fallen to the enemy, but if it did this time...and so Dumbledore had taken to the muggle world for help. He visited countries, committees, looking for any possible signs of help, but mostly it was anger and hate at something the muggles did not understand. He was desperately hoping that the UN meeting would bare at least some fruit, that he would be able to find at least someone to help him.
Later on that night Hermione tucked little James into bed and kissed him good night. "Mom?"
"Yes honey."
"Do you think dad could be alive? They never found his body, so he could still be alive couldn't he?"
She dared not tell him what she really thought, that not one spell, item, enchantment, ward or anything could find him, that there really was no hope that he could be alive, and so she lied to him. "Yes, there is always a chance, that he could be out there somewhere, getting ready to come back, to defeat all the evil and bring peace and happiness to everyone once again."
"I know he is alive, I can…feel it. When he comes back he'll send Voldemort and all his little cronies packing, and then he'll make them regret what they did." He said animatedly smashing his fist into the palm of his hand.
"I'm sure that it could happen, now go to sleep."
"Good night mom." And he went to sleep with a big smile on his face, knowing that one of these days his dad would come back and make everything right, and they would be a happy family, together forever.
Years later people would quote Frank Miller. "In this line of work the improbable is usually the most probable, never forget that." And they would point to little James as the prime example…
--- Iceland ---
Omar watched in horror as his perfect strategy began to unravel and collapse. "Alpha hold the corridor, Gamma come up on the west front from the trees, Delta cover their approach with sniper fire."
"Squad Delta has been terminated." The computer announced.
Omar swore in colorful Arabic.
"Penetration rounds dear Omar." Romanov chuckled on the speakers.
"Squad Alpha terminated."
"How…" He switched to another monitor and noticed that the wall had been lacerated by what appeared to be hundreds of blades giving the previously white spotless walls a destroyed red bloody tinge…Bessy.
"Hey everyone watch this shit." Said the deep rumbling voice of Destroyer. "Ready Sarge?"
"I'm set at this end, Bessy is out."
The camera spun around to show a computer representation of Sarge firing off his BFG at a particular support column, while at the same time Destroyer unleashed a salvo of rockets at another specially predetermined location. Spinning around again the camera showed trenches dug under the building, causing the entire structure to come down on the valuable fifty man Gamma squad. Whoever remained was quickly moped up by precision fire from the other six members of Exodus and the simulation was over.
"I…I, how? How could you have possibly beaten that?" Omar asked stumped. "Six hundred troops, an armored division, air superiority, turrets, everything."
"Guess you'll just have to watch the recordings." Pyro mocked.
Exodus had just completed by far their most difficult assignment yet; the nine of them had assaulted a fully fortified, fully prepared enemy, on their own territory, in a base Omar had personally planned out in secret, it should have been impossible. He reflected back to where they had been eight years ago, no squad, only the facilities and technology, and now they had Exodus. Omar looked over the roster, the poor bastards who go up against them won't stand a chance.
Sarge - the natural leader of the squad, perhaps the deadliest one of them all, he could just Do things sometimes, open doors, not die after falling from a skyscraper, those kinds of things the weird thing was that AI simulator allowed it.
Bessy - Sarge's pet, she was harmless so long as you were on her side, otherwise she made your worst nightmare look like a good dream.
Alexander Pankratov, Snipe - If he couldn't hit the mark no one could, best marksmen alive, giving him the ASR 1 was overkill in Omar's opinion.
Roy Rolans, Destroyer - Heavy weapons specialist, the biggest man Omar had ever laid eyes on, by far the physically strongest human of the group he could mow down droops with the mini-gun in one hand and take out tanks with the Shark rocket launcher in the other.
Tyler Fletcher, Bulldog - Always loves to fight, amazing with a shotgun at close quarters, hot tempered but loyal.
Jason and William Harold, Joker and Pyro - Amazing with all weapons, give them a Hydra Grenade launcher and a FF Flamethrower and watch things heat up.
Johannes Jeunamann, JJ - The man fit the German stereotype to the core, efficient, cool, and deadly, a magician with the technical aspects of things also a pilot.
Chan Yao, Stalker - The little Chinese man was the smallest of the group, but he was especially quick and silent who had a great knowledge of marshal arts before he became part of Exodus. The man was a skilled scout, acting as the forward eyes for the group, and he had a special mark light device that he could lock onto targets with and then have the group shoot at even if they couldn't see the enemy, this worked especially well with Snipe whose rounds could punch through walls without losing much velocity.
All of them had trained extensively with the use of all weapons, in the end they all picked something to specialize in, their load out always included the versatile AKX assault rifle no matter what, on Sarge's orders. They had practiced with every load out imaginable, in every scenario imaginable, from going in with only their combat knives to a full payload with all the support they needed. They practiced working solo, in teams, with Bessy, without her, everything, and they did it all in a virtual environment, the simulator wasn't exact, but it got very close to the real thing. Of course they did training outside, in real weather, under all sorts of conditions. In the end they turned out to be 'The baddest mother fuckers on the planet' as they referred to themselves. It wasn't just their training, in eight years they had become a family, brothers, trusting each other completely, ignoring all racial discrimination, they were each an indispensable part of a whole team known as Exodus and because of that trust, that bond, that single minded purposeness they were the best.
He watched them leave the simulator joking and laughing at each other, fighting along the way.
"So Sarge, I was thinkin'" Destroyer put his arm around him in a very thoughtful manner.
"You were thinking, well that's impressive." He said with a laugh.
"Kiss my black ass Sarge." The others laughed. "Anyway I was thinking about what JJ and Snipes were thinking about, and I think it's a great idea."
"Well you know what so do I."
"Babes and booty here we come!" They all roared.
Snipes was already speaking in Russian to his brother through his comms. before Sarge had even said a thing. "Ladna, boodeam cherez polchesa, aha ... paka." "Alright I told him we'd be there in half an hour or so."
Miller watched on with a satisfied smile, he'd done it, he'd created the perfect killing unite, but now they were going to face some real tests, and so was he. Unlike Exodus he wasn't going to be flying out to party at a mafia nightclub, he was going to see Pinky, or so he called the old man. He wasn't worried about them going out, they always took their equipment with them wherever they went, so if anything they could be ready within five minutes and airborne to the destination.
The Hawk swooped down low like a bird of pray, coming down unseen onto an empty parking garage that was attached to one of the most famous night clubs in Europe. Four men waited for its arrival, Snipes' brother and three of his cousins, JJ brought the jet down with minimal thrust to avoid being seen by people on the ground, the loud music meant they wouldn't be heard, once on the ground no radar would spot it and the tarps that were to be put across would make sure it stayed invisible from the air by sight.
"Welcome everyone." Vlad greeted them all. "My brother has told me very little and I will ask nothing, friends of his are friends of mine. Your … transportation will not be touched, the tarps you sent will be put over it as you requested."
They greeted each other pleasantly, Vlad turned out to be a very slick host, he had been in the top layers of the criminal world long enough to know that when someone arrives in something you have never seen before you don't ask questions.
"Please everything is on the house." He led them inside the club, taking a second to talk into a small mic. "No one but those eight men go onto the roof." The message went out to all security.
A/N. Next chapter will be a real fun one, if you caught on then you'll know whom Miller is going to meet. The next chapter, or most probably the chapter after that will really explore the state that the magical world is in, and it will have the first real fight. From here on out things will start getting crazy, deceptive, and emotional. Enjoy, please and review, it really helps a lot with the creativity, mistakes that have been made and it gives a real drive to write the story.
-->