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.

Annabeth's attention was then stolen by Black Widow, who decided that fighting close combat was probably a better option now, and given that she didn't have any weapons to use anymore she didn't really have any other choice. But Annabeth was no slacker in this style of combat either and all of her training in Camp Half-Blood kicked in. Daggers made of fire formed in both hands immediately blocking the steel ones striking towards her and thanks to the longer reach hers had over Widow's combat knives Annabeth was able to make small burning cuts on Widow's hands and body with every block, jab, and strike.

Caught in a standstill with the weapons specialist Annabeth decide to do something stupid...something Percy would likely do, or have done before. As the next set of strikes continued Annabeth let go of one of her knives and punched Black Widow. She was send backwards from the strike, losing one knife in the process and barely managing to hold into the other as she rolled across the street near Percy's cage.

Annabeth had then been re-engaged by Cap as Black Widow slowly got to her feet processing the situation that had just occurred. Then she noticed the shadows and movement around them, looking towards it made her nearly strike out in reflex but she stopped herself. The creature before her was scratching at some kind of barrier. It's red eyes held nothing in them but malice and death, a being whose entire purpose in life was to murder and kill. Something without a soul. It terrified her...even the Chitauri had souls, and they fought for a cause. A cause that was pointless as all of them died in the end and their portal was closed and destroyed, but they had a cause whilst these things did not.

"You see now why I was trying to stop our pointless fight," a voice sounded from behind her. Their prisoner, and way too close to be in the cage. "I don't understand why you're all so stubborn in this kind of conflict, almost never seeing the bigger picture without outside help or interference."

'How did you get out?" Natasha asked, wincing as he chest screamed in pain with every breath, and a flamethrower was all she got in response...

--------------------

This planet was surely lost.

He knew it was.

There was no reason for things to have turned out like this and yet...

They were all fighting so hard for a single dam planet.

What was so special about this planet specifically?

What made his wife turn it into the anchor of their reality?

He didn't understand...

And yet here it was, one of her warriors staring him right in the face. Giving it their all even though they knew that it was futile...that against him they wouldn't be able to win.

Didn't they understand that he was doing this for them??

Everything he had done so far was for them and yet they kept on futile resisting everything.

Why?

Was something he was doing wrong?

Was the way he was going about all of this wrong?

There was still a haze over his mind. It confused him, and yet everything had felt so clear at the same time.

He put a hand out towards the Warrior to stop them, but a beam of white energy fired from it instead.

He looked at his own hand in shock.

He hadn't meant to do that. Why did he do that?

Now he just wanted to talk. To ask them why, but now his own body wasn't following his commands.

It was as it he was being controlled...no, that was impossible.

He was order, the embodiment of peace, co-creator of all life, perfection itself.

There was no way he was being controlled...right?

———————————

What was taking her so long? Surely Annabeth had reunited with Percy by now right? The other three should've been able to find her and Percy due to her and convinced them both to come over and help deal with this corrupted piece of...Alpha was forced to dodge as a sword of light flashed next to him and he redirected the second and tried to strike himself. Only for his blade to phase through Order as if he wasn't there, but a firm kick from the primordial immediately disproved that and Alpha was suddenly crashing through multiple buildings once again.

I really hope Percy has some kind of plan for when he gets here otherwise...he didn't want to think about it. Whatever outcome became of this was a welcome one. Unless Order came out of this on top that is...that would be very bad.

He ripped himself out of a wall and took a step forwards, only to get slammed back into said wall a moment later with a hand gripping his neck.

What are you hoping for? Order's twisted smile greeted Alpha's eyes and he saw flashes of a different color in that smile, shouldn't it be blindingly white? He thought but was slammed into the wall again by the ruthless being before him. Help isn't coming and you know it. Your other two companions have fled from this fight and you shall never see them again. Now become one with my army and join me in the conquest of this universe.

"...conquest of this universe?" Alpha coughed, blood splattering over the half mask Order wore. And the being's smile seemed to widen.

"Why of course!" They spoke, actually spoke, and the voice that greeted him was like if the tracks of a screaming train and the nails on a chalkboard came together for this one purpose. The very sound of this voice grates at Alpha's soul, his very being and he realizes then why Order was acting so strangely.

Sorry for the second cliffhanger...when this comes out. Kinda.

...And now I have to go and look up beings of chaos that can use armies like this in the MCU because frankly using them from mythology would be boring and easy. Though if I don't end up finding something decent I'll probably end up doing it anyways.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'm currently having service problems so hopefully nothing goes wrong in scheduling this to be published.
Also probably doesn't help that it will be the first time I'll having used the feature so I guess we'll all see how it turns out.

See you in the next one!