Ch 2: Incursion

Director Fury was in the middle of a meeting when his secretary knocked. It wasn't one of the quiet knocks, the ones she delivered when he had a meeting that was running over time, and he risked being late for something on his schedule. Nor was it one of the firm knocks she gave when a new, but expected, guest was about to join them. This particular series of three knocks, with a precise timing, had been agreed years previously, and meant "emergency in progress – we need you".

So it was that Directory Fury dismissed his guests, a short "Sorry, gentlemen. Something has come up. We will have to continue this another time" interrupting their presentation on the latest hellcarrier project. Before they could even respond, he was already striding out of the room.

He did not have to wait long. Dr. Strange was already outside his office, staring at the door from which he was emerging. A sheepish-looking secretary at his side – along with six heavily-armed SHIELD agents, and two sorcerers in black robes. Protocols being what they were, non-agents had to be escorted at all times. Of course Dr. Strange and his small army of magic users was able to teleport at will, so it was largely pointless to have agents shadow any of them. He knew it. Dr. Strange knew it. Most everyone knew it. But, when you ran teams like the Avengers, you took every ounce of consistency, predictability, and adherence to protocol you could manage. Some days, you'd count yourself lucky if a single thing went according to plan. He was already getting the feeling that today was going to be one of those days.

Strange locked eyes with him immediately. He wasted no time."Earth is under attack. Thousands of hostiles. I need to brief you, and probably the Avengers. Right now."

He nodded. "Situation room", he barked. Then, to the sheepish-looking secretary "Call in the Avengers. Yes. All of them. Doctor Strange has never wasted our time yet. How bad is it, Strange?"

Strange simply shook his head. "Our detection grid actually CRASHED from the number of incoming signatures. We don't know exactly how many it took to crash the grid, but if I had to guess, this is worse than New York. Much, much worse."

Fury swore under his breath, and quickened his pace.


"What do we know?"

It was a simple enough question. The answers, however, were not. Tony Stark had always seemed to operate under the assumption that if he simply knew enough about the problem, he could solve it in a few minutes. The challenge was getting to the point that he knew enough. And his track record spoke for itself. Captain Rogers stared at him for a moment. Could the man not resist playing with pens and other small objects, even in the midst of a planetary emergency? He claimed it helped him think, but Rogers was starting to believe he only did it to ensure the room's attention was focused on him.

Fury caught the glance, but decided to ignore it. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Tensions were running high, and now was most definitely not the time to encourage bickering in his famous team of misfits. He cleared his throat, noisily, while Doctor Strange paced along the side of the room, eager to get to his part of the briefing.

"Avengers. Shield commanders. Agents. The full briefing you are about to get is classified level 7. The summary we are going to lead with is classified level 5. Normally, it would be higher, but we need all hands on deck for this, and it is NOT our normal area of expertise, so we're disseminating this a lot more widely than normal, in the hopes of picking up information from those" - he glanced at Strange - " who may be more informed about this type of thing than we have been.

As you may know, we SHIELD agents have worked tirelessly for years to protect the world from dangerous criminals, terrorists, rogue nations, superpowered threats, and indeed, alien invasion. What you may not know was that, approximately a year ago, we became aware of another, similar organization, the Sorcerers, who have been protecting Earth from magical and supernatural threats. For the past several thousand years. They cared not for politics between nations, but were always on hand to protect the rest of us when Earth was attacked by magical creatures, and entities, from beyond our world. For much of human history, they have been our only line of defense against threats which most humans never realized existed. Much like SHIELD since the early 20th century. Of course, as soon as we became aware of each other, and verified each others' goals, we immediately set out to work together. The map you are seeing on this screen is one of the first major joint projects between us. After the battle of New York, it became apparent that we needed some sort of early warning system for supernatural and magical invasions. It shows the locations of incoming magical portals – with origin points outside Earth. This includes incoming portals from Asgard, what Sorcerers call the 'mirror dimension', and many other places. As you see it now, the map shows no activity."

Fury paused for a second, to be sure everyone present was paying attention, and that the video links were still broadcasting him to high-level SHIELD agents around the globe.

"This, however, is what it picked up last night."

Over Japan, a red blip appeared. For a second, it pulsed. Then, it grew larger. Then... it seemed to shatter, turning into a thousand tiny red blips that covered the whole country. More than one Avenger present seemed to be holding their breath. Then it got worse.

The tiny red blips did not stop at the borders of Japan. They swept across the entire globe, starting first in China, but quickly covering Europe, working westwards, and America, working eastwards. Europe was the last place to be affected, and seemed to be relatively quiet. It wasn't reassuring any agent present, though, as they were all busy running calculations in their heads.

Fury spoke again.

"What you are seeing is an unprecedented wave of incoming portal activity, from somewhere outside Earth. Although it started in Japan, the phenomenon is worldwide. Every country is affected. Some have dozens of incoming portals. Some have hundreds. A few, like Japan itself, and China, have thousands. If we assume each one carries at least one magical foe, we're looking at a magical invasion scarcely seen in human history. Even at its peak, the battle of New York only covered one city, with thousands of invading soldiers, yes, but concentrated in one area, and with a central command and control system that Stark, here, was able to destroy with a single nuke. That is not what we are facing here. What we are facing here is presumably an enemy capable of initiating a massive, almost planet-wide, invasion, completely unpredictable, and were it not for our portal mapping technology, it would have been undetected. What we are dealing with here is an unknown enemy who has infiltrated every country, probably every city, on Earth, at the same time, and done so without being noticed by regular people. What we are facing here is not a conventional army, but a magical foe of great power and intelligence that has managed to, in one stroke, place ground teams covering most of the planet's land surface before we've even managed to fire a shot in our own defense. What we're facing here, in short, is an invasion far worse than New York. And I don't need to remind you all of the risks if we fail to contain this. Since Dr. Strange is the expert in this field, he is now going to brief you on the details of the portals."

Stephen walked up to the map, and flicked his fingers at it dismissively. Instantly, the map view changed, centering on Japan, and zooming in to show the Tokyo area.

"The initial portal event happened here, near Tokyo. It was several orders of magnitude bigger than all of the others. When we were testing this map, I had objects of varying size dropped through portals to, and from, Earth. This class of power signature is roughly equivalent to what we saw when we dropped an object the size of the Empire State Building through a portal. You'd think an object of that size would be obvious, but our teams have scoured the area, and even with sorcery, we have found nothing. The obvious conclusion is that this enemy moved something in secret, something so large it registered as a building, and was then able to hide it, not just from SHIELD, but from magical detection also. I advise that SHIELD consider the identification of this object, whatever it is, to be a high priority. Magical objects can easily be vastly more powerful than their size would indicate, and if such is true for an object of this size, it could easily affect the whole world. Normally, with portals, it is standard practice to create small ones first, and, when dealing with potentially dangerous locations, to send through objects of lesser value first, to verify the destination is safe. This is obviously not what they did. That tells us that the large object may be some sort of mobile command post, something that is able to co-ordinate the whole invasion. Finding, and destroying, it may be key to stopping the whole thing. The fact that it was sent through first suggests that whatever came through the smaller portals depends on it. So, I am advising SHIELD to focus efforts on locating this big object. That said, it is obvious the object can hide, or be disguised somehow. Our presumed enemy clearly knows how to use portals. Therefore, if we dispatch ALL shield forces to Japan, in addition to leaving ourselves open to rapid attack elsewhere, we also risk them moving the large object to somewhere else on Earth. If they did this, we would not be able to track it, as our grid only tracks incoming portals from beyond Earth. My recommendation, then, is for SHIELD to dispatch small teams of its best agents to the Tokyo area, ideally with a Sorcerer in each team, to attempt to locate this object, should it still be there.

Next, we come to the topic of the smaller portals. From what we have been able to determine thus far, their locations are not random. Almost all of them appeared in wooded areas, near large cities, like the initial, giant portal near Tokyo. From a tactical point of view, this makes sense – the trees no doubt make it less likely the portal will be seen, and provide defensive cover. However, there may also be other reasons why they appeared in forests, and for this reason, I am advising SHIELD to keep a sharp eye out for anomalous events around forests in general, as well as anything that we may learn regarding whether the portals can ONLY manifest in forests. If that is true, then it would give us enormous insight into the attack pattern we are facing.

Beyond that, the most important consideration is obviously what came out of them. If you can identify what we're facing, my Sorcerers can use our repository of magical lore to try to identify it. Whatever 'it' is. Just be aware that what you are facing is almost certainly magical. Bullets may not stop it. The first priority, I strongly advise, when dealing with anything that may have come out of a portal is to identify it, NOT engage it. This likely enemy is obviously capable of an extreme degree of sophisticated co-ordination, and with so many of them near our cities, we cannot take the risk that attacking one, even by surprise, will not alert the others that we are on to them, and trigger retaliation that involves MASSIVE civilian casualties. Approach extremely cautiously, identify, and report back. That is my STRONG advice. Do not under any circumstances attempt to engage a magical foe with mundane weapons, no matter how powerful your weapons may be. We have to gather information, before we can fight back effectively, and we must not waste the element of surprise. We may only get one chance to strike back at this invasion before the invaders retaliate from all of their positions around the world, so we have to gather information first, and then make that first strike COUNT. That completes my analysis."

Fury shook his head. Not in disagreement, but simply in sadness. Sometimes he forgot that Sorcerers could allegedly live for centuries, and many had a great deal of battle experience. To expect that they would be new to the arts of war was naive at best, especially when he still suspected they had magical means of imparting knowledge, as they refused to answer questions on that subject, despite being SHIELD's allies. He had hoped this demonstration of tactical competence would help SHIELD commanders and agents be less skeptical about the upcoming assignment of Sorcerers to active-duty shield teams until this threat was dealt with, but in his heart, he knew, that integrating the forces would not be quick, or easy, and that one day tough decisions might have to be made.

He looked up. The avengers were deep in thought. All – except one.

"How do we know they're hostile?", asked Tony. Strange answered immediately, in clipped, almost military fashion. "Their positioning puts them too close to our cities for it to be accidental. Further, the this positioning implies they knew we were here. Yet, they chose not to make contact. They positioned what we can only assume are troops, hidden troops at that, around the major cities of the world, without so much as a 'hello'. While it IS true that they have not done anything harmful, yet, as far as we can tell, this counts for little. We were lucky that we got the grid up when we did. Had they done this a few months ago, we might not even realize they were here. Sorcerers and SHIELD both protect the world from threats. They are clearly a threat, and will remain so classified until we are certain they are not."

"Have we tried communications?", asked Banner. It wasn't an unreasonable question, from a civilian. Fury took it, though. "We have not. Any deliberate attempts at contact might be picked up by the public, and cause panic. They would also give away that we know they are here, which could ruin any chance we have to counterattack with the element of surprise if they turn out to be hostile. Beyond these problems, we simply have no idea how. The type of magic used to open these portals so different to the magic used by Sorcerers, and unlike mechanical weapons, magic is tied closely to the user. Having such a different type of magic implies that they may not be remotely human, whoever these invaders are. As such, we frankly aren't sure HOW to communicate with them, even if we do meet one. We have R&D pulling up all the plans for first contact kits with very different species, but... the odds are not good that we'll be able to resolve this by communicating, even if we could communicate."

"How do the Avengers fit into this? No doubt we are to tackle the big one?", asked Thor. It was true, that's what they usually did. Charge in headlong, and win against the odds. But, Fury frowned. "No, not this time. We have no idea what we're up against. Putting you all in Tokyo would be a dead giveaway that we're on to them. It would expose our greatest asset to possible attack by what we presume is the greatest concentration of enemies, with zero intelligence about what we're facing or how to beat it. It would, in short, expose us, give up our element of surprise, expose our best team to devastating surprise attack, and be an extremely foolish trap to walk into." Thor looked crestfallen. "Brave, yes.", added Fury. "But smart? No. And we have to play this smart, in order to win."

"So where are you sending us?", interrupted Tony. "I am splitting you up. Each of you will loosely join a team of SHIELD agents operating in the territory you know best. For Romanov, for example, that means Eastern Europe. By not putting you together in one place, we protect you from ambushes that could target you all at once. We also allow you to move around faster, without media coverage giving away your location, and investigate areas you're already familiar with for signs of incursion-related activity. In essence, I am asking you all to put on your detective hats. The exceptions, of course, are Banner and Stark. Banner's work on physics is too valuable to waste. He will be working directly with Doctor Strange, and our own science team, to try to develop a way of tracking these portals. The hope there is that if we can track them in near real-time, precisely, and we have agents on the ground in enough places, we can 'stumble' upon one in the process of being used, and gain our critical intelligence that way. Even if not, keeping track of enemy movements is still invaluable. Stark will be working with a different science team. He'll be helping our intelligence division, working with Jarvis to try to sift through patterns in data, including civilian internet traffic, to try to figure out what the invaders are up to. We know he works best alone, but Jarvis has been his partner for a long while, so we think it will work out. If we need to break out the Iron Man suits, we will, but he's not suited to a first contact mission, and we can't risk one of our biggest artillery pieces getting ambushed by sending him into the field when we don't know what we're up against. He isn't trained in stealth, and intel gathering, like Romanov here." Fury patted the side of his coat. He always did, when he was evaluating threats. Probably a habit left over from his agent days. Sense threats? Check you have your weapons on you. It made sense. And that was what Fury wanted them all to think. He hoped he'd get the chance to pull that particular surprise on one of the invaders, but he dismissed the thought. If one of them had already gotten inside SHIELD, they were in enormous trouble. In any case, he'd distracted them long enough it discouraged follow-up questions. His optimism was short-lived.

"I am no strategist, but won't having them all in the field separately increase the odds they get ambushed simultaneously?" asked Banner. "We thought about that", replied Fury, " but nobody but us will know where they are. As far as we're aware, they don't know we're aware of them yet. Even if they did find out we knew, and even if they did identify our agents in the field, we're still assigning Sorcerers to each time, Sorcerers who can use their sling rings to safely evacuate a team that's taking fire. Surprise attacks are still possible, which is one reason we're not deploying Iron Man yet, but we think, so long as you stick to the protocols, you should be fine". It was a small comfort.

Tony was smirking. Fury knew that he loved the idea of being given access to SHIELD's data feeds. Legal access. Not just the normal kind he got from hacking in on what seemed like a weekly basis. If the man wasn't so indispensable, he'd have been brought up on charges years ago. He could already see Tony's gears whirring, trying to cook up some smart new AI or program to shift through the data, and find what they wanted. The man was a genius. Hopefully, he wouldn't threaten to call his next defense AI "skynet". While not everyone had gotten the joke last time he did that, the military officials who did get the reference were not amused at all.