Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or the Avengers, all rights go to Marvel and Rick Riordan

Percy and Leo recover from the explosion. "Put on the suit," Percy gasps.

"Yep," Leo says, standing up. The two stumble through a door.

Chaos is happening in the bridge. Emergency alarms go off. People are running, grabbing weapons off racks. Annabeth recovers and puts her hand to her earpiece, "Reyna," she gasps, clutching her side.

"Turn up that engine! Number three engine is down! Can we get a run in?" Reyna says. She walks over to the guy that was playing GALAGA earlier. "Talk to me."

The man points to the monitor. "Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but it's impossible to get out there and make repairs while we're in the air."

"At least now he is working," Reyna said.

Reyna sighed. "We lose one more engine, we wont be." She speaks into her earpiece, "Somebody's got to get inside and patch that engine."

Annabeth nods. "Valdez, you copy that?"

Leo's voice replies, "I'm on it."

Still speaking in her earpiece, "Hazel! Initiate official lock down in the detention section then get to the armory!" Hazel runs through the bridge, following orders. "McLean!" No answer.

Piper looks over at Frank, who is breathing heavily. He is gripping the floor to maintain control, but his eyes are green and his face is intense.

"It's okay. We're okay, right?" Piper says to herself.

"Definitely not okay right now," Leo said.

"The Hulk is going to make an appearance?" Calypso asked.

"Probably," the guys replied.

Thalia is leading her men into the air ducts. They move down into a corridor. "Get that engine down! Detention! Wait for camera's to go to dark." She takes out her bow. "Come with me," she says to some soldiers.

"Thalia is really dangerous," Nico said.

"I'm also being controlled," Thalia sighed.

Leo, Jason, and Percy shuddered, remembering the eidolon incident for the second time.

"Being possessed is not fun," Jason told her.

Percy and Leo run through a dim, debris filled tunnel. "Find engine three. I'll meet you there," Leo says as the two split up. Leo hits a remote and the wall opens up to reveal the Iron Man suit. It them becomes active.

Piper and Frank continue to struggle below. Piper is trying to calm Frank down while he struggles for control. "Doctor... Frank, you gotta fight it. This is just what Gaea wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me," Piper says as she struggles to move. Two men run in, but Piper tells them to get away with the swatting of her hand. "We're gonna be okay," Piper assures him. Frank is now starting to rise. "Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never-"

"Your Life?!" Frank exclaims in a deep voice.

Calypso jumped at the sudden outburst. "You're right, that is bad," She managed to say.

"Almost as bad as the monsters we have dealt with," Percy said.

"Not helping," Annabeth and Thalia replied.

It changed to a more growling, threatening voice. Frank starts to transform. His skin takes a green color. His clothes rip apart except for his pants.

"Frank," Piper pleads. Frank looks at her, but continues to change. He stands and finishes his change into the Hulk. Piper is struggling to stand as the debris is still on her. Frank roars as he smashes a machine. Piper manages to get out form under the debris, and she stands to look at Frank. Frank turns around and Piper bolts for the stairs. Piper moves under turbines and crawls when necessary. She is one level about Frank, but he is destroying the ground under her. Piper finally is able to escape.

The demigods all let out a breath they were holding in.

"That was close," Piper managed to say.

"No kidding," Jason mumbled.

The Hulk roars in rage. Gaea looks up and smiles at the sound.

"This is not good," Annabeth said. "Her plan is working."

Annabeth runs in and looks at the chaos in the bridge. The people are panicking and running around in disarray. "Bring the carrier inwards and head south! Take us to the water!" she commands.

"Flying blind. Navigations re-calibrated after the engine failure," a helmsmen said.

"Is the sun coming up?" Annabeth demands, walking over to the man.

"Yes, ma'am," the man replies.

"Then put it on the left! Get us over the water! One more turbine goes down and we drop."

"Which is exactly why they should be over water," Annabeth said, nodding at her movie characters intelligence.

The others looked confused.

"Never minds," she sighed.

Percy pushes a door open. A man is waiting behind it wearing an oxygen mask. Percy goes out further to see a giant hole in the carrier. "VALDEZ!" Percy shouts. "Valdez, I'm here!"

"Good," Leo says as he flies over. He stops at the burning wall. "Let's see what we got." Inside the suit, Leo examines the engine with his holograms. "I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris."

"Sounds just like Leo when he was building the ship," Jason said. Piper nodded in agreement.

"Not my fault you don't understand engineering," Leo defended, pretending to look hurt.

Leo starts to pull on the rotor. "I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position," he says pointing at a part of the ship. Percy nods and jumps, grabbing a ledge and pulling himself up. Leo flies into the giant cooling conductor. Percy opens a cabinet door and pulls out the panel.

Leo whistled, "That is some panel."

"You think you could make a helicarrier?" Percy asked.

Leo thought about it. "Maybe, but it would take time."

"We have plenty of that," Nico said. "Especially when we don't have wars to fight."

"What's it look like in there?" Leo asked.

"It seems to run on some form of electricity," Percy concluded after looking closely.

The group laughed. "You're not wrong!" Leo said between laughs.

"Well, you're not wrong," Leo stated.

"See?" Leo grinned.

Piper continues to crawl under the catwalk. She pauses before Frank appears to her left. "ROARRR!" Frank bellowed.

The demigods jumped at the sudden roar.

"Why is it that he yells when everything is quiet?" Percy asked no one in particular.

"Suspense," Annabeth guessed.

Piper fires a bullet into a pipe and it hits Hulk in the face. Piper begins to run through the maze of corridors. Hulk follows, but is breaking everything in the progress. The Hulk finally catches up and swats at Piper. She flies and slams into a wall with a grunt. Hulk stumbles into a wall that smashes on impact. He starts to make his way towards Piper, but Jason flies through the wall and he and Hulk go to a different room.

"Thank you, Jason," Piper said.

"Anything for you," he replied.

The two roll across the floor. The hulk is the first to recover. The people in the room run while Jason looks up at the beast. Hulk takes swings at Jason, but misses each time. Jason hits his face with his fist, but it does little to harm the Hulk. The Hulk brings down his fist on Jason, but Jason blocks it with his hands; however, he starts to crumple under the strength of the Hulk.

"We are not your enemies, Frank! Try to think!" Jason says, grunting at each sentence.

Frank raises his fist to Jason's surprise. Then he swings and sends Jason flying into two crates.

"Frank that was mean," Hazel joked.

"My bad, Hulk is not usually one to listen," Frank shrugged, obviously understanding the joke and playing along.

"That is some strength," Jason whistled.

"Strength that sent Movie You packing," Nico pointed out.

Leo is blasting debris off the engine. It is in bad shape, but still fixable. Over the earpiece, Percy speaks to Leo. "The relays are intact! What's are next move?"

"How did you manage to do that, Percy?" Annabeth asked with a smirk.

"I helped him, obviously," Leo said proudly.

"Even if I clear the rotors, this thing wont re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push," Leo informed Percy.

"Well if that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded!" Percy protests.

"Then stay in the control unit and reverse polarity long enough to disengage mag-"

"Speak English!"

"How hard is it for you to understand that I don't understand that stuff?" Percy asked.

"Pretty hard," Leo grinned.

"See that red lever?" Percy spots the lever. "It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word." Percy lunges towards the lever and waits by it.

Jason flies through more crates and comes up kneeling. He looks very angry as he wipes off sweat. He smiles and hold out his hand. In little time, his hammer flies into his grip. He swings the hammer and hits Hulk, sending him crashing into a plane. This just makes him more upseet. He rips off a wing and hurls it at Jason. Jason simply slides under it and throws his hammer. Hulk catches it, but he flies backwards and lands on his back. He tries to lift the hammer, but to no avail. Jason comes over and kicks him then grabs his hammer.

"Why could Hulk not lift the hammer?" Calypso asked.

"Not sure," Leo admitted. "Hulk is, like, the strongest when angry, so I don't know."

"Maybe it's magic," Annabeth guessed. The others shrugged, unable to find an answer.

Annabeth and Reyna are looking at monitors. "We need full evac on the lower hanger bay," Annabeth says to Reyna. Reyna starts to leave when a grenade rolls near her.

Her eyes widen as she see it. "Grenade!" she shouts as she pulls people out of the way. Annabeth draws her gun and ducks to hide. She hides behind a wall while two men start to move into the bridge. Annabeth waits for the second and punches him. She disarms him and fires at the second. She ducks as a third soldier walks in, but Reyna shoots him with ease.

"Fighting is so much more violent in this century," Calypso noted.

"You have no idea," Percy mumbled.

Hazel walks up to an armory door and goes through the facial recognition scanner. "We got a perimeter breach! Hostiles are in SHIIED gear. Hold onto every junction." a voice says over the speakers.

Jason and Hulk burst through the floor. Jason is dazed and The Hulk grabs him.

A gunfight is going on on the bridge. The Agents fire at each other as the people speak over the earpieces. "Ma'am, the Hulk and Jason are in shuttle levels 2, 3, and 4!" an agent's voice says.

"Ma'am, the Hulk will tear this place apart!" Reyna says.

"Get his attention," Annabeth simply says.

Thalia snorted. "Because that worked out great each time."

"Better than no plan," Annabeth countered.

In her earpiece, Reyna speaks to a man in a jet outside the carrier. "Escort 606, proceed to 270 MAIN SHUTTLE! Don't get too close."

"Copy," the man says. He maneuvers the jet to the spot and waits. "Target acquired." Jason is thrown away and Hulk starts to move towards him. "Target engaged." The man pulls the trigger and shoots at the Hulk. The Hulk is furious and charges the jet. The pilot eyes bug out. "Target angry! Target angry!" The Hulk lands on the ship and starts to tear it to pieces. The pilot ejects, but is grabbed and thrown by the Hulk. The parachute activates and he slowly floats down.

"You know, his reflexes must be really good," Nico commented.

"That's what you get out of that?" Reyna asked.

"What? He fought Jason, jumped on a jet. Cool. Awesome. But those reflexes were way to fast." "Boys," Thalia mumbled.

The jet continues to fly until it explodes in mid-air. The Hulk is launched away. His roar is heard.

Leo uses his laser to cut a large chunk of broken metal. He then jumps on it to cause it to fall. Two soldiers move towards the area Percy is in. He notices one try to throw a grenade and jumps and swats it down. He then jumps towards the soldier and punches him. The other one prepares to shoot, but Percy kicks his chest and he drops the gun. The fight goes hand-to-hand and Percy throws the guy off the carrier. Another soldier shows up and a gunfight between the two arise.

"Nice job kicking butt, Percy," Jason commented.

"Gotta protect Leo," Percy replied, scratching the back of his head.

Annabeth is still killing enemies. She is confused why they keep coming. "They are not getting through here,so what the hell-" She was cut off by Thalia releasing an arrow that explodes critical spots in the ship. Annabeth stands and sees her shooting arrows. She returns fire with her gun and Thalia retreats. A monitor shows that engine one is failing. The carrier starts to tilt to one side. "Ma'am, we're lost all power in Engine 1," a man says.

"It's Grace. She took out our systems. She's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?" Annabeth asks.

"I'm being controlled!" Thalia protested.

"Thalia, they know, but you need to be un-possessed to go back to being a good guy," Annabeth said to her friend.

Piper is still shaken by the Hulk fight. She sucks up her courage and replies to Annabeth. "This is Agent McLean. I copy," she says before heading to meet Thalia.

"I imagine that fighting the Hulk does that to you," Jason noted.

"Maybe it is worse," Percy shrugged.

"Not helping."

"Valdez, we're losing altitude," Annabeth says to Leo over her earpiece.

"Yeah. Noticed," Leo replied. Leo starts to push on the rotor, using his boosters to move it faster and faster.

Percy continues to have a gunfight with the soldier. However it goes wrong when a bullet get too close to Percy's head. He closes his eyes and backs up, but there is nowhere to stand behind him. He slips and is able to grab a loose wire before falling to his death.

"That gave me a mini heart attack," Annabeth sighed, letting out the breath she was holding in.

"It's just a movie," Percy joked, mimicking her voice.

"Shut up!" Annabeth said, red in the face.

Jason walks into the detention center. There, he finds Gaea escaping her cell. "NO!" he shouts and charges at her. Gaea crouches, waiting for him to get closer, and her form shimmers. Jason's body goes right through Gaea and into the cell. The doors close, locking him in. Jason stands and goes towards Gaea who is calmly watching, arms behind her back.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" she asks.

"Is that a pun?" Leo asked.

"Could be, hard to tell," Annabeth shrugged.

Thalia calmly walks down a catwalk. She stops and in the blink of an eye fires an arrow behind her. Hand-to-hand combat starts as Piper fights Thalia. Piper crawls her way around Thalia then disarms her of her bow. Thalia pulls out a knife.

In the cell, Jason gets very angry and slams his hammer into the glass wall. It cracks and the whole ship shakes. Gaea just laughs, weakly. She starts to walk back towards the controls. "The humans think us immortal. Shall we test that?" she says. Suddenly, the guard grunts in pain. Standing over his body is Hazel, armed with a dangerous weapon.

"Move away, please," she says to Gaea.

Gaea moves away from the switch.

Hazel starts to move closer. "You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?" She turns the weapon on and it glows with power.

A loud gasp is heard as a spear point juts from her chest. Gaea stands behind her.

The demigods gasped in horror.

"So not fair," Leo said.

"Well, she is evil," Nico said. "Still, Hazel is my sister. Makes me glad this is just a movie and didn't really happen."

"Nooo!" Jason cries, banging on the glass wall.

Hazel falls against the wall as Gaea looms over her. Jason is breathing heavily. Gaea slowly walks towards the controls and hits the drop button. The cell instantly falls through the floor and into the open air.

"Noo!" Piper exclaimed.

"Don't worry, Pipes," Jason says to her. "I'm right here."

"Everything is just fine," Annabeth said to her. This movie is getting very chaotic. Then again, it is an action movie and not as bad as almost everyone dying, like in Troy.

Piper and Thalia continue to fight. Thalia puts Piper in a hold while Piper holds her knife away from her face. Piper then bites Thalia and she drops the knife with a grunt. The two go sprawling across the floor until Piper swings Thalia's body into the railing. Thalia grunts in pain. She is very disoriented. "Piper..." she says. Piper then kicks her and she collapses, unconscious.

Jason's cell continues to fall through the air. Jason is being knocked around, unable to break the walls with his hammer. At the last moment, he steadies himself against the opposite wall and lunged towards the cracked portion. He flies out. A second later, the cell crashes onto the land and shatters. Jason wasn't so lucky. He flies into a field and skids for a good hundred yards. His hammer fell out of his grip when he landed.

Piper let out a breath. "At least you're not dead."

"I wont die for a while," Jason promised her.

Gaea calmly walks away from the controls. "You're gonna lose," Hazel says in a weak voice.

Gaea turns. "Am I?"

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky... where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction."

"I don't think I-" She was cut off by Hazel firing the weapon at her. She flies back and crashes through a wall.

The weapon dies down. "So that's what it does," hazel sighs.

"Way to put her in her place, Hazel!" many demigods shouted.

"Thanks," Hazel said, a little embarrassed by the sudden amount of attention.

Leo continues to spin the rotors in Engine 3. The ship starts to level itself. "Cap, I need the lever!" Leo says into his earpiece.

"I need a minute here!" Percy shouts, trying to climb the wire.

Leo is becoming worried. "Lever! Now!"

Percy gets back to the walkway and starts to crawl towards the lever. The soldier from before shoot him, but misses. Leo lets go of the rotors. They spin fast without his assistance. Then he is caught in one. "Uh, oh," he says as he slips into the rotors. He is being knocked around under them.

The demigods winced.

"Has that ever happened to you?" Nico asked Leo.

"If it had, I'd be dead," Leo answered.

"So did it?" Nico smirked.

"No!" they shouted.

Percy finally pulls the lever and Leo falls through the floor, yelling. Using his boosters, he levels himself. He launches himself at the soldier firing at Percy and tackles him. Both men let out a breath as their job is complete.

The rest of the soldiers that came with Thalia leave on a jet. Gaea is with that group, smirking at the carrier.

"Gaea got away," Percy sighed.

"At least you don't have to fight her again," Annabeth said to him.

"Still, the movie makes that really annoying."

"It's part of the plot, get over it," Reyna and Thalia grumbled.

Annabeth runs into the detention center. She finds Hazel still alive, but barely. "Sorry, boss. They got rabbited," Hazel says weakly.

"Just stay awake. EYES ON ME!" Annabeth demands.

"No. I'm clocked out here."

"Not an option."

"It's okay, boss. This was never going to work.. if they didn't have something... to..." Hazel looks away. Annabeth looks at her until the medical team arrives.

Into her headset, she speaks. "Agent Hazel is down."

"The paramedics are on their way down," an agent replies.

"They're here. They called it," Annabeth states.

All the people on the carrier listen to Annabeth's voice.

The demigods, despite the fact that Hazel is alive in real life, looked down.

Annabeth gathers Percy and Leo into the briefing room. Everyone there has a look as if in a daze. They all look shocked.

"These were in Hazel Levesque's jacket," Annabeth says, pulling out the Captain America trading cards. "Guess she never did get you to sign them." She throws the cards onto the table towards Percy. Percy picks them up. Most are stained in blood. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Frank, Jason. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming." She shakes her head. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something riskier." She walked around the room. "There was an idea, Valdez knows this, called THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE. The odea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Hazel Levesque died still believing in that idea... in heroes."

"Great speech," Annabeth praised.

"Yeah, I think Gaea just made the team a whole lot better," Leo grinned like a mad man.

Leo gets up and walks out of the room.

"Well, it's an old fashioned notion," Annabeth finishes.

Jason walks through the meadow. He locates his hammer and tries to have it shoot into his hand. It does not move. Jason looks pained. He squeezes his hand and looks to the sky.

A security guard speaks to an unconscious Frank. "You fell out of the sky," the man says.

Frank realizes what happened. "Did I hurt anybody?" he asks.

"There's nobody around here to get hurt. You did scare the hell out of some pigeons, though."

"Yes, because everybody likes pigeons," Nico said.

"Frank, can you turn into a pigeon?" Leo asked.

"Probably," Frank shrugged, "But I'm not doing it."

"Aww," Leo and Nico said, crossing their arms like children.

"Lucky." Frank sighed.

"Or, just good aim. You were awake when you fell."

"You saw?"

"The whole thing. Right through the ceiling. Big and green and buck ass nude. Here..." he says throwing a pair of pants down to Frank. "I didn't think those would fit you until you shrunk down to a regular sized fella."

"Thank you."

"Are you an alien?" the man asks.

The room burst out laughing.

"This old dude just made my day!" Leo gasped.

"He is very straight forward," Reyna said to Thalia. Those two were becoming friends, fast.

"What?"

"From outer space, an alien?"

Frank shakes his head, "No."

"Well then, son, you're got a condition."

"A very serious condition," Annabeth said.

"Or an awesome power!" Leo said, making explosion noises with his mouth.

Thalia is strapped down. She tries to shake off the mind control while Piper speaks to him.

"Thalia, you're going to be all right," Piper assured her.

"You know that? Is that what you know? I got... I gotta go in through. I gotta flush her out."

"We don't have that long, it's gonna take time," Piper says, standing from her chair.

"You don't understand," Thalia says.

"Actually, three of us do," Percy said. Jason and Leo nodded.

Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and send something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?" Thalia says in a low voice.

"You know that I do," Piper states.

"Why am I back?" Thalia asked. "How did you get her out?"

"Cognitive re-calibration."

"What?" Percy, Jason, Nico, and Frank asked.

"I hit you really hard in the head."

"Oh."

"Thanks." Piper starts to unfasten the restraints. "Piper, how many agents-?"

"Don't. Don't do that to yourself, Thalia. This is Gaea. This is monster and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."

"Gaea... she got away?"

"Yeah. I don't suppose you know where?"

"I didn't need to know. I didn't ask. She's gonna make her play soon, though. Today." Thalia drinks some water.

"We gotta stop her."

"Yeah? Who's we?"

"I don't know. Whoever is left left."

"So basically The Avengers are going to come together," Percy said.

"Maybe, Jason and Frank are still separated," Annabeth informed her boyfriend.

"Well, if I put an arrow in Gaea's eye socket, I'd sleep better, I suppose," Thalia said.

"Now you sound like you," Piper says as she sits next to her friend.

"But you don't. You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Gaea do to you?"

"She didn't, I just-"

"Piper."

"I've been compromised," Piper told her, "I got red in my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out."

"What does that even mean?" Leo asked.

"She want to fulfill her debt that is plaguing her," Annabeth told him.

"Oh."

In the detention center, Leo looks at the empty container. He stands, not saying a word. Percy walks in.

"Was she married?" Percy asks.

"No. There was a uh... cellist, I think," Leo answers.

"I'm sorry. She seemed like a good woman."

"She was an idiot."

"Leo, that hurts," Hazel said.

"Sorry," Leo mumbled.

"Why? For believing?" Percy asks.

"For taking on Gaea alone," Leo replies, walking towards Percy.

"She was doing her job," Percy protests.

"She was out of her league. She should have waited. She should have-"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Leo.

"Right, I've heard that before." Leo walks past him.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Percy asks, turning to face Leo's back.

Leo turns around sharply. "We are not soldiers!" he shouts. "I'm not marching to Chase's fife."

"Neither am I. She's got the same blood on his hands as Gaea does. Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Gaea needs a power source, if we can put together a list-"

Leo looks at the blood stained wall. "She made it personal."

"That's not the point," Percy protests.

"Leo, you're so off topic," Piper laughed.

"I'm ADHD! Not my fault," Leo protested.

"That is the point. That's Gaea's point. She hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Percy says.

"She had to conquer her greed, but she knows she has to take us out to win, right? That;s what she wants. She wants to beat us and she wants to be seen doing it. She wants an audience."

"That... actually made a lot of sense. Well done Movie Leo," Annabeth complimented.

Leo started to open his mouth, but Thalia spoke up first.

"Leo, don't say anything," she warned. He closed his mouth.

"Right, I caught her act at Stuttengard," Percy says.

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Gaea's a full-tilt diva. She wants flowers, she wants parades, she want a monument built in the skies with her name plastered..." Leo trailed off in realization. "Son of a bitch!"

"What?" the demigods asked.

"It must happen later," Annabeth said.