Chapter 9: "I am Steve Rogers"
Hazel stood in the room, pacing around and around the floor. Wanda stayed where she was, watching out the window tersely. Shuri's technology slowly worked to get the stone out of Vision.
Hazel watched as Thor landed on the battlefield. The remaining forces on their side cheered. At first, it looked like they would win. Unfortunately, it seemed that aliens were very hard to kill. Hazel saw Annabeth pinned down by an alien and suddenly couldn't stand it anymore.
"Wanda, I'm going to help them. Guard Vision." Hazel made to leave, and saw Annabeth being saved by Percy.
"If you're leaving, then I am too!" Wanda protested. Hazel turned. "No, you have to stay with Vision. One of those aliens might burst in here with any moment. Shuri's preoccupied. You have to stay here."
"But-"
"Bye." Hazel charged out of the lab, praying that she'd be able to find her way out of this building.
Percy saw Annabeth being pinned down by an alien, its teeth about to tear through her throat. Percy yelled and sent the alien that he was battling flying with a high powered jet of water.
He charged over to Annabeth and stabbed his sword through its back. It didn't even have time to turn. Percy kept slashing until it collapsed on the ground, dead. Annabeth stood up, brushed herself off as if nothing had happened, and said, "Thanks."
"Any time." The two demigods shared a tired smile and charged off to help the other people on their side.
The Kingsguard, Borderers, and Jabari were having little success against the sheer numbers of the aliens and Huge Guy's hammer. There was the fact that Huge Guy was seriously hard to kill, due to the face that he was… well, huge. Suddenly, a huge sparkling rock of vibranium landed right on top of the Huge Guy's head.
Percy looked up in shock as Hazel dropped gracefully in front of him, absorbing the energy into a roll. "Hazel! What are you doing here?" Percy said, surprised.
"I got bored." She ran off to kill some more aliens. Percy muttered in insult in Greek under his breath and ran off towards the Winter Soldier.
Rocket the Raccoon (for apparently that was what it was called) was destroying aliens with almost unnecessary glee, shooting them with his very large machine gun. "Come and get some, space dogs!" Percy grinned, dodging a stray bullet from his gun.
"My bad!" Rocket yelled, seeing Percy. Bucky picked up Rocket and turned around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, firing off burst after burst. Bucky also shot at the aliens with his own gun.
Percy walked around them, finishing off some stray aliens with his sword. He distantly heard Rocket say, "How much for the gun?"
Bucky fired off another burst. "Not for sale."
"Okay, how much for the arm?" Bucky walked off. Rocket chuckled. "Ohhh, I'll get that arm." Percy snorted and charged off to another area of the battle field.
Annabeth, Captain America, and Thor fought off hordes of aliens together, Thor using his new axe to great effect. Annabeth wondered where his hammer had gone. It didn't seem too big of a deal, however, since the axe seemed just as powerful, if not more, as Mjolnir.
The three took a breather. "What's that axe called?" Annabeth pointed to it.
"This? This is Stormbreaker." Thor said casually. "That's… an interesting name." Annabeth muttered. Seemed a little much.
"New haircut?" Steve Rogers asked Thor. Thor inclined his head. "I see you've copied my beard." Steve shrugged and gestured to it wearily.
"Yeah, well, I didn't." Annabeth pointed out the obvious. "So, I'm guessing Loki didn't want to hang out?" Thor's face fell. Annabeth winced. "Sorry."
"It's all right, Lady Chase." Thor said sadly. "I'm sure my brother is with the heroes in Valhalla now." Annabeth didn't know what Valhalla was, but nodded politely all the same.
Thor's tree friend ran over to them, skewering three aliens on his arms. Thor's face brightened slightly.
"Oh, by the way, this is a friend of mine, Tree."
"I am GROOT!" Groot yelled. Annabeth raised an eyebrow.
"I am Steve Rogers." Steve said, sounding a bit bemused. "I am Annabeth Chase." Annabeth said, smiling slightly.
"I am Groot." Groot stated again. Annabeth turned to Thor. "Is that all he says?"
"Pretty much."
"Cool. Oh look, here comes some bad guys."
Suddenly, a deep rumbling echoed across the battlefield. Annabeth's first thought was an earthquake, but soon it became clear that it wasn't. She looked over at the forest and saw the trees shuddering. When it reached the edge of the border it turned into huge mounds of earth and easily bypassed the shields.
Annabeth watched in horror as huge sets of massive, motorized wheels that would undoubtedly shred anything that stayed in its path.
The five demigods-including Hazel, Annabeth gave a double take but didn't say anything- gathered together and stared as it got nearer and nearer.
This, she was sure, was the aliens' ace in the hole. Nothing could stand against it for long. T'Challa's voice crackled in her earbud urgently. "Fall back! Fall back now!"
"Focus fire on that left flank, Sam." James Rhodes said.
"On it." Sam replied. Annabeth saw the silhouette of Falcon shooting at the huge machines, but it made no effect.
She saw Natasha and Okoye in the path of the machine. They cringed, waiting for the inevitable. Suddenly Wanda landed right in front of them, eyes and hands glowing with red energy. She lifted the huge machine clear of the ground and slammed it right in the middle of a pack of aliens.
"Was she up there all that time?" Okoye said a touch indignantly.
"Yep." Annabeth muttered. Unfortunately, that didn't solve all their problems, and she ran off over to another pack of aliens.
Percy threw his sword straight through a pack of aliens, spinning and gouging all of them in a row. He smiled in satisfaction and ran over to grab it.
Sam's voice ringed in his ears. "Guys, we've got a Vision situation here." Percy glanced up and saw the place where Shuri had been removing Vision's stone was in rubble. He winced. He knew that Wanda shouldn't have left, though she had admittedly saved them all.
"Somebody get to Vision!" Steve yelled, he himself preoccupied. "I got him!" Bruce yelled, and Percy saw the Hulk Buster fly across the field.
"I'll get over there too." Leo said. Percy glanced over at him and saw that he was a literal fireball, shooting blast after blast at the aliens. Luckily he was wearing his suit. Percy didn't think that Leo would have the energy to concentrate on keeping his clothes on. Man, that would've been awkward.
"On my way." Wanda said. Satisfied that Vision would have enough back up, Percy concentrated on attacking all of the aliens that he could (which he'd been doing for basically the entire battle).
Annabeth raced towards Wanda who had been pinned down by the blue alien. "He'll die alone. As will you." The woman said coldly. Natasha jumped down next to her.
"She's not alone." Nat said coolly, and nodded at Annabeth. Okoye appeared on Natasha's other side and silently raised her spear.
Everyone stood frozen for a second, and then Blue Girl leaped at the three warriors. Annabeth grinned and charged.
Leo ran towards Vision as fast as he could. Man, he wished he could fly, like Human Torch or whatever the heck he was called.
He saw a pasty looking alien kick Vision, knocking him down. When he tried to get up, Huge Guy came out of nowhere and slammed his hammer in a full arc. Apparently Hazel hadn't killed him after all.
Leo reached Vision at the same time as Bruce in the Hulk Buster landed next to him.
"Hey, dude. Can you lay of my automaton, please?" Leo asked. The alien just slammed Leo in the gut with his spear.
"Rude." Leo grumbled as he shot a fireball at the alien, whose armor caught on fire. Bruce decided to take over.
"Ohhhh, no you don't, pal. This isn't gonna be like New York. This suit kicked the crap out of the Hulk-"Huge Guy (apparently he was not one for conversation) jumped forward and grabbed Bruce's mechanical arm and twisted it. In a reflex Bruce grabbed his hammer; a jet fired which launched them both to a random direction near a waterfall.
Leo got up and shot as many fireballs as he could stand, trying to distract the Pasty Alien from Vision, who was struggling to get up next to him. He grabbed some gasoline from his tool belt and poured it all over the grass in front of him, making a boundary between him and Vision.
He then sent a huge burst of fire, lighting up the glass and separating him and the alien, who merely jumped over the fire wall with a nimbleness that wasn't expected.
Leo backed up so fast he nearly tripped on his own feet and drew his hammer, standing so close to Vision he was almost standing on him.
The Pasty Alien threw his spear towards Leo, who tried to deflect it with his hammer and also shoot a fireball. The result wasn't good.
The spear pierced his foot. Leo collapsed on the ground and rolled to the side to dodge another spear attack. His foot hurt like, a lot, even worse than the time he'd stubbed his toe on a cement wall.
He glanced over and saw the Hulk Buster's arm getting snapped off. Bruce probably wouldn't be very helpful.
"Guys, Vision needs backup now! Like, now, now! I'm currently not able to!" Leo yelled into his earpiece, just as the alien grasped Vision's shoulder and used the leverage to stab his spear into the center of where Vision's heart would be.
He flickered with golden light. Leo struggled to his feet, the stab wound in his foot throbbing. He tried to run over to Vision but only succeeded in in spraining his ankle and fell over again. The alien didn't even look over and prepared to wrench out Vision's stone.
Out of the corner of his eye Leo saw the Huge Alien get thrown into the air by the Hulk Buster and slammed against the shield, burning away.
"Backup! Like, right now!" Leo yelled. He reached into his tool belt and pulled out a stick of ambrosia. He knew that producing goldly food required a really long cool down from his tool belt, but it was an emergency.
"I thought you were formidable, machine." The Pasty Alien sneered. "But you're dying, like any man." He raised his spear to get out the Mind Stone but was tackled by Captain America. "Yes!" Leo called. "When Captain America throws his mighty-"
"Shut up!" Steve yelled, but proceeded to throw his mighty shield at the alien. They exchanged blows, and Steve said over his shoulder to Vision, "Get out of here! Go!"
Leo knew enough about battles to see that Steve was losing. He gritted his teeth. He could feel the ambrosia healing his foot and felt the skin starting to mend (which didn't feel pleasant, by the way) and decided that that would have to be enough.
Even though he was rapidly running out of stamina, his adrenaline failing, he summoned the energy to throw another fireball. All he got was a spark. "Come on, come one, come on!" Leo muttered. Luckily, someone else got there first.
Just as the alien started choking Cap, a spear was stabbed through the alien's chest. His eyes widened and collapsed on the ground. Standing behind him was Vision, still clutching his own stab wound.
Steve rose, breathing heavily. "I thought I told you to go."
"We don't trade lives, Captain." said Vision with a small smile.
Steve grinned slightly, and then rushed over to Leo. "You're hurt." He stated, examining the wound. Leo waved him off. "I'll be fine. Ambrosia's doing its work. Just-just give me a minute."
Annabeth continued to fight the alien who was tearing heavy blows against all three of her opponents. Annabeth's brain went into battle mode; analyzing her enemy's style, using her ADHD to try to guess what she was going to do next.
Another huge machine with sharp wheels came out of nowhere and ran right over them. Annabeth crouched on the ground and covered her head, but the ditch that they were fighting in was more than enough protection.
The woman whom they were fighting used it as a distraction. She kicked Black Widow in the face, knocking her to the ground. She grabbed Okoye from the shoulder and her weapon and tossed her away.
Annabeth rushed over to Natasha, who was already starting to rise. Caught unawares, she felt her knife get knocked out of her hands and Blue Girl's hand at her throat. At the same time, she pointed her spear at Black Widow's throat, Natasha barely blocking it using her sticks. Annabeth struggled to pry the quickly tightening fingers of her throat, and a bead of blood appeared on Natasha's.
Just as Annabeth was sure she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, red energy appeared near Blue Girl's hands and tossed her into the path of a passing machine. Annabeth collapsed on the ground, coughing, and looked up to see Wanda's hands still sparkling with energy.
Blue blood speckled Annabeth's hands, and Natasha wiped some off her face. "That was really gross." She muttered with distaste. Annabeth wiped the blue stuff on her already blood stained pants and pulled Okoye to her feet.
A/N Yay, it wasn't a super short chapter! Thanks to all my reviewers, please continue to review, like please please please! I only had like four people review me! Please just take the time to give me your comments. (You don't even need to have an account to do it). Shout out to reviewers:
Gottalovebooks14 (You should be! Hehe)
The Sorrowful Deity (I can neither confirm nor deny that)
the guy that loves all gunplay (thanks!)
HISB (Wow, just looked at Half-Blood-Weirdo's review page and it was like two pages long of just your reviews. That's called dedication!)
Look out for the next chapter!