I couldn’t help but sigh as I looked at Tonks with hair a dull grey, bags under her eyes, standing slightly slumped in our doorway and realized this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, I considered for a moment before I turned to my girls. “Taylor, Amy, Ahri, and Holly, you have been here the longest or know Tonks, could you stay here for the explanation. Sabah, could you lead everyone else back to the castle?”

  Ahsoka surprised the rest of us as she interrupted me. “I think that I should stay as well.”

  I blinked before I shrugged. “That is fine, I just don’t want to overwhelm her right now.”

  Hermione, Hinata, and Sabah looked like they might have wanted to stay as well, but after a moment of looking at the woman clearly suffering from PTSD, they nodded and headed back.

  Gesturing for Tonks to come inside and only seeing her hair go to a slightly brighter brown before returning to grey, we all sat down while Ahri made us some sort of soothing herbal tea.

  Holly gave her distant cousin a firm hug before sitting down next to her while the rest of us circled around the dining room table.

  It was only after Tonks had gotten some time to simply hold the warm mug and sip the drink that she finally spoke. “How did you save me? No magic short of a stasis spell would have had any chance of keeping me alive and even then, you would have had to bring me out of said stasis to treat me... then it would have been the shock and blood loss that would have killed me. I mean…” Her next sip was a little shaky, “and I don’t think I even had a heart or left lung anymore when I fell.”

  I studied Tonks in the sudden silence, only interrupted by another hug from Holly which didn’t even change her hair, while considering how to answer her. After nearly a full minute I sighed and just went with the blunt truth. “We shared with you and Dumbledore a little of what we could do, but we didn’t share everything. We come from a lot further afield than either of you know, and to be blunt… we have abilities beyond normal magic. It was Amy’s ability in particular that healed your body while I ensured you couldn’t die.”

  Tonks looked confused and for a moment her hair changed to a sort of bewildered orange before turning to curious yellow. “Wait, what…” she swallowed again, “... so, if you are from… somewhere else… then why are you here at all?”

  I wasn’t sure where Tonks thought we were from until I remembered that this world’s magicals knew about their spiritual world. That might have also implied there was other worlds as well.

  Amy snorted and gestured towards the pitcher, casting a wandless levitation charm to bring the tea towards her so she didn’t have to get up to pour herself more. “To be blunt, it was because none of us could do this before we arrived. Magic is amazing and we wanted it and the version taught here is perhaps the most versatile of anywhere we know of, albeit not the most powerful..”

  It was at this point that Ahri returned, carrying some apples from our pantry. “Maybe I could help give you some perspective.” Setting the apples down on the table in front of her, she twirled the knife across her fingers at a superhuman speed. Yet before Tonks could do more than jerk in shock with a rainbow flash of hair, Ahri simply returned the knife to a normal cutting angle and began to cut slices for us to munch on while we talked.

  I wasn’t sure why she had done that, but maybe she was trying to snap her out of her head and get her to pay attention.

  Regardless, Ahri’s voice was soft and gentle as she looked up at Tonks having finished cutting the apples. “I am sorry. You are confused and overwhelmed. That is normal for someone who has come close to death or seen it take someone close to them. This is all especially normal for anyone who was caught in an ambush.”

  I winced at that as most of our injuries and near-death experiences were due to ambushes. Alexandria’s ambush on Earth Bet, the counter attack on Yamatai, and Trinity’s surprise attack at Lara’s manor were just the three most extreme.

  Yet Ahri continued calmly despite probably noticing Tonk’s uncomfortable shifting and my wince. Slipping off her ring, she demonstrated her full nine tails. “I am not trying to belittle what you went through. In fact, I wish for you to understand that this is a normal reaction. Please take it from me, in my over 200 years of life, I have seen a lot of fighting, battles, and death. In that time I can say that there is seldom two groups standing across from each other that then attack with a battle cry. Real fights, insurrections, and wars are almost always ambushes, surprise attacks, and nighttime raids.”

  Her look turned even kinder. “Everyone feels this way after a battle, and while some people will self-destruct before they can seek out help, you are already reaching out and these feelings will slowly fade and you will grow stronger from this. Fear is healthy, you just need to ensure that it doesn’t consume you.”

  I swallowed silently as it was clear she was saying this as much to me as she was to Tonks. However, glancing over, Tonks looked a little confused.

  That was when Ahsoka startled us by chuckling while taking off her own ring and revealing her own alien features. “Take it from me as well. I practically grew up on the battlefields of a war bigger than any mortal mind can truly comprehend.” Her voice turned a bit haunted as she stared out into the distance. “I have seen worlds this size burned to nothing and the commanders would call it a massive victory.”

  The silence was terrible as the rest of us looked at Ahsoka in a new light. Getting up, I scooted my chair closer to her to put my hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder, while Taylor on her other side, put a hand on hers.

  Ahsoka looked a little startled, but then smiled a little sadly at us before she continued looking at Tonks. “No one wants to fight a ‘fair’ fight. As the saying goes, fair fights are for suckers and losers. That sounds like a joke, but literally no one wants to leave the battle and potential death of their companions up to chance. Everyone wants to catch their opponent off guard, trick them, or overwhelm them. In fact, you have a book on this world by a man named Sun Tzu where he said that ‘All warfare is based on deception’.”

  The fact that Tonks was overwhelmed was pretty easy to see from her hair and eyes. Both changing between colors and looking around the room rapidly respectively.

  I couldn’t blame her either. As a rookie Auror, she was somewhere between a street cop and detective being told about war from two veterans after her first brush with death. However, it also made me stop and think about our own situation.

  Honestly, I had shied away from direct conflict when we were weaker, but there really wasn’t any reason to change our strategy now that we were getting stronger. Our counterambush on Trinity in the temple had been much more effective than if we had tried to line up and fight them. Our enemies wouldn’t fight fair so why should we?

  Shaking my head, I pulled myself back to the conversation as Ahsoka continued her calm explanation. “All of that was to say that there are only three choices before you now. First, you can attempt to avoid any and all conflict. It won’t work in your line of work but you can try. Second, you can stick your head in the sand and keep doing what you are doing, maybe believe it was all our fault while saying it won’t happen again. That will work for a while, maybe for the rest of your life… right up until it doesn’t. Or third, you can train your ass off now that you know what the world is really like. That said, your best is all you can do and it may simply not be enough, or you may be caught unaware when the time comes.”

  Tonk’s eyes were wide as she stared at Ahsoka. Her hair had stopped changing colors and settled on an unsettling color of green. I suspected that she was remembering her mentor Alastor Moody and his various scars despite being generally accepted as the best Auror the department had. It also hit harder for me since I knew that despite his paranoia, he would be caught unaware at the end of this summer..

  Ahsoka tried to look comforting as she broke the silence. “You know what I would recommend. To do your best to prepare but understand that somethings are out of your hands and you have to accept that somethings are up to the Force… or up to destiny as you would say here.”

  I swallowed again, from the side eyes that the two girls were now, even more clearly, giving me a side eye making it clear that this was also partially directed at me.

  Ahsoka’s words seemed to finally have pierced Tonk’s head as she blinked before her eyes widened tremendously and her hair went to a bright healthy but confused yellow.

  I suddenly realized that Tonks was both a half-blood and someone who would have purposefully rebelled against anything the stuffy purebloods she had to deal with would have approved of… so she was almost certainly someone who had seen the original Star Wars.

  Whipping her head towards me and, with an inarticulate hand motion and still wide eyes, she mouthed “Star Wars?” before towards Ahsoka.

  I couldn’t help it and I laughed slightly and after considering it for a half second I decided to confirm it and nodded.

  Tonk’s eyes flicked back to look at Ahsoka for several long seconds as she tried come to terms with that before she shook her head to clear it. Now obviously wanting an explanation, she turned to me. Whispering, like it was some sort of secret despite being alone in our cottage she asked, “How in the bloody hell did you find someone from Star Wars? Wasn’t it just a movie?”

  I considered for a moment before I just shrugged, “You know that the Muggles think that magic and the spirit world are just stories, but both of them exist and are accessible from this world.”

  Tonks didn’t miss my comment about this world and rocked back for a second as she considered that.

  Sighing, I decided to continue my explanation rather than make her try to figure it out. It also let me bring the topic back to the question of what she would do. “Let me answer some of your questions before you get to them. First, yes, most of us are from an alternate Earth and, yes, that is part of the reason we have different powers.” Then I focused on looking her in the eye, “And, yes, we can help you become much, much stronger. However, to be blunt, that is something I generally only do for the girls I have made into what we call, The Family.”

  Tonks was obviously overwhelmed, but after a moment of being shocked about the confirmation we were all arguably aliens, she focused in on my leading statement about the Family. “Family?”

  I nodded while internally deciding that this was not the place to be vague. If she was going to join us, I wanted her to be informed of everything from the beginning. “Yes, it is exactly what you are probably thinking. Most of the girls that stay with me are either my wives or considering becoming one of my wives.”

  To my surprise even Ahsoka nodded at that as Tonk spun around, eyes wide in question.

  I didn’t lean forward as I didn’t want to pressure her, but I did smile as I shrugged. “So, while I think all of us like you and we will train you as you are, joining our group to get all the boosts we can give you has a bit of a bigger commitment attached.”

  Seeing Tonk swallow, hair flashing a confused green, I shrugged. “Keep in mind, I have multiple wives, so intimacy with me isn’t required, but would be appreciated. We just demand that you stay faithful to the Family.” I made sure to wink. “Especially as I do enjoy wooing my wives.

  Amy smirked, eyes twinkling almost as much as Dumbledore. “Oh, your options wouldn’t be just Max, a few of us play for both teams.”

  Rolling my eyes at my favorite pervert, I continued with a more serious face. “That said, our training is demanding, like really, really demanding. We also travel to those far-flung worlds… places that may or may not exist as mere stories here. That will take time, time you will be away from your family and job.”

  I paused and then shrugged. “There is a reason the girls that I have recruited so far are almost all either orphans, estranged from their families, or have nowhere else to go… Not that I am much better as I don’t have any of those either.”

  That was an amusing thought. I was perfectly alone and completely lost when I woke up… So was I the MOST lost and alone out of the Family?

  Focusing back, I continued. “So, yes, while there are benefits to joining us such as powers, companionship, and eternal youth, we generally don’t find people with good jobs or loving families like you who want to join us.” I paused as I thought about it. “Actually, I think Ginny is the only one so far from that category, and she is split between her desire to be a Quidditch star and staying with us.”

  Tonks swallowed and opened her mouth like she was working up her nerve to give me an answer. Although it looked like it wasn’t clear, even to her, what her answer might have been based on the swirling colors that her hair had now become.

  Interrupting her inner conflict, I reached out and put my hand on top of hers while she still had them curled, white knuckled, around her mug of tea. “Why don’t you think about it for a few weeks. This isn’t an easy answer.”

  Then Amy spoke up, eyes mischievous, while munching on her apple. “Plus, like Max said, you might not be cut out for all the training we do.”

  That challenge seemed to be what Tonks needed to hear as her eyes narrowed as she processed the challenge. After a final moment of contemplation her hair turning into a firm pink and she breathed in deep and put on a little smile. “I won’t let a little work stop me, us badgers aren’t afraid of a little hard work.”

  I reached up and squeezed the bridge of my nose. It was clear that Amy was playing on her pride to get her closer to the idea of joining. However, I couldn’t even get mad as it was the type of thing that Tonks probably needed to hear.

  Thus, as the talk wound down, while I avoided giving too many more details, I could see Tonks relaxing. In fact, as she got up to leave, she gave Holly and then, after a moment of hesitation, Ahri, Ahsoka, Amy, Taylor, and me a hug as well,

  Waving goodbye, she walked out of our door with a bit more steel in her spine and I couldn’t help but feel a little happier that she was doing better.

  That was when Thea interrupted me by calling me via the radio. “Max, could you open a portal for me to come through with a monitor? I think the goblins finally enchanted something to be goblin silver, but I am not sure what they did.”

  I perked up. That was the last thing I needed before I finished my big project.

  Waving goodbye to Tonks, I turned towards the monitor that Thea’s drone was carrying through the portal.

  Yet as she set it up, I couldn’t help but get excited as I finally saw the ritual they were performing on the sword they had been making. In the weeks we had been watching them, they had forged quite a bit of stuff out of goblin silver or mythril. Yet nothing had the adaptation enchantment that we had seen on Godric Gryffindor’s sword.

  As we focused in on the ritual, the first thing I noticed was it was a group of five goblins in a circle, and the mythril sword had been placed on an altar in front of the one in the center. The others were wearing normal forge attire, but the center one actually didn’t have a shirt on, instead wearing some sort of ceremonial toga-style robe.

  The chanting they were doing was in gobbledegook, but we could clearly understand it.

  “Great one, great one, let this goblin and his sword become one. Let his desires and his essence grow through it.”

  I didn’t have time to wonder who the great one was because the goblin in the center then picked up another, clearly ceremonial, crystal dagger, and with only a moment of hesitation and a careful precision, he proceeded to use it to slit both of his own wrists using the dagger and then across his heart then and allowed the blood to drip onto the sword.

  We could practically feel the magic rise up as the blood swelled even across the video feed and I felt something twinge against my instincts, so I activated my soul sight and watched in fascination as the man literally poured a tiny portion of himself into the blade.

  Yes, it was part of his soul, but yet not… it was something more.

  Leaning in, I studied as he pushed what I was starting to realize was a tiny fragment of the edge of his soul, but also his magic, and willpower into the blade.

  Feeling a little stunned, I listened as they finished the chant.

  “Let them never be separated, let them grow together, let them never end.”

  Studying the goblin bandaged his own wrists and then gently, almost lovingly, picked up the sword. It was bonded to him now, almost intimately.

  No wonder they wanted the items to come back to them so desperately. He had literally tied a bit of his magic and soul, his very being, into the item. If I had to say exactly what had happened, it was probably like pouring 1% of everything you ever were and would achieve or grow into, down into the blade. You would never reach the peak of what you could have been now.

  Yet, now my instincts said the blade could grow. It literally had a bit of that goblin inside of it.

  Momentarily I wondered if this counted as another horcrux. It had a piece of psuedo-soul in it now…

  Seriously, was everything in these worlds a soul jar?

  However as I studied it, I realized that no, the connection was gone. It also didn’t take a murdur of an infant to achieve so it wasn’t quite the same on that side either.

  It was more of a ritual where the goblin sacrificed a little of himself in order to empower the blade to grow.

  It would also explain why the goblins were so insanely fixated on getting these weapons back after their wielders died. The probably viewed them as part goblin or something.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I paused and then had to change that thought. We had watched the goblins make at least two dozen items and never once performed this ritual.

  That made me snort internally… So, no, most of their legendary greediness was justified even with this ritual as almost none of it had it performed. The goblins probably just didn’t want to give anything up if they didn’t have to.

  That made me think back to the chant they had been using and why they used it in particular. I could probably do it with nothing more than my power. It wouldn’t be too different from what I did with the messenger tubes.

  I mean, I kinda wanted what great one they were praying to, but something told me I didn’t want to know.

  Regardless, as I said… This… This was something I could use for my big projects. I would need to contact Ginny as she had gotten the best results with the forging, but it would be worth it.

  Hopefully, I would have the items ready in time.

  Thus, the next two weeks were filled with preparations, training, and even more studying.

  Ginny also started practicing her forging and began to design my items. Unfortunately, it meant that I had to explain what I was making. Yet after a fond smile, she had giggled at me and promised not to ruin the surprise.

  Sabah continued to customize each of our outfits, adding enchantments and making spare pants and tops.

  Amy had continued her efforts to experiment with biology, creating an entire orchard of fruit trees and fields of fruit-bearing bushes in the corner of our inner pocket dimension, just past where the driveway used to be. All of which were chakra-infused. Adding this to our normal Hogwarts food really helped with our chakra production, letting us grow stronger.

  Taylor had been focusing on her multitasking using both her bugs and spells. Without the help of the Queen Administrator shard, her soul was doing the heavy lifting, and it required training.

  Ahsoka and Ahri seemed to have decided to practice against each other. Ahsoka would attempt to use what little she could of the Force on this world while Ahri tried to trick her. Then, after a lot of consideration, she invited Ahri to start studying the Jedi Holocron with her. We were a bit worried, but the two seemed to be alright with Ahri ever so slowly learning to reach out with her soul and touch what Ahsoka called the Force here, so we continued on. I planned on the rest of us joining her when we had time.

  Hinata seemed determined to master the flowing version of the gentle fist style that had been mentioned in the anime. Unfortunately, seeing it on a screen then trying to relate it to her verbally didn’t tell us much. However, she still seemed to be making slow progress.

  Lara was obviously neck-deep in her research, trying to figure out where exactly the divine source had been moved to. She also seemed to be exploring her magic like ability we had seen in the games. It had started as an instinct we had seen on Yamatai, but it was starting to move towards a bullet-time-like ability.

  Chell had continued her work with the portal gun, but her research had branched out to studying the pokeballs and expanded backpacks. Thea had been thrilled to have a research partner and the two of them had gotten pretty close. Ahsoka even occasionally helped out, reminding me that she was a bona fide engineer along with everything else. I didn’t know what they were working on, but with how well the radios worked, I was sure they would figure it out.

  Hermione seemed to have hit her stride as she was creating more and more elaborate wards and enchantments to defend our home. Some of which were particularly nasty. Maybe the angels had unsettled her more than she let on, as I didn’t want to be an invader trying to force their way through our defenses now.

  That left Holly, who worked with me on a little bit of a different effort. An effort that also saw her taking even more baths.

  Specifically, the last thing we wanted to do before we traveled again was find the final three missing pieces of Tom’s soul that we had access to.

  We had the diadem, we had the diary, and we had Holly’s scar. That left Salazar’s Locket in Grimald Place under the care of Kreacher, Helga’s cup inside Gringotts in the Lestrange vault, and the resurrection stone inside the Gaunt family ring in the Gaunt shack.

  I considered just doing them myself or maybe with only Holly’s help, but that was how Dumbledore got himself killed in the story. Plus, as much as I was trying to short-circuit canon, it might be a good idea to have Holly there as the prophesied one to hedge my bets.

  Thus, a week before the Spring Holiday, our entire group gathered together in the cottage.

  Moving the portal that I had left in position above Gringotts, I sent it down, down into the lower levels of the bank. Moving it around in the closest thing I could to a grid search, I scanned for the vault in question via the small name engraved to the side of each one in Gobbledygook.

  As the seconds turned into minutes, then hours of just flying up and down the tunnels, I had to stop and ask. “What the hell is going on?”

  Taylor, who had been trying to use her bugs to map the subterranean cave system, just scowled. “I think they have some sort of enchantment that makes thieves get lost.”

  Hinata huffed and then shrugged. “I might be able to see more if I were there in person, but the caved themselves seem to rearrange themselves on the other side of the portal.”

  Groaning, I closed the portal and tapped my fingertips across the table. “I should have thought of that. I am pretty sure there are stories of the goblins making labyrinths, in the old Greek sense, to trap people. I also don’t want to try to sneak in. Magical disguises are basically useless with that thief’s downfall across the entrance.”

  Amy shrugged. “I could still transform you to look like an escaped Bellatrix.”

  Ahri swished her tails and conjured an image of the witch next to her. “Or I can make an illusion of her.”

  I hummed again, we had considered those options before. However, after weighing the risks, I shook my head. “Both require one of us going in person and I don’t want to be anywhere inside the bank if possible, especially if this is actually a labyrinth.”

  Sighing, I leaned back in my chair. “Honestly, I wish we could just ask if they would consider a soul fragment being in their vaults against the rules or not. If it were, then it would solve the issue without us having to do anything. The problem is, if they do allow something like that inside their walls, then asking them about it is practically telling them who robbed them once they eventually detect our theft.”

  That was when Chell spoke up. “What if we follow the goblins down to her vault and then portal inside?”

  I tilted my head, but Hermione seemed to realize where Chell was going with this as she jumped to her feet. “Like if we give something to the goblins to deposit in the Lestrange vault?”

  Sitting up, I smiled. “Ah, like a Trojan horse.” Summoning an old, gaudy gold statue we had found in the room of requirement, and that Amy had thought was hilarious. There had been a lot of old strange things in that room, the best of which were probably the strange furniture. I searched for a moment until I found the tiniest crack in the metal of said statue and opened the tiniest portal I could.

  Ahri smiled as she stood up and picked up the statue along with a handful of loose change. Counting it, she wiggled her tails, and a moment later she was an ancient-looking, sneering, pureblood witch. Even her voice was snobbish and entitled as she said, “Give me a second, you mudblood welps. I just need a bribe to have those disgusting creatures store the old artifact away.”

  Snorting, I opened a portal to the alley outside the bank and felt the statue travel inside the bank before being handed over and making its way to the back, probably to be inspected, then down and down into the dark.

  Letting that work its way towards her vault and collecting Ahri back from her infiltration, I moved on. “Next, we need to grab Sirius.”

  Holly winced and quickly declared, “Not it!”

  Understanding hit me a moment too late as I realized what the man was probably doing with his two girlfriends… again… honestly, they hadn’t been doing much else any time we visited him.

  A chorus of “Not it” and “Not me” followed before I just sighed and reopened the portal I kept outside their cottage in Iceland.

  Not wanting to walk into the remnants of any activities again by actually entering their cottage, I just raised my wand and let out a cannon blast and waited.

  However, not 5 seconds later, I was greeted with a flying kick from a partially clothed, irate ninja.

  I ducked and rolled away to the right from the flying foot. Yet Anko proved she still outclassed me by landing on one foot only to whip around and leap, transitioning that into a dropping ax kick into my new location.

  This made me back pedal again, lunging backward at my full speed.

  I was sweating properly now. I didn’t know what had happened, but this wasn’t going to end well for me as she was clearly out for blood.

  As Anko’s kick landed she created a small crater, bursting the rocks out in a small explosion and forcing me to twist and jump again from the flying debris as well, only to reach up and have to block two smaller stones headed toward my face. They probably wouldn’t have hurt much, but I didn’t need the distractions as I kept my focus squarely on the trained assassin.

  This time as we both landed we just stared each other down for a moment. I had been driven away from my portal by a good 30 meters or so with Anko now standing between me and relative safety.

  Just opening another portal would take a second or two, which was too slow in this type of fight. That meant I had to used the one I had.

  Maybe she saw the hint of my planning face or something as when Anko stood up slowly from the crater, her eyes narrowed, and I swallowed again.

  I was going to need a distraction.

  Thus, before I could think better of it, my big mouth opened and I put my foot in it, trying to make a joke to put her off balance. “What? Did I interrupt you before you could finish?”

  Anko’s eyes blazed, and I felt my face pale. Wait, was I right? It should have been lunch time.

  That was bad… really, really bad. Last time she had glared at me like this, Amy had been forced to practically reconstruct my knees from scratch.

  I considered apologizing, but that had never worked with Anko… so… it was time to just run away.

  Taking a deep breath and ignoring the shiver running up my back at Anko’s smile, I muttered, “Damn It!” before bolting towards her and the portal behind her. The inner pocket was the only place I might possibly be safe while Anko cooled down.

  Anko obviously saw me running towards her and didn’t wait, instead jumping to intercept anything I might have come up with.

  Not waiting for her to arrive, I ducked to the right before jerking the portal to the left and leaping towards it.

  However, Anko was not so easily tricked, as she only hesitated for a moment before she realized what I had done, and her eyes narrowed. Jumping backwards and twisting around impossibly fast, she lashed out with a kick.

  Retreating again would just make things harder so I tried to absorb the hit.

  Bracing myself, I managed to catch the blow and twisted said leg into an instinctive hold and throw, forcing her away while making sure to twist the side of the knee along the way in order to try to break it.

  However, Anko was still not one to be stopped with just that, and she bent backwards, grabbing the ground with a chakra-enhanced grip while rotating her leg enough that my twist didn’t hurt it at all.

  Now, after that back flip, she was in a runner’s pose poised to perform a textbook tackle. In that split second I knew I had to keep her off of me and I pulled out my knife, but also raising the stakes of this little duel higher.

  Anko had always beaten us with the level of force we had presented her… probably not for any type of honor, but as a method of showing just how out classed we were.

  Blinking away the sudden sweat and taking a deep breath, I lunged forward as she did the same.

  Twisting and striking as fast as I could, I only barely managed to keep her away from my face and chest, accumulating dozens of bruises across my arms and legs.

  This wasn’t working… I was being worn down, and barely doing any damage at all.

  Now was the time for something else.

  Transitioning myself to defense, I rotated myself to line up for one more desperate gamble from above.

  Thus after a few seconds of prep and with as little warning as possible, I suddenly switched from pure defense to all out offense and pushed forward, forcing her to lean back ever so slightly while I slammed down a portal I had made above us, then I constricted it, cutting off her ability to use her hands as they were now a mile in the air.

  Not hesitating, since Anko had beaten that bad habit out of us months ago, I drove my dagger into her thigh all the way down to the bone next to her femoral artery. It was a lethal wound if she so much as moved the wrong way.

  I paused…

  Then the realization of what I had just done occurred to me.

  I had just beaten Anko…

  She was a bloody ANBU, and I had gotten the best of her!

  I felt a cry of triumph start to build in my throat before it was instantly cut off as the partially-dressed lower half of Anko I could still see seemed to twitch… a twitch as if she was laughing.

  In slow motion, I opened up the portal enough to see Anko’s half-crazed smile as she looked at me in a thong, tank top, and half-removed booty shorts that she had purposefully kept stuck to her ankle like taunt.

  … all of which then suddenly puffed into smoke.

  My rising excitement suddenly felt like ice as I turned around to see the real Anko walking out of Sirius’ cottage in the same clothes, a look of contentment on her face. Behind her, Sirius and Sherrel followed, amusement across their features.

  Groaning, I couldn’t help but rub my forehead. “Did you really just send a shadow clone out here to beat me up so you would have 20 more seconds to finish up?”

  Anko actually had the gall to laugh at me before reaching out and poking my forehead. “Don’t furrow your brow, you will get wrinkles and ruin all of Amy’s hard work. Plus, you should know better than to interrupt us at a time like this.”

  My deadpan face didn’t seem to have any effect on her, so I looked at the sun. “It's like 1 pm…”

  Anko simply nodded like that made perfect sense. “Yeah, we just needed a quicky after waking up.”

  Giving up, I threw my hands in the air and stomped back towards the cottage portal. “Whatever… you three are insane. I have five wives, and even I am not as much of a nymphomaniac as you… nor do I try to kill someone if they interrupt me.”

  Anko snorted. “And don’t you forget it.” Before jumping forward and reaching out to ruffle my hair. “That said, good job.”

  I ignored Sirius’ smiling mumble about how it wasn’t that weird to be making up for lost time while Sherrel just folded her arms under her gigantic breasts and bounced them with a smile.

  I turned to face Anko and raised my eyebrow. Anko’s smile turned a bit more proud. “Though, you weren’t a complete failure this time. That clone was me at maybe 70%... and I was a little pissed when I made it.”

  I blinked in surprise, and a real smile crossed my face at one of the few compliments I had ever gotten before Anko’s grin turned back to its normal, sadistic form. “That does mean that we can go harder once you all get back from your little trip. I have mentioned it, but I really have been looking forward to teaching you all how instinctive chakra reinforcement works… and the best way to teach that is just to tie you up and beat you to within an inch of your lives, so your body learns to reinforce itself without thought.”

  I actually tripped slightly as I was stepping through the portal and spun around to spot her with her almost insane smile.

  Throwing my hands into the air again, I groaned and threw myself into one of the cottage chairs while my girls nervously giggled, and Sirius and Sherrel smirked wider.

  Thus, the annoying trio joined us in waiting in our cottage while Sirius directed me to find Grimauld Place. It didn’t have the Fidelius charm on it yet, so it was just a matter of getting to the right spot in London.

  So, despite how annoying it was to fly a grid pattern down the streets until Sirius spotted something he still recognized, it barely took 20 minutes.

  Once I dropped Sirius off so he could start deactivating the wards and have a long overdue talk with Kreacher, I turned my attention to first checking on the portal in Gringotts.

  The delay seemed to have wasted enough time as I noticed that the statue had been placed into a vault.

  I was momentarily worried, wondering if they had actually placed it inside the right vault, but a look around showed me a lot of golden items and, on the far side, a golden cup.

  Smiling, I simply opened a portal inside the vault and widened it until it encompassed the entire roof of the vault. Then I lowered it down, stealing everything and letting them crash down onto the area in front of our pocket dimension’s gate. We could remove the multiplication and burning traps later. For now, we had the cup and a lot of gold for our troubles…

  I paused and then smiled. Maybe I could do this to Malfoy and a few of the other Death Eater families. I hadn’t wanted to outright kill them as Dumbledore might intervene since we needed him on our side, but nothing was stopping me from taking their money, right?

  I turned my attention to the final Horcrux.

  Finding the Gaunt shack on the edge of the Riddle manor was unfortunately going to be a bit trickier. I had understood that it was hidden somehow via magic. However, I had no idea what method Tom had used.

  I had considered using Thea to try to map the area with scanners and drones, betting on technology being able to notice the missing area, but a simpler method occurred to me as I discussed it with Holly over the last few days.

  I had to physically expand my bubble in a circle as I encompassed the forest in the elemental nations to pull it into a pocket dimension. Said process took a lot of effort and I had to focus on each section that I added.

  So, if I did that same process here, I would have to, at some point, encompass the Gaunt shack. The only problem was that it would be exhausting and could take hours or even days.

  Sighing, I stepped through a portal onto the edge of the Riddle property and opened my senses as I sat down and began to open a small dimensional shift outwards.

  Holly hesitated for a moment, but probably feeling that this was her battle, joined me by sitting in the grass next to me a moment later for moral support, if nothing else.

  Unfortunately, the Riddles were rich, so there was a lot of land to cover and I wasn’t sure what area the Gaunt shack had been in. Thus, I just had to get started.

  Slowly, pushing a little further out each time I inspected the area.

  Little by little.

  Step by step…

  Thus the hours once again passed as I scanned and searched, the sun slowly lowering across the sky.

  Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t remember coming across a small rocky ridge with a spiky hedge growing on top. That was strange as it was almost like walking around the spiral. I should have seen it coming from nearly a mile away.

  It got weirder as I stepped back and suddenly realized that it was gone again. Another step forward and it appeared. Back and forth I metaphorically stepped and yet next to me I could tell time was passing as Holly’s breathing would skip as if I was missing time..

  Smiling and taking a deep breath, I tried to open a portal into the area inside I couldn’t quite focus on. Obviously it failed… then failed again.

  It took fifteen tries where I focused on nothing more than opening a portal a few feet in front of my search area, but suddenly I was looking into a small clearing where nothing seemed to want to grow and a run down shack sat crumbling in the center.

  Not bothering with physically entering the area nor entering the shack with my portal, I simply moved said portal into the crawl space under the house and began to search, board by board.

  Yet, it seemed that that was once again optimistic as, after 10 minutes of searching the tiny 2 bedroom shack, I still hadn’t found anything.

  Sitting back, I paused and considered for a moment before I opened my soul sight and looked around.

  Honestly, I wanted to kick myself for not figuring this out earlier as it was suddenly obvious where the soul shard was hidden. Specifically, I found a black miasma leaking out of a small section that could only be Tom’s horcrux.

  Not wanting to get anywhere near the withering enchantment, I simply moved the portal so that it contained the entire area and then ripped the hidden box away and dropped it directly into a vat of the purifying hotsprings water next to the gate I had placed for just this purpose..

  Instantly, I could hear a hiss as it began to work and I smiled, hoping that it felt like boiling alive to Tom’s soul.

  Closing the portals I did the same to the cup, the diary, the diadem, and once Kreacher had been convinced, the locket.

  I didn’t think just using the water would be enough to remove Tom, but it had weakened the sliver in Holly’s head enough that I was now moderately confident I could pull it out without harming her.

  However, I didn’t care about the locket or the diary, so they would be the first ones I would practice on. That way, I could potentially save the diadem and cup, and then most importantly, I would be prepared to pull the fragment out of Holly herself.

  Still, it was late Sunday afternoon now, and Anko was planning to train us this evening, so I left all the fragments boiling away for now.

  Interlude Ahsoka:

  Ahsoka sat back after her discussion with Max and Tonks.

  She hadn’t enjoyed dredging up the old memories.

  The failures… the deaths

  She might not have even let herself do that much if she hadn’t been in a different world. One where the Force seemed like a bare remnant of what it was in her home universe.

  Yet it also let her start to deal with the decades of built up… well she had to admit they were basically bagage.

  It was why she had resisted even the idea of joining the Family until recently.

  Yet, the choice needed to be made soon.

  She was growing attached.

  She either needed to bite the bullet and accept that she was going to discard even the this last remnant of the Jedi teaching… or she needed to leave them and head back to her lonely fight against the empire.

  Maybe it was her weakness, but she didn’t want to leave the warmth and support she had here…

  Sighing she smiled as Ahri noticed her distress and walked over to comfort her.

  It was a bit hard being the second oldest here. Yet Ahri, Max, or Talor seemed to notice those moments and try to comfort her.

  However, she had to admit that it was Ahri she preferred to talk to… sometimes it was just nice to both be able to relate with someone who could understand death and loss.

  Sighing again as she realized what she had just admitted.

  she smiled at the fox woman even as she realized internally that she wasn’t going to be leaving her new family…

  Interlude Alice:

  Alice had to admit that this pokemon world had been good for all of the girls, but especially Riley and herself.

  The former brainwashed serial murderer had been steeped in so much self loathing that it was hard to even get her to eat sometimes.

  Riley had wanted to return to what she viewed as her only redeemable skill… that of surgery and healing.

  Yet she had done what Max and Ahri had asked and had forced the young girl out of her box and to bond with her Eevee. It probaby wasn’t a surprise with the amount of love the girl had put into her, that her eevee had fairly quickly turned into a Sylveon.

  It also seemed to have confirmed that it wasn’t romantic love that Eevee needed for that fairy type evolution, just a deep soul filled bond of someone you believed you couldn’t live without.

  The fact that Sylveon, or Sylvy as Riley preferred, could share her emotions with the tramatized girl had helped her tremendously.

  “Mother, fudging, son of a milk-tank!” a voice yelled climbing up the hill with a Umbreon leading it’s partner up the hill.

  That was the other surprise. Apparently Riley’s kicked puppy look had finally worn Aisha down…

  It hadn’t stopped her from cursing altogether, but now whenever she was within earshot, she toned her language down just barely enough that it didn’t trigger the immediate “Language, Please” from Riley.

  The question was, what were the three of them going to do after Max came back.

  Dinah and Luna were practically counting the days until they could head back.

  Meanwhile, Vicky and Missy were much more focused on becoming the best pokemon trainers they could be. They had bonded over the loss of Dean and hadn’t even considered dating yet, let alone joining Max's harem.

  No, that wasn’t completely fair, Max had been quite clear that sex was not required.

  Reaching down, she ran her hands across her own cold companion. Glaceon, as the ice evolution of Eevee, was always pleasantly cool despite the heat.

  It was clear the three would stay together, but what did they want to do?

  Taking a swig of her water bottle, she sighed.

  They didn’t have to decide yet.

  They had quite a bit of time to figure it out, after all.

  Until then, it was time to try out this new set of gyms.

  Author note:

  1) This one fought me. Mostly because this is perhaps the busiest time of the year for me and I managed to get sick twice in only 3 weeks.

  Still I managed 15k+ words and made it to the jump. However, when I showed it to my wife, she forced me to split it… She says “sorry, not sorry”.

  Good news is I have a chapter 95% ready for next week.

  2)For the multiple people who said Nier Automata isn’t that powerful, I disagree… and it is my story :)

  As for those saying Dragon Ball Z is way, WAY higher on the power scale. That is True! However, remember, it is all about WHEN and where you are talking. In my opinion, Goku only reaches demigod status around the Freeza arc and full blown godhood much, much later. Up until Goku’s trip to Namac, with magic, chakra, and an ambush, the Family could have handled anything on earth. (especially as the androids were just blueprints at this point)…. Not so much after that. Not until their next power up.