Pop!

In the split second that he had after apparating in, Mage noted that both Darcy and the other guy were carrying a pile of metallic pole-like things. He didn't wait to analyse them, though. His hands shot out, grasped the two by their biceps and with a quick turn, the three apparated away, mere milliseconds before the bow-wave of grass, dirt and concrete would have smashed into them.

ooo00ooo

Pop!

"What just happened?" Darcy Lewis asked as she stumbled after Mage let go of her.

Beside her, Ian was doubled over, heaving his guts up and trying to suck in deep lungfuls of air at the same time.

"Sorry about that; apparating can be a bit rough the first time," Mage stated, sounding anything but apologetic.

Darcy spun around, her big brown eyes widening at the fact that she wasn't where she thought she was. In fact, from where she now stood, she could see the big ugly ship thing ploughing straight through where she'd just been standing. Frantically, she patted herself down to check that she was still there, letting the scientific rod-things fall to the ground with a clatter.

Only then did she take note of the cloaked man standing in front of her.

"Mage! Did you do that? Rescue us from getting splattered into jelly?" she asked, leaping forward to give him a hug.

"Us?" Mage asked.

"Oh, yeah, that's Ian, my intern," Darcy replied, looking down at the somewhat recovered now-named Ian standing bent over with his hands on his splayed knees.

"You have an intern now?" Mage asked before shaking his head. "Never mind. You've got some sort of scientific equipment. Does that mean that you or Jane or Erik perhaps have some idea of what's going on?"

"Well, yeah, duh," Darcy replied. "At least Jane and Erik do. And Thor, I guess."

"Thor's here?" Mage asked quickly.

"Yeah. He's here to stop the big bad guy from destroying the world or the universe or something equally stupid," Darcy replied.

"Tell me everything," Mage commanded.

"Well, me and Jane stumbled across this strange phenomena where you could literally throw stuff between different worlds," Darcy began. "It even swallowed my car keys. Then Jane disappeared, if you can believe that! Left me hanging for like five hours ..." she rambled, her arms pinwheeling to emphasise her points.

Mage's hands shot out and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, forcing her to silence.

"Just the highlights, Darcy, just the highlights," he instructed.

"Right. The highlights," she nodded. "There's this evil dude, Thor called him Malekith, I think. He's got some super freaky stuff called the aether that he's going to release into the convergence when it happens and that's ultra bad. Me and Ian are supposed to set these things up for Jane and Erik to do their thing to help stop him, while Thor keeps him distracted."

Mage stood frozen for a couple of seconds, processing the information that he'd been told.

"Once the convergence has passed, we're safe?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know about safe – have you seen the great alien ship thing over there?" Darcy replied, waving one arm past Mage's shoulder. "But yeah, he can't destroy the universe and everything, at least, not like that."

"Thanks, Darcy," Mage nodded. "You and your ... Ian do what you need to do, but stay safe. I'm off to give Thor a hand."

Before she could respond, Mage'd twisted into nothingness with a pop.

ooo00ooo

Mage apparated to just in front of where the gigantic alien ship had come to a stop. His wand dropped into his hand as he looked up at the thing in horror. From this close, it looked even larger, taller and more ominous. The gathering black clouds above it didn't help with that. And then a part near the top began moving, plummeting downwards in a controlled drop, just like an elevator.

A crack of thunder coincided almost perfectly with a ramp extending at the base of the ship and a door sliding open.

Mage shifted position slightly, one foot forward, his wand hand raised, ready.

"Seidhr!" a very welcome voice called.

Mage glanced across with a smile, not that the Asgardian could see it.

"Thor. Hope you don't mind me crashing the party," he said.

"Your aid is most welcome, my friend," Thor replied as he strode forth to stand beside him.

"You needn't have come so far, Asgardian! Death would have come to you soon enough," a shadowy figure stated in a deep voice.

Mage took in the alien. He was similar enough to human in shape, not that that often mattered, Thor was as well, and he was much more powerful and long-lived as well. His armour was dark – black seemed to be a favourite colour with this lot. Unlike the figures behind him, this one, the leader – Malekith according to Darcy – wore no mask. One half of his face was bone white, the other charred black as though he'd been caught in some sort of fire.

"Not by your hand!" Thor shot back.

"And you, Midgardian, come to die that much quicker than the rest of your pitiful race," Malekith stated. "Your universe was never meant to be. Your world and your family will be extinguished."

And then, before either Mage or Thor could respond, Malekith twirled slightly and shot twin jets of energy at them. It was deep, dark red, close enough in colour to clotted blood that had Mage raising the strongest shield that he knew of in front of him in defense.

The energy cared not a jot for the magic shield, shooting past it as though it wasn't even there. Mage felt it slam into his body, lift him up and throw him backwards. He twisted awkwardly in the air before coming down hard on his side, his wind all but knocked out of him.

"Well, that's not good," Mage wheezed as he pushed himself back to his feet.

Thor, it seemed, had recovered much quicker, having stood back up defiantly, only for a new burst of energy to come from Malekith to strike Thor, sending him flying backwards once more.

"That's the best you've got?" Mage yelled, aiming to simply draw the guy's attention so that Thor could do his thing with Mjolnir.

Malekith didn't seem to want to waste words in battle, something that he didn't have in common with Mage's past opponents. Instead, he simply blasted out with his energy at Mage.

Seeing it coming, Mage dove to the right, rolled as he landed and jumped back up to his feet. A hurried flurry of swishes and flicks had spells of red, bright blue and murky yellow shooting back at the alien. A bloom of deep red energy surged from Malekith's body to absorb the spells before they could touch the alien's body.

"Not good," Mage muttered, his mind desperately searching for an alternative form of attack other than spells.

He needn't have worried, though; his distraction seemed to be just what the doctor, well, god had ordered.

As Mage stared narrow-eyed at Malekith, Mjolnir came out of virtually nowhere to slam into Malekith, sending him flying, knocking his own men over like bowling pins before ploughing into and through a marble pillar and out of sight in the street beyond.

"Go!" Mage called, "I've got these."

Thor gave a single nod before leaping skywards after Malekith, leaving Mage facing the three or four dozen flunkies that'd just emerged from the alien ship.

ooo00ooo

"Was that?" Ian asked, staring at the spot that the cloaked man had been standing moments before.

"Yep," Darcy replied. "Mage. Avenger. Mister magic dude who's kinda weird about his face."

She bent down, then and picked up her half of the scientific do-hickey poles before looking pointedly at her intern.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Jane and Erik are counting on us to get these things set up," she stated.

Quickly, Ian began retrieving his own set.

"It would have been nice if he'd taken us back to where these things need to go," Ian moaned, juggling the awkward poles in his arms.

"Quit complaining and mush," Darcy told him. "We're on a deadline here."

Ian was forced to quickstep to catch up to her – she may be short, but her fierce determination meant that she never went anywhere slowly.

ooo00ooo

Mage and the four dozen or so aliens were left standing, staring at each other after the abrupt ... departure of Malekith and Thor flying off after him. That, of course, only lasted for a few seconds.

Almost as one, the aliens began running. The problem was that only six were headed towards Mage, the rest vectored off in different directions.

He may not be considered much of a threat, but that didn't mean that Mage wasn't going to go down fighting.

Almost on instinct, he raised his wand and snapped off a stunner. The dark red jet of magic flashed across the intervening space before slamming into the lead alien, knocking him backwards off of his feet where he lay unconscious.

"That's more like it," Mage grinned ferally.

Within a few seconds, more spells were flying – a stunner, two incarcerous', a levicorpus and a banisher. All hit dead on target, leaving his five remaining opponents trussed up, unconscious or dangling upside-down in mid-air. A few more stunners took care of the ones still conscious.

Looking up, Mage frowned; none of the other aliens were in sight anymore. The only clue he had to their whereabouts were the screams coming from the far side of the building.

While his sparrowhawk form would be perfect for getting where he needed to go quickly, without some more practice at transforming and flying, he was loath to use it. His trusty Lightning Bolt, though, that only took a second to pull out and enlarge.

Taking to the air, Mage rocketed up and over the buildings. Seeing a group of aliens chasing some people, he zeroed in on them, his wand spitting curse after curse at them. The problem was that he was limited in what he could use for fear of accidentally hitting the civilians.

"Too slow, too slow," Mage admonished himself after it'd taken three passes to down the five aliens.

Noting the sound of more screaming, Mage veered away.

"Time for something a little Wheezey," he grinned.

Using his knees to steer, Mage lined up his flight path to come at the four aliens from directly behind. One hand slipped off of the broom to reach into the appropriate pouch. Then, at just the right time, he dropped his 'bomb', instantly twisting himself about to shoot the activating magic at it.

The small package had barely had time to bounce off of the cobbles once, right in the middle of the aliens, when Mage's magic impacted it. Instantly, the package burst apart, expanded with a wet squishy noise and engulfed the aliens. The four of them were left floundering in the middle of a swamp, mud and muck covering every inch of them.

"Glasius," Mage whispered around his grin.

The effect was perfect – there was no way that those four were going anywhere, not frozen in the portable swamp as they were.

Movement out of the corner of his eye had Mage zooming off before he'd even registered what it was. A group of three aliens had two people – students by the look of them, with their books held protectively in front of their chest – backed against a wall.

Knowing that this was going to require precision, Mage dropped lower before practically running off of his broom. Leaving it lying on the ground, he went to work.

ooo00ooo

"Madam Davis! Madam Davis!" the young intern nearly screamed as she came flying into the office of the Head of the Improper Use of Magic.

"What is it?" Madam Davis asked impatiently, looking up from the report that she'd been reading.

"The Big Board. It's showing a huge amount of magic being performed in a muggle-only designated area," the girl nearly babbled.

Instantly, Madam Davis was on her feet and striding from the room, leaving the intern to scurry along in her wake.

One look at the Big Board, which covered the whole of the United Kingdom, showed that the intern was correct. The fact that the colour indicator was a deep, harsh red showed just how much magic was being used. Worse still was the fact that Greenwich was designated as being purely muggle, there were no magicals living in the area, nor were there any shops or businesses there.

"Merlin's beard," she breathed. "Send word to the DMLE! Get them there immediately to arrest whoever's responsible. And alert the Obliviators. No! Forget the memo-planes! There's not time for that. Just run!"

Instantly, the intern took off, leaving Madam Davis standing, staring at the Board as the colour intensified even further, something that she didn't think was even possible.

ooo00ooo

"Put those away!" Hermione hissed.

One by one, however reluctantly, wands were sheathed by most of the Hogwarts contingent that had taken them out. They were currently huddled in a copse of trees, out of the way and hopefully in a place where they wouldn't be noticed but still able to see what was happening.

"We can't let Mister Potter fight alone. We can help!" Daniel Greengrass insisted, clutching his wand in his hand tightly.

"Yeah, come on, Aunt Hermione, let us help Uncle Harry," Teddy agreed, a fierce expression on his face.

"Harry doesn't need help," Hermione shot back, her force of will seemingly the only thing holding the students back. "Not to mention that anything that we did would be a breach of the Statute of Secrecy."

"Then what's he doing?" an incredulous voice asked.

"Harry, Mage, has special dispensation from the International Confederation of Wizardry to act in defence of civilians or the world," Hermione replied.

"Mage?" a confused Daniel asked. "Who's that?"

"That's Harry's Avenger's code-name," Hermione replied and hurried on at the blank looks she was getting. "The Avengers are heroes, people with extraordinary powers charged with protecting everyone else from any and all bad guys."

As they watched, Harry was charged from his blind side by one of the aliens and sent hurtling through the air before coming down on the grass and rolling away. Instantly, though, he was back up and casting, returning the favour.

"We can still help!" Teddy insisted. "He needs help. I don't want Uncle Harry to get hurt."

Hermione laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"He does this regularly. And if he really needs help, then Thor will give it to him," she said. "If you really want to help Uncle Harry, then we need to stay here and let him do his thing; rushing in like that will only have him focussing on us and worrying about us and that distraction could get him hurt. Believe me, I know how it feels, I've been his best friend for most of my life, remember?"

Reluctantly, Teddy and the others nodded and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief that they were willing to follow her orders.

ooo00ooo

Jane and Erik peeked around the corner, assessing whether it was safe to emerge. Seeing nothing at the moment, Jane relaxed her hand from the activation dial on her device slightly.

The convergence, they both knew, was fast approaching. Clouds and wind were swirling above and around them as the atmosphere went nuts at the gravity being exerted on the planet by the as-yet unseen other planets of the nine realms. Portals between the worlds were opening and closing at random, causing objects to disappear and appear in bizarre and unusual places.

Fortunately, Darcy and Ian had managed to place the majority of the devices that Erik had created in their correct positions. Jane'd already used them effectively to displace some of the Dark Elves, sending them away from the current harm that they were trying to do.

The only downside was that they'd lost track of Thor. He and Malekith were still fighting but it seemed that the anomalies were playing havoc with them as well, turning their fight into a scramble to stay on the same world as much as anything else.

"Jane!" Erik said suddenly, clutching her upper arm. "There! Those creatures are heading towards those students."

Quickly Jane located the Elves that Erik pointed out, adjusted two knobs and twisted the dial.

Instead of the Elves disappearing as they were supposed to though, Darcy and Ian appeared directly in front of Jane and Erik.

"Darcy!" Jane exclaimed.

"Jane?" Darcy replied, dropping Ian from where she'd just been kissing him bent over her knee onto the ground.

With a shake of her head, Jane twisted the dial the other way. Unfortunately, her second attempt was just as good as her first. Only this time, she'd manage to summon Mage from somewhere or other.

Mage yanked his arm up as he appeared, sending the jet of vicious purple harmlessly skywards. An instant later, he redirected a spell towards the Elves that Jane'd been aiming for, sending a bolt of magic into the ground around them, exploding it and causing the Elves to be blown outwards and away.

"Mage?" Jane asked.

"Ian?" Mage said, clearly confused as to why the young man was lying on the ground.

"Doctor Selvig?" Ian asked looked straight up at the man.

"Myeu-muh!" Darcy exclaimed as Mjolnir shot past the group.

"Where's Thor?" Mage asked before shaking his head and nodding after Mjolnir. "Never mind, he's probably that way."

"The convergence is getting close to being in full effect," Erik stressed.

"You and Thor have to stop Malekith before that happens," Jane insisted.

"I'll do my best," Mage replied, before jumping on his broom and rocketing after Thor's hammer

ooo00ooo

The squad of Aurors that apparated into Greenwich quickly realised that they were out of their depth.

Muggles were running every which way, screaming their heads off as they were chased by the strangest creatures that they'd ever seen. They looked like humans, but it was obvious that they weren't, not with their unnaturally white faces and skin and pointed ears, at least once they'd seen one without their mask on. And the armour that they were wearing was nothing like they'd ever seen before. Even their weapons were terrifying – shooting some kind of red-orange beam of something that definitely wasn't magic.

Whatever these creatures were, it was obvious that they weren't vampires or werewolves or house elves or any of the other magical species.

"This isn't magic," Draco Malfoy, the lead Auror stated in horror.

"Over there!" one of his rookies exclaimed.

As one, the group turned to see a wizard in a blue-grey dragonhide cloak fighting the creatures using stunners, bombardas, incarcerous' and a host of other spells, all to devastating effect.

"He's the one," Malfoy stated. "We need to arrest him before he breaks the Statute to the point that the Obliviators can't do their job."

"NO! You can't!" that same rookie – Shelbie, a recent transfer in from America – near-yelled.

Slowly, Malfoy turned to him, one eyebrow raised.

"That's Mage," Shelbie said in a rush. "The Avenger. You don't know who that is? Harry Potter! The ICW gave him special dispensation to do what he does to protect the muggles and keep the magical world hidden as long as he's wearing that costume. It was all over the American newspapers; guess it didn't make it over here?"

"No," Malfoy stated slowly, turning back to stare at his old Hogwarts' rival.

He watched as Potter took down a handful of the creatures almost with ease before racing off after another group. A flick of one hand brought his second-in-command to his side.

"We'll split up, check that he's