"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.
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