Chapter One
"Time has been restored. Now, bring Belthazor to me. And kill his witch!" The Source demanded of the demon kneeling in front of him.
The demon bowed once and hurried out of the cave, eager to please his boss. Little did either of them know that Cole, aka Belthazor, had been on the other side of the cavern, listening to the conversation.
Cole had been suspicious that the Source would go back on their deal. He was the Source of All Evil, of course, and couldn't be trusted. The truth was, he was too eager to get rid of the Charmed Ones once and for all. It was his undoing. Cole saw that now.
When the demon turned the corner, Cole hit him with an energy ball. The demon screamed as he exploded in a burst of yellow light. Cole didn't stick around for the Source to investigate. He hurried back to the cave that Leo and Phoebe were hiding in.
"We need to go. Now!" he exclaimed, and took Phoebe's hand in his. He was preparing to shimmer them out of there, when Phoebe stopped him.
"Wait. Leo, you need to go!" Phoebe said urgently to the Whitelighter, who was watching them with a mixture of fear and concern.
"I can't. I need to watch over you," he said, lowering his voice so that Cole or anyone else wouldn't be able to overhear.
"I appreciate that, but you can't stay here. Prue and Piper need you back home. What if the Source goes back on his deal, and Shax kills them anyway? Then they'd both be gone," Phoebe explained quickly.
"There's no way I'm leaving you down here alone," Leo replied sternly, eyeing Cole suspiciously.
"Leo, there's no time. The Source has already gone back on his deal. He plans to kill both Phoebe and I unless I can take her someplace safe. You need to be with Prue and Piper. Neither of them are safe," Cole interrupted, meeting Leo square in the eye.
"All the more reason for Phoebe to go back up with me! Cole, I know you care about her a great deal, but your love is clouding your judgment!" Leo snapped back.
"As is yours. Look, whether you like it or not, I'm the only chance Phoebe has at escape. The Source will be expecting Phoebe to go back up with you, and when you do, all of you will be dead. You need to go back up and save Prue and Piper. Phoebe and I are safer down here. My powers are the strongest here."
"But Cole..."
"No, Leo, Cole's right. The Source will be expecting you to orb me back at the manor. You need to keep my sisters safe. I'll be fine," Phoebe interrupted, going back to stand next to Cole. "I'll be with Cole."
Cole gave her a reassuring smile before turning back to Leo. "Please, Leo. The Source is already on his way."
Leo gave Cole and Phoebe one final glance, then finally allowed a bunch of white lights to surround him before he was gone, not looking very happy about it.
Cole then hugged Phoebe closely to him and shimmered them out of the cave just as the Source entered. When he sensed that Cole had shimmered with the witch, he screamed in frustration, and sent a large fireball at the closest demon to him.
Meanwhile, Cole had shimmered Phoebe and himself to a small cave as far away from the Source as he could find. It barely held the two of them together, and Cole had to hunch over just to stand, but for the moment at least, they were safe.
"Cole, were you telling the truth when you told Leo that the Source had already broken his deal?" Phoebe asked once they were in the cave.
"I wouldn't be keeping you down here if he hadn't," Cole responded, moving them both as far away from the entrance as possible.
"Can't the Source track your shimmers?" Phoebe asked fearfully.
"Yes, but he won't go after us himself. He'll send in his most trusted demons. And I know how to handle them."
Phoebe looked uncertain, and Cole gathered her in his arms. "I promise that everything will be okay. Once we're able, we'll go back up. But for now, we have to stay here."
Phoebe was about to argue, but she looked at Cole and how sure of himself he sounded. She decided to put her faith in him, and just pray that everything would turn out okay.
When Leo orbed back in the manor, he was stunned by what he saw.
Prue and Piper, laying on the conservatory floor the same as before, bleeding and quite near death. He hurried to them and raised his hands over each of them and waited as they glowed yellow and began to heal the two oldest Halliwells.
Prue and Piper both woke up together, same as before. The only difference was that Phoebe wasn't with them.
"Ugh...what happened?" Piper groaned as she struggled to get up.
"You nearly died, that's what happened," Leo replied gravely.
"Leo, Dr. Griffith! You need to heal him!" Prue said as she stood up.
Leo hurried to the dining room, where Shax had thrown the doctor before. Only this time was different. Since Phoebe hadn't been there to read the Shax vanquishing spell, Dr. Griffith hadn't been saved. Leo saw just from looking at the doctor hunched over the broken window that it was too late.
"Leo, what's wrong?" Piper asked as she and Prue joined him in the dining room.
"I was too late. He's gone," Leo muttered, staring at the body of the innocent they had been trying to protect.
"What do you mean he's gone, Leo? Where's Phoebe? She should've read the vanquishing spell," Prue argued, pushing past Leo.
When she saw Dr. Griffith's body, her face paled.
"Oh my god!" she muttered. She raised her hand to her mouth in shock while Piper closed her eyes and turned away.
"Leo, where's Phoebe? Why didn't she say the spell?" Prue demanded.
"Because...she's not here at the moment," Leo said. He hated telling the girls bad news, especially when it involved a sister.
"Where is she?" Piper asked, looking at her husband with concern.
"Well, she...Phoebe is in the Underworld. With Cole," Leo said finally, not willing to look the sisters in the eye.
"She's where? She was just here a second ago!" Prue snapped, looking at the Whitelighter in disbelief.
"No, actually, she wasn't." Leo finally stood up straight, prepared to explain to them the circumstances surrounding Phoebe's disappearance and Dr. Griffith's death.
"Then where was she?" Piper demanded.
"Look...this isn't the first time this has happened. Shax already attacked once before. He knocked both of you out, but Phoebe read the spell and drove him away before he could get to Dr. Griffith. I healed you, and you went out on the street looking for Shax. When you found him, you vanquished him in broad daylight, where a news crew taped you using your powers. The whole world knew you were witches, and while Phoebe was in the Underworld trying to save Cole, she made a deal with the Source for Tempus to reset time. And it worked, only now Phoebe's in the Underworld, trapped, with Cole," Leo explained, looking from one sister to the next cautiously.
Both Prue and Piper were silent. Leo waited for them to say something before he did. He knew that they would want to save Phoebe, but the truth was they couldn't. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, Phoebe and Cole were on their own.
"So, you're saying that if we go after Shax, we'll risk exposure?" Prue asked after a while.
"Maybe. Shax isn't worried about exposure, which means he could attack anywhere at any time. You can't risk it, otherwise Phoebe's deal will have been in vain," Leo said.
"Wait. How come you're able to remember all this and we aren't?" Piper asked.
Prue nodded in agreement.
Leo sighed. "I was with Phoebe and Cole in the Underworld. You wanted me to go down and watch over them. Time being reset up here didn't affect down there."
"So Phoebe is trapped down there knowing that we were exposed and has no way of knowing that we're okay?" Prue asked incredulously.
"In a nutshell, yes," Leo replied.
"Well, we have to go get her. We can't vanquish Shax without her, it's a Power of Three spell," Piper pointed out.
"That's exactly what you can't do. As much as I hate to say this, Cole loves Phoebe, and he'll protect her no matter what. The Source already knows she's down there. If you both go down there, you risk being killed yourselves, and all this will have been for nothing. Right now you have to continue on as if nothing has happened."
"She's our sister, Leo! We can't just leave her there!" Piper snapped. Leo saw Prue blink back angry tears as well.
"Cole will protect her. And when the time is right to come back up, they'll do it," Leo said, not liking what he was saying one bit.
"How are we supposed to go on without her, Leo? Together we're the Charmed Ones. Without her, we...we aren't!" Piper asked desperately.
Leo shook his head. "I don't know."
And they stayed like that, the two remaining Charmed Ones and their Whitelighter, mourning all they had lost and grieving over a sister they knew they might not see again for a long time.
"Cole, it's cold. Can't you start a fire or something?" Phoebe asked as she huddled closer in to Cole.
"I can't. Demons might be alerted. Right now we need to keep moving," Cole said.
They had been walking through the Underworld for hours now. Phoebe had lost track of time, but time didn't work differently down here anyway. She had no idea how much time had passed up above, but she tried not to think about it. She knew she would go insane if she did.
"Cole, please. We need to stop soon. I'm exhausted," Phoebe yawned as Cole continued pushing them both forward.
"I know you are. I am too, but we have to keep moving."
Phoebe nodded and yawned again. The next thing she knew, she felt herself being swept off her feet. This woke her up. "What are you doing?" she asked Cole.
"You're about to collapse, and if we're going to stay alive down here, we both need to be on our guard," he said simply.
Phoebe didn't have the strength to argue. She simply cuddled into Cole and allowed sleep to take her.
When she woke, she was lying on the ground of a cave about the size of the one she'd found Cole in when she first got to the Underworld. She looked up to find Cole sharpening what looked like a sword.
"Where'd you get that?" she asked as she stood up.
Cole turned around sharply. He relaxed when he realized it was Phoebe. "I took it off a demon that attacked while you were sleeping," he answered.
"You mean they found us?" Phoebe asked, alarmed.
Cole gave her a small, reassuring smile. "No, he just happened upon here. I think he'd been staying here. For now, at least, we're safe."
"Oh." Phoebe relaxed slightly.
"I got you this one." Cole pulled out another sword and handed it to Phoebe.
Phoebe took it, looking it over. It had already been sharpened. It was cleaned, too. "You didn't kill another demon for this one, did you?" she asked.
"No. That one was mine," Cole said, smiling.
Phoebe returned it, and pushed it through one of her belt loops on her pants.
"So the plan is to fight down here as long as we can and sword fight any demons that come in our way?" she asked, only half-serious.
"One way to take down any enemy is to cut off his resources. We need all the help we can get, and since your powers are significantly weakened down here, you can't be completely helpless."
Phoebe nodded. She felt horrible that Cole was making all the decisions for them, but she was glad that at least one of them was thinking ahead. He was right, her powers were weakened in the Underworld. She had already tried levitating, and she merely hovered a couple inches off the ground. She knew she wouldn't get a reliable premonition while down here, so her only power was self-defense. No demon down here would be expecting her to have a sword.
Footsteps at the entrance of the cave brought Phoebe's attention away from the sword. When she looked up she saw a short, dark woman wearing a red sweater with her black hair up in a high ponytail. She had in one earring, a large circle.
"Demon!" she snapped and raised her sword to kill her, but Cole placed his hand on the raised sword, preventing it from falling down.
"Phoebe, no! We need her!" Cole exclaimed.
Phoebe turned around to face him. "But she's a demon. She probably works for the Source!"
"No, she doesn't. She works for me."
"Ahem." The female demon stepped inside, glaring at both Cole and Phoebe in turn. "I work for no one but myself. You already know that, Belthazor."
"Seer. I go by Cole now." Cole turned to Phoebe. "Phoebe, this is the Seer. She may be a demon, but she allies herself with whoever she stands the most to gain. And she has had a vision."
The Seer stepped forward. "I have had a vision. One in which the Source is vanquished, and a new Source takes his place. If you wish to stand a chance down here, then you need my help. As I need yours," she explained cryptically.
"Okay. Can we cut the crap, please? Why should we trust her, Cole? She's a demon," she snapped.
"So am I, yet you trust me," Cole pointed out.
"Yeah well, that's different. You're half human."
"That didn't stop me from being one of the most powerful demons of all time," Cole continued.
Phoebe took a deep breath, feeling exasperated. "I trust you, Cole. I don't trust her."
Cole nodded. "Fair enough. But, like it or not, she's our only hope at surviving down here."
"And why is that?"
"Because she's going to help us take down the Source."
A/N: Well, what do you think? I'll be keeping up with my other story,When You Left, I've been playing with this for awhile, and am wondering what you all think!