Tony lowered himself down the elevator shaft and emerged on the ground floor in less than three seconds, just in time to see a man clad in green robes, with long black hair, a beard, and Ray-Bans, walk into his lobby. The two stared at each other for a moment. "You're breaking and entering you know." Tony said finally. "In case the defenses didn't make that obvious. You owe me a new entryway."

"You owe me a new home and several loyal lieutenants who served me for years." The man replied calmly. "Consider this a first payment. You can avoid more drastic measures by telling me what I wish to know." Tony frowned.

"Is this about Afghanistan?" He demanded. "You are the Mandarin, not his twin brother, right? A ring on each finger isn't exactly subtle." The man nodded at him.

"I am the Mandarin, yes. A few hours ago a series of Jericho Missiles struck the valley where I make my home. I barely survived, and I lost much. I seek recompense." Tony frowned.

"I haven't made Jericho Missiles in four years buddy, and I certainly wouldn't have launched them at your home. Hell, you wrecked the stupid Iron Patriot armor, I'd probably send you flowers."

"A New York pizza would have been appreciated more." The Mandarin said, lips quirked up. "Regardless of who sent them, the fact of the matter is that if there's one person who can tell me who launched those missiles, it'd be the billionaire with his own satellites who created them. Tell me who destroyed my home, and I leave." Tony frowned. Part of him did actually want to help the man. He couldn't imagine having his house, and most of his things, blown up. And if he was telling the truth about the Jericho Missiles, then he was at least somewhat responsible. On the other hand though...

"And the full scale invasion by your people and the Hazmat Knights?" He demanded.

"My home was destroyed, and many of my men killed." The Mandarin repeated. "Either by your action or your failure. This is an eye for an eye, and motivation. The sooner you tell me who attacked me, and demonstrate proof of such, the sooner we leave." Tony let out a long sigh, then shook his head.

"Get off my lawn." He snapped, thrusting both hands out and blasting the man with his repulsors. The Mandarin twitched his right thumb, and a stone hand appeared out of the ground, taking the blast. The man himself took a few cuts to the cheek, but nothing serious.

"A pity. It looks like I'll have to beat it out of you." He said, still calm.

"Let's see if you can pull that off." Tony growled, surging forward. He heard the Mandarin let out a satisfying grunt as Tony tackled him and flew out the front door, but then he was being forced back by a rather localized tornado. He managed to get out of it, but then he had to start dodging bursts of fire and ice, and a growing black expanse. That last appeared to have swallowed Hulk, judging by the roars Tony was hearing from within it. Still, from what he could tell it was mostly just a way of blinding enemies, so he figured the big guy would be out sooner than later. "JARVIS, sit rep." He said, moving to blast at and dodge attacks from the Mandarin.

"The assailants in yellow are equipped with signal jammers that makes it difficult to estimate their numbers." The AI reported. "They seem to be coordinating with members of the Ten Rings efficiently enough however. The occupants of the tower have managed to get into the panic rooms safely, and aside from some non-life threatening wounds seem to be alright. However, Dr. Foster and Miss Lewis are unaccounted for. I believe they were taking a late lunch in the city."

"That's not good." Tony muttered, growling as the Mandarin blocked a volley of missiles. He was hitting the man, the growing cuts on the man's face and wear to his robes made that clear, but it was slow going. "See if you can find them after you get the House Party kicked off. Any status updates on the others?"

"Agent Barton is heading back as quickly as he can, but as he didn't take a Quinjet he won't be able to make it for at least an hour."

"Make a note to get more quinjets made." Tony huffed. "I don't want anyone going places by land anymore if we can avoid it, even if he was going...wherever he was going for the whole weekend."

"There's been no word from Prince Thor and the others after their acknowledgement of the message." JARVIS continued. "However, there are others fighting in other parts of the city. A hero from Gotham, Nightwing, is currently fighting in Queens, as is Spider-Man, who appears to have rallied the local police force under Captain Stacy. Princess Ahmanet is fighting her way towards the tower, accompanied by a woman made of what appears to be diamond. A young woman in a black coat with a top hat appears to be wielding magic against the invading forces elsewhere. And there are others as well. The vigilante called Daredevil, a woman named Jessica Jones, and a man named Luke Cage are fighting in Hell's Kitchen." Tony grunted in appreciation.

"Good, good. Make notes of them if you can, we'll need to figure out a way to thank them. Help them out if we can, after all of this." He knew literally none of these people besides Ahmanet, and didn't really grasp even her powers, but every bit helped and even if the full team had been around they'd have likely needed help against an assault like this. "Now let's see if we can't figure out a weak spot on those rings of his."

OoOoOoOoO

Dick was having a...less than pleasant time of things. His current suit was as durable as the Batsuit at least, so the shots the invaders were getting were less than debilitating, but there were a lot of them, and he had to keep moving or else one of them was going to get a headshot in. His escrima sticks were only moderately effective against the yellow armored ones too, which was a problem. He rather suddenly missed the others. Bruce and Babs were always good at keeping an eye on him, watching his back as he watched theirs. But this was different. The problem was too big, too widespread, for him to have stuck with anybody. There were a lot of...well, they looked like people, but given the numbers he expected a decent number of the yellow clad attackers were drones, or a limited AI. Like what Riddler had, but better. The numbers meant he felt pretty sure they'd made the right call.

Regardless of who was attacking though, there were a lot of them. And he was one young man with some gadgets. A well trained young man, yes, but still, it was literally just him against what had to be a hundred people, and that was just in the portion of the city he'd set for himself to defend. He hoped things were going better for the others.

OoOoOoOoO

Peter really hoped things were going better for the others. He knew he had a lot of advantages. Zatanna had some seriously cool, physics wrecking magic, and had dropped him through a portal at the station Gwen's dad worked at before taking Gwen to find and help her family, so that'd been good. And he had his powers, which were extra good. These guys weren't prepared for someone with his speed and agility, let alone his webs and spider sense. This left him wondering why the hell they'd felt ready to invade New York, and operate on the Avengers home turf, but hey, he wasn't about to complain about having to fight off a cocky army. And working alongside the police was good. After the Chitauri the NYPD had started gearing up and training to an insane extent. Which was a little worrying and potentially real bad in the long run, as Gwen was fond of snapping at her dad, but right here and now he was grateful to be the big gun of a squad rather than solo.

That being said, the police weren't soldiers, and the enemy was. Even if he was pretty sure at least half the ones in yellow were mechanical. The feeling they gave when he kicked and punched them was off. There were a lot of the enemy, and the station had a limited number of officers trained and equipped for this sort of fight. They were outnumbered and his powers were the only thing keeping them from being outgunned. He was starting to think that he, Dick, Zatanna, Emma, and that new girl, Ahmanet, should have stuck together a bit better, like the footage showed the Avengers doing in the Battle of New York. They may have been hasty in splitting up.

OoOoOoOoO

Zatanna really hoped things were going better for the others. They'd started going well for her, Peter could really move quite fast when he wanted to, and Gwen's family had thankfully managed to stay safe. Their home was in a part of town that hadn't gotten hit yet, thank god, so Zatanna had put the wards she knew how to do on their building and then hurried back to get into the battle. It wasn't hard to get back into the battle after all, there were so many attackers that she just had to head in a random direction and she'd find a group of invaders to fight.

But, well...Zatanna was good, but she was still learning, and her combat training had been focused on hand to hand and fellow magic users. And while admittedly the training for the latter helped some, since her fellow sorcerers could throw magic and wizards relied almost solely on their wands using magic like projectiles, the fact of the matter was that her training when it came to dealing with guns was minimal.

So she currently was hunkered down behind a flipped over taxi, muttering curses to herself and trying to think of what to do next. "Kcuf. Og tuo, eb a oreh, pleh evas eht ytic. Taerg nalp. Taerg nalp." She muttered, using her magic whip to grab some debris and throw it over the car and at the advancing squad, ducking quickly back down to avoid their answering gunfire. Gunfire that went silent as quickly as it'd started. Zatanna frowned. Conserving ammo? Or…

"You're talking backwards again." A voice spoke, calm and amused. Zatanna's eyes widened and she turned to see the yellow roped figure of her mentor, the Ancient One, striding calmly down the street towards her. She looked over the taxi to find the men who'd been attacking her to find them all lying on the ground, boneless. Perhaps literally, she wasn't really in the mood to check.

"Tahw...what are you doing out here?" She asked, surprised. "Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to see you here but I thought you didn't like to get involved in mundane threats."

"New York is different." Her master said calmly, head gleaming as she helped Zatanna up. "My successor is here. I was able to simply steer things away from him during Loki's invasion, but this fight is different. Too many gods and demigods getting involved, Too much chaos magic. Combine that with the fact that now his successor is in the city, and I had to be on the ground as it were for this one." The Ancient One frowned. "Come, we should get off the street." She said, opening a portal beneath their feet. Zatanna yelped at the sudden drop as they fell through the portal and onto the roof of a building near where they'd already been.

"You could have warned me." She huffed, adjusting her hat.

"I could have." The Ancient One agreed with quiet amusement. "Much like you could have not put yourself at risk and gotten in the middle of a mortal battle. Besides which, I've watched literally every kitten, puppy, hamster, and baby sloth video on the internet, I need new cute things while the internet restocks and your yelp helped." Zatanna blinked, flushing. "Now then, let's see. Yes, best to momentarily retreat." She muttered, moving her hands and pulling them into the Mirror Dimension.

"Wait, why are we retreating?" Zatanna asked, confused.

"Your new friend has admirable control over her abilities for one so unpracticed, but it is the nature of chaos magic to be unpredictable and react poorly when coming into contact with agents of order. Your other friends and the heroes of New York should be fine, but for safety's sake it's best that we stay out of the way for the time being."

"...and we needed to get up on the roof because?"

"I already told you, you're my replacement for cute animal videos at the moment." The Ancient One said blithely. "Now watch."

OoOoOoOoO

It started with noise. A quiet, building wave of chittering and chirping and calls and claws and wings. Then it reached its peak, and from the underground of New York burst a black tidal wave of rats, and from the skies came an equal wave of crows. They ripped through the city like a plague of locusts through a field, throwing themselves at the invaders with an unnatural ferocity.

They died in droves, particularly in the face of the more advanced AIM weaponry, but they killed in droves as well, particularly against the less armored soldiers of the Ten Rings. All told, by the time the beasts receded back into their hidey holes, the fallen corpses of the horde being swept away by blasts of powdered glass on the wind, almost fifty percent of the invading army had been defeated.

There was a moment of stunned silence across the city, seemingly broken first in Hell's Kitchen. "What the fuck was that?" An angry and confused pale woman with long black hair demanded from her position where she was crouched on top of a Black man's shoulders.

"I...got nothin." The man admitted.

"They didn't seem interested in us." The other man in the alley where they'd sheltered said thoughtfully, clinging to a fire escape, clad in red body armor. "These guys on the other hand…" Both man and woman sighed in exasperation as yellow clad AIM soldiers began making their way through the streets, armor tattered but not gone.

"Ain't no rest for the wicked." The woman huffed before launching herself at the nearest soldier, her male partners close behind.

OoOoOoOoO

Emma stared at Ahmanet as the older young woman let her arms drop to the sides. "How did you…" She began, blinking rapidly.

"Magic." Ahmanet said calmly. She was breathing a little heavily, but didn't seem to be greatly the worse for wear. "A talent gifted from my divine father. Generally a relatively simple act, but having to ensure that they would only directly attack the invaders made it somewhat more complicated."

"...interesting." Emma said, nodding. She was learning a lot about her new friend. For one thing, the demigod seemed as impervious as she was in her diamond form, or at the very least definitely bulletproof and laserproof. They'd been doing a good job, carving a swath through the invading forces. Good enough in fact that, given the numbers they'd been dealing with, Emma rather suspected troops were being diverted to deal with them. It was hard not to feel a little pride about that.

"I won't be able to do that again I don't think." Ahmanet added. "Unfortunately I have fallen out of practice, circumstances prevented me from doing much for...a very long time. Most of my magic would be too indelicate, would cause as much harm as our enemies, or would get me branded a monster to an extent that I do not care for."

"I don't know how much we can afford to be picky, but fair enough." Emma conceded, nodding. "Now then…" She began, but before she could speak further two women came rushing out of a nearby cafe. One she recognized as Doctor Jane Foster, acclaimed scientist and beloved of Thor. The other...she didn't recognize but the woman was pretty enough and in particular busty enough that Emma was glad nobody could see her blushing in this form. Nor tell where she was looking, since her eyes were merely white orbs in this form, without visible pupils or irises.

"Doctor Foster, Darcy." Ahmanet waved at them as they ran towards the pair of young women. Curious. How did she know them? "What are you two doing?"

"We were taking a break, best mocha in town back there." Darcy said brightly. "Then everything turned into a war zone...again." She looked around. "Probably better than the Chitauri Invasion. Man, we can't call that the Battle of New York anymore, not after this."

"Fortunately we were inside when the rats and birds decided to swarm the city." The Doctor said, nodding. "Then we saw you and your friend here." She leaned in, looking like she very much wanted to start poking and prodding Emma. The mutant wasn't certain how she felt about that frankly. "Are you made of diamonds?" She asked. "Fascinating."

"Wow, you can be a girl's best friend on multiple levels." Darcy whistled. Emma was once more glad that she was literally stone faced at the moment. She was good at keeping a calm and collected mask on her face, but she had her limits. Ahmanet opened her mouth to say something, but before she could a yellow blast of energy hit her in the back, sending her tumbling. Emma whirled around, keeping herself between the very squishy humans and the source of the attack, and saw what was by far the most offensive thing she'd been faced with since this attack had begun.

What looked to be a giant head with small limbs in a yellow metal frame was glaring at them, flanked by a large group of the yellow clad invaders. "What is that?" Darcy demanded.

"It's...it looks like...that is a very big head." Doctor Foster stammered.

"I am MODOK, Machine Organism Designed Only to Kill!" The disgusting beast snapped. "You will be coming with us Doctor Foster, AIM has need of your knowledge. Come now or your companions will die."

"Ahmanet." Emma spoke, striding towards the thing, speaking up for the first time since Doctor Foster and Darcy had exited the cafe. "I'm afraid I'm going to stick you with an escort mission." The demigod, who'd gotten up none the worse for wear, nodded.

"Are you certain?" She asked. "You don't have anything in the way of range after all."

"My sense of taste won't allow me to not crush this bug under my own boot." Emma replied calmly. "And we can't exactly send those two off on their own back to Stark's tower."

"Your composition is fascinating." The ugly creature murmured, narrowing its large eyes at Emma. "Solid diamond, but capable of movement, speech, hearing, and sight. The potential soldiers we could craft using your DNA would be unstoppable."

"That won't happen." Emma said calmly, reaching down and picking up a manhole cover, throwing it like a discus into the crowd of AIM soldiers around MODOK. "But I'll allow you a good long look at my form as I cave that absurd skull of yours in." She began running, glad she'd gone with boots instead of heels for the tenth time that day, while Ahmanet hurriedly began herding scientist and intern away from the fight.

OoOoOoOoO

Back at the base of the tower, Tony looked around. The area surrounding the base of his building was covered in a large force field, one put up by the Mandarin himself. The rats and birds flowed around it like water. "What the hell?" He muttered before shaking his head. A question for a later time. "Can't help but notice you're protecting me too." He called out instead. The Mandarin shrugged calmly as the swarm began to dissipate.

"As I said, I need you alive. This invasion has a purpose after all. You will tell me who sent your Jericho Missiles into my home. One way or the other."

"Yeah well, hate to break it to you pal, but I don't think that's going to happen. See, my home's still intact, and that means I can throw a house party." Holes began to open in the upper floors of the tower, and Tony's specialized Iron Man suits began to drop from the sky, rocketing towards the pair. The Mandarin looked up calmly.

"How very interesting. I see you took some lessons from your fiasco at the Expo. But the thing is...so did I." Tony's eyes widened as a wave of all too familiar drones met the House Party, crashing into them, clashing as JARVIS began to do battle with whoever was controlling the invading drones. "Hammer never did have good encryption on his servers. The code was difficult I admit, but the blueprints were easy enough to get our hands on. It always pays to have some weapons in reserve." Tony growled and shot a blast directly at the Mandarin. Hulk was off somewhere, taking down a distressingly high tech tank division, and his last report from JARVIS was that while the swarm had cut the enemy's numbers in half, they were still understaffed for this situation. The Chitauri had at least all gone down when he'd killed the mothership, this wasn't the case for this battle, even if they lacked the whale dragons. That meant he had no backup, and the Mandarin was proving to be tough, perhaps the toughest enemy he'd had to deal with so far. He didn't think he'd lose, but then again he never thought that. All it meant was that he had to constantly be moving and thinking, not letting up for a second. And now that the Mandarin had him pinned in with a force field, keeping the House Party from reaching him, that made things even worse.

But on the other hand, it kept the Mandarin from being able to lash out all that much, from being able to take hostages or threaten the city as a whole. And that wasn't nothing. Every bit helped in a situation like this.

Almost as if in answer to his own dark thoughts, a pillar of rainbow light pierced the air, landing in what Tony was pretty sure was Central Park, and almost immediately the sky began to darken, storm clouds growing. Tony let out a whooping laugh. "Oh man, you're screwed now." He taunted, surging forward to strike the Mandarin as the man was distracted by the sudden weather change. Things were definitely looking up.

Author's Notes

Hey everybody! Thanks for reading! Not quite as quick on the update as I'd have liked, but on the other hand much sooner than the gap between chapters ten and eleven, so there's that at least.

Not a whole lot to say about this chapter admittedly, no notable characters arrived that need fancasting laid out (MODOK...pick your favorite voice I guess, he looks so inhuman that casting is irrelevant for face claims and I have no stand out favorite voice actor for him). I will say that if any of you want to set out characters to be part of Harry's eventual band of friends, I'd be happy to hear them. Currently my only set in stone pick is Kate Kane, here made younger to match Harry. There are some characters that I have plans for and thus won't be eligible, but for spoiler's sake we won't get too into that. So just nominate whoever and I'll take them into consideration! Just try and stick to Marvel and DC. I've got ideas already for most of the named Harry Potter characters of note, as well as the Universal Monsters, and much as I love quite a few other franchises I'm trying to keep things slightly more condensed, if only to limit just how many different types of magic I've got to balance.

That's all I've got to say for now, so thank you so much for reading and hope to see you in the next chapter!