Werner Blofeld smiled as he saw from his cabin that the ship was about to leave the Thames Estuary for the open sea. His satisfaction was immediately reduced by a distinctive sound from the main deck, the sound of a Tardis materialising.
A war party of Superman, Wonder Woman, Troia, Arsenal, Killian, David, Robin, Mary Margaret, Bond, Modesty, Willie, Sam, Joe, Harry, Jack and the Doctor ran out of the Tardis. Regina and Hippolyta had been provided with weapons: a crossbow and quiver for Regina; and a sword and shield for Hippolyta. They followed their friends onto the deck. The others remained on "monitor duty" in the Tardis.
Seeing his former prisoners unscathed angered Blofeld. Time for him to leave! He grabbed his white Persian and his pistol and stepped onto the deck. If he had to fight his way to safety, he would do so!
Blofeld was expecting his men to be losing badly. SPECTRE operatives were elite, yes, but their foes were in an entirely different weight division! James Bond had been fighting SPECTRE for about fifty-five years. A skilled hand-to-hand fighter (primarily boxing-based, but he knew the basics of judo and other martial arts) and incredible marksman with rifle, handgun or throwing knife, he was a feared opponent. Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin had also been in the business a long time, first as criminals and then as secret agents. Sam Loover was the deputy head of the W.I.N.'s London Branch for a reason and even Joseph McClaine was a tough proposition even without his glasses and access to the skills and memories of whoever's brain-patterns were being transmitted to him thereby. The W.I.N. had arranged for him to learn various armed and unarmed combat skills from a number of old hands at the game, including Harry Palmer and Emma Peel. As to Jack Harkness, Harry Potter, Arsenal and the meta-humans, well, there were no super-powered beings or wizards among his current operatives. Whilst he was less familiar with the Storybrooke contingent, they would have been raised as warriors. This was not a fight SPECTRE could win.
Killian Jones was enjoying himself hugely. As a, well more or less, reformed character, nonetheless he had been a rogue and a pirate for too long to completely lose the thrill of boarding a ship with hostile intent. "Cease your struggles, you lubbers! Surrender your ship or be cut to ribbons!"
His partner was no less keen. Despite her own past as a thief and jailbird, Emma Swan was not a pirate and was now a lawwoman. This, however, was an act of war! Regina Mills was, de facto at least, the Head of State for Storybrooke and a good friend. Sure, they bantered and argued all the time. Unlike with Mary Margaret, however, Regina was generally good-natured towards her and these days the sniping between them was more for mutual amusement than due to mutual antipathy.
As to Regina, her blood was boiling! That psycho had abducted her twice over the last few days, trying to kill her both times. Hippolyta, a good friend, had shared both her predicaments.
Wonder Woman and Troia were both warriors, raised as Amazons from infancy. Whilst both were kindly enough (a hardened killer wouldn't have won Superman's heart!), they could be formidable in battle. Even Superman was known to be less the Big Blue Boy Scout when, as now, his loved ones had been threatened. When the two Amazons were charging into a fray with swords and shields and the Kryptonian was a blur of savage kinetic energy, their opponents would be seriously advised to flee.
Hippolyta herself was a warrior. Raised under Ancient Greek culture, she combined the scholarship of Athens and the fierceness of Sparta. With her sword and shield (both made by Hephaestus himself), she was dealing out death and destruction left, right and centre. No-one tries to kill her and gets away with it.
James Bond hated SPECTRE. They had killed his wife and too many other friends over the years. He may have been tasked with a job, but his professionalism was supported by the cold fury he felt every time he heard the words "SPECTRE" and "Blofeld". Now more SPECTRE goons were learning what happens when you take on Agent 007 of the British Secret Service.
The other assembled heroes were all fighting well. SPECTRE was all but defeated.
Regina saw Blofeld taking his cat towards the mini-sub. "Stop, Blofeld. If you surrender now, I may pass you on to the proper authorities, rather than killing you."
"Insolent bitch!" came back the response. "Without magic, you are helpless."
Seeing the sudden movement over the Tardis scanner, Louise Webster yelled into the headsets "Look out, Ms. Mills!" Regina instinctively threw herself to the deck, just in time for a bullet from the small automatic Blofeld had drawn and fired at speed to pass right over her. She sat up and fired a crossbow bolt straight into the villain's chest, piercing his heart. Rising fully, she walked over to the dying criminal. "I said I would take out your heart, but assumed it would be literally and with magic. Well, you know what they say about skinning cats…" Blofeld coughed up more blood and expired.
Once a few more stragglers had been killed or captured and the cat caged, the fight was over.
"Now, it is quite late and we have all had a busy day. Back to the hotel?" Emma asked.
"Thank you, Emma. I need to get back to my room and make love to my fiancé before catching up with my beauty sleep," Regina assented.
"Back to the Tardis," the Doctor agreed.
As they returned to the Tardis, no-one was surprised to hear Jack asking Emma and Killian if there was any chance of them taking up his usual offer of a game of "naked cops and pirates" this time.
Regina snuggled back contentedly into Robin's arms, their energetic coupling just concluded. "With Blofeld now dead, it is good to be safe. In your arms, I always feel secure." She leaned up and kissed him deeply. "Now, my love, are you up to making me feel even safer…?"
"Well, you said you would make it up to me for not touching alcohol," Lois told her spouses. "You succeeded, as always."
"Aphrodite herself would find you inspiring, Lois!" Diana replied.
"Just kissing me would suffice, Themyscira!"
As his wives shared a long and passionate kiss, Clark pulled them close.
The next morning saw them all gathered for breakfast. The usual buffet was supplemented by a new spread, a thick black substance called "Marmite". According to Joe, Marmite was hugely popular, but either loved or loathed! Henry quickly decided to avoid it in future, along with an Australian equivalent called Vegemite Joe had talked about.
With Blofeld dead, it was decided to continue with their original plans for the day.
Before their visit to the Tower of London and the secret UNIT base beneath, however, Joe and Sam went to the W.I.N.'s London headquarters. In London Director Shane Weston's office, they were met by Weston, Bond, Modesty and Willie, as well as a handful of others. Joe grinned. John Steed, Emma Peel, Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin and Richard Barrett were not only legends of the field, but were also all among his honorary aunties and uncles.
"Good to see you, Joe!" Richard called, his slight Yorkshire accent as cheerful as ever. The head of Nemesis was just as young-looking as when he and his colleagues Craig Stirling and Sharon Macready were caught in a plane crash in the Himalayas back in the late 1960s. Gifted with meta-human abilities by a lost civilisation, the three agents had been major headaches to the enemies of civilisation for almost fifty years. "How are Regina and Hippolyta?" Richard, Craig and Sharon were involved in the events that saw Joe and Mac hold off a Home Office invasion of Storybrooke and were later present at Diana, Clark and Lois' nuptials.
"Good, thank you, Uncle Richard! You are all looking well today."
"Well, Joe-love," Modesty trilled, "I can say your Uncle James definitely lived up to his reputation last night and this morning!"
"As Henry would say, TMI Auntie Modesty!"
"Back to more serious matters, ladies and gentlemen!" Napoleon called. "We have plenty of data the Doctor helpfully retrieved for us from both base and ship. We have also let the other SPECTRE factions know that any further attempts on either lady would be answered with all reasonable force.
"At least SPECTRE are reasonable. Can you imagine THRUSH or HYDRA answering a polite request?"
"I know you of old, Mr. Solo, my dear chap," John Steed said in his usual charmingly amateur manner. "You no more make truly polite requests than I do!" He was the epitome of the steel fist in the velvet glove! Even the meta-human Richard Barrett was extra careful around Steed.
"Actually, he does, Steed!" Emma corrected. "You are about as genuine an amateur as a senior rugby union international in the early 1990s. Mr. Solo can be very persuasive. Besides they know what happened to Werner Blofeld and his faction. His cat is settling in nicely at Mr. Johnson's, I hear."
Joe chuckled. There isn't an animal alive that Uncle Jigger couldn't befriend instantly! Uncle Rex says even the most notorious canine or feline delinquent can be tamed by five minutes with him. Perhaps Bruce could ask his advice on keeping Selina in check?
The debrief finalised, Joe and Sam met up with their friends across the bridge from the Tower of London, just down from the Tower Hill former execution site. "We shall be taken on a tour by one of the Yeomen Warders, or Beefeaters," Joe explained. "It shall include the White Tower and the Crown Jewels. There is also a tour of UNIT's secret underground base."
"I've never seen that part of the Tower before," Reuben commented.
"Neither have I," Louise echoed. "We should attend diplomatic tours more often!"
Harry, Ginny and their kids could have sworn they had seen one figure in the courtyard before, dressed in sixteenth-century garb, possibly for a tableau. The lady smiled, removed her head, and walked off before vanishing. "It seems Queen Anne wanted to see the queens!" Ginny quipped. Anne Boleyn had a portrait at Hogwarts. She was a Gryffindor with Slytherin tendencies, like both Ginny and Harry.
"Well, at least it wasn't that blasted jester!" the Doctor fired back. "'Heighdy! Heighdy! Misery me…' You would have thought he would have learned a new song by now!"
"I have a song to sing, O!"
"You had to jinx it, Doctor." Jack shook his head. "Now we will get a full performance!"
"It is sung to the moon…"
Kate Stewart greeted them at UNIT Headquarters, London. "How was your tour?" she asked.
"Well, the Crown Jewels were pretty and the torture implements were delightful," Ava answered.
"It went well, apart from Lily trying to convince the Beefeater leading our tour that Katherine Howard was trying to tell him had got her speech from the scaffold wrong yet again" Harry added dryly. "Anne Boleyn was telling me that it was the best laugh she had had in years, though."
"Only you wizards would talk about speaking to both Henry VIII's decapitated queens as if it was a normal occurrence!" Dan complained.
"Anne Boleyn is really chatty and actually friendly once you get to know her," Rex commented. "Well, as long as you don't mention her ex, against whom she nurses a perfectly understandable grudge. She was one of my favourite interviewees from that executed Tudors series."
"Luna's father was over the moon when you introduced him to most of Henry VIII's court!" Ginny fired back.
"Ah yes, his daughter was one of those who truly sees," came a hollow voice, with traces of Norfolk, Kent and France in the accent. The Tower's most celebrated victim appeared, still with her head upon her shoulders. "It is always good to meet three fellow queens."
"Two!" Regina and Mary Margaret declared in unison, before turning to glare at each other. The more secure Hippolyta merely returned Anne Boleyn's curtsey and thanked her for her welcome.
The ghost laughed. "It really should have been one of Henry's maternal uncles or his great-niece, but Jane is a shy little thing and Edward and Richard are such scamps that I got the honour."
"Well, technically, you are my mother-in-law!" the Doctor commented.
"Yes, my darling Elizabeth was most hurt when you never returned," the Queen said sadly. "You were a handsome devil back then. That other one was the nicest – the younger one."
"I improve with age! That younger me was 400 years older than the elder me!"
"Does that make sense to anyone?" Emma asked despairingly.
"At any rate, is there anything we need to know about?" Jon asked Kate.
"We have detected no sign of potential hostile alien activity recently. Has Torchwood, Jack?" He shook his head and Kate continued. "The Zygon High Command have even challenged us to a friendly game of cricket. Guess which Doctor one of the Osgoods is currently dressed as?"
"And the other one?"
"Velvet and ruffles!"
"Two great choices!" the Doctor approved. "Is the cricketer on their side or ours?"
After a hearty lunch of toasted ham and cheddar cheese sandwiches, homemade potato crisps and a side salad followed by Chelsea Buns, the party was taken to Westminster Hall, the oldest surviving part of the Palace of Westminster, home of the Houses of Parliament.
"Wow, I've always wanted to see Big Ben!" Ava exulted as they entered the building, with the Hall closed to the public and media for unspecified security reasons. Anti-terrorism is more believable than Snow White, Prince Charming and the Evil Queen addressing a grand committee from both Houses!
Joe looked at her strangely. "Technically, you still haven't! You have seen the Elizabeth Tower and a couple of its clock faces. Big Ben is its largest bell!"
Another question and answer session followed, with Regina and Hippolyta again assuring everyone that they only held the late and entirely unlamented Werner Blofeld responsible for what happened to them. They left with an agreement of mutual support between Themyscira, Storybrooke and the United Kingdom.
On the whole, the visit had been a successful so far.