Awakening

I have said that I own nothing...115 times before (not including HOA); do I need to say it again?

Third POV

It took a moment for the three unaccustomed to Mortem's presence to fade out of their shock. But it was Tony, of course, who broke the silence after a period of time.

"Yeah, he's Death. But we've got a city overrun with an alien army! Just because Mortem is lending us a hand doesn't mean that we can just sit on our asses!" Tony exclaimed as he blasted another two Chitauri out of the air and dodged the attacks of another.

Hel rolled her eyes as she, Thor, and Mortem all shared a small glance. Mortals.

"He's right you know," Hel drawled, twirling the spear and letting the black and silver blade catch was little light was drifting through the city. "We can't stay long, so I suggest that you restart your brains and actually do something."

Seeing that Steve, Natasha and Clint were all still sorta comatose, she turned back towards her boss.

"You know, you really should let me do fieldwork more often. You know how much paperwork sucks." Hel said with what Tony identified as a pout.

"That it does." Tony agreed instantly, remembering all of the paperwork that Pepper made him do. It was horrible.

Mortem chuckled, though he didn't disagree. "Yes, but that's why it's your job."

Hel stuck her tongue out at her boss as Thor smiled softly, glad to see his niece so at ease. Mortem responded by absently reaching out and flicking her in the forehead.

Thor, knowing that the two could bicker for hours, stepped in quickly and tried to get things back on track.

"Greater concerns are before at the moment." Thor stated simply causing both black clad beings to sigh, knowing that the Asgardian was right.

"Speaking of which, Hel, would ya be able to give me a hand?" Tony's voice drifted down through the com and an explosion that shook a nearby tower caused the others to finally completely snap out of it. "Giant flying monsters can create a lot of damage."

Rogers took a deep breath, and glanced around at the shadows that seemed to have come alive. Chitauri after Chitauri were vanishing into the dark mist and shadows, it was like an invisible force was taking them down. He knew that Mortem was behind it, but he didn't really want to think about that.

Mortem mentally smirked as he heard the blonde's thoughts; the mortal would be content without knowing about the Reapers. Most humans were after all.

"Sure," Hel stated though she and Mortem shared a look before turning back towards the others. "But first, a few things I'd like to warn you about. We're playing all the cards in our hand, and some of them are...less than pleasant. We're pretty sure that we'll be able to keep them under control, but do not and I repeat do not get in their way, they aren't very fond of humans."

Hel's cold warning caused everyone to exchange worried looks, before she disappeared into the shadows, and the giant turtle-whale yelled in pain as she appeared on its back.

"Watch yourselves." Mortem warned before he turned away from the grounded Avengers and raised his hands up slowly, like he was trying to pull something out of the ground with the back of his hands.

Thor sensed them first, and he froze, his eyes widening almost beyond belief as he shivered at the dark power that Mortem was summoning.

The other three sensed them as soon as they appeared, and they all paled instantly. It was like they had just been plunged into ice cold water, and it was soaking them to the core. An empty, despair filled feeling entered their minds and hearts, and they all wondered just what was going on now.

Appearing out of the mist like wraith, two groups of beings rose up and it took of all the Avengers witnessing the event's power not to shiver at the sight. The first group of beings appeared to be human, but their clothes were shredded and some of their bodies were in horrible condition, some even appeared to be fatally wounded. There was twenty of them, though more were appearing all over the city where the Chitauri were. At their feet, black smoke rose and danced around them, and it appeared to be alive. Some of the beings' eyes flashed red, while others flashed black.

These beings struck fear in the observer's hearts, but they weren't the worst, it was the others that were truly terrifying.

You couldn't see anything more than a tattered cloak hovering over the ground, or at least, most of the people wouldn't see anything else. But Rogers, Thor, and Barton were both able to see the skeletal hands barely showing beneath the sleeves. The cold, gut wrenching feeling was falling off them like waves, and beneath them on the pavement frost and ice started to form. Rogers and Thor could hear the rattling breaths of these creatures, and Thor had to restrain himself from smiting these beings.

They weren't natural, he knew that.

"Deal with the invaders." Mortem hissed darkly, his eyes flashing black. "But do not touch a human Soul!"

"Now, attack!" Mortem ordered and they all drifted, or dashed, off towards the others, and the Reapers under Mortem's command slowly retreated, knowing that the new arrivals could deal with Chitauri. Besides, they had Souls to collect.

"What are those things?!" Tony was surprised to see that it was Barton who spoke first, and as Mortem gave him a deadpanned look, he almost fainted.

"They are things that should never've existed in the first place, and now...they can't be destroyed." Mortem stated his eyes and voice dark. It wasn't exactly true, they could be destroyed in their home dimension, but this wasn't it. "Demons and Dementors."

Everyone shivered, just at the sound of the names. While all of them had some ideas revolving around Demons...they had no idea what Dementors were; and what they didn't know was that that was a good thing.

Chitauri were vanishing left and right, and as Hel and Tony caused the giant….thing...to explode, it actually looked like they had the upper hand.

Then of course, Loki had to fly by on a Chitauri scooter, and he shot off a purple and blue blast of energy at Mortem.

This was the final straw, as Romanoff and Rogers finally completely snapped out of it.

"Ok, we need to get the civilians out of here." Rogers said, snapped back to attention as Mortem faded from view. He wasn't going to challenge Fati now, not without his Bonded here.

"Thor," Rogers continued, not paying attention to the vanished Immortal. "It's time you deal with that wayward brother of yours. Light him up. Barton, get up on a tower, we need eyes in the sky. Stark…"

Rogers paused, as he watched Tony blast through another three Chitauri that had managed to escape the chilling grasp of the Dementors near them.

"...just keep doing what you're doing. Romanoff, you're with me."

Natasha didn't reply, but she did nod.

"Stark, think I can get a lift?" Barton asked as Thor swung his hammer and launched himself back into the sky.

"Whatever ya need." Tony replied and almost instantly appeared behind the archer, and grabbed him under the arms before blasting off into the sky.

No one noticed Romanoff's eyes flicker to the side, swearing to herself that she had seen something; and no one noticed when she froze as she felt breath on her ear.

"You should know that actions have consequences, Agent Romanoff." Mortem whispered to her, remaining invisible. "And I'll have you know...Penny Stark is someone very dear to me...and I happen to be very displeased with you."*

Romanoff flinched as Mortem vanished into the shadows. She gulped, her face paled as she thought about the implications of that sentence. Because of course, who would ever want to have Death displeased with you?

Demons were flying and darting everywhere, causing Chitauri after Chitauri to drop dead, and the Dementors worked together in groups, gliding across the ground and through the air, slowly consuming the souls of the creators in front of them.

Mortem watched all of this from the top of a tower, his power stretched across the city. Hel was jumping from building to building, helping Tony destroy as many Chitauri as they could, as the large one had already been taken care of.

He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. His Realm was really overstretched at the moment, and that was the only reason he had even considered letting the Demons and Dementors free. The Reapers of this world simply had too many Souls to collect and sort, and the dimension itself was too unstable to bring any help across from another world.

He could sense Romanoff and Rogers finally convinced the local police to get as many people out through the underground as possible. It taken a few moments of dramatic flair from the Captain, but he had to admit. Even if he was put out that Fati had once again prevented Rogers' Soul from entering his Realm 70 human years ago, he was assisting now; and that's what counted.

Mortem opened his cold silver eyes once again as he sensed Thor catching up to Loki, and trying to bring his mind back to sense, even if he knew it wasn't likely to happen. Mortem shook his head, the likelihood that Loki would be able to overpower Fati and the hold she had on him was weak, even if they managed to power down the Tesseract, which would cut their direct link.

They didn't need to last much longer; they didn't even need to win. They had just to act like everything was normal until his Bonded arrived. Until Aequivalere came to deal with their Sister, he would let the Mortals take charge of the situation.

For now.

I know that this is a lot shorter than usual, but it just seems like a good place to pause.

*this was inspired by EDelta88's review "I am Death... and you shot my fiancé. Any questions?" Which personally had me laughing my ass off for like, an hour and I loved it soo much! I couldn't make it fit in perfectly, as I would have hoped...but still. EDelta88, thanks!

I'm hoping to get a lot of Awakening done tonight, as me and my foster sibs are having a HP movie night(for as long as they manage to stay awake), and I'm planning on writing through 95% of it. ^.^

YAY FOR SUMMER VACATION, I was going to do that yesterday...but forgot. YES, I'm now on break for summer and my updates should pick up. :)

Thanks everyone!
Cp