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.

18. Terror in Reality

Terror in Reality

Whew, boy. The clock is ticking. Got less than a month to finish this before the Nico book officially hits the shelves.

But I've got it all planned out in my mind now. Just gotta stick with it and find the necessary balance between this fanfic and my schoolwork.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and a fair warning about this chapter: It's even more uncomfortable that Piper's date with Shel.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO

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In hindsight, driving back into public was not actually a good idea, especially not to get food from a drive through, because the scene in Billy's car was a textbook domestic violence scene.

You had Billy in the driver's seat, a cold expression on his face, and you had Piper next to him, softly crying as she dabbed at her bloody nose with a towel. It looked like Piper had been abused in a fit of violent rage at the hands of Billy, which ironically was the truth, but more context revealed that Piper was the aggressor. It had been her attempt to sexually abuse Billy, and he had basically defended himself by kicking her in the face.

But nothing came of it, however. Billy pulled into Sonic, ordered himself three corndogs, a large tater tot, a Route 44 Strawberry Limeade, and he got Piper a grilled cheese and a Route 44 Dr. Pepper. Cost him almost 17 bucks. They got their food at the window, nothing being said about Piper because the attendant was almost dead tired and didn't even see her in the passenger seat.

Then they drove back to Billy's secret spot.

Now that more than a few minutes had passed, Piper was able to think a little more clearly now. Now she was trying to figure out how had Billy seemingly been completely immune to her charmspeak. Replaying the disastrous scenario in her mind, Piper could only conclude that Billy had never been under her spell at all, but had instead played along with her just for the sole purpose of kicking her in the face. To be fair, though, compared to what she had been planning to do to him, Piper was rather glad Billy had kicked her.

It felt like a fog had cleared from her mind, like syrup had been scrubbed off her brain. Suddenly, Piper was looking back at her behavior, and couldn't explain a single thing she had done. Nothing she said had made sense, and nothing she did was how she behaved. If you had told her she had been possessed by an eidolon and it had been controlling her, she would've been completely convinced.

Given everything she knew about spirits and her fight with Incognito, Piper couldn't exactly rule out the possibility that she had been possessed. And then Billy had kicked her so hard he knocked the evil spirit right out of her.

Which, as it so happened, was exactly what had happened.

Just the spirit in question was not of Greek or Cherokee origin.

Billy pulled up to the tree with nine branches, and left the car on so that the AC could continue to softly blow. The two teens ate their dinner in silence, Piper slowly munching on her sandwich, Billy inhaling his corn dogs and tater tots, both of them taking an occasional sip of their drinks.

When Billy got to his third corndog, he gave Piper a nudge. She looked over at him, her mouth full of grilled cheese and bread, and she almost spat her food out all over Billy's dashboard at the sight of him sensually sticking the breaded wiener into his own mouth. He made a grand show of bobbing it around his cheeks, and swirling his tongue around he corndog, and it was what Piper needed to release a little bit of her tension.

When Billy saw her smile, he finished his corndog like a normal person, and then took a big drink of his limeade. Piper finished her own meal, and took a big drink of her Dr. Pepper. Billy gathered all of their trash in the carry bag, and then tossed it in the backseat. He reached for the key and turned the car off.

Silence filled the cabin, thick and heavy.

The little bit of tension that had been released with Billy's intentional display returned full force and then some, leaving Piper's heart thumping in her chest as her blood roared in her ears.

For the second big time in her life, the great charmspeaker was at a complete loss for words. The first time had been with Apollo on the night of Jason's death. They had been sitting in one of Caligula's yachts following Piper's charmspeak-laced rendition of "Life of Illusion," letting her rest, and she had been unable to put her confused feelings into words. She had been so fucked up back then, coming up on two months now, her mind a mess of emotions and conflict, and now here she was again, a fucked up mental mess.

The truth Billy had said, and Piper knew he wouldn't accept her usual lies. However, she didn't know if Billy could handle the truth, that she was a Greek demigod, a Cherokee warrior, and that pagan gods and Native spirits were real. It might shatter his mind, proof that other mythical beings existed apart from his God.

This fear actually had canon basis, not that Piper knew it. In Magnus Chase, we are introduced to Amir Fadland, the Muslim betrothed of Samirah, the Valkyrie daughter of Loki. In the Hammer of Thor, Amir demands to know why Samirah is always having to abruptly leave when they are in the middle of something, demands to know what's really going on, and so Samirah shows him the Bifrost. It broke Amir's mind, rendering him insane. Seeing actual proof of gods that were not Allah almost sent Amir to a sanitorium, but Magnus had been there, and with his healing powers, he literally put Amir's splintered psyche back together, and Amir adopted Samirah's mindset about the Norse gods, that they were powerful beings, yes, but not gods.

There was only one.

Piper was now in that exact same situation, only she didn't have a Bifrost nor did she have a Magnus. But Billy had demanded the truth, and after this horrible stunt she had pulled, she owed it to him.

"I want the truth, Piper. What's really going on? Who are you really?"

Piper was still stuck in a state of uncertainty, and so she tried to make a joke as a defense. "The truth? You can't handle the truth."

Billy exploded. His hands slammed onto his steering wheel, and he roared. "Goddammit, Piper! I'm not fucking joking!"

Billy's heightened response triggered a heightened response in Piper. Her reservation sublimated, and she roared back. "You want the fucking truth!? Well here's the fucking truth!"

And so Piper told Billy the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Starting in an angry shout the rapidly morphed into other emotions as she wove her story, Piper revealed the existence of the Greek and Roman gods, how she was the daughter of Aphrodite, and how she had the power of charmspeak. Piper explained what that was, and she told Billy about Camps Half-Blood and Jupiter, and the small city of New Rome. She told Billy about the Titan War from all that she had heard from the campers, she told him about the Giant War from her own personal experience, and she told him what she knew of the current Imperial War. Compounding all of this, she told Billy everything—well, mostly everything—about her friends Leo, Annabeth, Percy, Frank, and Hazel, and she told Billy about her good acquaintances Reyna, Thalia, and Nico.

She told Billy everything about herself: the full story of her childhood and the truth about the Grand Canyon incident, her weird start with Jason because of Hera, their quest, how they developed their bond on their own time through their own efforts during the six months at Camp Half-Blood, and then put their love to the test during the Giant War itself, and then what Piper had been so looking forward to after the war just wasn't there. She told Billy how she broke up with Jason, how poorly she handled it, and how her behavior got even worse when the defamation happened. Piper explained the whole truth behind that, that it was a conspiracy hatched by Medea and approved by Caligula as an act of revenge, and it was carried out by Jane the Bitch. Piper described her final adventures with Jason, their forays into the Burning Maze that eventually culminating with Jason giving her the cold shoulder after he found the oracle Herophile.

Piper explained the death prophecy, and explained to Billy how Jason had kept that a secret from her in an attempt to keep her safe and from having even more stress on her plate, that even after how much of a bitch she had been to him, he still loved her so much that he was ready and willing to die in her place so she could continue living, so she could move on to a new life. Piper had to take a few seconds to get herself back under control after that one, because at this point she was struggling to contain her emotions after recalling so many great times, and so many bad times.

Once Piper was no longer choking on her tears, she launched into the final stages of the truth. She retold her grievances with Tahlequah to Billy, how her dad had turned to overworking himself, the nightmares of Jason, how she felt alone and unsupported, apologizing to Billy because she kept him at arm's length away from her that whole time, and everything had started changing for the better when Shel arrived. Further, Piper told Billy the truth about the bear attack that day at One Fire Field, the day she had run to his house and he had taken her to Shel's. Piper told Billy about Jisdu, the Cherokee spirits, and Incognito.

She told Billy about their battle on Monday—just yesterday—and then, finally, on the biggest emotional roll she had ever been on in her life, Piper told Billy the truth of what her greatest fear was: the enormity of the uncertain future.

"And after all of that," Piper said, almost panting, "after everything all of us have been through, everything Percy and Annabeth went through—the Titan War, Giant War, Tartarus—everything Leo went through, everything we all faced…I'm scared for them. For me. I'm scared that for all we went through, it'll all be for nothing.

"Billy, Percy and Annabeth should be on their way to college soon, if they haven't left Manhattan already. Assuming nothing's happened to them, they're going to do what so few demigods ever do, and that's make it to adulthood. They're gonna make it to the rest of their lives. But I'm scared that even after they get to college, after they work so hard to get their degrees, it's not going to go anywhere. I don't want them to get stuck in some dead-end job. I don't want them to have college degrees, and be stuck flipping burgers at fucking McDonalds. I don't want them stuck in some mediocre place, having to put up with some asshole boss, asshole coworkers, and asshole customers that think they can walk all over people because they're customers. Percy and Annabeth deserve way better than that. Honestly, they deserve to not have to work a day in their lives! They deserve a palace, and monuments, and parades, and a holiday for all they've done, and I'm scared the only thing that's coming for them is nothing but more pain and suffering.

"Same for Leo. On our trip over here from California, he told me he wants to open a garage with Calypso, and I'm scared he'll never get to do it. I'm scared he'll get stuck working for some asshole that'll overwork him and under pay him, and Leo will never make enough money to start his own garage. Or the bank will never give him a big enough loan to buy his own property and have his own place built and loaded out with equipment. I'm scared that my firecracker of a little brother is going to get snuffed out by the world he fought so hard to save. I don't even know about Frank and Hazel—they're Romans, living the legion life, so I've got to no idea what they're going to do with themselves, but I doubt they're going to spend the rest of their lives as praetors. They're gonna want to do something more with themselves, I know that much, but I don't know what, and I'm scared for them.

"Billy, I am scared that my friends and I, after fighting so hard to save this planet and everyone on it, that we're all going to get beaten down and crushed by the world we saved."

Piper sipped at her Dr. Pepper some more, her eyes teetering on being considered wild and unfocused. Even after that big spiel, she still wasn't done. Her voice rose a few octaves higher for this next part of her grand monologue.

"And speaking of the world we saved, I'm not even really sure we saved the world! I mean, seriously! Yeah, Camp Half-Blood and Jupiter stopped the Titans and saved the world from them—yippee! Then, me and the other Seven saved the world from Gaea and the Giants—woo-hoo! Now Apollo's fighting the emperors, heading back to Manhattan to face Nero, and I'm guessing he's going to win because that's how these things go, so that's awesome. Then there's me, who fought some wackjob medicine man from 400 years ago yesterday. I saved the world again. But what did we really save?

"I mean…fuck. I follow the news sometimes. Jisdu really loves following the news; he had this huge speech the other day about how we humans suck at prioritizing our worldly problems, and fucking hell are there a ton of them. You know, there's crime: a huge umbrella term for so much shit, I don't even know where to start. Uh, gun violence, drug dealing, human trafficking, prostitution, rape, other shit. Then there's the government, all those corrupt politicians and organizations like the FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, and whatever else. And the corporations—can't forget about those. Dumping all of that factory waste into the rivers and skies, abusing their workers, hoarding money, bribing the government. Then there's all the social stuff! Gay rights, trans rights, gun rights, inflation, abortion, religion—it just doesn't fucking end, Billy.

"My friends and I busted our asses so hard to save the world, but it's not any safer than what it was before the wars. If anything, it's only gotten worse. And now we're tired. Percy and Annabeth just want to go to college and make a new, simple life for themselves. Leo wants to open his own garage and make a life for himself. Frank and Hazel are gonna want to do something, too. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I thought I wasn't going to have to worry about anything like that, that I'd just be set with my dad's millions, but here we are. Billy, we worked so hard, and there's still so fucking much to do, and we just want to live our own lives, but I feel like we have a responsibility to do more, and I once promised Jisdu I'd use my powers to really try to make the world a better place, but now I just don't know, and I'm hating myself because I need to do more, because I can do more, but part of me doesn't want to. Part of me just wants to go on dates with Shel, get through high school, and just live. I want to live, Billy."

After almost two hours straight of pouring out her heart and bringing Billy into her fucked up world, Piper was finally done. She slumped forward in her seat, completely and utterly burned out. For a time, nothing happened, and Piper began to worry that she had truly broken Billy, because he had stayed silent during her entire monologue, but then she felt his hand gently wrap around her shoulders, and she let him pull him into his embrace. Billy rested his chin atop her head as she leaned her head upon his pectoral.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, and Piper enjoyed it. She enjoyed someone's touch, someone to lean on, someone to hold her, and it was with a small start that she remembered the person who was holding her was the same person she had tried to manipulate into having sex with her. Despite that, Billy was still embracing her like nothing had happened.

Billy rubbed her shoulder and gently pushed her away so he could look her in the eye, but he didn't take his hand from her, instead moving it from her right shoulder to her left. Looking her in the eye, he said, "Thank you."

It was just two simple words, but they held the weight of the world to Piper.

Coming back from Greece, the Seven admittedly didn't get a lot of "thank-yous" from the campers. They got "good-jobs." Piper could only recall a seldom few that had actually given her thanks for the role she played in the Giant War. Then she got back to the public setting, and she had moments like she did back in Chapter One, where she gazed over a crowd and could only feel bitterness that she had saved all those of people, and not a single one knew about it, and they all either treated her like she didn't exist or like the dirt they walked on.

Yes, it sucked. Going so far out of her way to save the world, only for the people of the world to either spit on her (kind of), or not even notice her.

So, after having told him all of this, hearing Billy tell her "thank you" with genuine truth in his voice really did mean a lot to Piper.

But it also meant— "You believe me?"

"Yeah. That's way too detailed and crazy to be a lie. So, thank you. You and your friends. Jason, Leo, Annabeth, Percy, Frank, Hazel, Reyna, Nico, and Thalia. All of them. Thanks. You can tell them I said that, too."

"I…I will, yeah. I'll tell them you said thank you."

Billy nodded. "Good. Also, fuck every single one of you."

Piper recoiled at the massive tonal shift that occurred in less than a breath. Billy's eyes became shadowed and critical, his shoulders slumped slightly, he leaned forward by an inch, and he took his hand away from her shoulder. His expression dropped, and in the darkness of the car, his whole energy was darker than Nico's ever was.

Piper felt weary. Now Billy was going to tell her all about power and responsibility.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have an ounce of sympathy or pity for you and your friends."

Okay, maybe not the lecture Piper had been thinking of, but still not something she wanted to hear.

"One second you're lamenting about the broken world and how you're afraid it's going to chew you and your friends up and spit you all out, and the next second you're telling me how you're all burying your heads in the sand and sticking your asses in the air in free invitation for life to come around and fuck you. That's like kicking a brick wall while barefoot, and then complaining about the wall after you break your toes. That's self-inflicted pain, and not worthy of sympathy."

As much as there was to unpack in all of that, the part Piper got hung up on was the last part. She could only think of Billy's cutting scars, and felt like he was also talking about himself with that statement.

"As for the state of the world and all that bullshit," Billy continued, "yeah, that's objectively your fault. It's not that you saved the world from the Titans and whatever else, it's that after you saved the world from those monsters, you all stopped short of going after the human monsters. You're not stupid, Piper, and I get the feeling you think I'm a broken record-"

"You are a broken record," Piper cut in flatly. "Yes, Billy, I know. I just said all of it. My friends and I preserved the world, but then we didn't do anything to make it a better place. We have power and a responsibility to use it, and we're not using it, so shame on us. We're being selfish by pursuing personal stuff like college and auto shops, while not busting drug rings or human trafficking networks. We are to blame for how bad the world is as a whole because we aren't using our powers 24/7. Right?"

"Wrong."

Piper flinched a little. "What?"

"You're to blame not because you're sitting your happy asses on the sidelines 24/7, but because you're not on your feet so much as 2.4/7. You and your friends aren't out there doing anything."

"Well, just running out there in a bunch of costumes and telling everyone we're superheroes out to save the day isn't really going to work, is it? This isn't the comics or the tv shows we used to watch when we were little kids, okay? This isn't some cartoon where all the people are waving and cheering as we go past. This is real life, where if we don't think before we act, then we could end up causing more harm than good."

"Agreed," said Billy. "Actions have consequences, but inaction is, in itself, an action, and therefore it also had consequences. That needs no higher thinking—we just have to turn on the news and see what's going on from you and your friends doing nothing."

Piper's brow twitched. "Then what's your big idea, then, Billy? What does Billy Jones propose my demigod friends and I do to save the world? March into Congress with a show of force, and make the world bow to us or else?"

And then, without a shred of humor, or mirth, or wit, or silliness, or any kind of kidding, Billy answered in a very serious, very unironic way. "Yes."

Piper leaned back from him, her heart starting to thump in her chest. "Billy…what?"

"It's funny you bring up Congress," Billy said, his eyes starting to gain that familiar manic gleam, only magnified to a degree Piper had never seen before. "It's so very easy to shake our fists at Congress and say they're all a bunch of greedy, crooked, corrupt politicians who only stand for reelection, and lining their pockets with our tax dollars, but for the life of me, Piper…the only person in Congress I can actually name is Nancy Pelosi, and that's only because of the memes I see about her on iFunny.

"I couldn't name either of the senators from Texas, or Oklahoma. If you asked me to name any of the Representatives in the House from Texas or Oklahoma, I'd be drawing a huge blank. I couldn't even tell you how many seats there are in the House for each state. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that Congress as a whole needs a gigantic shakedown. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are dozens of criminals in positions of power, and they need to be executed. Thing is, I actually can't name any of them. On top of that, we can't even guarantee the justice system would even do its job, what with all the lawyers getting everything tangled up. Then it begs the question: if we the people can't count on our leaders to do their jobs and look out for us, and we the people can't count on our courts to uphold the law, then what are we the people supposed to do?"

Piper fidgeted slightly, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable with where Billy was heading with this.

"Oh, it's not a trick question, Piper. We have a very clear historical precedent set for us on what we do with tyrannical governments: we overthrow them with violent force."

Billy was staring hard at Piper, as if he expected her to go round up the demigods and commit to an insurrection. Piper gulped, "But…"

That was as far as she got.

"But nothing, Piper. The federal government of the United States of America is at a point now that is incomparably worse to what the British Monarchy was like. Do you know about the Waco Massacre?"

Piper shook her head.

"Back in '93, there was this nutjob cult leader called David Koresh who led a group called the Branch Davidians. Koresh liked to tell people he could talk directly to God, that the end times were soon upon us, and that we needed to be ready to fight the evil forces of Babylon, also known as government agencies like the ATF, FBI, CIA, and so on, and so Koresh started to stockpile guns in his compound in Waco called Mount Carmel, also were about a hundred or so people lived.

"The ATF didn't like that, so they mounted a raid that led to them getting shot, and so they started a siege instead. Big stuff, with tanks, helicopters, 24/7 news coverage, the works. Had the whole country tuned in. Dangerous fanatic of a cult leader, lots of guns, government involvement—primetime entertainment around the clock. Fast forward to the end of the siege and everything went sideways. A fire started inside the compound, setting the place ablaze, and a lot of people died, including Koresh.

"Thing is, it's unclear how the fire started. Some people say the Davidians inside started the fire…for some reason…and tons more say the FBI started it, which actually has backing because the FBI decided to use CS gas, which is fatal teargas, canned up in explosive containers. They tossed that stuff at the compound during the siege, and then when women and children came running out of the burning building, the FBI was there to shoot them. When they started combing through the corpses, they counted 82 Davidians, 25 of which were kids, and four dead feds.

"The other thing to it is that at this time, the Department of Justice was running out of money, and also going through a leadership change. David Koresh himself also liked to go on morning jogs through the woods next to the compound. If the government wanted Koresh so badly, why didn't they just arrest him while he was out jogging? Why not try diplomacy, try to get him to just surrender the guns? No, the DoJ and the government itself didn't like a fringe group stockpiling arms against them, so they blew a situation up that eventually led to an event that history will remember as the Waco Massacre, the day that the government started a fire that resulted in the deaths of innocent children, just so they could get make some money."

"That's insane," Piper muttered. "There's no way-"

"Look it up," Billy interrupted coldly. "You don't want to take my word for it? Look it up yourself. As for the government, you're a Cherokee Indian. Do you really put it past the government to screw over someone or some people to meet their ends?"

Piper swallowed. "No."

"No," Billy agreed. "You know about Flint, Michigan?"

"Didn't they make a movie about that? Dark Waters with Mark Ruffalo?"

"No, that was about DuPont dumping Teflon into Parkersburg, West Virginia. What happened in Flint was the city's economy was floundering, so some government officials came up with a way to cut some costs by switching their water supply. What they didn't do was treat the new water, and so that untreated water was running through everyone's plumbing, eroding the pipes, and bringing all that eroded metal into their homes. Lead poisoning. More dead kids. City government tried to cover it up, but an EPA guy busted them and a bunch of other investigators got on board. Big scandal. Long story short, in order to save money, i.e. make more for themselves, the city government poisoned its own citizens. God and a bunch of other government officials only know however else they're killing us so they can get rich."

Piper was staring at her hands, her eyes wide and blank.

"You're oh-and-two," Billy said. "Have you at least heard of Epstein?"

Piper shook her head no, not looking at Billy.

"Government-paid human trafficker. Had this big island that all those global elite would go to and fuck little kids, and whatever else depraved shit they got off too. Epstein got caught eventually, and when he was taken to prison, he committed 'suicide' by using his bedsheet to hang himself. A bedsheet specifically designed to not tear, in a prison specifically designed in a way that prisoners couldn't even commit suicide. This bedsheet also apparently had enough tension force to bruise Epstein's left temple, and also break a disturbing number of bones in his neck. Piper, this guy was murdered to cover up all the people who visited his cesspool island, because the people who visited his cesspool island are government officials and rich people. The most disturbing part to me about this is how it's universally accepted that Epstein didn't kill himself—that's the literal meme, by the way—but no one's actually doing a damn thing about it! We've got actual pedophiles in government and Hollywood, and they're getting away with it thanks hush money and information control."

Piper swallowed.

"You got the gist of things yet, or do I need to continue?" Bill asked.

Piper numbly shook her head. In an attempt to defend herself, her brain started grasping at straws. "You're crazy, Billy. Just a wild conspiracy theorist barking at shadows and making his life harder…"

The next thing Piper knew, her head was slammed into the window next to her.

"My cousin died in Afghanistan! A country we invaded because some fucking Muslims decided to hijack some planes! Thermite, jet fuel, steel beams, oil—whatever! We went over there to wipe out the Taliban, pussyfooted around, and then our dementia-ridden asswipe of a figurehead president pulled out and left behind billions in American equipment, equipment that the Taliban took for themselves, and promptly used to regain control of the country. All those dead soldiers, all of that sacrifice, all of that talk about justice and freedom, just to give up and let them win. And now sitting here next to me is a literal superhero, my best friend, a person with powers and a bunch of other friends with powers, and instead of having the burning desire to hold these evil people accountable, instead of wanting to buckle down and focus in on really doing this world some good, you all just want to fuck off and fuck the rest of us, and then complain about how hard your lives are."

Billy pressed on Piper's head to shove himself back into his seat.

Piper just sat there, her eyes still wide as dinner plates. She didn't have so much as a faint twinge of pain anywhere on her head despite Billy's assault. Her body was too durable for an angry teenager and a window. Right now, Piper was thrust into more conflict than she ever had been in her life.

She had tried her damndest to keep out of politics. She tried to keep her head above the madness, abstain from taking a side and getting caught up in some heated conflict, and just be a nice, understanding person. She tried not to have a problem with any person, tried to keep to herself, tried to keep from getting involved, but now…

Now.

Now Piper was faced with the crushing terror of her reality, that she didn't live in a happy world of fantasy and fairytales.

She lived in a world where a boy and a girl could go through war together and still break up.

She lived in a world where heroes weren't ever recognized for their deeds, and were even shunned and abused by society.

She lived in a world where a man could fight and struggle so hard to make a name for himself and a good life for his daughter, and have it all come crashing down around him…because of his daughter, in a stretch of a sense.

She lived in a world motivated by greed and lust, where those in positions of power used their station to get rich at the expense of others, cheated everyone around them for their own sake, and satisfied their depraved desires with their stolen money.

She lived in a world where evil continued unabated, and never saw defeat.

She lived in a hopeless world, so why not forsake it for her own happiness? Why not turn her back on it all and make a good life for herself and Shel? Why dedicate herself to a life full of twists and turns, drama and deceit, evil and horror, only for nothing to ever change? Why not live a nice, steady life, with a nice, steady girlfriend?

Piper flinched in her seat when that thought bolted through her mind. That was exactly the thought that had been there previously during the Giant War, after the incident at Fort Sumpter with Aphrodite. Piper had felt jealous and neglected that her mother hadn't given her any special attention, and after the conversation, she had felt bitter, thinking Mom hadn't said anything to her because she didn't find Piper to be an interesting story because she had gotten her boyfriend. Piper comforted herself with the thought that she didn't want to be a dramatic story, but a simple one. Hell, not even a simple story, but no story at all. Piper had just wanted to live happily with Jason.

And look where that thought process had led her.

Was history repeating? Was Piper making a false connection? Was she standing on the edge of a slippery slope? Had she truly just substituted Shel for Jason, and was now already heading down the same path with her? In shirking a dramatic story and just wanting to settle down into a quiet life, Piper found herself unsatisfied and changing, and it eventually led to Jason's death.

She couldn't let that happen again.

She had to do things differently.

But what? Where did she start? Where did she begin? What did she specifically need to do?

Piper's mouth set into a thin line. "I wouldn't even know where to start or what to do," she confessed.

"Your dreams," Billy answered, his voice sore from his previous tirade. "You told me that your dreams allow you to see across time and space to watch what has happened, what's happening, and what could happen. You said it happens randomly, but you also said that Reyna told you that she worked the visions of her dreams to be contained in a pool in a garden. Have you ever thought about working your dreams to where you can control where and when you go that way you actually see what's really going on behind the scenes?"

"…no," Piper admitted. "Usually, I hate my dreams, and the only I want out of them is for them to end. Thinking like that, I never thought to try and control them. I'll…I'll start trying."

"Cool."

"What if it doesn't work? What do I do?"

"Shock and awe."

"I don't think doing a hostile takeover of the Capitol Building is going to get us anywhere."

"What makes you think that?"

"Uh…the fact that whenever someone tries to takeover the world by force, they're the bad guy?"

"Two things to that: First, that implies that the bad guy lives in a world run by good people, and two, the bad guy intends to harm the world and the people in it. You're in luck, because this world is not run by good people, and you don't intend to bulldoze forests, tear down neighborhoods, or slaughter millions of innocents. Piper, I really do think you're a good person. I really do think you're just as angry about the state of things as I am, but what stops you from standing up is that you're afraid of what other people will say about you. I'm telling you don't worry about that. Fix the problem."

"But where does one end and another begin? I fix one problem, three more come out of it. How do I save the world without destroying it?"

"You can't."

Piper finally looked up from her hands to stare at Billy, who was staring back at her. "Alright, you just lost me."

"Not once have I ever said that you can save the world. I've only ever said you're not doing what you should be doing to make it a better place. Piper, the world is fucked. It is riddled with sin, and destined for destruction. God and Jesus are going to return—hopefully sooner rather than later, shit—and everyone is going to die. Heaven and Earth will pass away, and a new civilization will be created, one without sin, death, pain, suffering, ego, unfairness, inequality, etc. The world and the universe we live in cannot be saved, because there's more to saving it than just beating the bad guys.

"In order to really save humanity, you would have to change every single person on the fundamental level. You would have to get rid of everyone's ego and pride, make everyone stop thinking about I and start thinking about them, they, we, and us. You would have to make everyone selfless, willing to share and care. You would have to eliminate all thoughts of getting ahead, getting an advantage, getting even, and so on. Essentially, Piper, you would have to make humans not be humans anymore. You would have to take all the best qualities of the human, magnify them by twelve, and completely eliminate everything else. It cannot be done by you or anyone else."

"I could use my charmspeak," Piper said. "That would have an effect."

"Only temporarily," Billy countered. "You would have to keep dosing the populace to keep up the magic, and then after you die, then what? Unless another of your sisters comes along and has a powerful enough voice to subdue the masses, the populace is going to end up right back at square one."

"Huh," Piper said. "Not once did I hear you try and tell me that using my charmspeak to make the human race do what I want them to is an ethical and/or moral violation."

Billy snorted. "You're last person to be talking to me about ethics and morals right now."

Piper winced. "I'm sorry. I literally don't know what happened. I was just fine Monday morning, and then after Incognito, I just…went crazy."

"Well, you did say he was an evil medicine man. Maybe he put a spell on you and you never noticed it. A failsafe in case he lost. Me kicking your stupid face in helped reset yourself."

Piper swallowed because that possibility made so much sense she believed it.

Billy continued. "I have found that ethics and morals sometimes get in the way of doing what needs to be done. Case in point, Batman. A lot of people think Batman is one of the greatest superheroes ever, but I disagree. I think Batman is a pussy. He thinks killing someone will somehow ruin his whole being, but it won't. Gotta be one of my favorite Batman moments, but the Dark Knight Returns: Part Two movie, he's fighting the Joker for the last time and he says, 'All the people I've killed by letting you live.' Piper, there are people in this world that need to die. People who control the courts and would never see a judge, much less prison. Therefore, the only way to make sure justice is really served, is to kill those people."

Piper's mouth set into a thin line as she appreciated that Billy was literally advocating for the deaths of so many people. Now, was Piper hesitant to respond because she had an aversion to killing people? No; she had gone way out of her way to kill Medea, and she knew in her heart that if she ever had the opportunity, she would kill Jane and the rest of the woman's cronies who contributed to her father's life falling apart. Just yesterday, she had presumably killed Incognito. In short, Piper didn't have a problem with killing bad people.

"…how do I know if I'm killing the right people?"

"Your dreams," Billy said, bringing the prophetic power of her dreams back to center. "Or just a whole lot of research into public happenings. You know, Google."

Piper snorted. "Building a kill list off of Google."

"Well, you have to start somewhere."

"Wow, we are really sitting in here seriously talking about killing politicians and establishing a new world order."

"Why not?" Billy challenged. "We're in a position these days where we can't trust the courts, and we can't trust the government. Corporate greed drives practically everything on the planet. Criminals on the streets and in office are getting away with their crimes because of money. Everything is politicized these days, with the idea being you can speak freely so long as you say what I'm saying. I've seen the news articles online, MSN on my personal laptop, and I've seen the comments on a lot of those stories."

Billy shuddered as he recalled some of those comments.

"Believe me, you just think America is divided. Go read some of those comment sections, and read for yourself all the hate that gets thrown around in there."

"What kind of hate gets thrown around in there?" Piper asked.

"Vicious stuff. I've seen conservatives calling for the mass execution of liberals, and the same of the liberals for the conservatives. People on both sides spewing lies and misinformation, thinking they're standing on a rock when they're actually drowning in sand. It's the kind of shit that makes you think this country will actually never turn around, because both sides are so deeply entrenched in their ideals, so convinced that they're right, that they'll never consider compromise or unity. They only thing they want is the extermination of the other side."

"What side are you on, Billy?" Piper asked quietly.

"Transgenderism is a mental illness. Homosexuality is a sin and is nothing to be proud of or flaunted. Illegal immigrants should all be deported immediately, because their continued presence in America is an insult to all the immigrants that went through all the hoops necessary to become a legal citizen. The Second Amendment was written to provide the people with means to protect themselves from a tyrannical government, and any attempt to infringe upon that right is illegal, and anyone who tries is the enemy. The federal government has overstepped its bounds and has intruded, and is intruding, upon the rights of the states to self-government. It was the belief of the Founding Fathers that the people had a right, a duty, and a responsibility to stand up for freedom and against tyranny, and that when all diplomacy with the crown failed, they were willing to take up arms, fight, kill, and die for their beliefs, and if they were alive today, they would not be ashamed of the state of the government, but ashamed of we the people for allowing things to get so wildly out of control, and are doing nothing about it besides screaming and waving sticks. And getting into pointless arguments on the Internet. The United States was founded upon the principles and morals of the Bible, and the more the principles and morals of the Bible are attacked and pushed out of the public sphere, the more the foundations of this country will weaken, until it eventually all collapses into an endlessly immoral dystopia. Does that answer your question?"

"Y-Yeah," Piper managed to answer.

Billy gripped his steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. "You can't stan by, Piper. You and your friends can't just sit there and watch as the world you fought so hard to save is torn apart by the people you saved. You have to stand up and do everything you can to make the world a better place for as long as you can."

"What if we stand for all the opposite things you stand for?" Piper asked. "If my friends and I get together and we decide that being transgender isn't a mental illness, that being gay is an awesome thing to be celebrated, that the Bible is outdated for the times and we get rid of all the Abrahamic religions and instead make the Greek gods, Hellenism, the state religion, and force everyone to worship and pray to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, and all the other gods—then what?"

"Then you will have at least stood for something, and then I'll come after all of you and kill you because I'd feel responsible for everything that you did, because it was me who talked you into taking action in the first place."

"Billy, we'd crush you like an ant between our fingers. I was holding way back when we fought yesterday. I had to really struggle not to splinter your bones."

Billy smirked. "Never said I'd fight you face-to-face. Cousin was in the military, remember? He taught me how to shoot, and you told me that you demigods are vulnerable to magic and metal. A few rounds of lead in your face will put you down."

"We're pretty fast, Billy. You'd have to get us when we're not paying attention, and with our ADHD, that's not very often."

"A silenced sniper will do the trick. Get a good distraction going so you're focused on something else, and bam! Headshot at 300 meters."

Piper snorted. "Think you can really hit someone in the head from that far?"

"I know I can."

Piper stilled. Her mind instantly shot back to Sunday, the way Shel had spoken about her murderous, insane fourth girlfriend, Avery, and how she had died. Piper knew for a fact that Shel knew what really happened, but she hadn't pried then because they were on their first date. Now here was Billy, talking in a very certain way.

"You and Shel killed Avery and those other three, didn't you?"

Billy didn't even hesitate to nod. "Cousin Axle never made it back home alive, but his Army buddies did. They loved Brother David too, and when I gave them a call after what the judge ruled, they were more than happy to help. Hijacked a dump truck and rammed the prison van, knocking it over. Deployed some tear gas, rounded up the four, and made it out of there. Took 'em to the woods, and Shel and I got some target practice. A little bit of acid later, and those bodies will never be found because there's nothing to be found."

And what was Piper's reaction to learning that Billy and Shel had killed the people that got away almost scot-free with kidnapping a kind youth pastor, raping him, mutilating him, torturing him, and burning him alive in his Chic-fil-A? It was this:

"Good."

Billy snorted. "You've got no problem with me and Shel killing those freaks, but you're getting cold feet about getting your hands bloody with politicians, CEOs, actors, and other criminals? Aren't they just as evil, if not more so?"

Piper looked off. After a few moments, she said, "Wow. Never in my life did I ever think I would legitimately be thinking about orchestrating a coup against the American government."

"Hey," Billy shrugged. "It doesn't get anymore American than rebelling against the government."

Piper couldn't help but snort. She had started this encounter with the full intent of raping Billy, and instead she ended up having one of the deepest, if not the deepest conversation of her life, where she was forced to face more evil than she ever wanted to look at, and then confronted with her responsibility to do something about it because of her powers, all ending with the conclusion that the only apparent way to make meaningful change in the world was either to use her charmspeak, kill people, or both.

Or maybe not.

Piper's mouth set into a thin line. Billy was crazy, she knew that. She'd never heard of anything he talked about, and while she wasn't calling him a liar, she was thinking that maybe even he didn't have the story straight. Maybe wherever he got his information was also wrong, either intentionally or not. Maybe the web of lies had so many crossing strands that it was impossible to tell where it started and where it ended.

But Piper knew how to cut through that web, or rather, how to train herself to cut through that web. Her dreams made her a prophet, and it was Billy's theory that she could master her dreams and use them to see the truth—which was actually canonically possible as seen in Tower of Nero when Luguselwa straight-up tells Apollo he can do that, and then Apollo does it—and if she added in her Immortals clairvoyance from her spirit powers, she may be able to boost the clarity of her dreams.

Then the big question arose: and then what?

Say that Piper looked into the past, and confirmed that the Titanic was deliberately sunk in order to create the Federal Reserve; that 9/11 was an inside job, after all; that the government was orchestrating a number of these shootings in order to push for disarmament so they could finally control the people; that COVID-19 was deliberately created by China to quell the Wuhan protests, destabilize the global economy, and rig the 2020 election to kick out Trump; that the Clintons really did assassinate people; that the Bidens really did launder American taxpayer money to Ukraine; say that Piper confirmed for herself the truth of all these conspiracies…then what?

What did she do? Travel across the globe as the Punisher, killing these people? Why not? Her moral compass demonstrated that she had no problem with killing those who deserved it, making sure that brutal, absolute justice was carried out. If any of the above was true, then there were plenty of people out there just as crooked and evil as the people Billy and Shel had killed, and they needed to die as well.

Then, being more specific, Billy brought up the politicians, and was self-aware about his own irony. It was easy to say that all politicians were immoral and corrupt, but that objectively wasn't true, just like it wasn't true that (insert people group here) were all evil. There were always outliers, always exceptions to the rule, and Billy himself even admitted he didn't know who those people were. Neither did Piper. It was entirely up to her to do her own research to categorize the good and the bad, and then decide what to do with them.

Same with the corporations. It was easy to wag the finger and say they were all evil, but which ones specifically? And what were they really doing that made them evil? Piper didn't know, and she had to find out. After she found out, she then had to figure out what to do about those corporations. Expose them? Sabotage them? Kill the board of directors and whoever else was involved in the scheme?

Just how much blood was Piper setting herself up to spill?

Then there were her friends.

Piper didn't intend to go at this alone. Her friends deserved to know about this, what she was thinking about doing, and what Billy had convinced her of doing—using their powers to really start to tackle the world they had saved, and really start trying to make it a better place for all the little guys. What if they stood against her, calling her an extremist that had lost her mind, vowing to oppose her, and come after her to stop her? What if they disagreed but decided to stay out of it and just live in their little corners of the world? And if they were totally onboard, then there they were, the Heroes of Olympus, united again to take on human monsters.

With truth and justice, hoping the courts of law maintained their integrity? Or with swords, and just kill them?

With the power of their demigod dreams confirming guilt or innocence, what did they need due process for?

And where was the point where they were no longer the heavy hand of justice in the world, but instead just a group of reckless killers that made things worse everywhere they went?

Sitting here in this darkened car on this summer night, it was easy to sit back and fantasize about traveling the world as a team again, killing the bad guys and making the world a better place, but when you stopped and thought about it, it got really messy, really fast.

Piper found herself applying her experiences from Assassin's Creed III to her given situation. Connor was eager and ready to go kill the Templars, but each one he killed brought up valid points in how killing them was only going to make things worse. Like Pitcairn had said to Connor, "You wield your blade like a man, but your mouth like a child!" and like Achilles had said, "In your haste to save the world, take care that you don't destroy it!"

It was easy and naïve to think that killing someone was going to solve all the problems they were creating.

But at the same time, that wasn't an excuse to not take action.

It was a warning to be wise in the action you took.

Even the Founding Fathers only took to killing as their last resort against the British.

Piper blew a rush of air out of her nose as she once again just appreciated the fact that she was seriously sitting here in the car of her best friend, on this summer night, one day before the two-month anniversary of Jason's death, three days before her seventeenth birthday, having a legitimate and serious conversation about shaking up the world order by becoming a magical judge, jury, and executioner, with the justification that because she had the power, she therefore had the responsibility to undertake this monumental task. And then Piper couldn't help but look at Billy.

"You know, all this talk about finding the truth, punishing the bad guys, power, responsibility, making the world a better place, doing what we can, where we can, when we can, and all that stuff—what are you doing about it, Billy? How are you putting your money where your mouth is?"

"Almost literally," Billy answered. "You know I work the stock market?"

"Yeah."

"I donate $300 a month to the Red Cross, St. Jude's, and the Peace Corp, respectively. I go donate blood every time I get the chance after that eight-week waiting period is over. Every week, I take 10% of however much I make off my stocks to the church as my tithe. There have been times when I pay for someone who can't pay for something themselves, I pay for the person behind me in the drive through, I pay for a whole meal for the people I'm with, and if necessary, I will kill."

Piper flashed back to the night of the powwow, when Billy held those Cherokee racists at gunpoint with an empty gun, and then when he took everyone to dinner, he paid for the meal himself. It hadn't been a cheap dinner, either.

Piper then appreciated the fact that Billy was shelling out over a thousand dollars a month in charity. Then she appreciated the fact that Billy was richer than she was, and may ever be again, and that was definitely a mental experience.

"It's what David taught me," Billy continued. Piper recalled that David was the youth pastor that Shel's crazy—now dead—ex had violently murdered. "He was all about the idea that if you had the ability to help people, then you had the responsibility to do so. That's why I'm coming down so hard on you, and why I'm going to stay on your ass until you start doing something good."

"I've got it, I've got it," Piper snorted. "I really am stuck now. I promised Jisdu I'd do something with my powers, and now I've promised you I'll do something with them. Double promise."

Billy shook his head. "No. Don't promise us anything. Promise yourself you'll do something, and then don't let yourself down."

Piper nodded.

Silence returned for a short time before Billy broke it.

"Are we cool, then? You're not gonna screw off anymore, and you're gonna get ahold of your other demigod friends and make sure they aren't gonna screw off, either?"

Piper thought about it, and her brow furrowed. "We're cool on that stuff making the world a better place and all that, but…can I ask you a question of my own now?"

"You just did."

Piper rolled her eyes. "I'm being serious, smartass."

"What's your question?" Billy asked, toning himself down to where he was as serious as Piper wanted him to be.

"I told you that the Greek gods are real, and the Roman gods are them but with different personalities, and that Mt. Olympus is floating over the Empire State Building, and that the gods have demigod kids, and there are camps for those demigod kids, and that I'm one of those demigod kids, and that Cherokee spirits are also real, and they chose me to be their warrior against Incognito, and you believe me on everything…Billy? As a Christian, how are you not freaking out right now over literal proof of there being other gods besides yours?"

Billy cocked a brow. "Why would I be freaking out over there being proof of other gods? If there's other gods out there, then that proves my God is also real, and my faith is validated. That means Heaven and hell are real, angels and demons are real, God and the devil are real, Jesus really is the Messiah, death really has been defeated, and all of us sinners are saved. That's more cause to rejoice than anything."

Piper felt her heart starting to thump a little faster in her chest as Billy presented his reasoning for not having a complete breakdown. If the Greek gods were real, then so was God. If God was real, then the Bible was true. If the Bible was true, then the rules and laws written therein were true. If the rules and laws written therein were true, then Piper and her friends really were on their way to Hell because they hadn't accepted the blood of Jesus as the atonement for their sins, and were choosing to pay for their sins with their own blood.

Once again, Piper was thrust into religious conflict. Playing Cyberpunk, the quest where she nailed Joshua to a cross, her date with Shel, talking about their sexuality, how it was a sin, and about sin and judgement, and now here with Billy as he told her that since the Greek gods were real, then the Christian god was real, and since he was real, then so too were his laws and the penalty that came with them, and that meant Piper was a sinner, she would face judgement, and according to Shel, unless she accepted the blood of Jesus to atone for her sins, she would spend eternity in Hell despite the good deeds she had done here on earth.

Piper felt like she was finally at a point where she couldn't justify anything, and she couldn't brush it off anymore. She felt like she was at another crossroads, where the uncertainty was too much to ignore, and she literally could not pick a path on a whim and just hope for the best, leaning on her own skills and powers to get her out of whatever trouble she found herself in. Piper felt like she was on the edge of the most important thing of her life, and she was scared to go over that edge.

Over into the unknown.

"C-Convince me," she barely managed to let out the choked whisper under her breath, in a state of crisis more severe than when she was with Apollo almost two months ago.

"What?" Billy asked, not having heard her clearly.

"Convince me!" Piper shouted at him. "Convince me that I should follow the god that's going to send me to Hell because I don't accept his blood or whatever, that calls me a sinner because I like girls. I'm going to Elysium when I die, so what do I need Heaven for? Knowing all that I know, all that I've told you, why should I be a Christian?"

Billy stared at her, before he closed his and sat back in his seat. He took a deep breath, then a second, and finally a third before he opened his eyes again, his thoughts gathered, his being centered, and his mind focused.

"Revelations, 20:13, 14: The sea opened up and gave up the dead within it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all of the dead were judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death."

Piper blinked, trying to figure out if that was going to be literal or not, and that Nico's dad was apparently destined to be thrown into the lake of fire. "Huh?"

"Elysium—and if the Greek myths are true and so are the Cherokee legends, I'm willing to bet that there are other pantheons—so Elysium, and the other afterlife places like Valhalla, the Duat, and reincarnation, are temporary. Storage places. All those dead people are going to get called up to the judgement seat whether they like it or not, and they're probably going to have the Surprised Pikachu face when they do. You can bank on Elysium only so long until the Second Coming happens."

"Okay…judged for what we did here on earth. I saved the earth. I helped out at camp with a ton of things. I was a big sister to my siblings. I helped my friends on the Argo II. I went through the Burning Maze back in California, and went to fight Caligula. I've done a lot of good things here on earth. Why should I have to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior? Why is it that what I've done isn't enough to get me and my friends into Heaven?"

"Because we are not saved by how many good works we do, but by the blood of Jesus. James 2:10 tells us that breaking one part of the law makes us guilty of breaking the whole law, and Romans 3:23 tells us that because all have sinned, we all have fallen short of God's glory. Because of sin, everyone is damned-"

"But how is what I've done not enough?" Piper interrupted, a few beads of sweat on her brow as she began to get heated through frustration with what she considered to be Billy's circles of talking.

"Because you are still sinning," Billy growled lowly. "Everyday we commit a sin, and everyday we deserve to be destroyed for it, for a sin, no matter how small or severe in the eyes of men, is heinous and abhorrent in the eyes of God. Yes, that means that a kid stealing candy from a gas station is just as evil as a child rapist in the eyes of God, but I didn't set the rules of this house. When you make a universe and everything in it, then you can make the rules."

"This house?" Piper cocked a brow.

"Yes, this house. This world, this solar system, this galaxy, and the whole of the universe is the property of God, and He has allowed us to be guests in His house. He freely welcomes everyone who wants to come in, but as the Master of the House, He has set forth the rules and expectations of His house, and it is entirely within His discretion and mercy to decide when and how to enforce His rules. For example, your house."

"My house," Piper echoed.

"Your house has rules, does it not?"

"Uh…I mean…" Piper was honestly drawing a blank as to what specific rules there were in the house she'd been living in for the past two months.

"So the next time I'm over at your house, you don't have any problem with me going through your panty drawer?"

"My house has rules," Piper confirmed.

"And the next time I'm over, if I do decide to take a peak and you catch me?"

"I'm going to kick your ass. Or maybe just make you wear them since you want them so badly."

"As is your right. Why?"

And now Piper understood. "Because it's my house, and it's an extension of my goodwill to let you into my house, let you have my food and drinks, use my bathroom, watch my TV, and be in my room. But there's also rules and boundaries that I expect you to observe while in my house, like staying out of my dad's room and keeping your nose out of my underwear, and if you break those rules and step over those boundaries, I have a right as the owner of that house to punish you because you've broken my trust."

"Correct. This world is God's house, and He puts us in and takes us out when He sees fit, and gives us innumerous blessings while we're here, and punishes us when we disobey Him."

"But why punish people?" Piper asked. "Why kill? Why make Hell? He's supposed to be all about kindness, compassionate, forgiveness, and love, so why make such a horrible place?"

William turned grave. "Sin. Has. Consequences."

Piper suddenly felt very, very cold.

"It's a stupid question that if God is so good, why make a place to punish the wicked? The real question is how can God be good if He didn't make a place to punish the wicked? How could He be a good God if He allowed evil to go unanswered, and the answer is that He doesn't. Oh, yeah, it doesn't look like it, but that's nothing new. Passages in the Bible going back thousands of years lament about how the evil and unrighteous are prospering, and I honestly consider that be a sign of just how good God really is."

Piper stared at him. "Huh?"

"Think of it like this: I take it you hate that Jane woman? And Caligula?"

"With every fiber of my being."

Billy nodded. "We'll get into the topic of forgiveness later, but consider this for now: would you rather see Jane and Caligula punished for one minute, or ten?"

Piper cocked a brow. "Ten, I guess?"

"Ten minutes, or thirty?"

"Thirty?"

"Thirty, or five hours?"

"Billy, where are you going with this?"

"Where I'm going is that God allows all of these evil people a few precious decades of life, before they are sentenced to an eternity of pain and torment for their crimes. You know how any number compared to infinity is zero in mathematical terms?"

Piper nodded, remembering that from Math class.

"Any stretch of time compared to eternity is zero in the same terms. A hundred years is nothing compared to forever. A thousand years, a million, a billion, a trillion years—all zero compared to infinity. So, I'm asking you how long would you rather see Jane and Caligula punished for, and you always lean towards the longer span of time, and therefore I have good news: based on what you've told me, I strongly doubt either of them have accepted the blood of Jesus, which means-"

"They're on their way straight to Hell," Piper said, and she couldn't stop the vindictive smile that appeared on her face as she thought of demons pouring boiling oil all over Jane's face, causing the skin and muscle to melt right off the bones of her skull.

Wow.

That was morbid.

"Yeah. It's not that God is allowing evil to go unpunished, or for the wicked to live prosperous, happy lives, it's that He's deigning to give them a brief, infinitely tiny taste of a good life, by giving them what they want: fame, fortune, wealth, power, sex, food, whatever, and then, because they refuse in their hearts to ever turn away from their sin and turn to the Lord, they will face eternal judgement. God refrains from punishing them now because He is trying to get them to repent—2 Peter 3:9, …not wishing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance—and if they don't, believe it or not, straight to hell."

Piper's lips pursed. "Then why not just…make people repent? He's God, so he's supposed to be all-powerful and all that, so why doesn't he just snap his fingers and make people accept him and Jesus?"

"Because that would be a violation of the free will He gave to man. When He created Adam and Eve, He did so by giving them the ability to pick and choose what to do, and He gave them one rule: don't eat from this one specific tree. Eve chose to eat from that one tree out of the billions of other trees and bushes in the Garden of Eden, and then she got Adam to do the same, and so God had to punish them. He gave them one rule, they broke that one rule, so He, as the God of justice, had to make sure His law was upheld. That's how death and turmoil entered the Creation. And also periods. You can thank Eve for your cramps every month."

"Fuck you, Eve," Piper couldn't help but mumble. "But wait—if God knows everything, knew everything that was going to happen-"

"Why bother making a good Creation with Adam and Eve if He was just going to curse it all and cast them out of Eden, and then let unfold the bloody, violent history that we know of?"

Piper nodded.

"You accept the fact that God is all-knowing and that He had it all planned out before He did it, so why do you only stop at yesterday? If God has it all planned out, then He has it all planned out. From the first day of the Creation Week, to the Last Day when He will return on a cloud with His angels. You're right: God did know that Adam and Eve were going to sin and then He was going to cast the curse of death upon the universe, just like He knew that one day He was going to do away with it all, and start over again, this time with a new Creation without sin, death, pain, or suffering. The question is: are you going to be a citizen of the New Jerusalem, or are you not?"

Piper's mouth set into a thin line as she continued to rage with herself.

"I…I don't know. This whole 'blood of Jesus' thing, sin, Hell, judgement…I don't like it. I don't like the idea that a person can really live a good life, and still go to Hell for all eternity just because they didn't accept Jesus's blood. My dad, for example. He's a great man, you've met him, you know he's good, but I know he's never been to church. He can't handle the idea of higher powers. His mind almost shattered over a year ago now when he was captured by Enceladus. He once told me that if he started believing in gods and spirits, that he'd start looking for someone to blame for Grandpa's death, Mom leaving us, all the pain he went through, his life falling apart, etc..."

"So he's traumatized, refuses to let go of his trauma, and accept that he's actually not in control of his life like he thinks he is?"

Piper's temper flared as Billy was basically saying her dad was just being a pussy. "Hey-"

"Is for horses," Billy supplied, making Piper bristle, but he didn't let her get a word in. "Certainly, your dad is good based on the measure of how good a man is, but by the measure of God, he's just like the rest of us: flawed, imperfect, and full of sin. Off the top of my head, he had out-of-wedlock sex with Aphrodite, and there's no telling who else he might've had sex with since that you don't know about. He was also a neglectful father, pushing you aside on numerous occasions, and I'm willing to bet that he's taken the Lord's name in vain at least twice a day for the better part of his life. One sin is all it takes to warrant an eternity of separation from God."

"But that's bullshit!" Piper insisted.

"Only when you don't consider how easy it is rejoin with God," Billy said flatly. "All it takes is to admit that you are a sinner, that you have committed sin, and that you have been living in rebellion. After that, then you say that you accept that Jesus is God made Man, that you believe that He died on the cross, shedding His perfect blood as the perfect atonement for everyone across time, and that He rose again on the third day. That's all there is to it. The genuine admittance of your sin, and the genuine belief in Jesus Christ. Then you get baptized as the public symbolism of your profession of faith and the washing away of your sins to start living a new life, and then do your best to be a good, kind, compassionate, caring, loving person, who urges everyone else to repent of their sins like you did."

"Okay, then based on that, how many bastards are out there that have done all that, and then they just turn around and start committing the worst sins? They rape people, murder, steal, cheat on their spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, or beat them? They really just get off scot-free?"

Billy snorted. "Stealing, raping, and cheating, huh? Bit ironic coming from you."

Piper suddenly felt extremely horrible. "Billy, I-"

"I know. But to your point…no. Matthew 7:23, 24: Many will say, 'Lord, Lord! Did we not prophecy in your name? Cast out demons in your name? Perform many miracles in your name? And I will say to them: Depart from me, for I never knew you.There are plenty who say they believe in Jesus, but they really don't. If they did, they wouldn't do any of what you described. And if they do,God is called the Heavenly Father, and like a father, He punishes and disciplines His children for their disobedience. Hasn't your dad ever punished you for something wrong that you did?"

It was rhetorical question, and they both knew it. Piper had told Billy about her string of thefts in her years previous, and how it culminated in her being sent to the Wilderness School. Of course, there were other times as well in Piper's life that her dad had disciplined her, such as when she was in first grade and she told another kid to go to hell and she got her mouth washed out with soap, and the few times her dad had given her a spanking for some other infraction.

Piper nodded in response to Billy's question, and he continued.

"God doesn't allow sin to go unpunished, as we've already agreed on. Likewise, He doesn't allow the sins of those who say they believe in Him and claim to follow Him to go unpunished, either. I might've undersold it, but there's supposed to be more that goes in salvation than just some words and a dip in a pool. When you're saved—truly saved—and you really do believe in what you're saying, you're supposed to undergo a conversion. You're supposed to become an entirely new person. For example, a smoker that never smokes again, or a drinker, a gambler, and so on. Therefore, a truly saved person that truly believes in the Lord and is sealed with the Holy Spirit, should never commit sin like that ever. And if you do, then did you really repent of your sins? If you're still out there doing the same stuff you were doing before you were saved, then did you really repent? Did you really get saved? Do you really believe what you're saying?"

And to Billy's challenge, Piper answered, "You're talking about Shel being gay."

"And anyone who calls themselves a Christian but lives like that," Billy said without missing a single beat.

"Okay, just where in the Bible does it actually say that?" Piper demanded. "Where in the Bible does it actually say that being gay is a sin and that I'm going to Hell because I love a girl?"

"We have already established that you are not going to hell because you love a girl, but because you don't repent of your sins and confess Jesus as your lord and savior."

"And you are talking in circles!" Piper ground out. "You're telling me in one breath that the ticket out of Hell is accepting Jesus, and then in the next breath, you're telling me that's not actually how it happens because-"

"Because if you really believed in what you were saying, then you would really act like it," Billy cut in. "People behave in ways they believe. Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus—generally—will be super-duper nice to you because they think that earns them brownie points. Mormons and Muslims will get a better place in Heaven the nicer they are, and Buddhists and Hindus will either get a better next life, or finally be enlightened and escape reincarnation, if they accrue enough good karma. All bullshit, but that's a topic for another time. My point is, if you really believed in Jesus, then you would follow His commands, those being to love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, and if you loved someone with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, you would be striving as hard as you could to do what that person told you to do.

"Your dad, for example. Say you got home from school one day and he left a note. On it, he says he started the dishwasher and started a load of laundry, and he wants you to unload the dishwasher and fold the clothes. Simple tasks, ones that he already started, and you just have to finish them. So, because you love your dad, you do what he asks you to do. Same with God: He has given His instructions on how to live, and because we love Him because He loves us first, we carry out those instructions.

"Now, if you didn't put away the dishes and fold the clothes, your dad would have every right to be angry with you that you didn't do what he asked, and have every right to punish you. He could also just brush it off and do it himself, or now that he's home, make you do it. But how many times is he supposed to let you off the hook for not doing what he told you to do before it becomes a problem? He would be teaching you that your actions don't have consequences, that you have nothing to be afraid of if you disobey simple commands, and if that's how you go into adulthood, getting a job and stuff, you're going to get slapped in the face with reality. Your dad has to make sure you learn that way you can function. God is the same way. The Heavenly Father has to discipline you when you commit sin, when you don't do what He has told you to do. So all those people you described, they either don't really love God, or they're heading into a world of shit.

"Shel is living in sin, Piper. You are living in sin. There are four specific instances I can think of off the top of my head where the Bible addresses same-sex relationships, and those are in Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, and Jude.

"In Genesis, specifically, we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. From Sodom, we get the words sodomy, sodomite, and sodomize, all meaning gay sex; we don't get any fancy words from Gomorrah that I know of, other than the green woman from the Marvel movies. Where Sodom was full of gay men, Gomorrah was full of gay women. God wiped both cities off the face of the earth for their rampant sin. In Leviticus, we have everyone's favorite verses, 18:22 and 20:13, which both basically say the same thing, A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman. In Romans, Paul references Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that the men and women gave up natural relations for unnatural ones—being gay—and in Jude, Jude also references Sodom and Gomorrah in the same way, that their sin is what caused their destruction, and their sin was homosexuality. Homosexuality falls under the blanket of what the Bible lists as sexual immorality, which includes incest, bestiality, and rape.

"The Bible is clear on it, Piper: God made man, and He made woman for man, and before there were any other human beings on the planet besides Adam and Eve, God said that marriage would entail a man and woman leaving their respective families to become one flesh, and make a new family. Not man and man, not woman and woman. Man and woman. And then scattered throughout the whole rest of the Bible are the instructions for how a husband and wife are to conduct themselves, namely loving each other, being respectful, being faithful, trusting each other, etc. Shel knows this. She knows what she's doing is sinful, but she does it anyway, despite the clear warnings God has sent her way."

"You mean how two of her girlfriends are dead?" Piper hissed, not liking where this was going at all. "How three of them cheated on her? How she killed one of them?"

"Exactly!"

"That's fucking bullshit!"

"That's the consequences for their actions!" Billy shouted back. "The wages of sin are death, they committed sin, they died! That's how it works. Sin always results in death, and the consequences of sin carry over to other people. You know that your actions can have consequences the likes of which you can never imagine."

"Then what about babies?" Piper countered. "What the fuck did they do that made God say, Alright, you're dead, before they could even crawl?"

"Specifically? I don't know," Billy admitted. "But like I just told you, sin has consequences. Maybe the baby's parents did something so horrible, that God has decided the most effective way to punish them is to take their child."

"That's-!"

"Or maybe," Billy stressed with a hard edge in his voice, "that God finally decided to take some preventative action. Maybe he saw that baby was going to grow up into a monster, and so he decided to kill it before it could become evil. Or maybe he saw that baby was going to have a horrible life with abusive parents or something, and decided to bring it to Heaven and spare it that life. Something else you have to understand is that this life sucks ass. This world sucks. You and I both know that. Compared to seven or eight decades here, an eternity in Heaven is literally infinitely better."

"But those babies didn't accept Jesus as their lord and savior," Piper countered vindictively.

Billy's rebuttal was immediate. "Because they were not at the age of accountability. They were not old enough, and therefore not intellectually able to distinguish right from wrong. There's a difference between a three-year-old grabbing a candy bar from the store because they want it and don't understand the concept of theft and asking for permission, and a seven-year-old that knows what shoplifting is. God is fair and just, and what sense does it make to condemn a three-year-old to hell when they don't even know what the word 'stealing' is? Same for the mentally ill that can't even wipe their own ass or feed themselves."

"Then what about all the people that died before Jesus?" Piper tried. "And all the people that died not even knowing about Jesus?"

"There is no exact scripture that I know of," Billy answered. "But Ephesians 4 says that Jesus descended into hell, and Luke 16 talks a little about the afterlife, with there being a 'great chasm' in between where Abraham was and where the torment places were at. From what I gather, based on these and the fact that God is just, when Jesus died, part of what He did while dead was descend into hell and preach to all the people there about who He was. Those who believed were brought to Heaven, and those who didn't stayed where they were at. As for the modern day, tons of times in the Bible it says that people aren't dead yet, but in a state of sleep, dreaming, so I think that until the final day, Jesus is still working on people, desperately trying to get everyone to repent, even after the first death."

Piper's mouth set into a hard line as she thought of anything else she could ask, any other point she could bring up. She wanted to be convinced that Jesus and the Bible were the ways to go, and she didn't know if she was just fighting herself, or if she really was this full of doubt.

Right now, she was at a loss. Billy was throwing scripture at her left and right, and she had no idea how out-of-context any of it was, or how accurate his recollection was, because she had never opened a Bible in her life. He was giving her speculations and analogies that she couldn't dispute because she had nothing to stand on to form a counterargument.

Someone, somewhere, could probably be kicking Billy's ass right now, asking him questions he couldn't answer and crafting comparisons he couldn't argue, but not Piper. She was woefully underequipped for this battle through sheer ignorance. She was also coming to the table with the knowledge that the Greek myths and Cherokee legends were true, and it was already clicking in her mind that therefore all religions were somehow true, and the God of the Bible was supposed to be the top dog of them all, and she was relying on this seventeen-year-old boy as her soul source of spiritual guidance.

Latching onto the notion of all other religions being inherently true, Piper changed tactics from questioning God's character. "You said that all the other afterlife systems, like Elysium, er…"

"Valhalla?"

"Yeah, that, and the Duat, were just storage tanks. On the final day, God was going to call everyone up out of there for judgement."

"Yes."

"What makes you so sure? We agree that because the Greek myths and Cherokee legends are true, therefore so are all other religions. You brought up Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. All these other religions—why does Christianity sit at the top? Why is it the one and only?"

"Ah, now we get into the study of apologetics," Billy said pleasantly.

"Apolo-what?" Piper blinked.

"Apologetics. You may recognize the root word 'apology.' Today, whenever you say, 'I apologize,' or 'my apologies,' that typically means that you're saying sorry, but in actuality, apologies is a legal term. It used to mean one's defense. When you're offering your apologies, you are stating why you did what you did. A person steals an apple from a cart, and they say, 'It was for my hungry child because I don't have the money to feed them,' that is them giving their apologies.

"In terms of religion, apologies refers to just why one believes what they believe. Apologies are the defense of your faith. You're a Greek demigoddess, and if you were to try and evangelize for the Greeks, your apologies would be that your mother is literally a goddess, you have several friends that are demigods, you go to a summer camp for demigods called Camp Half-Blood that's located at 3.141 Farm Road, Half-Blood Hill, Long Island, New York, and that there's a summer camp for Roman demigods nestled amongst the Berkeley Hills in California, and that Mt. Olympus is hovering above the Empire State Building. You have magic powers, and have been on tons of adventures where you encountered several entities. All of this can be verified.

"We can go to Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, and we can go to Olympus—technically, yes, I know. You can demonstrate to us your powers, and we can verify the veracity of your stories by following in your footsteps, interviewing all the people you came across to see if they corroborate your claims, or if there are any contrary accounts, and then we can investigate all of that. It's literally an investigation. You have made a claim, and we can investigate the veracity of your claim to determine if you're just a liar, a lunatic, or if you're telling the truth. The same can be applied to religions by examining their written text, the figures in their texts, the history of these figures, and the history of the narrative.

"From the top: Mormonism comes from Joseph Smith, who claims to have found two secret tablets of gold in a cave, and these two golden tablets were God's secret commands to mankind. These tablets have never been found, and Joseph fails to tell us where this cave is at. Joseph also brings up claims that aren't Biblical in any sense, like how the devil is Jesus's brother—which he isn't—and that God is actually an alien, and that when a Mormon has done enough good deeds here, when they die, they'll get their own planet and they get to rule over it."

Piper stared at Billy. "There's no way they believe that. Coming from someone whose mom is a Greek goddess, that's nuts."

Billy shrugged. "Look it up."

"Wait—you said that the devil isn't Jesus's brother? I thought Jesus and Satan were brothers?"

"Oh, not even close. Satan is actually a cherub."

Piper balked. "A cherub? You're telling me that the ultimate evil is supposed to be a cute little baby with…fluffy…wings…and this is the part where you tell me that a cherub is not actually a cute baby with fluffy wings."

Billy had started to smile deviously as Piper went on, which is why she trailed off.

"You know, that's actually kind of poetic," Billy said. "Satan being a cute baby with fluffy wings, but no. The description of a cherub is given to us in the Book of Ezekiel. They have four faces, those being a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle, and they have a body like a man's, with feet like a calf's, hands like a man, and four wings."

Piper was crafting that mental image, and it was certainly nothing like a cute baby with fluffy wings. "Wow."

"Yeah. It's also in Ezekiel where we get the revelation that Satan is a cherub, chapter 28:11-19."

"I'll…go read that," Piper decided.

Billy hummed. "Cool. Anyway, Mormons are self-serving, thinking that if they're good enough people they get a better planet after they die, and that God and Jesus are aliens. Since Mormonism is supposed to be drawing from the Bible, and this has literally zero Biblical support, and because Joseph Smith's story about finding gold tablets in a cave can't be corroborated, Mormonism isn't something I'd stake my soul on.

"Islam is almost the same. It starts with Mohammed, praise be unto him, about 500 years after the Bible was finished, with Mohammed, praise be unto him, claiming he was visited by the messenger angel Gabriel in a dream when he slept in a cave, and Gabriel told him that God, now calling himself Allah, had chosen him to be the final prophet…500 years after the Bible was already finished. Yeah, okay. Mohammed, praise be-"

"Why do you keep doing that?" Piper broke in, annoyed.

Billy smirked. "That's how Muslims do it. They're supposed to only be worshipping Allah, but they revere Mohammed just as much, if not more so, always tacking 'praise be unto him' every time they refer to him, and I'm just like, Mohammed was just a man. Nothing praise-worthy about him, especially because he was a big practitioner of polygamy, with one of his wives being a six-year-old girl called Aisha, Allah be pleased with her, and Mohammed, praise be unto him, fucked her when she was nine. And he was 53."

Piper's jaw unhinged—almost literally, as her state of shock very nearly subconsciously triggered her snake powers—with that one. "There's no way-"

"Look it up. That's what is recorded in the Hadith, the 'eye-witness' accounts of the prophet and his actions. For me, that's all I need to know that Islam is a crock of shit, that it's chief religious leader was fucking multiple women, a little girl on top of that. Polygamy is also one of those sexual immorality things listed in the Bible. Supposed final prophet of God is appointed to teach un-Biblical stuff. Also included in Mohammed's teachings were that Jesus was not the Messiah—un-Biblical—that baptism is unimportant—un-Biblical—and that being a good enough person is how you please Allah enough to get a good spot in Heaven—also un-Biblical. For a guy who was visited by the angel Gabriel to be God's messenger, he's preaching a lot of un-Godly stuff. Never mind all the people Mohammed slaughtered because they wouldn't convert to Islam. Oh, yeah—that's how Islam became so prevalent in the Middle East: all the Muslims killed everyone who wouldn't convert. You know how Christianity was spread? Walking and talking. And getting martyred."

Piper swallowed. Yeah, she was going to have to do a lot more research into that one.

"Want me to keep going?" Billy asked. "We've still got Hinduism and Buddhism to cover."

At this point, Piper honestly wasn't sure she wanted Billy's rendition on the two Eastern religions. She already had to go digging into the government, Mormonism, and Islam, and so she didn't know if she wanted to add two other religions to her plate.

Then again, thanks to Billy, she at least had a direction to start, and she wasn't at all sure where to start with Hinduism and Buddhism.

"Alright," she said. "Go."

"Hinduism falls apart in the consistency department with its text, the Vedas, containing two different creation stories. That's like a witness giving two different accounts of the same event, which destroys any testimony in any court. Hinduism also falls under polytheism, as do Greek myths, and any polytheistic religion inherently falls apart under scrutiny. Hinduism falls apart in the god region when you have the evil buffalo Mahishasura terrorizing heaven, and the three chief gods of Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, working together couldn't stop the buffalo, and so they just create a new god, Durga, who then fights the buffalo for ten days and wins. The three top gods couldn't do the job, so they just create a new god that can do what the three of them can't. Yeah, that makes total sense. That's like if Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades couldn't stop the Minotaur, so they just take their power and make Athena, who then takes ten days to finally put it down. Some gods."

Piper actually gulped, really hoping no one was listening to that. Billy had just basically insulted eight gods at once, and Piper knew gods. They didn't take stuff like that lightly. However, there was no bolt of lightning that suddenly blew up the car, and Billy didn't suddenly drop dead or transform into an animal.

"Hinduism also gives you the option of which of its 330 million gods you get to follow, almost none of which actually have a name, and if you please your chosen god enough, congratulations! You have achieved moksha, which is spiritual perfection through enough rebirths, and you get to no longer be reborn into this shithole world. Yeah, there's literally no way to confirm reincarnation, despite what anyone says, so good luck with that. You're also hoping you do a good enough job of pleasing your god, so good luck with that, too."

Yep, Piper thought to herself, definitely more stuff to research. "And Buddhism?"

Billy snorted. "Buddhism started when Siddhartha Gautama had a midlife crisis and decided to abandon his kingdom, his people, his father the king, his wife, and his children. Then he went on a journey of…spiritual enlightenment…where he traveled from point a to point b and eventually ended up underneath a tree, where he meditated for so long, until poof. He was enlightened. Then when he was questioned on how you reach enlightenment, his answer was basically You get it when you get it. He was a teacher that couldn't even teach his students on how to do the thing he was all about. And funnily enough, he was an atheist. Gautama didn't believe in gods, despite being raised as a Hindu, and taught that the best path to enlightenment was through yourself, not by following a god. Then he died, and 400 years later, he's suddenly back! And he's a god now, too! Wow! And now Buddhism is full of gods! But not just any god—every person on the planet has their own individual god, on top of another whole pantheon of deities. Buddhism started with one guy sitting under a tree saying there were no gods, and was extremely vague on how you achieve enlightenment, and now we've got billions of gods. Not consistent."

Piper absently frowned in thought. Even more stuff to research.

Billy summarized everything he just said.

"When it comes to your immortal soul, it's the single greatest gamble of your life, because you're gambling with your eternity. When it comes to that, you had better have done an exhaustive amount of research to make sure you are going with the path that holds up under all scrutiny. Mormonism and Islam are just offshoots of Christianity that don't hold up to scripture and are invalid. Hinduism and Buddhism are both inconsistent in their historical narratives, and Hindus have gods that couldn't fight a buffalo, and Buddhists follow a guy that was unclear in what he was teaching. All these religions also tell you that you can save yourself. The Bible doesn't.

"Christianity is the only religion on the planet that straight-up tells you that you are a horrible, despicable wretch that deserves destruction for all the things you do here on earth. No amount of good deeds will ever be enough to save you. However, salvation is not impossible, and the Bible gives you very detailed, very simple instructions on what to do to reach salvation. That's more than Hinduism and Buddhism can say.

"Historically, everything that happened in the Bible before the Flood has been, or is being, verified through archeology. Jewish slaves in Egypt, Tarshish, Nineveh, all of Israel's conquests, all the times Israel was conquered, and more. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the most historically documented event in history, with there being more archived documents of that than there are for the life of George Washington.

"The narrative of the Bible is also consistent throughout the whole book. There is one account of creation, one account of how evil entered the world, every verse says the same thing about salvation, and the Bible even records all the evil things the people did, and makes sure you know that what these people did was evil. How many other religions are out there that tell you that the 'good' guys are actually pieces of shit? King David, for example, was the greatest leader Israel had ever known, and he not only cheated on his wife, but he ordered the execution of the husband of the woman he cheated with, a man that happened to be one of his best friends and a member of his inner circle. I mean, wow. When it comes to recording the kings, queens, emperors, and all other rulers in history, the only time they're criticized is when brave people dare to do so, and they have to go to great lengths to make sure that kind of truth gets put out there. With the Bible? Nah. King David was great, but he was also a piece of shit. And that was published amongst the Jews for centuries. They were taught that as part of their basic history lessons.

"Piper, the Bible is the most standout religious book in the world. It's the only one that tells you to your face that you suck, you're not a good person, you'll never be a good person, but you're in luck, because the Almighty God that loves you and made you doesn't want to destroy you, but wants to save you, and has told you how do that. The gift of eternal salvation is free, and all you have to do is accept it. Those other gods may be real, but they don't love you. They don't have your back. They're not going to care if you live or die, or what happens to your soul. Only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cares about you enough that He became a Man called Jesus, endured the human life like you did, and then endured agonizing torture in your name so that you wouldn't have to suffer for eternity in a real place called hell. But if you don't want to believe that, or if you believe it but still want to disregard it, then what happens to you is your fault, and your fault alone. Sin must be answered for, and you will be judged."

It was almost as if that ominous church bell went off in Piper's head, that kind of bell that would ring in something like Assassin's Creed to signify someone dying. That final, deep, sonorous, absolute tone. Piper felt like such a sound went off in her head, and understanding came to her in that moment.

Previously, whenever she had asked Chiron questions about God and the gods, he would always wave them off. "Let's not concern ourselves with the metaphysical," he would say. Piper always assumed he was under some kind of taboo by Zeus not to talk about any other gods except for the Greek gods, which made total sense to her. Zeus was vain and petty after all, and it was totally in his character to smite any demigod that talked about any other god except for him and his kin.

But now she knew this was not the case.

Now, Piper knew that Chiron avoided talking about God and Christianity because it was fucking terrifying.

Because now she was terrified. She was way out of her comfort zone, way off the map, and the only thing she was finding out here was her eternity, and all the wrong she had ever done. Every thing she had ever stolen just to get Daddy's attention, every malicious thought that had ever gone through her head, every time she told Jason off, even that time she had used charmspeak on Percy to get him to calm down after Annabeth went off on her solo quest in Rome.

Piper was faced with the consequences of her actions.

Something had finally just clicked in her head, and now her heart was thumping in her chest, her breathing started to get labored, and sweat appeared on her brow as she was hit with her reality. The reality that she lived in a world full of gods and monsters, and the biggest, most powerful god of them all had laid out his law, laid out the punishment for those that broke his law, and laid out the means by which people could be saved from that horrifying punishment.

Eternal torment.

Piper just thought this life sucked; imagine worse than this life, but forever. Just that concept alone immediately shut Piper off to even considering anything to do with reincarnation, because she did not want to ever go through life again. It had been hard enough as it was, and she wasn't even fully seventeen yet!

"But why?" Piper demanded. "Why do I have to believe in Jesus to be saved?"

"Why do you not just want to accept that?" Billy countered. "Why do you keep resisting the gift that is freely given to you?"

"Because the one offering it is saying I need it because I'm gay!"

"You being gay is but one of a multitude of reasons you deserve an eternity in hell. You're foolish if you think it's just because you're gay. It's for every sin you commit every day."

Piper snapped at him. "And you're just Mr. Perfect, aren't you? Mr. I Can Quote Scripture Left and Right and Can Debunk Every Other Religion Out There Because I Go to Sunday School and Spent Ten Minutes on Google! Billy Jones, everyone! God's gift to mankind, here to lead all to salvation!"

Billy rolled the leg of his shorts up, and Piper jerked her head to the side so she didn't see.

"Look."

Piper shook her head.

"Look at me."

Piper shook her head again. "No!"

"I know that Shel told you," Billy said coldly, and Piper was left rattled.

"Huh?"

"I know my sister, Piper. Now. Look. At. Me."

Piper slowly turned her head back around, and she gulped at the sight of the cutting scars on Billy's exposed thigh. They looked even worse up close.

"I was thirteen when Shel sucked my dick when we were drunk that night at church camp," Billy explained in a cold, dead, serious voice. "It was one of the best feelings I've ever experienced, getting a blowjob, busting my nut in her mouth. She tasted good, too, so if you ever have sex with her, just remember my mouth was there first."

Piper blanched.

"From there," Billy continued, "it was a downhill spiral into a world of debauchery. I was jerking off usually three times a day, sometimes more, and not even to simple stuff. Piper, I've seen some depraved shit that I am not proud of. Even less proud of the fact that I came to it. For a long time, I didn't think anything of it. Nothing bad was happening to me or anyone else. And then Grandmom had a pain in her back that we ignored until she finally went to the hospital. Pancreatic cancer. Died within a week of being diagnosed.

"That should've been my wakeup call, but it wasn't. Next up was Granddad almost a year later. He lived in a bad part of Dallas called Pleasant Grove. Might as well have been Mexico. Anyway, some beaners broke into his house one night, but Granddad always kept a loaded gun on his nightstand. He shot 'em both, killed 'em, but then some more came, and he killed three more before he finally went down. It still didn't click in my head that maybe it was because of me.

"Fast forward a little over a year, me still masturbating so much my balls would hurt some days, and now it was Grandpa's turn. He and Granny got divorced, but they were still really great friends. Grandpa was there at every birthday party, every Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, football game, baseball game—you name it. If it was about the family, there he was. Grandpa and Granny were together so much, it was honestly a shock to me when I learned they were actually divorced. Happened years before I was born, actually. He was cheating on her. Anyway, Grandpa had diabetes, and his meds stopped working, and his blood got too thick for his heart to pump, and he had a heart attack, was taken to the hospital, and Dad had to make the decision to pull the plug. That's when I started to think. That's also when we started talking about the consequences of sin in Sunday School, and the dangers of addictions. I remember feeling so self-conscious for over two months since there I was, sitting in church with a porn addiction, just looking forward to when church was over and I could get home and masturbate again. Sometimes I wouldn't even wait; I'd go in the restroom and rub it out real fast."

Billy chuckled mirthlessly, his eyes starting to gleam in the darkness with more intensity than Piper had ever seen before, and it was starting to make her scared. Billy was starting to feel downright monstrous as he continued his story.

"I started thinking to myself, Alright, we need to tone it down. Three times a day, max. That worked for a little bit, and then I pushed it down to two. Only two times a day. Sometimes, if I really wanted something, I'd make a pact with God: I'll only masturbate once today if you do this for me. Pfft, dumbass, was I. I went with two for a while, and then I started bumping it back to three, and that's when Granny's house burned down with her still inside. She went to bed with the drier running, and an electrical malfunction started a fire. They found her body under a bunch of wreckage, and from the distance from her bedroom to the front door, they concluded that she woke up too late, the fire having spread too far, and as she was trying to get out of the house, the roof collapsed on her. They said that based on her skull, she died instantly and didn't feel any pain, but I don't know. At that point I knew: I was getting my family killed. I was committing sin, and God was punishing me for it."

Piper gasped. "Billy, that's…that's…"

"That's how it is," Billy grinned, teetering on the edge of sanity. "Oh, boy, did I start fighting really hard to keep my dick in check at that point, but at that point, I was hooked. If I got an erection, I had to work it. If the thoughts ever entered my mind, I was getting hard. Fuck, I even managed to Pavlov myself, and associated sleep with masturbating after so many years of doing it, so every time I would take a nap or go to bed, instant boner. I tried really hard, but I still couldn't break three years of porn. Axle died overseas, and not too long later, Kaycee and Tori died in the car accident. I doubled down hard. That's when I started cutting. And it's been working. I haven't masturbated in over a month now! Good for me right!? Right!?"

"Billy!" Piper gasped as he seemingly lost his mind.

Billy cackled madly. "Sin has consequences, Pi—per! I got all of my girlfriends killed, and Shel got her all of her grandparents and cousins and big brother killed! No, wait, reverse that. I got all of my grandparents and cousins and little sister killed, and Shel got her dad and three of her girlfriends killed, because God gave us the law, and we were breaking it! We're some naughty kiddos, Pi—per! And Daddy spanked us! HARD!"

Piper flinched in her seat when Billy suddenly roared.

And then suddenly his switch flipped and he was all serious again. He fixed her with a cold stare. "I know what I'm talking about, Piper. I know the consequences of sin. It doesn't matter what sin you commit, because where men have ascribed a level of severity to sin, the actual truth of the matter is that all sin is equal in the eyes of God, and He will not allow sin to ever go unpunished, especially for repeat offenders. If you continue to be romantically involved with Shel, you will incur God's wrath. She is cursed by her sin like I am, and you will get caught in the crossfire, both because of Shel's sin, and your own."

"But that's not fair," Piper insisted. "Why punish others for what you did?"

"Because He's not just punishing others for what I did. He's also punishing them for what they did. My grandparents, cousins, and little sister were all sinners, too, Piper, and they paid for their sins with their mortal lives. Now they are in Heaven, sure, but they died to get there and left us behind. They are the lucky ones."

"Doesn't sound too lucky to me," Piper said bitterly, thinking of Jason right now. "Sounds entirely unfair. Like a cosmic dictator picking and choosing who gets to live and die on a whim."

Billy slammed his hands upon his steering wheel, making Piper jump in her seat. He growled at her—literally growled, like a beast.

"If that's how you want to look at it, then consider just what you're really saying. If God's the almighty cosmic sky tyrant who sends people to hell based on whether or not they love Him, then what does that mean for you? Are you gonna defy Him? Huh? You gonna spit in the eye of the almighty being who could blink you into an eternity of pain and suffering? Yeah, you really showed Him, didn't you? Gonna spend an eternity in a state of agonized torture, but at least you can say you did it your way, right? You sure showed God who was boss! I wonder how much comfort that'll be to you as you're being skinned alive and taken through a pool of lemon juice and then doused in salt before being tossed into a smoker, and then being force-fed your own crispy body, seasoned to perfection."

Piper couldn't help but gulp at that mental image, both at the graphic torture, and also at the way it ended, being not just meat, but her own meat. She didn't know how that would work, but it was Hell. She didn't know how things worked there at all. Maybe Billy did. Maybe he was so cracked that he'd glimpsed what Hell was like, and he was telling Piper less about his imagination and more about his premonition.

Piper had to wonder if more people would convert to Christianity if Billy went around telling them what their exact method of eternal torture would be.

"Are you still unconvinced?" Billy hissed. "What more can I say, Piper? What do I need to do to convince you to give up your sin and accept salvation?"

Piper wasn't. She didn't know why she wasn't, but she just wasn't. "Why do you care so much, Billy?"

He recoiled at the question as if Piper had stuck a red-hot branding iron in his face. "Why do I care? Why do I —Piper, why the fuck would I not care? I've seen what sin does to people, and I don't want that to happen to you! I don't want you to be punished by God for so much as a second, much less forever! I don't want you to end up where I'm going!"

Piper stopped. "Where…you're going? Billy, you're saved!"

"No! I am not saved! I have cast the Holy Spirit out of my heart and I can't let Him back in after the things I've done."

"The things you've done? Billy, it's just masturbation! That's, like, normal for teenagers! That's healthy, even! Yeah, three times a day is excessive, but once every week or so if perfectly fine."

"It is not!" Billy screamed. "No sin is ever fine! And I'm not just talking about me jerking off, either. Oh, no. Do you remember how I killed that boy during that football game?"

Piper shakily nodded.

"That wasn't an accident," Billy revealed, his crazed smile back. "It was after my sister's death. Made local news. I shouldn't have been in that game at all, but I was. I needed it for a distraction. Then that little bastard decided to mouth off to me about how he'd seen pictures of my sister's Twitter, thought it was a darn shame she was dead because he would've loved to fuck her in the ass. When I hit him full-force in the head, I was trying to kill him. I murdered him. That's different from when I killed Avery with the sniper—there were a million things that could've gone wrong with that whole operation, but everything went off perfectly, so that's how I know God was with us, and He wanted us to kill those monsters—but that boy? No. That was murder, and there's a huge difference between killing someone, and murdering them."

Billy's grip tightened on his steering wheel, getting to the point where Piper heard the material groan in protest to the pressure, and Billy's knuckles turned white. He was staring ahead into the darkness of the night, and Piper could feel the cabin shaking as he rapidly thumped his foot below.

Piper didn't know what to say or what to do. This whole time, Billy had been secretly convinced he was going to Hell. After everything he had told her, he really thought he was condemned and beyond salvation, after preaching to her so hard about how easy it was supposed to be. Piper needed to come up with something fast, though, because she could feel something coming.

Not an Asgina or a Greek monster, but just something.

But it came too fast for Piper to react.

Billy suddenly screamed, "FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

And then he proceeded to try and beat himself to death by ramming his fist into the side of his skull like a jackhammer. For far too many precious seconds, Piper just sat there in stunned horror as Billy hit himself so hard her own head started to hurt. She could hear the knocking of his knuckles against the broadside of his skull, but this was no time to be making jokes about Billy not having a brain.

Piper's brain finally kickstarted, and she tossed her door wide open before lunging across the interior of the car to grab hold of Billy, and then she pitched herself backwards as hard as she could. She yanked Billy out of his chair and a few feet out of the car into the grass, and then she wrapped her arms and legs around him, and held him tight. Billy thrashed as if fighting for his life, screaming at the top of his lungs in defiance as he cried, but Piper held firm.

Part of her marveled at this: Billy, who had been acting so wise and so knowledgeable, was now reduced to a screaming, kicking mess in the midst of a full psychotic breakdown. A bigger part of her remembered how she had been where Billy was at two months ago, screaming in defiance over Jason's death.

But where she hadn't been able to hold onto Jason, now she could hold onto Billy when he needed her the most.

"I'm not letting you go, Billy!" Piper shouted over his own screams. "I'm not gonna let you go!"

Billy drew in a deep, deep breath, and then let it out in one go in a roar that echoed through the dark hills.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh…!"

And then he slumped into Piper's embrace, quietly sobbing and shaking just a bit. Piper was crying too, heartbroken to see her best friend in such a state as this when he was usually so strong and aloof.

"I'm not letting you go, Billy," Piper said to him. "I'm right here."

Billy gripped her arms and held tight as he could until he finally stopped. "Okay," he croaked, his throat raw. "Let's back in the car."

Piper gently let him go, got to her feet, and then helped him to his feet. She looked the shorter boy in the eye, searching his soul to make sure he was okay. He wasn't, but he also wasn't going to start trying to cave in his own head anymore.

A minute later, and they were back in the car, both feeling a little awkward after what just happened.

"Don't tell Shel," Billy whispered.

Piper shook her head. "Never."

Billy nodded, face stricken with tears, his eyes red and puffy. "Are you-" his voice cracked, so he cleared it and tried again. "Are you still not convinced?"

Truth be told, after that nightmare, Piper wasn't sure she wanted any part of this anymore. She didn't want to be stuck in some spiritual conflict that drove her to slice her flesh or literally beat herself up. She wasn't sure she wanted to cast her lot in with a God that was going to bring the hammer down on her and those she loved because she disobeyed him in the form of loving a person that had the same genitals that she did.

Then the other side of the argument welled up within Piper. Her opinion on God's law didn't matter. She didn't make the universe; he did, and just like she got to set the rules of her own house, God got to set the rules of his house, and this whole universe was his house. She was just a temporary guest making a mess of things, and he hadn't cast her out yet out of the goodness of his heart. Continuing to live in rebellion wasn't going to get her anywhere except for a reserved space in the fires of Hell.

Piper then realized she was already stuck in a state of spiritual conflict, and though she wasn't physically beating herself up, she was doing so mentally.

Her thoughts were broken when Billy slipped his hand into hers, lacing their fingers together.

He smiled a watery smile at her. "Don't you see? I love you, Piper. I love you like I love Shel, like I loved Tori, and Kaycee. And it's breaking my heart that you're willingly walking into a real place called hell when the way out is so simple and easy. I don't want you to go to hell, Piper. Please…I'm begging you…"

It was no act, no drama, no ruse, and no guilt trip. Piper's powers of emotion would've detected otherwise. Because of that, she was left feeling floored.

She had been prepared to violate this boy just a few hours ago. She was going to steal his dignity and rape him. She was going to use her powers to force him into having sex with her, and she probably was going to alter her anatomy so she had a penis, and proceed to use it to really rape Billy by tearing up his colon. If she had broken something and he bled to death, then oh well.

Piper had been at her lowest of low moments in all her life today, ready to commit to the most vile and despicable act conceivable, and after a huge string of events, here they were.

Billy holding her hand, telling her he loved her despite everything she had done to him.

That's when Piper understood what the love of God looked like.

All the people that had shunned him, beat him, spat on him, and cursed him in his life, and all the people that continued to slander him and revile him to this day, and yet his love for them drove him to tears because of what he was going to have to do to those people if they refused to let his blood cover their sins. He had to uphold the laws he created, or else he wasn't a good or just God at all, but was just a sham and untrustworthy fake, no better than the likes of Zeus. Piper was heading to that same scary place, and so was her dad, and so were her friends, but when the way out was so easy, what excuse did they have?

When the way out was so easy, what excuse did anyone have?

Piper suddenly found herself recalling her time in Sparta with Annabeth when they were fighting for their lives against Mimas. All of Annabeth's plans were coming undone because of the Giant's magical ability to disrupt plans. It was Piper that came in clutch that day, helping Annabeth to focus and get her mind right with these words:

Stop thinking about it. Just feel.

And so Piper followed her own advice.

She squeezed Billy's hand and looked him in the eye. "What do I need to do?"

Billy let out a huge sigh of relief. "Okay…Piper, have you sinned?"

"I have, yes."

"Are you a sinner?"

"I…I am, yeah."

"Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the LORD, that He is God in the Flesh, and that He died a substitutionary death in your name, shedding His perfect blood to pay for your eternal debt?"

Piper took a deep breath, and answered. "Yes, I do."

"Do you believe that Jesus rose again on the third day, therefore proving He is who He said He is, and that Death has been concurred forever?"

"I do."

Billy smiled at her, and the pure joy that radiated off of him was so infectious that Piper found herself smiling too. "Then congratulations, Sister. You're safe now."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Billy drove her back home, practically bubbling with excitement the whole way there, muttering amen, amen over and over again.

For her part, Piper didn't feel any different. She didn't feel like the Holy Spirit had come into her heart or however it was supposed to work. She didn't feel some grand conversion, transforming from what she was into a new person. It made her worry that she did it wrong. Maybe Billy had asked the wrong questions? Maybe he had the process wrong? Piper didn't know.

Just like she didn't know a lot of things.

If you thought Piper was just sitting there listening to Billy talk about the other religions, accepting everything he said as if he was the world's foremost expert on thousands of years of theology, you were wrong. Piper just sat there and listened because she had nothing to counter with. She couldn't have named any of the Hindu gods if her life depended on it, much less how their belief system worked, and she couldn't have told you that the Buddha's real name was Siddhartha Gautama. She didn't even know Joseph Smith was a person, or anything about Mohammed.

Like Billy had said: look it up.

Piper had a lot of looking up to do.

A lot of looking up to do.

Billy pulled up in front of her house. "Hey."

"Hey."

"You're coming to church with me this Sunday."

"I am?" Piper blinked.

"Yep. You and Shel. You're gonna meet our youth pastor, join the class and the church, and then we're gonna get your baptism scheduled. Gotta wash away those sins," Billy winked.

Piper smiled and nodded. "Looking forward to it."

She leaned over and kissed Billy on his cheek, "Thank you, Billy, for everything."

"Don't thank me for anything. Thank God."

"I'm not gonna get blown to bits by Zeus or someone for converting to a different religion, am I?"

Billy rolled his window down and stuck his head out to yell at the sky. "Hey, Zeus! You're a disgusting, petty, pathetic rapist who's gonna spend all eternity in hell for all the crimes you've committed on earth!"

Billy brought his head back in and fixed Piper with a smug look.

She was actually pale as a sheet, but the seconds ticked by one after the other, and her tension began to ease up when a bolt of lightning didn't descend from on high.

"See? Zeus ain't got nothing on my God, nor yours now."

"R-Right. Now He's my God."

Piper was still spinning a little bit from this whole conversation tonight.

"Yep. Your God. Hey, Piper?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Piper smiled. "I love you, too, Billy. See you in the morning, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Piper took that as her cue to leave. She got out and got to her gate, and then she heard a muffled scream from behind her. She whipped around, already horrified, expecting to see Billy turning into a pool of sludge, but it turns out she had misheard the tone of the scream.

Billy was not screaming in pain and terror, but in triumph. He had both of his hands raised into the roof of his car, the happiest young man on earth right now.

Piper couldn't help but be utterly confused, and just a little touched. Maybe it was still her ignorance, but she just didn't see why being saved by the blood of Jesus was this big a deal to Billy. Maybe she'd come to know after she did a proper research into all of this.

Billy drove off back to his house, and Piper hopped the fence to start walking to her front door.

What a night.

What a past couple of days.

Saturday, she'd gone fishing with Billy and Shel, enjoying a true, normal teenager experience, spending the afternoon out on the lake together. Then they'd been attacked by Asgina, she and Billy fought them off, and then after they got back to Piper's house, Piper learned that Billy was cutting himself to fight off his porn addiction. Then they'd gone joyriding in Billy's dad's truck, got pulled over for doing 120 in a 70, and Piper had been able to get them off the hook because her confidence had come back and she could charmspeak again.

And that was just Saturday!

Then Sunday came, and what a landmark day that was. Her date with Shel, in which she learned all about her ex-girlfriends, Elizabeth, Esther, Brianna, and Avery. Through Shel, Piper got her feet wet in the realm of the LGBT movement, transgender ideology, and Judaism. After that huge conversation, one that Piper now realized added even more to her already overflowing plate of stuff, she started her official first lesbian relationship.

Next was Monday, where Incognito attacked her in the middle of school, she fought him off and she was pretty sure she killed him. No confirmation from Jisdu yet, but Piper was certain he was okay. Probably just a lot of spirits to talk with. Following that battle, she had apparently been possessed, because she started acting in ways that made no sense to her, culminating in her getting into a fight with Billy that same night, and Shel already calling for a break not even a full 24 hours after their start.

Now here it was Tuesday. Piper had gone out of her way to attempt to sexually assault Billy using her charmspeak, ironically on the third day after she got her power back, and he had somehow been immune to her charmspeak the whole time. Billy kicked her so hard in the face he caused her to do a factory reset, basically kicking the demon out of her, and she just had the landmark conversation of her whole life so far.

If there was one thing Piper had gleaned from Billy, it was that she needed to start educating herself.

All politicians are evil and corrupt—which ones? Who specifically? What, exactly, were they doing that made them evil and corrupt?

All corporations are greedy and inhumane—same questions applied. Which corporations, and what were they doing?

Piper was now convinced, through Jisdu and Billy, that she had a higher responsibility to use her powers to do more than just fight monsters. She needed to start digging and start dreaming, finding out if she really could control her dreams to see across time and space, and see the real truth of these matters, and once she had that truth, then she needed to use wisdom in handling this information, lest she create a bigger mess than what she was trying to clean up.

Piper also needed to do her research into the world religions, starting with Christianity since she was now apparently a part of it. She didn't necessarily doubt Billy, but she had paid enough attention to English class to spot bias when it was present, and Billy was as steeped in bias as any other human being when it came to their world views. Billy could just as easily downplay Islam as any Muslim could downplay Christianity. It was easy to just hear something that validated your stance and take it as truth without actually researching it, so there was no telling how much of what Billy said about the other religions was true or not.

Well, there was a telling, and Piper would find it when she sat down and started to read.

Maybe Billy was right about everything he said, maybe he was wrong about it all, or maybe he only had parts of the truth. Whatever the truth was, Piper was going to find it.

Like she herself had said to Jason once upon a time:

Being a hero doesn't mean you're invincible. It just means you're brave enough to stand up and do what's needed.

There was a lot of stuff in the world right now that was needed, and Piper would get to it eventually. One thing at a time, as they say, and Piper's one thing at this time was making sure her dad was okay after she broke his wrist.

Piper got inside, and she didn't know what to think seeing her dad sitting at the table with the light on, drinking one of the leftover wine coolers, flipping through a scrap book. Piper noticed how his wrist looked just fine.

He looked up when she came through the door, his eyes widened, and he was tripping over himself as he scrambled out of his chair to get to her.

"Piper!"

Piper couldn't help but burst into a fresh round of tears as she ran to him, meeting him halfway. "Dad! I am so sorry! I was-"

"Shhhh," Dad said as he hugged her and rubbed her back. "It never happened. I did not see what looked like an evil spirit digging its claws into your head, I did not try to hit you, and you did not break my wrist and run away from home. Again. I also didn't wake up to find my wrist was just fine, and you didn't get back home till almost eleven at night."

Piper didn't even question any of it. She had enough to question as it was, and somewhere in there she was going to have to factor in the conversation that she decided to accept Jesus as her lord and savior, she was going to church for the first time in her life this Sunday, she was going to eventually get baptized, and she needed to convince Dad to do the same lest he find himself spending eternity in hell.

Fun stuff to look forward to.

"So, uh, where did you go?"

"To Billy's," Piper answered shortly. "And then when we got dinner from Sonic. And I tried to, ah, do stuff with him, and he kicked me in the face."

Piper felt Dad stiffen at "do stuff," and then he pulled away to look down at her in confusion. "You tried to have sex with Billy and he kicked you in the face?"

Piper could tell her dad was caught in a state of conflict only a dad could be stuck in. He was torn between giving Billy a gigantic hug for not taking advantage of his daughter, tearing his head off for kicking his daughter, and also the ironic stance of being offended that Billy apparently didn't think his daughter was good enough to have sex with.

Piper nodded. "I deserved it. He's, ah, taken a vow of celibacy until he's married, and I was cheating on Shel, so…he set me straight. Technically."

Dad just stared at her, before he decided to do what she had decided to do, and just not question it. He nodded. "Okay. Is there, um, anything else going on? Anything else you want to talk about?"

"Billy convinced me to accept Jesus, and now I'm going to church with him and Shel this Sunday. We're going to schedule me getting baptized."

"Oh! Uh, congratulations!" Dad smiled, clearly unsure what to think of this development.

"Thanks! We need to go to bed."

"Yeah. Big day of…stuff tomorrow. Yeah, a big, normal day tomorrow."

Piper nodded. "Normal."

After this breathtakingly wild string of days, Piper honestly wanted some normal. She didn't know how much normal she was going to get tomorrow since it was June 1, the two-month anniversary of Jason's death, but she would take what she could get.

Piper kissed her dad goodnight and just flopped onto her bed, finally getting some nice, dreamless sleep.

And as it so happened, outside her window, the black owl with the red was there upon the awning over the Jeep. The owl was very angry this night, because sitting on top of Piper's house, right above her window, was the white dove with the blue eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wow. The day after Easter of 2023, too.

I swear that was not intentional, but damn does it work out.

Yep, Piper decided to accept Jesus after a lengthy conversation with a seventeen-year-old Texas boy, and now has a lot of research to start conducting to make sure she knows who she's supposed to be going after in terms of the global stage, and she plans on getting the other Six involved.

Funnily enough, I could actually end the story here. It's a relatively high note, and I could tie up the loose ends with some exposition next chapter, but that's not going to happen.

I'm DelayedInspiration. I don't do happy endings, or have you not read my Backup Plan trilogy?

Anyway, I could probably have this story finished a lot sooner if I stopped writing 23k+ chapters, but here we are. Shel had her big chapter, and now Billy has had his big chapter, and he's got one more time to shine.

Which is next chapter.

Oh, and on a side note, the subreddit moderator 'impersonator' prettyinpnink has been deleted from FFN. Her profile is gone, her stories are gone, and her Reviews are gone, which makes my AN back in Ch. 10 a little silly, but I'm gonna leave it. Never forget that time in which a mod from a subreddit went out of her way to cyberbully me.

Which I thought was funny, don't get me wrong, but it was still annoying in that…neighbor's-puppy-won't-shut-up kind of way.

Still drowning in college but we're down to only a month left before summer and I might have some more free time to start hammering my stories again! Please stay with me!

While you're here, please Fav, Follow, and Review!

Like, pretty please? 23k words is a lot!