A/N: Warning: Character death, lots of it. This is the day the world ends and I pull no punchs.
This one gets REALLY dark folks.
Part 2: The Plunge
The Fall of Man
June 20th, 2020
Something was wrong.
Something about today was different, though Chris couldn't put his finger on what that something was. It was a feeling, a knowingness that echoed through and around him. It made him jittery. Instead of his normal study session, he'd spent the morning just working out to burn off his agitation, but the feeling only intensified as the day progressed. It was a warning, a call to arms for whatever was happening. For whatever was coming. He needed to get ready! He wouldn't be here another day, he knew that much.
He dressed completely for the first time in months. A dark blue t-shirt covered by an unbuttoned, black, long sleeve shirt and dark gray cargo pants whose pockets he filled with the wards and spells he'd designed. The drafts and unfinished pages he soaked in water before flushing down the toilet. Lastly, he grabbed his shoes and started to chant, getting rid of whatever magical evidence was left in his room.
All the objects in this space
That I have magically replaced
Shall once more be normal and
Show no more their magic bend
The spell rippled around the room as he tied the laces on the old but comfortable pair of combat boots he'd bought last summer for wooded terrain competition. Ready to just run if he needed to, he took a moment to breathe. Whatever was going to happen, it was happening soon but not right now. The meditation helped him focus and he decided to check that every hint of what he'd been up to was gone, rather than staring at a wall bouncing his knee. He moved methodically around checking every inch of his cell, and, an hour later, he was glad he'd done it as he slipped the small notebook, full of ward ideas and spell anchor prototypes, into the biggest pocket of his pants where it just fit. He'd completely forgotten about having thrown it between his bed and wall during one of Wyatt's surprise visits. He didn't even want to know what his brother would have done with that information, as small as it was.
It was five in the afternoon when he started to wonder if he'd been imagining the feeling if he'd finally cracked and started feeling things that weren't there when the door to the room shuddered violently. He was up on his feet as the impact on the ward lit the room eerily and, before the second bang came, he hastily moved off to the side. He'd just passed the blast radius when the door flew into the room, slamming into and shattering the windows across from it. He didn't even spare a glance at the destruction that had been ripped through his prison and instead ran to the open doorway with a smile on his face.
"Chris!" Paige exclaimed and she pulled him into a powerful hug. "Oh god, I knew you were here, are you ok?!"
"Yeah," he cried into her shoulder, then pulled away and launched into a frantic explanation. Wyatt would know that his wards had been breached. They had to leave, "I've been trapped here for months! The other me was a clone. We need to run! He's gone crazy! He's trying-"
"Chris! Chris!" She said shaking him and he finally calmed enough to actually look at her. She was dirty, covered in wounds, and her clothes were torn in several places. "I know! It's already started. Come on, we're -"
"Not leaving," if her appearance hadn't already done it, the fear that flashed across his aunt's face at the sound of his brother's voice would have told him everything he needed to know about what was happening. The world seemed paused, the breath before the plunge, then everything happened so quickly that he barely caught it.
Paige spun and screamed 'crystals' with her arms outstretched and at the same time Wyatt's hand snapped up level with hers. The spells clashed, a pulse of energy shifting all three back slightly, as the crystal barrier erected itself around his now immobilized brother. It took him another second to realize that for some reason his aunt also wasn't moving.
"Christopher, go back into your room while I have a chat with our aunt," Wyatt ordered through gritted teeth as if he was exerting a great amount of effort. The look in his eyes was terrifying and dressed all in black he very much looked the part of a vengeful fallen angel. Chris looked back and forth between them as he realized that their powers must be locked in some kind of magical tug of war.
"Chris, leave, get somewhere safe, please," Paige gasped and she ground her teeth, sweat appearing on her forehead. He knew the only reason that she was even able to stand up to his brother this much was that the crystals were containing most of his power, for the moment anyway.
"Not without you!" he was desperate and he knew it, but he wasn't going to sit there and watch another member of his family die. Not if he could help it.
"He can't anyway," Wyatt snapped and then shifted his shoulder forward. The cage crackled violently as a wave of energy pulsed out and pushed them back another step. His aunt cried out in pain, the muscles in her arm straining as if holding back a tremendous weight, and Chris threw his arm around her in an effort to help keep her standing. "The house is warded Aunt Paige, no one leaves this place unless I let them. Stop and I'll let you go. I'm sure your husband and kids are worried sick."
He glanced at his aunt, unsure how she'd react to the obvious threat against her family, only to find her crying. The look in her eyes devastating, "Henry and Junior were downtown and the girls were at magic school, you bastard!"
"Oh," That one syllable, spoken with so much detached apathy, broke Chris' heart into a million pieces. He didn't need the gruesome details to know that whatever was going on outside this house, his uncle and cousins, Paige's family, had been victims of it. "So I guess that means you're gonna be difficult, huh?"
"Chris," she said quietly to him so that only he could hear, and he looked at the pale, broken, woman before him; while his brother pushed with earnest against his prison down the hall, "You need to run, you need to get yourself s-safe, and you need to f-find some way to stop th-this. Go find Ph-phoebe. Hide. I'm sorry, I'm so s-sorry. This is all my fault; I-I should have listened to you."
"I'm not going to leave you with him!" he couldn't let her do this, he couldn't let her sacrifice herself for him, his mother had done it and he would be damned before he let it happen again! Paige closed her eyes and then she started chanting, the words freezing both boys in place.
Hear these words, hear the rhyme
Shift this boy in space in time
From a brother who's lost his mind
Until safety, he shall find
Chris was horrified as the balls of light surrounded him and he felt himself being pulled away. His brother's scream, more a bellow of rage, echoed in his ears, and the bright flash of the cage falling apart blinded him as he faded. For a moment all his senses were gone and then the world came back.
"Where is he?!" Chris rubbed his eyes and blinked repeatedly trying to clear his vision. What had Paige done to him? He thought she was sending him somewhere so why was his brother's voice right beside him sounding distorted and muffled. "Where did you send him?!"
"He's safe...from...you," Chris finally blinked past the spots in his vision only to see his brother holding his aunt up against the wall by her neck. This close he could see the old, and in some places dried, blood on what he could see of Wyatt's skin and in his hair, though he clearly wasn't wounded.
Which meant it wasn't his.
"Safe?" His brother hissed and his aunt made a pained choking sound. It was like he was watching a badly edited movie. His brother and aunt were before him but the colors seemed leached and the edges blurred around them when they moved like he wasn't quite seeing it right. Even the sound was muffled like he was hearing it over a bad cell connection. "You know how bad it is out there. He's going to get hurt, maybe even killed. You've put him in danger Paige and I won't forgive you for that. But tell me where he is and I'll make sure to kill you quickly."
"I'm here Wy! Stop it! I'm not in danger!" he yelled, his voice sounding echoey and he tried to grab Wyatt's shoulders but his arms just passed right through the older boy.
Wyatt stiffened, as if he could hear him or maybe even feel him, and started to turn, but Paige distracted him again. Chris could see it in her eye, she knew he was still there and she was giving him time to run. He didn't want that, he wanted this all to stop, he had to save her! "Never… you'd... hurt..."
That got and held his brother's attention, no amount of incorporeal screaming was going to distract him after a declaration like that. Chris, his safety, and their brotherhood were Wyatt's fixations, his obsession. Having it attacked in such a way was going to blind him to everything else. Not that it was going to stop Chris from trying, "I would never hurt him! How DARE you say I would!"
"Wy, Please stop this! You're going to kill her!"
"You're... evil... Wyatt...you'll... hurt him."
"You'll tell me where he is by the time I'm done with you," he snarled pulling her face close to his. It seemed he'd had enough of the current conversation, and shimmered them away somewhere they could have another.
Now alone, Chris, pale and wide-eyed, stared at the spot where they'd been. The last time he'd ever see his youngest aunt seared horribly into his mind. He couldn't figure out what to do with himself, what could he do? Where was he supposed to go? Paige had said to find Phoebe but that would require his legs to work and he wasn't sure that was going to happen any time soon. Even if they did, should he really look for Phoebe? If she was hidden, wouldn't finding her put her in danger too? He wasn't sure about that but what he was sure about was that Paige was gone. His brother had completely lost it and he'd taken her with him. He was going to hurt her because she saved him. He was going to kill Aunt Paige because she protected him.
His breathing started to accelerate, his stomach rolled, and his knees finally gave out. Desperate to stay standing he tried to use the wall as a support and fell through it, face planting on the hall floor on the other side. The pain snapped him out of his shocked stupor and he glared at the floor while he collected his thoughts. Paige had given her life to protect his and what had he done with that so far? He was still hanging around his months-long prison like a simpleton. He didn't have time for this. He needed to find Phoebe and her family and he needed to get them all someplace safe. He could protect them. His wards would protect them. He'd had a freakin Angel of Destiny confirm that much to him.
He just needed to do this one step at a time.
Once on his still unsteady feet, shivers racking his body, he moved carefully to the stairs and then down them only to pause at the base. The house was a wreck. It looked like a storm had blown through it and if Chris wasn't mistaken the scorch marks he could see, well, everywhere, signified that there had once been a lot of demons here. His aunt's appearance when she'd freed him flashed through his mind and he knew she'd done all of this. She'd broken into the manor, a tornado in a person, and killed all the guards Wyatt had in the house to get to him. He squeezed his eyes shut at the knowledge but then took a deep breath and pushed all his feelings away. He could breakdown when he found his family when all this was done.
Not now. He didn't have time now.
When he reached the front door he paused, able wherever he was, to see the glowing dark blue barrier around the front door. Wyatt had said that no one he wanted to keep in could leave, but still, his aunt had clearly done something to him. Carefully, he raised his hand and pushed it through the blue wall and the door, neither reacting to the gesture.
Shift this boy in space and time
Years of magical reading and learning asserted itself as he finally realized what she'd done. She'd temporally shifted him. She'd made him slightly out of sync with the rest of reality. That meant while he could move, could run, and see like he normally would, mostly, he also couldn't interact with anything and nothing could influence him until the spell ended. To the correct flow of time, he simply wasn't there to be reacted with.
"Right, ok, leave the house, find my family, find safety, then freak-out. The freak-out comes last." He said giving himself a pep talk, trying to prepare himself for whatever was outside this door. Then, taking a bracing breath, he stepped completely through the doorway, not even leaving a ripple in his wake.
Outside was not what he expected.
It was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and the most powerful for good magic, so that meant the sun was still shining even at six in the evening. Given the conversation inside, he'd expected ruins, burning builds, people running, and death everywhere. Instead, he found a lifeless neighborhood. He reached the sidewalk and looked around now noticing things that told him something was indeed wrong. From the ransacked look to some of the houses to a few crashed cars the signs that this place had been cleared out in a hurry were there but there wasn't anything too severe. It could almost have been a normal afternoon if not for the utter stillness around him that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Completely unnerved, Chris started running down the street toward the city, the oppressive silence followed him to the end of the block where he skidded to a stop. It was here that he got his first real glimpse of San Francisco proper and his breath left his body completely.
Henry and Junior were downtown!
He now knew what that meant and he wished he didn't because there was a large smoking crater where most of the downtown area should have been. It was like a bomb had gone off and he knew from what he could see of the hole anyone who'd been caught in it would have been vaporized. At least he hoped they had been because the alternative was worse. The alternative was a long painful death because no help was coming. Not when the rest of the city was also being obliterated. The few skyscrapers left standing were lit like torches against the late afternoon sky. It was a war zone like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie only this was real and people were actually dying by the thousands.
Chris clenched his jaw and steeled himself, then started to run forward again, focusing on finding his family and ignoring the things he couldn't even touch to help. He looked at the ground and his feet, only glancing up every so often to check he was going in the right direction. The muffled sounds of destruction combined into a dull roar, a muted white noise, and he found it almost too easy to ignore the carnage all around him. To zone out and just move forward through the chaos that if he couldn't see, he wouldn't be paralyzed by. He couldn't stop. He had to keep going, so he did. That is until a body was literally thrown through him and he was broken out of his self imposed trance. Instinctively he moved to help the blurry and blood-covered woman but was beaten to it by a hideous looking horned demon that pounced on her and started ripping her apart.
The horror of it slowed his thoughts to a crawl and he lost focus on the world around him. Blurred people ran in all directions, some chased, some just running for their lives, while the buildings, the ones still standing, were blown out and debris was everywhere as were the mutilated bodies of the dead. He couldn't move, almost couldn't breathe even though he was panting until a gas station down the street exploded. The loud sound, shaking ground, and sudden brightness, followed by the dust cloud of the adjunct building self-destructing, snapped him out of his paralysis and his mind switched on again. He needed to get moving. Now. There was literally nothing he could do for these people as a ghost.
He couldn't save them.
It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done up to that point, but he turned away and, getting a lay of the land, realized he was down the street from his grandfather's apartment building. He wondered how he'd gotten there in his previously dazed state but didn't want to take the time to figure it out. If his grandfather was still alive he needed to be protected too.
The building he entered was a whole new level of hell and his heart sank the further he went inside. Every apartment door was knocked in and the blood coating the hall walls was enough to tell him he really didn't want to look in the actual rooms. So it was a surprise when he finally reached his grandfather's door to find it intact with a symbol on it. He knew that symbol from his studies. It was a demonic symbol that meant "ignore this". Wyatt must have placed it there so that his men would leave his grandfather alone, though the place wasn't actually warded. Chris bit his lip. If his grandfather stayed inside and did nothing, forced to listen to people dying then he was fine. If he left to help, then Wyatt's demons would kill him. It was sick but it made sense with the person his brother had become and it was time to get his grandfather out of here.
He stepped through the door and then stumbled when the world shifted and everything became technicolored with stereo again. His head spinning and his ears ringing he missed the sound of a glass shattering on the ground but not the desperate hug he was pulled into. "Chris! Oh my god, you're ok!"
Until safety, he shall find
The spell was over and that meant, at least for the moment, he was safe. So he returned the powerful hug, "Grandpa. You're ok!"
"As long as I stay here Wyatt said I would be," he muttered into his grandson's hair. "But I had no idea about the rest of you. He told me he was trying to find you all. He didn't seem to know what was happening."
That brought Chris back to reality and he stiffened as a probing feeling made itself known in the back of his mind. His brother had felt him reappear and was looking for him; using their bond to track him down. That wasn't something Chris was strong enough to fend off for long without help, keeping his thoughts to himself was one thing, his location was another. Panicked he jerked away and ran for the junk drawer in his grandfather's kitchen then pulled out a sharpie. Focused completely on his task he ignored the older man's rapid-fire questions as he drew an intricate and complicated design inside of a circle on his left forearm. This was one of the few seals he'd created and made sure to memorize. Even so, it was harder than it should have been with his brother literally beating on his brain with a magical sledgehammer trying to weaken his mental walls just enough to find him.
Finished, he grabbed a knife, pricked his finger, and drew a line of blood down the middle of the design willing his magic to make it work. In response, it glowed a brilliant whitish-blue and burned his skin just as it burned the tether in his mind connecting him to his brother. It wouldn't destroy the link entirely, that couldn't be done without out one or both of them dying, but it would make it impossible for Wyatt to find him magically. It was an anti-tracking ward and with it, in place, his brother wouldn't be able to sense his location or follow him, even if he was standing right in front of him. He could feel the shock from Wyatt when that part of their connection abruptly ripped apart and didn't reform. Chris took that moment to reorganize the mental barriers in his mind, to reinforce them and he pushed the older boy almost completely out. He could imagine how confused his brother must be, having no idea he was capable of this.
"Chris what the hell is going on?!" His grandfather was staring at his arm and Chris took pity on him.
"Wyatt was trying to track me through our brothers bond, this stops him," Victor opened his mouth to respond but Chris cut him off. "Wyatt's not trying to stop all of this grandpa, he's running it. I found out what he was planning in November and I've been locked in my room ever since, the me that's been running around the last few months was a magical clone. We have to get out of here."
His grandfather was stunned, and he couldn't blame him in the slightest, "Wyatt? But he-"
"He's gone crazy, something happened, some kind of evil infected him and he's gone completely insane! Paige and her family... they're gone. I need to get you somewhere safe and then find Phoebe." Chris moved quickly around the apartment filling any bag he could find with supplies while his grandfather stared into space.
"Wyatt knows all the places Chris … there's nowhere we can go. This is happening all over the world." He turned back and the look he gave his grandfather prompted the man to continue. "Before the news cut out they said almost every major city in the world had reported 'rioting'."
Of course, it made sense, he thought distantly to himself as a box of cereal slipped from his numb fingers. A death toll he couldn't even comprehend trying to form in his mind. If you want to take over the world you don't just destroy one city. You get them all. That's why this took so long to plan.
His grandfather also brought up an excellent point, where the hell were they going to go? It's not like-
Tell no one, not even your brother, about this place until the time is right. Believe me, when I say, you'll know when that is."
Chris smiled, relief on his face, as he remembered the Angel's warning to him. Of course, the hideout was still safe! His brother didn't know about it and he himself hadn't been back there since several days after he'd learned of Wyatt's betrayal. He'd completely forgotten about it with everything that was happening. Not wasting any more time he grabbed the last few items of food in the kitchen and gave his grandfather several bags to hold then orbed them both to a remote hilltop.
"Chris!" Victor stumbled a little as they landed and he helped him get his balance before starting off. He always liked to orb some distance away from the actual clearing just in case. "Chris, where are we, where are we going?"
"You asked for a safe place to go," he thought about how best to describe this to a man who didn't even really have a fundamental understanding of magic. "I built a hideout, a panic room I guess, out here last year. No one else, not even Wyatt, knows about it."
He gave his grandfather an outline of everything he knew, as they made the quick journey to the clearing and by the end, the man looked haunted. Not that Chris could blame him. He'd had eight months of contact with the new Wyatt and he could still barely believe it all. Now silent, they reached the clearing and he opened the door both impressing and confusing the older man. Chris smirked as he activated the lights and left the supplies on the central table.
"So now what? We just stay here and wait it out?" His grandfather asked him as Chris rapidly emptied his pockets of his recent work, stacking it off to the side with a year's worth of other work. Then he moved quickly around his supplies, grabbing the invisibility amulet he'd stolen, and filled a glass vial full of water. Paige had given him a good idea of how to get his family out of danger if he needed too.
Hear these words, hear the rhyme
Shift who I want in space in time
From my brother who's lost his mind
Until safety, we shall find
It took a serious amount of concentration to telekinetically shift the spell from himself to the bottle as he cast it but it worked and the water shone with the enchantment. For a brief moment he was forced to lean against the counter he used for potion making, then he turned to the other man who was watching him. That was a trick Wyatt had figured out and taught him years ago. Now all he needed to do was break the glass and the spell would activate, shifting himself and anyone he wanted out of sync with reality.
"What happens now is that I'm going after Aunt Phoebe and her family like Aunt Paige told me too," he paused and he looked around the room, the one he would have to expand in a big way. Getting his family here was only the start of it, he had friends that needed saving too. The enormity of his task made him swallow before he pushed it away. One step at a time, he had to do this one step at a time otherwise he was going to drown, crash, and burn.
"Chris I don't think-" the look he leveled the older man as he walked to the door stopped Victor mid-sentence. Then he sighed when Chris reached it. "Never mind, I should know better than to argue with a Halliwell...just promise me you'll stay safe?"
He nodded and left not trusting himself to speak. The door had just closed behind him when about twenty swirling clouds of light appeared in the clearing. He slipped into a fighting stance, dagger in hand, as they solidified but then relaxed as he recognized the dark-haired, green-eyed woman at the lead from old family photos. "Aunt Prue?"
"Chris," she cried, smiling even though she looked pale and shaken. Quickly she jogged forward and pulling him into a hug that he didn't resist. He'd grown up on stories of his 'Aunt Prue' and finally meeting her lightened his heart a little, even as it confused him. "You're ok, I'm so glad."
"I guess - uh - it's great to meet you but...um," He pulled away to look at the rest of the whitelighters that had come with her.
A man who was supporting a wounded woman walked forward, "We were told that we could find a safe haven here by an Angel of Destiny, the heavens have fallen."
"The heavens...?" He looked at his aunt and then shook his head before she could answer that. He needed to get them protected so he turned back to the doorway and opened it again. "Never mind, everybody in until I can ward you."
"Chris? You're – Prue?!" His grandfather yelled and only hesitated a moment before he pulled his oldest daughter into his arms, tears in his eyes. Chris smiled at the sight before he turned to help the whitelighter who'd spoken up bring the wounded woman into the room. His family moved off to the side talking quickly and quietly to one another as he ushered everyone in and then closed the door behind them.
"This is a pocket dimension," the man said speaking up again, leaving the woman in the care of another whitelighter who'd already started healing her. "Who built it, how did you find it?"
Chris was surprised by the almost accusatory tone, then his eyes narrowed. He didn't have time for this, he needed to ward them and then send them to find more people to save, like his friends, while he went after his family. "You're right, it is, and I didn't find it, I built it. I'm surprised my Angel of Destiny stalker didn't tell you that part."
"Chris," Prue walked over to them and placed her hand on his upper arm trying to calm him down. Then she gave the man a look that made him nervous, "This is my teacher, Michael, and these people are my classmates, we're the current whitelighters in training. That's why we weren't at the meeting Wyatt called, it's why we escaped his trap."
"The screaming was so loud," whispered a blonde woman who sat at the central table staring off into nothing. "They were in so much pain."
Prue looked down and swallowed hard while the rest dealt with their emotions in varying ways. Some cried, some looked shell shocked, while others like Michael looked livid. Chris himself wasn't sure how to deal with the knowledge that the Elders were gone and very likely so was his father. Was Wyatt that far gone? Could he really kill their dad? Yes, he'd killed their aunt or was killing her as horrific as that thought was, but even so, there was a difference between an aunt and a parent. Leo and Chris may not have had the best relationship, in fact in a lot of ways Chris hated him, but that didn't mean he wanted the man dead. Unsure, he shook his head a little and pushed away his conflicted emotions, he couldn't afford to be distracted.
"When we realized what was going on we tried to help and Kyla was injured. We've been running since, but we had an Archdemon hunting us. I thought we were going to die when the Angel came and told us this was a safe place. She died so that we could get away without being followed," Prue said, the slight tremble in her voice echoed with the horrors she'd seen. It made Chris swallowed thickly at the knowledge that his personal Angel was gone and couldn't help him anymore as Prue turned to her teacher. "Michael, this is my nephew, Christopher Halliwell."
"Christopher Halliwell?! Do you mean that bastards brother?! You've brought us to him?!" Michael cried pointing an accusing finger at him like he was responsible for the man's pain. Immediately everyone in the room moved away from him, terrified, and the action made something in Chris snap. All his life he'd been compared to his brother, been measured by him, he refused to be in this matter.
"Yeah, he's my brother, but you know what else he is?" Chris snarled his eyes alight with anger, bitterness, and deep pain. Prue's grip on his shoulder tightened in reaction to that look but he ignored it. "He's the son of a bitch that locked me alone in a room for months when I realized what he was doing. I tried to warn people! I tried to stop this! You want to blame someone? Blame our fucking father because when I told him he believed Wyatt over me!"
He heard Prue's surprised intake of breath but didn't let her speak. Instead, he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to show Michael the ward on his forearm. "Now you can either let me put anti-tracking wards on you so you can go bring more people back here without being followed, or you can bitch about my bloodline some more! Make a choice because I don't have time for this shit! I have to save Phoebe before he kills her like he did Paige!"
Silence greeted his angry tirade as everyone tried to digest the new information. Michael was the first to break it, his level tone spoke of his career as a teacher. "This pocket dimension can't hold that many people."
"I can expand it by tapping further into the nexus, I figure it can hold about ten thousand people comfortably, maybe a couple thousand more if people are willing to be uncomfortable," Chris said still glaring. Then he took a shuddered breath and centered himself. If he wanted these adults to listen to him, he couldn't throw a temper tantrum like a child. No matter how much right he had to one, they wouldn't respect him for it. "I'll do it after I come back with my aunt and her family. It's going to drain my magic completely for a while and I need it to save what's left of my family."
He and Michael stared one another down until Michael relented and rolled up his sleeve, "It seems you and Wyatt are different. Give me the ward. I won't order the rest of you but I will ask you to help me save as many as possible."
An antsy Chris spent the next fifteen minutes drawing and activating wards on every single one of them, impressing whitelighters present. They'd apparently never seen a ward like this one and he rolled his eyes as he ignored their questions about where he'd found it. In his opinion, the whole process took much too long but finally, he led them out of the hideout and turned back to his aunt once it was sealed again. "Aunt Prue, could I ask you to see if some of my friends are still alive?"
She looked stunned at the request and for a brief moment, he thought he was in for a lecture about putting personal desires above the greater good. Thankfully that wasn't the case at all because he wasn't sure if he could have handled it, "Chris! I'm offended! You don't have to ask, just tell me who I should look for and I'll get them."
He smiled at her, relieved, then concentrated. This was a form of whitelighter communication, though he wasn't very good at, to telepathically send her the locations of all his friends and their families. She winced against his volume but got the information correctly anyway.
"No! Please God No!"
They both jumped, broken from their trance just as he finished and turned to see a red-head woman pointing at the sky and shaking. He looked up worried for a moment that they'd been found, but calmed when he saw no danger, only shooting stars in the twilight sky. "Shooting stars?"
"Those-those aren't stars Chris," Prue said quietly her voice grave. "They're bodies."
He snapped his head so quickly to look at her that he actually pulled a muscle, "Bodies?!"
"The bodies of the Elders and the rest of the whitelighters," Michael's voice was thin and brittle as he walked up beside him. "He's raining them down from the heavens so that the magical community knows they're gone."
"We have to hurry." Chris glared at the sky, taking charge of the stunned people. They didn't have time for this. People were dying while they stared at something they couldn't change. "I'll expand the hideouts wards to encompass the rest of the clearing and then go after my aunt. You all go find people to save."
No one disagreed, in fact, no one even said a word, and he quickly moved away into the surrounding woods carving basic expansion symbols into several of the trees. It would hide the clearing in a basic sense. Just long enough for it to hide anyone they brought back before he returned after what he hoped would be a short trip.
He orbed into the stairwell of her apartment building, deciding to start here first in his search, before throwing on the invisibility amulet. Then he jogged the last staircase and slipped into her floor's hall. It was full of demons mulling around and at the end of it, he could see his aunts open front door. From it, he could hear the yelling, though he couldn't make out the words and it stopped him in his tracks. He didn't want to go forward, he wanted to turn around, walk away, and never see what he knew was inside that apartment but he couldn't. Maybe he really was a masochist but if there was a chance then he had to take it, he couldn't live with himself if he didn't. Numbly he slowly navigated through the throng, avoiding being touched, until he reached the door. He hesitated there again before turning in to see something that would torture him for the rest of his life.
Wyatt stood at the center of the chaos ringed by his demonic cohorts, Excalibur in his grip so coated with blood that it dipped to the floor. Before him, her hands held behind her back, and a demon's fist in her hair pulling her into a standing position was Phoebe. She looked filthy and thoroughly beaten but it was the wound across her stomach that caught and held his attention. With a sick feeling, he noticed that he could see her intestines, and he gagged knowing that most likely not even a quick healing could save her. It was as he was bent over, trying to stop himself from vomiting, that he noticed an even worse horror. On the ground, to the right of her was a pool of blood and gore. A heap of parts from three distinct bodies that he realized by looking at them had once been his uncle and two of his cousins. The third and middle sister, Parker, was held off to the side by two demons, her small form splattered with blood. She didn't move and Chris wondered if it was from a spell or if the girl had simply gone into shock.
"Are you going to tell me now, or am I going to have to kill your last daughter?" Wyatt pointed the sword at his younger cousin and the young girl flinched a little but made no other move. "I can feel his pain! He needs me!"
"Wyatt," Phoebe sobbed and Chris could see both the emotional and physical agony she was in. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, he wanted to beat his brother within an inch of his life and then pretend this was all just a nightmare. Damn right he was in fucking pain, he was watching his brother torture his aunt for information about him she didn't know! "I. Don't. Know."
Chris had had enough and was about to intervene when Phoebe shifted her eyes to look directly at him, Chris? No stop!
He stopped mid-step across the open space between them, his emotions now tightly controlled, and his barriers like steel in his mind. He saw Wyatt tilt his head as if listening, confused by the sudden lack of Chris he was feeling, something that had had been happening off and on all day much to the blondes displeasure. His plan had been to kick his brother in the head and then throw the two guards before orbing his aunt and his cousin out of the room. At least one of the whitelighters should be at the clearing dropping people off. But his aunt had stopped him and then something happened that Chris had only experienced once in his life. It was a psychic trick she'd been trying to master at the time and because he was mildly empathic she thought he'd be a good test subject. The experience had left him dizzy for hours and with a bloodied nose. He could still remember the chewing out she'd gotten from his mother and brother.
Between one blink and the next, he was suddenly standing in a void space with only himself and his aunt standing across from him. He knew that this was inside his head but that didn't stop him from trying to reach out to her, and despairing when his hand went through her, "Aunt Phoebe! I'm going to get you and Parker out of here."
"No," Phoebe gave him a look he knew well, it was the one she wore when she was about to give someone bad news she knew they didn't want to hear. "Take Parker and leave! Save her!"
"He took Aunt Paige!" he was crying and he could see the heartbreak in Phoebe's eye at the confirmation of her sister's death. "He won't take you too!"
"Oh Chris," she said her voice choked with emotion and she reached to touch him but stopped, this wasn't real and he wouldn't feel the hug. "I'm so sorry -"
"No! Don't tell me you're sorry! Let me save you!" He was beyond desperate and his aunt really did start to sob.
"Chris you can't! I'm already dead," She covered her mouth as she tried to breath past the emotions clogging her throat. "His magic is the only thing keeping me here. He wants to make me watch everyone die. Please, save Parker!"
"No- no," Chris shook his head, "there has to be a way!"
"There isn't." She said with a finality that almost killed him. "Oh, Sweetie, this shouldn't - I'm so sorry you have to do this. But… I'm begging you, take her and go. Protect her! Chris please!"
He couldn't save her either.
"Ok," he whispered as he watched her cry and then nodded despondently. He wanted to break down, every part of him wanted to sit on the ground and not move again until the world made sense. But he couldn't do that. He would lose everything if he did that. He had to carry on and if he couldn't save his aunt at least he could save his last cousin. "I'll take care of her for you, I promise. He won't touch her again."
"Thank you, thank you, Chris, I'm so sorry," she said again and he swallowed the bile in his throat. His mother was sorry, his father, his aunts, and even in a way his brother. Sorry, they were all so very sorry about everything and he was growing to hate that word. "I –I - oh Chris I love you so much, sweetheart. I need you to know that and…tell Parker mommy's sorry and that I love her."
Chris nodded his head, tears in his eyes, as he faded back into the real world. His eyes cleared just in time to watch his brother force his aunt to look back at him, their entire conversation probably taking no more than a few seconds. "I prefer it when people look at me as I question them…what were you looking at anyway?"
Chris turned away and mechanically moved to his cousin's side then crouched down in front of her, ignoring the way his shoes squished in the blood and gore around her. Upon reaching her he tried to orb them away, but, as he assumed would happen there seemed to be a protection against it now. So, while everyone in the room was focused on his brother he took advantage of that and knelt down. "Parker, hey kid, it's Chris. I'm going to get you out of here."
Her dull, lifeless eyes, cleared a little with the familiar voice and she looked at the area before her where the voice had come from with furrowed eyebrows. "Chris?"
The demon beside her glanced down at her slightly too loud whispered word and Chris froze then he looked away again when she said no more. "You need to be quiet Parker. I'm using an invisibility spell and I have an idea so when I say run I need you to run ok?"
"What about mommy," she whispered watching as Wyatt slapped her mother again, yelling that she had one last chance to tell him where his brother was. "He's looking for you."
Chris clenched his fists and then relaxed them so he could cradle her head in a comforting gesture, "I can't help your mom Parker, if I could I would but she won't let me. She told me to save you so that's what I'm gonna do."
The little girl whimpered but also nodded, her lip quivering and tears in her eyes, to let him know she understood. Just like him, she'd grown up in this family and that meant she was tougher and more mature than your average ten-year-old. She knew at a basic level what it meant when he said he couldn't save her mother. Her understanding and acceptance given, Chris made his move.
With a wave of his hands, he sent the demons next to her backward, one of them cracking the concrete wall and the other breaking through a window. Then he spun on his heel and saw his brother. But before the blonde monster could react, he sent him flying across the room and into a wall as well. At once he felt the bond to his aunt snap as the woman died. Wyatt's spell no longer keeping her prisoner in a broken body. That feeling, combined with Parker's cry of pain from the loss, caused him to lose control of his emotions once again and he telekinetically pulled the decorative weapons off the walls; using them to quickly attack and kill the rest of the demons in the room. The worst of his anger expended, he turned back to Parker and crouched down again. Without hesitating, he wrapped his arms around his cousin and pulled off the invisibility pendant. He didn't want the two spells to interact and his brother had just started to stir from the hit to the head when he pulled out the vial.
"Chris?" He looked up at Wyatt who was pushing himself to his feet, relief clear in his voice. Then their eyes locked and he didn't give him a chance to say anything else. Instead, he sent all of his heartache and anger, all the hate he was feeling, straight at his brother. The emotional wave stunned the older boy to the point where he had to lean on the wall he'd hit for support. Then Chris broke the vial on the ground and he and Parker were engulfed in bright white lights.
"Parker. Run." he ordered and he pulled the girl to her feet practically dragging her behind him as they ran through the walls, ignoring his brother's now desperate calls of his name.
He couldn't orb in this state so that meant they had to keep moving until they found somewhere safe and they ran through the hall door into the stairwell. They'd just reached the bottom when an explosion rocked the building coming from his aunt's floor. Parker screamed and he almost fell backward when she stopped in place, petrified. Not wanting to take the time to talk her out of it with the building shaking dangerously, especially when he didn't know how this magic would react to a building collapse, he grabbed her and continued running; exiting the building through the first-floor fire door.
Now in an alley, he stopped for only a split second before running in a random direction still carrying the immobile girl. He was able to keep to the sideways by passing through walls and several buildings while looking around frantically for a place to hide. He needed to get them somewhere safe so the spell would end and he could orb them to the clearing. He also wanted to keep the nightmare fuel Parker was experiencing down to a minimum. He was sure she was already completely traumatized, he knew he was, and he didn't want to make the situation any worse.
Finally, he noticed the church down the block from him after they exited through the wall of an antique store and figured it was as good a place as any to find some safety. Not, of course, because the ground was hallowed but because religious sanctuaries would have been the first places Wyatt's demons would have trashed after the Elders fell. That in turn meant that they'd hopefully moved on and wouldn't be coming back for a while. It was a blessing because as strong as he'd gotten from the constant workouts, Parker was still a ten-year-old girl and his arms were starting to give out.
Chris stopped short in front of the inner sanctuary doors and just stared at them. Written on the wood was an extremely basic ward combination that equated to "don't look here, look somewhere else" and he chuckled. Whoever was inside had just done the equivalent of hiding under the bed and pretending they weren't there. Although considering the doors were still standing and the ward was still active, it was apparently an effective strategy.
He leaned through the door slightly to look inside, just to be safe because he had no idea what was there and saw that there was a priest in a large crowd of silent people reading a passage of some kind. He snorted, typical mortals in a crisis, and stepped through the door bringing Parker with him. The spell reacted as soon as they passed the entrance and the world corrected itself around them in a flurry of white lights. Chris braced himself for the change, ignoring the yells of fright from the congregation but Parker wasn't prepared for it and she panicked.
He was forced to drop her as she fought him and she scurried to hide in between the pews, shaking and panting. "Parker! Parker! It's Chris! You're safe! You're ok!"
"Parker?" Chris looked up, a dagger out, and noticed the priest moving toward them, his hands held up in an unthreatening gesture. The rest of the congregation huddled near the altar, watching the two of them with wide eyes. Chris glared at him, strung bow tight, and prepared, "She's Parker Halliwell isn't she?"
"You have five seconds to answer how you knew that before I send you flying," The priest stopped and looked him up and down, as if trying to place him, then smiled.
"You're Chris, I remember you from the Christmas cards your mom used to send out. I'm Brendan Rowe" Chris recognized the name and now that he did the face too from photos of his ordination. He was a warlock the sisters had helped become a priest and he'd been a good friend of Prue's. Well, that certainly explained the wards on the doors. Now secure that the man wasn't going to attack him he turned back to his cousin who'd calmed and was rocking back and forth staring at nothing.
"Parker," he murmured and when he moved to help her up she didn't resist but instead launched herself at him. Her grip made him choke a little but he hugged her back just as fiercely. He sighed quietly, apparently, his arms weren't going to get a break, and then picked her up again. When he turned back to the priest he found him watching them. "What are you all still doing here? That protection won't last forever. Actually I'm shocked you lasted this long."
Brendan's eyes were locked on his younger, blood-splattered cousin and he only looked back at Chris when he asked the question. Chris could see from the look that he had some idea of what the young girl had been through, "We're waiting for the storm to pass...where's everyone else?"
Chris swallowed and then choked back a sound that wanted to be a sob. Parker on the other hand had no such compunctions and just buried her face in his neck, shuddering, "This storm's not going to pass Father. The new Source, my recently gone insane big brother Wyatt to be exact, has decided to have a coming out in a big way. Everyone up there is already gone and...we're all that's left of...everyone else"
Brendan dropped the bible in his grip, the thump loud in the slient church, as all the blood drained from his face and he collapsed into the nearest pew. "Then there's no hope."
Chris scoffed and wondered if this was going to be his life from now on, "Of course there's hope but not if you stay here. Prue! Prue, I need you!"
Brendan, who'd gone to her funeral, was about to say something when his aunt orbed in beside him. Again the congregation screamed and Brendan jumped to his feet again. "Chris! I just finished with your...What happened? I see Parker but-"
The words were said hesitantly like she already knew the answer but didn't want too. He could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes, and he shook his head once, "just Parker."
Prue took a high pitched stuttered breath stumbling across the aisle and gripping a pew as she fought back sobs. Her voice vibrated with anger and tears wet her cheeks, "How? What happened?"
He swallowed again and put his hand on the back of Parker's shaking head, "Wyatt got there first. Look Prue, you and your class have to get these people to the clearing, I'm going to take Parker there now."
She nodded violently, just so he'd know she'd heard him, her face buried in her hands. He wanted to comfort her but he needed to keep moving forward more, so he just focused on his destination and left. Though he did notice, as he disappeared into blue-white partials, that Brendan walked over to her and he didn't feel as guilty. She'd be ok, and he blew out a breath as he re-formed them in the clearing that was now bustling with people. He noticed with relief and happiness that all his friends and their families were gathered in a group on the clearings far side. Several of them, Brandon in the lead, moved to meet him but he shook his head and turned away. He'd reconnect later.
He had work to do.
"Chris, there you are," his grandfather said happily as he walked up to him, having left the hideout - unable to stay inside and wait but he took one look at Parker and the smile fell from his face. "I see you have Parker."
He could tell that the older man was trying to keep his tone light and he knew the reason, "Yeah, it's just Parker now."
Victor put his fist to his mouth and seemed to stop breathing for almost a minute, then he choked and cleared his throat. Chris looked away and when his grandfather reached for his cousin to hold her, he gently coaxed the little girl to let go of him. Which she gladly did once she realized who he was trying to give her to and she held her grandfather just as tightly as she had him. His cousin now secure, he turned to finish his last task.
He walked over to the intricate design and, under the watchful gaze of everyone present, carved another symbol on top of the old engraving. Then he placed his hand upon it and let his mind fall into the place in him most connect to magic. The seal reacted in the same manner it had before, sinking in, but then stopped and, almost like it was listening to him, and began to pulse as the symbols started to rearrange themselves.
Chris? He clenched his jaw as he heard his brother's only slightly muted voice in his mind. Frustration filled him when he realized that he didn't have enough magical energy left to both change the hideout and block the older boy completely. Chris, what are you doing? ... Come on little brother talk to me, I know you're upset about the aunts, I felt that. I'm sorry you had to see it, let's talk.
A quick mental glance at their bond told him that while there was a crack his brother was metaphorically speaking through, the wall blocking them was still present. Wyatt, surprisingly enough, wasn't pushing on that weak spot, most likely because he felt he'd already done enough damage. So he chose to ignore him in favor of the very important task he needed to complete. What are you doing that's taking so much of your power?… Don't ignore me, Christopher.
The compulsion infused into that last statement took his breath away and his barrier bowed inwards against the pressure but still, just barely, held. In reaction, he almost lost the spell he was working on, which would have deleted the hideout and forced him to build it from scratch. A task that would have taken him days he and everyone present didn't have. Distantly he felt his left forearm burn, a wave of heat rolling across his skin, and the next thing he knew his brother's pained cursing was filling his mind. That shit again! What the fuck is that?! What did you do?!
Chris continued to ignore him and carefully willed the final puzzle piece of the dimensional ward into place then let it go with a gasp, falling onto all fours as he panted. Between one heartbeat and the next, his grandfather was beside him, helping him up and supporting him as they walked forward through the doorway that formed after he released the spell. Chris, are you ok? You're so weak you're almost not there! Are you hurt? Dammit, answer me!
Now instead of the circular workroom, it had opened onto before there was a large cavern with a door to the old entry room and family quarters set into the cave wall on the right. To the left was an area that looked almost like several apartment buildings carved out of stone. The cavern was roughly a mile long and the buildings were fifteen floors high with doors every few feet set below a false sky. He wasn't strong enough, or good enough just yet, to do anything other than the basic layout and structures. "Grandpa, I need to go lay down…in there."
Grandpa… so you're somewhere with grandpa? I thought you might have been the one that took him. I know you got all your friends too, where are you hiding and why do you need to lie down? What have you done to yourself? Chris bit his tongue and ignored the very real concern he heard in Wyatt's voice. He needed to get into a warded area now. With the front door open so the refugees could pile in there was a gap in the main one his brother could sneak through and his personal barrier was Swiss cheese at this point. He looked back and straight into the concerned eyes of his Aunt Prue who was now holding his cousin. He smiled weakly and gestured back to everyone else. She bit her lip but then nodded, gestured to Parker, letting him know that once the girl was safe she'd help the others with organizing. Swiftly the four of them walked into the old workroom and when Prue put her niece down the girl scurried into a corner and curled into a ball.
Goodbye Wy, he said softly, sadly, just before Prue closed the room's door on her way out and the connection between them slammed shut with an impenetrable wall that neither could breakthrough.
Like a puppet with his strings cut Chris collapsed to the floor as a scream tore itself from his throat, tears in his eyes, and his arms wrapped around himself. The weight of everything that had happened, everything he'd seen, caved in on him and it hurt. His breaths were ragged and short as it all flashed before his eyes. As his mind tried desperately to deal with it now that it had the time. But nothing he did could stop the maelstrom and unbeknownst to him, objects in the room began whirling through the air as his helpless grandfather held onto him, trying to comfort and calm him, while his stone-like younger cousin stared blankly at it all.
It was all gone.
They were all gone.
The world was over and the only thing standing between his beloved brother and total rule was him. He was the failsafe, he was the backup plan, he was the one that was supposed to fix this. It was all on his shoulders and he didn't have a fucking clue what he was supposed to do. He was as lost as the rest and they'd expect him to know!
Panicked and shattered, Chris quickly hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness.
Next Time: Chris has a confrontation he'd rather not and learns to deal with his new reality