Lucius waited until the last returning craft entered before sealing the hangars. Malekith and the cluster of warriors still fighting below did not receive the same courtesy.
The Dark Elf command system accepted his order and began restoring the hibernation chambers. Warriors leaving their craft found internal doors guiding them away from the bridge and toward chambers prepared for another sleep. The ship adjusted the atmosphere while Lucius reached through the vessel with telepathy and pressed a simple command into every exhausted mind.
Sleep.
The last Dark Elves entered the chambers which had carried them beyond the death of their people. Lucius locked the controls under his own authority and set the vessel toward Venus.
The dark-energy drive treated the distance with contempt. Earth diminished behind the ship while its destination brightened against the stars, and the concealment field held throughout the journey. Venus offered no population to witness the vessel, no useful government claim, and enough natural hostility to discourage accidental tourists.
Once the ship reached the planet, Lucius left it hidden above the cloud-covered planet with every occupant asleep.
He had never tested whether his teleportation could cross the entire distance between planets in one jump. Testing the upper limit while suspended above Venus would turn a useful acquisition into a remarkably stupid obituary, so he divided the return into multiple strides. Each jump followed a point fixed through the ship's navigation record and his own sight, carrying him across the dark until Earth filled his vision again.
The final teleport placed him above Greenwich.
The battle had survived his absence.
Thor and Malekith had crossed half the district through portals that opened without warning and closed with worse timing. Jane's team had driven metal stakes around the intersection, using their instruments to predict which realm would occupy a patch of space next.
Malekith drove Thor through the side of a stone building and raised the false Aether for another attempt, but it did nothing.
Local forces and SHIELD fire had driven his remaining warriors into the intersection. They closed around Jane, Selvig, Darcy, and the intern while Malekith kept Thor occupied.
Dreadspire answered Lucius's thought before the first falling fragment reached the street, and the ragged cloak opened behind his descent.
People across the intersection looked up, which improved the occasion considerably.
Lucius turned Dreadspire. Red light followed the runic paths across the staff and armour while a shield expanded over the civilians nearest the fighting. Dark Elf blasts struck it and spread across the surface without reaching the people beneath.
Thor emerged from the ruined building in time to see Lucius descend between Jane's team and the surrounding warriors.
"Shield-brother!"
Lucius planted Dreadspire against the road. The impact cracked the paving stones in a circle around him.
"Thor, I apologise for the delay. I was securing the enemy fleet."
Jane ducked beneath a Dark Elf blade. Lucius stopped the weapon an inch above her head, reversed it, and drove the hilt into its owner's helmet.
"You stole it," she said.
"That is an ugly accusation from the woman responsible for every death in Asgard and Greenwich."
Jane went still. The sensor slipped in her hand before Darcy caught it.
Every Dark Elf around them lifted from the ground.
Telekinesis locked arms, legs, weapons, and armour in place. Rifles tore free and gathered above Lucius in a turning ring. The smaller crashed craft followed, black metal scraping away from streets and buildings while survivors inside were pulled out and added to the suspended formation.
Malekith fought the hold. Stone broke beneath his boots as an invisible force dragged him from Thor and raised him before Lucius.
"You."
The false Aether twisted around Malekith's arm, still imitating power it did not possess.
Lucius withdrew his faceplate. "I found your records. I regret to report that your race is functionally extinct."
Malekith's stare moved toward the empty sky where his vessel had vanished.
"What have you done?"
Lucius pulled Malekith closer until their faces were a foot apart.
"Preserved the final members of your species under responsible new management. You should be grateful. I have achieved more for Dark Elf survival this afternoon than you managed in several thousand years."
"Release them."
"No."
Malekith forced dark energy through his armour. Lucius let the pressure build until every watching person could see the red-black light gather, then closed his fist. The energy collapsed back into the armour and shattered it from within.
Thor landed beside him with Mjolnir ready. "You have him."
"Of course I have him. I am the Champion of Asgard, an honorary citizen, and apparently the only person in Greenwich taking your family dispute seriously."
Thor looked at the trapped Dark Elves, the shield over the civilians, and the weapons turning harmlessly above them.
"Your aid honours the title."
Praise from an Asgardian prince carried beautifully across a battlefield.
Lucius raised his voice so the nearest cameras could hear him. "You hear that, London? Official inter-realm heroism, with complaints accepted by King Odin during normal throne-room hours."
The nearest cameras turned as he extended one hand. Lightning descended through the open portals, crossed the Greenwich sky in a white web, and reduced the internal systems of every suspended Dark Elf weapon to molten lines without touching the warriors. The captured craft followed. Black hulls glowed from within, folded under telekinetic pressure, and broke into fragments small enough to gather above Dreadspire.
Lucius moved the wreckage away from the buildings and compressed it into a dark sphere.
Malekith watched the last military remains of his civilisation become scrap.
"Asgard took everything from us," he said.
"Not everything." Lucius glanced toward Venus. "I took the useful parts."
The warriors began to change next.
Matter Transmutation passed through their armour first. Blades, rifles, and protective plates loosened into black dust which rose without touching the street. The effect reached the bodies beneath. Dark Elf forms broke apart from the outer edges inward, painlessly and too cleanly for blood, until the remaining cluster became another cloud held above the intersection.
Malekith strained against the telekinetic grip as his last soldiers vanished around him.
"Thor Odinson," he called, "this death belongs to your deception."
Thor's expression hardened. "Jane carried no weapon. You followed your hatred and found what it made of you."
Lucius leaned towards Malekith and let his telepathy to whisper in to his mind.
"For the record, the deception was mine. Thor remains almost offensively honest."
The false Aether pulled free from Malekith's ruined armour and floated into Lucius's palm. Its purpose had been fulfilled. He closed his fingers, and the counterfeit dissolved back into Cosmic Energy.
Malekith's mouth opened. Lucius snapped his fingers and sealed it before the Elf could waste the audience's time.
"I am being heroic. Do not interrupt the speech."
Lucius lifted Malekith above the street until every camera had an unobstructed view. Dreadspire's red paths brightened while the captured dust, weapons, and wreckage turned around the Dark Elf king in widening rings.
"Malekith, last king of the Dark Elves, invader of Asgard, enemy of Midgard and the rest of the realms, more than that, the rude bastard who refused to introduce me to a single attractive member of his race."
Malekith's body began to break into black dust.
"On behalf of Asgard and my own thoroughly justified disappointment, your invasion is concluded."
The transmutation reached Malekith's face. Fury remained until there was no face left to hold it.
Lucius closed his hand, compressing every remaining particle, weapon fragment, and piece of crashed craft into a black sphere no wider than a fist. He caught it, considered the cameras, and dismissed it into Inventory.
No one spoke until Thor raised Mjolnir.
"Lucius, Champion of Asgard!"
A voice beneath the shield took up the title. Others followed until the shout spread across the police positions and into the streets, where people had watched the Dark Elves vanish.
Lucius inclined his head and accepted the applause.
Heroism was much more pleasant once the competition had been removed.