Assembled: Earth's Last Heroes (A Riordanverse and MCU crossover)

Chapter 16: Reyna

Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano was seven years old.

She was hiding with her big sister, Hylla, under the giant dining table in the manor in San Juan, watching her father in another one of his drunk rages. He screamed in anger and started throwing goblets and plates around, shattering them into a million pieces.

Reyna trembled from underneath the table. Her sister Hylla has described her father as gentle and nice before Reyna was born, but looking at this monster now, she could not imagine him hugging her daughters and reading them bedtime stories. The war had changed him, and she wasn't sure if he was even human anymore.

"No! Dad! Stop!" shouted Hylla, emerging from underneath the table.

Her father saw her, and narrowed his eyes. "You don't deserve to live," he growled to Reyna's sister, and threw a chair at her. It connected with a sickening crack, and as Hylla collapsed to the floor, Reyna could've sworn her father was glowing, becoming more and more transparent, less and less human, if he were ever human to begin with at all. Around her, the evil spirits of her house swirled and whispered treachery and secrets until she just....couldn't take it anymore. She grabbed the nearest weapon, the Pirate Confresi's sabre, and swung it will all her might towards her father, barely a man anymore, her father whom she had grown to despise...

The dream changed.

All of a sudden, she was back at Circe's island resort, helping out with her sister. For once, she felt at peace. She was even...happy.

Then, a girl with blonde curls and a boy with deep sea-green eyes came and changed everything. Suddenly she was on a pirate ship, forced to serve Blackbeard and his crew. But they escaped, and she had to say goodbye to her beloved sister and find her own path.

That was how she ended up in Camp Jupiter, as a praetor, finally in a place where she was free and truly happy. She had friends, a family, a home. The Gaea quest was over, and through it she had found a new family with the Seven, Nico and Hedge. Beside her stood Jason Grace, her former fellow praetor and best friend, watching the sunset in Camp Jupiter just like they used to. But she felt no resentment towards his new family, because they were also her family now. And finally, everything was as it should have been.

Now Camp Jupiter was as she had left it, a smoking ruin of ash and flame. She was at the hands of a monster, and the announcement still echoed through her mind and soul, taunting her, torturing her: Jason Grace is dead. What was there to live for now?

Then she remembered, that before everything had turned to Hades, when everyone and everything had started turning to ash, her fellow praetor Frank had led the legion down a set of tunnels that Hazel Levesque had opened, designed to get them out of camp safely. Only Reyna and a few other select demigods had stayed behind to protect the camp, realising that there was no way they would get out of this alive if they had all stayed. They had promised to meet up with each other outside the border, but Reyna had told Frank that if she and the others couldn't make it, they should have gone on without waiting for them, go to Camp Half-Blood. She was right. And now she dearly hoped that they had truly gone on without her, because if they hadn't the results might have been disastrous. All those who had stayed behind with her was dead.

Why wasn't she dead as well?

Reyna snapped awake.

Bright light pierced her eyes and she winced, shielding her eyes with her hands. Slowly, her vision cleared and when the bright spots cleared, she saw that she was lying in what felt like a cloud. She sat up and quickly examined her surroundings. She was in what looked like a massive laboratory the likes of which she had never seen before. Surrounding her was bizarre technology like she'd never seen before, and everything felt like it was from a science-fiction movie. She touched the spot where the monster who called himself Ebony Maw had fatally wounded her, and was stunned to find that it was fully healed. Nothing remained of the pain and injuries she has sustained from the fall of Camp Jupiter. Her instincts told her she was safe, but her mind refused to let her believe it until a voice snapped her out of the trance-like state of thought she had entered herself into.

"Hey, kid. What are you doing here?"

She turned to find on the bed next to hers was a strangely familiar person. He smiled at her, black eyes crinkling, but underneath those black eyes she could see a haunted man. She suddenly realised where she had seen that face before--it was constantly on the news. 

She didn't know whether he could be considered a friend or an enemy, but she decided she had to be careful. "Where...where are we?"

The man smiled ruefully. "Wakanda. They've apparently been posing as a third-world country this whole time to hide all the amazing tech they've got here. They even say my suit is primitive. Pssh, I'd like to see them try to upgrade my suit to make it like they say they will. I'm Tony, by the way."

He sounded cheerful, but there was definitely a hint of sadness behind that. Tony seemed open and honest, which Reyna usually found was deceptive, but something about this man made Reyna believe she could trust him.

"Reyna. How long have you been in here?"

"Only two days. Thor brought you in last night."

Last....night? But that doesn't make sense...how could the wounds have healed so quickly? Her hand subconsciously went to the faint, jagged outline of a scar where Maw had cut her on the stomach.

Tony noticed this and his smile instantly vanished. "That looks painful, but there's nothing a little Wakandan science can't fix, I suppose. You looked much worse last night. At least the worst of it has gone away."

"How did you end up in here?"

Tony sighed. Tears brimmed in his eyes. "It's a long story. I could be asking you the same question."

With that, reality hit Reyna like an Imperial Gold sword cutting into her soul. Almost everyone as she knew it was dead or gone and her home was destroyed, and it was just too much to take in. She doubled over and couldn't stop the tears from falling and falling and falling.

Tony immediately tried to get up, but grimaced in pain. He wheeled his bed towards Reyna and said softly, "Kid. It's alright. I'm sure you've been through hell and back, and I can tell you from personal experience that it's better to just let it all out than to keep it in. It's okay to cry."

"I'm sorry. I...My home is gone, and...we were attacked. By...aliens?" Her brain still struggled to process the information. "They were led by someone who called himself a 'child of Thanos'. I think his name was Ebony Maw." Her sadness hardened into anger at the mention of that cursed name. She wanted revenge on the monster that had destroyed her home.

All the colour instantly drained from Tony's face. "Did you just say Ebony Maw? Ugly guy, extremely uncanny resemblance to Squidward, crazy powerful?"

Reyna stared at him, suspicion returning. "You...know him?"

"Oh, definitely." grumbled Tony. "I fought that dumb jerk in New York. Stowed onto his ship. I thought we killed him, I'm pretty sure no one survives the vacuum of space unless you're some kind of god like Thor. But now his sorry face is back, which just means we get the pleasure of killing him all over again. I guess I should have expected that since Thanos, well..."

That made no sense to Reyna, but she was glad to find that Tony was on her side. "What of Apollo? And Thor?"

"They went to your camp to rescue you, I guess." replied Tony, clearly as in the dark about the recent turn of events as she was. "All I know is that they showed up here last night, requesting you get immediate medical assistance, which you obviously needed. Glad to see Thor again, though, although he looks really different, but that does improve his overall level of attractiveness. Anyways, yeah, he showed up with this scrawny guy who claims he's the Greek god Apollo--"

"He is. That's another very long story."

"And there was also this girl who was about twelve, I think? But she looks like she's capable of taking down the universe. Might want her on the Avengers, after...." His face clouded over with sadness and deep regret, and Reyna decided not to push it.

Just then, the double doors to the lab opened and Thor strode in. He looked a little worse for wear, but his face lit up when he saw Reyna and Tony. "You're awake."

"Hey, Big T," grinned Tony, holding his hand up for a high-five.

"I told you not to call me that," grumbled Thor, but his different-coloured eyes glimmered as he reciprocated the high-five. He turned to Reyna and offered her a smile. "Come. We have much to discuss. The Avengers and everyone else are waiting in the council room."