Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Marvel, I only own my OC.

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FOURTEEN

Everything is Totally and Completely Under Control

The end of the last chapter:

She did find another sitting room though, with big windows facing a green lawn. Alyssa walked over to the window to get a closer look.

And... Of course. There was a monster heading her way. A minotaur, by the looks of it. Alyssa could see it coming out of some trees about a hundred yards away.

"Koprophagos," she muttered, turning away from the window and running into the hallway.

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"JARVIS, where's the front door?" She asked.

He lead her there, struggling to say instructions fast enough to match Alyssa's pace.

She got to the front door within minutes.

"Open it, please," she said, breathing hard.

"I'm not sure-"

"Please! Ask Tony, if you need to."

There was a few seconds pause. Alyssa just wanted the door to be open. She wanted to stop the minotaur before it started destroying things, and wasn't sure if there were people around for the minotaur to hurt.

"Mr. Stark is on his way," JARVIS said as the door swung open.

"Thanks!" Alyssa ran outside.

She slowed her pace to a jog to conserve energy as she tried to figure out where the minotaur was.

She saw it by some trees about fifty yards away. No one was around. The minotaur was heading her way quickly, his eyes zeroed in on Alyssa.

Alyssa had never fought a minotaur before. She had seen him during the Battle of Manhattan, but Percy had taken care of it, and Percy had been invincible and had water powers.

She had gone over how to fight it in camp of course, but when it comes to monster fighting studying can only get you so far.

She knew that it was stupid and not very fast, and its only weapons were its hands. That was about it.

She wasn't worried though. She didn't have time for it. She was already plotting her next move, mind racing at a mile a minute.

She ran towards it, bringing the fight to him. The further he was from the Avengers compound, the better. Alyssa didn't know how soon Tony would be there, or if he would bring other Avengers, but she hoped the minotaur didn't like fighting mortals. There weren't many monsters that would purposely hurt a mortal, especially if there was a demigod around, but she didn't want to push it. She had gotten lucky enough with the hellhound.

Alyssa grabbed her sword from her belt, grasping the hilt tightly. She ran faster, acting like she was planning on stabbing the minotaur from the front.

The minotaur bellowed loudly and increased his pace. His hands were held out wide, ready to smack Alyssa aside. His huge meaty palms looked like they could do a lot of damage. Alyssa swallowed.

Just as she was within sword range of him, she turned right a little, running past him. His hands closed on empty air. His huge cow eyes narrowed in rage, but he was too slow to get her.

Fast as lightning, she turned and stabbed him in the back. He roared, swiping at her, and she got away just in time. Her stab hadn't done much damage. He had slowed down some, and his gait was a little funny, but mostly he was just annoyed.

Alyssa cursed. She was tiring already and knew she didn't have it in her to do that another ten or so times. She could always blast him with her light powers, but it wouldn't kill him, and her powers took energy. She also didn't have very good control of them.

She slowed a little as she continued towards the trees. He was following her with a relentless malice.

Readying herself, Alyssa leaped into the nearest tree. She wasn't very good at climbing trees, but with enough determination, it wasn't very hard. She wasn't exactly scaling it though, more like simply propelling herself upwards as fast as she could. Tree branches scraped her arms and face, but she ignored it.

Once she was about ten feet up, she stopped, trying to balance her weight. It was as high as she dared go, and she was already a bit too high for comfort.

It was then that Alyssa realized she didn't have a plan.

"Kèpfos," she muttered. (Stupid)

You know how people have a flight-or-fight reflex? Alyssa had a flight reflex. A very big one. If she lost focus during a fight or wasn't sure what to do, and her brain went on autopilot, she would be running before she even realized it. Often she ended up in a tree.

It had been somewhat useful in the past, and also very inconvenient at times, but normally it was fine since she would just use her bow and shoot at the monster from the tree.

But now the only bow she had was the one from Apollo, and she didn't want to use it in case the Avengers saw her using it. They would probably realize that the lyre charm also functioned, and she would lose the element of surprise if she ever needed to use the lyre to get out of a situation. She also didn't want them to know the extent of power-imbued weapons and magic.

The minotaur started shaking the tree.

Alyssa gave a small yelp and held on even tighter to the branches.

It was in moments like these that she was forced to consider her life choices. Though, Alyssa had always been good at bottling up her problems and moving on.

She hoped she would be able to jump out of the tree. The ten feet between her and the ground and the shaking of the tree said otherwise.

So, she mentally prepared herself, positioned herself to be as close to the minotaur's face as she could, pointed one of her hands at the minotaur, and gave it all she had.

Her palm glowed, as hot as she could get it to. She swung down a few branches, getting even closer.

The minotaur bellowed. He was stunned enough that he didn't react long enough for Alyssa to lower herself out of the tree completely and stab him in the chest. She would've gone for the head, but he was covering his face with his massive hands.

Then she stabbed him in the foot and ran.

Her breathing was shaky, and she had a pain in her side, but she was very experienced at pushing her body to the limits and it didn't bother her very much.

The minotaur was still following her, but he was going pretty slow, thanks to his back injury, chest injury, and foot injury. He looked like he was running off of sheer anger, whereas Alyssa was running off of sheer adrenaline. And one of those was running out pretty quickly.

Just as Alyssa was seriously considering using her awesome new bow to shoot that metrokoites in the face, Tony showed up.

"Whoa. A real minotaur!" He exclaimed, coming to land next to her in his iron suit.

Alyssa turned to face the minotaur, standing next to Tony.

He held up a palm and blasted it. Whatever he was shooting out of his suit seemed to go straight through the minotaur.

Tony sighed and lowered his hand. "Well, it was worth a try."

The minotaur stared blankly at his chest, where he had been blasted. Then he looked up, glared at Alyssa and Tony, and growled menacingly.

"Um, how do we kill it?" Tony asked.

The minotaur roared again and started limping towards them quickly.

Alyssa took a deep breath, pushing her tiredness as deep as she could. "I kill it. And I just need a second."

Tony turned to her, but before he could say anything, Alyssa steadied her sword and jogged towards the monster.

This is stupid, she thought. I don't want to die like this.

She ran to the minotaur, dodged his huge hands, and dived between his legs. She was tired enough that the dive was more like a stumbly slide, but it did the trick. Then she hoisted her sword above her and stabbed where the sun don't shine.

Not very elegant or impressive, but it is what it is.

The minotaur howled loud enough to be heard from a mile away. Alyssa winced. She hoped no one came to investigate.

While he was momentarily distracted, she leaped up and stabbed him in the back, in the same spot she had last time.

The minotaur howled again, and swung his hand around angrily, trying to hit her. He was in too much pain to aim very well, but he was still making an effort.

Unfortunately, Alyssa was too slow. His hand hit her chest and she was thrown to the floor.

She sat up groggily, then flung herself to the floor as the minotaur tried again to hit her. She rolled out of the way and jogged/stumbled back over to Tony, who had moved a bit closer and was watching the fight with interest.

"Did that go well?" He asked.

The minotaur started limping over, in a lot of pain but still furious.

"Not really. But it went better than I expected."

"What's the plan now?"

Alyssa hefted her sword. She quickly went through the basics- was she hurt? Not really, but she was bruised from being thrown to the ground and scratched from the tree. Was she tired? Yes. She was weak and a little dizzy. Would she be able to use her light powers? Maybe. She might be able to once, but it would leave her exhausted, if not passed out. Could she use her music powers? Yes, but it wouldn't be very strong, because she would just be using her voice. She couldn't think of any useful songs, because she didn't need to slow him down, since he was already limping, and slowing him down would use too much energy and not do much anyway since it would simply be stalling. And she wouldn't be able to summon enough power to kill him with only her voice. He was slow and stupid, so she needed something to distract him so she could get close to him and stab him in the chest. But what?

"Erm, I'll figure it out," Alyssa told Tony.

The minotaur was nearing closer.

Tony turned to her. "Are you sure? If you can't take him, we can figure something else out."

Alyssa was focused on the minotaur. She was still rushing through the ways she might be able to kill him. She was barely paying attention to Tony.

"I can take him," she assured him absentmindedly. She didn't have time to waste on doubt. Either she would kill the minotaur or not.

Alyssa started moving quickly, edging around the minotaur. He followed her, but was too slow to ever catch up.

When Alyssa figured she had tired him out enough that he would be easier to take down (she was sure his foot was really, really painful by now) she turned around and ran at him head-on.

She dodged his hands and stabbed him in the leg.

As she had hoped, he was slow enough to deal with, though she would still have to be careful. She would also have to be quick because if he got mad enough he might be able to summon enough energy to do some real damage.

She started weaving around his arms, stabbing him whenever she got the chance. The fight took much longer than it should have, but at this point, both Alyssa and the minotaur were just doing the best they could manage.

After a few minutes, Alyssa felt brave enough to give it all she had, leaping at him and shoving her blade in as deep in the center of his chest as she could.

The minotaur let out a colossal roar.

Alyssa gritted her teeth and twisted her blade.

The minotaur dissolved into golden dust that seemed to blow away in the nonexistent wind.

Sighing, Alyssa put her sword back in her sheath, shoved her hair out of her face, and stumbled over to Tony.

Tony didn't even try to hide the fact that he'd been filming her. He fiddled with his phone screen, turning the video off, then slid the phone in his pocket.

Alyssa hoped that footage didn't get in the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D., but there was nothing she could do about it now. If it did become a problem she could always ask Apollo to get rid of it.

Tony was grinning. "Awesome! I can't believe I just witnessed a monster attack!"

"You'll get used to it, I assume."

Tony looked at her. "How often do monster attacks usually happen?"

"Not a ton. If you're traveling to a new place, the monsters in the area will smell you and come, hoping for easy prey. But monsters don't usually travel, they just chill out wherever they end up, so if you stay in the same place there won't be new ones often. Unless you use technology, which is like sending up a flare."

"Will being in a building full of technology have the same effect?"

"Not sure. Guess we'll see."

Tony looked her over, taking in the scratches on her arms, hands, and face. "You look like you were in a car crash."

"I'm fine."

"Let's get you inside anyway."

The face mask on Tony's suit dropped down. Without asking, he scooped her up in his arms and took off, flying towards the facility.

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Hello! So sorry for the long wait. School picked up, and also my dad fell off of a ladder. He's fine, but he broke his wrist. I've been helping him, and also doing a lot of things that he can't do anymore, like walking and playing with our dog a lot, doing extra chores, picking up my brother from school, and doing a lot of yardwork. I've been pretty stressed lately, but it's nothing I can't handle. I hope you guys are doing well! Your support means so much. I hope your Thanksgiving was good, and happy December!