Hp/Marvel: John Wick The Witch King

In the end, Little Bear was nowhere to be found.

"My bear… my Little Bear," Ariana murmured, her voice laced with a quiet sorrow that pained John to hear. His sister never went anywhere without her favorite doll, the little felt housekeeper born from her own magic. Now, even she couldn't sense where it had gone.

On the drive back to New York, she tried to explain what had drawn her to Westview in the first place.

"Something was calling to me," she said, her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to recall the feeling. "It was… fiery. And always changing."

The word 'fiery' resonated with John. The bloodline within his sister was tied to the Phoenix, and fire was its very essence. Had there been another Phoenix in that town? Or had it already departed, leaving behind only a faint, misleading echo? Whatever the call was, it had led Ariana into Agnes's trap, where she was nearly forced to become a vessel for the Lord of Hell.

"We need to thank human greed," John mused grimly. He felt a chilling knot tighten in his gut as he pieced it all together. If Agnes hadn't coveted Ariana's grimoire, if she hadn't hatched her foolish plan to use it as bait, John might never have found his sister in time. The witch had hoped to lure in other wizards as nourishment, but she never imagined she would attract the Wizard King himself.

Not only had she been thoroughly beaten, but she had also led a monster straight to Hell's front door. John had no doubt the notoriously petty Hell Lords would hold Agnes responsible for the disaster.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a gentle tug on his sleeve. He looked over at Ariana, who was watching him with a familiar, cautious expression.

"Brother," she asked softly, "are you feeling better now?"

Her question, so full of concern for him after everything she had endured, struck him deep in the chest. A faint, tired smile touched his lips. "Yes. I'm better now." He reached out, his fingers gently brushing her cheek. "I almost lost you, Ariana."

"No, you won't," she said, shaking her head with a certainty that was both childish and profound. "You've always protected me. In my dream… you were there. You drove all the bad things away."

In a dream? John's hand paused. He chuckled, a soft, warm sound. "Good. I was afraid I didn't protect you well enough."

Back in New York, Ferdinand met them at the airport, his eyes darting constantly to the rearview mirror.

"If you don't need your eyes, Ferdinand," John said, his voice flat, "I can donate them for you."

Ferdinand chuckled nervously. "I need them, Boss. I need these eyes to guide me to the light." His recent trips to the library were clearly paying off. Still, he couldn't help but stare. Seeing his notoriously solitary boss emerge with a stunning, cold beauty had been a shock. Seeing her sit beside him in the back seat—a place not even Natasha or Hattie had occupied—had nearly made his jaw hit the floor.

Is this… the boss's wife? he wondered.

A sharp slap to the back of his head answered his unspoken question. "This is my sister," John said irritably. "And she is also your boss."

"Ah?" Ferdinand rubbed his head, utterly confused. He glanced at John—black hair, reddish-brown eyes. Then at Ariana—blonde hair, blue eyes. "Boss, I may not have read much, but I do have a basic grasp of genetics."

John considered his options for explaining the complex family history. Finally, he settled on the most effective one. "Salary deduction."

An instant, brilliant smile spread across Ferdinand's face. "Boss," he declared, his tone firm and full of newfound conviction. "And Boss's sister."

Sometimes, a working man simply doesn't have a choice. Dignity doesn't pay the bills. If John pointed at a block of wood and called it Vin Diesel, Ferdinand would have to agree.

Returning to the penthouse felt like coming home in a way John hadn't experienced in years.

"Moss," John called out as Ariana rushed to her room to clean up, "input Ariana's information."

Silence.

His lighthearted mood evaporated. He walked to the wall, summoning the system panel with a tap. Moss was dormant, its interface dark.

"Someone put Moss to sleep," John said, his eyes narrowing. "Stark?"

Only a handful of people on the planet could bypass his security. Tony Stark was one. S.H.I.E.L.D. was another. Neither had any reason to invade his home.

He woke the AI. "Moss. Who did this?"

"Sir," the AI's calm voice returned, "the IP address is located in Britain."

Britain? Someone had crossed the Atlantic to hack his system? "Has anyone been here?"

"Miss Hattie was the last visitor," Moss reported. "The system entered hibernation mode during her visit. A phone call was placed to her device at that time. Before hibernation, Moss implanted a tracking coordinate on the intruder. Would you like to proceed with the counter-invasion?"

As expected of an AI designed by Tony Stark. Even in the split second it took to be shut down, it had already launched a counterattack. John rubbed his chin, falling into thought. Hattie had been here, and someone had remotely shut down his entire network just to place a call to her?

He was still pondering this when his pocket began to bulge, as if something inside were trying to get out. He reached in and pulled out a familiar book: the Practical Magic Picture Book. The moment it was free, its pages began to flip wildly on their own.

Just then, Ariana emerged from her room, her hair still damp. She watched as pages flew from the book, swirling together to form a shimmering, spatial portal.

A small, brown teddy bear sat on a single page, floating down like Thumbelina on a leaf. As it neared the floor, it leaped, executing a perfect two-and-a-half somersault before landing squarely on its feet. Like a professional gymnast, it puffed out its chest and raised its tiny arms in a triumphant pose, two streams of white steam jetting from its nostrils.

The pages flew back into the book.

"Little Bear!" Ariana cried out, her face breaking into a joyful smile.

The bear scratched its head, its button eyes somehow full of an unshakable reliability as it looked around proudly. Ariana rushed over, sweeping it into a hug and spinning in a happy circle.

John, however, simply stared, a metaphorical question mark floating above his head. He looked from the magic book he had created to the bear that had just activated it remotely. How?

As the book's creator, even he hadn't known it could do that. The bear had somehow solved a complex, inverse magical equation to trigger the book's teleportation function from another dimension. If it wasn't his sister's creation, John would have been tempted to take it apart just to see how it worked. It was unbelievably, impossibly clever.

As he watched his sister spin with her bear, his eyes filled with a doting warmth. Then, his gaze drifted lower, catching a faint, dark stain on Little Bear's fluffy bottom.

The strange, viscous liquid, as if sensing his gaze, seeped deeper into the bear's fabric, vanishing completely from sight.

[Chapter Complete]

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