Title: By Ordinance of a King
Author: Wicked R
Disclaimers: characters and the universe belongs to the WB.
Rating: PG.
Summary/Set/Genre: a few years into the future, the sisters get captured by a powerful demon and thrown at the feet of the leader of the underworld. Cole. Repeat
performance? Don't think so.
"Let the object of objection
become but a dream,
As I cause the seen
to be unseen," Paige recited one of her favourite spells, the one she first used after she had first seen the Book of Shadows. It was to clear up the mess her two nephews made while she was babysitting for them. For the second time in an hour, the boys wasted a full roll of toilet paper by stretching it out all the way upstairs and using it as a track for their racing cars. It was one more mischief than she could cope with, and she was just going to give them into trouble when she heard Piper's voice from downstairs, "come down here a minute! Right away!" The voice was insistent, combined with a certain uneasiness that spoke of a presence of a demon. So instead of giving Wyatt and Christopher into trouble, she instructed the older child to activate his protective force field and take care of his brother too while she orbed down into the dining room.
"What do you want?" Piper questioned the handsome, but old looking demon when Paige arrived.
The demon with the face of a ruddy nature and burning eyes stood by the wall, surrounded by a force field gleaming similarly to that of Wyatt's, "what do I want? Exactly this, for you to be all together," he spoke with much gravity, releasing some small cylinder like object from his hand, that rolled through his force field and towards the witches.
Piper, noting the possible threat, tried to blow it up, while Paige tried to orb it away. To both, the object reacted by letting its own force field show, until it finished its path and settled at the sister's feet, tapping them by producing another force field around them.
"Don't try anything. It's vain," the demon said with confidence, that didn't stop the witches using their powers, but failing, "technology is very handy if you use it in connection with magic. And thank the devil for the Ananova company for making their bullet-proof electric force field that vaporises grenades and shells on impact."
"Who are you?" Piper didn't stop the questioning though, "and still, what do you want?"
"I'm Alocer, Grand Duke of Hell," he said pompously, "commander of thirty six legions. And it's time to rule. Had enough of playing second fiddle to whoever the current leader of the underworld is at the time."
"And you gonna achieve that by killing us?"
"No. By forcing the king to kill you, or else," he stepped closer to the sisters and touched their force field.
The next moment they materialised in a dimly lit cave. The sisters looked around it as their eyes got used to the lesser illumination. The cavern was enormous, the walls and the flooring made of black granite. A few silk drapes lined the wall and there were quite a lot of candle holders in the room as well as a generously proportioned crystal chandelier, which wasn't lit. Limestone columns reached up about three storeys high to the arched ceiling. There were quite a lot of demons in the room, all gathered around a large table. At the other side of the table there was a small granite set of steps leading up to an ornately painted silvery throne with some gems fixed into it and another smaller and less decorated throne, presumably for the queen of the underworld. Standing in front of the thrones was a young girl, barely a teenager, wearing hardly anything, with a small orb shaped pendant, bearing the icon of the Seer around her neck. Resting his hand on her shoulder, there was a robust man, dressed as a High Priest.
Their capturer walked over to him and talked to him quietly, while the rest of the demons eyed them with curiosity and uproar. Finally, the high priest shimmered away and got back with a tall man dressed in a white and gold tunic.
Cole took a sitting position on the throne, his thunderous voice echoing in the subterranean board room, "Alocer! How do you dare go against my orders?" before his eyes settled on the three witches still surrounded by the force field, unable to act upon the world around them.
"Kneel before your king," the High Priest ordered routinely, and showed the way to the rest of the demons, that followed his example.
"Leave us," Cole ordered them irritably.
"The Senate has a right to hear what I, as the Prime have to say," Alocer argued, counting on the presence of the rest of the ruling demons for his plan to work, "these witches," he continued walking along the long table of the more or less democratic Senate that Cole himself has established, "have double crossed us so many times we lost count," he also made sure he walked far away and was covered by another demon just in case Cole decided to cause his end with a powerful fire ball he might be able to conjure up against him, "do we not have the right to ask why? Your explanation for it always was," he challenged the king, "that everybody lost something, if not their lives, if they decided to mess with the power of three. But the witches are here now, captured in front of our very eyes. All you have to do is conjure up one of your finer energy balls and finish them forever. We might not be able to do it, my Liege, we might not powerful enough, but you certainly are. I brought them to you and now I ask that you rid our world from them for a better future for us."
"Not yet," a female voice said, a young looking small blonde in a tight red dress materialising on the queen's throne next to Cole. She was holding a small boy with dark hair and wearing an everyday jeans outfit. She put him down on the throne, where he comfortably nested in one of the corners and started playing with some toy dinosaurs. The queen descended the stairs immediately and walked next to the force field to stop in front of Phoebe, "well, well. I do win after all, who would've thought?" she said and the sisters recognised the shape shifter, Cole's girlfriend from the time he tried to take their manor and the shadow into himself.
"You both should be dead," Paige established.
"Do you really think you could vanquish me with a simple knife while I was pregnant with the child of the most powerful demon? As for Cole, you only vanquished him in another dimension."
"Are you a part of this Kaia? Did you betray me?" Cole stood up.
"No. But it'll be fun watching this," she stepped away, going back towards her husband, "now you can proceed." When she was up the stairs and still nothing happened, she quietly added to him, "you are going to kill them aren't you? If you won't, you know well, the Senate will not tolerate a leader letting some witches live. Alocer will rise to power. Cole, think of your son, if not else," she whispered into his ear.
"Very well," Cole moved one step ahead and conjured up a huge fire ball. As he released it towards the witches, it changed direction at the last second and it vanquished several demons that stood close, "the rest of you, you can still choose to obey me."
"Are we letting this happen?" Alocer put his hands on the shoulders of two other demons, then stepped in front of them and released a fire ball at Cole, hoping the others would follow his example. His large globe of fire bounced back from the invisible protective field that made Cole the powerful demon he was, but he followed it up with another and another, not giving him the time to fire back. The four-five year old boy started shouting, "daddy, daddy," while slowly, but seeing his weak spot, the other demons joined in with the firing balls at their leader.
"No!" Kaia screeched, shimmering out and in right in front of the child, cradling him up.
Cole held out one hand, deflecting the attacks with it before they reached his body and released a smaller ball in the direction of the witches, putting their force field out to let them join in with the fight.
In the complete chaos that broke out and lasted for several minutes, where potion vials and demons were exploding, screaming and shimmering all over the place, flames were sizzling and conquering half of the room, weapons were being orbed into demons and fire balls engulfed the room, Phoebe engaged in close combat fight with more than one demon at the one time. Nevertheless, she still noticed some changes in the stance of the battle as they occurred, such as Kaia picking sides and fighting by her husband, but being vanquished shortly as she stood shielding the child. There was a momentarily lapse in Cole's attention and several fire balls hit him in his side at the same time. He picked up the kid, running towards the other side of the large table, where the sisters were still holding their own. When reaching Phoebe, he got rid of the demon she was busy with and in the brief interval between that and the next attack he dumped the boy in her arms and addressed her, "orb now! I'll cover," and he followed it up with an enormous power charge that thrown back all the demons for a few seconds.
Paige took the opportunity for getting them out the impossible no win situation and grabbed both of her sisters, orbing the four of them out, while Phoebe still saw as the demons closed in on Cole.
"We're safe. They won't come here after us," Piper established, "the same way they didn't dare before."
"What about this Alocer?" Paige feared, "something tells me he will gain power of the underworld."
"You two look up the Book of Shadows," Phoebe put down the crying boy from her arms, "I have to deal with the devil child."
"I want my daddy," the boy wailed.
"Good luck with that," Paige orbed her older sister to the attic.
"He's not a devil child," Cole shimmered into the manor, falling right into a seat as the boy ran to him and cuddled into him, still crying, "he's your son and I need you to take care of him. Alocer will not rest till he has my head. I can't hide properly while carrying a child around."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Phoebe, I don't have much time till Alocer reorganises his forces. You need to believe me and you need to believe me now, for all of our sakes. When you were pregnant and the seer took the baby away, you didn't vanquish the baby, just the seer. The foetus was too powerful to be vanquished just like that, it just transferred itself to another demon woman. Vast energies don't just disappear. "
"Cole, the baby was the Source's, he was evil. Don't tell me this is the same child."
"It is Phoebe, but he is not evil. He has so many of your traits actually. You'll see."
"No, Cole, I felt it, I felt his emotions."
"I had the Source in me when we conceived him, yes, and he had the Source in him too, yes. But you vanquished the Source remember? That part of him died when you vanquished the seer with the Source. All that was left was the innocent, but powerful child. Mines, and yours."
"What about Kaia?"
"She wanted to be my queen," Cole shrugged, "and I used her services…since there was nothing better available…anyway…we transferred the pregnancy to her and she was the one that actually gave birth to Victor. Take his blood and check it, ask Leo what the Elders can come up with, whatever, I have to go. You'll have to raise him without me. They have to assume me dead. You can't vanquish Alocer, I haven't figured a way in years. But you'll be safe if I'm not here…"
"No!" Victor screamed, "daddy! I wanna come with you!" he hang on to his tunic tightly.
"Listen to me, Victor," he hugged the child, "we talked about this. I told you this might happen. You can trust Phoebe. I love you," he sat him down and despite the squeals of the boy, he shimmered out.
Phoebe stepped closer to the weeping child, not yet understanding the repercussions of what had just occurred enough to feel something towards the boy yet, but as he looked up at her pleadingly, she felt like taking him into her arms without having the need to check Cole's story out. Somewhere deep in her heart she knew it was true, "we'll find your daddy," she promised and embraced him. Then it hit her. An overpowering and tremendous feeling when the boy nestled in, the same way as she previously seen him behave towards Cole. She couldn't describe the amount of love that awoken in her. He just couldn't be evil. He was her son and she would protect him till her last breath.
The End.