A/N: Hi everybody, this is my first one-shot, I'm still working in my feature-lengthfic"The Hexenmeister", but this plot bunny was just too good to let it go to waste, I hope you like this and I'd appreciate if you review at the end.
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing stuff and spicing it. I'm not getting any money from this, so there's no need to get legal about it.
"Self-Referencing Vision" by cdfe88
My name is Wyatt Matthew Halliwell and I'm the one in charge now. Everyone told me I was the champion of good, the next King Arthur, the Twice-Blessed Child. They said that I would fight against evil even though that would mean sacrificing everything I loved. They were wrong. I wasn't going to let them control me. Not after all their lies and their betrayal. I'll never forgive them, the Elders, those who took everything from me.
Those who took my father away, those who took my mother's life, those who turned my brother against me, those who made my family lose everything they hoped and dreamt for. First they kept my parents away from each other, then said that my brother and I were mistakes, and finally tried to take advantage of my power. Luckily I was smarter than my family; I was smart enough to prevent them from manipulating me. I was smart enough to figure their whole act. That's why I stand now before them, or more correctly, their lifeless bodies, bodies I killed. But let me tell you about how I came to this position.
I'm actually impressed to have been the first to discover the truth. Even my brother is still trapped in their nonsense of good versus evil. He was the smart one. I feel disappointed because he has tremendous potential, but no one could see it. Maybe that could be the explanation. He's no fool, he's probably pretending to believe that crap in order to fit in the family, to impress daddy dearest. I sometimes felt pity for my brother. Leo paid no attention to him at all. He wouldn't come to him no matter what. I would just get a minor cut and daddy would be there to heal me even without a call. But the time Chris was in shock due to a fever, Leo didn't even bother to show his face.
I have to admit, Chris was a strong person, never needed protection. I admired him, well, I still do. Why couldn't Leo see that? Chris was brave, smart, independent and strong, but for Leo and the rest of the world the only thing that mattered was that Chris wasn't that powerful. I sometimes envied him for that. Being the Ultimate Power wasn't fun while growing up. The Elders were constantly over me keeping an eye open. I was forced to go 'up there' for endless hours of training for my powers not to go berserk. I had to go to Magic School, were most students feared me or were disgusted by me.
Chris, on the other hand, was the lucky one, he could go to a normal school, have friends, and do normal kid stuff. Every time I would go back home after training or Magic School, Chris wouldn't admit to me that he was jealous, but I could feel it, he was jealous of the time I got to spend with Dad while he had virtually no father. But in reality, I was jealous of him, because he got to be with Mom, even until the end.
My mother was the picture of perfection. She was wise, powerful, caring and loving. I wanted to spend time with her. She loved Chris and me the same, but Chris was the one who got to spend the most time with her. I remember that day in November, it was Chris' birthday, and as a first, Leo came. But he didn't come down to congratulate the birthday boy. He came to take to Elderland to train again. I tried to protest, but Leo said it was important. Resigned, I tried to convince him to let Chris go with us so he could train too. "He's not powerful enough" my father told me. Luckily I had the chance to apologize to Chris. He was very understanding, and even though he felt sad, he was very mature about it.
I wasted hours meditating in the Clouds being told repeatedly by the Elders never to lose my focus, and that's when I felt something was wrong, I felt Chris calling me.
"Dad, Chris is calling me" I told Leo.
"Just ignore him and keep focusing" he said to me.
"But I think it's serious" I responded.
"Your training is more important" he answered. Suddenly I felt something horrible and I stood up.
"Sit back down" ordered one of the Elders.
"Chris needs me" I told them.
"Wyatt, sit back down" my father ordered me.
"But I have to go!" I told him.
"Shut up and resume your training!" he finally told me. I felt an excruciating pain so I decided I had to go.
"To hell with you, I'm going" I told Leo, orbing back to the Manor.
What I saw back there was worse than my wildest nightmare. The most destroying scene was before my eyes, my brother kneeling on the floor, crying over my mother's limps body, a pool of blood having formed in the kitchen floor. My face became bloodless as I was witnessing this.
"Chris, what happened?" I asked my brother.
Between sniffs he managed to say, "It's too late…you can't heal the dead". He was crying. Never in my life had I seen tear flowing out of Chris's eyes. Sure, he often felt depressed, but never enough to put him in the verge of crying. He was broken. But if that wasn't enough, daddy dearest orbed in.
"Wyatt, this is serious, you have to go back up" he threatened me, but changed his breathing patterns as he saw what I was contemplating. I was in shock, but I went out of it once I realized what was going on. Leo grabbed Chris by his shirt collar and was shaking him and screaming.
"Chris! What did you do?!" he answered. Chris couldn't stop sobbing. "What. Did. You. Do. To. Your. Mother?" he said still shaking him. "Answer me!" Leo's rage was out of control.
"Go away" he whispered.
"What did you say?" answered Leo in an angry tome.
"Get away from me" said Chris.
"Not until you tell me what you did!" shouted Leo. I was about to intervene, until I saw it wasn't necessary.
With as much rage as he had grief, my little brother managed to scream "FUCK OFF!" as he released a strong pulse of energy, sending Leo against the china cabinet, making him crash strong enough to be blasted into orbs. The pulse had also caught me by surprise, but it only managed to slam me against the wall. Chris went back to holding Mom's body as Leo slowly reformed. He was hurt bad, but the anger was still evident in his face, I could tell. He stood up and walked slowly towards Chris and said "This wouldn't have happened if you were able to heal".
That sent me over the edge. Chris didn't have the fault, Leo was the one to blame. Had he put attention to Chris's calls, Mom could have been saved. Or even if he had taken time to teach Chris to heal, it would have been OK. But he was being unfair, so I finally decided to intervene. "Well, he could have been able to heal if someone had taught him".
He had a confused look in his face and told me "you don't know what you're talking about".
"No, Leo, you're the one who doesn't know" I said. "You are the one responsible for this. You're responsible because you would never hear Chris and you wouldn't let me come to him. You are the one to blame for our mother's death!"
"Shut up!" he told me.
"Get out!" I ordered.
"You can't talk to me like that" he said.
"I can and I will! Now get out before I call Excalibur to me". That was enough to make him orb away. "And don't come back" I whispered. I tried to comfort my brother. My aunts were devastated as well. Apparently they had been attacked as well, that's why Aunt Paige couldn't come. I don't blame her. She had to take care of her kids. Aunt Phoebe could have helped, but she couldn't leave the girls alone. Not her fault. Leo was the only one to blame, but maybe I was too.
If only, I wondered. If only Leo had paid more attention to Chris. If only I had the courage to stand against the Elders and not leave my family. If only I had been powerful enough to bring my mother back from the dead. If only… Those thoughts overwhelmed me ever since I saw my mother reaching the sixth feet under. I wanted to be there for Chris but somehow I couldn't. I was broken myself. Maybe I was the most powerful, but he was the strongest. If only the Elders had seen his potential.
The weeks went by. My brother slowly went out of depression by himself. I was proud. Had to be, I was his only family left. He hadn't had the courage to tell me about what happened, but that day he decided to ask me for help. Help to vanquish those who killed our mother. He asked me just to cover for him. He told me he needed to do it by himself. I understood.
The demons didn't feel threatened by him. They should have. What I hadn't noticed in all those years I knew Chris, was that he was refraining himself. He had much more power than I ever saw him use during our lives. And he was kicking demon ass. I despised myself a little since I had been fooled like the Elders had been. Chris was someone to contend with. Even if he didn't have as much powers as I had, he didn't need them. He didn't have many powers, but he held great power. Since then I knew that he was also meant for greater things. That's when I realized something. If the Elders weren't aware of the power Chris held, they were probably not aware of many things.
I abandoned that train of thought once Chris was done with his first independent vanquish. I was proud. Four years passed and neither Leo nor the other Elders bothered to come down. Who needed them anyway? I managed to teach Chris everything I had learned up there. With the Power of Three broken, it wasn't long for our Aunts and their families to fall, so in the end it was just both of us. Luckily, there was grandpa to help us. But magically-wise Chris was still my responsibility and I felt I could help him use his talents to the max. We had the underworld trembling. I was all about vanquishing demons, but Chris managed to guide me as well. He convinced me that we had to pick on our family's duty and help innocents. I was happy to oblige.
We were doing well until today, when an Elder finally decided to come to me. I recognized him as Gideon, Leo's mentor. I never trusted him, I kind of despised him by no apparent reason. He was trying to convince me to go to the Heavens with them.
"No, Gideon, I won't leave my brother alone, I'm the last family he has" I told him.
"But you have to come with us, this is far more important" he said, trying to convince me.
"I can't, he has lost too much" I answered.
"Sacrifices must be made for the Greater Good" he said as he grabbed my shoulder. With that touch I had the vision that showed me the truth about everything. I decided to play along so I followed him to the Elders' Council. Once there, without warning, I wreaked havoc and began a killing spree of a lifetime. Most of them were turned into ashes, and those strong enough just laid dead on the floor. Gideon was the first one down, then the other ones in the room. Suddenly more and more elders were coming in, I killed them all. The last one was, of course, my father.
"Wyatt! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he asked partly panicking and partly angry.
"You lied to me" was the last thing I told him before I killed him with an energy ball. Not long someone else orbed in, I didn't attack because I felt who it was. Chris appeared, he was worried because he wasn't able to sense me back on Earth.
Seeing the massacre I could see that a lot of things were going through his mind. It was obvious once he uttered the word I was waiting for him to say. "Why?"
"They lied to us Chris. It has never been about good versus evil. It has always been about power" I told him, "and we have the greatest power" I told him. Without saying anything else, he orbed out. You may ask what I saw in that vision, well, let me tell you. There were three different scenes.
It was Gideon, standing with another whitelighter in the middle of Magic School's Library. "But why if they discover we're the ones who are after Wyatt?" asked the whitelighter.
"Don't worry Sigmund, they will never find out" answered Gideon.
The Second scene featured those two again but inside what looked like Gideon's office. "I don't think that what we're doing is right Gideon, I'm going to tell them" said Sigmund.
"You're doing no such thing" said Gideon sending a thunderbolt through Sigmund turning him into ashes. "Soon Wyatt will be sacrificed for the Greater Good". I know what you think, I should've been traumatized by this act of betrayal, but the content of my third vision was the one that hit me real hard.
This last one was in the Manor's attic. Chris was being attacked by Gideon. "What do you want with Wyatt?" asked Chris.
"He has too much power and has become a threat to us all, he has to be sacrificed, don't make me sacrifice you both" said the Elder.
"I won't let you!" said Chris and pushed him with his telekinesis. But the tricky Elder became invisible and stabbed him.
I realized the truth. Those who called themselves the paragons of good were killers and traitors. I had been living a lie. My whole family had, and it had cost them everything. Maybe if I showed Chris what I saw, he could understand as well, but I don't want him to carry that burden. I have to make him understand. There is no good nor evil, there's only power and those who are afraid of it. Chris needs to understand that. I don't want to lose him too.
A/N: Go me! Who else would've done a 2,000 word one-shot? LOL. I hoped you liked it, but even if you didn't, please feel free to drop any feedback. And if it's not too much to ask, you could read my story "The Hexenmeister" if you don't have already. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!