Isabella easily picked out the golden fragments that had once formed the Casket, and which still brimmed with Binding magic. Not stopping her absorption of the cold power that had cleared the entire area and revealed the thorn-spiked armored immensity of Robert Drake looming above her, she merely gestured, and the Make Whole spell automatically began to reassemble the shattered Casket.

Golden pieces of metal with the occasional jewel upon them gathered into the air, tumbling and twisting to take up their proper spots as the magic read what they should properly be and set them up in that pattern. Then, one by one, the shards, slivers, and fragments slid together, fusing as they did, and re-established the ancient Seals that had Bound the Eternal Winter as they were indeed made whole.

The magical blizzards that had swarmed out to cover the whole world began to die off with, well, magical speed. They left a lot of snow behind, but the air temperature recovered rather quickly, and the day of snowstorms, from the viewpoint of all the people who didn’t have to fight off Frost Jotuns, fire demons, and dark elf armies, became almost a worldwide holiday.

Of course, Isabella wasn’t going to let all that sweet Ice Magic go back into the Casket, and instead sucked it into herself as it was drawn back. With a complete lack of scruples over such a thing, she merged the Casket right into her Core, not even bothering to close it, and let the Eternal Winter billow and rage inside her as it liked, pumping tons of icy power into her Winter Core.

“Ahhhh, that is the very good stuff.” Her pale golden hair was dancing silver now, and she had swirling patterns of Ice Magic flickering around her hands with but a thought. “Still not as fast as sunbathing, but much, much better, indeed!”

The looming ice colossus above her didn’t so much crumble as recede, flowing down into the ice and snow and dispersing with casually impressive speed, as if it didn’t represent kilotons of mass just vanishing into basically nowhere.

In a more human-sized icy form, Bobby Drake stood on a pedestal of ice, rising from the ground and extending up next to her. “That is some absolutely incredible ice power you are using there,” he admitted, staring at the glittering, rune-and-snowflake images around her, totally dazzled by her and her very sharp tailored white business suit.

“This is a great compliment, coming from The Iceman himself, yes?” she smiled back at him, and his icy heart flipflopped a couple of times.

“Uh, I feel I should have heard of you before, but I’m completely lost,” he admitted. “I don’t think you’re one of Russia’s White Witches...”

Her laughing was tinkling icicles, and he shivered all over, abruptly aware that she’d just taken his heart away and was waving it around in front of him. “They are silly people, living up in the tundra, where there is nothing to do but listen to the wind howl and spirits complain about how boring their lives are, why don’t we freeze some mortals today?” she sniffed. “I am Isabella Cartier, the Ice Queen of Brazil!” Her eyes glittered like sky-blue diamonds, and Robert Drake almost swooned.

He did, however, manage to remember something. “Uh, aren’t you like one of the biggest crimelords in Brazil?” he asked with a wince.

“I am indeed a crimelord in one of the most corrupt countries in the world. I believe if you look at every successful business owner in Brazil and all of the wealthy families, you will, in fact, find that they are all crime lords by definition, because they all break the law as a routine matter of doing business.

“I simply am more successful at doing so, and have a much, mmm, colder reputation.” She was not apologetic in the slightest.

“What do you do?” he had to ask.

“I am a real estate developer and builder of progressive municipal projects.” He blinked at her. “Oh, you would not believe the amount of corruption and resistance there is to be found in such things, Mr. Drake. Trying to improve the lot of life for the people of Brazil runs into many guns and knives, not the least from the people themselves. One must be cold and hard and sharp to achieve things in Brazil, Mr. Drake!” she warned him.

“You... make buildings and dams and stuff?” he qualified in disbelief.

“And even water lines and sewer systems!” she confirmed. “Complete with treatment plants! Forests replanted, water systems cleaned, farmlands ecologically balanced...”

“And you’re a crime lord?” he asked again in disbelief.

“There are many, many entrenched agencies, families, tribes, and individuals who are quite happy sitting on their polluting, mismanaged, land-wasting, and monopolistic domination of certain things, Mr. Drake. They also either want too much for what they have, or do not want to give anything up at all, for many reasons they will cite, but which often usually come down to greed. To do anything worthwhile, one must be a criminal, so I am a very good criminal.” Her smile was utterly dazzling. “Why, are you looking to get into organized crime, Mr. Drake? I did not think The Iceman of the World had an interest in such things.”

“I’m... more of an accountant?” he admitted, despite blushing at her appellation of him.

“The world runs on numbers, Mr. Drake. A good accountant is a dangerous man, as some of my opponents have found out when suddenly their numbers don’t work, they go bankrupt, and I seize all their holdings mercilessly.” She made a ‘la’ gesture absently. “Are you looking into how to become a dangerous accountant, now?”

He blinked. “That’s a thing you can do?” he almost blurted out.

“My tax returns are utter artistry,” she confirmed. “I have reduced government tax lawyers to tears upon reading them.”

“I would love to learn more about such things,” he agreed carefully despite himself. That smile was just too dangerously charming.

She held up a finger. “You will not be able to divulge my secrets to others, Mr. Drake. Be aware of that. Also, I am not a, mmm, good person. I do my Duty to those who are Loyal to me, I am deadly to my enemies, and I am very motivated. I have a very big problem with being told to sit back and let a man do things, and it is widely known I am somewhat... overwhelming to be around?”

“Well... I’m the Iceman. I can always leave if I have to, right?” he asked absently, scratching his icy head.

“A true reply! Come! I shall teach the Iceman how to be a proper Brazilian crimelord! Do you own a fine suit?”

A snowflake grew to ten feet across, and became a Portal in the air. She stepped through, and Bobby Drake followed automatically into the bright sky of a more equatorial climate, making all the snow on the ground look quite dazzling.

The temperature had risen sharply, and he knew the snow wasn’t going to last long, but everyone about was having fun playing in it. It swirled out of the Ice Queen’s way, and everyone about got smoothly out of her path as she strode toward the finely-designed modern building rising before them.

Bobby Drake resumed his human form, reflecting immediately that if he was going to hang with this woman in front of him, he was really going to have to scale up his wardrobe from a combat uniform, and he hurried after her, followed by many curious, yet knowing eyes.

Yet another man haplessly fallen for the Ice Queen!

----------

Time passes...

I kept busy as the nights and days went by. Big things and small things happened. Some were dealt with by the High Guard, some were dealt with by the Champions, Avengers, and other teams on Terra, and some were dealt with by the Xandarans when intruded upon.

The dark elves, Jotuns, and demons trying to wreak havoc on Midgard were beaten the heck up, with the Asgardian army rolling out to provide a lot of the muscle. Surtur got his head handed to him by Thor and a new Hammer-wielding alien, the Corbinite named Beta Ray Bill... who was also interested in seeing if his refugee people could settle on Venus, and went into hushed talks with the Xandarans over the possibility.

My main function was tactical vengeance. My primary victims were the Badoon, the Brood, the Skrulls, and to a lesser extent the Kree and other intruding alien races that kept thinking it was okay to mess with Terra.

Cosmic Awareness was an utterly terrifying weapon when wielded by a hyperintelligent and very focused mind capable of fine-tuning it. Someone with a high Caster Level and mastery of Divination magic was just that sort of person. An Ungodly Caster Level and an unbelievable amount of Concentration was a much worse kind.

I had targets, and I had tools.

The Xandarans’ newly-improved stealth tech was soon in place on both their fleets and the Acanti. Those who were intelligent might have realized the horrifying guerilla potential of both of those forces, but alas, they didn’t attract much attention for some reason.

I wasn’t a spymaster or an information sifter. I could be anywhere in the universe and still learn the stuff I wanted to learn, then communicate it to those I needed to talk to.

Xandarans were joining the Markspace, clearly intrigued by the potential of something so similar to the Worldmind, but built of the living, not the dead. That it was made up of some of the very best and brightest souls of humanity certainly met with their approval.

Seeing the humans who were on top of the stack was a daunting moment for them, too. While as a race they certainly commanded more power than we did, as individuals, well... there was nobody who could sit up there with Briggs and Sama, or technically even me. Their highest living Nova Core was a full Eight, a Great Centurion, working on becoming a Star Centurion.

The Acanti were joining, too. The ability to Sing to their kin clear across the vastness of space, even more clearly than the Starsong, had them all very interested, and the songs made a wonderful backdrop to the Markspace itself.

I had asked the Starsinger himself to join up and assess the Markspace for himself and his people. It had not taken long for the requests from thousands of the Acanti to build up. Venus was a very busy place for Tattoo Artists.

Then there was the Vampire’s Veil Amulets being quietly spread around the Ultra Corps and Nova Corps elites, and the High Guard. Making such things powerful enough to cover up an Acanti was something that took six months to charge up each, and so were much more difficult to make. Even then, they wouldn’t work on anything over a mile long.

That was okay, as that simply meant the younger Acanti made even better scouts and stealthers for the rest of their pods, and so could contribute more effectively. I could Chord-Cast a Vampire’s Veil that would mask even their biggest ones if I had to. They knew it, and the Acanti were often in communication about how to use such magic against their ancestral enemies. Stealth raids for nom-nom lunches were quickly a thing.

Yes, the peaceful space whales had finally acknowledged that there were beings out there who preyed on them, had been doing so for ages, and who had to be dealt with as such.

They could resist now, so they should do so. Furthermore, there were definite rewards for doing so, so it was beneficial both to themselves and their pods to act when needed.

The Badoon homeworld of Lotiara was in the Capella system, only forty-seven light years from Terra, amazingly enough. The Badoon were a sexually dimorphic people, with great rivalries between the genders. The males were aggressive and went out into space to conquer and build an empire, with their latest master being Thanos himself, guiding their exploits. The females remained on their homeworld and broodworlds, raising the young whose males eventually followed their fathers to and from space.

Their home system was naturally teched up and powerfully defended, the heart of their race. We weren’t going to attack it per se, as the females of the race were not conquerors. It was simply amusing that it was so close as we started to attack the Badoon everywhere.

The Acanti went after the Brood, and to a lesser extent, the Mi-Go. The Xandarans went after Skrull targets of opportunity, which, given the size of the Skrull empire and their infiltration operations, were everywhere.

For several months, a massive guerilla war spread throughout the Milky Way. It was totally undeclared, very much one-sided, and amazingly effective.

Make war on us undeclared, and we were perfectly happy to return the favor with a great deal of interest, since our homeworld was totally outweighed in this fight!