Thor

For the second time in a very short period, Thor was confronted with the dead. Only they weren't lying around staring at him with blank eyes.

He dodged the blow from the badly decomposed Heimdall, the gaping hole where his heart would have been a testimony to how he died. He knew the rotting bodies of Fandral, Hogan, and Volstagg were also closing in.

"The Beyonder has now crossed one Hel of a line," he snarled as he smacked Mjolnir into Heimdall's face.

"Rage, Thunderer? As if you have any right to it. You watched me die! Thanos stabbed me in the heart, and all you did was watch!" Heimdall's words were slurred, the result of a dislocated jaw.

"Shut. Up!" Thor threw Mjolnir at Heimdall's chest, sending the zombie flying, just in time to get tackled by the team of Fandral and Hogun.

"And what of us, Thor? We were your best friends, and your sister murdered us! And why?" Fandral hissed. "Because Odin died, and why did Odin die? Because that murdering scum you call a brother exiled him to Midgard...and yet you still stand by the weasel!" His fingers clawed at Thor's eyes even as Hogun's dagger dug into his back.

Mjolnir flew back to Thor's hand and he roared "Enough!" while lightning poured from the hammer to turn the Hogun and Fandral corpses into barbeque. "You are not my friends...they passed onto Valhalla long ago! You are just pathetic mimics the Beyonder created in mockery of true heroes, and by Odin, he will pay!"

"You dare evoke my name, my son? I always knew you weren't worthy...hiding behind my coattails like the child you have always been!"

Thor's guts twisted as his father stepped forward.

"You didn't even avenge my death! My killer is still running free...although not for long. But for your failure, you desire punishment!" Odin raised Gungnir, power ringing the head of the spear.

"No. I will not fight you, Father," Thor said, bracing himself in a defensive stance.

"Then you shall die!" And Odin charged.

Loki

Loki had seen a lot of very unsettling things in his life, but seeing himself as a rotting, desiccated corpse with his head rolling to the side due to a broken neck had to rank in the very top three.

"You," the dead him snarled. "Should have been the one to die!"

Loki shielded himself from the blast of green energy his dead self fired at him. He didn't even stop speaking.

"What a waste! After I stole the Tesseract from the Avengers who had traveled back in time, I used it to travel forwards, witnessed your deeds, and then decided to replace you on the Valhalla and die in your stead because I felt you deserved to live more than I. I died for you, and for what?"

Loki rolled and dodged a dagger that flew at him. The creature continued to rant.

"Fighting alongside the very people who humiliated you! Acting as a ceremonial prince instead of taking the throne that is your birthright! Falling in love with a mortal!"

Loki couldn't stop himself from retorting "She's not a mortal," before calling up a shield to protect himself from a Hel of a blast.

"She was born mortal! She was raised mortal! She still possesses a mortal's heart, a mortal's perspective! She will still be mortal five, ten thousand years from now! She is mortal in every way that counts! And you married her! Pathetic!"

"She's too good for me, and coming face-to-face with myself, I'm more convinced of that than ever!" Loki said as he stepped behind the creature and stabbed two daggers into the thing's back. The illusion the zombie had been fighting faded away in a curtain of green light. "Honestly, how she puts up with me, I will never know."

"Her patience and her forgiving nature are but just a couple of her many virtues, and two of the reasons why I loved her so," a voice responded. Loki got a very bad feeling, and slowly turned.

He was as decomposed as the rest of the army of the dead. There were wounds all over him. Gashes, open sores, holes where swords had punched into his body. His wings, once a beautiful, brilliant white, so bright that Loki was sure it would have hurt to look directly at them, were shredded...well, one was shredded. The other was just gone. What was left of his hair was blonde, and he had startling blue eyes. Just like all the other angels, he was indescribably beautiful. His voice was rusty just like the rest of the dead, but Loki knew that when he was alive it would have been like music to the ears. For the very first time, he wondered if Tracy wouldn't have loved him in return had he revealed himself to her long before her kidnapping.

"I loved her first, godling. You have no claim to her."

"Neither do you," Loki stated calmly. "She didn't even know about you until after you were dead and gone. She now hates you, says you stalked her...in fact, if not for your obsession, she would never have been abducted!"

"Oh please," Raphael waved that off. "She was a powerful empath in a world without magic and a notable shortage of super powered beings. The Beyonder's fallen angels would have noticed her eventually. Anyway, you should be grateful. Had I not been 'obsessed', I would not have spent years searching for her, and then used my dying breath to give her the Kiss of Life. You owe me!" Raphael's grin was chilling. "I will take my payment in blood."

"No. You will not," Gabriel swooped down and punched his brother, sending him soaring above the battlefield. "I will take care of him, Loki."

Loki was proud of his abilities, but he wasn't stupid...he wouldn't be able to take an archangel on, even a dead one. He left Gabriel to it, ducked down, and swept out his leg to trip up the dead him who had decided to come back for seconds.

It was crushed unexpectedly by a large blue foot. "Well, that was cathartic. Hello, my son."

His stomach sank to his feet.

The twenty-foot-tall zombie of Laufey towered over him, and his rotten face cracked into a grin. "What's the matter, boy? Not too happy to see your father? I wonder why? Oh yes...you killed me! And I'm just one of your many victims here to return the favor!"

A zombie stepped forward. "I was crushed by falling debris during the Battle of New York. The paramedics were so swamped that they didn't get to me in time to save me."

"I'm a mother of two who was killed by a Chitauri soldier under your command!" another zombie cried out.

"I was in a building one of the Leviathans took out, and I didn't survive the fifty-story fall!"

On and on. More zombies came forward to share their testimonies of how they had died. So many dead. All his fault. All of it.

Then the worst zombie of all came forward.

"Son, you disappoint me so," Frigga told him, her once beautiful face now crawling with maggots, her gown rotted and torn, her hair in snarls, her skin falling off in burnt layers.

Loki didn't even bother to shield himself. Just braced himself for the inevitable as he silently wept.

Stephen

It wasn't just former allies they were facing, Stephen noticed as he swept in to give Bucky some breathing room. The former Winter Soldier had been getting dogpiled by all the people he had ever killed. Nearby, Spider-Man was trying to aid Tony in fighting Whiplash and Iron Monger, but he was also facing a problem of his own, in the form of a zombified Mysterio. Thor had been fighting his former friends but was now faced with Malekith and an army of rotting dark elves. Scott Lang ducked a blow from Yellowjacket. T'Challa was facing off with a dead Eric Killmonger. The Moon Knight was battling someone Stephen assumed was Arthur Harrow.

They were all basically experiencing a compilation of their worst hits.

Wong went to aid Wanda, who was having a tough time against her brother, mostly because she couldn't bring herself to go at him with her full strength. Stephen knew the feeling, because on the horizon he spotted Donna.

The dead were never-ending. And unlike them, they were not going to get tired and nothing they were doing seemed to be having a permanent effect. Stephen had tried all the classic zombie killers: beheading, fire, taking out the brain. They just kept coming, and already his strength was beginning to flag. It wouldn't be long before the rest of the humans among them ran out of stamina, and then even the five heavy hitters-Carol, Hulk, Thor, Gabriel, and Icarus-would be vulnerable.

A shadow loomed over the battlefield. Stephen heard Rocket's voice speak up: "Quill, please tell us that's not your-"

"'Fraid so," Peter answered, his voice coated in dread and panic.

"Fuck," Stephen muttered as he looked up. Quill's father had decided to join the battle.

They were all dead.

Steve

He knew there was going to be trouble the moment Michael teleported them to the courtyard of Kamar Taj. The place was a ghost town and his hair stood on end. It wasn't just the fact that it was eerie. Something felt wrong.

He knew Michael was keeping a close eye on him as he hobbled on the cobblestones, feeling a flashback coming on. Steve kept having to remind himself that this wasn't like Thanos. He didn't see any dust swirling on the air. Half of all life wasn't gone.

It was just his teammates. His family.

They're alive, he told himself. They're not dead. The Beyonder likes to play with mortal lives like we're toy soldiers. He's just sent them somewhere for his entertainment.

"This is distressing for you," Michael observed. "Perhaps it was a mistake bringing you-"

"Don't you dare send me back!" Steve snapped at her. "I'm not about to sit around doing nothing while my friends are suffering God knows what at the hands of a cosmic powered madman...not like the last time!"

Michael blinked, before pointing out, "I am assuming you mean Thanos. You were not exactly 'doing nothing', you were leading the fight. But you were also able-bodied then."

Steve bristled. "There's nothing wrong with my brain. I am not here to fight the Beyonder."

"Then what-"

Kamar Taj exploded.

That was all Steve could register as the ground fell out from under him. Michael called his name, and he heard her wings flapping. She was trying to reach him but out of nowhere a gale-force wind whipped her away. Her wings became entangled and she was struggling.

In the meantime, Steve was falling down the side of a mountain. Several hundred feet and he was going to die unless he did something. But he didn't have his shield.

What he did have was the damn cane. It had been a gift from T'Challa, and of course it was made of vibranium.

With a defiant shout, Steve took the cane and slammed it foot first into the side of the mountain. He continued to slide down, the cane cutting a gash into the mountain as he slid down, down, down, further down. He gradually began to slow. His feet and legs were being torn up, rocky shrapnel struck his chest, his arms, cut his cheeks. But he was slowing down. He was also worried for Michael. That wind had caught her, and Steve knew it hadn't been natural. Michael had spent centuries waging a war against the Beyonder. It stood to reason he would take advantage of the opportunity to take her out.

He had to stop himself from falling before he could do something for her. He pushed harder into the rocky and icy side of the mountain with the cane, then tried to bear down on the ground with his feet, using them as brakes. He wasn't going to be able to sustain this. He could feel it in his bones, literally.

Hands that looked deceptively delicate yet were stronger than steel grabbed him. "I have you, Steve."

Michael flapped her wings furiously while pulling up, fighting the momentum Steve had somewhat lessened. He let go of the cane, the object falling out of the wound it had made in the mountain, and plummeting to the ground far, far below. Michael shifted her hold to get a better grip on him, one that hurt a lot less, and continued to flap.

Soon her flight evened out, became smoother, and she glided towards the top of a cliff and landed. The cold had been biting before, but now Steve couldn't feel it. He panicked, clinging to the archangel as he checked himself for frostbite.

"Steve, you are fine. It is just a spell to keep you warm and protected from the elements. I am also sealing the wounds you acquired. I am not a healer...that is not my gift...but I can do quick what you mortals call first aid." Michael was studying him and Steve could swear he almost heard concern in her chilly voice.

It took a few minutes for him to get his bearings, minutes which he spent breathing in her scent and staring into those gold eyes. Predictably, she smelled like sunshine and fire.

Michael frowned.

That had to be the first time he saw a facial expression other than stoically passive since meeting her.

Then he realized he was still holding onto her. His hands spasmed as he let her go. "T-thanks. I'm okay. I'm okay." Steve took deep breaths and willed his heart to settle down. "That was too close. How'd you get free?"

"I am an archangel. It will take more than a whirlwind to best me." Michael flexed her wings, the appendages settling as her feathers ruffled back into place. "He was not even playing with us. He was just swatting us aside like we were annoying insects."

Steve nodded. "Which means most of his concentration is going into whatever he's doing to the others. Which means they're still alive."

"You have no way to be certain."

Steve shook his head. "You're an angel. You should know about the importance of faith. I have faith in my friends. Now, are we-" Steve stopped. "Shit. I'm an idiot. Why didn't I think of it before?"

"Think of what?"

Steve patted her shoulder. "I have an idea. Can you tell where the nearest hallowed ground is?"