"Hey, Max?"
Max turned her head to her partner. She's been successfully ignoring him and surveying every rivet of the building for Erasers. She wanted to burst through a window and fly somewhere far, far away. But half her family is here with her, and her only comforting thought is if an Eraser comes around the corner, she can throw Percy to be its new chew toy while she escapes.
He's been silent this entire time, what did he want to talk about now?
"I wanted to say I'm sorry," he told her, "I'm used to being…well, surrounded by friends, and we mess with each other all the time, and I guess I just kind of…got comfortable around you guys before you could get comfortable around me. So… I'm sorry for being a jerk."
It took Max a minute to realize he was referring to the "Feather Face" comment a while ago, and the string of other such comments and nicknames they'd been going back and forth with these past few weeks.
"It's, uh… it's okay," she answered, then decided to change the subject, "What's it like? Being a Demigod and all that?"
Percy shrugged, "The perks are cool, but…it's exhausting. I mean, the powers, the cool weapons, those are all cool. But Demigods are the children of gods, obviously, and the gods- in there hundreds of years of power- have made a lot of enemies. Monsters hunt demigods to take their revenge on the gods that scorned them. After a while…you get tired of being hunted, y'know?"
Max just stared at him. His story…is more like hers than she originally thought. When they first met, she was annoyed with him; another Thor wannabe, or something like that. There was no way the two of them could be more different. And yet, here she was, able to relate to something from his past.
"I…know the feeling," Max coughed. She spotted something in a room. "Wait," she tapped Percy's shoulder. "You see that?"
"What's up?" Percy looked in the room with her.
"I don't know what it was," Max stepped into a boiler room. "But I'm sure something moved-"
Suddenly a shutter slammed down over the door, trapping Max and Percy over this dimly lit place.
"You know…" Percy shook his head, more annoyed than surprised, or scared. "I really should have seen that coming."
Max nodded in agreement. "One of the Four must be here. Probably Ghost."
"Well," a familiar voice answered, "You're not technically wrong."
Suddenly, the ghost kid appeared: Danny Phantom.
"Oh, and F-Y-I," he added, "You're both under arrest."
His suit had been upgraded from last time. He had metal plates on his arms, shoulders, legs, and chest; all shiny and platinum. He kept his little emblem on the chest plate, etched in black.
"Let's see…" he continued, "Warbird, was it? And…Percy? Or do you go by Water-boy?"
Max could see Percy's knuckles go white while he gripped his sword.
"F-Y-I," Percy snapped back, "You're not the first ghost-kid I've had to fight. And the name isn't Water-boy."
Pipes of water groaned and creaked around the three of them. Max was on the balls of her feet, ready to launch herself in whatever direction was away from the danger.
Water burst out of the pipes, but didn't fall or soak Max like she thought it would. It snaked through the air and swirled around Percy in a self-sustaining torrent.
"It's Tidal Wave!" Percy charged forward, sweeping up the ghost boy in a surge of water.
Fang was a quiet partner to have. He seemed to dissect every inch of the building as they walked by.
"You seem a little tense," Annabeth commented. He jumped a little at her voice, though Annabeth decided not to visibly make anything of it. "I mean, more so than usual."
Fang didn't answer for a minute, like he was carefully picking words from his mind. Annabeth remembered how Nudge babbled away about coming from a lab. She figured any doctor's office would set these guys on edge.
"I was a born here," he surprised her, "Me and my family. We escaped, with some help. We lived in paradise for a while, a house in the middle of nowhere. No one to bother us. And now I dragged Max and the Flock into this…mess."
"I got the impression that Max was in charge," Annabeth speculated.
"She is," Fang agreed, "But I helped her along. Didn't question her."
He glanced at her and rolled his shoulders. He added, "I thought what better protection is there than an army of superheroes?"
They walked for a minute. Annabeth thought she'd lighten the mood.
"You know," she started, "My step brothers said the funniest thing the other day-"
Suddenly, Fang was tackled to the ground. A hulking mass of muscles with blond hair and big wings rode on his back and ran his face on the floor like a surfboard for a couple of feet.
"Miss me?" the guy whispered down to Fang.
Annabeth stepped forward to help him, but felt a presence behind her. She turned too late to see some kind of four armed giant grab her and pin her arm behind her back.
"AH!" She screamed. Her feet left the floor. Two of the monster's arms held on to her while the other two were left free.
"Easy, easy," the thing behind her said. "I'm a professional agent of Shield. The name's Ben."
Annabeth saw the blond kid lay punch after punch into Fang, blow after blow.
"Skywatch," Ben called out, "Skywatch! Dylan! Ease up! That's an order!"
Skywatch, or Dylan, whatever his name was stopped, pausing long enough for Fang to retaliate.
He slammed his elbow into Dylan's nose and spun around to punch him with his other arm. Fang lunged at Dylan, perhaps with the full intention of killing him.
Ben slapped some handcuffs over Annabeth's wrists. "I've got to get in there. Don't go running off, okay?"
He set her down and off to the side while he tried to break up the fight. Annabeth has been practicing, with Spiderwoman and Cable, to pick locks. These were just simple police cuffs, but that didn't mean they were going to be easy. She had a belt that she, Two, and Dexter have been working on and organizing. It was Two's idea to put a lock-pick at the back of the belt, now it seemed brilliant.
Four minutes. Four minutes, and she's in the fight. Though, how Architect is planning to win this fight is another problem altogether.