Dark Destiny Charmed Sons Virtual Series
Season One, Episode Five
What Was and What Is
Written by: Darien (aka alternate-universe-princess) and Shan (aka charmedgrl4ever)
Full summary: This Michael character seems to be a bigger threat than Chris had originally anticipated. After he attacks the manor, not only is Bianca unconscious and dying; but Chris's life is now at stake as well. Can Wyatt find out what's wrong with both of them and heal them before it's too late? And what secrets will Chris and Bianca uncover along the path to death?
Disclaimer: We don't own Chris, Wyatt, or Bianca (or any other cannon characters we forgot to mention). We do, however, own Prue, Jenna, Mack, Parker, Peyton and Talia (and any other original characters we forgot to mention) and would appreciate it if you didn't steal our characters without (A) asking our permission and (B) giving us the credit for them. Thank you!
Scene One
Chris Halliwell paced the floor of the attic and again called for his brother. "Wyatt!"
He'd tried getting Bianca to drink some water in a weak attempt to wake her from her catatonic state, but it hadn't helped – not that he'd expected anything to happen. When that failed, he climbed the stairs to the attic in the hopes that the Book of Shadows might hold the answers for which he searched. Of course, knowing his luck, Chris wasn't too surprised when his precious Book gave him no insight as to what was wrong. He didn't know why he bothered leafing through those crisp, aging pages anyway; he already knew it all by heart.
And now he was left with only one other option: calling for Wyatt to try to get him to heal her.
"Wyatt!" he screamed to the ceiling. "Whatever you're doing, get down here now!"
About to yell again, his mouth closed when Wyatt orbed in, Jenna and Talia in tow.
"It's about time! I've been looking all over for you! Where were you?" Unwilling to give his brother the chance to explain, Chris continued his furious rant. "Bianca's totally lost it, and I need your help to get her out of her head."
Okay, Jenna thought in total confusion; what the hell is that supposed to mean? She tried to voice her question, but Chris barely paused long enough to take a breath.
"Come on, Wyatt, she's acting really strange. I'm pretty sure the demon did something weird to make her… I don't know – just… something," said Chris.
Apparently, Wyatt shared Jenna's bewilderment. "Okay, you're not making much sense. What exactly happened to her?" he demanded worriedly.
Chris opened his mouth to respond, but a squeak of surprise from Talia stopped him. The first to notice the demon in the room, she blanched, turning pale and pressing into her sister's side for security. Behind Chris stood the man in black, the man who had kidnapped her, the man who had almost succeeded in murdering her. A tiny, muffled whimper slipped past slack lips. Any and all words got caught in her throat, tightening into a firm knot around her fear.
"Who are you?" Wyatt snarled, suddenly on the offensive. He stopped in front of Jenna and Talia (if Jenna hadn't been frozen in terror, she'd have smiled at his thoughtfulness) and readied an energy ball. Though he preferred squeezing answers out of him first, if need be, he could vanquish the demon in an instant.
A smirk marred the demon's young features, twisting them into some contorted, hideous odium. "Their end," he said as Chris recognized the reviled voice and whirled around to face his fiancée's attacker. Green eyes widened – then narrowed with righteous fury.
Michael cut his hand through the air and waved it extravagantly in Chris's direction. A wave of pale, orange light washed across the room and seemed to enter the younger Halliwell's body. With a low moan of fatigued pain, Chris collapsed to the floor like a sinking stone.
As Michael smiled, Jenna was reminded of her favourite character in Alice and Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat. Seeing it now – used with such sadistic pleasure – she shuddered and decided she could never again read her favourite childhood book without superimposing Michael's image into her mind.
"And now," added the demon, and Jenna wondered what more evil he could possibly offer, "his memories will kill him – just like Bianca's are killing her." As the trio was left contemplating how this demon knew Bianca's name, he vanished from the room.
Enraged, Wyatt hurled the energy ball towards the wall and then dropped to his brother's side with a sense of urgency. "Chris!" he shouted in desperation, eyes falling over Chris's form and searching for open wounds. "Damn it," he cursed, shaking the younger man's shoulders ardently. "Chris!" he called out again, but it was no use. His brother wouldn't wake.
Chris was still in the attic; of that he was certain. But where were Wyatt, Jenna, and Talia? The demon must have done something to him, teleported him to some other time or place.
Calmly – he never lost his cool under stress – he walked over to the Book of Shadows and flipped it open, slowly leafing through the pages. He searched for something, though he didn't know what it was. He wondered why he was looking, what he was doing, why he wasn't worried; but his body refused to react to his questions. Before his eyes passed page after page, demon after demon; and yet he never seemed satisfied with any of them. They weren't what he was searching for.
The floorboard creaked loudly, and Chris glanced up to make sure the small, blond toddler was still sitting in the playpen across the room. Where had the baby come from, and why did it suddenly seem so normal?
"Hello?" Chris called out cautiously. No response came… but that didn't mean no one was there.
For the time being, Chris decided to ignore his suspicions – ignore his instinct screaming at him that something was wrong with the scene – and return his gaze to the Book. Just as he did so, the floor groaned again; it sounded like muffled footsteps, but who was there?
"Okay," he murmured decisively, walking over to the playpen, "it's time to get you out of here." He spoke quickly, tersely, and then reached into the pen to heft the child into his arms. Suddenly, a powerful, invisible force had him slamming into the wall across the room. With a 'crash' he landed on top of the old, wooden table.
Out of thin air, a bearded man appeared beside the playpen, eyes cool and calculating. Sorrowfully, he spared a glance for the fallen whitelighter. "Don't make me sacrifice you both," he hissed, making it clear what his intentions were with the baby. Quickly, he bent down to pick up the toddler; but Chris stopped him, raising his hand and frantically throwing him across the room with his telekinesis.
With a remorseful grimace, the older man conjured an athame and again dematerialized.
A small part of him wondered where the man had vanished to, but it was instantly shoved aside as he clamoured to his feet and scrambled towards the toddler, intent on saving him before the guy returned. Before he reached the boy, the man reappeared at Chris's side. The athame in his hand slid easily into Chris's gut, and the young whitelighter's legs collapsed beneath him, useless.
"Dad!" he cried out in a haze of panic and agony. Oh god, Wyatt – Wyatt, he had to save Wyatt.
Realizing his current actions were useless, Wyatt stopped shaking Chris and sat back on his heels. Instead he quietly pleaded, "Come on... wake up..."
Almost as a response, warm blood began to spread across Chris's shirt, just above his stomach.
Stunned and confused, Wyatt instantly leaned forward and put a hand over the bloodied spot on his brother's shirt. Underneath it he could feel a large, jagged wound slicing its way down Chris's stomach.
Wyatt's eyes widened to the size of saucers. Just what had that demon done to him?
"Bianca," Chris moaned. "Bianca..." Sweat broke out on his paling skin.
Suddenly snapping to attention, Wyatt jerked back then rocked forward again. He shook his head quickly and extended his hands out over his brother's prone form. The familiar golden healing glow spread out over Chris but to no avail: Chris remained motionless, groaning feebly.
"No..." Wyatt cursed quietly, "No... this has to work..." He jerked his hands away then quickly spread them out over Chris's body again. Again, the allegedly lifesaving glow spread out from his hands – and again, it had no effect on Chris's fatal injuries.
Talia stood a few feet away, watching. At first, she wondered what Wyatt was doing and what exactly the demon had done to Chris, but as soon as she saw Wyatt's hands begin to glow she assumed that he was using some sort of healing power. It seemed odd to her that her powers could so easily be used for destruction while his were clearly for helping others. She watched in awe for several seconds, not understanding that Wyatt's healing powers weren't working.
After one last attempt at healing Chris, Wyatt spoke up. "Talia, I need you to go downstairs and search the house. You have to find Bianca. This demon – whoever he is – I think he's after both of them. She should be here, and she's probably affected with the same thing he is." He sat back on his heels again and sighed, his eyes never wavering off of Chris.
Talia nodded and made her way downstairs. For the first time ever, she felt sorry for Wyatt. He had to deal with this – she cringed just thinking about it – near death stuff all the time. And now she feared her life would be the same. She had to admit: the thought of that scared the piss out of her.
Running on adrenaline alone, she ran down a flight of stairs and stood in the hallway gasping for breath. Methodically, she moved from room to room, throwing open one door after another. Each empty room brought her closer to tears. Where could Bianca possibly be? And… could they already be too late?
The moment she realized Bianca wasn't there, she flew down the next set of stairs. At the bottom she paused to catch her breath, doubling over painfully. A bitter, metallic tang reached her nostrils and she cringed. When she raised her gaze to the living room, it took her heart a second to remember what its job was. There, pooling on the floor, leaked blood. And Bianca lay beside it.
"Oh no," she whispered, voice catching in her throat as she took in the scene. Bianca was shaking, and her skin was pale and cold to the touch, clammy. Talia didn't know much about biology or the human body (that was more Jenna's thing), but it didn't take a lot to know that that wasn't a good sign. Talia opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She'd never seen so much blood before, and the sight of all of it was almost enough to make her throw up. Gingerly, and fighting down powerful waves of nausea, she picked Bianca up and began to carry her up to the attic so Wyatt could heal her.
Halfway to the first set of stairs, Talia realized her "brilliant" plan wasn't so ingenious after all. As gently as she could, she rested the ex-assassin's limp form on the floor and crouched down beside her. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed her body to change. Nothing. "Trigger... trigger... what was the trigger?" she mumbled to herself. Anger, right? The need to protect. That was what Wyatt had said, wasn't it? Talia focused on drawing out those emotions, but it didn't work. All she felt was terrified and grossed out. "Panther! I want to be a panther! Why doesn't it work?" she groaned. Again, she tried to focus on her emotions. To make her powers work according to her will.
Come on, damn it! she thought furiously. I need this to work – now!
A second later, her form changed from that of a human girl to that of a black panther. Her lips curled up in the form of an unpanther-like smirk as she thought, Finally! Okay, right, focus...
She stuck her head under Bianca's side, trying not to growl at the blood that dribbled down her sensitive snout. Lifting her head and angling her shoulders, she somehow managed to roll Bianca's body over her head and onto her back so that Bianca was lying horizontally across her back, just below her shoulders. She walked slowly up the first few steps, making sure that the body wouldn't slip backwards as she went. Luckily for both their sakes, Bianca's body was just long enough to hang off of both sides of Talia's narrow frame so that she wouldn't fall. She could feel Bianca's breathing slow and become more erratic with each stair she climbed and knew that the girl didn't have long. Biting back the urge to howl before running, Talia raced up the steps to the second floor. She passed by the second floor in a mad dash and crashed into the attic, smacking her head on the partly closed door as she entered. Hurriedly and with much panic in her eyes, she raced over to Wyatt and knelt to let Bianca's body roll to the floor beside Chris. Wyatt nodded at Talia as a form of thanks and stretched his hands out over her body, hoping in vain to heal her. Talia purred, stretched and walked over to where Jenna was standing. Arching her back, she began to change back to her human form, a significantly easier feat than the first.
"It's... taking a long time, isn't it?" she whispered to Jenna.
"Uh-huh," Jenna mumbled weakly. She nodded and continued to stare at Wyatt, absolutely amazed. ...That's magic, she thought, awestruck. She'd seen magic before – she'd even used her own powers a few times before, though mostly by accident. But what Wyatt was doing just now was somehow different. Magic in its purest form, she thought, a simple smile lighting up her features.
She watched him for a few moments until she realized what her sister had discovered a few moments ago. Something wasn't right. It wasn't working. Wyatt continued to pour all of his energy into trying to heal the two of them, but they remained as lifeless as ever.
Slowly, she sidled over to Wyatt, keeping her eyes on Chris as she watched him carefully for signs of life. All she could tell was that his breath was coming in short gasps, and she guessed he didn't have more than minutes to live. What had happened to make him fall? She hadn't seen anyone attack, and there was no blood. What could have happened? Was this demon person really so powerful that he could simply kill someone with a flick of his wrist?
She was assuring herself as much as Wyatt when she said, "He'll be okay."
Silently, she moved closer to Wyatt to transfer some of her courage to him, all thoughts of flirting aside. This was too important to worry about her crush; Chris's life was at stake.
"It's not working." Wyatt sighed, shaking his head and standing. Using up his magic as much as he just did had exhausted him, and as a result he nearly collapsed. Shakily, he reached out and placed a hand on Jenna's shoulder to steady himself. He closed his eyes for a moment to try to regain his strength before standing up to his full height again.
"They haven't got much time, and I can't heal them." His voice was dry and cracked, a mere croak. "They're... connected somehow. That demon – he must have some sort of power of..." He sighed, "I have no idea. Some power that does..." he waved a hand and Chris and Bianca, "...this. And healing isn't working... there's got to be another way... there's got to be..." Wyatt choked back his tears and stopped short of gasping for breath.
"So... what do we do now, then?" asked Jenna. Without entirely realizing she was doing it, she rubbed the shoulder that Wyatt had touched, it still tingled after his fingers fell away. A smile tugged at her lips as she thought about Wyatt touching her again… but deliberately this time.
Snap out of it! she commanded herself angrily. This was no time to be acting like this, not when Chris and Bianca's lives were at stake! How many times did she have to tell herself that?
Maybe I can't stop thinking about him because we're meant to be together, another part of her countered. You can't change what's destined to be.
Shut up, her first side growled. Later. Now we've got to save Chris and Bianca.
"Well," Wyatt sighed, "the only thing to do now is to check if the Book says anything about that demon. Maybe that'll help us somehow." Quickly, he walked over to the Book of Shadows and started flipping through its pages, looking for any entries on a demon like the one that had attacked Chris and Bianca.
Bianca could feel herself spinning and falling and twisting like she was caught in a dark, all-consuming web. She could still feel things from the outside world, like the hard wood of the floor underneath her or the bitter coldness of the air around her, but she didn't quite understand where she was or what was going on. She could also sense something, someone, lying next to her. After a moment, not that she could accurately tell how long it had been, she assumed it was Chris. She tried to form words, tried to communicate, but soon found out that her lips wouldn't move. So, without really knowing it, she reached over and managed to grab his hand with hers. She squeezed his hand with all the strength she had left and never wanted to let go. However, a second later, her hand went limp once again and the darkness took over.
TBC...