NO!
By dragonsflyfree
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed
A/N : My first story ever! So have mercy.
Added on 22/05/2007: Thanks to my wonderful beta Rachel!!!!
Enjoy!
Chapter one: Like another planet…
No, Chris would not give in. That was the one thing he was sure of.
No one would ever see his tears. Not again, not now. There was no time for his silly childish emotions anyway.
They could treat him like trash and kick his ass every time they saw him, but as long as he could make himself believe that this wasn't his family- in a way – he could survive it all.
But the closer he came to these people, the more he felt that this was all his heart was longing for!
The brown haired young man lay at a rather shabby couch in the backroom of the club his mother – or to be more specific, his future mother-to-be - owned.
Chris was a "man on a mission" as his friends used to taunt before he came back to the past, to try to save literally the whole world at once. So just to make it less pathetic they had simply called it "the mission", even if this was an understatement.
The dark room without any window and only lit by a single poor bulb, stuffed full with papers and bar equipment wasn't the best place to stay for the night. It was loud and cold, and from time to time the barkeeper stepped in to fill up his stock of bottles out of the boxes which were stored in this room.
Just to say it: It was a lousy place to find more than a few hours sleep at night.
Chris didn't care anyways. In his life at the resistance, he had learned the hard way that any place, if it was dry and safe from the demons that ruled the streets of the city, was a good place to lay your head down.
For him this cold, noisy room was enough.
But when he thought of the room he´d once lived in as a child at the family-manor, he felt a longing that he could hardly stand.
The worst thing was, that his room and all the warmth of a loving and caring family and a "normal" life that it represented to him was there. It was so to near him, he could almost touch it, and yet so far away that it may as well be on an entirely other planet.
"Great Chris", he thought bitter "you´re behaving like a whining little baby! Stay focused on your mission! And that does not include reliving your long-lost childhood. You're such a childish fool sometimes," he scolded himself.
His emerald green eyes looked up the ceiling, which was the only place Piper had not plastered with band posters. While looking at the swaying of a lost Spider web his mother seemed to have overseen at one of her last cleaning-attacks´- "You know the cleaning staff today…. Impossible how slovenly they work….." - Chris still had her comments ringing in his ears as he slowly drifted away into an unsteady sleep.
Soon after this, a dream flew into his restless mind. And he immediately recognized where it was settled…….
Chris felt extremely hot air surrounding him. The asphalt underneath his sneakers seemed to boil, and there was a dry, foul smell hanging over the whole city.
Soon streams of sweat poured down Chris´ forehead and began to trickle out of the longish wavy hairs at the nape of his neck.
There was no escaping this heat.
Since Wyatt, his power hungry and, in Chris opinion completely crazy and evil-fallen big brother, had affected the weather with his magical interventions´, there was not the slightest cloud in the sky. In the whole city there was no way of getting water anymore, except the amount near to nothing that the "almighty- near brain-dead- lord- leader of the city" gave to those who swore loyalty to him.
"Great", Chris thought, "I just invented a new one for my "evil-tyrant-title-collection."
A sarcastic grin hushed over his face.
The trees and plants in the once so beautiful city were long gone. Their skeletons along the alleys were like the tombstones that completed the picture of what this city now was:
A graveyard!
There were only ruins left of the once so beautiful and cosy houses, that gave San Francisco its once inimitable charm.
No people were to be seen outside on the streets anymore.
Since the energy-supply had broken down, the humans were in hiding, or had left the city alltogether.
Before he exactly knew why, Chris felt - thanks to his white lighter senses - the strange desire to run. But not to run for no particular reason –
No, he started to run for his very life.
Eventually he had at least made one right decision in his life by joining the track team when he was eleven. Now these times running away´ became one of his best, most needed skills ever.
It was strange how the wheels of fate turned.
After a few minutes he gave in to the temptation to look back over his shoulder, even if he knew that this would cost him precious time.
Chris saw a crowd of the most horrifying demons he had ever seen, and you can bet that growing up as a Halliwell, with his sixteen years, he had seen a whole host of demons, more than some witches would see in their entire lives.
Chris could tell just by the short look at the demons what kind of followers he had.
Not that he had as much practice in vanquishing demons as the rest of his family had– in contrary, to be honest, he hated vanquishing – but he had always been mesmerized by the research of this creatures.
He was a smart boy so his knowledge was now far beyond even the Book of Shadows. He had worked out his own, much more comprehensive notes.
But what was the use to know that his followers could perhaps not outrun him but would make this up with an extreme perseverance? And no matter how stupid they were they had an extraordinarily high-levelled demonic leader who coordinated their moves as professional as any of the resistance leaders would do.
Not to mention that they outnumbered him by far.
These thoughts made him speed up, but after some time he felt his legs tiring up. Soon his body would give up this run. And there was no place left where he could make an honest attempt to hide.
Furthermore ît was simply too hot!
He felt as if outside, there was no oxygen left to breathe into his burning lungs.
He still ran, but the demons didn't tire up in any way. They were used to this infernal heat.
But Chris wasn't.
He cursed the anti-orbing spell his brother had cast over the whole city.
Then the most feared moment was there: the point of total exhaustion, when his legs finally gave up the fight.
Chris tried to push himself harder, just a few steps further.
"Come on, you can't give in that easy, doing the race of your life, or better for your life after closer contemplation, and that should be everything ?"
These thoughts gave him a few more precious meters.
"There has to be a way, there simply has to be!"
Chris´ heart raced on high speed and one desperate idea after another chased around his head.
"All useless!" he stated.
Then it was over.
He steadied himself at the nearest wall and tried to keep standing upright on his now painfully convulsing legs. He started coughing and felt as if he had to throw up his lungs along with the rest of his insides that had to be also somewhere amongst the intense nausea.
The boy waited for his pursuers to reach him. He wouldn't give up his freedom– or life? – without a hell of a fight.
It seemed as if the demons knew his determination all to well. They slowly came nearer.
In the end the fear of their "egomanic-to-the point of vomit-lord leader" (Chris winced-he´d done it again – bad habit!) overshadowed the fear of his little brothers´ powers widely.
Chris stared with his usual calm mask into the yellow piercing eyes of the demon leader.
"Don't make it hard for both of us", the demon growled, "you know that this is a losing battle! And our lord will not be pleased if we do too much damage to his sibling."
"Oh, how caring!" Chris spat out.
"There is nothing caring about it", the demon grinned, "It will only cost him more power to fix you up to "work" with you!"
Chris´ heart sank at the unclear but scary imagination of what the little word "work" implied for him. This sent a shiver down his spine, but he didn't let the demons see his fears.
"You know its all about power these days", the demon leader continued. "I think you haven't met your brother for a long time? You'll be surprised! He's now as evil as anyone could be, far beyond the scale even for us demons. Do you have the slightest idea what it takes to rule the underworld?"
And one more time Chris couldn't stop himself from being a smart-ass:
"He had worked out a good social-system plan and offered every demon a health insurance?"
Yeah, real smooth Chris. If you get smashed now you at least deserve it...kind of !´ he thought.
The demons howled a strange laughter. In this moment Chris realized that they all were, in a way, on the same side. There was nothing they wanted more than to stop Wyatt.
For different reasons, of course, But Chris would, at given time - provided that he would survive this day, have to think about how he could use this to his own advantage.
For now though, this would not help him at all out of this precare situation.
There was a long tense silence, while every party waited for the first move…….
"You know I will not come with you willingly!" Chris stated.
"Unfortunately yes!" the demon answered in the same faked calm voice.
"So be it." Chris said his voice barely above a whisper.
The demon raised his hand and bowed slightly in respect for the strong willed young man.
As he lowered his hand again the battle began.
Chris TK´d the first row of the approaching demons into the next wall, which broke down under the heavy force and buried them, along with their taken-by-surprise leader, below it.
The first salvo of fireballs flew in Chris direction while he desperately tried to duck away. He backfired some of them telekinetically, right into the two demons standing next to him, as he became aware that he was slowly becoming encircled by his attackers.
Ok, last moves!´Chris thought not really hoping for a rescuing wonder. At the very least, I'm going to take as many of them out as I can.´
He concentrated all of his remaining power in this one last strike.
This is really ready to become the biggest blow ever,´ Chris thought, and suddenly he caught himself thinking how he wished his brother could witness this one.
In some ways he would always be the self-proving little brother he once was.
As the demons made their move against him, they were all hit by a giant ring-forming energy blast, in which centre Chris broke down as soon as he had released it.
After the screams of dozens of vanquished demons no longer filled the air, there was a strange picture to be seen.
A young man, almost a boy, was lying in a huge amount of smoking ashes.
Chris tried desperately to remain conscious, while the last of the demons- one with piercing yellow eyes- crawled slowly out of a pile of bricks.
The demon came without any hurry near his slightly shaking prey.
He formed a fireball in his hands and pushed it forward towards the helpless young man.
While hearing Chris screams of agony, the demon whispered,
"for my family!"
TBC…