Shattered

Piper

Piper had always tried her best to keep her emotions in check, even before she learned she was a child of Aphrodite with charm speak. It was partly because she was an only child to a very busy single parent, which meant there was no one there to put up with any childish tantrums. But mostly it was because her Grandpa Tom had tried to teach her about carrying oneself with pride and dignity at a young age. This did not mean she was as cold and calculating as Annabeth at times, nor did it mean that she couldn't emote when needed, it just meant that she was less likely to be overwhelmed in a bad situation.

But watching Reyna and Veronica die had pushed her far past her breaking point.

So, when Piper and the witch of Avalon reappeared in a sterile, white room surrounded by armed men and women, and she found her mouth was no longer restrained, she screamed. It was a wordless scream of unparalleled anguish, loss, rage, and hatred that combined with her charm speak would have made a primordial drop to their knees and weep. For the dozen or so mortals that had their weapons trained on her, the scream was overwhelming.

Two men dropped their weapons, removed their survival knives from their belts, and slit their throats. One woman ran to the nearest pristine, white wall and repeatedly slammed her head against it until her skull collapsed, leaving the wall covered in her blood. One man snapped his own neck, while another disemboweled himself, pulling foot-after-foot of intestine onto the floor. In a matter of moments, the occupants of the room lay dead or dying on the floor in an ever-expanding pool of blood.

That is, all except for Morgan, the one-person Piper McLean could truly say she hated. Oh, she hated Olympus too for what they had done, for using humans as cattle, but it was the witch of Avalon that had sent Reyna and Veronica to a possible oblivion. The witch had tried to reseal Piper's mouth the instant the banshee's wail first left her lips, but the initial spell was grossly underpowered compared to the raw emotion the daughter of love emitted. When the first spell failed, the serpent tattoos on the witch's arms flared to life in their strange emerald glow and her face twisted in visible effort as she cast spell after spell to silence her.

"Look, kid," the witch panted when she was silenced, with her hands and legs bound for good measure. "I know you hate me, but I just saved your friends from a fate far worse than death." The dark-haired woman took a step closer, the blood on the ground parting before her. "Avalon has its own monsters," Morgan said crouching down before her and cupping her chin. "Monsters that would love nothing more than to cut you and your friends open to figure out how you tick. But before they start cutting you up, they'd take away everything that makes you, you, and leave you trapped in your body, forever screaming, begging to escape." Morgan released Piper's chin and sighed, and a deep pain flashed in her eyes. "But my boss has other plans for you. He wants me to take you to your boyfriend when we're finished."

And with that the world went black.

----

"All the equipment is ready to go, Lady Morgan."

"I can't thank you enough, Daedalus. If it wasn't for you, we'd never have been able to completely cripple Olympus."

Morgan? Daedalus? Piper began to stir from the conversation, but was unable to move or even open her mouth. With no other options, she kept her eyes closed and continued to listen. At best she could hear something that might aid in her escape and at worst gain some new information about Avalon. I'd settle for the location of a wooden stake so I could burn this bitch!

"I just can't believe I didn't come across this signal of yours before now," the voice she assumed was Daedalus said. "I spent years researching RF and I never even came close to something like what your organization has found. Tell me, what was the frequency? Was it in megahertz? Gigahertz? Terahertz?"