Alexa problems (PJO/Avengers crossover)

Chapter 9- Outsmarted by an Octopus

Here is the second half of the last chapter. 

Percy's POV

Percy really had wanted to stay to see if the man he pulled out of the fire was alright, but he had heard the commotion of reporters as they made their way to "the Great Iron Man" and Percy decided to skedaddle. He wished he could have met the man, but Percy knew that he seemed kinda suspicious.

After all, what's more suspicious than a boy who was charged for multiple acts of terrorism since he was twelve walking out of a burning building.

I wonder if the man had a family-

"Percy, would you mind telling the class what you got for question 35," Percy's teacher demanded , snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Wait, what?" Percy replied, head flying up from where it was resting on the desk.

" Would you tell the class what you got for question 35, the one we did as classwork." His teacher responded in a falsely patient voice.

"Oh, yeah, that." Percy shuffled around the paper strewn on his desk then picked one up and pretended to read off of it. It was better to look like you did the work and got a wrong answer than looking like you didn't do the work. The work that Percy had done none of. Percy glanced down at his blank paper again then looked up at the board, squinting at the long algebraic equation hoping an answer would magically pop into his head. When no answer was forthcoming, Percy went with his last resort.

" The answer is 57," Percy answered in a confident voice. Around him classmates traded confused glances and looked over their papers again, probably wondering why Percy's answer was so far off from theirs. His teacher gave a shake of her head then called on someone else. Percy let out a sigh.

Another crisis averted.

If Percy was lucky there would only be one other cold call today, if not there could be as many as five. At Midtown they expected everyone to be somewhat a genius or work really hard, unfortunately Percy was neither of these. Honestly the only reason he was in Midtown Highschool was because Annabeth got in, what felt like 200 hours of studying, and mostly one really smart octopus .

Flashback

Percy sat in the waiting area for the kids taking the exam to get into Midtown. Midtown only allowed five kids in the testing room at a time, something about "minimizing distractions in a working environment". Percy didn't believe that mumbo-jumbo , if you decided you wanted to apply for a fancy school like Midtown you weren't going to throw away that chance by doing something as idiotic as throwing a paper airplane at your friend during testing. The real reason they have you stew in that stupid waiting room for twenty minutes is to pick out the kids that don't really want to be there. If you don't really want to be there, by the time you have sat there twenty minutes stressing about your test you start to doubt whether you want to be there or not.

The other kids that were waiting with Percy were starting to show clear signs of nervousness. Even the ones that were most confident coming in were now pacing back and forth or mumbling complex math problems in their heads. One blond haired kid in the corner sounded like he was repeating the first 300 digits of pi then continued on to say the whole periodic table in order. This was just one of the reasons that Percy felt extremely foolish sitting in his chair flipping through flashcards on microeconomics. By the time a teacher in a blue sweater came out to call him in for the test Percy would have rather faced Gaea's army again then go into that room.

"You can sit anywhere as long as it is at least two seats away from another student." The teacher said as Percy and four other kids stepped into the classroom. Percy surveyed the room, noting the science posters on the walls and the cheesy motivational quotes above the white board, and eventually his eyes landed on a medium sized fish tank burbling in a corner.

Finally, something good Percy thought as he made a beeline for the fish tank, plopping down in the chair nearest to it. Turning to the fish tank Percy was greeted with a chorus of

"Hello, my lord."

In the fish tank swam a school of brightly colored fish. Percy groaned mentally, tropical fish personalities are exactly like how they look, neon. Unfortunately their IQ was not so bright. Percy had once asked a parrot fish where the nearest coral reef was and had to listen to the fish go on for hours about how her uncle lived in the coral reef before he was eaten by a shark. Percy had left knowing who the parrot fish's uncle's great grandfather was but not a clue how to get to the reef.

Percy glanced back up at the teacher wondering if he could ask to switch seats, but the teacher was already handing out tests and some kids had already started. It would have looked very suspicious if he moved now. The teacher gave him a test and Percy looked down at it and blanched. The paper was six pages long and right away Percy could see that there was no way in Hades that he was going to pass this test.

"Are you making marks on the white rectangle too, my lord?" A high pitched voice piped up from behind him. Percy turned to see a sunny yellow fish swimming in the front of the tank. "The landwalkers before you also made marks on paper, but they weren't very creative. Most of them made the same marks."

"Wait, you know the answers." Percy said, perking up, a few other students gave him confused glances and he changed his voice to a whisper. "Can you tell me what the person before me wrote on their paper?"

The fish adamantly bobbed it's tiny head up and down in the water. "Yes, my lord, I would be honored, thank you, my lord." Percy had a feeling that the fish would have gone on thanking him for the rest of the testing period, but he raised an eyebrow and the fish stopped thanking him.

"It was a line, my lord, followed by another line about a tails length away."

Percy did as the fish said and drew two lines.

"It's eleven!" Percy exclaimed looking down at what was written, "Eleven is the answer right?"

"No, No, No, there was more." The fish replied. "There was another line underneath that was shaped like this." The fish contorted itself into a curved shape and Percy drew it down on the paper.

"Then there was a circle around it."

" Is that it?"

"Yes."

Percy looked down at his drawing hoping to see a clear answer instead he was greeted by the grinning face of a smiley face. He groaned and banged his head on his desk producing a satisfying clunk. Of course the person before him liked to doodle and the fish was not smart enough to realize that a smiley face was not an answer.

"Did I do good, my lord." The fish questioned from within the tank.

"Sure." Percy replied and was about to give up on the test when a shy voice peeped up from the back of the tank.

"The answer is 57, my lord" The words came from a reddish octopus. Percy recognized the type as an Atlantic Pygmy Octopus. A spark of hope lit in his chest, if there was an octopus here he might actually have a chance and pass the entrance exam. Percy was right, time after time the tiny octopus answered each question without hesitation and when Percy turned in the test he was confident he got at least half the questions right.

Over the next couple weeks Percy waited on tooth and nail for a letter from Midtown. Finally it came, enclosed in a clean white envelope was a letter with the words inside, congratulations Percy Jackson, you have been accepted to Midtown Highschool.  

Quicksilver would have a lot of bugs hit him each time he ran because the bugs are everywhere and there is no way to dodge them. But he also needed to eat a lot to make up for the lost calories running so he could just eat the bugs.

What do you think of the chapter? In the next one it will get into the main plot of the story and Peter Parker will come in. I would love is you could tell me any constructed criticism or suggestion! Also if you have any good Percy Avengers crossovers, i need more to read. My favorite are the ones that Tony adopts Percy.