Pandemonium

Pandemonium.

That was the only word Tony could think of as he watched the battle unfold.

It was all a blur of humans and monsters. Clashing of colours and weapons.

They had followed the giant dog for barely a few steps when they were attacked by the weirdest combination of creatures and humans.

The Avengers fought valiantly, but they seemed to have surprisingly little to do. Their allies in armor had most of it handled. Even if they seemed to be about Tony's age or just a bit younger, they were all extremely light on their feet and fought like they were in their prime.

Most of them seemed like normal people fighting, but if you looked just a bit closely you'd see traces of magic.

The guys who looked like twins and the muscular woman's boyfriend ran a little too fast for it to be normal. The archer woman's quiver was always full no matter the number of arrows she used. The muscular woman's blows were a bit too powerful to be normal. Tony doubted a super soldier could punch people as hard.

The Levesque woman was a sight to behold. She fought valiantly, but all around her, gemstones glittered, floating around, catching the light of the sun, blinding her enemies and giving her openings to attack. Otherwise, they were shot towards her attackers like projectiles. Tony could see more than a few previous stones lying about after disintegrating monsters.

Levesque's boyfriend and Fierro were a different kind of weird altogether. Though they didn't seem to know each other, their powers were extremely similar. They changed shapes and morphed into various wild animals. Both of them were blurs of claws and teeth. He was sure he saw one of them turn into a swarm of bees at one point. He figured that the hippopotamus on the battlefield was one of the too.

One of the twins wives, Katie? was definitely controlling plants. She had partnered up with the grain goddess and was attacking the monsters using plant related stuff that Tony didn't care to know.

The other gods and goddesses were helping the armored people too. The archers, Apollo was supporting them. His brother, the delivery guy was assisting the fast running ones, and the flower goddess, Persephone? was helping Levesque.

A whole spectacle of their own was Kym, Percy's sister. She had an entire block covered with a deadly hurricane that seemed to leave nothing alive in it's wake. Rhode seemed to be the only thing standing between the mortals and imminent death. The monsters apparently didn't have brains so a lot of them got torn up by Kym's storm of a mixer grinder. Every creature with a brain though, was staying far far away from where Kym was. Even the other gods and goddesses.

Tony now had some idea of why the Avengers had gotten thoroughly ignored earlier. These people were all beasts on the battlefield. Hulk looked like a playschooler causing a tantrum compared to the power these people were displaying. He understood why people would consider them gods. They definitely had the power to show for it.

Unfortunately, the opposing side seemed to have power to match. The wave of monsters and humans didn't seem to be ending. For every monster they killed, for every human they knocked out, more took their place.

Their destination, wherever it was, was not very close, he thought, but the opposing army was slowing them down. Their team was barely inching forward.

Tony had hoped that having supposed gods and goddesses on the team would ease their way a little, but that was squashed too.

Apparently, there were Titans and other gods and goddesses that were on the opposite side.

He didn't care to find out though.

Tony just saw a lot of weird ass people. He decided to follow a very simple motto. If anyone or anything attacks you, fight it. But he soon came to the realisation that the monsters and the humans in the opposing army didn't seem to pay any mind to the Avengers. It was as if they weren't deemed important enough.

It was insulting, yes, but maybe that could be an advantage, Tony thought. He decided to fly forward and try to locate the place that the army seemed to be guarding. He told as much to his teammates on the comm and asked Friday to take him to the heart of the enemy resistance.

He would teach them a lesson for not respecting the saviors of the world.

-

Nico could only try to calm his rapidly beating heart as Wade tried to hack away at the binds on his legs. Miraculously, he could already feel the binds loosening up.

It was a good thing that the ones that entered the room had been Ares and Chrysaor.

Apparently, Ares had been assigned to relocate the demigods and the other captives, while Chrysaor had been asked to transport Percy to a new location. Nico wasn't surprised that Ares was a traitor. They must have had an insider if they managed to capture all these demigods from the camps.

But a small flare of hope had risen in Nico just then. If they were being relocated, the most likely reason would be that they had been found. A rescue mission was probably already underway.

Another advantage to their arrival had been that Chrysaor had left the door behind them open and it gave them the ability to speak again. They just had to find the right opportunities and use their time wisely.

"- trust you!"

"And you think I trust YOU!? You could be trying to save that wretched good-for-nothing brother of yours for all I know! And you claim to not trust ME!?"

"Oh come on, Ares. We both know your girlfriend's daughter's here." Chrysaor pointed an accusing finger at Piper. "You could be planning to bust her out for the sake of a night with her mother for all I know!"

"You're not even making sense!"

"I'M not making sense!? You're the one telling me that I'm trying to rescue Percy-fuckin-Jackson."

"You're just as dumb as ever, you know? He isn't a Jackson anymore. He's immortal, and an Olympian god. I bet you're jealous as fuck, cannibal."

"Oh, don't you go there, cousin." He spit out the last word like it's a curse.

"Uh oh, Chrysaor, looks like your jealousy's showing. You want to kill and eat any more of your siblings cos you're sad?" Ares mocked him.

Both of their weapons were drawn now, and a fight was definitely about to break out. They could use it to their advantage, Nico thought. He felt Wade move away from his legs and crawl back to the rest of his adult body.

In the beginning it had been easy to not laugh at Wade's form because no sound would come out of his mouth. But now, Nico was trying very hard not to laugh at Wade's adult head attached to a toddler's body.

"You're going to pay for this, Ares."

"Oh I see. You're gonna kill and eat me aren't you?" The war god laughed, boisterously. Nico winced at the volume.

The toddler with the giant head, was now scrambling back to Nico with an extremely sharp butterfly knife. Nico did not know how his toddler hands managed to cut through Nico's bounds, but he was soon free. He didn't stand up, though, because the now fighting immortals behind him would definitely notice of one the captives suddenly started walking around. He needed to buy some time so that the others could be released. He bent down and whispered as much to Wade, who seemed eager to help.

Within a minute, all of the captives were free to move, but they didn't.

Nico watched as Ares swiped at Chrysaor with his twin blades. The son of Poseidon expertly moved out of the way and tried to stab Ares with his sword instead.

Nico turned back to the people seated around the table and realised that they all seemed to be looking at him to do something.

"Come on, di Angelo." Rachel whisperer aggressively. "You're Percy's protegé. Whip out the leadership skills and get our asses out."

Well, he sure wasn't planning to defy the Oracle. But he didn't know what to do either.

He looked around them. Their weapons had been confiscated, but they had swords hanging over their heads.

It took him a second, but Nico knew what he wanted to do and it must have shown on his face, because the others grinned at him menacingly. Except Wade ofcourse, his grin made him look like a picture out of a horror story. Even though he seemed to be growing by the minute he still had an adult head and a 5 year old's naked body.

Wade would most likely not be able to keep up with them. So he'd have to be carried. Just a minor inconvenience, Nico thought, and got up from seat, smoothly grabbing the sword that had hung over his head.

-

Tony had only just started flying upwards when he noticed that a lot more people had joined their side of the fight.

There were girls in silver parkas, and people waving curved sticks around like wands. Even the supposed child of Loki now seemed to have other friends helping him/her. Tony decided not to question it as soon as he saw one of them with pointy elf like ears.

But what fascinated him the most was that the civilians seemed to mind their own business. They didn't seem to notice any of the magic going on. They weren't even looking at the Avengers. He will need to ask someone about that, he noted to himself.

By the time he had noticed all of this, he had flown well over the commotion and Friday had managed to locate the source.

The Washington Monument.

Huh?

WHAT!?

Tony looked around at all the monsters.

No way all of those were coming out of that obelisk of all things.

He looked a little closer, and sighed in relief. They weren't coming from the obelisk, but they were definitely guarding it.

It was quite a distance away from where they were fighting. At this rate, they'd only reach the monument in about an hour, but Tony and his team could reach there faster.

They could blend in with the civilians and get there undetected. The monsters didn't seem to care for them, and even the humans in the opposite group seemed to consider the fancy armor people more dangerous. Tony had to agree seeing the level of skill and power, but he was still a little bummed that the Avengers were being ignored.

He had learnt a lot of humility in the past couple of days.

He communicated his plan and started leading his teammates to the destination.

They had only been half way there when a sudden obstruction greeted them in the form of Hela, Thor's sister.

Oh, the amount of family drama in this place.

"Brother." She addressed Thor. "Look at you. Strolling along with mortals who should be begging at your feet." She ran a hand through her hair and they turned into pitch black horns.

"Pathetic." She said, and two very fancy looking swords sprouted out from her arms.

The Avengers readied themselves, waiting for her to attack. She did attack, but her eyesight seemed to be limited to Thor.

The Hulk hung back just in case Thor needed back-up. Besides, he wasn't the best at stealth, which would be necessary to enter an obelisk, undetected. If that was even possible. A giant green ball of muscle was not subtle in any way and would only be a hindrance.

So on marched Tony, Steve and the two assassins. Natasha kept glancing back at Hela, though. Tony was sure she was jealous . Those blades were definitely to Nat's taste.

But another thought crossed his mind. Thor had said Loki was adopted. But between the lean pale skin, the black hair and the love for green, Tony was pretty confused as to who was the actual adopted one.

He decided not to broach that topic in front of Thor.

After a couple of minutes, Tony realised that Apollo and Triton were marching alongside them too.

He decided to ignore them. Two can play this game, he thought.

But it irked him that they didn't acknowledge the Avengers presence. He understood that they were here for Percy. Even he was here for Percy. But if they were fighting together, isn't it common courtesy to acknowledge one another?

Bloody prideful supposed-gods, he thought.

So full of themselves.

Was this how people felt being around Tony?

Too much thinking, he thought and tried to shut down his brain, choosing to rely on Friday for everything.

Within minutes the rest of the Avengers and the two gods had surrounded the Washington Monument.

The obelisk was surrounded by what looked like thousands of monsters.

Apollo and Triton marched ahead and started hacking through the army with magnificent swords.

They were a sight to behold.

At some point Tony was sure he saw Apollo sitting on a tree and shooting down monsters. The man was in two places at once!

But he didn't have much time to dwell on that. The Avengers were fighting the monsters too, and weren't nearly as effective as the others.

The fight went on for what might have been an hour or two and the herd was beginning to thin a little. But they were tiring.

He sighed with relief when Kym arrived and engulfed the entire area in a hurricane, with them in the middle.

With the group now safely inside the hurricane, Triton turned to look at Apollo.

"Why are we here again?"

"To save my husband and son and a bunch of others!?"

"Ugh. Not that, you idiot. Why the Washington Monument?"

"Because it's probably their base of operations."

"And what makes you say that?"

"That's what it looked like from the sun chariot. And didn't you see all the monster security!?"

The sun what!? Tony was so confused. And Apollo seemed to used that moment of confusion to walk up in front of the group and push open the door.

That was supposed to have been Tony's moment.

Ugh.