They stumbled through the dingy space for a little longer until the slight, wavering flame on Leo's finger reflected off of something.
It was subtle, so much so that they were about to walk past it before the light caught it a second time.
The moment it did Lance was overcome with a sort of antsy feeling he was sure had been there the whole time, lying dormant,and had awoken from a deep slumber when he caught sight of just what had bounced back their meagre light source.
It was a lift.
A lift!
A way out!
He didn't give Jason, ever the sensible one, a chance to protest - Lance knew it could well be the worst choice possible but he was stagnating in that sewer and every moment he spent there felt like it made his mind floatier and his lungs lesscooperative - before grabbing his friends by their shirts with nimble fingers and hauling them over.
"Gah!Lance!" Piper protested, both bitter and amused as she shoved her hair out of her eyes so she could try to read the directory.
"Greek," she commented dryly "there's a mall…"
And that was all it took to have Lance forcefully directing them once again, almost as though it took him no effort at all to do so.
It took Piper a moment to realise where she was after.
One second the door closed behind them (when had they opened?), the next they began to move (when had Lance pushed the button?), the next she was squealing,yelling at Lance like she was angry even though that wasn't strictly true and there wasn't a person among them who didn't know that.
Lance responded to her banshee impression with one of the lopsided smiles that seemed to favour his face.
It was the slyest she had seen so far; she was unsure whether to laugh or shove him across the small space as hard as she could.
So she did both.
He stumbled to the floor, giggling with a high tenor that made her think of a young child.
She voiced that opinion and he responded with a mumble she didn't quite catch.
It could have been "Marco,".
She had half a mind to respond with "Polo," but chose to change the subject.
"So," the lift had stopped, the doors opening once again "why were you so excited about there being a mall?"
She watched him and Leo exchange a sort of mischievous glance she knew better than to trust.
She wondered if they truly knew just what they were signifying to each other - somehow, she didn't think their seeming telepathy was exact.
They answered in unison.
"They're a good place to have fun," she looked from one pair of twinkling eyes to another and sighed before giving in.
She let her eyes light up and her chapped lips pull wider until they hurt and she couldn't bring herself to care.
She felt a split second of apprehension behind her before Jason quickly and decisively clasped her hand in his, the apprehension dissipating.
He too broke out into a smile.
In that moment, that mere collection of seconds, meagre fragment of a minute, speck of a lifetime, captured in time that seemed to clasp it and refuse to let go,all was good and well and all else was forgotten.
But that juncture was merely that, and fell away as though it were an ice lolly melting off of its stick.
They stepped out of the elevator and, before any of them could comprehend it, were standing face to face with a woman.
She was somewhat older in appearance, though in the world of myth that was indicative of almost nothing at all,with dark hair that seemed to teeter on the thin border between black and brown and eyes of the same description.
Her face was pale yet flushed, her nose straight and her eyebrows flat and long, giving her the look of someone who is permanently concerned about something or other,a look that was only heightened by the shape and permanent split of her rose-coloured lips.
"Hello," she split her rose lips and let the word fall like a loose petal.
Piper felt her skin crawl and every cell in her shiver and attempt to scramble as far from the metaphorical petal as they could.
"I am the princess of Colchis."
Piper ran gently quivering hands over arms covered in gooseflesh before stealing a glance at her companions; she needed a confirmation that her unease was justified.
But she turned to her friends and saw no suspicion.
She saw faces of captivated people, complacent and at peace, unquestioning and so trusting.
And so damn stupid!
The princess spoke again with a voice like velvet - Piper hated velvet.
"Come with me," she encouraged with a subtle smile that didn't reach her eyes and a graceful hand gesture "I have a shop that I would like to show you."
Piper was screaming at herself to say no, to do what Lance did and grab her friends by their shirts and haul them to where she wanted them to be with as much force as necessary.
But she didn't do anything.
She gritted her teeth and followed, tense and with her hand resting on katoptris so she was ready to spring at any moment.
She watched her friends carefully, noting their sluggishness and the way that Leo's paces, usually high-kneed to compensate for his diminutive stature,made his old dirty work boots drag along the ground as though trailing lifelessly after him.
They continued in their path and each footstep caused further discombobulation amongst her internal organs.
Her heart was beating at the back of her throat, her bladder sitting by her ankle, her lungs wrapped awkwardly around her spine, her kidneys somewhere by her head,her brain broken up into many tiny particles that raced through her bloodstream.
She tried to swallow but her mouth was dry.
Her hand was already aching but she tightened her anxious grip on her weapon.
They rounded a corner and her heart stopped beating and, against her will, her hand fell lax to her side.
She mixed the sounds of a sob and a wail and a protest aa she fell to her knees, unable to blink.
By her side, her friends did not react to her nor what she had seen.
They stood, simple, mindless, unaffected.
She didn't notice the princess turn on her in malice as she just stared until her eyes burned and long after.
She hadn't seen him in awhile but she had never suspected he would look like this when they met again.
She had not really known if they would meet again and she so wished they hadn't.
Short but strong and loud and funny, coach Hedge, the satyr who had kept them as safe as he could in the school year in his own strange way, stood in a cage.
He was confined to a small space and a small moment that never ended as he was trapped, arms out, goat legs bent and braced, grip tight on a weapon he was about to draw,in a frozen state Piper didn't think she could break if she tried.
She shook and stared at the satyr's cloven hooves until she saw a shadow come over her, casting her into darkness.
With red eyes she was sure awful Drew Tanaka would get a great kick out of if she saw and a raw throat that couldn't hope to charmspeak anyone, she looked up.
It was the princess, looming above her like some sort of demon.
Her eyes glinted and her mouth split into a wide smile that was somewhat maniacal.
She allowed her sinister intentions to dance across her face, once beautiful but now anything but, and put on a show.
Despite her clear ill-intent, the princess made no move to harm Piper.
She just looked down at her, imposing a sense of threatening superiority but nothing more.
In fact, she appeared amused, possibly even impressed.
"Well done," even the voice was different, changed from a smooth velvet to a smooth slime which Piper hated to admit she actually liked better.
At least she wasn't trying to hide the fact that there was a beast inside of that sweet-looking frame.
"You resisted my charm speak," her hands knitted together "well done.
Daughter of Aphrodite,"
Piper didn't ask how she knew who she was.
She struggled to choke out words and was in no mood to waste them.
"Who are you?" she tilted her head up and hoped her eyes weren't too puffy to be intimidating.
She forced herself up onto her unstable knee before sluggishly pulling herself up onto her feet,moving slowly as she was over aware of the protests of joints and muscles that wanted little more than to weep and sob and settle into one position and stay that way until her body stuck like coachHedge's.
She got no answer.
The princess screwed up her straight nose, her upper lip twitching, as she kept her venomous tongue tied and turned her back on Piper as though the quaking girl were little more than an insignificant pebble upon the pavement.
The enchantress' gaze fell upon the boys, still zombie-like and temporarily brain-dead, and her smile widened.
Piper couldn't see her face but she could sense danger growing more and more imminent.
The panic coursed through her and a sudden influx of anxiety sent her brain into overdrive - for the first time in her memory she was glad for the generally unpleasant feeling.
Every thought on every topic that was relevant in that moment raced into her head and she forced herself to filter them.
She pushed aside everything she could dismiss and focused on that which she couldn't until her head was pounding and her vision was becoming fuzzy.
Then the conclusion came to her and she had to stifle a gasp at her realisation as reality came rushing back to her.
At first everything was a jumble, both auditory and visual aspects of the surroundings forming a mush that slowly pulled itself apart into individual items.
"My beautiful boy," Piper hated the sound of the princess' voice and wanted nothing more than to rip her sharp pale nails away from Lance's smooth-skinned face "what a shame that this weapon you have here," her hand stayed at his face, resting on his sharp jaw, while her other traced the shape of the rifle he concealed beneath fabric "is so incompatible with those wielded by your wonderful friends.
It's a real shame that I won't get to see you at your best," she stuck out her bottom lip like a spoiled child as she procured a sword from what appeared (to Piper at least) to be nowhere.
She handed the blade to Lance who took it without question.
His arms barely moved under the heft of the sword as he shifted it to a comfortable fighting position.
Piper hated that he seemed to have a sort of instinct with the weapon, that he looked so capable when he wasn't his goofy, kind, friendly, helpful self.
He looked so capable when he was essentially a minion of a force that worked against everything that she stood for, that he stood for.
"Now, my wonderful boys," draw your weapons," Piper heard the sound of Jason's coin switching into a weapon.
She didn't look to see which form it had taken.
Instead, she turned her eyes on Leo and didn't see him.
He was there, sure, but, at the same time, he was anywhere but.
That was Leo's body: his tiny frame, odd fashion sense, magical tool belt, hammer, pointed ears, unruly curls, sharp eyes.
But it wasn't Leo - there was no humorous glint in his eyes, no smile playing at his lips, no asymmetric pose of a person who doesn't take themselves seriously.
She gulped as the boys began to move.
After only a single step she called out as loud as her strained larynx allowed, voice loaded with so much charmspeak she could taste it.
"Stop!
She's Medea!"