Heroes Assemble!

Darcy? Jane? Mage? Ian? Dr Selvig? Myeu-muh!

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.