The Black Lion - A familiar face. (Patreon)

Harrison Evans, Madelyne's Mind – Somewhere.

"AHHHHG!" the redhead screamed, a clone of his beloved Scarlet Lioness, and yet so different in certain ways.

His beloved Jean was… explosive, dynamic, and extroverted. She commanded every room she entered and feared nothing and no one. One of his beautiful jewels and Empresses.

But Madelyne…

The mysterious young woman had appeared out of absolutely nowhere, a perfect clone of his beloved lioness, although the genetic samples indicated that she hadn't been created from a recent sample. Harrison had already implemented protocols to prevent such situations.

His beloved Jean was busy researching and developing things for the Empire, and in her own words, she didn't have time to meet an "inferior copy" of herself, which Harrison had interpreted as her being terrified of facing young Madelyne.

Harrison had read Emma's reports. She had scanned the minds of both young women, and while Lorna's life and past up until her abduction were traceable, confirming that she was indeed the sister of his beautiful Scarlet Witch and the daughter of Magneto, who apparently couldn't stop scattering children all over the fucking world…

Madelyne was another matter entirely.

According to Emma, the only memories she had been able to access belonged to Madelyne's captivity under Hydra: the torture, the needles, the experiments, even the moment of her capture. But… that was all.

Emma mentioned that there was some kind of… interference, like a strange fog blocking everything that had happened before the young woman's capture, buried deep within her mind and protected by something the telepath couldn't penetrate.

But unlike Emma, Harrison didn't use a psionic connection between minds, like mutant telepathy. Instead, he employed Legilimency, and very few things could remain hidden from a master of the mental arts such as himself.

"Where are we?" the redhead asked timidly, looking around with curiosity.

"We're inside your mind. Well, a physical manifestation of it," the Black Lion explained calmly, taking his time to examine their surroundings with curiosity. As usual, mental fog surrounded them, dense crimson clouds descending slowly from a dark, infinite sky.

Madelyne didn't answer immediately. Instead, she looked timidly around her. The redheaded mutant was… frightened. Her arms wrapped around her own body, and she seemed to shrink into herself while shaking her head.

"I… ummm… what are we doing here, my Lord?" the redhead asked, but Harrison didn't answer with words.

He answered with actions.

With firm strides, the Emperor walked toward the mist. It was dense and shapeless, revealing the… poor, perhaps even nonexistent, defenses within Madelyne's mind. He shook his head before focusing his powerful gaze upon the young woman and answering.

"We're here to uncover your past."

And with those words, Harrison made a gesture with his hand, moving it slowly through the mist, channeling his magic through it and, in the process, forcing Madelyne's mind to reveal her oldest memory.

At least, the oldest one available at that moment.

Slowly, the esoteric surroundings began to change. The dense fog gradually took physical form, manifesting into a particular room, one that Harrison didn't recognize.

But one that young Madelyne clearly did, judging by the erratic way her eyes widened in terror as they focused upon the cold, sterile metal table in the room.

"Where are we, darling? I need you to tell me. I need you to confront absolutely everything," Harrison declared gently, causing Madelyne to stare at him in utter shock and terror before shaking her head over and over again.

"No… no, please, my Lord. I… I don't want to…" the redhead pleaded, beginning to hyperventilate and consequently causing the entire room to grow blurry.

Evidently, Madelyne was attempting to send the memory back into the deepest recesses of her mind, something Harrison couldn't allow. But preventing her from doing so… would mean imposing his will upon the redhead's, and that was something he genuinely didn't want to do.

"Madelyne!" the Emperor shouted, imposing his will upon the redhead's mind, forcing it to materialize the painful memory once again and, in the process, exerting considerable mental pressure upon her.

"AHHHHG!" Madelyne screamed, bringing her hands to her head and squeezing her eyes shut while shaking her head repeatedly. Her body trembled as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Please… stop! Stop, please!" she begged through her tears, and to be truthful, Harrison felt his heart break a little at the sight of the young woman looking so… fragile and vulnerable.

Harrison knelt beside her, touching the young woman's cheeks and offering as much comfort as he could.

"I don't want to have to tear the memory out of your mind, Madelyne. That would be agonizing. I need you to be brave, understand? I need you to be good. Face your fear and allow me to help you," Harrison declared with as much determination as he could muster.

Madelyne was trembling, but to Harrison's relief, the memory had condensed even further.

"It hurts… it hurts so much, my Lord! It hurts so much!" Madelyne whimpered in utter agony, and Harrison hurried to comfort her.

"I know, darling. I understand what it's like to have someone tamper with your mind. That's why we're going to break the chains they've placed upon you. You're strong, aren't you? Say it," Harrison ordered firmly, taking Madelyne's hand. To the Emperor's pride, even in complete agony, she had managed to summon a look of determination, although it was accompanied by absolute dependence upon Harrison.

"Do you promise… do you promise I'll never be alone again? Do you promise you'll always… be here with me?" the young woman whispered in a broken voice, and Harrison didn't hesitate to answer. At this point, he was certain that Fate, or some higher power, would simply keep throwing beautiful and powerful women into his life without end.

Not that he was complaining, of course.

"I promise, Madelyne. Now… be good for me and fight through the pain. I only need one opportunity, one small opening through the darkness, a single instant, and it will all be over," the Emperor declared softly, although there was unmistakable desperation in his voice.

The redhead nodded, inhaling sharply while grimacing in absolute pain, preparing herself to follow Harrison's orders.

And then…

"RAHHHHHHHHHG!"

The psionic scream was absolutely devastating, to such an extent that even Harrison felt the aftereffects of the powerful attack, a terrible headache beginning to form.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself, watching as Madelyne's eyes illuminated like two emerald stars, causing psionic fractures of the same color to begin manifesting throughout the memory. Slowly, details that had been suppressed within Madelyne's mind began reappearing.

The first thing to reappear was Madelyne herself. She was naked, stripped of her dignity and strapped to the metal table with leather restraints around her arms and legs, completely exposed and humiliated. Within the memory, the redhead was in absolute agony, screaming endlessly while begging for mercy that Harrison knew would never come.

"You can do this, darling! You're strong! You're stronger than this! Make them regret what they did! I give you my word that we'll make them pay. Just give me a face, give me something I can track," the Emperor declared fiercely, giving Madelyne the encouragement she needed to continue.

"RAHHHHHHG!" the redhead screamed again, expelling even more power from within herself, flooding the incomplete memory and irreversibly fracturing the construct.

And in the process…

"Got you," Harrison whispered triumphantly as he detected the opening in the mental camouflage. Now that he knew where the altered memory was hidden, tearing it apart and restoring it would be child's play.

With precision and lethality, Harrison focused his Legilimency upon the crack Madelyne had created for him, and without wasting time, directed his monstrous magic into the fracture.

The anomaly attempted to defend itself, to conceal itself once again and disappear into Madelyne's subconscious, but Harrison refused to allow that.

With cunning and experience, the Black Lion infused his will into the crack, shattering it from within and, in the process… revealing Madelyne's true memory.

Instantly, terrifying machines equipped with robotic arms and enormous needles embedded within the redhead's body appeared in the memory, undoubtedly responsible for her suffering. At the same time, a feminine figure appeared, one familiar to the young Emperor, one he knew perfectly well, but whom he had honestly never expected to see again in this world.

She wasn't particularly tall, possessing a slender, feminine figure, but nothing especially spectacular or remarkable about her appearance. Snow-white skin, brown curly hair resembling a bird's nest, enormous uneven teeth, and a pair of particularly prominent front teeth to match.

A silhouette the Emperor would recognize anywhere.

The silhouette of Hermione Granger.

"Impossible," he whispered to himself as he listened to what was happening within the memory.

Madelyne screamed and begged in an agony so terrible that even Harrison shuddered. The young woman pleaded for mercy, or for death, and both requests were denied.

Hermione watched everything coldly, as though the agonizing Madelyne were… nothing more than a laboratory rat to her.

"The test subject has proven to be an ideal substitute. With the loss of Jean Grey, Project Pryor shows potential as an ideal replacement to receive Harrison Evans's seed. Your orders, Mr. Essex?"

Hermione's words struck Harrison like a punch to the stomach, for the simple reason that they were words he would never have expected from his Hermione.

But evidently, just like her father, this Hermione was a shitty person.

The coldness with which she had spoken about Harrison's suffering, about Madelyne as nothing more than a project… made it extraordinarily easy for the Black Lion to distinguish between his best friend, his sister from his old world, and this… inferior and terrible doppelgänger.

Alas, what mattered was that he finally had a face, a target. There was no reason to keep Madelyne trapped in this torment.

However, just as Harrison prepared to finish purging the mental block from Madelyne's mind and free her from this suffering…

He heard it.

That damned voice, one that merely hearing was enough to remind the Emperor of the machinations of his youth at Hogwarts.

"Continue the experiments as planned, Miss Granger. Good work."

Harrison's eyes widened, his body going rigid. He had thought he'd managed to rid himself of that damned old man in his previous life, but apparently, cockroaches were difficult to exterminate.

"Albus… Dumbledore," Harrison spat with absolute contempt before channeling his magic and tearing the psionic block within Madelyne's mind apart, freeing the redhead's mind but leaving her exhausted in the process.

And in the blink of an eye, Harrison returned to Hogwarts, more bewildered than he had been in a very long time, to such an extent that he had to make a genuine effort to calm his chaotic magic.

Madelyne lay unconscious in his arms, overwhelmed by what had happened, and Harrison effortlessly lifted her into his embrace before shaking his head and beginning the journey toward the infirmary.

The rest of the Cult and his father would arrive in a few hours, hours the Emperor would need to organize his thoughts. The revelation within the redhead's mind had changed the game.

However, the Lion had a new prey, a dangerous one, someone with whom he had an unsettled score.

One he fully intended to settle.

Whatever the cost.

Matriarch Benezia, The Citadel – Veridian.

"So… how did it go?" Benezia asked with her characteristic elegance as she and Aethyta enjoyed a cup of the delicious and addictive nectar Harrison had so kindly provided for them.

Both matriarchs were enjoying a comfortable, intimate moment. Her beloved daughter had descended to the planet to explore the Prothean ruins, and Harrison wasn't present aboard the station, so Benezia and Aethyta could speak in complete tranquility.

"Not nearly as well as it went for you, apparently. Now I understand why Emperor Harrison gave me a warship. Fucking my daughter and my bond mate… should I expect an invitation to join the club?" Aethyta joked, causing Benezia to laugh elegantly, although the matriarch couldn't suppress the delicious shiver that ran through her body at the thought of Harrison and everything he had done to her.

Oh, Benezia had lived for eight hundred years. She was a mature, elegant, and powerful asari, and yet, in Harrison's arms, she had felt like a maiden again… the things he had done to her Azure…

By the Goddess, merely thinking about it forced the matriarch to suppress a moan of desire, longing to lose herself once more between the Emperor's sheets.

To become one of his… lionesses, as Liara had called herself.

"The Emperor is a virile man and a gifted lover. I have absolutely no complaints in that regard," Benezia declared with a giggle as they silently observed the first training session between the asari commandos who had accompanied them and the human soldiers.

Benezia's powers of observation told her quite a bit about the interaction. The soldiers working with the asari weren't Spartans, but some kind of lower rank, although that didn't make them any less lethal.

They were enormous, like all humans, forcing most of the asari to tilt their heads upward to speak with them. However, that didn't seem to prevent her sisters from flirting incessantly with the alien soldiers, constantly seeking opportunities to get closer to their instructors.

The humans were demonstrating a specialized rifle adapted for asari hands, a Class One directed-energy rifle designated Equinox. Its design was somewhat crude, resembling a thin rectangular box. Instead of a conventional barrel, it possessed a kind of lens containing an unknown crystal, through which Benezia assumed the beam was projected toward the enemy.

The commandos were delighted, experimentally firing at moving targets within the beautiful training grounds of the temporary asari embassy aboard the Citadel. Benezia watched with admiration as the white energy bolts struck their targets with precision.

"A powerful weapon, extraordinarily superior to almost everything we possess in Nexus space, and yet it's considered a civilian-grade weapon. It's nothing compared to the Class Three LAS energy weapons used by the military, or the directed-particle weapons belonging to the Imperial House of Evans. Now those are some truly nasty girls," Aethyta declared with a sigh, undoubtedly lost in the memory of her visit to Harrison's shooting range, where she had been able to use the frankly terrifyingly powerful particle weapons.

Benezia still remembered the expression upon her bond mate's face when she had used the Evans Starstorm, laughing like a maniac. The matriarch was more than certain that Aethyta would end up begging Harrison for a weapon from his personal arsenal.

"I'll do what I can to convince Harrison to give you one for your hunt in the Terminus Systems. Have you already selected your first target?" Benezia asked curiously, causing Aethyta to smile radiantly at the prospect of possessing an Evans particle weapon before answering.

"Aye. Fleet Master Rogers and I have been conducting extensive research into potential targets for the Nyx to strike. Curiously enough, he believes Omega shouldn't be our priority, at least not during the first twenty years. Instead, we should begin eroding batarian influence throughout the sector. Apparently, the Emperor intends to launch a major crusade against the Hegemony as his introduction to the Council. If he succeeds, I'll become his greatest admirer," Aethyta declared, obvious respect and reverence in her voice.

Benezia nodded with an elegant smile. Harrison had entrusted that plan to her after a long session of lovemaking that had left her exhausted and sore. The hundred-year plan was already underway, and its first seeds were already being sought.

Such as the quarians and the krogan.

"Do you already have someone in mind for our first contact with the krogan?" Benezia asked curiously, taking another sip of her coffee when she saw Aethyta nod.

"Aye. I have a contact in Terminus. During my deployment aboard the Nyx, I'll arrange a meeting with Wrex. I'm not certain he'll agree quite so easily, but I'm confident I can secure a meeting," Aethyta declared firmly, causing Benezia to nod with satisfaction.

"I know. I've seen what they can do. Besides…" Benezia began, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Hermione, the Emperor's daughter… his A.I.

Another matter that would become a headache for the Councils of both Thessia and Nexus, but that was a problem for another time.

"Matriarch Benezia! Matriarch Aethyta! The Pathfinder, an Imperial exploration and research vessel, has just returned to the Citadel. My mother, the future Empress Susan and head of research and development in charge of the vessel, insists upon contacting the highest-ranking authority of the asari species aboard the station," the little A.I. declared.

Benezia and Aethyta exchanged glances before nodding and answering.

"Understood, Hermione. You may establish the connection," Benezia declared in a calm and respectful voice, although her tone couldn't entirely conceal her… hesitation when speaking with the A.I.

The little A.I. smiled radiantly, nodding rapidly before connecting Benezia's private terminal to Empress Susan.

"Have you spoken with her?" Aethyta asked, causing Benezia to shake her head.

"No, I haven't. Lady Susan has been deployed on an exploration mission for months, but everyone speaks of her with respect and admiration."

Aethyta's words died upon her lips as the holographic interface gave way to the image of a beautiful Terran woman. She was elegant, dressed in a tailored black Imperial suit with an emerald cloak draped over her shoulders. Her skin was snow-white, her hair golden, and her blue eyes seemed to glow.

She was… one of the most elegant and imposing women Benezia had ever seen, and the matriarch wasn't surprised to learn that she was one of the Council Lionesses.

Apparently, Harrison had a habit of surrounding himself with beautiful and competent women to govern.

A wise decision on his part, in Benezia's not-so-humble opinion. The matriarch straightened her back elegantly before nodding gently and answering.

"Madame Susan, my name is Matriarch Benezia, one of the envoys of the Asari Republics serving as a diplomatic contact with Emperor Harrison. It's a pleasure to meet you," Benezia declared softly, following a protocol she had perfected through centuries of political experience.

The lioness, Lady Susan, nodded with elegance and perfect composure. Her face looked tired, but it also radiated satisfaction.

"Madame Benezia, it's a pleasure to meet you. And although I would normally enjoy spending some time getting to know one another, we have something far more important on our hands," she declared solemnly.

At those words, Benezia and Aethyta exchanged curious, cautious glances before focusing once again upon the Terran woman and asking.

"What do you mean, my Lady?" the matriarch asked curiously, and the moment she heard Susan's answer, she understood the beautiful woman's urgency.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with the thousand turian survivors we rescued on Pandora?"

And at those words, so simple and yet so… overwhelming, Benezia could think of only one thing.

Shit.