Things are brewing in Manhattan. Monsters are gathering, the Mist is weakening, and SHIELD is getting suspicious.
Aura Davis was hoping for some peace. After the Battle of Manhattan and Giant War, things are finally settling down. She recently bought an apartment in Hell's Kitchen and got a job at Starbucks, and is trying to figure out what to do with her life. She definitely never asked for mortals getting all up in her business. But she's got a few tricks up her sleeves as well.
Also knives. She's got a lot of knives.
Chapter 1: Destroyer
You know that feeling when you're being chased through the streets of Manhattan by a huffy empousa, bleeding heavily from a wound on your arm and exhausted due to lack of sleep, clearly doing fine, and some Avenger decides to intervene?
No? That's probably for the best.
"Metrokoites!" Aura cursed.
"Can I help you?" Captain America had caught up to her impressively fast.
"Nope, all good here."
"Spawn of the sun god! Your stalling does you no good!" The empousa yelled, a few yards behind them.
Aura was sure that she was almost ready to actually attack the empousa.
Well. Mostly sure.
The problem with demigod fights is that if you can't gain an advantage almost immediately, your only options are to do your best and hope you come up with something mid-battle or to take off running and hope you come up with something while on the move.
So far, nothing had seemed like a decent idea other than continuing to run.
"Are you positive that you don't need help? There seems to be a problem," Captain America said.
Aura didn't know what he saw through the Mist, but he did seem to notice that she was running for her life, which was more than the other mortals she passed had noticed.
Or the mortals just hadn't cared. This was New York, after all.
"I am completely positive," Aura said, panting slightly and glancing back at the empousa, who had a murderous look in her glowing red eyes. Empousai have one metal leg and one goat leg, which, aside from looking stupid, make a ridiculous noise while running.
ClunkClopClunkClopClunkClopClunkClopClunkClop…
She was extremely close to just turning around and battling it out with the empousai here and now.
Captain America refused to drop the matter. He didn't even seem fazed by the fact that they were both still running.
Maybe he often had conversations at ten miles per hour?
"It'd be no trouble to help get you to safety, or-"
He hazily squinted at the gash on her arm, which was still dripping blood and stung like Hades.
"...whatever you need. A hospital?"
"No, no hospital. It just needs a bandaid."
His confused look softened as he stopped trying to see through the Mist.
"Alright. Have a good day, young lady."
"Um. You too."
Captain America slowed to a halt and gave her a small, polite wave as she sped up and turned the corner.
The empousa growled and pushed past a group of humans.
"I will destroy you!"
"Really? I thought you just wanted a chat!" Aura snarled back sarcastically.
The sheer audacity of every monster she came across never ceased to amaze her.
Aura ducked into an alley.
Why not, really? Something had to be done to finish this fight off. She wasn't going to come up with a better idea.
Aura took a deep breath and slid her kopis from its sheath as quietly as possible, tightening her grip on the sword. She could hear the empousa rapidly approaching.
ClunkClopClunkClopClunkClopClunkClopClunkClop
"Where are you, young half-blood?"
As the empousa reached the entrance of the alley, Aura stepped forward, dropped into a crouch, and swung her kopis into the empousa's goat leg, cutting it off at the knee.
The empousa wailed and fell on her butt. In the second it took for her to discern where Aura was and try to slice her with her sharp talons, Aura's sword was buried in the empousa's chest.
The empousa exploded into gold dust that dissolved before it landed on anything.
Aura's uneven grin bordered on deranged. She hadn't expected that to go so well.
She sheathed her sword. That handled, now she would have to clean and bandage the gash on her arm.
But first, coffee.
Hi! I do have plans going forward, but it'll take a while because I want it to progress naturally. This story is also posted on AO3 under the name AsexualAntari. If you have any criticisms or suggestions I would love to hear them, I want to work on my writing style and characterization so honesty is greatly appreciated. I know show-don't-tell is an important writing rule, but I have a lot of further information that would be hard to convey through the story, like my interpretation of how the Mist works, how demigod powers work (they change over the course of Rick's three Greek mythology series, so clarification is important), and other general information. I think I'm going to include it in the beginning of the next chapter, so we're on the same page storybuilding-wise.