Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise, and all elements from Infinity Crisis are used with permission from Michael Weyer.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
AN: This directly links back to events in the latest chapter of Counterpart Conferences, but reference will be made to other series that haven't appeared in this multiverse yet; information will be provided later for those unfamiliar with everything. Weyer has been consulted on certain revelations in this one-shot and given full permission for me to do things this way; hope you like the results.
Infinity Crisis: Visions of Magic
Phoebe wondered what it said about her life that she was this concerned about the fact that nothing had happened today. She, Piper and Paige had done what they could to follow up on whatever had inspired that earlier feeling of dread, but no matter how hard they searched or who they spoke with, there was never any actual sign that something was wrong. Leo had checked in with some of his old Whitelighter contacts, and even Coop had pulled a few strings to see if anyone he knew had heard anything, but there had been no response. Once Henry had been told about her concerns, he had suggested that it might just be Phoebe being paranoid after some of their past experiences, but he'd accepted her assurance that there was more to this than simple paranoia.
She just wished that she could define what she was dealing with here. She hadn't even had an actual vision about anything, but there was still that sense in her mind that she associated with an incomplete vision, like how she'd known when saving Brendan from that initial warlock attack wasn't the end of the threat that inspired that particular vision. She just needed something more to work with so she knew what was bothering her…
"Hello?"
Looking around, Phoebe was briefly surprised to find herself on the astral plane, but that surprise had to be pushed aside when she properly registered that voice.
"Hello?" she called out in response, taking a few cautious steps forward, only for something to practically collide with her.
"Oh thank God!" the new figure said. Looking down, Phoebe was surprised to find that the speaker was a young woman, apparently of Latina heritage, wearing a stylish outfit that looked more suited for clubbing than any kind of vision or spectral appearance. "I thought I was… I don't know what I thought I was-"
"OK, OK, calm down; we're all… let's just work this out, OK?" Phoebe said, stepping back to try and look reassuringly at the other girl. "My name's… I'm Phoebe Halliwell; who are you?"
"Maggie Vera; I'm one of the Charmed Ones-"
"I'm sorry; what?" Phoebe looked at the other woman in confusion.
"Charmed Ones?" the younger woman repeated. "The Power of Three?"
"Descendants of Melinda Warren?"
"Descendants of who?"
"OK, you're going to claim that you're a Charmed One and you don't know about Melinda?" Phoebe looked at the girl with a new sense of scepticism. "Look, I don't know what you think you're pulling here, but Piper and I have been doing this for the last few years-"
"Piper?"
"My sister," Phoebe clarified (she wasn't going to mention Paige yet until she knew what this woman actually knew about anything). "I mean, she's the more powerful Charmed One-"
"You have a sister… and you're still an active Charmed One?" Maggie asked. "I- we were told that every previous set of Charmed Ones ended after they lost a sister-"
"Every previous set?" Phoebe cut in. "Pretty sure the prophecy said there's only going to be one set of Charmed Ones, and… OK, we almost stopped after our sister died, but-"
"Your sister died?" Maggie looked at her, and Phoebe noticed that at least the other girl seemed just as confused as she was. "But… this is a different sister to the one you mentioned, right?"
"That… that's not the point of this right now!" Phoebe said, instinctively torn between appreciating the sympathy and reminding herself that she didn't know this woman. "I'm trying to work out why you- seriously, how can you be part of the Charmed Ones?"
"Maybe because you both are?"
Turning to face the new speaker, Phoebe wondered if it was a good sign or a bad sign that even her new acquaintance was surprised at this turn of events. The new arrival was a taller woman with dark hair and pale skin, dressed in a smart business suit that Phoebe guessed cost more than many of her own clothes, looking at them both with a cautious smile.
"Uh… who are you?" Maggie asked.
"Lena Luthor," the woman said, her smile becoming broader as she looked between them. "And since you don't know me, that reinforces my current theory."
"Which is…?" Phoebe asked.
"That you're both from parallel universes."
"Parallel universes?" Phoebe and Maggie said simultaneously.
"That's a thing?" Maggie asked.
"I mean, I once got sent to this… parallel world because of some warped plan by a rogue Elder, but that was-" Phoebe began.
"Rogue Elder?" Maggie looked at Phoebe with a slight grin. "I take it you don't like them either?"
"They wouldn't let my sister get married and their leader tried to kill my nephew because of what the kid might become in the future; does it sound like I'm a big fan?"
"As fascinating as it is to discuss our past experiences, we should probably focus on the current situation?" Lena put in, her tone low but with a kind of authority that was hard to ignore. Phoebe made a mental note to ask this woman what she did to get that kind of command presence, but right now she just appreciated having someone who seemed to know what they were talking about.
"Uh… OK," she said, looking curiously between Lena and Maggie. "So… Maggie, you were here first, right?"
"Yeah…" Maggie nodded cautiously. "I was… my sisters and I were…"
"Were what?" another voice said, this one unmistakably male.
Turning to look at the source of the voice, Phoebe fought down the urge to smile at the sight of the handsome man in black who had just appeared; things were strange enough that she couldn't waste time being attracted to a complete stranger.
"And you are?" Lena asked.
"Angel," the man nodded at her.
"Angel?" Maggie said with a smile. "Interesting name; is it accurate?"
"If you mean am I actually an angel, then no," the man replied. "It was… it's a long story."
"Then the shortened version?" Phoebe asked, arms folded as she looked cautiously at him.
Angel looked thoughtfully around the three women for a moment, before he nodded and his face changed, assuming a more protruding forehead and sharp fangs. Maggie screamed in shock and jumped back, and even Lena looked surprised, while Phoebe stared at the man in surprise.
He didn't look like the ones she and Piper had fought to save Paige from a few years ago, but that was definitely the face of some kind of vampire…
"Y'all want to calm down over there?"
"What?" Phoebe turned around, wondering how many more people were going to show up as an overweight black woman walked over to join them. "Wha- who are you?"
"Missouri Mosley," the woman nodded at the group with a smile. "I'm a psychic."
"…Seriously?" Phoebe looked at the woman sceptically. "That's a legitimate thing? I mean, I pretended to be one once or twice for a job or to get into a crime scene, but an actual-?"
"Yeah, I'm real," Missouri nodded at Phoebe with a firm expression. "You gonna criticise and talk about how you think that's all a con where you're from, or you gonna accept that we're all here for a reason and go with it?"
"Even the vampire?" Maggie protested.
"I'm not going to take offence at that," Angel observed with a pointed stare.
"Think he's strong enough that he coulda taken you down if he was actually thirsty," Missouri observed before she turned to Angel, who had returned to his human face. "Lot of guilt brewing in there, Mr; something we should know about?"
"A long story involving a curse and my ability to feel guilt being restored as a punishment," Angel explained, his tone solemn. "I… it took a while, but I ended up finding a way to use what I'd become to help defend people against monsters like what I'd been."
"Oh," Phoebe said, suddenly flashing back to her own periods of being evil and how she'd felt afterwards. She'd never done anything she had to seriously regret after that influence was broken, like actively killing innocents, but what she'd almost done to her sisters was still a sore point for her. If Angel had been even an average vampire for a century, and she had to assume he'd been worse if someone felt it worth cursing him in the first place…
"How did you know?" Angel looked curiously at Missouri. "About the… guilt, I mean?"
"Part of my particular talent," Missouri replied with a shrug. "Sensin' thoughts and feelings, some details about peoples' histories; comes with the package in my line of work."
"So… you're from another universe?" Lena asked.
"Seein' as I don't know you, vamps aren't like him back in my world, and those two are way too pure to be my kind of witches, I'd say yes," Missouri nodded.
"We're 'pure'?" Maggie asked. "What does that mean?"
"Witches back in my world mostly got their powers through some kind of demon deal," Missouri explained. "You two… don't know what I could compare to you both to if you were in my reality, but it's not demons."
"Good to know," Phoebe said, Maggie nodding in agreement.
"Although that's not to say you don't have a few secrets," Missouri said as she turned to Maggie. "Got somethin' you want to share with us, girl?"
"Me?" Maggie looked at the older woman uncertainly. "Why me?"
"You were here first and I'm getting a lot of panic from you," Missouri said. "You're hiding it well, but you've really got a lot going on behind there, and it's mostly terror."
"Why would- I don't- I mean…" Maggie began, before she trailed off and looked around at the others with a growing sense of anxiety. "Oh God… I remember…"
"Remember what?" Angel asked.
"I… I think I died."
"You what?" Phoebe said, past confusion replaced by sympathy for this other witch.
"We were… just dealing with a new wave of demons, and then…" Maggie shook her head, as though the memory of what she was talking about was growing in her mind. "Harry showed up to tell us that… the universe was dying… everything had ended… there was nothing we could do…"
"Oh God," Phoebe said, reaching over to give Maggie an impulsive hug. "That must have been… I am so sorry…"
"I'm dead…" Maggie said, staring ahead of herself in horror. "I just… I was really starting to get a hang on everything, and now everything is gone… I'm dead and my whole world is dead…"
"Yeah," Angel nodded at the two witches. "That… that's almost as bad as the dusting…"
"That happened to you too?" Phoebe looked at the vampire in surprise, suddenly glad to have something else to think about even as she kept Maggie in a comforting hug. "I mean, I was actually one of the ones who… well, I was dusted until it was undone, so I didn't really feel anything at the time, but-"
"Yeah, that was one weird-ass few days," Missouri put in. "Nobody in the community knew wat we were dealin' with, and I had everyone calling for some kind of insight I couldn't give…"
"Actually, I know what caused that."
"What?" the other four looked at Lena in surprise.
"I didn't deal with it myself, but I know some of the people who did," Lena explained, an affectionate smile on her face. "From what I heard, the source of the problem was from another universe, in the form of this… alien warlord-"
"Alien?" Phoebe yelled, grateful to register that the others were just as shocked at that revelation as she was.
"Different worlds, different rules," Lena smiled before she continued. "Anyway, from what my friends told me, this alien, Thanos, had become obsessed with the idea that the only way to prevent worlds dying from over-population was to eliminate half of all life in the universe to increase resources."
"Seriously?" Maggie looked at Lena with a pointed stare; Phoebe decided to hope that the girl was just enjoying having a chance to think about something else. "How does that make sense? Even if he only killed people rather than animals, they'd eventually just build the numbers back up; shouldn't he have tried to give people more resources if he wanted to help people?"
"I heard that he just wanted to prove his old theory was right more than anything else," Lena affirmed. "Anyway, Thanos's final goal was to acquire these six legendary objects in his universe known as the Infinity Stones, each one of which on its own granted its wielder great power; one channelled great amounts of energy, another could influence minds, a third could manipulate time…"
"So he put them all six together and it let him do the whole job at once?" Missouri observed grimly. "And I thought some demons were bad enough; at least they don't convince themselves they're doing this to help people…"
"And the Stones gave Thanos the power to do that across all of our universes as well as just his own," Angel said grimly. "That's why we all experienced the Dusting, isn't it?"
"Quite," Lena nodded at the vampire. "Friends of mine assisted in the effort to oppose Thanos's actions in his home universe, and Thanos's own forces were defeated, but it has become increasingly clear that even if the dusting was undone, the actual barriers between our worlds have been affected… and there were already rumours that some greater threat might be out there."
"Greater than a guy who killed half the population of the multiverse?" Phoebe asked.
"Oh no…" Maggie whispered, looking at Lena with new fear. "That white wave that destroyed my world… that's what you're talking about, isn't it?"
"Probably," Lena nodded sympathetically at the younger witch. "None of my friends or their allies know exactly what it is, but from what I've heard, there is something out there that's a danger; your story is just the most… vivid evidence of that so far."
"And… if there are alternate worlds out there…" Phoebe paused, taking a moment to run through what she thought she'd understood about this mess one last time, before she turned to look at Maggie. "Then… we're both the Charmed Ones of our worlds… and you're… are you my equivalent in your world?"
"…Depends," Maggie said, looking at her with a cautious smile. "Are you the young sister who got a lot of crap about finding her place and got stuck with the power that gave you all kinds of insight into people you didn't want?"
"Pretty much," Phoebe grinned. "I mean, I have visions of the future-"
"Really?" Maggie grinned. "That's my power too!"
"You don't say?" Phoebe grinned at the younger girl. "I don't suppose you dated a half-demon?"
"His name was Parker."
"Oh, he- you did?" Phoebe's expression shifted to incredulity as she stared at Maggie. "I was just… I mean, I was just kind of throwing ideas out there… what happened?"
"His human mother was trying to find a cure for his demon side, but he ended up having to accept that part of himself and become this 'Demon Overlord' before his sister staged a coup and he stripped himself of his powers to get away from it all," Maggie replied. "You?"
"His name was Cole Turner," Phoebe said, suddenly struck by a sense of nostalgia for what Cole had been before everything went wrong. "I'm… fairly sure his mother was the demon, and he met us because he was trying to kill us, but meeting me made him want to be better… he even became human for a while after we managed to strip his demon side… but then he was possessed by the Source and ended up absorbing so many powers he just drove himself crazy…"
She lowered her head, struck by the fresh memories of her history with Cole that she hadn't allowed herself to examine for years. Maybe it was just being free of the judgement of her sisters that made it so much easier for her to think about that right now, but looking back…
Cole wasn't evil when he came back; he was just crazy… how much of that is because we couldn't accept him?
"It's hard sometimes, isn't it?" Angel looked at Phoebe with an expression of grim understanding. "Realising that the world can't be as black and white as we want it to be?"
"Guess you'd know all about that, huh?" Phoebe observed, giving Angel an awkward smile. "I mean, you're a good vampire; not exactly a common thing in any world, huh?"
"Rare anywhere you look," Missouri put in. "Haven't met many of 'em myself, but they don't exactly avoid killin' people over here either."
"OK, so we're the Charmed Ones who have visions, Missouri's the psychic… where do you two fit into this?" Maggie looked between Angel and Lena.
"I… inherited the gift of visions from an old friend," Angel said awkwardly. "I thought it was a one-time thing, but… well, if I'm here, I guess someone decided I had at least one more vision to receive."
"Huh," Phoebe looked curiously at the vampire for a moment before deciding to accept that and looking over at Lena. "And you?"
"Me?" Lena said, a dark look flashing through her eyes before she sighed. "To cut a long story short… I was once a part of Morgana Pendragon."
"Morgana Pend- as in Morgan le Fay?" Angel looked at Lena in surprise.
"Morgan le Fay?" Missouri repeated, the previously unflappable woman looking genuinely surprised at that news. "We're talkin' about King Arthur here, right?"
"Morgana was his half-sister through an affair between Arthur's father and her mother," Lena explained. "For various reasons, she attempted to hide in my world by creating a false identity, but the spell she used was so good that even I thought I was real. I was eventually separated from Morgana's essence, and while she managed to escape… well, here I am."
"This whole parallel universe thing is very weird," Maggie said."
"Says the girl who's talking to us from beyond the grave?" Missouri pointed out.
"I think our lives stopped making total sense once we realised that normal isn't what everyone thought it was," Phoebe put in, not wanting Maggie forced to think about her apparent death.
"Tell me about it," Maggie said, smiling tentatively at her before she looked around at the other four. "So… if I'm really… dead… how am I here? How did I… why did I…?"
She trailed off as she looked down at her hands, her body trembling as she sank to her knees.
"Maggie?" Phoebe walked over to crouch down beside her… counterpart?
"I… I'm not even a ghost, am I?" Maggie looked tearfully up at Phoebe. "If my whole universe was just wiped out… maybe there's somewhere for me to go, but I'm… I can't even haunt anywhere if there isn't anywhere for me to haunt…"
She leaned over and sobbed into Phoebe's shoulder for a moment, leaving Phoebe to awkwardly stroke the younger girl's back for a few moments, lost in the pain and fear of the younger woman and wishing that she could offer some sense of comfort.
In a morbid way, one of the more subtle benefits of becoming a witch had been proof that the afterlife was real (even if Phoebe obviously didn't want to die herself); hearing this young woman express such fear about her own afterlife would have drawn Phoebe's sympathy even if the girl wasn't basically Phoebe herself.
"Maybe… you're a… the remnant of whatever was left here after the rest of you passed on to your afterlife?" she said at last, leaning back to look cautiously at Maggie, hoping that this was coming across as suitably comforting in the circumstances. "Maybe… with the dimensions coming down… some part of you was able to hang on long enough to… leave us all this message?"
"Why would I do that?" Maggie looked cautiously at the older witch.
"To help us?" Phoebe suggested with a tentative smile. "I mean, we're the Charmed Ones, right? The goal is always to help innocents and save lives, even if they're basically you? Even if you knew you couldn't save your own world… maybe some part of you tried to reach out to help someone else?"
"Oh…" Maggie nodded back at Phoebe, a hopeful smile on her face. "That's… that's kind of nice, actually…"
"Uh… sorry to take you away from this talk, but I can understand something of the theory behind what's happened to you, that doesn't explain why we're here?" Angel put in. "I can just get the whole alternate universe angle- a friend of mine has some theories about other dimensions I've at least tried to follow- and I could understand Maggie somehow managing to talk to your… whatever the term is for what Phoebe is to her… but what about us? How could you even reach Phoebe in the first place, and why are we part of this too?"
"As for how we got here, as I mentioned previously, my associates and I have noticed that… ever since Thanos's actions, the barriers between dimensions have been somewhat more… permeable," Lena said. "It's possible that whatever happened to Maggie's world further weakened the barriers enough for a part of her to reach out beyond them before she died, particularly if her world was collapsing anyway."
"And how you reached us?" Missouri put in, looking at Maggie with a sympathetic smile. "Add in those weakened dimensions Lena here just told us about, and your own magical potential… maybe you were reachin' out to warn the people most like you that you could find?"
"Four psychics and a vampire who has visions?" Angel said.
"A vampire who saves lives," Phoebe corrected him, giving Angel a thoughtful smile. "Maybe you're not conventional, but… you're like us where it counts…"
"And any kind of warning is better than nothing," Lena pointed out. "My allies managed to help undo the Snape when it literally decimated the entire Multiverse; if we know there's something out there attacking universes in stages…"
"Like you said, any chance is better than no chance," Angel affirmed as he looked around the four women. "The question is how we find out what this problem actually is…"
As though responding to some signal, the world around them shook, and suddenly Phoebe found herself standing alongside Angel and Lena-
Phoebe started when she looked down to see that she was standing on a vast pair of hands, her feet positioned directly on either hand while Angel stood on the right hand and Lena on the left. Glancing back, Phoebe had no idea how to react to the knowledge that she was now standing on the hands of a giant Maggie, but soon decided that it was probably more important to see what Maggie was looking at right now. Following the gaze of her giant counterpart, Phoebe saw a giant figure off in the distance, surrounded by a vast wall of white that seemed to be spreading out from behind him. She could only vaguely make out his appearance beyond his silhouette, but he seemed to be wearing some kind of armour, his eyes glowing red in his bald head…
That's him, a voice suddenly echoed in Phoebe's head, so loud that it took her a moment to recognise the voice as Maggie's. That's the one who sent the wave…
For a moment, Phoebe tried to focus back on the figure in front of her, but was sent reeling as her empathy seemed to just graze the figure's mind and she was suddenly struck by a wave of dark power that surpassed anything she'd ever felt before. She felt something grab her shoulders as she fell back in shock, but a glance back assured her that it was 'just' Angel and Lena, even as the sudden horror on their faces made it clear that she had just given them a sense of what she had just 'read'.
"Damn," Missouri's voice suddenly cut into Phoebe's mind. "That's really dark…"
For a moment, Phoebe was aware that she was back in the more familiar void she'd first arrived in, Maggie in front of her and Angel and Lena on either side while Missouri looked on in sympathy, but then Maggie seemed to be simultaneously pulled out of her arms and start to physically fade away from view even as she was forced backwards. Phoebe tried to call out, but it seemed as though she, Lena, Angel and Missouri were also being pulled away… she could just see Maggie was the only one physically vanishing, but the others were already so far away… Phoebe tried to call out to the others, make some appeal to find another way to talk about this…
In four different universes, three women and one man woke up with a new sense of apprehension, each of them aware of a new threat to everything they knew and completely lost as to what they could hope to do to stop it.
In the void that was all that remained of another universe, the last fragments of consciousness from that world faded away, that small aspect of personality comforted in the knowledge that someone else knew about what they had seen before death.
Save the innocent…
AN 2: To confirm the obvious, Angel is from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel reality, and Missouri Mosley is a psychic who assisted Dean and Sam Winchester of Supernatural on a few occasions; consider this the introduction of Earths-1973 and -2520 to the multiverse, as the threat of the Crisis draws ever closer…
