Disclaimer: I own nothing of Charmed :-( BUT; I do own the storyline :-)
Summary: Piper has started a game. The prize is great, the loss is greater and loosing isn't an option...
Timeline: Leo is just a Whitelighter, no Chris or Wyatt; Cole has 'normal' evil powers but is not evil.
Authors' notes: This is my first fan fiction so please be fairly nice!
Feedback: Would be very much appreciated, as would constructive criticism.
The prize
Chapter 3: Dear diary
She wasn't really sure when it had started to rain. She figured it had to be after she had vanquished the first of the six green demons, but before the second had knocked her onto her butt. Piper rolled a few times before coming to a stop and standing again.
"Okay, five to one. The odds aren't exactly in my favour, but then again, you don't have this…" Piper threw up her hands and two more demons exploded into dust. She smiled and looked confidently at the last three demons.
"Want a piece of the power?"
The demons looked at one another and then continued their advance on Piper. Piper threw her hands up again but this time nothing happened.
"Oh, oh, that's not good, that's not good." A small girlish shriek came out of her mouth as a demon threw a punch at her and she ducked.
"I hate having to do things the hard way," she said as she came up from ducking the punch and landed a hard roundhouse kick to the demons head. He flew into the air and landed with a thud several yards away. Piper had no time to pat herself on the back as another demon advanced. She watched helplessly as a ball of energy formed in the demon's hand.
"This can't be good."
"She said that about me?" Paige couldn't believe what she had just heard. She paced Piper's room in a frenzy.
"Calm down Paige. It was after you had just moved in. Piper was still dealing with everything. She didn't mean it."
"Well she meant it enough to write it in her journal."
Phoebe shrugged, not being able to deny the truth. She searched Paige's face and saw the pain and confusion there. Phoebe returned her gaze to the journal.
"Oh…wait, Paige, I'm sorry, I didn't read it correctly. The paragraph continues to the next page."
Paige eyed Phoebe sceptically, "Really?"
Phoebe nodded and reread the passage, "Paige is the most irresponsible, annoying 25 year-old ever and if she wasn't a grown woman I'd send her to her room or take her over my knee with a switch..."
Phoebe could feel Paige smouldering beside her she flipped the page and continued, "but she's also the most incredible, loving, giving person I've met. Her ability to come in to our lives and make us fall in love with her is amazing. I can't believe I had to live the first 28 years of my life without her."
"Oh…she said that? Really?"
"See for yourself."
Paige took the journal from Phoebe and smiled as she read it, "I can be quite annoying."
Phoebe gave Paige a quick hug and stretched out on the bed, intent on reading more, "There's got to be something in here about why she was so upset."
"Keep reading."
Piper narrowly escaped the thrown ball of electricity. As she hid behind tree she noticed that there was a sound coming from nearby. It was running water. She ran quickly toward the sounds, pursued by the demons. She came to a narrow cliff and straight down was water formed from a waterfall on the other side.
She surveyed the landscape and saw a vine hanging next to her. She quickly wrapped it around her wrist. She had devised a plan to get at least one of the demons off of her back. She turned to face the oncoming demons. As the lead demon neared she jumped from her spot on the cliff and sailed through the air toward the pool of clear liquid below her. One of the demons followed after her, plummeting downward with an electricity ball in his hand.
Piper was stopped by the vine from hitting the water. She watched as the demon plunged into the water and as the electricity ball lit the water in blue and white sparks. Piper barely flinched as the demon that had jumped after her burst into flames and disappeared.
"Two to go," she said as she climbed up the rope and swung onto the cliff next to the other demons.
"Who's next?"
The demons charged her. Piper merely sidestepped them sending them into the electric water below. As they also disappeared, Piper shook her head and smiled.
"Why are demons never very intelligent?"
She quietly made her way back to the lean-to. She sat down, soaked from the rain, and weary. She closed her eyes and leaned back thinking only of her sisters, the prize, and the possibilities.
She awoke with her face in the mud. Her head ached with drowsiness and her body was chilled to the core from the rain, which had soaked through her makeshift lean-to. Her jeans were drenched as was her red long sleeve t-shirt. A sneeze erupted from her and she flinched in surprise. She shook off the chill and crawled out of her shelter into torrential downpour.
"Some shelter, I'm soaked," Piper grunted as she sneezed again, picked up her bag and made her way into the forest.
She grimaced as she felt a fever beginning to burn in her muscles. Her duffel bag was slung over her shoulder and it felt heavier than normal. She knew that the rain falling upon her was part of the second phase of the game. It was the water portion of the elements. She shook her head and continued even deeper into the woods hoping to find a cave, a hollow tree, anything that would protect her from the sickness she felt creeping around her blood.
She could barely see two feet in front of her. Blindly, she made her way into a clearing. Each step she took brought her feet into a quagmire of mud and water. Her hiking boots were soaked and covered in filth. Piper took a few more steps and stopped to look around. She could see nothing against the blanket of rain that continued to surge from the sky. She was at least thankful that she had defeated the demon part of the game. Otherwise, she might have surrendered just to go home.
Piper turned to head back the way she came when suddenly the ground beneath her opened up. She cascaded with sheets of mud and rain into a hole large enough for her to barely slip through it. She landed with a gush at the bottom of a rather large cavern. She struggled to breath as she sat up. She was angry and frustrated.
"Damn it! This game is ridiculous!" Piper voice was plastered with the intense irritation she was feeling.
"I have to play your game," she spoke to no one but the rain still pouring into the cavern from the hole above her, "I have to play because I promised. I made a deal. I made a deal to play your stupid game to save my sisters. But you never said there would be so many…stupid…incredibly silly…freaking phases! I should have known better than to make a deal with any demon, especially the Source of all evil! Even more than that…I can't believe I was so stupid as to make a deal with you!" She pointed toward what little sky she could see. Thunder exploded as an answer to her remarks.
"Oh sure, that's all you're going to say to me. You elders are ridiculous. You're all about the greater good, aren't you? We'll wouldn't the greater good be to just give me what I'm playing for? The prize, as both sides seem to want to call it. I'm your freaking pawn in a life-sized game of pin-the-tail-on-Piper, aren't I? Is there really even a prize? Is there? Or am I really the jackass you're making me feel like?"
Piper kicked at the air around her and couldn't help but laugh when her boot flew off of her foot and embedded itself into the muddy-soft walls of the cavern. She looked up, smirking at what little light she could see through the small hole she had fallen through.
"Jackass it is, then," she walked one shoe off to the place where it was stuck. She pulled it out of the wall and placed it on her foot. She scowled when mud oozed out of the shoe as her foot filled up the space inside it. She shook her head as she examined the bright side to her current predicament and realized she was no longer in the rain.
Slowly she made her way around the cavern. It was larger than she had originally thought. Looking back at the hole in the ceiling of the large grotto she surmised that it was too high for her to reach. As she surveyed the chamber, she noticed a hole in the wall on the darkest side of the cave.
She slipped the duffel bag, which she had managed to hang on to, off of her shoulder. She unzipped it and pulled out the flashlight she had been smart enough to pack.
She switched on the flashlight, slung the bag back onto her shoulder and made her way into the hole of the cavern. She saw immediately that its walls were made of rock.
"Tunnels? That's good. It could mean that there's a cave, right? And who am I asking? I'm alone on this God-forsaken island and I'm talking to whom? Myself?"
Piper paused from her rant momentarily as she considered her own questions, "Sure, I'm talking to myself, why not? I guess I beat the water element, huh?"
At that comment Piper sneezed several times, "Or not."
A/N: Thank you to:
'chuffy-barmed-oc' – Hopefully you liked this chapter, I did give a lot more info away…
Rini08 – You kinda get an idea what the prize is but the next two chapters should definitely give more away.
Quillsandbolts – Nice thinking, hopefully the next couple of chapters will reveal more, so keep reading!
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