Piper's Untold Story

by DelayedInspiration

After California, Piper's one and only hope was for a better future with her dad. Instead, he's back to being a workaholic, never at home, never around, always neglecting her. Take that huge blow, pair it up with nightmares about Jason, an identity crisis, and more, and you have Piper's miserable life in Tahlequah. But a storm is brewing, and Piper's right in the middle of it.

13. Billy Jones: Pt 2

Billy Jones: Pt. 2

I love Spring Break. So much uninterrupted writing time.

Here we go, folks, the rest of the Billy Jones chapter. The next one will be Piper and Shel's date, and the one after that will be the battle with Incognito, and from there it's a surprise.

Or…

…

Nah.

Just read and see, my friends, read and see.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Let's go fishing this Saturday," Shel randomly on Thursday, the 26th, while the main characters were at her house after school.

"Like, off a dock or something?" Piper asked.

"No, in Billy's boat."

Piper looked at Billy. "You have a boat?"

"My dad has a boat," Billy clarified. "Sometimes he lets me use it."

"Yeah, so get him to let you use it this Saturday and let's all go fishing."

"Where would we go fishing at?" Billy asked.

"Tenkiller Lake," Shel answered.

Billy looked at Piper, "Wanna go fishing on Tenkiller Lake this Saturday?"

The prospect was actually quite exciting to Piper. "Sure!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Come Saturday morning, Piper stepped out of her house to see exactly what kind of truck she thought Billy's dad would drive. A big, black Ford that was lifted by a few inches, a number of stickers in the rear windshield. G-Loomis sat in the bottom left corner, Shimano was in the bottom right, dead center was a big sticker that Piper was fairly certain said "Bullet," and slightly underneath was "Total Performance." It was kind of hard to tell with her dyslexia and the stylized font. And then above the Bullet sticker was a Mercury Racing sticker.

Piper had no idea who any of these brands were or what they represented, but she knew Mercury was the Roman form of Hermes.

Billy was obviously driving, and next to him was Shel. They both had on sunglasses and ballcaps. Billy's was black with red accents, having the Bullet logo across the front, though the word "boats" as added on this time. Shel's hat was light grey with the same logo. Piper did not have a bullet hat, but the teens were prepared.

"What even is Bullet?" Piper asked. Her hat was stark white with the titular logo in black.

"It's the thing you put into a gun," Billy said.

Shel smacked his arm. "Bullet is the name of company that made the boat."

"I see."

"And Mercury made the motor," Shel continued, "and G-Loomis makes fishing rods, and Shimano makes the reels."

Piper nodded. "Got it."

A few minutes later, they arrived at a local storage place. Billy punched in the access code to the gate, they drove past several units, the sound of crunching gravel as loud as the truck's big diesel engine, until they finally got to Billy's storage unit. Piper internally smiled at the number over the roll-up door.

710.

Not as in it was the 710th unit on the property, but row seven, column ten. The reason Piper found it funny was because seven, which was pretty obvious, and ten was her former cabin number.

Then Piper frowned slightly. Former she had just thought. That implied she was either not ever going back to CHB, or that if she did go back she was stepping down as counselor. But where the hell had that phrasing come from? Why had she subconsciously thought former cabin? She did intend to go back to CHB…didn't she? She wasn't done with that place, she still had a gaggle of brothers and sisters there.

Alright, not former cabin, then. Piper needed to see Lacy and Mitchel at least one more time in her life, and she figured that there were some things between her and Drew that needed to be settled.

But she already had her summer booked for her Cherokee I lessons so she could take Cherokee II in the Fall for her junior year, and be on track to take Cherokee III her senior year. She'd also been thinking about taking driver's ed to officially get her driver's license, and also finally get a job.

You know, after she killed Incognito and thwarted his plans for human genocide.

Well, darn. It looked like Piper had gotten so caught up in building a new life for herself here that she had forgotten all about her life on Long Island. Now Piper was feeling bad, because she given zero thought to little Lacy and Mitchel, the two kids she could honestly say she loved as her sister and brother.

Piper cleared her mind. Now wasn't the time to dwell on the future. Today, she was with Billy and Shel. Today was their day together.

She stepped out of the truck as Billy was rolling up the storage door, and the boat inside was revealed.

Piper let out an appreciate whistle for the machine housed inside.

A solid black beauty with red accents and highlights. A sleek motor was mounted on the back, bearing the Mercury logo along with "300R" on it.

Piper felt like she was in a Fast and Furious movie, and this was the scene that played along to a slow, heavy guitar riff as they opened the doors to some structure and revealed some old, classic car.

"This what they call a 21XRS," Billy said with a proud smile. "Almost 22 feet long, and 95 inches wide. That motor is a Mercury 300R, the 'R' standing for 'race.' What that means is that this baby is fast. She'll get up into the triple digits in the right conditions. Probably not today though. She's gonna have a lot of extra ass in her today."

The girls both shot Billy a flat look, and he just laughed at them both.

He got back in the truck, pulled it forward, and then backed it up with Shel's guidance. Working together, the two of them got the boat hooked up with all the hooks and cables. Piper just stood off to the side and let them do their thing, since she had no idea how to hook up a boat. Clearly, though, Shel and Billy had done this several times together, because they moved like a well-oiled machine.

"You ever been fishing before?" Billy asked.

"Only from the bank or a dock," Piper said, recalling her younger days. "Never in a boat."

Fighting sea monsters on the Argo II did not count as fishing in Piper's book.

Billy nodded. "So you're familiar with casting and setting the hook?"

"Yeah."

"Ever used more than cork and a worm?"

"No, actually."

"Today will not be the day you learn."

Piper blinked. "Not the day I learn?"

"Yep."

"Huh?"

"I am not going bass fishing today," Billy firmly asserted. "Bass fishing fucking sucks. Instead, we will be going live bait fishing, aiming for crappie and catfish. Lunch."

Piper turned a little green at the thought of eating fish for lunch.

Billy noted her look. "Oh, right. Vegetarian. What's up with that, anyway? Is that some kind of Native American-respect-the-spirits-thing or something?"

Piper's face regained some of its proper color when she smiled slightly. "No, it's a Piper thing. When I was eight, my dad and I were driving through Chino back in California, and we drove past a slaughterhouse. It smelled horrible."

Piper shuddered just from the sheer memory of the stench.

Billy and Shel, a couple of Texas natives, just stared at her.

"Nine years later and you don't eat meat just because of the smell of a slaughterhouse?" Billy asked.

"That's what I just said, yes."

"Pussy."

Piper flipped him off.

"Real talk, though: I thought that was because of some tribal respect for animals or whatever, but if you're not eating meat because of childhood trauma, then that's something you honestly need to confront and get over."

"I guess, but not today, though," Piper returned, a small grin tugging at her lips.

Shel snorted. "It is now my personal mission to get this girl to eat meat again."

Billy turned to her. "By that, do you mean your vagina?"

Piper's head exploded.

"I mean, hopefully," Shel answered.

The rest of Piper's body caught fire, and left a headless, Piper-shaped burn spot on the gravel.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Billy pulled the boat out of the storage, and it was even more beautiful than Piper originally thought. In the shadows of the storage, she hadn't been able to see them, but out here in the sunlight, Piper could see that the fiberglass on the top part of the boat sported dozens and dozens of glittering silver and red flakes.

Billy locked the storage and off they went.

Their desired ramp was located in the park known as Cherokee Landing. It was about a 30-minute drive from the storage to the park, and on the way down there, Shel had control of Billy's Bluetooth-enabled phone, and was in charge of the radio. Despite her collection of t-shirts that sported classic rock bands like ACDC, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, etc., she only played what Piper decided to consider to be "mellow" rock songs. Soft rock.

Songs like Kid Rock's "All Summer Long," "Born Free," "First Kiss," a few songs from a band Piper had never heard of before, Cross Canadian Ragweed, those songs being "Constantly," "Fighting For," and "Seventeen," and a song Piper knew and liked, though she had apparently always had the name wrong.

You know that song that went "Young heeeearts be freeeee tonight…tiiiiime is ooooon your side"? Well, Piper had always thought the song was called "Young Hearts," but it was actually called "Young Turks," by Rod Stewart, and not once did the word "Turks" ever actually appear in the lyrics.

By the time they went through those seven songs, they were at the lake.

The music, the weather, and the situation as a whole helped put Piper in one of the best moods she had been in her entire life.

This was what life was about. Slipping off to the lake on a gorgeous day for some fishing with her best friends, listening to good music during the road trip. It was sunny with almost no clouds in sight, and the temperature for this day late in May was currently 79, the high predicted to be 84, and a slight northern breeze of five miles per hour.

Piper had some mixed feelings, but she resolved them by herself.

No, she and Leo had never done anything like this. They had never taken a day to go fishing, or any weekend to go do anything. They had been stuck at the Wilderness School, a punishment in and of itself, and they dared not risk getting in more trouble for getting caught playing hooky. No date she and Jason had ever been on went like this. In all the time Piper spent with Annabeth, they never slipped off somewhere together for some girl time. They had all been too busy with preparing to set sail on the Argo II.

Then, when they got back and the war was over, the true nature of the Seven's friendship started to show.

It was a bit melancholy, really. Everyone liked to think the Seven were this tightly-knit band of friends, a group that loved each other so much that they were like siblings, but that just wasn't the case. There were distinct divides amongst them, those being the obvious three romantic couples, the trio of Piper, Jason, and Leo, the some-kind-of-trio of Leo, Hazel, and Frank, and the duo of Piper and Annabeth. All the other groups were more like one-offs. For example, Percy had been on his own quest with Frank and Hazel, but even they had started drifting apart during the quest.

Really, the Seven were more like kids assigned by the teacher to work on a semester-long group project than a band of brothers and sisters, and that was reflected when the semester (Giant War) was over. They just started to naturally drift apart.

The reason Piper was having mixed feelings right now was because…well…she honestly felt happier right now, going fishing with Billy and Shel, than she ever did on the Argo II with Jason and everyone else. It had everything thing to do with the distinct lack of epic battles, vicious monsters, and a series of life-threatening events. The reason why the feelings were mixed was because Piper had gone through so much with the Seven: she had seen them bleed, seen them cry, seen them angry and raging, worried and anxious, and saved the whole damn planet with them—take all of that, and Piper felt that she should consider the Seven to be the greatest group of friends she ever had, and no one else would ever compare. Yet here was, comparing Billy and Shel, just a couple of normal, if unhinged, high school kids that she'd known for over a month in Billy's case, and a month almost exactly in Shel's case.

The way Piper resolved this internal conflict was simple:

Making peace with it all.

Yes, the Seven were always going to hold some of the dearest places in Piper's heart. The things they did together made for memories that Piper would always treasure. However, that was then, and Billy and Shel were now. Right now, Piper wasn't the most powerful demigod daughter of Aphrodite with a list of feats and accomplishments as long as her arm; she wasn't a Cherokee warrior blessed by the spirits to fight an old, genocidal medicine man; she wasn't a confused youth grappling with her spirituality and sexuality.

Right now, and Piper was so happy for it, she was just a teenage girl hanging out with her best friends.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Billy backed the boat into the water, and then backed the boat off the trailer. He puttered over to the dock, where Piper and Shel held the boat steady while Billy went and parked the truck. Then they all piled into the boat, pushed away from the dock, and started idling out to the main lake.

Billy and Shel put their hats away in the center compartment of the boat, and Piper followed suit. The two got out some glasses with a cinch cord attached, and produced a third pair for Piper. They all looked rather sleek in their fishing glasses, their lenses all tinted blue.

Billy pushed down on the two levers on either side of the steering wheel, and Piper looked behind her, watching as the motor was lowered deeper into the water with a mechanical whir.

Billy tapped her shoulder and explained. "This lever controls the jackplate. It's what makes the motor go up and down. This lever is for the trim. It controls the angle of the motor. The higher the motor and angle, the faster the boat goes."

"Got'cha. Do they have to be all the way down to go?"

"Yeah. Here's why."

Piper had no knowledge of the operations of bass boats, so she was surprised when Billy slammed the pedal into the floorboard. The engine unleashed a mighty roar, and off they went. Piper immediately saw why the engine needed to be all the way down: when Billy got the boat going, the bow had rising several feet up before the boat leveled back out.

They were tearing down the lake after that.

The sunglasses immediately came in handy for more than just being able to see in the afternoon sun: protecting their eyes from the wind.

Again, Piper had never been in a bass boat before, so she didn't have anything to compare, but she considered this boat to be fast. Her hair wasn't buzzed, but she had certainly cut it short to a punkish level like Thalia's. Despite the short length, the wind whipped her hair all over the place.

"Seventy!" Billy shouted.

Piper blinked, not sure what he meant.

"Eighty!"

The wind blasting her in the face got more intense.

"Ninety!"

Piper understood: Billy was calling out their speed. Looking over, she saw the main graph was on, it displayed how fast they were going. She saw the number continuing to climb. Billy touched the levers some more, raising them, bringing the motor higher—and then the boat started wobbling.

Piper had never seen a better representation of Oh, shit! written on someone's face prior to Billy's when the boat started to rapidly tilt left and right. He pushed hard on the levers, bringing the motor back down, and he brought his foot off the pedal. He didn't come all the way off, but they did rapidly slow back down.

Billy turned the wheel, and they pulled off into one of the many coves of Lake Tenkiller.

"Chine walking," Billy explained. "Boat gets imbalanced and starts freaking out. Great way to die."

Billy set the trolling motor into the water and got out all the fishing equipment. He unlatched the rods off the deck, pulled out the minnow bucket and the bag of minnows out of the live well, poured the majority of the minnows into the bucket, but kept one of the minnows in his hand.

Piper made a note to not let Billy touch her until she had seen him wash his hands with soap and water.

He grabbed one of the poles and undid the hook. "You squeamish?" he asked Piper.

"Not really."

Billy then proceeded to ram the hook through the minnow's eyeballs.

"Helps get the scent of blood permeating through the water," Billy explained.

Piper just nodded, just now finding out that she was, in fact, just a little squeamish after all.

Billy gave the fishing pole a light swing and pressed the button on the real. The line, cork, and minnow-laden hook soared through the air and landed in the water.

"Obviously, when the cork goes under, you've got a fish."

Piper nodded.

Billy impaled a minnow for Shel, and impaled a second for himself, and just like that, Piper was fishing. Billy was up front by himself at the bow, while the girls were occupying the stern end of things.

"Do be careful casting," Billy said. "We're not dealing with treble hooks, but these little bastards can still tear you open."

Piper didn't know what a treble hook was, but she could appreciate the danger of a sharp fishing hook flying through the air.

"That's how I got that scar by me eye, by the way," Billy continued. "Few years back, family and I were out fishing, I was using a crankbait, had a fish on, pulled too hard, and that crankbait popped me right in the face. Didn't have my sunglasses on. Hurt like hell. Then Dad tried pulling the fucking hook out of my face with some pliers, and he ended up breaking the hook in my head. Went to two doctors and they stuck my head full of needles before poking around, still couldn't get it, so I had to have an hour-long surgery. Almost lost my eye, apparently. That hook almost hit a nerve, and those surgeons had to be careful not to hit that nerve themselves."

All while Billy recounted his story, Piper's butt was clenched as she cringed, and next to her, Shel was very still.

"I'm…sorry that happened to you," Piper said.

"Nah. Makes for a fun story. And a great lesson to learn from."

With that, the teens settled back into the exciting activity of watching their corks bob in the water.

"That's not how that happened," Shel muttered under her breath.

Piper looked at her.

"The crankbait part is true," Shel continued, being quiet so Billy didn't hear her, "but it wasn't him pulling too hard and ripping the bait out. It was me. My crankbait. I was fishing with him and his family, and I wasn't looking behind me when I went to cast. I nearly tore his eye out."

Piper just stared at her, mouth slightly agape.

"Yeah, his mom and dad didn't like me much after that. Still don't, but that's for a different reason. Anyway. Billy doesn't tell it like that because that's how he remembers it, like his brain altered the memory or something. He does to spare me. I still hate myself for that."

"Why…are you telling me this?"

Shel shrugged. "I thought you should know the truth."

"Thanks."

Piper honestly didn't know what to think, really. Her opinion of Shel didn't go down because she accidentally scarred Billy. They were kids. Accidents happen. Granted, that accident nearly cost Billy his eye, but Shel hadn't done that on purpose. Piper didn't see any reason to be mad at Shel, especially because Billy's eye worked just fine. If anything, the only thing Piper got out of this was increased respect for Billy, that he would craft an alteration to the story of his scar to spare Shel the guilt she felt for giving it to him.

"Shel, I think you're awesome."

Shel looked at her with a smile, her nose stud winking in the sunlight. "That means a lot to me."

And then Billy rocked the boat. "There he is!"

Piper and Shel looked and saw Billy was on his feet, his rod bowed, and he was reeling like a maniac. Two seconds later, the fish finally broke the surface, revealing itself as a decent-sized catfish.

"Oh, he'll be good eatin'," Billy claimed. "Shel, you got the net?"

"Yeah!" she said, just as giddy as Billy. "Hold my rod."

Without waiting for Piper's response, Shel dropped her rod in her lap and sprang to the center console of the boat, throwing it open to pull out the net. She dipped it in the water and Billy guided the catfish into. Shel easily hauled the net to the bottom of the boat, and just like that, they had their first fish.

"Alright!" Billy said, raising his hand for a high five.

Shel's hand smacked his with a mighty slap.

"And now for the fun part," Billy said dryly.

Piper got to watch the struggle of digging a hook out of the lips of a catfish while avoiding its fins. Apparently, those fins could inject venom if the spine in them punctured your skin.

Did Piper think to use her spirit powers to commune with the catfish and tell it to be still and not hurt her friend? Yes, she did. Did she think it would be weird to tell the fish to be still and go into the live well, knowing that Billy intended to kill it, cook it, and eat it, and therefore basically tell it to submit to death? Also yes. That was why Piper did not pull a page from Percy's book and talk to the fish.

She didn't want the fish to die, but she also didn't want to spoil this day with her friends.

Piper really wished she had talked more with Percy about what fish thought about being caught and turned into food. She might've had less of an ethical quandary about fishing for lunch if she knew the fish were, like, okay with it or something. As it stood, Piper did not speak to any of the fish.

This also meant she didn't tell any of them to bite, and so all the fish they caught, they did so all on their own merit.

Because throwing a minnow into the water and keeping an eye on the cork required a great amount of skill.

Piper would think so, because the first eight times she tried to cast by herself—it was just easier to say she failed. And then the next five times showed some improvement, but it wasn't until Casting Attempt #20 that Piper could officially be deemed adequate at casting. Her catching also needed some work, because the excitement of seeing her cork go under made her forget to measure her strength, and so it had happened that her hook-set was so strong that she yanked the fish right out of the water and it smacked into her chest, getting her shirt covered in a little bit of fish slime.

Not the worst substance that had ever gotten onto her clothes.

Billy and Shel considered her to be a true fisherman only after she got her clothes dirty.

Things were going great, with the fish biting regularly enough the Piper's ADHD never made her get antsy, until the alligators came along.

Piper's cork twitched, making her sit up straight, and then the cork dropped. She pulled back on her rod, "I got one!" and then grunted, "A big one."

It came down to the tensile strength of the pole at that point. Billy and Shel both yanked their lines to prevent getting stuck in the situation of having to deal with multiple fish, and Billy got the net.

"Whatever that is down there, it's big," he said, but he didn't sound appreciative.

After what seemed like an hour, whatever was on the other end of Piper's fishing line finally broke the surface, and it had Billy groaning.

"Goddamn alligator snaping turtle!"

The turtle looked about as pleased to see Billy as he was to see it. The ugly thing was trying to use its claws to tear the fishing line, but it couldn't get a good angle.

"Uh, what do I do with it?" Piper asked.

"Keep it out of the boat," Billy grunted. "Hate these things. Broke one of rods once. I'm surprised this one still holding on."

Billy produced a fold-out knife from his pocket. "Relax," he told Piper, and he cut the line.

She was glad he gave her a warning, because suddenly all the tension was released, and Piper was able to prevent herself from reenacting that classic cartoon scenario of stumbling and tripping all over herself.

But then Piper suddenly let out a stifled cry when the back of her stung just like it had for the deer.

"Woah, you okay?" Billy asked, Shel looking at Piper over his shoulder.

"We have to get out of here," Piper breathed.

The wind suddenly picked up, gusts out of North clocking in at over 20 miles an hour. Clouds blew in seemingly out of nowhere, blocking the sun from view. It got cold, it got ominous, and it got Billy and Shel moving without questions.

Shel poured the minnows out of the bucket and tossed the bucket into the live well with the fish they had caught without bothering to untie the bucket from the boat cleat. While she did that, Billy was the front of the boat, yanking the trolling motor out of the water, and not a moment too soon.

"Fuck!"

Piper and Shel's heads both whipped around at Billy's loud cry, accompanied by a loud splash and a throaty growl.

"It's a fucking gator!"

Almost. It was an Asgina in the shape of an alligator.

Piper considered herself lucky right then. The first two Asgina she had killed were certified monsters. That bear and that deer had been huge, but this alligator was normal-sized for the most part. It was…well…pardon Piper's innuendo here, but the alligator was long, thick, and black, with glowing red eyes hat revealed its position as it swam through the water.

Billy was moving, but not to the wheel. "Hunting season be damned," he muttered.

He threw open the center console, and in the true spirit of a Texan, produced a hunting rifle that Piper wasn't sure was street-legal. He shouldered the gun and aimed. Piper held her breath, hoping that the monstrous spirit would either be deterred by a stray shot, or killed outright.

She didn't know why, Jisdu had already confirmed that mortal weapons were as effective on Native American spirits as they were on Greek monsters; maybe it was because she was curious to see it with her own eyes, or maybe she was curious to see if the Holy Spirit that Billy was supposed to have inside him would somehow empower the gun to kill the Asgina. Whatever the case, Piper stood there and let Billy have his turn.

Billy fired, the gunshot ringing in Piper's ear. There was a splash of water right next to the Asgina's head, and the gator opened its mouth wide to bellow in outrage. Billy fired again, and Piper saw the impact. If that was a normal alligator, the caliber of Billy's gun would've blown a hole straight through its head and killed it. As it was, the Asgina was just pissed off.

It shut its mouth and dove deep enough that its eyes weren't visible anymore.

"Alright, good," Billy said.

In a rare twist on the trope, instead of waiting to see what would happen next, Billy popped the safety, tossed the gun to Shel, and threw his into the driver's seat. Piper and Shel got seated as quick as they could as Billy fired the motor back up and hit the gas, getting the motor lowered back into place before he really floored it and flipped the boat with the power of torque.

Those few seconds cost them.

The stinging in Piper's head increased, and she barely had time to yell a reflexive Look out! before the second, larger alligator hit them broadside. The boat almost flipped over, and Shel almost went tumping into the water, but Piper got a death grip on the girl's shirt and held her firm.

The boat righted itself, but before Billy could ignore procedure and just floor it, the first alligator popped out of the water and almost flopped into Billy's lap. The weight of the Asgina made the boat list the other way, and because Piper locked her body to keep Shel from falling in the other direction, she didn't have the reach to grab hold of Billy before he fell out of his seat and into the water. The alligator dove in after him.

Shel screamed so loud Piper was certain everyone on the lake heard her, especially after Piper jumped from her seat into the lake. Midair, she called upon her animal blessings, altering her respiratory system to have gills, and altering her eyes so she could see underwater.

She dove under the surface, got her bearings, and she was left speechless.

She would never know how Billy managed it, but he had somehow gotten the Asgina in a headlock, and was using his knife to violently slice into its throat. Billy had chosen fight, and he was giving it everything he had in one of the most brutal displays of primal savagery Piper had ever seen.

Piper's moment of pause almost cost her. The hair on the back of neck stood on end, and she turned just in time to get her hands up. She caught the larger Asgina by its jaws, noting how it was big enough to chomp her in two with one bite. It pushed her through the water, trying to get her into its mouth, but Piper's arms were locked. It pushed her deeper and deeper, about twenty feet down, until Piper's feet hit a submerged boulder.

Piper used the momentum to bring the Asgina up and over her head, and slammed it into the ground, kicking up a cloud of muddy dirt. She still had her grip on the monster's jaws, and she still had her monstrous strength that had felled two Asgina already, and that was before she received her new powers.

Piper called upon the additional strength of the Immortals, and she ripped the top half of the Asgina's skull from the rest of its body in one yank. The skull and the body turned to black liquid that was sucked into the ground.

Piper whipped around in the water, searching for Billy. He was only human, his lungs only able to hold so much air, and he had been fighting for his life. She didn't see him, but in her panicked searching, she saw the boat, and a pair of legs vanishing up into the boat. Not seeing the other Asgina, and not seeing any other monsters, Piper swam for the boat.

She broke the surface and took a dramatic breath of air to make it look it good, and the water barely cleared from her eyes before she was being pulled into the boat.

Thank the gods, it was Billy. He had yanked her in all by himself, even after fighting a spirit gator with nothing but a knife.

Piper wasn't sure if she hugged him first or if he hugged her first. She just knew that their arms were tightly wrapped around each other within the second, and Shel wasn't far behind. The wind calmed back down and the clouds started breaking up, rays of sun shining through.

One of them shined directly on the trio of friends, and they were instantly warming up again.

It was then that Piper realized that Shel was crying. Bawling, even.

It took a few minutes of them just holding each other, the adrenaline surge slowly dissipating, before Billy gently broke the hug.

"I stabbed mine in the neck and he swam off. What happened to yours?"

"I hit him between the eyes and he swam off too."

Billy nodded. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

They broke triple digits on the way back to the boat ramp.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

With robotic efficiency, Shel and Piper tossed all the fish they caught back into the lake while Billy went and got the trailer. The girls were done with the fish by the time he got back in the boat, so he didn't have to wait on them. In silence, he pulled the boat away from the dock and loaded it back onto the trailer, secured it with the wench, and then got in the truck to pull it up.

"Are you two okay?" Piper hazarded in a small voice.

"We were just attacked by alligators," Billy said slowly. "And we're still alive. With all of our limbs. I'd say, in one respect, we are very okay."

"Shel?" Piper asked.

"Piper, please, shut the fuck up."

Piper wasn't offended. She understood Shel was in a state of shock. She was the one that watched Billy tumble out of the boat, the alligator going after him. She had watched as Piper dove into the water. She had been left alone on the boat, terrified out of her mind, unable to see anything that was going on down there for too much time. Piper wouldn't be surprised if Shel never went fishing again.

The whole ride back to the boat storage was spent in silence, but Piper didn't fail to notice how Billy and Shel were holding hands, and they had a death grip on each other.

The silence gave Piper some time to think.

It was Saturday the 28th. The deer Asgina had attacked her on Monday the 9th, almost a full three weeks ago. Incognito had attacked her in the middle of the lake when she was out with her friends. He hadn't been trying to kill her, either, or else he would've sent more Asgina, or at least more powerful ones. Billy had been able to fend off the Asgina that had attacked him all by himself, which either meant that alligator monster was very weak, or maybe that Holy Spirit had kicked in and given Billy the strength her needed to fight back.

Piper didn't know, and she didn't care. She was just glad her best friend was safe and unharmed. He wasn't bleeding out from a bite or a scratch, or had suffered any damage that Piper could see.

The biggest thing she got from this whole episode was that Incognito was still out there, and he was still very much aware of her presence in Tahlequah. Today was a reminder of things. Piper still had a world to save.

But not today. Not right now.

Billy and Shel needed her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The got to the storage and Billy back the boat into the storage unit with expert proficiency. The ride over had given them both time to detox, and Shel was more in focused.

"We're going back to my house," she said, "and we're going to get my Xbox, and we're going to bring it back to your house. Do you have a TV in your room?"

"Yeah."

Shel nodded. "Okay."

Piper didn't question why Shel wanted to go through all that extra effort. She wasn't worried about her dad saying something, because at the powwow last week he had made some guy friends, and he had said that he would be with them today, doing Cherokee stuff.

They got back in the truck, only this time Shel got in the backseat with Piper. Without a word, she sat next to her and laced her hand in Piper's, resting her head on her shoulder.

"Please don't ever do something that stupid again," Shel whispered. "I don't know what I'd do if you or Billy died too."

Piper remembered that Shel's father had passed of cancer, and her second ex-girlfriend had jumped off a bridge in front of her. Today, she'd just watched her best friends, one of whom she was openly crushing on and wanted to be in a relationship with, fight a couple of alligators in the freakiest incident of her life. It occurred to Piper that Shel must've been more terrified than she originally thought.

What would that have meant for Shel if Piper and Billy had been eaten by the alligators? It would've meant she would've been left alone and isolated, cut off from everyone, with a couple of man-eating alligators nearby. As Piper put herself in Shel's shoes and put herself in that situation, she felt a whole new wave of emotion for Shel.

The ride to Shel's house was spent in silence. When they got there, only Billy went inside, and he came back not even three minutes later with Shel's Xbox and the accompanying cables and controller.

"Your mom said it's okay for you to spend the night at Piper's," Billy said. "She's glad we had fun on our fishing trip, is bummed we didn't catch anything, and is glad we were safe for the whole thing."

Piper smiled thinly. Shel didn't move.

By the time they got to Piper's house, Shel had calmed down a little bit more.

She gave Piper's hand a squeeze and disengaged from her so she could get out of the truck and open the gate.

About ten minutes later, the trio of teens were piled in Piper's room playing more Cyberpunk, guzzling soda. Billy had asked if he could hold Piper's tomahawk, and she had let him. The videogame helped return everyone to a state of ease, but Piper had reached an unfortunate part of the story.

Playing as the female V, Piper had the option to romance the character Judy, a lesbian in the Cyberpunk universe. With Shel's help, Piper had successfully chosen all the correct dialogue options and gameplay actions that resulted in Piper being with Judy in the beach house after Judy had pulled her up and out of the water following a diving trip they took together, and the Relic chip had made Piper have an attack.

Well, V, not Piper, but you get the idea.

Controlling V, Piper entered Judy's bathroom to find her sitting naked on the edge of the tub, and her breath had hitched at seeing the naked woman. Going through the dialogue, Piper had eventually been faced with a number of dialogue choices, and of her own free will, she went with the [Kiss] option.

The videogame was rated M for mature, and one of the reasons listed on the box was "strong sexual content." Piper had been exposed to that already, following the quests through Jig-Jig street where you could buy hookers and dildos, but this was the first time she thought the game really earned its rating when it played a cutscene of softcore porn between Judy and V.

Kicking things off was a frontal nude shot of Judy, and the developers had left nothing to the imagination when they fully rendered her vagina. After that it was kissing and touching, with plenty of shots of Judy's breasts, hardened nipples, and ass.

It was very quiet in Piper's room as the three teens watched the scene play out, the only sound being the calm, soothing music. Piper herself was so engrossed that she forgot she was sitting with a couple of Christians. Watching porn was supposedly bad enough for them, but watching lesbian porn was, like, doubly bad. Or something like that.

As it happened, this was not Piper's first time being exposed to porn. That had happened back when she was fourteen. This wasn't even the first she had seen lesbian porn, as she had started to dabble in that back when she first started questioning her sexuality and was looking for ways to help her figure it out.

However, Piper never made a habit out of masturbating, and so watching this softcore stuff was enough to get her aroused. She could feel her nipples were hard against her bra, and panties were decidedly damper in the crotch than they had been a few minutes ago.

Piper couldn't help but bite her lip. She didn't know if it was unbidden or if she just really wanted it, but running through her mind was a replay of the V and Judy scene but with her and Shel.

Maybe it was that "sense the possibilities" thing that she got from her mom.

It made Piper swallow a heavy lump in her throat. She had known Shel for a month was already thinking about having sex with her. She had known Jason for over a year and never had sex with him at all, not even sexual activities like a blowjob, handjob, lap dance, etc. Even with all the time alone they had together in Tristan's mansions with him away on-location, and all the money he had, Piper and Jason never had sex.

Despite the argument that they had earned that kind of right to each other's bodies, they both appreciated that the possibility of Piper getting pregnant at sixteen was too high to try it. Hundreds of millions of dollars or not, neither of them wanted the social stigma of teen pregnancy, and they both agreed they weren't ready to be parents, especially because they were still in high school and Jason was working on his big project.

The closest they had ever come was one night they had been spooning and watching a movie, Jason had his arms wrapped around Piper, resting his chin atop her head, and the movie had gotten a little steamy. Both of them had gotten aroused, and Piper could still clearly recall the feeling of Jason's erection pressing against her ass. She had pushed back, his hands had gripped her breasts, she had turned to kiss him, their shirts had come off, and Jason was in the middle of unclasping her bra, kissing her and about to push his tongue into her mouth, when it both hit them at once:

What the fuck are we doing?

Jason broke the kiss and accidentally summoned the wind, flying off the bed. He muttered a quick sorry and left. Piper was pretty sure he rubbed it out in the bathroom, because she had fingered herself in her room. Jason came back in later, they changed the movie, and never spoke of it again.

Then she broke up with him, they couldn't ever get it resolved, and then he died.

But anyway.

Piper had known Jason for so long, been through so much with him, never had sex with him, but she had known Shel for a month and couldn't deny her feelings, primal as they may have been, that she wanted to substitute V and Judy with herself and Shel.

What the fuck did that mean?

Was she just horny, and hormones were clouding her rational thinking, or was she just finally coming into her own as a person?

The scene in the videogame finally ended, and that's when Piper risked a look back at Shel. She was red-faced and had a hand pressed between her legs, making Piper blush slightly. When Shel saw Piper was looking at her, she blushed even harder and looked away.

"I'll be right back," Piper heard Billy mutter from somewhere on the side of the planet Saturn, and she barely registered the sound of the her bathroom door shutting.

"So, uh," Shel started.

"Yeah?" Piper asked.

"How much longer are we going to drag this out between you and me? I mean, are you waiting for me to ask you out, or are you going to ask me out? Like, I like you, you know I like you, and I know you like me, and you know that you know you like me."

"I know," Piper said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It's just-"

"Jason this, Jason that, and something else about how you're not sure," Shel brutally cut in. "Piper, it's almost been two months. You said you haven't had anymore nightmares in a week, and-"

Shel suddenly cut herself off.

"Something wrong?" Piper asked.

Shel's eyes darted around the bedroom, all the color draining from her face. She looked at Piper with the utmost trepidation. "Does Billy still have your tomahawk?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"And he went to the bathroom, right?"

"Yeah?"

Shel bolted off of Piper's bed so fast she seemed to teleport. The next thing Piper knew, Shel was trying to beat down the bathroom door.

"Billy! Billy! You get out here with that tomahawk right now, goddamit!"

Piper was scrambling to her feet, trying to get traction. The sheer urgency and panic in Shel's voice had her urgently panicking. What was going on here?

Piper got her body around the corner of her door just in time for Billy to almost tear the bathroom door from its hinges and reveal his glory.

In one millisecond, Piper averted her eyes in embarrassment. In the second millisecond, she was looking at Billy again, her eyes widening and her jaw slightly dropping.

He hadn't shaved his legs since the day he started growing hair, Piper presumed, and given how he always wore shorts or pants, his thighs were quite pasty, making all those curly hairs stand out. Ironically, Billy did shave his pubic hair, though, and had done so recently given the visible skin of his penis. Piper didn't exactly have a ton of experience with male genitalia, so she decided to be nice to Billy's ego and say he was definitely above average. Most likely a grower, not a shower.

Piper's hypercognitive demigod brain processed all of that almost instantly, but it wasn't Billy's dick that had Piper doing a doubletake. It was the smattering of lines that dotted his pale thighs. Short, thin, little lines. Piper counted seventeen of them, her eyes darting all over the place.

As for Billy himself, he looked utterly crushed, distraught, devastated, and furious—at himself. His face was red and streaked with tears, his eyes obscured. He thrust the tomahawk at Shel and slammed the door so hard the house shuttered. The action had been so sudden that Shel hadn't actually gotten a hold of the weapon, and so she had to bend over to pick it up.

Despite the situation, Piper's eyes strayed towards Shel's ass, and she shook her head. This was serious; no time for hormones.

Shel inspected the blade, and released a sigh of relief.

Then Billy suddenly roared from inside the bathroom, "Go fuck yourself, Shel!"

Piper was glad her dad wasn't home.

With a heavy expression on her face, Shel trudged silently back to Piper, and handed her the tomahawk. Piper gingerly accepted, looking over it herself, seeing nothing wrong with it.

Shel went back over to the bed, leaning over it by bracing her weight on her arms. She let out a heavy sigh.

Piper looked at the bathroom door, back to Shel, back to the door, took one towards the door, and then froze when Shel barked at her.

"Unh-ah! No. Don't bother him right now."

Piper followed this advice and stared at her friend. "What the fuck just happened?"

Shel stared at her for a long time with hooded eyes, then she looked at the ground, her jaw clenching and unclenching as an internal debate raged within her. She clearly knew what had just happened with Billy, and Piper had some dots she was hesitantly forming connections between.

Shel then shut her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her, and started muttering. Piper called upon her spirit powers to augment her ears, and so she clearly heard Shel saying, "God, I am so sorry for what Billy and I did. I'm so sorry that I did this to him. Please forgive me. And please forgive me again for telling Piper this even though I promised Billy I'd never tell anyone."

Of course, with her hearing so acute, not only did Piper perfectly hear Shel's private prayer, but she also heard Billy's choked sobs from inside the bathroom.

Piper shut her powers off when Shel opened her eyes after finishing her prayer, and what she revealed rocked Piper to her core.

"Billy has been battling a porn addiction since he was thirteen. It's my fault he has that addiction. No, I'm not going to explain tonight. We made a promise to each other never to tell anyone, but…you saw the scars on his legs, didn't you?"

Piper barely managed to nod.

"Self-inflicted."

Piper barely managed not to throw up. "Oh, god-" she barely managed not to make the word plural.

Shel was as grim as Piper had ever seen a person, and she had firsthand experience with Nico. "The way Billy fights his addiction is by hurting himself. That scene we just watched turned him on, and so he was about to use your tomahawk to make another scar."

Another scar. Seventeen them of them already. And the final tone in Shel's voice made it perfectly clear to Piper that she knew exactly what Billy did to himself.

"Seventeen," Piper breathed.

Shel nodded. "Billy used to masturbate over three times a day. Now he's fighting to keep it down to once every two months. He…he had his turn already for his given time, and…yeah…"

Piper could barely swallow. "I had no idea…"

Shel nodded. "That's good. You're not supposed to have an idea because we're not supposed to tell anyone. Piper, his parents don't know, and neither does my mom. Only me, you, and him know about this, so I swear to God, if you tell anyone about this, I will fucking murder you. I don't care about how hot you are. You open your mouth, and the last thing you'll ever do while alive is beg for my mercy. Are we clear?"

Piper was a world-saving demigod that had killed hordes of monsters and fended off gods and Giants. She had saved the world from a Primordial goddess, and she was blessed with numerous spiritual powers. Shel was a mere human, someone Piper could tear apart like notebook paper, and yet…

That detached stare, that cold tone, that rigid posture—all of it taken together, and Piper was honestly afraid of Shel.

She supposed this was how the Justice League felt when threatened by Batman.

"V-Very," Piper stuttered.

Shel nodded once. "Good. I never told you any of this. You didn't see any cutting scars on Billy's legs. You don't know he's battling a porn addiction."

"Man, I really hope Billy doesn't clog my toilet in there. Maybe I should get some matches, eh?"

"Good idea."

Piper awkwardly sat back down and had to turn her controller back on because it had been inactive so long it disconnected.

The mystery of Shel and Billy thickened. Piper hadn't missed it when Shel said it was her fault that Billy was going through that. She had a million-and-two questions to ask, but she kept them all to herself. Now wasn't the time.

At this point, Piper just wanted this day to be over. She would've been just fine with everyone getting comfy in her room and shutting the lights off for the night, or Billy and Shel going back to their homes. Too much had happened today. Fishing, the Asgina attack, the arousal she felt watching lesbian sex play out on the TV, her growing feelings for Shel, the brief conversation they had been having about when Piper was going to get her ass in gear and finally go on a date with Shel, and said conversation being interrupted by a nuclear bomb of a revelation about Billy.

Piper was mentally tired.

It would be almost an hour before Billy came back. The girls heard the toilet flush, and Shel shot Piper a quick, "Be cool!" and Billy reappeared in the doorway as if nothing had happened. His face was clear, his eyes normal and gleaming, and he had a wild grin on his face.

"How about we do something illegal?"

Before Piper could protest on the grounds she was still very much on the hook with Tahlequah High on the grounds of her discipline record showing her shoplifting escapades bringing the threat of being sent to Central if she got in any more trouble, Shel instantly piped up.

"What do you have in mind?"

"Racing."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

More or less against her will—so, peer pressure—Piper found herself in the backseat of Billy's dad's truck as he motored down the road to Highway 51, the highway closer to Piper's house.

As it so happened, one could drive a huge circle around the majority of Tahlequah by staying on the aforementioned highway as it turned into Highway 82, and then follow that around the city until it went up and met Highway 51 at a 90-degree angle. Billy's grand plan was to drive the circle as fast as he could, racing the clock first and foremost, but the chosen circuit wasn't the most ideal racetrack given the number of lights and intersections that dotted the route.

Didn't matter, though.

As Billy hit the highway and punched it, Piper couldn't help but marvel at the chain of events of the day. So much had happened already, and now here they were again, tempting death by racing through the streets in a jacked up diesel truck. Earlier today, they had been playing soft, mellow, country/pop rock, or however you defined the genre. Tonight, with Shel once again in charge of the radio, they were jamming to heavy metal.

Iron Maiden, "Run to the Hills," and Shel must've forgotten that Piper was a Native American.

The drums and the opening riff were great for getting anyone pumped up, but then Piper's brows knit together when the lyrics came on.

White men came

Across the sea

They brought us pain

And misery

We fought 'em hard

We fought 'em well

Out on the plains

We gave them hell

But many came

Too much for Cree

Oh, will we ever

Be set free?

Billy weaved through cars in a vehicle that really wasn't meant for racing. The posted speed limit for this section of the road was 70, and Billy was pushing 100. The beat of the song changed, and Shel cranked up the volume.

Riding through dust clouds and barren wastes

Galloping hard on the plains

Chasing the redskins back to their holes

Fighting them at their own game

Murder for freedom, a stab in the back

Women and children and cowards attack

The beat dropped and launched into the chorus, and Billy and Shel were shouting at the top of their lungs as Billy barreled through a yellow light.

Run to the hills!

Run for your lives!

Run to the hills!

Run for your lives!

Even Piper was getting into the energy now, despite the lyrics. She had a growing grin on her face.

After the Iron Maiden song ended, Shel played the ultimate speeding music: Motley Crue's "Kickstart my Heart."

Piper's head was banging along to this song, and this time she found herself shouting along with Shel in telling Billy to go faster, faster, faster, in a perfect display of true teenage recklessness. Do keep in mind that these crazy kids weren't racing Billy's car down the highway, but his dad's truck.

Billy weaved through the lanes like an expert at pole position. He had a few close calls in slipping between cars, and there was even one instance in which he swerved onto the shoulder to get around a couple of slow-moving cars. Piper's heart was thumping hard in her chest as she broke the law, adrenaline surging through her as Billy raced the clock.

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you looked at it, no one currently on the road this Saturday night in Tahlequah felt like getting into a race with the big, black, diesel truck, and so Billy's ego was never threatened by some muscle car revving its engine and shooting past at over a 120mph. That still didn't stop Billy from pushing 100 and climbing to 110.

The next song Shel played would be the last song of the night.

Billy looked over at with a conspiratorial grin and said, "Sterrrrrrn."

This was apparently some kind of inside joke that Piper wasn't yet included in, because Shel grinned back. "He's nothing but a lowdown, double-dealing, back-stabbing, larcenist, perverted worrrrrm."

Billy then picked it up. "Hanging's too good for him! Burning's too good for him!"

Shel smiled widely, having the song on deck, ready to hit play. "He should be torn into little bits and pieces, and buried alive!"

Piper's eyes were darting between her friends, wondering if diesel exhaust had somehow gotten inside the cabin.

Billy tossed his fist in the air. "I'll kill him! Kill!"

Shel hit the play button, and Piper saw "Reach Out" by Cheap Trick appear in the dashboard's screen.

Given the deranged exchange between them, the song that played was actually quite tame with a good bump to it. Like with Motley Crue, Piper found herself quickly bumping her head to the 80s rock song. When the lyrics started, Piper honestly thought it was a rather inspiring and invigorating number.

No one's going to give it away

They make it hard for the people today

To get what you want, you've got to do it yourself

Don't be afraid to drive the nail in the wood

Or drink the bottle if it tastes so good

You'll go the distance. You never thought that you could!

The chorus dropped and Shel slammed the volume nob so high it made Piper's ears hurt, but she didn't care. Her friends shouted along as loud as they could as Billy floored it, the diesel engine roaring with them.

Reach out and take it!

Reach out and ta-take it!

Reach out and take it!

Reach out and tuh-ta-take it!

Reach out and take it! Oh, yeah!

Billy slowed down and Shel lowered the volume for the next stanza.

Cough up the cash when you go over and over

Before the old one's gone, you've got a new owner

You need assistance when your head's in the clouds

You could live easy if life stood still

You could be faking and breaking and taking it all

But then you know you're gonna fall

Piper was ready this time, and when Billy punched it again and Shel cranked the volume up, she was shouting the chorus along with them with both her hands up in the air. After it ended, there was the short, third stanza,

Don't have to take it so hard

Don't have to take it so, so hard

Don't have to take it so hard

Don't have to take it so HAAAAARD!

The song launched into its solo, and Billy pushed the pedal all the way to the floor as the band started jamming. The engine accepted the challenge, seemingly shaking the pavement with its power as it accelerated. Piper watched the speed needle climb past 100, then 110, and then it got close to 120 when the final chorus came on, louder, prouder, and with more intensity than Piper had ever felt before.

REACH OUT AND TAKE IT!

REACH OUT AND TA-TAKE IT!

REACH OUT AND TAKE IT!

REACH OUT AND TA-TA-TAKE IT!

REACH OUT AND TAKE IT! OH YEAH!

The song started fading out, and if the slight ringing in Piper's ears was any indication, she had just caused permanent, albeit minor, damage to her hearing. All three kids were panting hard and sweating after their jam session, but before Shel could pick another song, Piper saw a dark shape come swerving up behind them.

Her breath hitched, and the spectacular mood came crashing down on their heads when those red-and-blue lights flashed to life.

"Oh, fuuuuuck," Billy said. He started coming off the gas, Piper wincing when she saw the needle drop below 100.

Shel shut off the radio. "What do we do?" she asked, genuinely scared. "We were going over a hundred. We're all fucked."

Piper swallowed, and she started running through her options.

"I know, I know," Billy said. "I'm thinking. Shit, if we were just going 90, I might've been able to get him to just write a ticket, maybe even for a lower speed, but 120? Guys, that's jail time. That's my license. And no telling about either of y'all. Just being in here with me is probably jail time, and definitely a call to your mom and dad. Fuck, this might even be community service or some shit."

Billy slowed down enough to pull over and stop.

"Think we can outrun him?" Shel tried, as keen as anyone in this situation to find a way out of it.

Piper wasn't at all thrilled about being arrested and taken to jail, either. That was instant grounding, with no afterschool Billy and Shel time, and probably the confiscation of her Xbox. This would no doubt be reported to the school, and Piper would be booted to Central Academy because of her existing discipline record. She had been anticipating driver's ed this summer to get her own license, but that might be out of reach following this stunt.

"In this truck?" Billy asked incredulously. "And we've pulled over. We're already up to our necks in shit, gunning it now would bury us alive."

The cop was currently just sitting behind them, blinding all three of them with his strobing lights. It wouldn't be long until he came up to the window to get Billy's ID and insurance, so time was running short on coming up with a good enough story to get them off this very serious hook.

"Think either of you can pull off being pregnant?" Billy tried, grasping for straws.

Piper and Shel both looked at their trimmed, athletic stomachs. That was a hard no. And there weren't any pillows or towels in the truck that they could stuff under their shirts, either.

"Think either of you could pull off struggling not to shit your pants?" Billy tried again.

"Wouldn't be much of act for me right now," Shel freely confessed needing to poop, "but I don't think trying not to have an accident is going to get us the same sympathy as being pregnant."

As Billy rapidly drummed on the steering wheel, mind racing, Piper was also brainstorming so hard she might've been able to turn on a lightbulb.

She had a plethora of offensive powers available to her, and they were on a section of the highway that was flanked by forest on either side. She could slip out the other side of the cabin, turn into a mountain lion, and scare the officer away.

Or she might get shot.

Maybe she could turn into a falcon and just peck at him. Maybe puncture his tires with her beak or talons.

But that wouldn't help Billy from having the license plate on the truck ran. That was kinda the crux of everything here, getting out of this in such a way that the police didn't show up on Billy's doorstep later tonight or tomorrow. To get that outcome, the officer had to be convinced not to give Billy a ticket of any kind.

And the solution struck Piper like a bolt of lightning. "Guys, relax. I've got this."

The both turned around to stare at her, and then what Piper did next may very well have caused Shel to lose the battle with her bowels: Piper got out of the truck.

Which is something you absolutely never did when you were pulled over by a police officer.

Billy and Shel were too stunned by the fact that Piper had been able to even get out of the truck given the size of her massive balls to come after her, which was perfect for this situation.

The door to police cruiser swung open, and the officer came out angry. "Get back in that truck right now!"

Piper's smile lit up the night. "Hey, there! Nice night, yeah?"

The officer's posture slackened. "Y-Yeah. Really nice…night."

"Such a nice, quiet night. You know what would make it a bad night? All the paperwork you would have to do if you gave me a ticket for speeding. That would just ruin this night for everyone, especially you. So about you just write an official verbal warning really fast, and you can be on your way to go catch the next speedster, and I'll be on my way home. Thanks!"

"Of…course…let's keep it a good night…"

Less than a minute later, the dazed officer handed Piper a slip of paper that had "Official Warning" written on top of it, and he got back in his cruiser and drove off.

Piper used charmspeak. It was super effective!

You might recall at this point how it's been stated in previous chapters how Piper's charmspeak was on the fritz, so much so that her magic power just straight up wasn't working. If you recall that, then you might be asking yourself why Piper's charmspeak suddenly just worked out of the blue without there being any prior mention of Piper getting her voice working again in a previous chapter, and the answer is simple:

Piper only just now got her charmspeak to work on the level it had been operating on back during the Giant War.

As it happened, Piper's charmspeak acting funny is not a made-up plot point for this story. It's actually rooted in canon, just built upon herein. Back in Heroes, Piper's charmspeak was powerful enough to sway crowds, stop hordes of monsters, bring the gods to heel, and even put Gaea herself to sleep. Granted, Gaea was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 feet high, a great distance from her domain, and all Piper managed was a few seconds, but still.

Her charmspeak had put a Primordial to sleep.

The trick to this great level of power, as Piper had learned from Hazel when they were talking about the Mist, was to tell your target what they wanted to hear. Piper had first put this new theory into practice with Khione and the Boreads, when she broke the physical barrier and set Festus to a permanent state of life. However, even before this episode, Piper's "brute force" approach to charmspeak had yielded terrific results.

One of Grandpa's favorite embarrassing stories about toddler Piper was how terrible her Terrible Twos were, what with her always shouting "no!" to everything. Are you hungry? No! Piper, come over here. No! D you need to go potty? No! Piper obviously didn't remember that, being too young, but she had apparently been a suborn little potty trainer, and it all because, even at the tender age of two, Piper was already using charmspeak. Fast forward to her shoplifting days, and Piper was definitely brute-forcing it, culminating in her infamous BMW episode when her conversation with the dealer went exactly like this:

"Hey, can I have the keys to that BMW over there? I just wanna take it for a test drive. I'll bring it back when I'm done."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Here you go."

And off Piper went before the dealer came to his senses and called the police.

In her youth and before she even knew what charmspeak was, Piper was brute-forcing it and using it with great effect. Fast forward to her first steps into the mythological world, and Piper, now aware, was still brute-forcing things as seen in Lost Hero, Mark of Athena, and House of Hades until her moment of clarity. After that, she only got better.

And then we get to Trials, and Piper's charmspeak takes a nosedive.

She gets to the beach at Santa Monica and struggles to charmspeak a trio of human mercenaries. Then she can't charmspeak the pandai at all because, paraphrasing, the big-eared monsters are just built different. Then there's Caligula himself, a god-emperor whose power level is compared to that of a "minor" god several times over the series, who is immune to charmspeak because Medea trained him.

Yeah. Okay.

At face value, this is Rick struggling to create drama for the given situation based on how powerful he made Piper with her charmspeak back in Heroes. In order to pull Jason's death scene off, Piper's charmspeak has to be given a drastic nerf, or else she'd just tell the pandai to commit suicide, and make Caligula surrender and reveal all his secrets. Jason can't die if Piper is still powerful enough to bring down the gods with her voice, and so the powerful of her voice has to be taken away.

But let's go beyond face value. Let's get back within the confines of the fourth wall and examine charmspeak from a different angle.

As we know, charmspeak is at its most powerful when you're telling your target what they want to hear. Charmspeak also has added effect when your target is attracted to you, and even more of an effect depending on how strong the target was. For example, Piper would have hell charmspeaking Medea, the ancient sorceress that hated Piper's guts, into drinking toilet water, as opposed to charmspeaking some depraved, neck-bearded basement virgin that was simping after her into sniffing her ass after she farted.

But following this, it makes no canonical sense that Piper would have trouble charmspeaking a trio of human men, mercenaries or not. As grown men, they would've naturally been attracted to her teenage self, and as mere humans, they had no magical defense against her voice. Despite this, Piper was left exhausted after charmspeaking them into leaving their weapons and radios, and going to get tacos.

There must be a different explanation, and maybe there was. The unknown aspect of charmspeak that also drives how powerful it is: the speaker's confidence.

Piper had definitely been confident in herself with the BMW given all her past successes with asking and receiving. When she had swayed all of CHB to her side for the Hera quest over Drew, she had been unwilling to let the girl win and give her a chance to steal Jason. There were a dozen other examples, like the Roman mob after the eidolon, Jason and Percy, the other eidolons, Asclepius, etc., but the biggest example of the might of confidence came in Athens.

Arguably Piper's greatest canonical moment, her standing alone against the whole army of monsters and all the Giants that had reformed up to that point. Percy and Annabeth were down, and the Argo II hadn't arrived yet. By herself, Piper chopped down monsters left and right, and held off the Giants using her superior nimbleness and speed in conjunction with her charmspeak. Her confidence in herself was at its highest then, and she'd practically soloed the whole Giant army.

Come Trials, however, and Piper's confidence is shattered.

Splintered.

Destroyed.

Broken.

Nonexistent

And whatever other adjectives that can used as synonyms to "not there."

In Trials, Piper is no longer sure of her place in the Cherokee tribe (for some reason), questioning her sexuality (which was never mentioned anywhere in Heroes), broke up with Jason (undoing four books of character development, and five years of effort and energy), is beating herself up for not being able to do anything meaningful for Tristan's sake (because she lacks imagination and doesn't have Jason by her side anymore because of her own actions), and is dumping all of this at the feet of Hera and Aphrodite, claiming that Hera forced her and Jason together and that Aphrodite pressured her into staying with him (despite clear and obvious text evidence indicating otherwise, with Hera having nothing to say about their relationship, and Aphrodite only telling Piper to follow her heart, and Piper and Jason even put all notions of the gods' hands in their relationship behind them at the end of Blood when they were sitting atop Jason's cabin and the declared a new start to their relationship without the gods interfering).

Bottom line, Piper's confidence is somewhere in the neighborhood of the Oort Cloud during Trials, and her charmspeak's effectiveness suffers for it when she can't charmspeak the pandai, Incitatus, or Caligula. This trend was expanded on in this story, which is where the point of Piper's charmspeak outright not working comes from.

And because Piper's confidence in herself is what killed her most powerful magical ability, it's also her confidence in herself that restored it.

The Piper on this 28th night of May was not the same Piper a month ago that woke up the 28th morning of April to find she wet her bed after she guzzled four beers and a Sprite and had a nightmare about Jason. That Piper had lost, confused, angry, and bitter. She'd felt cut off from everyone, her dad always gone, keeping Billy at arm's length, Shel didn't exist, unable to contact her friends, her cousin was a racist bitch, and so much more. That Piper had been a wreck. This Piper had her dad back in her life, she had Billy and Shel and loved them so much they went fishing together, she had her cousin backing her up, she had a mentor to talk to—she had support.

A month later, Piper finally had the support she needed, and with that support came a bolstered sense of esteem, image, and as stated confidence.

And with that confidence, charmspeaking some police officer to take a hike was easy as writing her name.

Piper got back in the truck, Billy and Shel unable to function as they watched the police officer drive away. Piper handed Billy his warning.

"No more speeding, young man. I mean it."

Billy accepted the slip of paper, looked at it in genuine awe, showed it to Shel, and they both looked at Piper in amazement.

"Did you, like, give him the quickest, greatest blowjob of his life or something?" Bill asked.

Piper snorted. "No. I just appealed to his better nature and convinced him that writing a ticket would be too much of a hassle."

"And he bought that?"

"I can be very persuasive when I want to be."

Shel cracked a slight grin. "What can you persuade me to do?"

"Go on a date with me tomorrow afternoon," Piper shrugged nonchalantly. "Lunch or dinner?"

Shel stared at her, and then her face broke into a huge grin. "Lunch."

Piper nodded. "Lunch it is. I don't have any dresses or anything fancy like that, so don't expect anything super formal."

"Pizza Hut?" Shel suggested.

Piper nodded. "Pizza Hut it is."

Shel was practically glowing…until she saw the cold stare Billy was directing her way. Piper saw it too, and her eyes narrowed.

"Something wrong, Billy?"

"Yeah," he said in a low voice, still staring at Shel.

He refused to speak the rest of the night. He drove back to Piper's house, dropping her off. She was hesitant to get out given how…dangerous…Billy felt right now, but something told her she needed to leave. There was a very personal matter going on between Billy and Shel right now, and Piper had already breached the bond between them once already today, not even an hour ago.

It was best not to push it.

Billy drove off with Shel, and Piper entered her home. Dad was back, though she already knew that because the Jeep was present.

"Hey, Pipes! How was your day?"

Piper paused.

Oh, you know. It started off pretty great. We got the boat—beautiful thing, by the way—drove down to Tenkiller Lake while listening to some good music, and we caught some great fish. Then we were attacked by monster alligator spirits, proving that this evil medicine man called Incognito is still out there and is still trying to kill me. Billy somehow managed to fight one off underwater using a pocketknife, and I tore the head off another one. That knocked us out of the mood, and so we left. We put the boat back and came back here after getting Shel's Xbox from her house—which I now realize is still here at our house—and we played a game that eventually played a softcore lesbian porn scene that got me turned on, and Shel and I had a brief conversation about our feelings for each other, a conversation that was cut short because Billy was about to mutilate himself with my tomahawk. The reason he was going to do that is because he's fighting a porn addiction, and self-harms to get himself out of the mood. Then we all piled into Billy's dad's truck and went racing around Tahlequah while blasting rock music at unsafe levels. Then we got pulled over going way over 100, and instead of getting in huge trouble, I finally got my charmspeak back and handled the situation. Then I asked Shel on a date tomorrow for lunch at Pizza Hut. And there's something wrong with Billy that I need to get to the bottom of. I mean, more than the fact that he cuts himself to avoid masturbating.

"It was great. We went fishing, caught some fish, threw them back because, you know, vegetarian, then we went and got Shel's Xbox from her house and brought it here because we wanted to."

Tristan blinked. "Okay. I take it you're going to give it back to her tomorrow when you head over to hang out?"

"Actually, I'm going to give it back to her at Pizza Hut," Piper said, starting to smile. "We're going to have lunch together."

Tristan blinked again. "Just the two of you?"

"Just the two of us," Piper confirmed. "Yes, Dad, I am going on a date with a girl tomorrow."

Tristan was completely still and quiet for two seconds before he cheered and scooped Piper off the ground.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

And the mystery to Billy Jones deepens in this 13k monster of a chapter.

Spring Break, guys. I love having all this time to write. I started this Monday, the 13th, and almost finished it Tuesday night but I got sleepy. So here it is!

Next chapter is going to be so, so, sooooo much fun. You will be getting the full DelayedInspiration iteration of Shel, which may very well be the deepest, most profound characterization of the briefly introduced character ever. Truth be told, I can't think of a single fanfic out there that actually explores Shel, but I will admit that I haven't looked for any.

At all.

I can say with the utmost certainty that my vision for Shel will be the completely antithesis of whatever Rick decides for her, if anything at all. Like I said before, I've seen a rumor that the dedication mentions Piper, so maybe Piper and Shel will feature in the Nico book (yes, I know the book has a name, but the Sun and the Star sounds like something from Wattpad; just saying "the Nico book" is much easier), and if they do, I want mine finished first.

Next chapter will be Shel's full background, her history with Billy, the history of her four ex-girlfriends, and more.

And in a later chapter, Billy will also be explored, and it will be heavy.

Sunday, May 29th, is the day in which the next chapter takes place, and the proceeding Friday is June 3rd, Piper's birthday and the last day of her sophomore year. The repeated stating of dates is important, both to help me keep track of the timeline, and to help everyone get a gauge on how close we are to the end. This week is going to be hectic.

Piper and Shel's date on Sunday, and then a number of surprises throughout the week that will culminate in the most memorable birthday Piper will ever have.

Stay tuned.

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