Disclaimer: I own nothing here you recognise (and depending on what fandom drew your interest to this fic, I may not own some things you don't recognise); you know how it goes.

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: As previously discussed, here's the rest of the titular team; hope you like the line-up

The Guardians of Magic

Even with the rest of his new 'siblings' to provide support, the hero publicly known to most as 'Shazam' still appreciated the chance to get away from it all when he could just transform on his own and get away from it all for a while. He appreciated that Freddy, Mary and the rest would be there for him if he needed it, but when he had been the one chosen as the champion (even if he was basically the last available choice for the role), it felt… right to just use the powers himself once or twice when there wasn't anything else to do.

He kept an ear out for anything that might merit his attention, but when he was essentially the 'older' sibling in this case even if Mary still insisted on taking point when they were normal, none of the others objected to him going out for a flight or any other kind of 'practice', so long as he didn't do anything too big on his own. This power might have been the one he'd taken the longest to properly learn how to use, but he couldn't understand how anyone could pick invisibility over flight in that 'test' Freddy had told him about the first day of school; maybe you could sneak around a bit more, but the possibilities of flight-

Shazam's wistful thoughts were cut off when the world around him suddenly burst into bright light in a manner that reminded him of when he'd first been taken to the Wizard's chamber, and then he suddenly found himself right next to the ground where he'd been up in the air just moments ago. Desperately Shazam pulled himself back up before he hit the ground, but he was so close and moving so fast that he found himself skimming over the road, tearing it up with his body before he could stabilise himself. After a couple of 'skips' over the ground, he finally came to a halt, allowing him to stand up and look back at the damage he'd just caused.

"Oh, boy," he whispered, looking at the battered road before he turned his attention to the streets around him. "Yeah, sorry about… that…"

His voice trailed off as he realised that he was now standing in the middle of a futuristic-looking city with fancy white buildings and very few people in the streets. He didn't know what was responsible for this, but it looked as though he had been teleported somewhere… which meant that he didn't know what had brought him here or how to get back home-

"Freeze, freak!" something yelled from behind him. Turning around, Shazam wondered what it said about his life that facing a small group of heavily-armed soldiers in strange white armour, who had apparently appeared out of nowhere in the seconds since he looked away from that area, was almost a normal part of his life after the chaos of facing Sivana and the Sins.

"Freak?" he repeated, trying to sound casual about the word. "I don't suppose that we could-?"

"You're just another sick fuck corrupted by magic; we won't-!" the lead guard began, before Shazam slammed his hand against the guard's chest. It was a relatively light blow by his usual standards, but it was enough to send this guard flying backwards, which at least confirmed that he was just facing humans rather than any kind of supernatural entity.

As soon as their colleague had fallen, the other three fired their weapons at him, but while the energy sent Shazam staggering back, he didn't actually feel like he was in any kind of pain from whatever the weapons were trying to do. He let the energy surround him for a couple of moments to be sure what he was dealing with, but once he was satisfied he threw off the attack and launched a few quick chest-slaps, knocking the other guards down before they could fire again.

With the immediate threat dealt with, Shazam looked at the fallen men around him, but winced as he considered what had just happened. He might have been acting in self-defence, but their weapons hadn't done that much damage, and he was fairly sure there was some kind of superhero rule about only reacting to threats with an equal amount of force. Superman certainly didn't trash most of a city to find a few bog-standard bank robbers, and even Batman had started to mellow down a bit after Superman had died for a while…

On the other hand, judging by the way these people had been so efficiently organised when coming after him, Shazam had a feeling he wasn't just dealing with some kind of security guards Sivana had managed to send after him. Frankly, if the teleportation effect he'd just experienced and his new surroundings were anything to go by, he wouldn't be surprised to find out that he wasn't even in his own world right now (and God, that kind of thing was weird; he still wasn't used to how the 'Wisdom of Solomon' made those kind of leaps when he wasn't consciously thinking about things).

It was a risk, but if he wanted to figure out what was going on here, he'd need to be more discreet, which meant not walking around in a bright red suit with a lightning-bolt on his chest…

Quickly heading back towards the nearest alley, the seemingly adult hero whispered his word, and once again he was back in his 'natural' form, the barely teenage Billy Batson looking anxiously at the street where his earlier opponents were now regaining consciousness before he turned and ran.

He didn't know where he could go right now, but the first step was to put some distance from those guys, and then find somewhere quiet where he could think about his next move…

Detective Nick Burkhardt had seen some interesting things since his aunt had given him her trailer and told him of his heritage, but he had a feeling that even Monroe wouldn't have heard of anything like what had just happened to him. One minute he was walking along the street, taking a last stroll to unwind before he went back home to Juliette for the evening, and then he suddenly found himself in the middle of a different street in a city that looked like it was the stereotypical image of an idealistic future, all smooth buildings and clean-smelling air.

Even if he didn't know what had drawn him here, Nick's first response had been to hide in a nearby alley and watch as some kind of flying car had appeared, a group of men coming out of the vehicle waving something in front of them that put him in mind of scanners in some science-fiction shows he'd occasionally watched when flicking through TV channels when he was bored. Fortunately they didn't appear to be aware of his presence, but after watching for a short while, Nick was satisfied that these people didn't know where he was now even if it looked like they were actually searching around where he had appeared in the street.

Satisfied that he was safe, he turned his attention to heading further into the alleys and back streets he'd found himself in, trying to work out what had just happened and where he was now. After searching a few streets, Nick had turned up nothing more interesting than a few more main roads that he wasn't keen to explore until he knew he wouldn't be attacked by another group of soldiers. He'd found a couple of things that looked like bins, but when he opened them it looked like everything that went through them had been immediately mulched- he assumed it was for the equivalent of recycling- which ended any tentative plan of finding more information from the local equivalent of a newspaper. This place was definitely efficient, but if they were able and willing to send armed soldiers out just because he appeared here with no idea why he was here, he was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of trusting whoever was in charge here that easily…

His thoughts were drawn back to the present when he heard a very distinctive scream coming from down another side street.

A child… Nick thought, mind racing with horrific images of what so many had long believed had happened to Holly Clark before he and Monroe found her just before Christmas. It wasn't a familiar scream, but when it continued, Nick didn't even stop to think about it as he ran in the direction of the scream. Unconcerned about any potential risks to himself, he emerged from the alley onto a main street to find two armoured figures pointing their weapons at a small figure while a third ran his hands over-

Her, Nick's brain reported as he took in the small figure that was currently being confronted by three armed men; a dark-haired girl, probably not even in her teens yet, wearing a dark dress over a grey shirt that made Nick think of a school uniform, trembling in terror with tears streaking down her face, clutching a bag and what looked for all the world like a broomstick as she sobbed desperately. The first three men had the girl basically surrounded with weapons pointing at her, while a fourth man stood slightly off to the side, holding… a grey cat with black stripes?

"Tabby!" the girl yelled as the soldier moved as though he was about to grab the cat's neck, and it was that final desperate plea that pushed Nick into action. Without even thinking about it, he charged forward and tackled the man holding the girl's cat, forcing away the hand that had been about to grab the cat's neck before he pulled the feline out of the man's grip. The cat held in his left hand, Nick turned around delivered a powerful blow that sent the next two men flying backwards, both of them hitting the ground and clearly unconscious. Nick wasn't even fully aware of his actions before he realised that he was now pointing his gun at the fourth man's helmet, the cat still safe in his grasp as the girl trembled between Nick and the man who had just been threatening her.

"Get away from her," Nick practically growled.

"You would defend this witch?" The apparent soldier actually sounded surprised as he looked at Nick. "She is an abomination-!"

"She's a kid-!"

"We all know that evil wears many forms; she must be slain-!"

Only the knowledge that there was a young girl watching him stopped Nick from actually pulling the trigger on the bastard who could look at a girl crying like that and still talk about killing her. Instead he moved forward as fast as possible and adjusted his grip on his gun so that the main barrel slammed into this man's face with as much force as he could deliver, the blow fracturing the man's helmet and sending him to the ground even as Nick grabbed the girl's shoulder to stop the soldier pulling her down with him. Once he was satisfied that nobody else was going to attack them right now, he turned his attention back to the girl, who had picked up the cat and was looking anxiously at him.

"Hey," he said, crouching down slightly so that he wasn't looking down on the girl; in her current state, anything that might intimidate her was definitely out. "I know you don't have any reason to trust some stranger, but I'm not going to hurt you. My name's Nick Burkhardt; I'm a cop."

"…Mildred Hubble," the girl replied, looking at him with cautious curiosity. "You… you're American?"

"Detective in the Portland police department," Nick confirmed with a brief smile before looking at their surroundings. "Which I have a feeling doesn't mean that much here… wherever here is."

"You… don't know either?" Mildred asked.

"You don't?" Nick looked at her with his own sense of curiosity, a cautious thought occurring to him. "How did you get… here?"

"I was just preparing for my final exams, and then something just… I think I was transferred here with Tabby and everything…" Mildred explained, awkwardly indicating everything in her hands before she looked at Nick. "You… I don't know how I came here…"

"Then we need to get out of here and find somewhere safe," Nick said, mind already made up that he wasn't going to leave this girl alone. "Come on, let's get off this street and find somewhere safe to work out… what's going on here."

Paige had never been a particular fan of action movies, but when she emerged from her latest orb to find herself in an unfamiliar city that looked like something out of a sci-fi show, her immediate thought was to recall a quote in a trailer she'd seen for Die Hard 2; "How could the same shit happen to the same guy twice?"

OK, so this time around she still had her powers, but the central issue of her being alone in an unfamiliar world still applied, and this time she didn't even have the advantage that it was at least a variation of the world she knew to help her find her way around. As soon as she realised that she was in the middle of an unfamiliar street, she had orbed herself up to the roof, staying put for a few moments as a group of apparent soldiers in some kind of strange white armour gathered around the area where she had appeared. She had waited for a few moments to see what they would do, but once she was sure that they apparently couldn't track her orb, she turned her attention to trying to find her way around this place and how she might have ended up here in the first place.

OK, so at least this doesn't look like another case where reality got changed by someone, but what am I doing here if this isn't Cole's latest mess?

It was only after she'd made a few random orbs that she became aware of a particular sensation in the back of her head, something that she'd only sensed before when Leo had tried to help her find Sam a few months ago. It took her another couple of orbs to get a proper sense of the source of that 'sense', but once she knew what she was looking for, she was sure of her theory; somehow, wherever she'd ended up, she had a charge she had to protect.

With a new goal in mind, Paige focused her efforts on her apparent charge, and soon found herself standing on the edge of an alley, watching as about half a dozen white-armoured soldiers aimed their weapons at two figures in the middle of the street. One appeared to be a man wearing a long black coat that he was trying to use to cover himself, and the other was a young woman with vivid red hair, wearing a dark blue hoodie over a pink shirt, who seemed to be trying to protect the man. So far the soldiers didn't appear to have done anything to the two, but judging by the way the woman was talking rapidly about something, Paige had a feeling that was about to change.

Couldn't hurt to find an ally in this mess…

Hoping that she wasn't about to make a mistake, Paige stepped forward and held out her hand towards the soldiers.

"Guns!" she called out, smiling in relief as the weapons vanished from the soldiers' hands and appeared in a small pile around her. Realising what had happened, the soldiers turned around to look at her, but then found themselves taken from behind when the man stood up and started to attack them from behind. He was still holding his coat over his head for some reason, but Paige didn't need Phoebe's experience of hand-to-hand combat to see that this man was hitting his opponents with more strength than the average human should be capable of.

For a moment Paige worried about what she might have done by helping this man, but then one of the strange soldiers turned around to try and punch her and the man in the black coat moved to take the blow himself, which at least gave Paige some hope she wasn't dealing with a demon. Deciding to take advantage of the distraction, Paige orbed forward and managed to take the nearest standing guard by surprise with a quick punch to his face, followed by an impulsive kick between another guard's legs that sent him to the ground. With the man in black having already knocked down the other three, Paige smiled in approval as she saw the red-haired girl swing a mace of all things at the last figure standing, sending him flying back to hit the ground.

"Nice job," Paige nodded at the two, even as the man stayed crouched down with his jacket over his head and the redhead kept the mace raised apprehensively in Paige's direction. "Easy; I'm not going to hurt you."

"Wh-who are you?" the young woman asked. Now that Paige could see her more clearly, she guessed that the girl was in her late teens at best, and definitely not older than twenty. "What's going on here?"

"For the first part, my name's Paige Matthews," Paige explained with a slight smile before she looked more curiously at the two. "And for the second… actually, I can't answer that because I'm still working it out, but would I be right that you two… pretty much just arrived here?"

"Arrived?" the redhead repeated.

"As in you were somewhere else earlier and then just… found yourself here?" the man asked.

"Yeah," Paige nodded cautiously at him. "I mean, I can do that myself, but- look, can we talk about this somewhere a bit less public?"

Nodding in understanding, the man and the redhead hurried into the alley with Paige, leaving their would-be attackers in the street. Once they were off the main street, the man lowered his jacket, revealing a handsome face with a thick head of brown hair and a haunted expression that put Paige in mind of Cole during the first few months she'd spent with her sisters.

"I'm Angel," the man said to her. Paige glimpsed a sword hanging loosely at his side as he adjusted his coat.

"Willow Rosenberg," the girl said, giving Paige an awkward little wave. "…Hi?"

"Hi," Paige smiled back at the girl before she gave Willow a more cautious look, as the sensation she'd been dealing with earlier finally seemed to 'settle' on its source. "You're a witch, aren't you?"

"…Training, anyway," Willow nodded, a cautious expression on her face as she looked at Paige. "And… you are? I mean, I know your name, but… OK, 'what are you' sounds a bit rude, and I don't want you to think I'm just thinking of you as a specific-"

"To answer your question, I'm a witch/whitelighter hybrid," Paige replied with a smile. "And don't worry; so long as you don't intend an insult, I've got no problem with you asking interesting questions."

"Uh… thanks," Willow's cautious expression shifted to include a small smile as she looked at Paige. "So… hybrid?"

"My father was a Whitelighter and my mom was a witch, so I get a bit of both," Paige explained with a smile. "That's… well, I think it's how I found you so easily; I think you've become my charge."

"Your 'charge'?" Willow repeated uncertainly.

"Whitelighters often get assigned to help witches," Paige explained; considering that Piper and Phoebe had to be told what Whitelighters were themselves when Leo first made contact, she guessed it only made sense that a witch in training didn't know about them yet. "Whatever happened to us… well, I'd help you out even if I didn't have you as my charge, but there's nothing wrong with sticking together in this situation, right?"

"I can… work with that," Willow nodded at Paige with a grateful smile.

"Just so long as we stay in the shadows," Angel put in, shooting an anxious glance at the streets outside the alley. "Whatever's going on here, we should… probably stay out of the public view."

"Makes sense," Paige nodded at him. "We can talk things over once we find somewhere safe to work out what's going on."

"Sounds like a plan," Willow grinned at the older witch.

"Then let's go," Paige said, returning the younger woman's smile with her own as she indicated the alley ahead of them. She still had a question or two regarding why Angel was being so determined to stay out of the sunlight and how he could be that strong, but she'd seen enough to be reasonably confident that whatever his secret Willow knew enough that she at least trusted him, so Paige would give him the benefit of the doubt until she had the time to talk about whatever had just happened with her new charge somewhere safe.

Whenever she looked back on those last few minutes on Sokovia, Wanda could never clearly remember how it had all come together. After she felt Pietro… realised what had happened to him… as soon as she was satisfied that there were no more drones able to go after the device, and satisfied that the rest of the team could stop the extinction-level event they were concerned about, she had set out to find Ultron's prime body, which had been easy enough after seeing said body fall out of that stolen Quinjet.

Tearing out its central processor (or whatever the term was for that part of him) might not have actually destroyed Ultron himself when there was probably still a drone or two he could use to escape, but at least it made her feel better about what had happened… made her feel as though she had managed to inflict some level of the pain and suffering Ultron had inflicted on her onto the monster she had helped to create…

She'd been so consumed by pain and rage for the next few minutes that she couldn't even fully remember what had happened before she found herself flying off in another direction, carried by the Vision through the chaos and debris that her former home city had become. Even as she registered that she wasn't dead like she'd expected, Wanda still found it hard to keep track of what was going on around her, unable to bring herself to focus on anything when she still felt the gap in her own self where she'd been able to feel Pietro for so long…

Then everything around her seemed to become enveloped by a strange golden blur, and by the time Wanda's awareness was aroused enough to take in what was going on around her, the two of them were suddenly in the middle of what Wanda could only think of as a strange greenish-blue glow, which abruptly faded to reveal that the two of them were now flying much closer to the ground in an intact but unfamiliar city. Wanda just had time to yell out in a panic before Vision had adjusted his position and landed on the ground, releasing his grip on Wanda so that she could stand on her own feet once again.

"Wh-?" she tried to ask, only for Vision to place a hand over her mouth as a strange golden glow covered his body…

Wanda wasn't sure how to explain what happened next; she still felt his hand over her mouth as though nothing had changed, but he suddenly looked completely human, with a thin face and very light blonde hair. The appearance only lasted for a moment before a set of armour appeared over his new appearance, the new look a strange white colour that put Wanda in mind of something from a film.

"Is that the source?"

When Vision turned them to look at the source of the voice, Wanda tried to hide the scale of her fear when she realised that they were looking at a group of soldiers in the same strange white armour that Vision was now 'wearing'. She wanted to have faith in what her new 'teammate' was doing, but when he had literally just come into existence hours ago and had only been helping them deal with a specific threat-

"Yes, this is her," the Vision said, his voice sounding noticeably deeper than it had before. "I'll be taking her into custody myself; feel free to return to your usual routine."

"Understood," the apparent lead soldier nodded, exchanging glances with the rest of the team before he looked quizzically at the synthezoid. "You're sure that you're all right? The alerts indicated that this is a very powerful source-"

"I have her under control," the disguised android affirmed coolly. It seemed to be enough for the soldier, who accepted the statement with a final nod before he reached up and tapped something on his armour, followed by all four of the soldiers vanishing in a burst of white light.

"Teleportation," Vision observed as he led Wanda to a nearby side street before the same glow surrounded him and he returned to his usual appearance. "This is a very advanced civilisation."

"How did you-?" Wanda began.

"One of many things about myself I am still learning how to do," the synthezoid explained, his voice solemn as he indicated the glowing yellow stone in his forehead. "It is essentially an illusion created by the power of the Stone rather than a true physical transformation, but I judged it the best way to keep you safe."

"Keep me safe?" Wanda repeated in confusion. "From what?"

"Once I realised that we had been transported, I was able to access the local networks," Vision explained. "I was unable to do more than what could be called a 'surface scan' of the local internet without drawing attention to my presence, but that was enough for me to determine that this world… it truly hates magic."

"Magic?" Wanda felt more confused than she had before. "But I am not-"

"Probably not, but as I was accessing the local networks I also intercepted a transmission to the local security forces identifying what the system interpreted to be a strong magical energy signature at our present location," Vision clarified. "Deciding that it would be best to be on the safe side, I found an image of what the security forces of this world look like and used it as a quick disguise to keep you safe."

"…Thank you," Wanda said, deciding that it would be best to acknowledge the help at least before she took a moment to process everything else he had just told her. "Did you say… this world? As in we are not on Earth?"

"At the very least, we are on an alternate version of Earth where history as you and I know it played out very differently," Vision answered. "Obviously this world prosecutes and hunts those with magic or magic-like abilities through advanced technology, but beyond that…"

He paused and raised his head, looking curiously around himself for a moment before he turned his attention back to Wanda. "Do you… sense something?"

Wanda was about to ask what he meant before she closed her eyes and tried to 'reach' out with her mind, much like how she'd grown used to reaching out for Pietro after the initial experiments gave them both their powers. She couldn't be certain what she was explicitly sensing, but she was definitely aware of something pulling her forward… something that seemed to be coming from…

"This way?" she looked back at Vision.

"We might as well see what it is," Vision nodded with a smile. "After all, if you know there is likely to be a trap, you have a better chance of turning it in your favour."

AN 2: And there's the other half of the group that will become the Guardians of Magic;

Billy Batson is from the film Shazam.
Nick Burkhardt is the main character from the series Grimm, in the latter half of the first season.
Mildred Hubble is the main character in the Worst Witch series; this version of her is from the TV series that debuted in 2017, at the end of the first season.
Paige Matthews is from the 1998 version of Charmed, mid-way through the fifth season.
Angel and Willow Rosenberg are obviously from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, from the middle of the show's third season.
Wanda and Vision come from the very end of the final battle in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

As currently planned, the entire team will meet up in the next chapter, and the chapter after that will confirm what they're all doing in this world at the same time; hope you've enjoyed what I've done so far.