Dealer swirled into existence next to the rock that Dynamo had hit with a Focus Seal. Primal thrummed on her hand, reacting to the elemental energies of Air and Water swirling about them, exactly as she remembered from Dyna’s visit.

Two harmonizing Rings echoed to her in the distance, very obvious to her with her vestigial Ringlord status.

She sighed and prepped herself, zipping around the edge of the stone and heading for the center of the storm here, swirling and cycling around the endless maelstrom below, churning with elemental power.

Her own magic, especially the power from le Fey, thrummed with it. In particular, she noticed the touch of other powers at work here, and just sighed again.

Hazesight keyed to all the particle effects cut through the clouds, mist, and water alike, showing her the forms hovering in the middle of the place, magic swirling about them like a thing alive.

Three of them there, seated back-to-back, their magic working in harmony upon the air and water magic around them.

Two of them had built Matrices to Seven in but six months of meditation. Not as fast as earning Karma rampantly, surely, but much less dangerous nominally, and gentler on the baby.

Sue’s belly was noticeably swollen from the last time she’d checked in visually on them, which was to be expected. She and Reed were still sharing their Ringless arms between them, enabling a more harmonious transfer of magic in the cycling between the three of them.

Unbothered by the winds, Dealer swooped up and hovered there, watching and making no sound, but her presence rapidly seeped into the swirling winds and heavy clouds, and there was no denying her presence.

Storm was the first to pull back her power, and that of Sue and Reed followed quickly. All three of them opened their eyes, and craned their heads around to look at her.

“Nice illusions,” Dealer said softly, flicking her hands off to the sides.

A whole Deck of Cards materialized and went off.

Silvery flares of light, Arcane Fusions going off with Contingencies exploding forth with an overwhelming surge of raw magical power that, despite all their attempts to prepare for it, still overwhelmed those waiting for her.

The tall and invisible woman out in the clouds was shocked when the Spellflare Cards drove into her, igniting her automatic Shields and the spells she’d wound about herself. Her screams of pain as the feedback shattered over her in crazed wild magic and filled the air with acidic marshmallows and roaring butterflies, razored rainbows and feathery piranhas (among other things) was clearly audible.

Also, the many spells carefully laid into the surroundings and connected to her detonated in a secondary surge that sent her plummeting in a flaming arc towards the maelstrom below.

The twat in green and yellow was first struck by the same Spellflare Cards that detonated his own spells and magical preparations on himself, and then two Shardcards of tremendous power swirling with multiple Suits around them blasted him right out of the Maelstrom and over the horizon, smoking, bleeding, and most likely unconscious.

There would be time to deal with him later.

Four more Cards slammed into the invisible Ororo Munroe, her arms swollen to great size and whipping towards Dealer, surrounded in hard air and even spiked for greater impact.

The Dispels and Suppress Spell-Like Abilities Cards were all clean Clubs, and worked instantly. Instantly Ororo’s prepared spells were unwound in flickers of silver fire, her manifestations of Susan Storm’s Hard Air dissipated, and her extended limbs snapped back to normal human proportions.

Also, her mutant control of the weather around her evaporated.

Ororo Munroe gawked in shock, staring at the woman in front of her in astonishment and dismay. The vengeful triumph of the expression on her face was replaced with shock and rage at this complete reversal.

“You think I cannot deal with you!?” she shrieked, her voice unnaturally loud. Her hand flickered as a long mindspear materialized, and she lunged at Dealer with superhuman speed and strength.

Dealer calmly shifted aside from the blow, and backhanded her while saying, “Reed, Sue, I apologize, this will be over shortly.”

Ororo’s face might as well have run into a beam of solid steel, flipping over backwards as her nose shattered and she was literally spun head over heels in midair. Dealer shifted around her and slammed her hands on both of Ororo’s ears, focusing Thunder there. With the force of several hundred pounds of TNT, the explosion went off and blew out Ororo’s ears, rocking her brain with the force of the attack.

“Ororo Munroe of the lineage of Balobedu and Thor, Chosen Champion of Sekhmet, be Sealed, and be Bound.”

Ororo didn’t even hear the words, only feeling the almighty force of the Binding magic locking into her, into the Divine power she’d brought into her body, which while making her extremely strong and resistant to attacks, also made her vulnerable to this kind of assault.

After all, Binding and Sealing mere mortals this way was basically impossible. You either Imprisoned or Transformed them. Binding and Sealing was for supernatural beings.

Someone who took a Level or two in her Asgardian Bloodline was one such being.

Her scream of astonishment and disbelief was complete as she was sucked away into the Binding Tattoo on Dealer’s back.

Dealer immediately felt the connection to Sekhmet even as her own belly swelled, and a precious life formed within it, shielded in a sphere of magic maintained by his parents even in the face of Ororo’s treachery.

Also, the two Rings of Elemental Command which had basically informed Dealer of everything that had been going on materialized on her thumbs. Air and Water magic gathered around them.

The illusions had been first-rate, even fooling her ability to Detect Illusions at a distance. Of course, she could not be fooled as to the true locations of the Rings Ororo had taken from the Richards and used for herself.

“Reed, Sue, I’ll have you out of here in a jiffy,” she informed them through the Rings that Ororo had taken for her own, easily reaching into the devices and finding the Matrices linked so closely to them. With little difficulty, Dealer reversed the theft of power, separating the uniquely cosmic-touched nexii of power from the mutant weather goddess smoothly and professionally, and the quantum signatures of their bodies, too.

As she did, she also tore out the power of Sekhmet extending into the body of the infant in her belly, drawing a distant agonized scream along that link from the Egyptian goddess of vengeance as the bond was severed, pulling Her Divine energy forth.

It wasn’t like Franklin Richards was going to need it, but his parents certainly could.

“Okay, Reed, Sue, we’re going to be reforming your bodies now. I’m going to be reversing the spells through myself with a modified version of a Duplication spell, keyed to your separate souls and quantum signatures. You’ll feel the magic moving through the Matrices and then out the Rings. Go right with it and match the magic to yourselves as you reform, just like taking on an Elemental form and reverting to human.”

She felt both of their acknowledgements, and started spinning the magic calmly, dipping right into Ororo’s own memory of it without hesitation to modify it. With smooth ease, the independent Matrices and the souls and signatures they were linked to flowed out the Rings on her thumbs, spinning them off her fingers and into the air.

Magic swirled, air and water collapsed on both Rings, and energy pulsed as it was released from entrapment and coalesced into proper shapes.

Albeit without clothing.

Susan caught them both on a platform of Hard Air as the magic faded, and both she and Reed inhaled deeply with newly-formed lungs, breathing in the heady mixture of air and water all around them. She and Reed both looked at one another, blinked in surprise at how incredibly buff they both looked, and then Susan’s hands went to her flat stomach, instantly looking up to where Dealer’s own belly was still distended.

Dealer snapped her fingers, and a King and Queen of Hearts appeared above both of them, falling down over them and garbing them both in fairly ornate robes suitable for Asgardian nobility, as the magic of this Divine Realm insisted. “The child is fine, but your own protection means I could not include him in the reformation of your bodies, or he might have been combined right into the two of you,” she informed them.

Their distraught faces instantly cleared up in understanding at her words. Despite herself, Susan stepped forwards to touch Dealer’s belly, her expression slightly surreal as she made contact. She felt the swirl of the magic inside, perfectly intact for the moment, although fading as the source of it was now separated from him.

“Yes, he is fine,” she breathed out, as another hand extended out atop hers, feeling for the same thing. Reed Richards nodded as well, his relief apparent.

“Will there be any problems with carrying our child to term?” he asked directly of Dealer.

“Well, it’s going to crimp my schedule a bit,” she replied in amusement, poking her own belly with a curious expression. “But I can always remote-link with a Simulacrum if need be, so there should be no issues. There is a minor issue I will take care of right now.” She held up her hand, and a three of hearts appeared in her palm.

She reached out and touched the face of the Card to Susan’s temple, leaving a clear red heart Tattoo there. She touched it to her belly, the red heart manifesting there before slowly sinking into and beneath her skin, out of sight. A flick of her hand, and it tumbled over to impact against Reed’s temple, popping apart into a swirl of more hearts which gathered into a Tat on his temple as well.

They both noticed the mental link, and without hesitation opened it.

“Oh!” they both said together, touching mind-to-mind once more, and finding a heart-like door in front of them. They touched it, and the same smile lit up their faces as they did.

They didn’t even notice as the hands they had on Dealer’s belly flowed together. Dealer watched as Reed washed over, onto, and into his wife smoothly, with the ease of two people who’d likely spent months that way before they were attacked by Ororo and subsumed. Susan’s form dominated, Reed stretched around and onto her like he had before; Water containing Air, Air molding Water, their complementary Rings gleaming on opposite hands and synching up perfectly.

They straightened up with a combined sigh. “Your having to carry our child is most unexpected, but thank you.” The heart Tats were visible on each temple; one below the white and brown, the other the blonde. One eye was blue and one was brown, but their skin tones had meshed together flawlessly.

“It is fine,” Dealer waved it off, noting that they had let the Hard Air fade and were simply floating in midair now. “I see you’ve discovered some resonance effects of your conjoined magic. Johnny and Ben have experienced the same, although they didn’t take it quite to that step.”

They smiled despite themselves. “We’ll have to see those for ourselves, don’t spoil it for us.” They looked around sharply. “Her helpers?” they asked.

“Thor’s brother Loki and Karnilla, the Norn Queen. There will be consequences for them for trying this, but they are not our worry for now.”

They lifted their right arm and flexed. “There seem to be some... changes?” they asked diplomatically. Both of them had been in active shape, but after reforming they looked like full-time Bowflex enthusiasts.

“Ah, yes. You should find yourselves in possession of a roughly 30/30/30 physical Stat line with increased reaction times, endurance, and physical resilience, a result of the Duplication effect of the spell cycling off me.” All made possible by donations of Sekhmet’s power, thank the goddess, yes’m, Dealer thought. “Let’s get you home. I suggest drafting a nice letter of thanks to Njord and Odin, acknowledging that you owe them a favor diplomatically and thanking them for their time and permission on your behalf.”

It never hurt to treat gods well, as it were, and even Odin wasn’t going to put down Reed’s burgeoning intellectual ability, even if His raw power didn’t make such knowledge necessary.