Nexus Event - Chapter 16

Sam, Willow, Illyana, and I sat around the image being projected and considered the tunneling vortexes of energy coming towards our reality. The precise details of seventh, eighth, and ninth dimensional math made it difficult to visualize in the way we were doing now, but thankfully Agency tbuffs, the BatComputer, and Stargate Tech allowed us to cheat quite a bit. In particular, we could see where the Death March had impacted a much lesser planar tunnel and caused this entire mess. Relativistic time caused further problems, technically speaking, the Demon Lords had already connected to this world. We just hadn't gotten the message yet.

“September, then. We're in agreement?” I asked, threading my fingers together and resting my elbows on the table.

“September,” Sam nodded, a grimace on her face as Willow and Illyana backed her up.

“Keeping in mind that I'm not particularly skilled in the higher-end calculations yet...” Illyana cautioned before continuing. “My powers grant me an instinctual understanding of trans-dimensional travel and the specifications thereof. I'd say mid-September seems a good estimate.”

“I'm coming at it from the other side of Illyana, but not quite as math-y as Sam is,” Willow stated, entering a few equations to add further curves and lines to the already-extant grid showing the first tunnel. “The magic they're using is pretty primitive, even by my old world's standards. It's all brute force divine energy, which makes it pretty predictable. So, yeah. Mid-month September seems right.”

I sighed, nodding. Bruce Wayne wasn't, say... Tony Stark or anything, but The Agency's augments interfacing with the template did a lot of the heavy lifting in allowing me to understand the subject matter. “Alright, we're moving forward with that understanding. Estimations on location?”

That question caused a flurry of other questions, discussion and near-outright arguments.

Eventually, I raised my hand. “Consensus, please. Even if the consensus is, 'we don't know,' I'd prefer to know that straight out.”

Illyana cleared her throat despite the irritated look Sam gave her. “It comes down to resonance. We don't entirely know the geography of the region that the gate is being opened from, so we don't know where it's going to lock in here, on this Earth.”

The former military woman ruffled her sandy blonde hair. “It's mathematically feasible to plot the trajectory, we just don't have the equations or, most likely, the computing power to do so accurately. However, we can estimate it.”

I nodded to Sam. “As long as it doesn't eat into your other projects, ballpark an estimate each week and see if you can give me a high-probability region of the world a few days before we estimate the first gate opens.”

I turned to Illyana, who looked displeased. “Work with Sam, double-check her results using your own power-guided intuition and guesswork. If you disagree on something, work backwards until you can find out where that disagreement comes from.”

I looked between the two of them now, my expression serious. “You're both experts in your respective fields. I don't need a cat fight. I need cooperation. It's July twenty-ninth. We have a month and a half before a portal to another world opens up and puts thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives at risk. The more forewarning we can give the local authorities, the fewer people will die. Am I clear?”

All three young women nodded, voicing affirmatives.

Now to be something of an asshole.

“Okay, that out of the way, I want to talk about personal matters and then we'll get around to individual projects. Sam, how's the revelation of you being magical coming along with your family? Any problems?”

The proper way to go about this would be to interact with each of them on an individual basis, but... I was somewhat lacking in the time to do that given all of my obligations. There was an opportunity here, though, to kill two birds with one stone. If Sam and Illyana in particular had each others' interpersonal problems thrust onto them, there was every chance it would humanize them in their respective minds.

Which means I have to play the bad guy and drag out some embarrassment for them to bond over.

Sam sighed, but shook her head. “Not... really. My father's not dealing with it badly, but then again he's not dealing with it much at all. He's digging into his work to avoid interacting with Mom or my brother.” She smiled here, shyly and tempered with nostalgia. “Mark, of course, thinks it's the most awesome thing ever. I almost forgot what he was like at that age...”

“I wish I had a sibling or two, but with how my parents are I sometimes think it's a miracle they even had one child,” Willow sighed longingly. Her eyes flicked towards me and she blushed. “I definitely want a big family when I have kids.”

I saw Sam and Illyana discreetly roll their eyes.

“My brother's something of an annoyance,” the long-haired blonde girl stated, fondness obvious despite the complaint. A flex of our bond told me she was entertaining the 'bonding exercise' I'd put forward. “He doesn't understand why I want to go to Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang and keeps bragging about their up-and-coming quidditch star Victor Krum. It's been nice having him at home with mother and father again, all living under one roof, but...”

Sam frowned. “It's weird when you're used to living alone for so long, going back to being under someone else's roof without much agency.”

“Pretty much,” Illyana nodded, resting her chin on the palm of one hand. “Even when I was back at Xavier's boarding school, we were largely left to our own devices and allowed to manage our own affairs. At least, unless we started to flunk classes.”

Willow cocked her head. “That was pretty much my entire life back when we-”

I felt a pulse of 'desire for my presence' along Sara's link to me, the other girls in the room stiffening as they obviously caught the fringe of the pulse.

I cocked my head and sent back, 'urgent?'

A moment later, I felt her return the sensation. 'No, but want.'

The feeling that accompanied the words was more fluid, but indicated something like inconvenience if I refused. I sighed. If that was the case, Sara would get on my case for days if I didn't show myself. I stood and sighed, reverting to my child form as I did so.

“Sorry, duty calls. Feel free to continue and I'll return as quickly as possible. Hopefully, this is just a minor problem,” I stated, the girls all giving me a nod as I left.

Doubtless, the first topic of discussion would be what I was being called away for.

“Call if you need us, right?” Willow cried.

“Will do!” I called back, heading up the stairs and through the secret entrance that hid the duplicate Batcave complex.

“There you are!” A voice called out just as I rounded a corner. A voice that was neither Sara's nor Harriet's, though I could hear them interacting. Looking back to the speaker, though, I was... mildly surprised.

“Uncle Sebastian,” I stated, the question probably obvious in my voice. The man was in his thirties and one of the more familiar, if nebulously so, figures in the Pendragon family. He was something of the treasurer for the estate. “This is an unexpected visit.”

Sebastian crossed his arms, the man's occupation with bookkeeping having done nothing to lessen the circumference of his muscular arms or the definition in his chest as it stretched his robe. His wife actually hated that habit and wanted him to wear something a little baggier that wouldn't rip at the wrong movement. Still, even with his odd habit, his rectangular glasses and neatly-trimmed black goatee with close-cut hair of the same color made him look more like a buff office worker refugee from an urban fantasy novel than anything else.

“I came to investigate the rather odd financial requests you and your sister were sending through the family's banks,” Sebastian stated, frowning as he looked around. “I have no idea where your preoccupation with this mundane style of living emerged from. I'd hoped my brother Nero would have better sense than to let you entertain your obsessions.”

“Forgive us, Uncle Dear, if we prefer brightly-lit open spaces instead of rough-hewn stone walls pressing in from all sides,” Sara called as she walked in, Harriet lingering in the doorway to watch with both apprehension and curiosity.

Sebastian snorted and adjusted his glasses. “Regardless of how you choose to live your lives, they are yours to live. At least until you take the crown. Now, I'll be direct about things. You've withdrawn more than ten million gold dragons and ordered our banks to convert it to mundane currency for use in America. Why?”

“Because we've perceived investment opportunities,” I answered shortly. “We've withdrawn no more than we are allowed to by the traditions governing our place as the primary heirs.”

Sebastian hesitated, likely having suspected that he'd be able to use his superior stature and influence to run roughshod over us kids. “That is true by strict interpretation, but it is seldom a reality that you may do so without oversight. Which is why I am here.”

I exchanged a look with Sara.

“If you actually wanted to look into our purchases and investments, you'd have sent a request for documentation,” my sister stated with a frown. “Or, at the very least, a notification that you were intending to visit and arranged for a meeting. This is a fairly transparent attempt to intimidate us, Uncle Sebastian.”

Sebastian frowned at my sister. “You're making baseless assumptions, Sara-”

“Lady,” I interrupted him, making him frown further. “Even if she's making assumptions, you will refer to her by her proper title when you decide to have the temerity to correct her in our home, wherein you are a guest.”

Sebastian outright grimaced, looking between the two of us, then sighed explosively and pressed the butt of his palm to his forehead. “Could you two at least try to remind me a little less of your father and my sister? Please? For the sake of my health?”

I grinned, Sara likewise relaxing slightly.

So this wasn't a real familial power-play, huh? That's not to say he won't ever, but...

The latest generations of the Pendragon clan had gone four generations without a single kinslaying incident, a record Sara and I were in no way eager to break. I cocked my head and looked at him oddly. “So, if you aren't here to try and usurp our position as the heirs for your own son due to financial irresponsibility, what are you doing here?”

Sebastian sputtered, going red in the face and laughing aloud, long and hard. A quick thought directed at Sara told me the surprise and amusement were genuine.

Good to know.

“Ah... Adaleus as the head of the family – haha!” Sebastian breathed out one last laugh, then turned to look at us again, rising from his bent-over bout of laughter. Suddenly serious, his expression was grave and unforgiving. “Lord Solomon, Lady Sara-”

Fear and horror lanced over his face.

“Please, do not jest so. Not again. My heart could not take it.”

Sara and I exchanged a loaded glance, she doubtless checked through her memories of our cousin Adaleus Pendragon just as I was. To sum them up, I could say that although neither of us were eager to break the previously-mentioned record against killing a family member, but...

If we had to, we had to.

“Fair,” Sara and I announced in tandem.

“You still haven't told us why you're here, though,” Sara stated, folding her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at the older man. “I'm guessing... we had the bad luck to start withdrawing and investing just as the Pendragon family needed money? So you hoped you could get us to return some of the stupid purchases we – as foolish children – had obviously made.”

Sebastian's face reddened slightly as he cleared his throat and looked away.

To be perfectly fair, we had made purchases that he and most of the Wizarding World's adults would consider 'frivolous.' Like contractually obligating the dozen or so families on the planet to produce vanishing cabinets you could drive an eighteen-wheeler cargo truck through. Then keep doing so for the next ten years. They'd wanted a hefty down-payment to prove we were serious. They all probably thought we were batshit insane, but money talked even among magical folk, and vanishing cabinets weren't in high demand at the best of times. They were just so ludicrously expensive and difficult to create that the few people globally with the knowledge to make them could make a living off one or two commissions each year.

But there was a reason why we'd used our own personal Agency-funded finances for those purposes. The money we'd borrowed(-ish) from the family coffers went into much more official investments, even if they were on the non-magical side of things and barely anyone in our family would understand what these companies actually did.

“Is there any way you could divest some of your investments?” Sebastian asked, his tone much more respectful than before.

“We wouldn't even if we could,” Sara replied before I could even open my mouth. “Everything we put money into has an expected return of over ten thousand percent in the next six months. With a possible exponential increase further out.”

Ignoring Sebastian's blatant, gaping shock at the claim, I idly reflected on all the stock we'd 'purchased' beyond even our extreme means. We couldn't exactly liquidate enough of the family's holdings to make the purchases we needed, but we could sell all sorts of next-next-next generation technology to various corporations in exchange for a fat stack of stock. Pepper had done most of the legwork there, thank god, with Kitty volunteering to help her with the accounting.

“How in Arthur's Blessed Name do you expect those kinds of returns?!” Sebastian demanded. Then stopped as we both assumed stone-faced expressions. “No, wait... I know better than to ask that and expect a straightforward answer. Okay... I'm also going to assume that your personal accounts are drained if you're dipping this deep into the family money?”

Giving him a nod and sighing at his dejected slump, I shook my head. “Okay, how much do you need?”

“Five million,” Sebastian replied.

The Bat-mind kept me from wincing too badly. Part of me wanted to run around screaming like a chicken with its head cut off at such absurd sums. Another part of me, the part that remembered a life two decades and change into the twenty-first century, knew that you didn't really get to 'fuck off' levels of money until you started getting into the billions of dollars. So the sums that were being talked about weren't that big in comparison to economy-shattering balances.

But Sebastian wanted five million gold dragons. The proper name of the currency being 'Pendragon Gold Dollar, which had been based on the Spanish Gold Dollar of the Spanish Empire, from which the United States' Dollar also derived its name. What mattered, though, was that the gold dragon was worth ten Gingotts Gold Galleons, both because it contained more actual gold and because of semi-valid but very racist reasons tied up with goblin-minted currency.

That wasn't the end of it, though! The galleon was worth twenty-five British Pounds Sterling, having not appreciably inflated since the magical and non-magical economies separated centuries ago. Frankly, everyone was lucky that magicals had decided to accept fiat currency exchanges at all given their mindset. Still, what this meant is that when Sebastian said 'five million,' he didn't mean five million. He meant...

1.25 Billion Great British Pounds...

At an exchange rate of 1.65 to the USD...

2.0625 Billion USD in 1991 money.

In 2020-ish terms? An easy 4 Billion.

Which means that we'd laid down 8 billion USD in investments across the board, yes. Jesus Christ that's a lot of money.

“Who the hell do we owe enough to that needs five million?” Sara asked, visibly scandalized.

Sebastian grimaced, flushing more deeply. “The Fortress City of Haiyue is demanding payment for what they claim are sleights against their merchants on the islands south of Cathay we own as trading posts. They're citing a number of badly-worded treaties and technical disputes over the past three decades as being worth that sum. They're willing to hold off for a third-party arbitration if we can put the total disputed amount on hold with a reputable independent banking house. Currently, we've got an agreement with the Bank of Orange operating out of Kyoto to act as a guarantor, but we need the money.

“Or they seize the islands,” Sara surmised, grimacing. I felt myself do the same, considering we needed those islands in the years to come. Oh, I planned on acquiring one or two more just to be on the safe side, but four magically-warded islands the family owned outright would be invaluable in that part of the world soon enough.

“They try,” Sebastian stated. “But the attempt will cost us more in raising troops and war preparation than in paying off the debt. Just not all at once, and I'm worried about the other Fortress Cities of Cathay deciding this is a great chance to break the agreements we have with them.”

I took a deep breath and went over to a chair, dropping into it with a thoughtful expression as I dictated a drink order to a maid.

“Is everything okay?” Harriet asked, coming over to sit next to me cautiously.

I snorted. “Nothing huge, we just overextended our investments and need some money right now.”

“What about my parent's vaults?” Harriet asked, leaning forward. “You said that there were four vaults full of gold with the goblins. Is that enough?”

“We wouldn't want to take all your money, Harriet,” Sara stated, moving to sit down opposite us with her own drink. “...and it wouldn't be all that much. The Potters are an old family, but they never concentrated on hoarding gold like, say... the Malfoys or the Blacks.”

“I'm sorry, I was terribly rude earlier,” Sebastian said, walking around to stand in front of Harriet. “My name is Sebastian Pendragon. You are...?”

“Harriet Potter,” Harri smiled back, reaching up to shake his hand. I gave the older man a severe look that made him swallow his disgust and accept the greeting. Eventually I'd take the time to introduce Harri to proper wizarding etiquette, but I'd been so busy lately...

The maid-golem came back with my drink on a silver platter embossed with the Pendragon crest, which was covered by a folded piece of parchment.

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered to Sara as Sebastian and Harriet made polite conversation. Taking a pull from my drink and setting it aside, I focused on the red wax seal with the stylized 'M' pressed into it. My fingers worked on autopilot as I considered what to do about the money.

I did have a few solutions, though none that I'd wanted to explore so soon. In particular, there were a few shipwrecks and other lost treasures that would be easy pickings with the scrying pool. The old Spanish and Portuguese ones in particular would be easy to convert due to the Imperial Spanish Dollars (colloquially known as 'pieces of eight') having about as much gold in them as gold dragons did. Still, I'd had plans for those wrecks and the money contained within to be used later.

If pressed, there were properties that Sebastian could sell off, or sign rental contracts for long-term leases at rock-bottom prices. Mother and Father likely wouldn't approve of raising taxes, though, so that was out.

I unfolded the missive and began to skim-

-then stopped, went back to the start, and read the letter more carefully.

Sara caught my eye from where she was overseeing Sebastian and Harri interact as I started tapping the parchment against my leg thoughtfully. “The Malfoys, or... Lucius in particular, wants to see if he can come to an arrangement to hold onto his Board of Governor's seat in perpetuity. At least, if buying back the votes we took from him isn't an option.”

Sebastian perked up. “Malfoy? Who's this? Are they wealthy?”

“Not five million gold dragons wealthy,” Sara stated, popping the bubble of hope that had been inflating. “Maybe if they completely liquidated their entire holdings? But no. I don't think anyone in Wizarding Britain is that rich.”

“Not individually,” I replied, a slow smirk building on my face.

Sara straightened as her power caught onto my train of thought. “Ooooh, that's interesting. Sell them shares of Hogwarts-no, sell the Board the shares. That way they have to come to an agreement to exercise their rights. We stack the Board of Governors with a third traditionalists, a third neutrals, and a third progressives and they'll only unite around the important things they can all agree on.”

“Then sell another quarter of the shares to the Ministry of Magic, to be held in trust by the current Headmaster or Headmistress of Hogwarts. That would force them to agree on any initiatives in order to exercise their rights.” I explained, nodding slowly.

“Which would also leave us with half the remaining shares of ownership,” Sara smirked with me. “And able to block anything too radical they wanted to do as well as maintain a large say in what goes on with the school.”

“How much are we talking about, here?” Sebastian asked, looking between us again. “I don't follow gossip on that backwater.”

“Half?” I asked Sara, who nodded slowly. I turned back to Sebastian. “We can get you half of the agreed-upon amount by the end of... next month.”

Sebastian breathed an explosive sigh of relief. “Okay, okay... not ideal, but good enough. Five was a crisis, half that is a problem. A big problem, but not an insurmountable one.”

“You want to call Pepper up and try to get the ball rolling?” I asked Sara, who sighed, but nodded, then looked to a slightly dour Harri. “And see if you can make sure the Potters have a board seat to assign. It'll be a big expense for Harri right now, but it comes with a steady dividend that might even pay itself back by the time she's out of school.”

Harri grinned at me, happily turning back to discuss things with Sebastian and Sara as I walked off. Sara would make sure they didn't drain the Potter vaults too much, and it would give her a nice baseline figure to set as the buy-in for the other pureblood families that wanted a seat at the table. Off-hand, I'd imagine the Longbottoms would be a good counterweight to the Malfoys.

...and there's no reason it wouldn't be nice to give Alice and Frank an easy excuse to stay in contact with Neville during the year. Hogwards does have accommodations for Board members, even if they're probably never used.

With that settled, I detoured back to the meeting that had been interrupted.

“-and we have no idea where he went! Voldemort's spirit was difficult to track even with the scrying pool given how fast it moved, but now we can't even get a lock on it at all! It's totally sucky!” Willow explained

I sighed and reached up to rub at the bridge of my nose. “Goddamn it. What now?”

~~~

Well, that's a bit bigger than I'd planned for, but things just kind of ballooned once I got going. Had to drop a few extra hours on the project, but I think it finished out nicely.

Next chapter of Nexus Event will be Harriet's birthday bash and all that it entails. Should be a fun chapter.

We'll likely have a short timeskip after that to the Hogwarts train ride after that.

In the meantime? Another chapter of Winning Peace coming up in a few days. Not sure what else is on the docket, but I think I need to get around to fighting more Nazi vampires in the Marvel branch of Industrious. So that's probably coming up as well.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!