2016
"Coffee!" Pyralis hurried into the kitchen, dumping her bag on a chair and hurrying to the coffee machine. "I'm going to fall right back to sleep any second now if I don't get some caffeine inside me," she told her aunts.
"Well whose fault is that?" Piper didn't look up from her newspaper. Paige didn't say anything, pouring milk on her daughter's cornflakes.
Pyralis looked at them. This wasn't normal. "Is it me or is it kinda quiet in here?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
They ignored her.
"Don't tell me you're still mad at each other," she sighed.
Paige and Piper still steadfastly refused to say anything.
Pyralis put sugar and cream in her coffee and took a sip. She stared at her aunts for a second, then sighed again. "Phillip, Kalinda, tell your moms to lighten up a little?" she said to her cousins as she walked across the kitchen to the basement. She opened the door. "Prue, Phyre, you ready?" she called down the stairs, downing the rest of her drink.
"Coming!" Piper's two daughters came up the stairs, Prue holding Phyre's bag so she could put her jacket on.
"Bye mom," Phyre kissed Piper on the cheek before taking her bag back from an impatient Prue.
"Bye sweetie. Have a nice day!" Piper called as Prue and Pyralis hurriedly said goodbye too and ran out to get their bikes. Then the three of them started cycling down the road in a slightly more leisurely fashion.
"So," Prue grinned at Pyralis, "Where did you get to last night?"
"Oh, nowhere important. I almost died, though."
"What?!" Prue narrowly avoided steering right into her cousin. "What do you mean?"
"Well, when I got home a demon stabbed me in the back."
"What?" Phyre pedaled up alongside them too. "No one told us that!"
"Why would mom keep something like that from us?" Prue wondered.
"I don't know," said Pyralis, "But my guess would be that she doesn't want you to start agreeing with Paige. Now would you two please get back behind me, you're blocking the road, and when we go round the corner we're gonna scrape the walls like this."
"Sorry." Prue let Pyralis go back in front. "What doesn't mom want us to agree with Paige on?"
"Oh, I think you know what."
They turned the corner into an alley, the shortcut they always took on their way to school.
"You've gotta admit though," said Phyre, "Paige is kinda biased."
"But with good reason," Pyralis told her. "Especially with the number of deee-"
The three of them braked as hard as they could. A demon had just appeared in front of them.
He started to zap them with an energy bolt from his fingers.
Prue froze him.
"Speak of the demon," Pyralis said. She raised her eyebrows at Prue. "You wanna do the honors or shall I?"
Prue grinned. "I think it's your turn."
"Very well," Pyralis said with an exaggerated British accent. "Oh wait. Phyre, see if you can get a premonition off of him."
"I doubt it," Phyre said, reluctantly going over to the demon. "Seeing as you're about to set him on fire." She touched him gingerly. "Y'know, I wish I had one of your pow-" She blinked her eyes.
"What," said Prue, "What did you see?"
"A whole bunch of demons, somewhere in the underworld. Plotting to kill us."
"Gee, that's new." Pyralis waved Phyre aside. "Get out of the way then."
"But don't you think this is important?"
"Phyre, there's always some demon or another plotting to kill us, what's different about these ones? We'll tell Paige and Piper when we get home." She grinned as she made the demon float up in the air by about twenty feet. "For now, on with the show." She set fire to the demon then turned him around and let him drop headfirst toward the ground. He burnt up just before he hit it.
"Aw." Pyralis looked disappointed. "I was hoping he'd make a hole."
Prue shook her head as she got back on her bike. "Pyralis, you are just too weird for your own good."
"Thanks," said Pyralis, starting to cycle again. "I try."
They rode down the alley a little faster than normal, then up and down a few more streets to Phyre's school, where they left her with her friends, and on to the high school.
The bike shed was, as usual, practically empty. Prue and Pyralis got off their bicycles in a corner in the back.
"Do you think Phyre will be safe by herself with a demon after us?" Prue asked.
"We just vanquished the demon who was after us, Prue. And anyway, I doubt anyone, or anything for that matter, would be stupid enough to attack in a school full of people. She'll be fine, don't worry." Pyralis picked up her bag and they walked out of the shed and onto the lawn.
"Prue!" A bunch of girls called and waved.
Prue looked at Pyralis. "I'll see you later," she told her, then went to join her friends.
Pyralis shrugged and walked up the stairs to the entrance, heading for her locker. She didn't have any friends to giggle with before school. But that was okay. She didn't want any. She had other, more interesting friends. If you could call them friends, that was. They were fun though, and that was all that mattered.
The corridor where her locker was was still pretty empty when she got there. She keyed in the combination and opened her bag. Now, what did she have today... she took some books out, then reached into the back of the locker and felt for the bag where she kept her potions, disguised as perfume and nail varnish and suchlike. One, two... She squeezed the bag. Three. Good, they were all still there, as was her emergency spell book. She withdrew her hand and closed the locker, then made her way to her first class.
She was the first one to enter the classroom, but it soon filled up. She took her pencil case, notepad and ridiculously big and heavy history book out of her bag and spent the rest of the time until the teacher came in writing a poem. Then she paid attention and worked hard as always. After all, she had a straight-A reputation to uphold.
About thirty minutes into the lesson there was a knock at the door and the school secretary poked her head in.
"Pyralis Halliwell, the principal wants to see you in his office."
Pyralis felt the whole class turn to look at her as she rose from her seat and slowly walked to the door. She wondered why the principal wanted to see her just as much as they did. She hurried out and walked along the deserted halls to his office. She knocked on the door.
"Come in," said the voice of the principal.
Pyralis stepped inside. Mr. Rice was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window.
"You wanted to see me?" Pyralis asked uncertainly.
"Ah yes, Pyralis. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."
Pyralis raised her eyebrows as he started to turn around. Then she caught a glimpse of something glowing in his hand.
She barely had time to shimmer away before the red ball of energy went flying across the room to where she'd been standing.
"That was mean," she said, reappearing behind him.
He threw another energy ball, but this time she held out her hand and threw it right back at him. Unfortunately it left him unharmed.
Reacting quickly she tried to set him on fire, but that didn't work either. She saw another energy ball start to grow in his hand and quickly threw one of her own. Red and blue energy balls collided with great force and caused an explosion that threw them both backwards.
Pyralis shimmered away and landed next to her locker, the breath momentarily knocked out of her. She scrambled up and keyed in the code, grabbed a potion, then slammed the door shut and ran down the hall to the classroom where Prue was having math.
She took a deep breath to calm herself and then knocked and put her head round the door.
"Excuse me Mrs. Samson," she said to Prue's math teacher, "Mr. Rice said to tell Prue to come to his office."
Mrs. Samson, an older lady who was either extremely nice or extremely gullible, simply nodded and motioned for Prue to go.
"What was that all about?!" hissed Prue once they were alone.
"Demon," said Pyralis, "Mr. Rice just tried to kill me. Well, either that or a demon who looked just like him."
Prue looked at her skeptically. "Really?"
"Well, if you count throwing red energy balls at me as trying to kill me, yeah!"
"Why didn't you vanquish him?"
"He was immune to my powers! All of them!"
Prue seemed convinced. "Okay. I guess we'd better get back home."
They hurried down the corridor, turned a corner, and bumped right into Mr. Rice.
"And where do you two think you're going?" He grinned at them.
Pyralis took the potion out of her pocket and threw it at his feet, then turned around and high-tailed it after Prue into the nearest bathroom.
"Bikes not a good idea?" Prue asked.
"I don't think so. Attic," Pyralis decided.
Prue nodded and orbed straight into the attic at the manor, Pyralis shimmering after her.
"What potion was that anyway?" Prue asked.
"I don't know, I just grabbed one. Could've been the memory-scrambling one."
"As long as it wasn't the exploding one. I don't want to get into more trouble than we'll already be in."
"As long as we're alive, who cares?" Pyralis started looking through the Book of Shadows. "Y'know, I bet there's nothing in here about him."
"Then we're screwed."
"Geez, what a positive attitude you have, Prue!"
"Pyralis, I'm serious!" Prue started pacing. "What if he finds us?"
"Then we run, until we figure out a way to vanquish him. Simple."
"And how do we figure out a way to vanquish him without mom and Paige?"
"Fine." Pyralis looked at Prue. "If getting your mom will make you feel better, go ahead and do it, I don't care."
"Fine!" Prue orbed out.
Pyralis heaved a sigh of relief. If she'd known Prue would be so little help she wouldn't have bothered to get her. She turned the pages quickly, and found nothing.
"Damn," she said under her breath. It looked like she was going to have to write a spell herself, even though she hardly knew anything about the demon it was to be used on. She didn't even know if it was Mr. Rice who'd attacked her or just a shape-shifting demon! If it was she dreaded to think what had happened to the real Mr. Rice. He was probably a smoldering pile of ash on the floor of his office.
She took a pencil and a pad of paper and sat down in an armchair, making sure it was up against the wall and facing the door. She wasn't taking any risks she didn't have to. Then she started writing.
A minute or two later Prue orbed back into the attic with her parents.
"Pyralis." Piper rushed over to her. "Prue said you were attacked by a demon?"
"Yup." Pyralis didn't look up. "Our principal, to be exact. And yes, Leo, I'm fine."
"Mr. Rice?" Piper was incredulous.
"Yes, and I'm writing a spell right now. Or trying to," she said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"Okay..." Piper looked at Leo, who shrugged. "Then I guess I'll go downstairs and make a potion or something."
"Sure, whate-"
There was a crash as the door to the attic was thrown across the room, to reveal a grinning Mr. Rice.
"...ver." Pyralis started to stand up, her eyes wide with shock.
"Oh sh-" she said, for the second time in as many days, before she was hit by an energy ball.
* * *
Pyralis groaned as she opened her eyes. She was lying on the couch in the attic, and everyone was staring at her. Great. That meant Leo had just healed her and they were doing the concerned relatives bit.
She sat up slowly and stared back. "Did you get him?" she asked.
"Yeah." Piper smiled at her. "Using your spell, with a little ad-libbing. Paige came back at just the right moment."
"Great. That's lucky."
Piper nodded her head. "Yeah, it was."
"Great!" Pyralis nodded back. "And if it hadn't been for that piece of luck I would be dead, and it would all be your fault," she said icily.
"What?"
"You heard me!" Pyralis had had enough. It was time to do something, whoever's feelings it might hurt. "That's the second time in twenty-four hours I've almost died, Piper, and about the fifth that I've been attacked! You are putting all our lives in danger just because of some misguided feeling of love you still have for Phoebe! She's evil, Piper, you can't change that, especially not after so long! Why can't you understand that?"
Piper gasped. "How can you talk about your mother like that?"
"Don't you remember? It's what you taught me."
Piper was speechless. Her breathing was getting faster, and tears were starting to form in her eyes.
"She's right, mom." Prue suddenly spoke up. "We can't go on like this."
Piper opened her mouth as she turned to stare at her.
"Piper," Leo said gently as he stepped in too, "I think you should listen to them. Phoebe's not coming back, at least not the Phoebe we knew. You have new priorities now, other people to care about and protect. They need you, Piper, they need you to be strong for them."
Piper looked around. Everyone was looking at her, everyone united against her. She looked up at Leo, then over to her eldest daughter.
She took a deep breath.
"Okay," she said finally, holding back her tears.
"You sure?" Leo asked her.
She nodded resolutely. "Let's do it."
Author's note: First, to answer Hjordis' question, yes, that's
exactly what I'm doing (I knew I didn't explain it well enough...) :D
Second, don't worry, nothing is ever easy. You'll see what I mean in
a few chapters. In the meantime, everyone please tell me what you think
(is it going to fast? I'm always scared I'm going too fast)!
