Title: Vanquished Alarm
Author: Wicked R
Disclaimers: this is an altered Kernverse.

Genre: Romance.
Rating: G.

Summary/Set: While Cole is still busy getting himself killed after his failed attempt in "Sam I am," the effects of one of Prue's mistakes come back to haunt the Charmed ones.
Pairing: the point here is finding out!

Phoebe locked the door of the manor behind herself, "I'm home!" She shouted. The sisters always let each other know of their whereabouts to shield themselves against unwanted Piper blow ups and so they knew where everybody was in case of a demon attack.

"In the kitchen!" She heard Piper's voice and followed it, planning on finding something to eat anyway.

"How was your day?" Her older sister asked.

"Ohh, okay," she answered, "just busy as usual."

"You sure?" Piper asked, "you seem a bit jittery," she laughed, watching Phoebe's assail on the cookie box.

"I just forgot I was meant to have lunch. You know how I am when I'm engulfed in writing."

"But I cooked dinner."

"I'll get round to it Piper, I just need a quick chocolate energy fix...and sorry for coming home late. But I guess you guys didn't need me. Paige would've orbed after me if there was a chance of Rottano attacking."

"Oh, Rottano attacked all right and we vanquished him all right as well."

"How? I thought you needed the power of three for that."

"Yeah, and we had it, end of story."

"Piper," Phoebe said grouchily, and put one hand on her hip, "you are being enigmatic for the sake of going on my nerves for fun."

"Well, yeah, at least that much after not even a turn up from you for the vanquish of the month! Okay, week, vanquish of the week."

"With Paige a full time witch, one of us does have to work, you know. Where is she by the way and will you tell me at last what happened today?"

"Paige is actually...out, trying to bond with Prue."

"What?"

"Yes, missy, that is what you've missed. But don't worry, Prue will be around a lot more often nowadays that she was allowed to contact us. She came the exact moment we became desperate for you, Prue orbed in and gathered the two of us around the book, just like before. The power of three seems to work with either three of the four sisters, dead or alive."

"Orbed?" Phoebe caught on one of the most important words of the conversation.

"Well, it's good to know they won't let the talent of a good witch go to waste up there...you know, for every eventuality. She's been a whitelighter for a year now, but they thought we were not ready to take her back as that and not think of her as our out and out sister. Main thing she is here," she smiled at her happily. With a sudden enthusiasm, she rushed over to the other side of the table to hug Phoebe, "we are all here, isn't it wonderful?...I wonder how long it's going to take until the our world comes stumbling down again once more..."

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The penthouse was a total mess. Past that, it was an obstacle course. There were scribbled on and torn up pieces of paper, magic books, half burnt towels, empty turned over cans, rolling along nicely when the wind blew in until they bumped into the instant food leftovers and the smashed glass that was also on the floor, along with various dried plants and some animal remnants, lying in their pools of blood. A pong of alcohol was noticeable even with the balcony door open and the smell of dead flesh.

Cole surveyed the inside view curtly and pondered for a second whether he should wave his hand and made order with it. But as he felt like a complete mess of a person, the scene seemed to have matched his mood, so he didn't bother. He didn't bother with the lights either, with his demonic powers he could see well enough in the dark. Besides, making it look orderly would have created an illusion, the place would have seemed like as if Phoebe stayed there with him. All those powers and he had nothing. Furthermore, there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. The one person who ever really cared about him was now his worst enemy. He was disappointed in her, yet unable to let go. He felt broken, but nothing that he had tried so far compromised any of his physical integrity, no matter how much he would've wanted the opposite. Apathetic about anything else than finding the right potion to kill himself with, using both black and white magic at the same time, he figured if he was half human and half demonic, both sides of magic should be used to vanquish himself. But because that didn't exactly go well, he now tried to make potions that got rid of some of his powers, to try to make himself more vulnerable first. He even made a potion that was supposed to stop him from loving her, and one that was meant to heal heartbreak. Nevertheless, the results were the same. Nothing had an effect on him anymore, he was untouchable. Phoebe was his one and only motivation to live, his intention to remain good, or even pretend he did, justified by a faint hope that she will change her mind one day so far. But the more he believed he lost her forever, the less interesting evil side got. He had no business with demons, he had no business with anyone. It was as if she had sucked life out of him, without actually doing so. Everything has lost its purpose and the only thing that made some sense now was to finish his latest attempt at a concoction that was meant to purify evil, and thus he hoped to loose his powers. He tottered round a heap of muddy clothes and to the kitchen taking a glass of powdered Arabic gum out the refrigerator, then shimmered to Norfolk for some special pine needles and back to the glass table in his living room, where he poured the so far missing ingredients into a small pot. He brushed the side of the pot with his fingers to make it heat up and boil over, then knocked the fluid down without any concern about the heat or the small explosion beforehand. He followed it up with the anti-healing mixture he made earlier, then with several small strange coloured vials he lined up previously on the table. He noticed how quite a lot of one of the ingredients he used was left, shrugged, then picked the remains up and swallowed the hemlock down as well.

The room spun once, twice, then settled, and everything was back to normal, "there is undoubtedly no point in me continuing this," he finally straightened with a thought in mind. He will have to trick the Charmed Ones into using some spell from the Grimoire on him, make them think it's a white hex. And for that, he didn't need to shimmer far, cause he acquired long ago and kept the Grimoire at his office...

tbc