(art by Livibis, i love it sm)

A/N!!!!: To my dear readers: I have decided to make a change! Currently this story is called "Princesses Don't Cry", but on Friday, June 28th it will be changed to......

*drumroll*

"Pretty Little Psycho"! 🥳

I feel that this fits the story better. And if you don't know the song princesses don't cry you might think it's a royal au. So I believe that this new song will fit better, let me show you why (it's really simple):

Pretty: child of aphrodite, and using charmspeak.

Psycho:... I think you know!

just targets it as a dark piper au better. ANYWAY, on with the story! See you at the bottom, thank you for your time! <3 (there's a sneak peak at the bottom for the cover ;)

- Your lovely author, Katie.

(TW: mild blood, mild injury, and death implication)

Piper pov still:

"Ok, now just keep your legs more steady and planted in the ground." He explained. I nodded and complied.

"Ready?" Percy got into a fighting stance. "Start."

We started to circle each other waiting to see who would strike first.

As I had asked, Percy has helped me with training for the past couple of days. I already could decently fight but I didn't have enough time to properly train with the few months we had before going to SPQR to find Percy. Since Percy is one of the most trained and has the most experience in camp (besides Annabeth, but that wouldn't work out now), I thought maybe he could help. I was right.

After a moment Percy decided to strike a punch at my shoulder. I leaned out of the way and used that to try to blow a kick at his waist. He grabbed my leg before it hit and my open arm then struck out my final standing leg sending me to the ground. I didn't give up, instead, I used my position to push myself out of the way, landing in a sideways lunge. The slide gave my leg a long gash but it didn't go that deep so I continued despite the stinging feeling.

I rolled away from another hit to get up. I remembered what he had told me and firmly planted my feet on the ground before throwing a punch. The son of Sally Jackson (let's be honest that's his godly parent) blocked it with the side of his arm. He faked a blow at my side and then tried hitting my face but I managed to duck and hit his stomach.

Percy stumbled back for a second but then regained balance. "Good one."

He tried throwing a punch right below my ribs in the diaphragm but I pulled his fist down to make his center start falling forward, then swiped my legs below his knees. Percy fell to the ground giving me enough time to get up. I grabbed his shoulders to start a trick but he grabbed my hands and then gave a knee to my stomach making me flip over past his head.

I landed flat on my back. I groaned, that hurt bad. 

Before I could get up a knee was placed on my ribs and hands held my arms down. I opened my eyes to see Percy claiming his victory.

I looked up at him straightfaced and said, "You seem like the type of person who would hate but also use Gen Alpha humor."

He mockingly held a hand at his heart 'offended' but then burst out laughing and fell onto the floor laughing. I soon joined in and then we just kept making jokes until we couldn't breathe and tears were streaming down my face along with the blood that was still dripping.

After a whole five minutes, I heard someone clear their throat behind us. I turned to see an un-amused son of Jupiter standing behind us, crossing his arms.

"Hey, bro? I thought we were going to train?" He helped Percy up. Wow, how nice of him! I'll just get up myself! Honestly, why do I even care anymore?

Percy gave a sympathetic look to me, then turned to Jason. "Oh yeah, sorry! Can we start now?"

"Fine," Jason grumbled then flipped his coin to turn it into a sword.

Suddenly I got an idea. I turned to Percy and whispered,

"I think he's a beta. Not alpha." (I am so sorry T-T,  I'm cringing writing this) I jabbed a thumb at Jason making Percy and I burst out laughing again.

Jason clearly hated that. Yay!

I mean... he didn't deny it!

I waved Percy bye. "Thanks for the help! Even though you beat me."

Percy laughed and waved back.

-time skip brought to you by: the hypnos cabin and munching on sleeping gummies (thanks @imlitteralyjstagirl)-

Once I left the training arena the wind quickly hit me and my leg stung. I looked down and saw that it was almost covering the bottom half of my left leg.

'Huh, I almost forgot about that.'

I decided that maybe the infirmary was the best option since I had no disinfectants left. I made a mental note to get more as I approached the door.

I knocked on the door and stood back waiting for an answer. Behind the door, I could hear a girl's voice saying "Coming!"

The door opened and I was greeted by Venesse in her light nurse coat. She smiled at me.

"Hey!" I said smiling back. "Guessing it's your shift now? Sorry."

She laughed briefly and rested her shoulder on the door frame. "No no, it's ok! It's quite empty right now, come in" She waved me inside.

I looked around. Light streamed in through the wide windows with the curtains open. Since everything had calmed down after the first weeks of training (trust me, those weren't nice for newer campers) the rooms had been cleaned and tidied to make it more calm. It looked like they added more drawers and cabinets.

"You can take a seat,-" Venesse grabbed a clipboard with a form then turned to look at me and almost dropped said items. "- and, Oh My Gods!! Why didn't you say something?! Ok, how bad is it?"

I'll admit, it was mildly amusing when either she or Will went from normal to instant care mode. Just when it's not in deadly or bad situations though. "Just grazed. But I don't know what could be in the cut since it was on the ground. So not too bad." I sunk into the closest patient chair. The tiredness from the match finally catching up to me a bit.

Venesse nodded and went over to the cabinets to get her stuff.

I examined the wound while waiting. It was definitely one of those looks worse than it actually is. The cut must've seemed worse with all the blood that had reached my ankle over time. But I was fighting and walking so it made sense that it flowed that far.

Right then Venesse came back carrying her items in a basket. She unloaded them onto the table and put on a pair of gloves.

"How professional looking." I joked. She laughed rolling her eyes, sat down on the other chair, and rubbed a wet cloth over the blood to clean it up. After a bit of cleaning the dark red blood that had started to dry underneath you could finally see how big the actual wound was. It was on the outer side of the calf, under the knee.

"So how did this happen?" Vennesse asked not looking up from her job.

" I was walking my dress Kitty, and it shot me." Venesse raised an eyebrow at that. "Jk, I was training with Percy. I was on the ground so to get out of the way I pushed myself diagonally forward, sliding on this leg," I responded gesturing to the area on my left leg. Venesse shuddered.

"I'm guessing on the rough stone of the arena?"

I nodded.

"Oh, and Piper? I'm about to use the disinfectant so it might sting a bit." She slid the wipe down the wound after I gave permission. It bit and burned but it needed to be done. Would you rather have it sting a bit at first or get a nasty infection? Don't you dare say the second one.

Then, she wrapped a bandage around my calf tying a cotton pad underneath for the cut. She handed me a square of ambrosia. I took it and felt the warm sensation of Sally's cookies going down my throat. We had been able to visit Percy's family after the war. Sally was probably the best part.

"Ok, you know the drill. Take another square of ambrosia tonight and one tomorrow morning... ya da duh doo da." The daughter of Apollo handed me a small bag of the godly squares.

"Thank you so much for the help." I thanked her. She gave a nod.

"No problem! Just doing my job." She said packing her things away and filling out the medical form. I signed my name on the form for confirmation.

"What's with the basket?" I pointed to the white and yellow basket.

She looked at it. "Oh, we would need to carry stuff over but things would fall out of our arms so we just use baskets, trays, and a trolly now."

She pointed to a trolly painted the same colors as the basket. It was meant to look sunny but something about it gave me the chills. Maybe because of the reason they would need it? Whatever the reason, I didn't like the feeling. 

"Everything ok?" Venesse asked gently. I snapped out of my thoughts.

"Ya. Im- I'm fine. Thank you." I smiled and waved at her. I would've offered to help her but I was really off-put from that trolly.

"See you!" She waved with just her fingers since her hands were full.

-time skip brought to you again but by: grover in stilettos-

Not much else had happened that day after. I hardly ever saw Jason, but if I did look at him he would just look away. Rude. Annabeth was as distant as ever, 'yippee'. I thought sarcastically.

So of course I can't have a break to even sleep well! But apparently, that is too hard.

That night as soon as I drifted off to sleep I just needed to have a scary prophetic dream, y'know! It wasn't on my wish list for this year, but I think a lot of the other things also weren't.

The dream was dark and only came in flashes but I recognized the room. Because I was just in that room today. The infirmary.

Everything was flashing, healers were running left and right, I caught a glimpse of Will's hard expression, his scrubs covered in blood.

Then it flashed to Venesse grabbing an item from the trolly.

And switched to a healer leaning over whoever they were treating, they moved out of the way and I caught a look of a girl with labored breathing. I couldn't recognize her from the dark but something felt familiar which made me feel sick.

I saw Annabeth pacing back and forth. Then, a quick flash of Venesse curled up in a ball in the hallway sobbing with Will holder her, tears staining his face too. Then, certain items flashed in the dream.

The trolly before, then after with items loose, empty boxes, a bandage roll starting to un-roll, a few drops of blood painting the trolly.

It faded everything else happening and focused in on one item. A pair of broken glasses on the bedside table.

Suddenly it flashed to a heart monitor going flatline.

The dream stopped.

I jolted awake in a cold sweat. Overwhelmed by the flashing, all the yelling, and emotions. What happened to Venesse? What happened to the girl? Why was the trolly shown? Who was that girl? What if-

'Could this be what the prophecy is talking about? "With all the chaos and pain, three souls will ascend." Could that be one of the three?' I thought. I really need to figure out this prophecy soon.

I looked outside and saw that the sun had just risen. I quickly got dressed and decided to start practicing to spar to try to forget.

But that girl...

a/n:.... so how about a break from that and I show you the cover :D

m'kay? here:

ON ANOTHER NOTE! this is 2000 words!

question of the chapter: what's your current fav song? I've been listening to 'Which Witch' on repeat while writing this entire chapter!

i might put fluff in the next chapter for u 

Stay lovely, butterflies <3