CHAPTER TWO: Everything Was Not Fine

Piper had enough sense to follow them as they left. She went out the back way, picking up her things, taking only one look back at the group of actors because she couldn't handle answering questions if they wanted to ask them. What just happened? Why did this happen? Why was Piper just in the wings? What did she know about this? Why didn't she stop this from happening in the first place? Piper couldn't even answer these herself.

Outside, someone had called emergency services and they were just arriving to the scene. Mariana, the director, was speaking forcefully with a policeman. Mariana couldn't really speak any other way. Ambulances came and went, depending on injuries – Piper was surprised to see that there were many. The exit she'd taken had been at the side of the theatre that hadn't collapsed. Well. The director had been looking for an excuse to renovate this whole time –

Piper stopped herself. She was already a block away from the theatre, the two fighters ahead of her, but she felt ashamed at her own train of thought. This was the university's only theatre, the one Mariana had been working in for twenty years. When she wanted renovations, it was for the good of the theatre community. So they could eat properly without having the seats as the dining area. And she wanted a parking lot with better lighting, so the students felt safe walking out late at night. Piper frowned, clenching her fists in her hands. She made a mental note to help out with fixing the theatre, after she sorted out this first mess.

Thankful for the cover of night, she followed the fighters as they spoke, wishing, hoping, they weren't trained enough to notice she was there. It didn't look like it. They carried on like two regular students who hadn't just fought a couple of storm spirits. The guy had taken out his sword, holding it against his shoulder as he strutted down the road, no one taking notice of him. The Mist shifted in Piper's eyes: it did look like a violin.

Now that she had a better look at them, she noticed the details in their clothes. Both of them wore jeans, jackets, inconspicuous on-trend shirts, but then what she thought was a fashion vest were actually rib protectors. Their knees and elbows had protective padding too. The girl had what looked like golf gloves, and the guy had wrappings around his hands like a boxer.

She made sure to keep at least half a block's distance from them, not taking her eye off them for one second.

She followed them for almost thirty minutes. The pair stopped at a diner to buy food, and then went back to the diner after the girl realised she wanted ice-cream. They didn't stop until they finally hit an apartment building, and Piper could no longer follow them inside. The building was old, paint peeling off the brick, and the glass of the windows in the tiny foyer were cracked. The foyer only had room for a wall of mailboxes, and then three doors. One of them had 'BASEMENT' on it, the other had '1', and the other was an elevator, with the sign 'NOT WORKING'. The fighters went up the flight of stairs in the back corner.

Piper hurried. She looked around either side of the building for fire-escapes, and saw the figures of the fighters moving up the stairs, their silhouettes lit dimly by staircase lights. Slinging her bag over her shoulder and hoping it wouldn't fall, Piper climbed a dumpster and reached up for the apartment building's fire-escape. She was surprised to find her body didn't completely hate her as she pulled herself up with ease. Weeks of training by fighting against storm spirits had done her some good.

She paused again, sitting against a ledge to catch her breath.

No, it was not good. Look at what she'd done. Look at what she'd brought upon an innocent theatre. An annoying theatre. But an innocent one, no less.

Piper huffed as she continued climbing, catching up to the floor that the fighters had stopped at. Fifth floor. She made sure to keep her movements slow so she wouldn't cause any creaking noises on the fire-escape that looked like it could collapse any second.

She waited for them at the fire-escape window, not so grateful that it was thrown wide open. She had to press herself against the wall so they wouldn't see her, as they flipped on the light and began to talk:

"Listen, next time it's my turn to say something – I thought we agreed we weren't going to say anything at all," said the girl. Piper heard the clang of the sword and sheath being laid on the kitchen table.

The guy laughed. "Yeah, but what's the point of doing this whole thing if we can't drop a line every now and then? You know – like a catch-phrase."

"Something better than Latin."

"Hey, Latin's cool, did you see the look on their faces? Shock and awe, Mags. Shock and awe. They respected us."

There was a short pause. The clinking of glass. Pouring of water.

"But…do you think they're okay?" the guy continued. "Should we…I dunno, stay a little longer? Make sure they're all right and stuff? Answer their questions –"

"Maybe," the girl, Mags, said. "We'll just have to think about that more. How much we say, what we say…"

"Batman never stayed to answer questions."

Mags chuckled. "Superman did."

"But we're not trying to be Superman," the guy pointed out. Piper's lips twitched at the mention of Superman. "We don't have that kind of luxury. Can't just fly off as soon as we're done. We're lucky no one got wise enough to follow us or something. Which means…"

"No, no, no –"

The conversation moved to another room, but with no more fire-escape to go to, Piper just inched closer to the window, lifting it a little to still hear what was happening. So they were just mortals.

"…but I'm thinking if we're gonna keep doing this, we should go public somehow," the guy said. "Even just anonymously. Those things are out there and we can't always be there to stop them, and if people at least know that there are monsters –"

"Riley, that didn't work out well, the last time –"

"Are you talking about the video?"

Piper's ears pricked up. A new voice. One she recognised. There was a pause, and her heart began to race.

"I told you I liked it." Alex May. Freaking Alex May. Piper's hand gripped her dagger tighter. "And it's a good way to honour him but Mags is right, we have to think about it more. And we have to time it right. We have to make sure that…that this is even a good thing to do." Alex's voice was coming closer to the kitchen, from whatever corner of the apartment she'd emerged from. Piper backed-up to her earlier hiding spot. "Maybe you can call your Grandpa. Ask his opinion."

"What, seriously?" Riley grumbled.

All three voices were coming back to the kitchen now.

"What? Nonno's gonna say 'no', you know this. We'd have better luck talking to the Greeks about it."

"Why don't you ask the one in the window, then?"

After being dragged out of the fire-escape, scratching Riley in the arm with her dagger, kicking at Mags' face, and dropping her tote bag in the sink, Piper could think of nothing but committing murder.

The three mortals had her tied up to the armchair in the lounge, an old leather one with a hole along the seat that had the foam poking through. Piper struggled against the ropes that kept her there. And the cloth around her mouth. She'd barely had enough time to speak before Alex covered Piper's mouth with her hand.

She'd seemed to struggle with what to say, being the one to keep Piper's mouth closed as they dragged her to the lounge. Alex decided on simply saying: "Sorry." She kept Piper down as Riley and Mags wrapped the ropes around her chest to the chair, and then her ankles to the short legs of the chair. At least her arms were still free. When everything was done, Riley and Mags sat on the long couch opposite her, but Alex May went back to the kitchen table, just a little behind the long couch, looking embarrassed.

She still had the regular clothes she had on for the day: a hoodie and track-pants, her already short, choppy hair pulled back with a hairband. It accentuated her face more, the sad look in her features as she watched Piper tied in the chair.

It was in stark contrast to the sharp, accusing look of Mags. Mags was tanned, with dyed-blonde hair, closer to gold than blonde, and she had it tied in a loose bun, strands of hair framing her sharp face. Riley had jet-black hair and lighter skin, with a long nose, freckles across his face, and thick eyebrows that took over his face and revealed exactly how he was feeling. Mags' eyebrows were furrowed, analysing Piper, while Riley's eyebrows were more relaxed, simply observing her. His eyes betrayed a slight twinkle; he found this fascinating. Piper noticed a bandage around his arm, where she'd scratched him with Katoptris.

And now all four faced each other.

"Alex says that you have this power," Mags began, "that means you can manipulate people with your voice. Like a siren. So you understand why we…" she gestured at Piper's covered mouth.

Piper shrugged.

"But we also know that kind of makes things difficult. Conversation-wise." Riley looked to Mags and Alex, looking for confirmation. "So we're gonna talk first. Explain ourselves. Let you know that we don't mean you any harm."

Piper snorted. When none of them continued talking, just waiting, she tilted her chin to point at Alex May.

Alex's shoulders sank, shrinking into herself. Her shoulders already being so broad, it looked ridiculous in Piper's eyes. She was guilty. Of course she should be ashamed. Piper didn't know yet what she was guilty of, but she would find out.

"I'm not a demigod," was the first thing Alex said, her voice almost like a squeak. She cleared her throat. "None of us are. Except for the guy who raised Riley. But he's not even here, so that doesn't really count –" she stammered.

"He's a legacy from Camp Jupiter," Mags intervened, her voice calm compared to Alex's jitters. "That's how we know about all this stuff. He's the one who gave us the swords." She jutted her thumb behind her at the table, the shining imperial gold weapons in full display. Katoptris and her celestial bronze sword lay with them. "And he taught us a few moves before he got too old. But we don't care about all that stuff. What we care about are monsters."

"Monsters," Riley echoed, smirking.

"Alex told us that you'd been fighting storm spirits at the back of Brown Shoe for the past couple of months. Is that true?" Mags asked, though she already knew the answer.

Piper was lost for words. Her brow creased in confusion, looking from Alex to Mags to Riley, and then back with a glare to Alex. A part of her screamed to blame Alex for everything, no matter how little sense that made. But she hated the idea of someone she knew being someone else. Someone more than who they were. Again, she was lied to.

Mags watched her carefully. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Piper, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do anything bad – I just got worried, I saw you were getting more and more injured and I had a feeling the monsters would only get worse so I thought I'd call for some help –"

"I hope you know we paid for every single performance ticket," Mags chuckled.

Riley nodded. "Yeah, we're pretty much broke now. But the show's good. The scene changes are so fast and Alex makes a great Cinderella."

Piper saw Alex brighten a little.

She didn't know what to think. Relaxing in the chair a little she made an executive decision in her head that these people weren't dangerous. Just misguided. And making terrible decisions. She made a face, glad that half of it was covered behind the cloth around her mouth. But there were still so many things unanswered. Like who they actually were. And who Alex was. And how she knew Piper had charmspeak. And if this was somehow orchestrated by the gods.

Her resentment threatened to come back up again but she calmed herself by taking a deep breath. They were mortals. And if the gods were involved…it wasn't their fault. In the same way that she and the others had never asked for this, these guys probably didn't either.

She made a muffled sound to grab their attention again.

"Yes?" Riley whirled around, expecting Piper to say more. Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh," he said. "You promise not to do any more charmspeak?"

Piper nodded slowly.

Mags and Riley exchanged a look, a silent agreement occurring between them. And the sight of the two of them as a team, with Alex May sitting in the background, struck Piper as odd. Odd yet familiar. Mags came over to untie the cloth, and Piper immediately coughed, moving her mouth around and licking her lips.

"Jesus," she coughed.

"You know, I've been wondering, is Jesus…?" Mags made a random motion with her hand.

"I honestly have no idea. Probably?"

"Cool."

"Are you gonna untie me too?"

"Are you gonna run?"

"Depends. Can your face handle another kick?"

Mags smiled. They all agreed to untie Piper anyway. And Alex May was the one to offer her a glass of water with a straw, and also a tube of Vaseline. "Just to make it easier," she mumbled, before sitting back down next to Riley and Mags.

The four of them sat in silence as Piper drank the water, and took a small bit of Vaseline to slide across her lips.

"…so…to be fair…" Piper began, slowly, "I literally have no idea what's going on. I'm sorry if I hurt you. But…honestly. What's happening? How did you know I was attacking storm spirits? What were you doing the whole time we knew each other, were you just waiting to let me know you were some…some monster-hunter?" All her questions had been aimed at Alex May. Though Riley and Mags had already shown themselves to be the ones ready for a real discussion, Alex was still the only one she knew.

"I…um…" Alex sat with her knees close together, in-between Riley and Mags. The pair looked as if they were waiting for Alex to answer before they did. "No, I didn't mean to do anything. I mean, we were already in the middle of rehearsals, way in the middle when I noticed you were going out the back door a lot. I thought you were just smoking," she added, awkward. "But then you had your jacket off one day and I noticed the windburns."

All four of them looked at Piper's arms, still covered by the sleeves of her jacket.

"And I just naturally thought you were a demigod. And we already knew about Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood. We were thinking about which one you might be, and we all settled on the Greek one because Romans don't usually go out of the Roman camp. Except for Scott," Alex added, tilting her head towards Riley. "People like us are rare, anyway. So…it just made sense that you were a demigod."

Piper didn't believe her. That much was certain from her facial expression. There was still the matter of her knowing about charmspeak. She didn't think they were naïve enough to believe every demigod had that power. And how Alex knew that Piper was in the fire-escape (though that could've just been Piper's rusty espionage skills). For now, she let it be.

"Okay. And you can see the monsters, right? Who's actually somehow connected to the gods? Blood-wise?" she added, looking at each of them in turn.

Mags lifted her head a little. "All of us are mortal. No families with gods or demigods or anything like that. But Scott – Riley's grandpa, sort of – he explained something about a Mist thing. And how we can see through them."

Like Rachel Elizabeth Dare. "Clear Sight. You guys are Clear Sighted."

"Yes. Exactly," Riley smiled. "And we've been fighting monsters ever since."

Ever since what, Riley didn't explain. Another thing for Piper to remember for later.

The conversation continued for another hour. They asked questions about the monsters she'd fought, the adventures she'd been on (she kept them vague), and then eventually asked who her godly parent was if she was a demigod. Piper hesitated then, knowing she had an option to lie, or to even go as far as to say she was unclaimed. But she knew the wrath and pride of her mother would eventually get back to her later. So she told the truth.

The trio's mouths dropped in surprise, and Piper couldn't help but feel amused.

It was different being in the presence of people who knew about the world of the demigods, but weren't actually active participants in it. Sort of. Piper still couldn't believe they willingly went out of the way to fight monsters. There had to be some kind of story behind that, but they weren't buddy-buddy enough for that. Not yet.

Mags showed her the imperial gold swords. They were roughly the same design as she'd seen the weapons the Romans used, similar to Jason's sword, though the hilt showed age and the gold didn't gleam as much. Later, before everyone went to bed, Piper would see Riley and Mags polishing the swords over the kitchen table, huddled together and speaking in low voices. She figured out that they were together quite quickly.

Mags then showed her the closet were they kept the sports padding they wore to go out fighting. There were three masks and coloured jackets that Piper spotted, pushed to the back of the shelf, but she didn't pointed them out. Everything was explained. What they used to fight with, when they went out to do it, how they found the monsters. It was Riley and Mags who fought the empousai Piper had kept an eye out for, when she was at the Space Needle with Leo. The pair had caught them in broad daylight, and fought them in an alley.

Photos decorated the old, fading walls of the apartment. They were all roughly the same age, as far as Piper could tell. She knew Alex May was her age. And Riley was twenty-four, while Mags was twenty-three. There had to be some effort put into printing out and framing the newer photos. The trio in different spots around Seattle. The trio posing with an elderly man in a bar, who she assumed was Scott, the old legacy from Camp Jupiter. Even in the photo, she could see he had piercing, blue eyes, and his white hair was cropped short. Like Jason. In fact, if she allowed herself to imagine it, she could see Scott as an older Jason, his arms around three young warriors, training the next generation.

She looked at that photo longer than the rest, and there were other things to see around the apartment. Medals and trophies of Mags in martial arts competitions. Riley as a baseball player. None of Alex in the trophies. Alex, it seemed, catered to the music of the apartment. Her space on the shelves were filled with CDs, tapes, and vinyls. Also movies. Piper saw a few McLean movies, the older ones, scattered here and there. Alex never bothered her about her father, not like Neil did. The thought made her lips twitch, too tired to smile completely.

Too tired to do anything seemed to be the reality for Piper, as her tour of the apartment came to an end, and the trio looked to her to decide what to do.

Bring them to Camp Jupiter? Or Camp Half-Blood? The Waystation?

Piper couldn't even decide if the apartment was safe – a worry quickly fixed by Mags, as the stale stink of the building and the neighbourhood generally protected them, and they were mortals in the first place.

As there were only two bedrooms, the offer was made for Piper to sleep in Alex's bedroom while Alex slept outside but Piper insisted on the opposite.

Under the pillow on the couch, Piper kept Katoptris. But before she could go to sleep, she wanted to wash her face and brush her teeth, to have some sense of normalcy and routine, after her life was flipped upside down yet again.

In the bathroom, Alex May waited behind her to use the sink.

"Piper…" she began, in a quiet voice. "I'm sorry if…I don't even know what to say, but I'm sorry."

Piper used her mouth gargling to buy her some time, and when she finally spat out the water and dried her face with a towel, thirty seconds had gone by since Alex spoke. Piper just nodded.

"It's okay. I get it. This kind of life…you keep secrets." She paused. "I guess I just…didn't expect anyone else to be keeping the secret too."

Alex seemed to lift a little after that. "But I'm glad. I'm glad we know each other. And Mags and Riley. We're not alone."

But as much as Alex meant for that to sound assuring, Piper was on-edge the whole night.

First of all, Riley snored. And she didn't know how Mags dealt with it, sleeping next to him. The blanket was warm and soft, but this part of town was noisier than her student dorms. She flinched when she heard the wail of police sirens go by. And she was still thinking.

The clock on the wall ticked by until it was two in the morning, and Piper still couldn't sleep. Her mind had been racing with plans: she could call for Annabeth, and ask for advice on what to do. Camp Jupiter was the closest, but she didn't know yet the history of Scott with the camp, and that may be bad blood she didn't want to bring up again. And they were mortals. She couldn't forget that. They weren't demigods, they weren't cursed to live their whole lives looking over their shoulders, always on the move, waiting to die by the hand of some pissed immortal – no, they chose this life.

And for what? To save people, it seemed.

Piper stared at the ceiling.

She turned to her side, burying her cheek in the pillow. She moved her arms around to try and get comfortable, and then settled for one arm lying under her pillow – and she touched Katoptris. Ten seconds passed, then she took out the dagger and looked into the blade:

The rose window of the Waystation shattering with a baseball bat. Rachel Elizabeth Dare screaming, eyes glowing green, with Alex May and Piper standing in front of her. Alex May crouching by a river in darkness. The darkness creeping up, turning into a cloud, a dark mist, a body rising from it. And then a man across the river, tall and broad-chested, looking straight at Piper, shaking his head.

A/N: i felt the first chapter was so heavy with the run-down on piper's life so far, i tried to focus this chapter on just ONE thing. hopefully it isn't too dense! but here we have introductions to three main original characters ayy

after reading what happened to piper in the trials of apollo, i was really interested in exploring how that affected her mindset, and her feelings towards her world. i also remember reading in her wikia page that piper was considered the most compassionate of the group - so exploring how that changes, or stays the same, is also super interesting for me hfvbkerhj

i hope i'm doing piper justice so far. more chapters to come !