Title: Energy Conservation

Rating: G.

Genre: traditional sickfic. I wrote longer pieces of another genre and I missed this one so much I have to write a story of this type right away...

Summary/Notes/Pairing: ever wondered where does the energy for the fire balls come from? I explain this in the circumstances of late season 3, after "Death Takes A Halliwell." Phoebe is very much in love here.

"That Death is not the evil," Prue understood the lesson they were supposed to learn. She was still upset though they lost their innocent and she left the room.

"She just needs some time," Leo believed.

"And we need a maid," Piper looked around at the mess caused by all the skirmishing.

Phoebe nudged Cole, then pulled him with herself, out of the living room and up the stairs for some enjoyable privacy, relieved her lover ultimately wasn't harmed by the vampirelike creatures and that her sisters finally accepted him as fighting on their side.

"Wait," Cole freed his hand from hers and leaned on the barrier, "I can't run that fast right now, no matter how much I'd like to jump on you," he teased her.

"You can't run? Why? What's the matter? You hurt your head bad, didn't you? Maybe you should Leo take a look at it?"

"No, that's fine," he let go of the balustrade with one hand and made his way up the remaining steps with heavy and unsteady movements that compelled Phoebe to reach for his arm and help him along, "shattered...I think I have fired too many balls lately. Especially with the amount of bounty hunters after me," he saw Phoebe's bed as the only thing in his blurred and focused vision and dumped himself on it, lying down immediately to give in to overtiredness as he didn't feel capable of doing anything else. Even caressing Phoebe, as much pleasurable as it was, seemed too much trouble.

"You that tired?" Phoebe got herself down next to him, playing with one of his sweaty and curly wet hair lock.

"Hmm," was the only answer that came from the already half asleep Cole.

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"Phoebe! Cole!"

The psychology student jumped up at the voice of her older sister. She turned to grab her robe, not having enough time to clad for Cole putting his arm around her hips and shimmering them in the direction of the voice that woke them in the middle of the night. The phenomenon that Prue kept tossing things at, ranging from wardrobes to combs, was consisting more of a humanoid form bright ruby light, rather than proper flesh.

With the same movement of finishing his shimmer, Cole towed Phoebe out the way of the splinters of the broken cloth hangers that Piper managed to blow up instead of the demon, the same time as Prue wanted to hit the red demon with the coat-hangers that were in the way.

"That won't work," Cole shouted, "Prue! Cover me!" He moved swiftly through the rain of objects that the demon kept throwing back at the sisters the moment Prue directed them towards him and in the momentary possibility he had, he conjured up a bigger fire ball, which sparkled with the same greenish light as his eyes when connecting with the curious demon, taken by surprise given the nature of the assault that hit him in the house of some witches, "hey! My name is Balthazar, and as an upper level demon, I have the right to challange you for a duel. And I mean now! Let's leave the sisters out of it and take it somewhere else."

Shaking a little by the intensity of Cole's attack, the demon lost sight of the enormous flying rhinoceros, one of the many pennies worth bogus ornaments the sisters kept in the house for occasions just like this.

"No, Cole! We should fight together!" Phoebe started towards him while the fiend gave the impression of uttering a growl, composed by the continuous sound of small electric charges, hurtled its whole being into a huge red fire ball, flying in Piper's direction and knocking her onto the ground unconscious on its way to soar round the room, raising some kind of force field between the sisters on one side, him and Cole on the other.

"Leo!" Phoebe got bounced back by the wall of energy in the middle of room herself and landed next to her sister. She agitatedly checked Piper over.

The demon finally solidified itself a good few meters away from Cole, looking more like a giant hobgoblin more than anything else. He straightened up, holding eye contact with his opponent, while Cole matched his movements exactly.

Leo looked around momentarily in the more than usual mess, then got to work immediately.

"We need to help Cole," Phoebe stood next to Prue, keeping her eyes at the two demons that remained unwavering with their attention fixed at each other. Then slowly they both lifted one hand and some same size, but differently coloured fireballs have formed in them. But with them, they still stood motionless.

"I'll go astro to their side," Prue tried, but nothing happened. Leo attempted to orb into the fighting area as well, and Piper had a shot at the force field, with similar results. Neither of them could tell which one of the demons moved their palm first to release their shots, but it was the other demon's ball that hit first, making Cole's ball miss him an inch, while his ball hit Cole in the stomach. He remained standing though, it was only the flash on his face that told Phoebe he suffered from the blow.

"Prue, can you get the book? We have to do something," she fretted while the two demons stood stock-still the exact same way as before their first clash with a bit larger fireballs in their hands, seizing each other up like two tigers, that just met in the jungle. The same way as the animals would, they started circling around slowly, with flowing, virtually ballet like movements, both set to take advantage of the smallest of possibilities for a successful attack. Phoebe would've wanted to ask Cole if they could lend a hand somehow, but she was afraid that would endanger him in case he took his gaze off his opponent because of the interruption, or his concentration faltered.

Even so, his green eyes registered movement one millisecond later, and he was hit by a fireball once more, directed to the same place by his adversary, then the previous hit. His legs wobbled, and one of his knees briefly touched the floor before he forced himself to stand, clearly struggling and holding on to where it hurt with one hand, but already forming his even larger fire ball with the other, "ready to go," he assured his foe, making the demon laugh at his challenger.

Prue astro projected back, "I found him in the book. He is called the Mêlée Master. He's protected by some spell and can only be vanquished by somebody who challenged him for a duel."

"That's right, witch," turned his palm and fired again.

Cole more like doubled over, than ducked this time, yet managing to avoid the shot now, and swept his bulky fireball back at the other till the demon didn't have time to form another one or retreat. Electric lights went through his body, making him ignite and burn out with a bang. The force field that kept the sisters away disappeared the same time as Cole collapsed.

tbc