Soul Survival
Disclaimer:
If Charmed was mine, Chris wouldn't have died and Bianca would have been in way more than one episode. Since that was not the case, it should be obvious that Charmed is, sadly, not mine.
Summary:
What if in "Soul Survivor", Chris and Leo went to the future, instead of to the soldiers? What if Leo got a taste of how bad the future really will be if Wyatt isn't saved?
AU, Chris isn't related to the Halliwell's but is a friend of the family.
Chapter 1 Blind Leap
Leo orbed into an alleyway somewhere in San Francisco. He walked over to a building wall and began to inspect it, in order to discover Chris' latest plot.
As the newly promoted Elder traced his way across the wall, a vertical strip of light began to illuminate the wall. He was then knocked to the ground as his twenty-two year-old replacement hurtled out, into the San Franciscan alleyway.
"Leo! What are you doing here?" a slightly dazed Chris asked as he got his bearings.
"Get off of me", the Elder ordered, shoving the younger away.
"Are you following me again?" the brown haired witchlighter responded while standing up. "I thought we were passed these issues".
"What is that?" Leo asked not about to let his suspicions go.
"That, nothing." Chris answered, barely acknowledging the portal in the wall.
"No?" Leo then grabbed Chris' shirt and poked his head into the portal. When he pulled him back out, Chris was wearing a knight's helmet.
"What the hell?!" came Leo's shocked exclamation, a look of pure surprise firmly in place over his features.
Chris then lifted up the flap of the helmet and gave Leo a simple "Long story" before removing the helmet and replacing it to it's place of origin.
"What is that? Is that a time portal? Is that what that it? What are you using that for? Leo questioned, leaving rather little room for breath between words, while the, by now, familiar tones indicating anger and suspicion worked their way into his voice.
"I don't have to answer that." Came Chris' casual reply.
"I thought you said you had nothing to hide."
"I don't have to answer that, either."
"Wanna bet?" And with that last remark hanging in the air, Leo grabbed Chris and threw the both of them through the fabric of time.
When they immerged into their new environment, they hurtled down the hard, jagged surface of a pre-historic rock-face. They landed rather clumsily onto a flatter platform of rock at the foot of the slope. Coughing and groaning, they made a successful attempt at standing while taking in their surroundings.
"Where are we?" Leo asked, wondering exactly what kind of mess his replacement had gotten him into.
"How the hell should I know? That's what I was trying to tell you, I don't know how to control it!" Chris responded hotly, simply not ion the mood for Leo's distrust right now.
"Yeah!" Leo exclaimed about to take it further until he was cut off by low roaring noise from behind them. As they turned around, they saw something neither ever would have expected. A dinosaur with huge fangs and an empty stomach was approaching them.
Upon seeing this, Chris ran in the opposite direction immediately, thanking the fast reflexes he'd developed while fighting for his life back home. Leo then followed suit not quite as fast but just fast enough to stay away from the creatures mouth.
After a while of trying to playing Dodge Dinky the Dino, Chris and Leo found themselves running up and over a steep hill, with Dinky less than 200 metres behind. At the bottom of the other side, they hid in a small niche in the rock-face, comfortably big enough to conceal them from their current predator, and waited for Dinky to pass, a deafening roar echoing around the area as he did so.
"I don't understand! Why can't we orb?" Chris asked through desperate gasps to get precious oxygen back into his blood.
"Pre-historic, magic won't be around until there are people around to use it." Leo replied, eyes trained on the retreating back of the reptilian ancestor.
"Perfect! We'll just hang out for the next million years or so. No problem."
"More like sixty-five million. It's the late cretaceous period."
"Man, you are old." The younger remarked.
"I think he's gone, he looks gone, do you think he's gone?" Chris remarked as he stood up and began to inch out of their current place of shelter, not a trace of self belief in his voice.
"No" Leo answered, following Chris' lead all the same.
"Neither do I."
"Well the sooner we get back to our time, the less we'll have to worry about it." Leo stated as they began walking at a far more relaxed pace than they had been moving at minutes before.
"Yeah, that's gonna be a problem".
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you just don't create time-portals out of thin air, it's not like that."
"Well you coming back from the future originally seemed like an exact science."
"That was a spell, alright, a one-way door. I t only goes backwards in time, not forward."
"So what? You're creating time-portals to, err, get back to the future, is that it?" At Chris' mute averting of his eyes to the ground, Leo pressed on, "Why?"
"To see if it changed, okay. To see if I stopped the demon that was after Wyatt." At Leo's unchanged, distrustful expression, he added, with an air of definite frustration to his voice, "What, you still don't believe me?"
"All I care about right now is getting back home."
"Well all you gotta do is find the portal that dumped us here. Good luck, and watch out for the Dinosaurs" Chris replied while patting Leo on the back and walking ahead of him.
"You'd like that wouldn't you? Get rid of me once and for all."
"You are the one who sent us back to Jurassic park, alright, not me."
"Wouldn't be the first time you tried to get rid of me."
"Think what you want. But know this, if we don't find a way back Wyatt's screwed, if you don't believe me, believe that." Chris stated trying to end the argument before tempers got out of control. For the most part he succeeded, seeing as the only conversation that followed was about getting out of there, or navigating the ancient terrain.
Eventually when they did manage to find the area they first immerged from, Chris commented, "This looks familiar, doesn't it?"
"Yeah" came Leo's monotonous reply.
"Maybe we should split up, find the portal faster." Chris suggested. Leo silently moved slightly further down the slope then turned back to face Chris.
"Wait, if one of us gets caught, the other needs to keep going, for Wyatt's sake."
"Oh, you believe me about him now." Chris said back, a slight note of hope in his voice.
That was shattered however by what Leo said when he next spoke "No, I just wanna let you know what's gonna happen if you get caught."
Chris then shook his head, a look of humourless amusement crossing his features, as he resumed searching for the portal. He then hit pay-dirt and called out to Leo "Found it".
The moment of shared relief between the two was short-lived however, when they heard Dinky's now all too familiar loud, low roaring resound in their ear drums. The vibrations this caused within the rock, coupled with Leo's flinch of shock sent the Elder hurtling down that slope for the second time that day. This time however he was slightly more prepared and clung as hard as he could to the rock, trying to come to a halt.
Seeing this, Chris found himself in a dilemma. Should he save the fallen Elder, or go on to continue with his mission. Leo's earlier statement came back to him.
If one of us gets caught, the other needs to keep going, for Wyatt's sake.
Part of him wanted to go along with this, after all, it was Leo's own idea. It would rid him of so many hassles, the opportunity was almost too good to resist. The other part of him, however, knew that he couldn't leave someone to rot like this, no matter how much he may entertain the idea of doing so. His decision made. Chris ran over to the Elder and dragged him to his feet, yelling, "Go! Come on, come on. Go! Go! Go!"
Leo then came to his senses and printed to the portal, Chris hot on his heals, and leaped into the
When they came out of the portal they ended up in an all too familiar environment. Well, familiar, that is, to Chris. Leo was completely perplexed.
"Where the hell are we now?" Leo asked, his voice thick with fear and confusion.
They were standing in the middle of what used to be the busiest shop-lined streets of San Francisco. Except now, the buildings were nothing but smouldering rubble, and dead bodies, each at different stages in their decomposition, lined what used to be the sidewalks, giving off the vile, putrid stench of rotting flesh into the air.
"Well you said you wanted to get home, but you didn't say whose home." Chris answered, a darker, harsher sound laced in his tone, definitely not what Leo was used to.
Just as Leo was about to ask for more information he was cut off when a group of about twenty to thirty people came rushing past them, running for their lives. He turned and made to look in the direction they were running from to see what had them so scared, but Chris grabbed his arm commanding him to run as fast as possible if he wanted to live, and the two of them joined the fleeing group.
"Who are these people? Where are we?" Leo once again questioned through his already laboured breathing.
"Just focus on running Leo, when we get to relative safety you can ask questions but 'til then try and keep up with us." Chris told him, also short of breath, a combination of the day's events and their current exercise. He was just thankful that their current predator hadn't made its presence known just yet.
That small miracle however was short-lived, as a tremendous growl, the likes of which Chris and Leo were fast becoming accustomed to shook the very air they breathed. Before anyone could react a stream of smoking flame shot forth from behind and nearly singed a few straggler's clothing.
At this, Chris yelled "Shit!" in surprise, unaware of exactly how far behind the dragon was. Any effect this would have had on anybody else, however, was lost as his voice was easily drowned out by the flying fire-starter behind them.
The group kept running, and soon they spotted what they were looking for. A manhole, used to access the sewer network underneath the city, or at least it used to be. At least that's all Leo saw. The rest of them, however, saw it for what it was, relative safety. On the signal from a young man who couldn't be any older than twenty at the most, Chris lifted the seal from the tunnel entrance and levitated it about five or six feet off of the ground. A second or two later the people who were leading the group jumped down in an organized sort of frenzy, quickly followed by the rest. A t last Chris, Leo and the one who'd given Chris the signal were the only ones left. The young man jumped down without problem, Leo however cast Chris a nervous look, unsure of what was going to happen once they got down there.
"Leo if you wanna live then jump. If you'd rather be burned to a crisp then by all means stay here."
The dragon then let out another primal scream, motivating Leo to follow the rest. Taking his third blind leap of the day, he jumped down into the blackness beneath.