"Oh, my God," Wyatt gasped, falling into one of the chairs in the attic with his head in his hands. "I can't believe it."

"She was using our powers on us, Wyatt, no one blames you for thinking she was innocent," Leo pointed out.

"No, it was all a trap," Wyatt replied shaking his head. "Daphne was the one who convinced Chris and me to go into the Underworld, believing we knew where he was. Chris kept saying he just had this 'vibe' about his position, and I didn't think anything of it, but Daphne was the one giving him this vibe. He's probably down there already captured by the Nemritzar Demon, which must've been the plan to begin with!"

"Oh, Jesus," Phoebe whispered, falling into another chair. "What are we going to do?"

"We have to go back to the Underworld, of course," Leo replied.

Paige walked towards the dais upon which the Book of Shadows lay open. Frowning, she slowly ruffled through the pages.

"There's nothing in there, Paige, we already tried," Phoebe told her. "There's a spell to make a shield, and a spell to shield ourselves, but there is nothing telling us how to break a shield."

"Exactly," Paige whispered, blinking into empty space. Suddenly, she started flipping the pages even faster, her eyes roaming down the length of the book frantically with every page she turned.

Phoebe sighed and looked towards Leo who frowned back at her. "Paige, what are you talking about?"

"What was this shield like?" Paige asked Wyatt. "What did it feel like?"

"It felt like any other shield would feel," Wyatt replied. "It was hard and—"

"Did it feel like a slight electric zap?"

Wyatt blinked. "Actually, yes… yes it did."

Paige nodded, looking more and more confident now, "Like it feels when someone throws an energy ball at you when you have your shield up?"

Wyatt frowned. "H-How do you know this--?"

"Because," Paige began slowly, then broke out into a triumphant smile as she stopped on a page in the Book of Shadows and looked up at the room, "because I made this spell."

"You what?" a chorus of voices rang out at her statement.

"I made this spell," Paige repeated. "About two months ago. Wyatt's shield saves his ass a billion times a day in battle by blocking out attacks and I wanted something that would act in a similar way—something that would make battles in the Underworld so much easier! So I made up a spell that would block out attackers, not just the attacks. I mean, think about it, if you could block out more demons from coming into a certain area of the Underworld until you had completely dealt with the ones already on hand, how useful would that be?"

"Pretty damn useful," Leo admitted, "but our concern right now is getting rid of the shield. Do you--?"

"Yes, I do!" Paige replied nodding. "I also needed something to remove the shield to let more demons in and to get out of the Underworld myself!" She flipped the page once again and let her finger trail down the parchment until it reached about halfway down the page. "Here it is!"

"I saw that spell in there!" Phoebe exclaimed jumping to her feet to join her sister's side. "But it said it was specific only for the shields made using your spell and that it wouldn't work for anything else—"

Paige nodded. "But this is my shield. I know it's my shield! So the counter-spell will work."

"How do you know it's your shield though?"

Paige looked up at her, the smile slipping from her face slightly as she hesitated. "Because I conjured it."

(0)

"Get away from me!" Daphne growled, aiming another fireball at the demon.

"Daphne, stop this foolishness. Do you realize you're trying to kill your own father?!"

"Foolishness?" Daphne scoffed. "Damn it, you're not my father, you never were! And I'm pretty damn happy to say that!" She threw another fireball at him but it was also intercepted by her father's magic.

"I did nothing but care for you—"

"Okay, don't get cheesy with me, dad!" Daphne replied sarcastically. "I don't wanna hear your explanations for anything, I just wanna get the hell away from you 'cuz you're creepy! And you're trying to kill my friends."

"Friends?" The Nemritzar Demon laughed. "You can't be talking about the Halliwells!"

Daphne scoffed and straightened. She quickly shimmered out of the Underworld but felt a sudden drag to her shimmer and a loud 'NO!' resonating through the depths of her mind before she fell to the ground again. "God damn it, let me leave!" She yelled at the demon, getting to her feet.

"The Halliwells are not your friends, Daphne," The Nemritzar Demon growled at her, stepping towards her. "How can you even trust them after what they tried to do to you?"

"They thought I was trying to kill them all," Daphne pointed out. "They had every reason to believe that I was evil and I understand that!"

"Why? Is it because you are evil?" He asked her softly.

"What?" Daphne scoffed.

"You are wondering that yourself, aren't you, Daphne?" He asked her. Slowly, he began pacing around her. "You are wondering if you had been controlling their minds, if you had subconsciously wanted to hurt them all."

"Okay, stop that!" Daphne snapped, turning towards him. "First of all, your pathetic attempts at trying to intimidate me by doing that weird walking-around-in-a-circle- slowly thing is not intimidating at all, it's just pathetic. And secondly, I never wanted to hurt the Halliwells and I don't want to now either! It was you who were controlling their minds!"

"Me?" The Nemritzar Demon asked, looking perplexed.

"Yes, you! You first trapped Paige down here and convinced her sisters that she was not in any danger so that they wouldn't all come here and vanquish your ass halfway to hell. But then, you dragged Harry down here, and then you got Damien, and slowly, you started to trap the members of the Halliwell family, one by one. But when Chris and Wyatt came down here, and when you realized how close Chris was getting to finding out where Damien was, you realized that you were not match for the Halliwell boys either so you decided that you had to block them out. Don't you think I heard you when you were trying to convince Paige to put up that shield on the Underworld? It is, after all, her spell that you used to do that, wasn't it? You might be powerful, but you're no match against the Charmed Ones, and you knew it. So, you tried to use their own magic against them—"

The Nemritzar Demon began chuckling, shaking his head slightly. "Oh, my dear, Daphne," he sighed. "You are much smarter than I had ever imagined. But tell me, how is it that you figured out all of this?"

Daphne stared at him through narrowed eyes. "I know how you work."

"Oh, do you?" He asked in a surprised manner. "But how is that possible? I've never known you and you've never known me, that idiotic Seer made sure of that."

"She also made sure that I know how your twisted brain works so that I can protect myself."

"Is that so?" The Nemritzar Demon nodded. "Or is that your cover-up?"

"What are you talking about?" Daphne scoffed.

"What I'm talking about," he sneered, stepping towards her, "is that I never had any such plan! That is a story you conjured up to cover up your own plan!"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Is it?" He asked her. "Daphne, did you really think that Seer stole you from me to 'keep the balance of the world'? Do you really think she fed you that potion to keep you good? And that she sent you to the Halliwells' hoping you would continue on your path of goodness?"

"You either make yourself clear in the next seven seconds before I loose my interest," Daphne said in a dangerously low voice, leaning towards him, "or you get your ugly face out of my way before I blow you up!"

The smile fell away from his face as quickly as it had come. He straightened himself, glaring at her, then said, "When you were two years old, the Seer kidnapped you from me and ran away to some dark area of the Underworld that nobody knew about. Since then, I began searching for you everywhere I could. Before that, I was lowly demon with barely any powers—"

"That's not true; you could control people's thoughts."

"No, I assure you that I have never possessed such a power in my life!" He replied. "It was determination to find you that enabled me to take over all this land and achieve loyalty from demons around the Underworld. But unfortunately, I could not find you no matter where I searched. Soon, I did not have a choice but to give up and pray that you were safe. Little did I know that the Seer was poisoning your mind all this time!"

"She wanted me to be good—"

"She wanted to use your lineage for her own purposes!" He cut her off, his voice rising. "A demon and a dark-lighter! There couldn't be a more dangerous combination and she knew it! She knew you were the only one powerful enough to defeat the Charmed Ones so she fed that potion to you everyday to turn you evil more quickly. She kept you in dark about your powers and about her plans in fear that if you do indeed turn good once you began associating with the Charmed Ones, you wouldn't ruin her plans. She wanted you to believe that I was the one playing with their thoughts, not you."

Daphne stared at him, her blood pounding in her ears. "How could I be using my powers without even knowing it?"

"Do not ask me to explain the magic of a Seer. After instilling her plan into your brain, she sent you directly to the Halliwells under the pretense of protecting you from me. There, you began using your powers and slowly sending the Charmed Ones one by one directly to my lair—"

"Where you trapped them!"

"My dear, I may not be as evil as you would like to believe," he laughed, "but I am no human! The legendary Charmed Ones were presenting themselves on a platter before me and you expected me to just let them go? Think of my power, think of those who had been loyal to me until now! Think of the uproar if they had known I had let the Charmed Ones go!"

Daphne shook her head softly. Her ears were ringing in the strangest manner suddenly and her brain felt stuffed, as though it had far too much information to process at once.

"You thought you heard me trying to convince Paige to put up the shield when it was actually you doing it yourself. The moment Wyatt Halliwell left the Underworld, the shield went up. You knew you couldn't deal with both the brothers, so you got rid of one—"

"It can't be!" She shouted at him suddenly. "If I had wanted to kill them, I had plenty of opportunity to do so, but I didn't!"

"Oh, but you forget the potion," he replied calmly. "The one thing the Seer had been afraid of was happening—despite all of the brain-washing she had done, the Charmed Ones' goodness was getting to you and you. Your powers were also getting in your way: you suddenly began feeling their emotions as yours. You felt Chris's concern for Cathryn and you went to rescue her. You felt his concern for Damien and you told him telepathically where he was. Then you felt his concern for Paige when you came down here and you found yourself rescuing both her and her son from the cage in my lair. Your ability to read others' emotions and the potion's effect on you, making you adapt others' characters as your own were working together to foil your own plan. But the Seer's magic has its own power."

Daphne backed away slowly, unable to bear it any longer. She gulped, hearing his words ring through her mind: "you began using your powers and slowly sending the Charmed Ones one by one directly to my lair"… "the moment Wyatt Halliwell left the Underworld, the shield went up"… "Do you really think she sent you to the Halliwell's hoping you would continue on your path of goodness?"

She placed a hand over her face, pressing her thumb and forefinger into her closed eyes. Little white lights began popping up in the darkness of her lids. How had she known this whole plan? She couldn't recall the Seer ever actually telling her what her father was like… she had just subconsciously known… or had thought she had known.

Was it all true? Had she been the one doing all this to begin with?

She froze as a sudden thought struck her: did she really despise the idea that she had been the one trying to get the Halliwells all this time? Had she truly ever been good? It all sounded so familiar… as though all the thoughts had actually been running through her mind, and not as though… not as though she were thinking of someone else's plans. She had been the one doing all of this?

Paige, Harry, Damien, Cathryn, Chris—

She looked up suddenly. "Where's Chris?"

Her father looked at her for a moment, then lowered his gaze.

"Where's Chris?!" She shouted at him.

"You sent a demon after him," he told her.

"I what?"

"When you left him in my lair, I was not there as you had planned to trap him—"

She shook her head. God, not more plans. "No," she whispered. "Just tell me where the hell he is, I don't want to hear what happened to him!"

When he didn't speak, Daphne felt her blood begin to boil. "If I am really as powerful as you and the Seer believe I am," she began in a low growl, "then I can also vanquish your ass before you can even blink. So tell me where he is right now or that is exactly what I will do."

She opened her palm at her side and felt the heat of the fireball curling around her skin, growing hotter and hotter by the second. She saw her father look from her face to the fireball, then back with a hint of fear in his eyes. "You know you cannot protect yourself any longer, dad. Not now; not when I know what I can do."

"All right, fine! I'll take you to him."

(0)

The demon slowly dragged his body across the floor, snickering to itself. It gave him a final tug and deposited him in a heap in the corner of the cave, unconscious. Pushing its filthy brown hair out of its face, it turned around to put more wood in the fire a few feet away, its insides quivering at the thought of the tasty meal the witch-boy would make, and laughed.

"Ima havin a nice meal," it sang softly, "and ima put it in the nice fire and roast it—yum yum! Heh heh—"

Suddenly, a fireball came flying through the air and hit the demon squarely in the chest. It shrieked with pain, curling in on itself and fell forward into the fire, crackling away into dust. Daphne ran into the cave, going directly to Chris and fell to her knees by his side. "Oh, my God, he's bleeding!" She gasped, seeing the blood trickling down the side of his head and from his nose. "We have to get him to Wyatt or Leo or—"

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Her father asked her, dipping down on Chris's other side. He looked over Chris's wounds, his light eyes sparkling in the light from the fire. "They will not be very happy to see you—"

"They'll be happy to see Chris," she cut him off. "And they'll be happy to heal him, so yes, I do want to do that."

He looked up at her for a moment, then sighed. "Fine, if you have a death-wish—"

"Shh!" Daphne whispered as Chris began to stir. "Chris? Can you hear me?"

Chris scowled, then opened his eyes slowly, blinking several times. "Oh, shit. What's the bloody matter with my head?"

"You got that right," Daphne sighed, suddenly so relieved that she felt like kissing him.

"Oh, Chris!" Her father gasped, a large smile breaking onto his face. He grabbed Chris's face between his hands and leaned down.

"What the--?!" Chris cried out, shoving him aside frantically and crawling away from him. "Who the hell are you?! And why did you just try to kiss me?!"

The Nemritzar Demon straightened himself, looking completely shocked with his actions. Then, he turned to Daphne. "Oh, Daphne! I can't believe you—"

Suddenly, understanding what had happened, Daphne burst out laughing. "Oh—you—he tried to—oh--!" She keeled over to her side, clutching at her stomach.

"Oh, she finds it so hilarious," the Nemritzar Demon wondered to himself, turning away disgustedly.

"She finds what hilarious?" Chris asked him, still trying to blink through the haze and pain.

Daphne rolled onto her back, gasping for air as tears trickled down the sides of her face.

"Please don't ask," The Nemritzar Demon muttered.

Hearing his words, she burst out into a fresh bout of laughter. Chris watched her, suddenly feeling elated himself thought God knew why 'cuz his skull felt like it was split in two. He slowly tried to lift himself but slipped and fell forward again.

"Oh," Daphne said, suddenly coming to her senses. She moved forward and slowly helped him to his feet, holding his weight against her side. "Sorry, i-it was just too funny," she managed to say, gulping down her laughter. "Are you all right?"

Chris nodded, wincing at the bolt of pain the action caused him, then cleared his throat. "I'm fine. Who's he?"

Daphne turned to look at her father and the smile fell away from her face. "H-he is…"

"No one of consequence," he finished for her with a soft smile. "I'm just an old friend she asked for help when you disappeared."

Chris scowled, a sudden flash of memory passing through his brain. "Cathryn was down here."

"What?"

"Cath—" he cleared his throat and said in a louder and clearer voice, "Cathryn was down here."

"How is that possible?" Daphne replied. "Phoebe said she had been home since last night."

"What?" Chris frowned, turning to look at her. "But I saw her down here before I was attacked."

"It could've been a trap," her father suggested.

Daphne looked at him, her throat constricting. Oh, God, what all had she done without even realizing it? "Chris, we need to get you out of here," she said turning back to him. She reached up to gently wipe away some blood from the corner of his eye and said, "I'm so sorry I didn't come back soon enough."

"It's not your fault," Chris replied roughly, trying to focus his thoughts. The pain was receding slowly, but there was still a dull hammering against his right temple. He didn't notice Daphne's pregnant silence.

"Okay, we're going to take you home, and find someone to heal you. I'll have to come back down to talk with…" she looked towards her father and quickly said, "my friend about something, but I promise we're going to get you feeling better, okay?"

She looked towards her father knowing there were about a billion more questions she had to ask him, and said, "Wait for me here," then shimmered out of the Underworld.

The Nemritzar Demon watched them disappear and remained motionless for several seconds. Then, slowly, a smile appeared on his face.

"Sir?"

He turned slightly towards the voice. "Come out. I need to speak with you," he called out as a tall, female demon with gray dreadlocks and nails like a bird's claws came walking towards him from the bend around the entrance of the cave. She walked directly in front of him and he looked at her ugly face.

"Sir, I—"

"Do you realize that he saw you down here?"

"I—"

"Oh, correction," he stopped her. "He saw Cathryn down here."

"I know, and I am terribly sorry about that—"

"Your foolishness could've cost us everything! But I do not have time to deal with it right now. My daughter should be returning any moment, so I want you to go to my lair and wait for me there," he snarled.

She nodded quickly and with a, "yes, sir", disappeared.

The Nemritzar Demon stared into the space where she had been seconds ago, a scowl on his face. Seconds later, when he began to sense Daphne's shimmer, he immediately replaced the scowl with a smile and waited.

Wait… that was all he had been doing and that was all he had to do. Daphne could do the rest for him.

(0)

She reappeared in the Halliwell living room, now filled with sunlight from the windows in the sun-room. She looked around herself, checking to make sure none of them were around, and gently helped Chris into a chair.

"Where is everybody?" He asked her.

"Probably in the attic," she replied, fingering the wound above his ear slightly. An enormous feeling of guilt and pain overtook her. "I'm so sorry about all of this," she told him.

"It's not your fault," he repeated again, truly looking at her for the first time. He frowned. "Are you all right?"

She cleared her throat and nodded. "Yeah, of course. U-um, I have to get back to the Underworld, now, but…"

"Daphne, what's wrong?" He asked her, straightening himself in the chair. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine, Chris," she replied more firmly. "It's you who needs help." She drew a breath, preparing herself to call out Wyatt's name and then shimmer out immediately, but stopped.

"Um…" She hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed him quickly. "Okay, bye."

She straightened, took a step back and shouted, "Wyatt!"

"Daph—"

A second later, she was gone.

"She what?!"

"She called from down here," Chris heard Wyatt shout from the stairs. "I'm dead serious, she's here!"

Moments later, he burst into the room, looking around himself wildly. Chris opened his mouth to call to him, but before he could, Phoebe and Paige both came busting into the room behind him holding two vials of deep red potions. "Where is she?" Phoebe asked, looking around the room, ready to throw the potion.

"She's not here," Wyatt replied.

"See, I told you she wouldn't call us voluntarily!" Paige scoffed. "She's a demon, not stupid!"

"Well, excuse me for assuming the two of them meant the same thing after all these years of encountering stupid demons!" Phoebe scoffed back, turning to her. Suddenly, her head snapped towards Chris. "Oh, my God, Chris!"

A sudden commotion burst out in the room as they all rushed towards him.

"What the hell happened to you--?"

"Did she do this to you? I swear, I'm gonna rip her throat apart—"

"Oh, you poor baby—"

Chris winced as he felt Phoebe poke at the wound above his ear. "Ow!" He gasped.

"Guys, guys," Wyatt called out. "Let me heal him first!"

Paige and Phoebe looked at him, then took a step away from Chris on either side of him. Wyatt leaned forward, let his hands linger above his head and healed the wounds carefully. Chris immediately felt the pain evaporate blessedly and sighed with relief a second too early—

"Now, where is she--?"

"What did she do to you--?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chris asked them all, perplexed. "Who are you talking about?"

"Daphne, of course," Paige replied. "That little bi—"

"Where did she go, Chris?" Wyatt asked him.

Chris ignored him. "What do you mean? W-What's going on here?!"

"Daphne, your 'innocent'-Daphne," Phoebe replied, putting air-quotes on the word 'innocent'. "The little demon who beat you up."

"Daphne didn't beat me up!" Chris scoffed. "She got me here—"

"Who beat you up then?"

"I don't know," Chris scoffed. "Some other crazy demon that the Nemritzar Demon sent after me, I guess."

"You mean her father?"

Chris turned to Wyatt with a quirked eyebrow. "Yes, I mean her father. Do you know of any other Nemritzar Demon?"

"Her father who was probably working for her?"

"Wyatt, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Chris, her demon powers are to control other people's emotions and thoughts," Phoebe told him. "She had been controlling our thoughts and emotions and slowly trapping us one by one in the Underworld, then making sure none of us went down there."

"No," Chris replied shaking his head. "That's her father's power. He was the one keeping us from going after Aunt Paige."

"The Seer herself told us that those were her powers, Chris. Even the Elders admitted that she had been influencing their thoughts ever since she came to them. They have been doing things and making decisions that they would've never normally done. Her father might have the same powers as her, but he is nowhere nearly as powerful as her."

"The best he could've done was convinced one of us to take an extra lump of sugar with our tea," Paige added, nodding her agreement.

Chris turned towards her, the words ringing in his ears. Daphne had said the exact same things the previous night. He shook his head. "Guys, you're wrong," he told them, rising to his feet and walking away from the group. "She doesn't even know what half her powers enable her to do; she could not have done all of the things you're saying she did."

"Do you have any other explanation?" Wyatt asked him.

"Yes, her father!" Chris replied stubbornly.

"Chris, haven't you been listening to us? Her father is not powerful enough for any of that!" Paige told him.

"How do you know that?"

"The Seer said—"

"So, you're going to believe everything the Seer says now?" Chris asked them.

"She is our only source of information about Daphne, we don't have a choice but to believe her!"

"Look, you're saying she didn't tell you or the Elders what Daphne's powers were before she sent her to us," Chris said, "What's the guarantee she isn't lying to you about other stuff too? That she isn't hiding things from you?"

"What's the guarantee that Daphne isn't doing the same thing?" Phoebe pointed out. "Why are you so willing to trust her?"

Chris looked from one face to the next, letting a heavy silence fall between them. He didn't have any real reason to believe Daphne, it was true. He knew there was no reason, but he also knew that there was reason. He knew she couldn't have been the one behind all this, she was too… innocent for that.

He blinked suddenly. Good God, had he just thought that?

"Chris, the Seer said that the reason she didn't tell us about Daphne's powers was because that would make us more easy to fool. Knowing what Daphne can do makes our psyche even more accessible to her and she did not want to risk that," Paige told him, stepping forward.

"As would believing that she was good," Phoebe added. "If our mind isn't aware of the fact that she has demonic powers that could potentially harm us, it is more likely that it will be fooled by those demonic powers. That's why the Seer told us that she has demonic powers that she might grow into, but didn't tell us what those powers were."

"Guys," Chris stopped them, putting up his hands slightly. "I get what you're saying… but I still can't believe that Daphne could've done all this."

"Why not?"

"Because I saw her use her powers last night," he told them. "In the Underworld. She tried to listen in on her father's emotions or thoughts or something and it nearly put a hole through her brain!"

Phoebe and Paige turned to look at each other.

"She didn't even know how to use her powers, much less use them against others! Just trying to listen to someone else just about killed her on the spot!" Chris told them. "In fact, if I hadn't been there, she would've died for sure."

"It could've been a trick," Phoebe said to Paige who nodded back.

"This is me you're talking about," Chris nearly shouted at them in frustration. "Chris, Chris Halliwell, he who hated her guts the first moment he laid eyes on her! He who is skeptical about everything and everybody and he who is extremely hard to 'trick' even if it's something as remotely simple as April's Fool!"

"But you're forgetting that she's a dark-lighter also," Paige pointed out turning back to him.

Chris scoffed. "So?!"

"She could've seduced you into believing she was innocent—"

"Not literally, of course," Phoebe interrupted quickly. Chris froze, turning towards her.

"Oh, of course not literally," Paige quickly amended herself. "I just meant a little bit, barely at all—just enough to convince you that—you know—"

Chris looked from one aunt to the next as they stumbled around fearfully for the rest of the sentence. He remained alarmingly still otherwise, the blood draining from his face.

"That she was innocent?" Wyatt finished finally. "He's a grown man, he's not going to kill you guys if you suggest the possibility that he could've been seduced by some chick."

He cleared his throat and turned away from the group, quickly leaving the room.

"Chris, where are you going?"

"To go find this Seer everyone's talking about. I need to have a chat with her."

"Chris—"

But he was gone before any of them could stop him.