Part XI Continued
SHIELD Transport I

Faith looked up trying to see what landed on her forehead. Across from her Xander was non-chalantly putting away his blow gun. "What? Can't you see I'm busy?" she was all hot and bothered and it wasn't for the good reason. She removed the spitball and looked at it. "You ready to lose some limbs? I'll even let you chose."

Faith..." he began with a deceptive calm.

"Yeah X?" she was building to a steady boil, just about to explode. You let a guy into your panties a few times and he thinks be owns you. She waited for him to continue. This had better be good.

"Where were you?"

"Where was I? This some kind of trick question? Right here you jerk, now, which is it?" she asked unbuckling her safety harness.

Xander ignored the threats, it wouldn't be her if she didn't. "Funny. To me it looked like you were someplace else. Who were you talking to?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. You were listening to me argue with the spear just like everyone else." she pointed at everyone in the plane. She noticed that Phil and Cap were out their seats. She jerked to a stop before she pounded the insensitive jerk. She was never this oblivious. When did they move? "What's going on? When did they move out of their seats?"

"That's not really important, they have a perfectly good alibi for getting out of their seats. You don't have one for being elsewhere when your body's here. So. You and the spear. Is it gettin' to know ya kind of thing?"

"Ya serious. No one heard nuthin'?" when everyone shook their heads in the negative, "Huh. You son of a BITCH! You lied." she said looking at the spear clutched tightly in her hand. "Get away from me!" she threw the spear to Xander in disgust.

"NO...", Xander reflexively caught the thrown spear.

* CONTACT! SECONDARY WIELDER DETECTED!*

*INITIATING MERGER...*

*MERGER COMPLETE!*

*SECONDARY WIELDER ACQUIRED!*

*PRIMARY WIELDER WITHIN PROXIMITY!*

*RETURNING TO STANDBY MODE!*

Xander slumped in his seat. Faith rushed to catch him. She took the spear from his hand, just in case it was the cause. Of course it was the cause. She thought. What else could it be. Although it never did that to her..., "Come on Xander. Speak to me...you jerk. If this is payback for threatening you, I didn't meant. I was just foolin'', ya gotta know that. C'mon X say something. Anything..."

"Faith. It's alright. Just give him time to recover. You know he's gonna be okay." Dawn helped Faith and waited for Xander to recover, she gave him thirty seconds and the. She'd do her thing...

Xander blinked and once again his eyes did a credible imitation of a flash light. "I hate intelligent weapons. They always have their own agenda. Here you go Faith you lucked out. Your Rune weapon has the same personality of a robot. I feel like I just had a full course meal."

"Hold still..." after a quick exam, Dawn sighed. "...the good news is that there's no permanent connection, but every time you he that thing you're lake will refill to the brim. You're also leaking a small, minuscule amount of cosmic energy..." Dawn looked up from Xander to Faith and back again. She frowned, "...In fact you're both leaking cosmic energy, it's like there's a field around the two of you and it's compatible with the other. Different flavors of ice cream as it were. You know you're chocolate, she's vanilla..."

Faith protested, "Nu uh, I'm chocolate, I'm always the chocolate, he can be any other flavor he wants, but I get the chocolate. Got it?"

"Got it." Xander and Dawn replied together. How could they forget about Faith and her chocolate obsession? It was like Buffy and her shoes fetish.

"Why chocolate?" Steve asked.

Faith was about to explain, in detail, but Xander cut her off. He didn't want to see Steve bleed through the nose from embarrassment. They needed the man at his best. Xander's memories were a bit hazy, he remembered how effective a combat leader the man was during the war.

"That's enough for now...she'll tell you after, say is that the New York Skyline?" he asked.

Steve squinted and confirmed that it was, "Good eyes."

"Perks and pitfalls..." he shrugged. He'll worry if they survive.

Part XII
Manhattan NY

"Is it me? Or is that Stark falling down from his tower? Without the suit." Xander's vision was sharp and getting sharper.

Their pilot Clay Quatermain used the sensor suite to pick out the falling man and project the image on the HUD.

"Yeah that's the player. How come he's flying without a suit?" Faith didn't that was something the Cyborg was able to do without the other power attachments.

"He can't..." confirmed Phil. "...Ah! There's the rest of his suit. See that red and gold missile..."

The rest of the passengers saw the missile catch up to their falling comrade. They saw it extend in four directions and encase the falling hero in a new suit of Armor.

"Neat." said Dawn.

"Must be the mark VII. His other suits couldn't do that." Natasha joined the rest of them at the front of the transport.

"Get ready to deploy. Commander tell Colonel Fin we're going in. He's to secure the landing pad on the roof. The ship will be the forward HQ. I want you mobile in case we need a quick evac." Steve issued orders and everyone hopped to. No one questioned his right to do so. The only one who could have countermanded any of his commands was Xander, and he just shrugged and went along.

In fact Xander tool out several energy bars and passed them out. You don't command Slayers in the field without bringing some munchies. Even Natasha took a bar, except for Clint and Bobbi.

"I guess it's true what they say..." said Dawn.

"What do they say...?" asked Faith.

"I guess you can live on just love and air. Bobbi used to grab the first bar. She didn't even notice that Xander was packing her favorites.

"Those two can't be on the same team. They'll be the death of us." declared Steve.

"Let them be Steve. It's not the army. They'll pull through when it counts.

"Clay, open the back, we're jumping out. Dawn grab Bruce we're hitting the Tower. Cap, Nat would you like a lift?"

Captain America nodded yes and Widow just held out her hand.

Bobbi you and Clint grab the high ground. You're the snipers. Faith, grab Phil and hit the ground. Phil take over John Walker's squad when they follow you. Fin will co-ordinate from the tower. Come on let's go see a god about his work permit."

They all jumped at the same time. Xander along with Cap and Natasha raced to the penthouse. Natasha led the way. She knew the lay of the land best.

Thor landed with a thud ahead of them. "It's good to see that you have survived my brother's attentions Black Knight." he addressed Xander.

"Black Knight." Natasha looked him up and down and said, "It fits."

"Meh! At least it's not the White Knight. That's what the last psycho called me."

Natasha knew all about the white Knight and his history with the master vampire Angelus. She was glad Xander decided to go with the name change. The White Knight's rep in the supernatural community was well known. They didn't need the extra baggage that came with the rep.

"It's good to see that you survived yours."

"Well met then. Let us put an end to my brother's misadventure with all due haste. He has been left to his own devices for too long."

"I'm down with that. He's your brother, you want first crack at him?"

"If by first crack, you mean have a try at persuading him to stop this foolishness, then the answer is yes. Please wait here, I will deal with my brother privately."

Xander gestured to Thor to go ahead. As soon as he was out of hearing range he said, "Ten bucks, says he gets stabbed when he's not looking. Any takers?"

Natasha gave him a look that said do I look like a fool to you? "Let's make it interesting, him getting stabbed is a given. How about where?"

Steve could not believe that these were people he was expected the fight with and defended the planet from unspeakable evil. But given what he knew about Loki and Thor he instead said, "Upper right shoulder when he leans on him."

"Ooh nice one. I see you've played this game before. Nat..."

Natasha fumed while another person took liberty with her name. Her reputation for deadly revenge was slipping, she needed to do something about that, and soon. "Lower back center."

"Another good choice. You guys are grabbing all the premium slots. I'm going with lower, left side." Xander looked around, and saw Riley lead his squad out of the transport. "Riley leave a fire team by he transport, and get another over to the portal machine. Let's try and recover Dr. Selig and the Tesseract."

"Will do Xand." Riley began giving orders to do just that. Xander kept an eye on the sky as Stark took out the leading elements of the invasion. "Say what you want about the man Steve, but give him his due. He's giving us the time to get ready. Can't ask for more."

Steve looked up and after a few moments grudgingly agreed."

They heard a load grunt and saw Thor lay a beat down on his brother. "Anyone see where he got it?"

"Lower left side I think."

"Nuts. Oh well let's grab the weasel before he gets away. You guys coming?" he jumped, Steve and Natasha jumped with him, each held unto an outstretched arm. He activated the feather-fall tattoo and poured on the power.

They saw Loki land on an alien hover fighter and followed him to the ground.

First Round...

Part XIII
Manhattan NY

Peter Parker swung from building to building, making his way to midtown when his spider sense started to tingle. He dodged automatically and tried to see what, or who could be after him this time. He glimpsed a green streak from above and to the left. It was going very fast. 'Let's see who has that kind of speed with that color scheme. Green Goblin? Nope, not fast, or Smokey enough. Plus no insane cackling. Also Harry's still going to therapy when I talked to him last night. Hulk? No, no, he can't zip through the air like that, plus no military alerts. That was an electro static discharge. Electro? Maybe, but much outside his M.O., gee who could it be?'

He dodged and twisted while letting go of one web line, he did a quad somersault, and a quick direction reversal to see who was interrupting his lunch date with M.J., 'Beetle should have guessed! Rocket Ricochet's too yellow and Prowler's too slow, and Hobbie promised no more surprise training sessions after the last one ended with me fishing him out of the east river.

"Abe buddy, what's up? Why are you so set on ruining my lunch date with a bevy of Supermodels, can you apply the bevy to the supermodels? I'm not sure; I need to ask them when I finish twisting your wings off. Abey, why the silent treatment? What's got you so down? Am I interrupting anything special? Let me guess you just pulled of a jewel heist and thought I saw you, and now you feel compelled to continue our wrestle mania LVIII, come on admit it, are you nostalgic for a repeat visit up he river, without a paddle... Say Abe are you okay? You haven't said anything yet. Is something wrong? C'mon, you can tell uncle Spidey all about it..."

"Shut up you annoying fool! This is revenge! Pure and simple. No heist! No robbery. Not even a fucking jaywalk. I have had enough of you. You are going down for the final count. Do you understand? This is the last time the world will see the spider fool swing..."

Abe Jenkins was interrupted by a hover vehicle of some kind shooting energy blasts at him. He was so focused on killing his arch nemesis that he ignored the proximity radar warnings.

The blasts missed and he went into evasive maneuvers. Spiderman was doing the same.

"The hell these come from? The nerve of them interrupting our special time like this. Say Abe? Is that a rip in space over the New Stark Tower?"

"Holy Fuck! It's a space dragon. What's going on?" he twisted sideways and zig-zagged all over the sky. The hover fighters were unable to keep up.

"Oh my god. They're going after the civilians!" Spiderman was horrified at the carnage going on at street level. Cars were exploding all over the street as the silver aliens from dimension X were firing into the lunch time traffic jam.

"NO. You bastards that was Jake's. What did he ever do to you? That was the only watering hole that let guys like me hang around without a hassle. You'll pay for that!" The Beetle went into a power dive after the hover responsible for destroying Jake's Place. He got a lock on his HUD and he let go. These things were fast, but nowhere near as agile as the annoying insect. He saw the insect create a web shield over the street and try to rescue some of the trapped civilians. He had no problems with the people themselves. And he'd rather kill the these alien intruders. Let Spiderman handle the rescues, he'll take care of the revenge.

Manhattan NY
Stark Tower, Front of Building.

Xander went into a power dive with Cap and Tasha clinging to an arm. They saw Loki fire indiscriminately into the crowds below. "I don't care who takes that guy down; so long as he goes down."

"No arguments there." Natasha pulled out one of her over powered pistols with the special explosive ammo and started blasting away. She was the only one free to do so. Xander was transport and Captain America needed a stable base to throw his discus of destruction.

Xander landed gently despite the speed of their descent. She would have to ask him how he did that later. She took out he second pistol and soon she was blasting away with both. Rogers was using his shield and Xander pulled out a mini-Uzi from his jacket.

Up above Iron Man did a quick pass over the streets blasting away at every target he could find.

She heard explosions from multiple locations through out the city. Down the street she saw Faith use the spear to blast the hover fighter and Phil get off the occasional shit with the devastator canon. Effective, but slow. Banner looked lost. He didn't want to lose control just yet. He might be more of problem to his allies than to the aliens. Thor let go with a huge lightning bolt that fried some of the grounded troops.

She switched targets. The ones on the ground were more her speed anyway. Xander pulled out the black sword and was swinging it one hand while he fired the machine pistol with the other. He was firing in an opposite direction than the one he was focused on with the sword. She wondered how he was doing that. 'Maybe there's a trick to it. I'll have to remember to ask...', she ducked and rolled as a Chitauri came too close. She shot him from the back and his head exploded in a splash of gore. She put rolled again, putting away one of her pistols and coming up with he staff rifle. She saw that it was simple to operate. She used it to fire on one trying to sneak on Rogers and shot the one going for Xander.

Xander sent a smile her way and returned the favor. "Fuck Me!"

"What? Now?" Natasha looked at Xander wondering at his loss of composure.

"No one told me they had dragons. I hate space dragons. And correct me if I'm wrong but does that look like armor on them?"

"Sorry got the improved sensory package from the thing your girlfriend did with the Red Witch, but even that's not enough to see that far. You must have something else going for you. No clue what that might be..."

"Seriously. You can't see the details on them suckers? They're freaking huge."

"to you, Harris maybe, but to the rest of us mortals they're barely a blur. I only have your word that they are in fact dragons. From this distance they look like fish."

"Fish...okay, you may have something there, but mostly they're dragons...or a hybrid dragon fish...I'm getting a headache trying to figure those things out. I think I'll just kill a few of the monster in the silver armor instead. Always much simpler."

"Agreed." the Black Widow got down to some serious killing, while her companions did the same.

"Cap..." Xander pointed with the sword towards the police barricade forming down the street.

"On it. You hold them to this section while I take a quick look."

"Got it."

Manhattan NY
Stark Tower, Landing Pad.

"Sam! Secure Dr. Selvig. Jackson take your team and setup on the west side. Lori, I want you to cover the south side. I want constant feeds coming in. from all positions, get some cameras set up and don't forget to take the potable shields with you." Riley held his wife's hand for a second, and let her go do her job.

Sam and her team triggered the short range rocket packs and hopped the distance to gate machine. She saw that Dr. Selvig was unconscious on the ground. "Hank take care of him. Jackie, help me get the portable shield setup."

By the time Sam and Jackie got the shield up their position was under fire. The shield took the hits head on and held. The adamantium center, was guaranteed to hold, but the rest of the shield was experimental. It did well in the test trials, but this was the first combat test. She hoped it would stand up to the punishment.

A blaster bolt hit one of the radiating fins, instead of the adamantium center and glowed red briefly until the energy was dissipated.

"So far, so good Sam."

"Let's hope it holds up. Hank get Dr. Selvig out of here, and don't take too long. While you're at it, see if you can't bring a crate of laser guided missiles with you. I don't think the heat seekers will be as effective and I don't want to justify putting holes in all those nice buildings."

"On it Ma'am." He picked up the unconscious man and triggered his jet pack to get off the roof as fast as he could. He ran into the transport and let the medic take over. He grabbed a crate of missiles and on a second thought grabbed one of the phase two rifles. 'This might come in handy.' he ran out and short hopped his way back to the top.

"What took you?" joked Jackie.

"You wouldn't believe the traffic jam out there. Why they're shooting each other out of the sky." his word was punctuated with several explosions as Iron Man cleared the immediate area around the gate machine. Sam, any ideas how we're supposed to get through that shield?"

"I've taken a look at it. Nothing we can do, but babysit sit this thing. If Stark can't come up with something fast, we might need to call up the mojo department."

"Man. I hate dealing with those freaks..."

"That's enough of that Sgt. Boyer. You know that they have their hearts in the right place, it's just that playing with all that energy messes them up a bit."

"Not helping Ma'am." he flinched as Stark got one the hover fighters that came too close. 'At least the man is sticking close. No wonder. I wouldn't want anything like this to happen to my place. Why aren't they landing and taking over this position?' he wondered. "Any idea why they haven't turned up the heat yet?"

"Why would they? These are the lead assault elements. There job's not take and hold real estate, but to hit and demoralize. They'll let those big boys take care of that." she pointed at the dragon fish making their way out of the portal.

I guess you're right." he said raising the phase two rifle and taking aim he shot a hover fighter that came too close. "Whoa Nelly. This thing sure packs a wallop. How come we all didn't get issued with these when we left. Walker and his boys always get the good stuff." he complained. However he had a huge smile on his face as the hover he shot exploded.