Shattered

Piper

"So let me get this straight," Piper said a she pulled yet another piece of glass from her left foot. "In the middle of February a group of mortals attacked the ruins of the former titan palace and did horrible unspeakable things to the both of you."

"Correct," answered the titan general from the backseat.

"You really could've left out the last part though...," Veronica added.

Piper ignored the decaying demigod and continued her train of thought. "Then two weeks ago you sent Frank and Hazel to investigate the lack of communication."

"Yup," Reyna said, popping the "p".

"That same day New Rome was attacked by Terminus-"

"Whom I will kill," the praetor sneered, as she changed lanes.

"Who you will kill, only for the remaining population to be held captive by the same group of mortals. All the while Olympus is just floating above the Empire State Building for all the world to see. Does that sound right?"

"More or less," Atlas grunted.

"Ignoring some of the finer details, you got it Mclean," Reyna answered.

Piper considered everything for a moment before shrugging. "Sure why not. Should have seen this coming."

The three of them, or four of them if you counted Veronica and Atlas individually, had been driving for over twelve hours, a duration of time which Piper thought should have put them close to their intended destination.

But no, we have to zigzag across the state like we were the ball in Pong!

Piper had first noticed that Reyna had stopped driving North early in the morning, and when she asked the moody praetor about it, she had snapped at her and said it was so they would be harder to track. This seemed counter intuitive to the daughter of Aphrodite, as wouldn't that make them more likely to be seen? She had tried to reason with Reyna, but was quickly rebuked. So for the rest of the night time hours, Piper tried to clean herself up as best as possible using some wet-wipes and a few bandages she found in the SUV's glove box. Needless to say she didn't accomplish much. She was still removing small shards of glass from her entire body, but mostly from her feet.

"Someone did see it coming," Reyna sighed as she used her knees to steer the vehicle while reaching for a cup of cold coffee with her one remaining arm.

"Wait, what?" she asked incredulously. I was joking! No one could have saw this coming! I mean they can't even see our world! A sobering realization settled over her. Or so we thought...

Reyna took a gulp of the gas station swill that passed as coffee and grimaced at the taste. She set the Styrofoam cup down and resumed steering with her hand. "Back in the sixties, one of the praetors was worried about the threat of invasion and to put it bluntly: nuclear holocaust. She also wanted to modernize our weaponry and tactics, but you see how that went," the praetor said with a mirthless chuckle.

"Using first century tactics in twenty-first century is foolish and reckless," Atlas growled from the backseat. "The last time I was free even I updated my strategies! I employed mortal mercenaries, fitted the creatures with the latest in mortal technologies-"

"And you still got stuck holding up the sky again," Reyna said, glaring at the titan/demigod through the rear view mirror. "Veronica, next time he starts up with what he did again, shut him up. That's an order."

Veronica seemed to hesitate a moment before she said "yes, ma'am" with a nod.

Piper had only just met the girl less than twelve hours ago, but she noticed that the girl had a strange hesitance when it came to the praetor. She was a bit shy (probably because her flesh was disintegrating and she had fire for eyes) but, she was very friendly to Piper. So friendly that Piper couldn't help but pity her. She was a fourteen year old girl, who was held captive and subjugated to horrific torture and experimentation at the hands of their new enemies, who only managed to escape by hosting the former titan general in her body; a move which was literally killing her.