Medusa was in pain. That was a constant in her eternal life but getting her hand severed definitely made it worse. Being slingshotted a hundred miles through the ever looming darkness beyond the mortal world in that suicide tunnel Hades and his children called Shadow Travel certainly didn't make anything better.

Honestly she'd probably need to string that scrawny little researcher up just for the bumpy ride.

Perfect Replication my ass.

A few seconds after she vanished into the shadows, Medusa materialized two feet off the ground and slammed into metallic floor of her employer's lab with all the grace to be expected from a freak of nature such as herself.

"Klaus I'm going to fucking kill you!" She hissed as she hit the hard floor, cradling the stump that was her right arm.

"Ah, so it seems you've failed as well, guess that's two in the hole already." Said a voice. Medusa could practically hear the man's telltale frown. She spun around with a violent hiss.

Klaus was wearing sunglasses of course, I'd be highly stupid of him to be working with her and not be. The middle aged researcher sat in a chair in the corner of his lab reading a newspaper, no doubt having expected her to arrive. Though the sunglasses covered his eyes she could guess at his emotions, landing somewhere between frustrated and utterly unsurprised.

"No shit." Medusa regained some of her composure and rose to her feet. "That means your little plan almost sent me back to Tartarus. I told you I'm not going back there-"

"-again?" Klaus finished. "Yes you've mentioned this desire on multiple occasions. Perhaps I should start recording you, get Belle to make a mix tape of it in her spare time?" If the man's face and tone weren't so permanently jaded she'd have thought he sounded cheeky.

Medusa scowled in return, "Whatever, the point is you lied to me. You said, and I can't believe I believed you, that Poseidon and Athena were human now and waiting for me on a silver platter, now look at me!" She waved her stump arm dramatically, droplets of green blood mixed with golden dust splattered across the floor. It hurt. A lot.

Sure I'd regenerate in a few days as good as new. Well, as good as "new" was to her, but that wasn't the worst part. "Look at them!" She pointed at her remaining Snakes, whining and kissed at the gash on her head where their siblings once were before that damn child sliced them off. And unlike her hand those little ankle-biters would take weeks to grow back, and even then there was no guarantee they'd retain all their muscle memory and personality.

Medusa sighed internally. Sorry Mimsy, Pory, Medusa Jr., and you too Kyle.

Yes, she named her Snakes. No she was not going to justify that.

Medusa saw Klaus's eyes move down to the mess her wounds were making on his floor and sighed, "While yes things did go awry we did warn you that this mission would have risks. You were going god hunting after all."

"Demi-gods are more than just a risk for monsters, it's a damn near death sentence most of the time!" She sneered.

Klaus groaned, "You know what forget it" He got up from his chair and tossed his newspaper behind him. "We didn't get their blood, that's fine, they can be recovered later, even if it will be harder. What matters is what we did gain."

"And what exactly did we gain? Doctor?"

"Knowledge." He said bluntly. "It's clear from both your's and the "Power Couple's" missions that the gods are completely incapable of defending themselves in their current state." His normal resting scowl tightened a bit, "And that the Demi-gods will continue to be a thorn in our sides even with their parents toppled. Though I could have predicted that."

"You and me both!" Medusa snapped. She had had it with Klaus and his mortals, with their enigmatic little leader Mrs. P. She didn't care what delusions of grandeur they had about what they could do on top, all she cared about was getting patched up and getting back out there. Poseidon, Athena, they were so close, so very close, she could almost-

Klaus continued to prattle on. "Anyways the Demi-god situation should be taken care of shortly. If Belle's plan works as intended then they will be neutralized and you will have your second shot in a matter of days. The Romans will be a bit trickier but that's a topic I doubt concerns you. Speaking of-"

Klaus pulled an unmarked tin from his pocket, "Care for a mint?" He tossed the case to her. She caught it with one of her surviving snakes-

You go Trisha!

-and took a look inside. "Are these Ambrosia?"

"We've been working on changing the recipe so it's healing properties work on humans and monsters just as well as it does the demi-gods and Legacies. Eat one of those and your wounds will be healed by nightfall."

"And if these are as perfect as your shadow travel?"

"Just shut up and eat, besides I've got one more thing to show you" He got up with a huff and tucked his paper underneath his arm, "This way."

With a weak groan of protest Medusa popped one of the tick-tack like pods of Ambrosia into her mouth and when it didn't immediately vaporize her she followed the annoying human man out of the room.

A flick of the wrist and an eyelash curled. Perfect. A little lip-gloss, applied with the delicacy of a painter. Perfect. Hair brushed sixty seven times with the finest brush money could buy. Perfect.

"Do you really need to put on make-up to sit in a car and talk?"

Juliet scowled at the man, Jeffrey she believed, through the gap in his seat. Her icy don't fuck with me glare must have gotten through his thick skull because he shrunk back into his seat and went back to starring aimlessly out of the window. She smirked as she went back to inspecting her reflection in her pocket mirror.

Juliet would look perfect the morning she'd take down her mother. Over the course of the last year she'd day dreamed, wondered what she should wear to such an occasion. How should she do her hair, what jewelry would she brandished? And how flippant or sadistic should her greeting be in order to watch the color drain from Aphrodite's pretty pink checks the fastests as she realized what hell hath come to pay.

Her eye twitched. It appeared haths and to bes were still slipping into her internal monologues. You'd think a year of being made fun of by the illiterate poor would drive such a thing away.

Satisfied with her work, Juliet put her tools of beauty down and took one last long look at herself in the mirror. Eventually she decided less was more, a lesson that, despite what her rather barbaric compariotes would say, she had learned unlike her whore of a mother. She wore a simple white gown, modified and insulated to meet with current "standards" and "practicality" as well as to combat the biting cold of the Americas this time of year.

She forewent flashier choices of make-up and decided she wanted to look as natural as she could, like she was on the day her mother screwed her. Though of course she needed a little touching up, she was of course a girl still in her teens and there was this annoying little zit on the right of her lip and a smattering of black heads upon her bridge that made her Nauseous.

Her hair was straight and simple; dark brown, no highlights, smooth and as cared for the day he was suppose to cares-

"Juliet come in-"

She groaned, pulling out the phone they had given her. "Yeah Zack?"

The gruff voice of a man maybe a little too old to be god hunting came through. "You three in position?"

"Ready and waiting," she said. Herself and her two "co-workers" (personal attendants) Jeffery and Adam, her driver, were armed standard issue and sitting in an unremarkable black van parked a block down from the apartment building in question, now they were just waiting for-

"It's showtime kid, bag em and tag em" he said before hanging up.

Adam and Jeffery quickly sat up in their seats, "Alright let's-OW HEY WAIT-"

Juliet pushed them both away and leaned over the dash to get a better angle. She peered through the binoculars she picked off of Usagi (she'd have to fend the beast off later if she found out), and locked on to the party in question.

An old Car barely fit for travel slinked out of the parking lot of the complex to meet four teenagers bundled for the day's encroaching cold.

The driver, a boy nearing twenty hopped out and pulled one of the girls into a hug. Claireese and Chris, Zack had informed her. That meant the other three were-

Oversized biker-wannabe, Ares. Leather skinned cripple hanging off of him, Hephaestus, and lastly.

Her mouth went dry, grip tightened, and she could practically hear her dagger singing for her blood, but one thought popped into her head before all the others.

"What in Hades is she wearing?"

What was that, that, greyish blotch of frayed fabric she had on her had, is that a beanie? Her MOTHER wearing a BEANIE? She didn't know whether to laugh at her clear misfortune or to cry from second hand embarrassment.

Then all the bloodlust and righteous fury began seeping back in a few seconds later and she remembered what she was here for.

"Start the car and loop around after they leave, we're tailing them till we get on the highway then close in."

She returned to her seat and a duet of grumbles told her two manservents were obliging the demand.

Juliet sat in anticipation, One hand on the hilt of her Dagger and the other gripped around the cellphone. A sadistic smile bloomed across her face.

"Why does it taste like fish?" Medusa asked, nearly gagging on the salty pulp that was her third Ambrosia tablet.

Klaus, still ahead of her, shrugged, "The taste is entirely psychological, it was apples for me and clam chowder for Zack from enforcement."

"But why fish?"

Klaus shrugged, "I dunno, you miss the taste of fish? I'm a scientist, not a psychologist. What you taste says more about you then it does about it."

Medusa mulled the thought over a moment, a grimace on her face. Still, the altered Ambrosia worked fine and her wounds were healing rapidly. So she decided to suck it up and take one last pill for the day. She stopped walking the second it hit her.

"The taste changed"

Klaus stopped and gave her a sideways glance from beneath his glasses.

"Why" she growled.

Klaus gave an exasperated sigh, "I guess you miss two flavors then. Now can we please get going? I have a lot of work to do today and back-up plans to right when the Heathers wannabe and the drunk inevitably fail their missions as well."

Medusa grumbled and followed along, spitting out the chewed up Ambrosia. She could heal the rest on her own.

She didn't need to know the taste of olives again.

Twelve minutes in and Aphrodite was thoroughly uncomfortable. Yes she managed to wrest shotgun from her husband and her boyfriend's (no they are never talking about that) hands so that was some relief. But-

"Does this car even have heat?" She asked.

Claireese, who had been blaring Metallica non-stop for the whole ride much to her father's approval and her uncle's grumbling disapproval, barely shot her a glance when she responded, "No. Why do you think I told you to bundle up?"

Aph huffed and pulled the shabby old parka Claireese had loaned her up around her neck. When that wasn't enough she tugged the rim of her dead daughter's beanie down around her ears. She gagged. She knew she probably looked hideous like this, all her hard work trying to make that mortal make-up work was worthless. She felt an ich growing on her right arm, she needed a distraction.
She glanced up at the rear view mirror. Ares seemed to be more or less enjoying himself with the music selection and managed to exchange a few words with his daughter that weren't beyond awkward and debatably hostile. So that was a plus. Hephaestus had somehow gotten into the toolbox the half-blood couple kept in the back and was absently playing with the wrench. He looked content….she guessed, even after a few thousand years she was never able to tell if he was happy or miserable. If anything she was or did was good enough for the crabby gi-wait hold on did he just look at me?

She could have sworn he'd just stolen a glance at her, Ares too. Was she imagining things? Why on earth would they look at her when she looked like, like this.

Her itch spread to both arms.

Why? There wasn't anything worth seeing was there? Maybe the trainwreck she was imitating was entertaining?

She could feel her mouth going dry and her leg beginning to bounce uncontrollably.

That was it right? Must be funny to see her like this? Must be disgusting, can't possibly look away right? Ibet it's sooooooo funnny? Likelookingata bearded woman at a circus with how bad thisbadlyconcealedhair is? Ibetyoucan'tpossiblylookawayfromthisletdownfreakyoucallawifeandloveryoujudgementalpricksit's notfaultthoughitkindofisthatshe'ssoworthlessshecan'tevenlooklikeahumanmod-

"I think that car is following us."

Aph's plunge into her thoughts abruptly stopped.

"Shit, you think?" Replied Claireese.

Aph spotted it in the rear view mirror. Trailing not far behind them on the highway was an unmarked black van. Her ich was replaced with an equally smothering feeling of dread.

"In pursuit Zack."

"Good, do you need reinforcements?"

"No, no, say do you have that Claireece girl's cell number in your files?" Juliet smirked.

Zack grumbled as he fiddled with his phone on the other end. "There I just texted it to you, what do you need it for?"

"Catching the prey, what else?"

"Juliet don't do anything reck-"

Click.

"Now the fun can begin."

"Yep they are definitely following us."

Claireese needed to be reminded by her uncle twice to keep her eyes on the road and not the car that had been tailing them for ten minutes now.

"Hey dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Underneath my seat is a spare sword, take it out, we might need it."

Ares grinned and began rummaging through the storage compartment. Aph huddled herself against the window, continuing to stare back at the van through the rear view mirror.

"You ok?"

Aph didn't respond.

Claireese spoke again, "Hey Aph, you ok?"

Her newfound anxiety was bubbling over to the point where she couldn't speak, even the one time during the tense, (chase I guess?) Claireese asked if she were ok she just sat there, staring out at the van in the rear view mirror. Her thoughts rattled in her head.

Getagrip Getagrip, you're spirallingstopit they need a stableGoddess not what youarerightnowalwaysare. Just stop it, stopit stopit stop-

"Aph!" Clairrese shouted, making the small goddess jump in her seat and pull her seat belt into a vice grip that bleached her knuckles white.

Oh great you look like a airheadandaspaz and there is nothing-

"Aph" Clairese repeated, in a tone more caring than she thought a child of Ares was capable of. She took one hand tentatively off the steering wheel and placed it on Aph's. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, but I need you to do me and more importantly yourself a favor. Take a deep breath and calm down."

Aph nodded and did as she said. Breathing was weird, as were all human body functions she'd begun to realize. Hand still placed on her's and A few breaths later, Aph's heart rate began to slow.

Then Ares of course opened his big mouth, "Yeah babe you gotta calm down, you'll ruin your looks at this rate, then what?"

Aaaaaaand up the heart rate went, rocketing up past the moon and Mars, one of the only things in the universe large enough to compete with her own lover's ego.

Claireese shot him a glare through the dash mirror.

"What'd I do?" He replied. "Seriously what'd I d-

Thwack. Apparently someone had found a use for the wrench

-FUCK." Ares gripped his leg tightly, "What the fuck Hephaestus?"

Hephaestus ignored him and put his tools away, muttering something about breaking her.

Claireese groaned, "Both of you just shut-"

Ring ring. Ring ring.

"The hell's happening now?" Exasperated, Claireese pulled out her phone and answered it. She'd forgotten to check the caller id. She'd regret this shortly.

"What?" She snarled.

"Hello there" the voice of a teenage girl replied.

Aph barely caught it, but that voice. Her now faulty human memory tried and tried but couldn't, or more likely subconsciously didn't want to, place it to a name. It filled her with a panicked dread all the same.

"Who is this and what do you want?"

The voice chuckled.

"Oh it's fairly simple really, I want you to drive into oncoming traffic."

"The fuck would I-"

Claireese made a violent U-turn in the middle of the highway that nearly toppled the car and began driving down the wrong lane. They could see other cars coming.

Everyone screamed.

"What the hell Juliet!?" Adam and Jeffery yelled in unison.

"Oh bite me" she spat back, enjoying the panicked shrieks coming from her phone.

"Catch them alive and with minimal collateral-" Adam sputtered.

"Oh fine" she put the phone back up to her ear. "Can't a girl play with her food a bit" she muttered.

A thought occurred to Aphrodite.

She was going to die.

She was going to die brutally.

"Claireese what the FUCK?" Aries yelled.

"I'll put the tools back, I swear!"

"I-I d-" Clairesse forced out, her expression vacant, as if something was pushing her out of her own mind. Aph knew of only one thing that could do that to a person with only a word.

Charmspeak. Aph shuddered.

The phone, still gripped in Claireece hand, cracked back to life.

"Ok, ok, turn around, go back to normal. No need to kill yourself now." The voice said with an audible smile. It's familiarity continued to rattle Aph.

Claireese swerved back into the right direction, nearly hitting three other cars.

"Oh thank Chaos" breathed Hephestaus.

The phone again, "Now floor it."

Uh Oh.

The car rocketed forward, it's rickety frame damn near falling apart in the process.

The group screamed again, Claireese narrowly dodging other cars as her lead foot pressed ever downward, immovable. The voice from the phone gave an airy laugh that Aph was sure had haunted her dreams at some point.

They passed the black van and an argument broke out on the other end. "Oh come on they're safeish now Adam. Don't give me that look Jeffery. Ugh fine."

The voice cleared it's throat and Aph focused on the voice, feeling the power behind them and confirming her suspicion.

"Pull over and surrender, we won't kill you if you don't resist."

The car began to slow immediately. Aph was thrown against her seatbelt, groaning from the whiplash.

"What did you get me into?" Claireese strained in rage against the smothering of the Charmspeak.

Her eyes darted to the rear view mirror. The black van was catching up. This immediate stretch of the highway was deserted, the two cars leaving the few around them in the dust.

No witnesses.

Gears turned in her head as the rest of the car panicked.

No collateral damage then.

A light bulb flicked on in her head. Athena would be proud.

"Give me that!" She lunged at Claireese and pried the phone from her hands, the girl lto surprised to hold on.

The voice chuckled, "Oh is that who I think it is?"

"Leave!" Aph shouted, pulling for any strand of her power.

The phone laughed back in her face. "That's the best you've got? Go fuck yourself, actually no, I think I've got someting better in mind."

Aph felt like she was about to cry. She glanced back at her companions. Claireese was swearing up a storm trying to move her feet and failing. A look of fear breaking over the forced calmness of the trance. Aries was screaming at the top of his lungs for Claireese to "fucking drive", and Hephestaus had frozen like a deer in head lights.

This was up to her. Useless, weare screwed, Ican'tevenbebeautifulIhavenothingelsewe're screwedscrewedscrewedscrewedscrewedscrewed.

The car came to a stop on the side of the highway. They were sitting ducks.

"This is perfect, just perfect." The voice cheered.

scrwedscrewedworthlessscrewedworthlessscrewedscrewedscrewedscrew-

A hand clamped down on her shoulder. Her head snapped up to see Claireese staring at her, a fragile calm on her face running interference with the torrent of yelling from her father behind her.

"Claireese?" She asked.

"Do it."

"But it didn't."

"I've seen what your kids can do with that voice, now try again you can do it."

"I don't think I-"

"I think you can."

"You'd think wrong."

"Alright, I believe you can."

The voice on the other end was to busy giggling and squabbling with the others in the van to notice them. Aph took a deep breath. Her niece needed her. She quested for something deep inside her. There had to be something still in there, some lingering spark of divinity, it couldn't all be gone, it just couldn't. Her daughter's best friend needed her. It HAD to be there. Something, anything, anything worthwhile. Somebody needed her. Somebody asked for her help.

When. She thought. When has that ever happened?

She caught something, something powerful, primal, vicious, dark that had sunk to the bottom of her being. With force of will she yanked it free.

The girl on the other side spoke, "As weak as it is it's good hearing your voice again, mot-"

"Shut Up" Aph growled.

The girl went silent.

She looked out the window and glared at the railing on the other side of the highway, and let a stray dark thought she'd pulled loose saunter out.

"Crash."

"Yes my goddess." Two male voices spoke in unison. There was a screech of wheels, the scream of a girl so blood curdling it could only have belonged to one person in all of history. Her stomach dropped as the girls name returned to her.

The van shot past them at breakneck speed, swerved wide, and crashed head long into the railing. The other line went silent, as did their car.

Aries broke the silence first "Fuck" disbelief replacing anger.

"For once we agreed" spoke Hephestaus in the same tone.

Aph had turned ghost white. Fitting seeing as she'd just heard the screech of one.

"Hey Aph?" Claireese looked at her with apprehension, as if she'd just remembered it was a god that was sitting next to her. "C-can I have my phone back?"

Aphrodite looked down at her hands. At the phone. At the murder weapon. And for some reason, despite all the times she'd punished mortals for their insolence like this before, this time something frightened her.

"AH!" She tossed it out the window on reflex, anything to get it out of her hands. It shattered on the pavement.

"Sorry?" She said sheepishly, weak smile as her defense

Claireese sighed and turned back to the wheel, expression back to her normal mildly pissed off look.

"Let's go before more show up."

The three gods nodded quietly as she hit the gas and they sped along, down the coast of California and towards New Rome.

"Please step inside."

After a few minutes Medusa found herself in one of the coalition's many testing and containment labs where Klaus and his lab coat cronies poked and prodded at things they barely understood and things they understood frighteningly well for mortals.

"Oh and put these on" Klaus handed her a pair of sunglasses. "Wouldn't want any-"

Medusa scowled and put them on.

"Right." He said without missing a beat and guided her through the lab.

To one side she spotted a pair of researches in waste disposal gear cooking human made ambrosia behind a blast shield. Progress was good she heard, minus the third degree burns. To the other was the door to a forge where, according to Klaus, a turn coat Legacy of Vulcan was experimenting with potential alloys of Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold. Methods of procuring Stygian Steel were apparently still pending.

They passed numerous other experiments, a team measuring the effectiveness of Charmspeak through recordings, scientists comparing stolen brain scans of Athenian children and legacies with normal mortal brains.

Was that a Centaur being taught arithmetic? Medusa thought incredulously. That's going to crash and burn HARD.

Many of the researchers, particularly the older ones, all waved brief hellos towards Klaus who occasionally waved back. All of them turned quite and clammy when they spotted her though. They then like clockwork spun round on their heels after a millisecond of freezing like a deer in headlights and darted off to whatever inane thing they suddenly remembered they had to do. In the corner. Muttering to their colleagues. Conveniently away from Medusa. Yes. Convenient.

Among them were a few brief looks that could be interpreted as sympathy or pity. Medusa believed them to be ones of pity, if she even acknowledged them at all.

"When our boss highered you, you had one condition." Klaus finally said when they'd arrived at one experimentation station at the far corner of the lab.

"To lift my curse," she replied.

Klaus nodded, one of his assistants ran up to him and passed him a clipboard, whispering excitedly about some "breakthrough" before darting off.

Klaus looked over the papers passed to him and she caught the faintest hint of a smile on his face. "Medusa, tell me, do you remember one Mrs. Lauren Morris?"

"Yes" Medusa grimaced for about the millionth time that day. "Back about, oh, ten years ago, she came to my garden looking for directions and I-" She paused, "-hadn't heard her come in. My glasses were in my pocket book."

Klaus nodded again before gesturing to the far wall, "Medusa, I'd like you to look through that window, the glass is one way so don't worry about turning someone to stone."

She nodded and made her way over, taking off that infernal contraption of black plastic as she went. She couldn't recall if it was an effect of the curse on her mind or something that persevered from her days as a stupdi human girl, but Medusa never liked the feeling of anything obstructing her view of the world.

Looking through the window, she saw a bright whie sterilized containment room. Several researchers in hazmat suits were crowded around something in the middle of the room. One yelled something muffled, she think he said "Give her some air." the other men in suits back-ed off and Medusa's breath hitched.

Standing behind the glass, disoriented, scared, and from the looks of yet very much alive and free was Lauren Morris, mortal woman, mother of three, and three hundred and fifty ninth victim of Medusa's curse.

Medusa was speechless, mesmerized by what she saw. Klaus broke the silence first. "As you can see our latest test was a success. Temporary blindness should go away after a day or two. Our public relations department is already writing a cover story for her disappearance, within a few days we should…"

Medusa tuned him out as her mind began to race.

She's free. She thought.

They can be free. Tears began forming at the edges of her eyes.

I can be, could it be almost over?

"So" finished Klaus, "Do we still have your cooperation?"

Medusa was quite a moment longer before she formed her answer, "Of course."

After the crash Juliet saw nothing but darkness.

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a-

Pain wracked her body, searing and unyielding, it sunk into her. Fire crawled towards her, nipping at her leg. Jeffery moaned in agony. Eyes heavy and sewn shut, she pushed herself forward. A meger effort, body too weak to move the steel crushing her. The fire bathed her foot and burned it raw, she howled.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

The drops of life began slipping from her broken body, eaten by the encroaching flames. Her hearing was following her sight into the abyss. The fire was silent. The silence of death, of Asphodel.

I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;

Another sound rose to crescendo. Words. A thousand strings of whispering words forming a howling tempest. The dagger strapped to her thigh burned hotter than the fire ever could. It spoke along with the whispers.

"No no no child, the show isn't over yet! It's merely the first act, intermission is still a long ways off!"

Rage grew to meet her pain. Act? she thought. Intermission? Her blood boiled. Her life was not a play. She didn't care what her pathetic excuse for a half brother did to her name, to his name, she was not going to go back to that damned silent hell till she dragged her mother there by her hair. She pushed again, moved an inch, the fire progressed two. New thoughts flooded her dying mind.

"Crash"

Juliet vomited from the pain, light began to return to her sight. She underestimated her mother again, underestimated the monster.

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

Because it is an enemy to thee;

The dagger and the whispers continued. "You live, good, good, you are our champion after all, now go! Remember child, you have our anger!

She would not die here. She needed another chance, one more chance. She coughed up a wad of phlegm, there was blood in it.

"You have our pain."

She cleared her throat, smoke tearing her vocal cords.

"Use our pain to end it, to kill love, to destroy the cancer to-"

"To avenge him" she finished.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Juliet roared. "LIVE"

The world shot back into clarity, the pain of the fire around her feet vanished though the fire did not. Her dress was ruined, her hair a mess. This was not going as planned. Robotically, she placed both hands on the edge of the car, tilted sideways and pinning her down. She took a staggered, hoarse breath, and commanded her body.

Very few daughters of the whore knew their Charmspeak worked on themselves.

"LIFT"

A magic gripped her limbs, like the strings of a puppet pulling them taunt, strings lead by her and her alone. The car flipped over with some effort and with the lingering power of her Speak she scrambled out of the flames. Her legs were a ruined blanket of boiling red, her adrenaline the only thing keeping her from blacking out again.

"IGNORE"

The wisps of pain leaking in from her wounds vanished. She pulled herself into a standing position. Her muscles and nerves no doubt screaming bloody murder but her Charmspeak left them bound and gagged.

Several cars along the highway seemed to slow when they spotted the crash, all curious to get a look at the wreckage. She could see one or two dialing on their phones.

"LEAVE"

Phones were dropped, heads were turned, and away they sped.

She turned to her servants. Jeffrey had managed to crawl his way out of the wreck but passed out. Adam lay limp in the driver's seat. She limped over to Jeffery.

"WAKE"

His eyes shot open, he rose to his feet with a vacant expression. His conscious mind no doubt still out, meaning his subconscious must have taken her call. Good, subconsciouses didn't talk.

She pointed at Adam. "SAVE"

Jeffery, right leg still clearly very much broken. Scrambled wordlessly to save his friend.

Juliet scanned the ground till she spotted her phone on the pavement. She picked it up and made a call.

Zack's annoying voice came on the line. "Juliet? Status update-"

Juliet was silent a moment, gazing at the road stretching on southward towards New Rome, the veritable fortress that her mother had now slunk off to to hide.

"Mission Failed" she growled.