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

The Guardians of Magic

If the last few hours had taught Mildred anything, it was that she doubted she'd be comfortable in any kind of job where she regularly had to deal with peoples' lives being on the line. She knew that she wanted to help people, and she had no problem reacting when Agatha or Ethel actively threatened the school (even if Ethel mostly did that because she wasn't thinking things through), but actively planning to go off and fight…

She understood that everyone here was only preparing to fight because they were facing people who were determined to wipe out everything that made her new… teammates… what they were, to say nothing of basically destroying everyone they knew, but Mildred just didn't feel like a soldier. She wanted to help even if she didn't know what she was doing here when everyone else was so much more impressive, but she couldn't shake the idea that there was something else they could be doing right now…

"Special forces?" Merlin looked uncertainly at Vision as the rest of the Guardians gathered their weapons. "What does that mean?"

"In terms that you would be familiar with, consider them to be… very well-trained knights," Vision responded, as Paige summoned a sword into her hands and Dave generated a lighting ball between his palms. "I am unsure what is involved for these particular special forces, but we should assume that we are facing enemies with particular training in dealing with supernatural enemies."

"And what we've been dealing with so far aren't?" Bo looked curiously at Vision.

"We have been dealing with soldiers who fight in wars," Vision explained. "From what records I have been able to access, the special forces they are deploying are certain individuals who are used to dealing with the supernatural on their own worlds."

"So… what are we talking about here?" Paige asked. "Witch hunters like Jackman?"

"Jackman?" Angel asked.

"Guy back home who claimed he was an FBI agent who wanted my sisters and I to help him catch a witch hunter, but it turned out he was the hunter," Paige explained. "He used amulets to stop us using our powers on him directly, and probably had a few other tricks, but… well, a guy we knew set things up so Jackman literally ended up shooting himself."

"I take that doesn't just mean he shot himself the usual way?" Nick asked.

"Jackman fired his gun at someone, and then… this guy… cast a spell that caused Jackman to switch places with his target."

"Is it wrong that I think that's kind of cool?" Billy asked. "I mean, I'm not saying I'm in favour of killing people, but literally setting a guy up to take himself out like that…"

"Like I told Mildred," Angel put in, "there's a difference between understanding something and being completely OK with it."

"Uh… if we're talking about me…" Mildred put in awkwardly, raising her hand as she looked around at the others.

"Yeah?" Nick looked over at her with a reassuring smile on his face, which assured Mildred she didn't have to worry about his reaction to her words.

"Should we be doing this?"

"Say what?" Kenzi looked at her in surprise. "Kiddo, you get that these guys are going to kill us just because-"

"And I'm not saying the Empirikuul are right to do any of this, but we're… isn't this doing what they expect from us?" Mildred said, suddenly feeling awkward as the rest of the Guardians turned to look at her. "I mean, they're already afraid of magic; if we go after them like this, aren't we just… proving them right?"

When the others exchanged awkward looks with each other, Mildred didn't know if she'd crossed some kind of line, but she knew that she had to say it if she wanted to still be herself. Even if she understood that what they were doing was important, at the same time she didn't want to be the kind of person who'd start a war, even if their enemies were genuinely dangerous.

"It's… a difficult balance," Angel conceded at last, looking at her with a sympathetic nod. "I'm sure none of us are that comfortable with mounting this kind of attack against a society that hasn't directly attacked us yet…"

"But we know they've already attacked other worlds," Emma put in.

"And we can't exactly stop a society that's completely focused on destroying magic and the supernatural just by giving it a stern talking-to," Bo added with a shrug. "I mean, I couldn't even stop my mother trying to blow up the Ash and some of his council back home and she at least might have listened to me; these guys have no reason to do anything but try to kill us."

"Which doesn't mean we're going to go off and start killing them in turn," Paige said. "We're trying to cripple their ability to actually attack other worlds, but we're not going to go off and start blowing up buildings just because the people living in them have been raised to hate us."

"That… we can work with that," Harry nodded, a cautious expression on his face as he looked at Mildred. "I get that we don't want to just become what these people think we are, but like Bo said, we can't just let them kill us either."

"So we're agreed," Nick looked around the trailer, placing a reassuring hand on Mildred's shoulder. "We're going to maintain the campaign against the Empirikuul, but we're not going to do anything too drastic in the process. We want to stop these people, but we don't want to do that by resorting to their more extremist methods and basically proving them right about us."

"I can go with that," Billy put in with an eager nod. "I'm all for taking out demons and monsters, but I'm fine with just making sure the guys who have the wrong idea about me can't actually hurt me."

"…That works," Mildred nodded at him before she looked over at Nick. "Sorry if I-"

"Hey," Nick crouched down to smile reassuringly at the young witch. "We're all out of our depth here, Mildred, but you're part of the team; if you have any doubts about what we're doing, we want to hear them."

"Thank you," Mildred said, giving Nick an impulsive hug before she stepped back, suddenly feeling even more awkward.

"OK!" Willow clapped her hands together as she looked around the room. "I-if we're going to keep up this campaign, who's going out to do what?"

"First step should be sending out a team to attack the Empirikuul military base," Nick said.

"Their military base?" Angel looked at Nick in surprise. "That seems like a big target, and we're not exactly an army…"

"We just held off an army of killer robots as part of a team of only nine people," Wanda observed, indicating herself and Vision.

"Yeah, and a bunch of other heroes held off an alien army back home before I even got my own powers," Billy put in. "Sometimes it's not about numbers; it's about having the right amount of oomph and knowing where to use it."

"And when considered from a tactical perspective, targeting the base is also the best way to hurt the Empirikuul without actually hurting anyone," Vision observed. "Many of the vessels they might use to mount their next campaign are currently unmanned and awaiting their crews."

"So if we destroy one of the bigger ones we show them that we're here to make an impression without actually hurting anyone?" Dave gave the android a thoughtful but approving nod. "That could work."

"So long as we send the right people to do the job," Emma pointed out as she looked around the team. "We're going to want to hit these guys hard, but we have to do it fast…"

Walking along the street to their current destination, dressed in the dark clothing that was apparently the norm in this world, Merlin was still unsure how to cope with the idea that he would apparently earn such respect in his future that the rest of the current team regarded him as a magical powerhouse even when working with such a diverse range of members. The notion that Harry, Ginny and Mildred were from worlds where magic-users were so commonplace that there were whole schools dedicated to teaching them to use their power would have been remarkable on its own, but the way everyone else on this team saw him that way when most of them were apparently new to magic…

He was still sometimes amazed that his own powers were considered so exceptional by Gaius back in his world, and now so many people he'd only just met seemed to be depending on him to basically save magic itself? Maybe he was part of a team, but he hadn't missed the fact that most of them only seemed to really rally together when they realised who he was, as though he somehow confirmed everything else they'd been told just by being here.

He still wasn't sure what he could contribute to this situation when he was dealing with so many ideas and concepts he couldn't fully understand, but if the rest of the team had this kind of faith in him, he wasn't going to tell them that he couldn't do it. If he was willing to go to such lengths to save his friends back in Camelot without any of them being aware of it, he wasn't going to turn down an explicit request for help from fellow creatures of magic.

He just wished that he could feel more comfortable with this plan. He appreciated that most of that discomfort was because he didn't fully understand what they were dealing with, and he was sure he was missing some fine details of the scale of what their current enemies were capable of, but at the same time the idea of going after something this big…

After so long operating in secret, he had no idea how to feel about the idea that he was able to do something this big and know it wouldn't risk exposing his secret to his friends in Camelot. That thought was almost as strange as the notion that he was working alongside other people to do this, but as he glanced over to where Wanda Maximoff, Billy Batson, and the disguised Vision were walking along further up the street, he had to admit that he was at least glad to have such significant allies with him.

The other three were currently acting as a family out for a walk to avoid attention- Vision's disguise had brown hair rather than his previously fair appearance to make himself look closer to Billy- while Merlin followed them a short distance behind in case anything went wrong. Vision had used that stone in his head to surround all of them with a light layer of energy that would apparently stop the Empirikuul becoming aware of them until they actually used magic, so they were safe enough at the moment, which gave Merlin time to look at the people around them. The streets around him were full of men, women and children in similar clothing to their current disguise, walking back and forth between the buildings as though on a particular route. The sameness of the clothes at least assured Merlin that he and his allies wouldn't stand out, but also made him wonder what kind of ruler demanded such conformity in his subjects' clothing. Uther might object to magic, but he at least allowed his people relative freedom in their personal lives so long as they didn't practice magic…

The group up ahead came to a halt at the end of a small side street, waiting for Merlin to walk up and join them before walking down the smaller street.

"The military base we intend to attack is basically at the other end of this street," Vision explained in a low voice as the four of them walked. "Once we arrive, Billy and I will mount the initial attack against one of their larger vehicles, and then you and Wanda do what you can to cause further damage."

"And we leave before the soldiers arrive?" Wanda asked.

"Once a statement has been made," Vision nodded.

"Yeah, we have to make a point about why we're against what these guys are doing without making ourselves look too hostile," Billy nodded. "If we're going to make an impact, we need max damage with minimal casualties… right?"

"Right," Merlin said, hoping he was following this train of reasoning. "Let's… do this?"

He wasn't sure if the line was suitably tough to go with the rest of the group, but it seemed to meet with their approval. As they approached the large yard where these people apparently kept their vehicles of war, Billy tensed to prepare for his transformation, but the four waited until they were standing in front of the strange metal fence that separated them from the main yard. The large war machines the others had described were visible through the barrier, leaving Merlin disturbed and awed at the idea that those large forms he was looking at, resembling massive metal boats, had been created by men without the use of magic and were (according to his new acquaintances) capable of moving through the air despite their great size.

For a moment, Merlin wondered if he could do this, but after looking over at his friends, he received only confirming nods from the others, assuring him that they were all committed to their current goals. With that done, Vision assumed his usual appearance and released a beam of some sort from the stone in his forehead, slicing through the fence and striking the nearest vehicle with such force that Merlin was sure he saw the beam emerge from the other side.

"SHAZAM!" Billy yelled, assuming his adult appearance and charging towards the vehicle that Vision had just attacked. The flying man in red crashed through the vessel with such force that it shattered in half, leaving Merlin and Wanda to grab one half each with their powers and force them further away from each other. Noticing Wanda taking the ship apart in a red glow, Merlin turned his attention to compressing his own half down so that it wouldn't do too much damage when it landed. He was surprised to find that it was actually relatively simple to deal with the ship this way, but he supposed his practice at fine control of his magic back in Camelot made it easier to do something this big.

Even as he brought the vehicle to the ground, now compressed to a lump of metal considerably smaller than it had been, he wondered what he might actually be capable of if he ever had a chance to really use his magic. He had always been relatively discreet growing up, and obviously he had to be even more subtle in Camelot, but the chance to do something this big-

His train of thought was interrupted when something came charging towards them from another part of the field at high speeds. Turning to face the sound, Merlin was briefly puzzled at the sight of a low grey vehicle moving at high speeds with no sign of weapons, but his question was abruptly answered when parts of the vehicle seemed to shift, its sides opening up to reveal what looked like arms and its centre folding in on itself to reveal a more human-like appearance.

Merlin's shock was only slightly helped when he saw that the other three were just as confused at this development as he was, but they soon had other things to worry about when this thing fired what Merlin could only think of as large arrows from his shoulders. Following Wanda's example, Merlin raised a barrier to protect the four of them from this new assault as Vision and Shazam dived down to join them, but was sent reeling back as powerful explosions struck the barrier. They were able to keep the barrier up until the last explosion ceased, but when the last impact had ceased, Merlin dropped to his knees from the sheer exhaustion, only just aware of Wanda doing the same alongside him, before something tore through the air above his head to strike the rising Vision.

"VIHZ!" Wanda yelled, fatigue forgotten as she and Merlin got back to their feet while the adult Billy looked in shock at where Vision was now lying on the ground, a large blade through his torso generating some kind of energy as the metal man stood over him. Vision let out a strangled scream of agony before Merlin and Wanda lashed out simultaneously, blasting the metal man away. Billy flew forward to grab their attacker by the head, and for a moment Merlin hoped that this would be the end of the fight, before the large figure's eyes glowed and Merlin heard what seemed to be Billy's own voice calling out SHAZAM. Billy's shocked expression made it clear that he hadn't been the one to speak in the moment before the lightning burst from the sky to strike him, leaving Billy's child form clinging desperately to their attacker's neck.

"NO!" Wanda yelled, standing up from Vision's fallen form and firing a burst of energy that sent Billy flying away from their opponent. Merlin could already see a new energy form positioned just behind Billy, clearly intended to catch him, but the brief hope that they were still in control of this situation ended when he saw a human-sized blue figure in some kind of armour flying in from the side to grab Billy mid-flight. Merlin could just glimpse that the new arrival had a hand clapped over Billy's mouth, preventing him speaking the word, before he felt something strike him in the back of the head. He tried to turn around to see what had attacked him as he fell, but he only had time to register a female form in white standing over him… was that a silver figure heading for Wanda…?

AN: Hope you like that twist at the end; be assured I'll establish who the other characters are if you haven't guessed already (I'll give you this clue; they're not from any of the Guardians' worlds of origin).