The song for this chapter is Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult.
July 24th, 2018. The outskirts of Birnin Zana
Stab one creature, and don't get mauled by the rest of the swarm while you're doing it.
That was Nico's strategy for surviving the battle he was in. The aliens had destroyed the fortifications that he, Alabaster, and Sadie had set up, and now their forces were being overrun by the alien army.
Luckily for him, pretty much any wound that he inflicted with his sword would kill the creatures, since Stygian iron absorbed the life force of its victims, mortals included, and the alien creatures he was fighting had very little in the way of souls to begin with.
"One of Thanos' minions is paying the lab a visit." Sadie Kane reported through the earpiece in Nico's ear. "I've got him blocked off for now, but I could use some help."
"I got it!" Dr. Banner volunteered, and Nico saw the Hulkbuster armor he was piloting start to run towards the lab, abandoning the limited cover of the foxhole that the suit had set up, to use its longer range weaponry from.
Nico immediately recognized that Dr. Banner had been too eager to help, and by emerging from the little cover available, had made himself an obvious target.
But before Nico could warn the scientist to be more careful, the large alien that Carter had fought earlier tackled the suit, apparently having recovered from the previous encounter.
After a moment of silence, Dr. Banner started to speak in a tone of false confidence as he wrestled with the alien. "Well this guy wants a piece." Dr. Banner grabbed the alien in a bear-hug as he continued. "I can handle him, but someone else needs to get to Vision!" As he finished speaking, the scientist started to fly away, dragging the alien with him.
Knowing that he could get there the fastest, Nico spoke up, already gathering his concentration on the few shadows around him. "I'll go then. I can get there faster than anyone else."
"If you plan on teleporting, can you take me with you?" Captain Rogers asked as he ran closer to Nico, unintentionally interrupting the son of Hades' concentration by his question. "Bruce said that these guys are some of the best fighters in the universe, and we can't afford to underestimate them."
"That's not-" Nico cut himself off, reminding himself of the urgency of the situation. Sliding his sword back into the sheath at his side so that he could safely take the super-soldier along, the son of Hades nodded. "Yes. Hold on to my arm until I tell you otherwise."
The super-soldier complied silently, as Nico drew in the shadows around him, focusing on the mental image of a dark corner of the Wakandan lab that he'd noticed before the battle.
As he was about to travel there though, Sadie started to speak again, sounding much weaker. "Vision and the alien just went through the lab window." The magician coughed before continuing. "I'm sorry Wanda, but I think it's time."
Nico grit his teeth, knowing he didn't have time to be frustrated with the delays, and started to concentrate on the forest outside the lab window where the Vision and his attacker would have ended up.
Silently indicating for Captain Rogers to let go of him, Nico started to scan his new surroundings, and immediately noticed the Vision being impaled by an alien that Nico recognized from Edinburgh.
Looking back at Captain Rogers, Nico could tell that shadow travel had seriously disoriented the supersoldier.
"I'll take the alien, you get the Vision out of here." Nico whispered, giving no time for the Avenger to disagree with him as he shadow-traveled right behind where the alien was taunting the Vision, and slashed at the head of the crouched extraterrestrial.
Unfortunately for Nico's plan though, the alien reacted with inhuman speed, turning around and parrying the attack with his double-bladed spear.
The alien didn't stop there though, and began to force Nico backwards with a flurry of blows that the demigod could barely keep up with.
Nico could recognize that he was outmatched, and more importantly, he knew why. The weapon the alien was using had a significantly larger reach compared to Nico's sword, which meant that the demigod couldn't get within striking distance of the alien without leaving himself open to counter-attacks.
In one particularly brutal slash from the alien, Nico was forced to step through the shadows around him to evade the attack.
The alien's response was two-fold, consisting of an immediate focus on attacking where Nico had traveled to, and a taunt. "The other one had a more impressive array of tricks and still fell before me. What makes you think you can do any better?"
Nico didn't respond, instead concentrating on both the alien's attacks, and getting his next destination exactly right for his plan to work.
As the alien took another step forward, Nico shadow-traveled again, shifting himself so that when he reappeared, the hilt of his sword hooked onto the alien's spear, and with as much strength as he could, slammed his sword into the ground, solidly pinning the spear underneath it, rendering both himself and the alien weaponless.
The alien had enough sense to let go of his weapon before it hit the ground, and so, as Nico tried to get back to his feet, the alien was able to throw him into a nearby tree, dazing him.
Stepping closer with a predatory grin, the alien removed his helmet, apparently planning to use the blades on it to finish the son of Hades off.
But then, at the last second, before the alien could let go of the knife, he was tackled by Captain Rogers, and the pair started to wrestle on the ground.
Immediately, the super-soldier forced the alien to drop the knife, but as the fight continued, it was clear that Captain Rogers was being outmatched, as the alien had forced him on the defensive too, the super-soldier barely blocking the alien's blows with the arm-guards he'd borrowed from the Wakandans.
Nico started to climb to his feet, trying to recover enough to somehow help the Avenger, but when he looked again at the fight, it appeared as though the Vision had beaten him to the punch, and had just stabbed the alien through the chest with the spear Nico had disarmed the alien of earlier on.
"I thought I told you to get the Vision out of here." Nico grumbled, walking over.
"No more lives should be given so that I can keep mine." The Vision replied.
"Sadie?" Nico asked, realizing that the magician would have been in the way of the alien he'd just fought and nearly died to.
The Vision sighed, shaking his head. "I'm unaware of what happened to her, but she is likely wounded or dead."
"She's not dead." Nico refuted after a second, sorting through the feelings of death that surrounded him. "Not yet at least."
Then, Wanda Maximoff landed in the clearing, apparently having used her powers to speed up her arrival.
As the Sokovian refugee checked on the Vision, Nico started to concentrate on the Wakandan lab, hoping that he could get to check on Sadie before anything else happened. He hadn't felt the magician's death, but that didn't mean she wasn't seriously hurt.
But then the Vision said something that made Nico's blood run cold. "The time stone has been taken. Thanos will be coming for me himself now."
"Everyone on my position, we have incoming." Captain Rogers ordered, apparently trusting the android's intuition.
Author's Notes:
Alright, so it's probably obvious that this chapter is unusually short and VERY late, but there's a few reasons for that.
Since December, my life has gotten busier with other stuff (mental health, school, side-projects, plotting for future of this fic, etc.), and I've had less opportunity to focus specifically on writing this fic. I've been slowly trying to finish the second half of this chapter, but it's been slow going. Then, after seeing some the stuff in newer eps of Moon Knight, and looking at some of the stuff currently known/heavily rumored about Thor: Love and Thunder to some degree Black Panther 2 as well, I've realized that a number of the plans I have for this fic might need to take into account the stuff that's being revealed there, including plans that would have been set up in the second half of this chapter.
As such, I've decided to officially put this fic on hiatus until at least after I see Thor: Love and Thunder, to make sure I can get stuff to work with MCU canon a little better.
I'm not abandoning this fic, but given how busy my life has gotten, and the fact that I don't want to contradict the upcoming additional lore of the MCU's godly side, I've decided to wait. In the meantime, I might work on a few side projects I have ideas for, as well as do some more research for stuff I have plans for.
Song for the Chapter:
The song for this chapter, which was originally also supposed to cover Thanos's arrival, is Don't Fear the Reaper, by the band Blue Öyster Cult. This song, at its core, is about how love is powerful enough to surpass even the veil between living and dead, and that we need not fear the coming of the Grim Reaper as death is a natural part of life. Notable uses of this song include beieg used in horror movies and being the song from the SNL skit "More Cowbell".
Anyway, I thought this song would've been very poetic for the full chapter, with the appearance of 3 characters that could symbolize the reaper, an alien with hood and spear/sickle-like weapon, a character that is the literal son of the king of the underworld, and a character that wants to get rid of half of all life, along with a brutal choice of someone having to kill the thing they love, being encouraged by the very thing they have to kill...
One last thing I want to say here, even if my platform is practically non-existent, is that I stand with Ukraine, and wish I could do more. As it is, I readily acknowledge that the people there are far stronger, more determined, and braver than I could ever be.
Glory to Ukraine.
Glory to the Heroes.
Disclaimer:
I do not own anything in this story. All characters were created by someone else, such as Rick Riordan, Haley Riordan, or any of the people who work for Marvel Comics Marvel Studios. Anything I didn't mention probably belongs to Disney, the publishers of the Riordanverse books, the owners of film rights to Percy Jackson, and the puppeteer behind Marvel Studios. Bow down to the House of Mouse.