Tortured Warrior

Chapter 45

Annabeth knew she wasn't as powerful as Percy. It was something that she found she was just going to have to deal with: he could make portals and likely teleport anywhere he wanted, she could not; he could incinerate entire armies with a wave of his hand, she could not but maybe would be able to later; he could fight gods for Hades' sake...literally in a sense. She continued defending against the numerous attacks while trying to make her way back towards where Percy's cage was and she realized...where were the monsters?

They should be in the middle of a huge swarm of creatures during this war, creatures that look like things of fiction and amalgamations of different things; constructs that shouldn't exist. And yet here she was still in a monster-free area fighting against the hero's she used to look up to when she first heard of them and saw their achievements despite most of them being mortals. There was no time to think about anything else however as Annabeth dodged the shield thrown at her and blasted the perpetrator with a blast of fire. Captain America went flying backwards into the building they'd passed through in this tunnel of destruction and she lost sight of him as she had to hold off several steel beams and sheets being projected towards her with reddish energy.

Annabeth had found that fire was like a child. It always wanted to spread, to consume, to never end. Even fire that was supposed to be the embodiment of hope was still childish in nature and she found that coaxing it in certain ways got different reactions: giving it more energy caused it to deepen in hue and almost change color but pat away an arrow nonetheless; giving it power in short bursts required her to have a fine control over its connection but still allowed it to act as a sort of laser; And lessening her control on it and just letting it spread caused it to turn into a flamethrower rushing from her hands.

Either way Annabeth found herself enjoying this, enjoying her fight. It was like a parent fighting their children; just the children were hero's with different strengths with a few of them actually trying to kill her, and she was an untouchable being in the face of mere mortals... She caught herself there, going down that path of thinking was bound to get her in trouble some way or another and she didn't want to let herself down doing that. Let Percy down because of it.

Annabeth took a sneaking glance back at the cage Percy was at and found that he was grinning at her with eyes holding crimson balls of...pride? She couldn't tell what that look was. What that emotion she was seeing from him due to his features being different now that he was part wolf part god. But if what she saw was truly pride she was sure as Tartarus not about to let him down and cause him to step in to help her.

Annabeth decided to go about this systematically now that she was closer. First the long ranger's needed to go: Hawkeye was first seeing that he had a metal bow and arrows that were more than likely not going to run out soon, and Black Widow's guns were useless against her and her blades even less effective. Tony was also a problem, but just by heating up the surroundings gradually throughout this fight was doing a number on his suit's electronics. No matter how well you build something heat always found a way to sneak through...

Though how long will it take to put him out of commission from it? She thought as she sent a fireball towards Black Widow again and compressed her powers into a thin stream of focused energy towards Hawkeye. The trained eye of the hero immediately felt something was off and abandoned his bow, but he wasn't quick enough it seemed as a thin line of energy burned through metal, flesh, and bone alike and left a hole in it's place. The bow-string exploded and the limbs of the craft snapped inwards, and despite being made of metal the speed at which this process occurred and subsequently stopped was enough to make the craft of metal look more like a disfigured letter than the weapon it had once been.

With him out of the picture for the moment Annabeth sent a flare towards Tony with the hopes of accelerating the process she'd started at the beginning of their fight and though he barely dodged it getting him full body. It was still able to hit half of him and cause the core on his chest to flicker a few times...oops.