Nico stared at them in disbelief. "You morons. You do realise that mortals have to be dead before they can enter the Underworld. You know, 'cause it's the realm of the DEAD and all. Emphasise on the DEAD."
Tony looked crestfallen. "Can't you, I don't know, smuggle us in somehow?" Nico rolled his eyes.
"I could kill you, how about that? Yeah, I like that idea..."
Tony grumbled at him while the others looked crestfallen. They wanted to rescue Coulson more than anything. He had sacrificed himself for his friends, and that was something the Avengers would never forget.
Nico sighed. "Why don't you tie Loki to a chair till I get back? I know it will make you all feel better. I'll be back as soon as I can." With that, he shadow-travelled away, but not before he saw the Avengers begin to advance on the wide eyed Loki. "Bastard..." Loki muttered.
When Nico arrived in the Underworld, it was to chaos. His father's palace was on fire, as were the fields of Asphodel. Ghosts were streaming away from the fires, silently screaming in anguish. Nico searched the area wildly. "Alecto, what the HELL happened? Why didn't you tell me the Underworld was being attacked?!"
Alecto materialised beside him. "It was not like this when I left, my Lord. There must have been a surprise attack while I was in the mortal realm. Nico stared at her incredulously. "You were only gone five minutes!"
"And that is why this situation is so serious. They attacked and overwhelmed us in such a short time."
"How?" Nico asked.
"See for yourself, young Prince. It seems our enemy managed to release all the monsters in Tartarus."
It was then that Nico actually took in his surroundings properly. Monsters were everywhere, slashing ghosts, and destroying any buildings that stood in their paths. Hellhounds, empousai, drakons, every monster Nico had ever faced was present, and destroying his home.
"What of the Titans?" Nico asked urgently.
"Those still strong enough to oppose us at the after the war were imprisoned in the deepest levels. I don't believe the infiltrator managed to reach them before the alarm was raised."
Nico breathed a sigh of relief. "Well that's not so bad." Alecto just shook her head.
"Thousands of monsters were released. I suggest that you assist your father in destroying them so he can close Tartarus once again. Nico nodded, and sprinted in the direction of the biggest congregation of monsters. Agent Coulson would have to wait.
Five hours later, and Nico was exhausted. He had summoned so many skeletons, he had lost count. He did know it was well over a hundred. His head was throbbing from the strain of controlling so many shadows, the headache aching sharply just behind his eyes. His hands stung from wielding so much Hellfire, and his sword was soaked in blood. Yet still he battled on.
Less than 200 monsters remained from the army of thousands, and even with the assistance of the undead guards of the Underworld, it was Nico who had done most of the fighting because the guards were overwhelmed. He strained to keep his eyes open as he stabbed a Cyclops through its stomach. It disappeared into a pile of dust, and Nico moved on. He had no energy left to use his powers, but he still had his sword. He was still lethal. More monsters were felled, but one hellhound managed to latch onto his shoulder. Nico slashed at it, and it yelped, before fleeing. Even injured, Nico was terrifying.
Nico knew he couldn't last much longer. He could sense the monsters reforming in Tartarus, and he wished his father would hurry up. What was Hades doing? Just as the thought crossed his mind, there was a thunderous booming sound. All the monsters paused in their attacks, and Nico managed to kill another ten before they retaliated. By the sounds of it, his father had succeeded.
Hades was annoyed. His home had been attacked, and Tartarus had been breached. It was a problem even for a god as powerful of Hades. On top of that, it turned out the infiltrator had managed to release the Titan Krios.
Yes, Hades was not pleased. After he had finally defeated Krios, he then had to close Tartarus, which was no small feat. But Hades prevailed. He breathed a sigh of relief at the resounding boom that announced his success. He teleported himself to the fields of Asphodel, where he knew his son was battling the monster army.
He could hardly recognise Nico when he saw him, dressed as he was in armour that he had not seen before, and with his lower face covered by a mask. He was also covered in blood, the majority of which belonged to the monsters he had slain, but a fair amount of it was his own. Nico's left shoulder was mangled from what looked like a vicious bite, and his arm hung limply at his side. He was favouring his left foot, and a long scratched marred his pale forehead from eyebrow to scalp, causing blood to run into eyes that were burning with black fury.
Hades quickly got to work, destroying the remaining monsters with a wave of darkness, before catching his son, who had sunk to the ground, panting heavily.
"Nico, you have done well. To have killed so many monsters proves how strong a demigod you have become. I am very proud of you."
Nico smiled faintly at him before letting his eyes fall closed. "Next time, could you work a little faster? I was getting old here."
Hades swatted the back of Nico's head before helping him to his feet, handing Nico some Ambrosia. This seemed to wake him up a bit, and heal his wounds a bit. "You need to sleep Nico, after expending so much power, you need to recover."
Nico pushed away from his father, and began to head in the direction of the Isles of the Blest. "Sorry, dad, no time. I'm actually here on a mission. I have to bring a SHIELD agent back to life so the Avengers will let Loki join their gang." Hades sighed loudly.
"Very well, I will allow you to raise this mortal, but only because of the work you did today. You will need to lead him from the Underworld without shadow-travel, as otherwise he will not be able to come back to life. Lead him to his body, and donate a little blood. That should do the trick."
Nico nodded in thanks. "See you later, Dad." Hades watched his son limp away. He truly was a fierce hero.
Nico finally arrived at the Isles of the Blest, exhaustion blurring his vision. He searched the beautiful town until he found the small white cottage he had been looking for. He knocked on the door, and leant against the doorframe.
Less than a minute later, a man in a suit opened the door. Nico raised an eyebrow. Spirits always materialised in the clothes they felt most comfortable wearing in life. Nico figured he shouldn't have thought anything else of an employee of SHIELD.
Phil Coulson raised his own eyebrow at the sight of the armoured, bloody figure standing before him. The Prince of the Underworld, he guessed, from the Intel he had gathered since his arrival. Once a spy, always a spy.
"Mr. Di Angelo, I presume." Coulson kept his voice neutral, and his expression void of emotion.
"Yeah," Nico said. "Sorry to wreck your afterlife and all, but I need you come back to life and rejoin the Avengers."
Coulson blinked in surprise. "... Alright."
Nico smirked. "Thought so. You SHIELD guys don't seem the type to enjoy an eternity of peace."
Coulson smiled at him. "The food here is terrible. When do we leave?"
"Right now. Come on, Penguin Man, we've quite a walk to go, and I'm already running late."
Coulson sighed at the insult. He always got stuck with the children.
Another two hours later, and they were finally back in the world of the living, outside the stone entrance to the Underworld in Central Park. The sun was beginning to rise, causing the ghostly form of Agent Coulson to shimmer. Nico closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply. "I can sense your body a couple of miles west of here. We need to hurry. I'm not sure how long you can last here in this form."
When they arrived at the graveyard and located Coulson's gravestone, Nico gestured and the ground in front of them. The ground parted before him, revealing a wooden coffin. Nico jumped down into the grave, and prised the lid open. The smell of rotten flesh wafted out, but this didn't faze Nico. When it came to dead bodies, it would be ridiculous if Nico was a wimp. He'd never live it down.
He motioned for Phil to lower himself into his body. Coulson wrinkled his ghostly nose, before lying in his corpse. Once he was inside, Nico took off one of his gloves, and unsheathed one of his many daggers. He sliced his palm open, and allowed blood to cascade onto the body. He began to chant in ancient Greek, and Coulson's skin began to rejuvenate, becoming fresher, the decomposition fading away.
Nico felt his already low energy levels deplete even further as his power forced itself into the dead organs, causing them to pulse and beat once again with life. With a bright flash of light, Nico finished his chant, and collapsed ungracefully to the ground. He blearily opened his eyes in time to see Coulson sit up, and sniff his funeral suit.
"A bit ripe, but what would you expect after being buried for 2 weeks?" Coulson said, a self satisfied smile on his face, "Alive again. Who would have thought?"
Nico just groaned in reply. He just wanted to go to sleep, but there was one thing left to do before he lost consciousness. He grabbed Coulson, and dived into one of the grave's shadows.
They appeared in Tony's penthouse, in front of Clint and Natasha, who were cleaning their weapons on one of the tables. The assassins leapt to their feet at the sight of a dishevelled Coulson, supporting a bloody Nico. Nico waved at them drunkenly before collapsing to the floor, already asleep.
Natasha and Clint stood frozen for a second, staring at Coulson. Before this moment, they had not truly believed Nico could truly bring their friend back to life, yet here he was, in the flesh, if rather stinky.
Nico groaned in his sleep. The agents looked down at him, and watched as a pool of blood began to spread across the floor from his reopened shoulder wound. They hurried to his side, and called Banner, who sprinted into the room, eyes widening in shock at the state Nico was in.
"What happened?" he exclaimed, as he dropped to knees beside Nico's prone form. It was Coulson who answered.
"He collected me looking like this, though his shoulder wasn't bleeding then. I heard the sounds of a battle coming from other side of the Underworld. An army of monsters, I think."
Bruce and Clint heaved Nico upright, and carried him from the room towards the medical bay. They needed to stop the bleeding fast.
Nico slowly regained consciousness, opening his eyes, and then shutting them again because of the harsh lights. He groaned from the pain that seemed to be coming from every part of his body. Even his hair hurt. He slowly sat up, holding his throbbing skull. The worse pain seemed to be originating from his shoulder. He felt stiff and sore. He remembered the hellhound, and groaned again.
He clumsily got to his feet, and found himself in his room. He would kill whoever had left the lights on. He limped to a cupboard and rummaged around until he found his supply of godly food. He ate some Ambrosia, and drank Nectar from his flask. Immediately he felt better, his already half healed wounds now looking days old. He took off the now unnecessary bandages, and went into his bathroom to take a quick shower. He washed away the blood and grime from his battles, and got dressed into black jeans and a black t-shirt. He then began his search for his team mates.
He found them in the kitchen, where they were eating pizza. When they saw him, they all got to their feet.
"What are you doing out of bed? You should be resting," Steve said in concern. Nico scowled and waved away the comment.
"I'm fine now. Where's Coulson?"
Tony smiled at him happily. "He went to see Fury and freak out the rest of SHIELD. He said he'd be back to see you later. You did bring him back to life. Speaking of which, it mustn't be that difficult to do if you're able to do it."
Nico snarled and threw one of the pizza slices on the table at Tony. It smacked into his face, and slowly slid off, landing on the table with a soft splat.
Tony picked up an apple and threw it at Nico, who caught it effortlessly, and threw it back at Tony, where it hit him in the head. The force of the throw caused Tony to fall backwards, and trip over the chair behind him, where he landed on the floor in a heap.
Steve put down his own slice of pizza, before walking over to Nico. "Are you okay?" he asked, "Why did it take you so long? How were you injured? Phil said something about a battle?"
Nico rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah, someone released all the monsters from Tartarus and sent them to attack my father." He pointed at his shoulder, "Hellhound. I had to help destroy them all before they destroyed the Underworld. Wasn't much fun..."
"I would think not," said Loki. Nico turned around and spotted him. Loki was tied to a chair in the corner of the room. He looked tired, and someone had drawn an elaborate moustache on his face.
"Hey Loki, how's life?"
Loki rolled his eyes. "You left me at the mercy of my enemies, when you knew they possessed Sharpies. I will have my revenge."
Nico stared at him incredulously, "I came up with a punishment for you that didn't involve you being locked up for centuries, I went to the Underworld to bring back a guy you murdered back to life and ended up killing thousands of monsters so these guys wouldn't kill you, so don't you get pissy at me." He paused for a moment. "And I didn't know they had Sharpies, if that makes you feel any better."
Loki sighed, but nodded. "Could you at least untie me? The mortal has been returned to life, after all."
The Avengers, save Thor and Nico, glared at Loki in disgust, but did nothing as Nico grabbed a knife from the table and sawed through the ropes binding Loki to the chair.
Loki stood up and stretched, and then inclined his head at Nico.
"Thank you, son of Hades, I appreciate all you have done for me. Know that I will repay you."
Nico smirked at the looks of shock the Avengers were giving him. Loki apologising? Nobody had expected that. Nico held a fist up and gestured for Loki to do the same. "No problem. We're going to be working together from now on, and as dangerous as this threat is proving itself to be, we're going to need all the help we can get." Loki cautiously fist bumped with Nico, and Nico whispered to him, "So, you're called the Trickster God, yeah? Wanna prank Thor?"
The evil grin on Nico's face was immediately mirrored by Loki.
"I believe this to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Greek," Loki whispered back to Nico.
The Avengers eyed them warily, fearing the schemes the two must be concocting at this very moment. Thor felt a prickle of unease race up his spine. Maybe they weren't planning on torturing him?
He stood up abruptly and swept from the room. If he knew Loki, he would need to guard his supply of capes.
Loki with an accomplice...
He knew dark times were coming...
Thanks for reading, review if you want.