Hello! This is my first fic, and I'm quite excited about it. Took me a long while to write and hopefully you'll like it. If not, then...Well, there's plenty of ice cream in my freezer for that. Let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is good stuff and helps the writing process. I value your opinion if you aren't a dick about it. Right, I'll shut up and let you read.

-Shadow

It was the year 2014, and strangely enough, the world hadn't ended in fire and other slightly-less-pleasant things. Hooray. But then again, the world wasn't safe from various other threats either unfortunately, and so that, my dear readers is precisely why there was an emergency meeting at a top secret location. Really top secret. Like James Bond "If I told you I'd have to kill you" type stuff. I'm not kidding.

I think it's somewhere in New York. Anyway-

In one of the many S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, deep in a maze of offices, laboratories and official looking people running around and doing official looking business, the Avengers were in the process of assembling...again.

'Have you got any idea what this is about?' Steve whispered to Tony, who was busy stuffing his face with peanuts.

'No idea. Whatever it is, it's gotta be serious: Blackbeard doesn't look happy.' He mumbled in reply as they walked into the room, earning a cold and unamused glare from the director. Agent Hill however, who was standing beside him, couldn't help but smirk a little.

'I have asked you all to be here because we have recently discovered a threat to our planet.' Fury began, once everyone had sat down in the conference room.

'What kind of threat exactly?' Tony asked.

'A foreign one.'

'Oh no. Not more Spanish! There's plenty of them here already! I don't think we can cram any more into Mexico.' He complained.

'We're talking foreign on a galactic scale Stark.'

'Oh. Well, olé' He said miserably, arching an eyebrow and sighing. More aliens; just what they needed.

'Hang on a minute, are you saying what I think you are?' Clint piped in.

'If you mean another dangerous alien life form or technology on our planet then yes, I am saying precisely that.' Fury declared solemnly, causing varied responses among the team.

'What exactly are we dealing with?' Natasha requested, wanting to get straight to the point.

'Our scientists have recently been tracking a sudden rise in energy nearby. We don't know what it is or what's causing it. Hell, we hardly know anything about it. It's random, but seems to have calmed down now at least.'

There were a few moments of quiet. The silence was broken when a man walked in with a worried expression.

'Sir, it's active again. We've just noted a massive peak in energy and it doesn't seem to be fading this time.'

If you thought Nick Fury couldn't look more unimpressed, you're wrong.

A small voice spoke up.

'May I?' Bruce asked tentatively, pointing to the tablet in the scientists hands.

Fury simply nodded, and Bruce took it, and looked at the information.

'It cannot be the Tesseract. The Tesseract is under control and protected on Asgard.' Thor said.

'Uh, how long has this been going on for?' Bruce asked.

'About a month. At first it seemed negligible but now it's getting serious.' Fury replied.

'So what you're asking us to do is take down whatever this threat is, when we know nothing about it?' Natasha said.

Fury was about to inform them that the mission was simply an initial assessment to determine further action, but the tablet beeping furiously in Banner's hands interrupted him.

'That doesn't sound good.' Tony muttered.

Bruce looked very worried. And he was the expert on radiation and energy; he was one of the worlds top scientists on that field. If he was worried, it was serious.

'It just peaked at dangerous levels. This...this is crazy. If we don't control it now...there's gonna be a bigger mess to clean up that just a city.' He said.

Alright. Turns out this was going to be more than an initial assessment. After the last incident with Loki, SHIELD couldn't take any chances. They needed to shut this thing down now. Fury was pissed. 'Typical motherfucking Monday.' He thought.

'But...Wait a sec, that's energy. Pure energy. How are we supposed to control that?' Tony exclaimed, looking over Bruce's shoulder at the wildly fluctuating charts and figures. 'And what the hell could produce something like that other than the glowing party cube?'

'Guess we'd better go find out.' Steve said.

'This cannot be possible. The only thing that can produce pure energy is the Tesseract.' Thor said.

'But if you say that it's on Asgard and secure, then something else must be causing this. Something powerful.' Natasha offered.

'There's an aircraft waiting for you on the helipad. The flight plan is programmed in and any equipment you might need is stocked up. There are other special force teams on call should you need assisstance. Good luck.' Agent Hill said.

And with that, the Avengers made their way to the large helipad on the roof of the building, Tony opting to suit up and fly solo alongside, and they headed out to what awaited them.

The destination was far away from any civilisation. Way out in the desert, with mountains rising up from the barren landscape. There were no lone roads winding their way through the dust, no outback shacks or derelict farms. There was nothing here.

Apart from a mysterious projectile, heading straight for a mountain at a blindingly fast speed. It crashed into the rock with a deafening explosion, and the dust slowly settled around the small crater in the side of the mountain, rubble and debris scattering to a halt some distance away.

'What the hell was that?!' Tony yelled. It had to be some sort of weapon; a missile maybe. It had seemingly come out of nowhere and had passed far too quickly for him to lock onto it or for JARVIS to get any sort of reading.

'You're the tech expert, Stark. Maybe it was a weapon of some sort. I mean, out here would be a perfect place to test anything, right? Maybe the energy reading was from a new weapon or something, and someone is doing trial runs in the desert before they decide to do some real damage with it.' Clint thought out loud.

'I couldn't get a reading on it. JARVIS has no idea what it is either.' Tony replied, landing not far from the mountain. Natasha and Clint landed the aircraft and everybody got out.

'Should we go and check it out?' Steve said meekly, not sure it was the best idea. Even Tony thought twice, when he would usually go and investigate fearlessly.

Before anyone could reply, the ground started shaking, as if an earthquake was starting. This was definitely not an earthquake though. This was worse.

Far worse.