Hey there! Thank you so much for all of your wonderful reviews! I'm going
to go a couple for chapters without a title, to give other people a chance
to get in what they think, but I've already had some pretty good titles
from quite a few reviewers and am very likely to use one of those.
I was totally blown away by all of your reviews, thanks so much they really help a guy when he's feeling down. I got some reviews from my fabulous veteran viewers (go on, all of you bow! Lol.) But there was so much interest from new people! Thank you!
piper+leo4eva: - I know that you won't be back in time to catch the update, but hopefully you can read it when you get back, hopefully with your head full, lol!
Alcandre: - Aw, thanks so much. *Hug* I'm sure to, don't worry!
Kiseki-no-neko: - Hey! Thanks for reviewing, Julia! I'm happy now! Lol, anyhoo... I love all of your possible fic titles (see above. Yup... That's all the way up there... ^)
goldstranger: - It's been a while, huh? Yeah, I'm glad to be writing again, definitely!
X3: - Ya, I know. Thanks for your review.
Claddagh Ring: - Thank you!
Freedra Kyes: - Can't tell you that, it's a plot secret! Lol...
M J Rosemary: - Wow, thank you! Don't worry, I always try to get it all out as soon as I can.
Ak8: - Thank you!
Pixie Wildfire: - Hey! I'm sorry to hear about you being grounded... It sucks to be a teenager, huh? Thanks for your review; it's made me feel so happy! You were in my inbox again! You're right; your second title is cool. I like it but see above... Yes, I'm aware that's all the way up there, but please g anyways lol. Thank you so much for your offer of support, and I was just wondering why your plot for Learning to Tango was ruined? Did you loose the writing bug on your story or something? I hate it when that happens, but I'd really like to see you writing again soon.
princesscatie21: - Yay, thanks! Another reviewer comes back to me! I guess I'm doing something right lol! Thanks so much!
darkdestiney2000: - That's great, thanks!
Anaxandra: - Ok, will do. Thanks a lot!
Wow, if you guys keep this up then it's gonna take me a page every time I want to reply to you all! Thank you!
Disclaimer: - Ok. Here it comes. I. don't. Own. Charmed. You. Don't. Sue. Me. Ok? Got it? Good.
**********
Chris sat cross-legged on the couch in the sun room, the Book of Shadows resting on his lap. The sun streamed in through the glass-panelled walls and fell onto the yellowing parchment pages. He turned another page, smiling slightly as he heard the familiar crackle, and sighed with contentment. He wasn't really looking for anything in particular, just the rhythmic motion of page flipping and reading was something that had always helped him calm down and think his best.
Across the room Wyatt was sitting in his playpen hitting a small, brightly coloured xylophone and making his 'music'. Chris tuned out the high, clinking notes and turned another page. A demon. With a thick black cross made with a permanent marker through him. Ok, someone had got slightly overenthusiastic there...
He suddenly wondered who had added the spell that he had used to take him back in time. He had never seen it in this past book... He turned over a few more pages to where he knew the spell was, and found a blank page. So the spell didn't exist yet. So someone in the future had created it. Meaning that even though he took the spell from the future Wyatt might still have a way to find it out. From someone. There was no way he could find it out from his Mom and aunts, they were all dead, but knowing Wyatt he would have found someone.
His heart felt cold at the idea of Wyatt here in the Manor. In the past where he didn't belong. In all truth he himself didn't belong here either, but the damage that Wyatt could do would be immense. And all of it would benefit his brother in the future somehow...
But no. it had been months since he had been taken to the future by Bianca. Wyatt would have found the spell by now, that is if he was going to at all... Chris reached for his glass of juice that he had left on the end table, and brought it to his lips before discovering that it was empty. He heaved the book off of his lap and put it in the empty seat beside him and went to the kitchen to refill his glass.
He got to the foyer and heard a muffled thump from upstairs and stopped in his tracks. Who was up there? Paige was at a temp job and Phoebe was out as well. As far as he knew Piper was still lying down after complaining of back pain. So who was upstairs? Unless it was Piper and she had fallen over whilst going to the toilet or something. He had been told that she had blacked out a couple of times whilst pregnant with Wyatt...
Chris orbed into Piper's room and found her lying on her bed, her eyes closed and some soft music coming from her stereo. She exhaled extra deeply and opened an eye, spotting Chris standing by the door.
"Hey, what's up?" She opened both eyes and looked at him.
"You didn't happen to roll off of the bed, did you?"
"No..." Piper left the 'o' shape on her lips. "Why?"
"I heard a thump from up here, are you ok?"
"Yes... I assumed that was you in the attic, though."
"I was in the sunroom..." Piper swung her legs off of the bed and, moving surprisingly fast for someone so heavily pregnant, grabbed her son's arm and together they orbed into the attic.
The attic was eerily quiet, with no movement and only some floating dust particles illuminated in a shaft of sunlight could be seen. Both of them looked around the silent room, waiting for something to happen. Chris' eyes flicked from side to side, taking in the whole room. He turned around to look behind him, but there was nothing there.
Piper gave a shriek as a demon jumped onto her back. It had appeared from empty air already leaping and it pulled her over. She landed heavily on the floor. Chris flicked a wrist and sent the demon flying into a wall. He helped Piper up, who turned and, with a flick of her own wrists, blew the demon to pieces. Again the attic fell silent.
"Kind of anticlimactic for a demon attack, don't you think?" Piper said quietly, slowly revolving on the spot, her hands raised and her ears straining to catch any sound. Three more demons appeared in the attic, just out of the air again.
"Yup!" Chris yelled, diverting an energy ball into a cabinet. The cabinet exploded, sending shards of glass flying and smouldering, splintered wood crashing to the ground.
"Oh, so you couldn't have missed the cabinet?!" Piper yelled, raising her hands. She flicked them at the nearest demon and, as the power hit it in the chest it exploded into thousands of tiny pink hearts that fell in a cascade in front of the demon. It swiped them from the air in disgust as the bright pink lights faded.
"Oh for Christ's sake! Damn pacifist babies!" Piper yelled, throwing her hands in the air.
"Huh? Piper, what's going on?"
"You're going on, that's what!"
"Uh..."
"I'm carrying a half-whitelighter, so therefore the baby is half pacifist and doesn't like Mommy blowing things up. It happened with Wyatt as well..."
"I can tap into your powers? Like Wyatt? Really?" Chris seemed oddly happy about that, and Piper rolled her eyes.
"Obviously!" She flicked her hands but instead of trying to blow anything up she froze the room, knowing that not even the biggest pacifist could disagree with that move. "Ok, let's orb!" The two of them disappeared in a shower of bright blue lights and reappeared in the sunroom. Piper took Wyatt out of his playpen, balanced him on her hip and went back to Chris.
"Ok, now we go get Phoebe and Paige."
"We could fight them off by ourselves..."
"What, blind them with cute pink hearts? Nuh-uh. It's time to go see my sisters."
**********
"Phoebe, your sister is here with your nephew to see you." Phoebe looked up at the woman that had come in and took off her glasses. She hit 'save' on her laptop and frowned at her dark-haired secretary.
"Chris isn't my nephew, he's too old..." She gave a nervous laugh. "Don't be silly..."
"Huh? You have another nephew?" Phoebe suddenly caught on.
"No. No, I don't... Wyatt's here?" She grinned. "Oh, that's what I meant... You should see him now; he does the cutest little..." She trailed off as it became clear that Rita was not interested in how cute Wyatt could be. "They can see me if they want," She said quietly. The woman left and Piper, Chris and Wyatt entered the office. "Hi, guys!" Phoebe said happily, spinning her chair around away from the desk and getting out. She saw their faces, and her own expression fell. "I'll just go put on some mildly sensible shoes."
**********
Paige arrived in the foyer in a flurry of orbs just as her two nephews and sisters appeared. She waited for them to materialise before speaking.
"Guys, what is it?"
"Demon trouble." Piper said.
"Do you think I'd order you home for anything else?" Phoebe asked, making for the stairs.
"No, but 'Paige, get home, now' is kinda mysterious, ya know? I thought Piper had gone into labour or something."
"Nope, Chris is still firmly inside me. As we can tell by the pretty little display of pink hearts earlier." Piper glared at Chris.
"Hey, it's not *my* fault!" He paused. "Well not big me anyway..." Piper narrowed her eyes and followed her sisters upstairs.
"Pink hearts?"
"Don't ask!" The eldest witch snapped, handing Wyatt to his brother and now leading the way to the attic. She cautiously opened the door a crack and peered through. The attic was empty again, but once again it was that strange kind of empty, the kind of empty that was there just before something happened. To quote a much-used cliché: The calm before the storm.
Piper opened the door and her sisters followed her in. Phoebe went to say something but Piper made motions to shush her, listening for something. There was a small sound behind her and she whirled around, throwing out her hands and freezing a marble in midair that had rolled off of a stack of boxes. She relaxed slightly, feeling stupid, but then heard her sisters shout. She turned and saw Phoebe in floating in the air, avoiding an energy ball.
"Energy ball!" Paige yelled, calling it to her and throwing it back at the demon before it could hit the door and dissipate. Her aim was off and it missed, smashing into the couch and blowing a cloud of white stuffing into the air, toppling it over.
"What is it with this family and destroying furniture?!" Piper yelled, flicking her hands. Three butterflies flapped their way over to the demon, and Piper groaned. The demon swiped at the air, but the fluttering insects stuck themselves over the demon's eyes, blinding him. The demon clawed at his face, but the bugs didn't come loose.
"See, there are some good pacifist powers." Phoebe said, channelling a demon's power and reversing its own energy ball, vanquishing it in a ball of flame.
"Glass!" Paige yelled, and a large shard from Chris smashing the cabinet earlier appeared and went through the blinded demon, not stopping until it embedded itself, quivering, in the boarded wall after coming out of the demon's back. The demon looked at the hole through its body, completely shocked, and turned into a pile of grey charred cinders on the floor.
More demons appeared but, as Piper raised her hands, disappeared just as quickly. The sister's looked around suspiciously but the attic was empty, and this time actually felt it.
**********
"Come on, come on!" Chris murmured in frustration, flicking quickly through the book. There was something familiar about those particular demons; he just couldn't put his finger on it... He carried on flipping through, past spells and potions; past vanquished demons and warlocks and came to the back cover. "Oh what? That's it?!" He slammed the book closed and jumped up from the couch, pushing both of his hands through his hair. "Damnit!" He made a aggravated motion with his arm and a vase of flowers was swept off of the sideboard and shattered on the opposite wall.
'Ok, breathe Chris, breathe... Don't loose control now...' He thought. He inhaled and exhaled again, closing his eyes. When he opened his eyes again he felt slightly calmer. He was looking into the mirror on the sideboard, not seeing his reflection because he was in the wrong position but seeing the rest of the room. He looked away from it and was about to turn back to the book when a movement caught his eye.
He looked again in the reflective surface and saw nothing. He didn't turn, but stared at the mirror, flicking his wrist at it. The power hit and bounced off - something he'd discovered that he was able to do in his mid- teens – and a strangled cry sounded out followed by a huge crash as a demon went straight through one of the sunroom's windows.
"Whoops..." He stepped up to the shattered pane and looked through at the demon lying on its back in the garden.
"I'll kill you for that!" The demon growled, forming an energy ball in his palm.
"Come on, try it!" Chris taunted, moving his hands so that they were in a better defensive posture.
"Wait, just wait! You'll fall, you're all so arrogant, all of you witches, and you're so..." Chris stopped listening and turned, realising that that demon was probably just a distraction. Three more were behind him; all standing with their arms folded and smirks on their faces. Chris spotted a green armband on a demon and his eyes widened.
"Wyatt..." He whispered, his heart going cold. Wyatt's tracker demons went out in squadrons, and the leaders of every gang of them wore green bands. Their job was to go to a target and bring it back. They had powers, in case of resistance, but they had nowhere near the level of powers that some of Wyatt's other demons had. They could just step in and out of different planes, which would explain the way that they disappeared and reappeared. He should have known what they were from the start, but after he'd taken the spell he's just assumed that Wyatt couldn't send anyone else to follow him, so...
The other sections of his Underworld army wore different colours to indicate a different trait. Strong, attack-type demons wore red bands, whilst a blue band meant upper-level respect and intelligence. An orange band indicated a fire-orientated demon, and a grey band meant a guard demon.
Demons for espionage wore a black or a white band to avoid standing out and to be less conspicuous, and a purple band meant an evil creature other than a demon; a banshee, a vampire, warlocks... All in all there were about twenty different colours and sections, and Chris thought that a certain symbol on a band meant something, because there were several different emblems, but he had never found out what they meant.
"Piper!" He shouted, dropping to the floor and rolling, avoiding an energy ball and crouching behind a wicker chair. He breathed heavily, waiting for a demon to come round the sides of the chair and... He flung out his arm, blasting it backwards into a table. Another one met a similar fate, ruining another window as it flew.
He raised his arm again. But a demon grabbed both of them, pinning them in front of him. He struggled and then squinted, throwing the demon over Wyatt's playpen and into a crumpled heap with his power. He turned and was seized around the throat, the demon lifting him high into the air. He grabbed the wrist that was squeezing him, attempting to pull it off but to no avail. His legs kicked uselessly at air, and his body was screaming for air.
"W-w-Wyatt... D-danger..." He croaked, watching his brother's force field spring up. He didn't really think that the demons would be dumb enough to kill the kid that became their boss in the future, but you never knew...
"Armchair!" Paige yelled, her and her sisters finally arriving on the scene. The chair hit the demon that was choking Chris, knocking it off of its feet and sending it sprawling. Unfortunately it didn't let go of the half-whitelighter and dragged him down with it. Piper flicked her hands and this time her baby didn't protest and she blew one demon to pieces, an armband flying limply and bloodstained to hit the wall before falling to the floor from the centre of the explosion.
Chris groaned and rolled over, getting shakily to his hands and knees and taking in deep gulps of air. Paige put down a hand to help him up, but the demon then grabbed the half-witch's ankle and when the demons left in the room dematerialized, Chris disappeared with them.s
I was totally blown away by all of your reviews, thanks so much they really help a guy when he's feeling down. I got some reviews from my fabulous veteran viewers (go on, all of you bow! Lol.) But there was so much interest from new people! Thank you!
piper+leo4eva: - I know that you won't be back in time to catch the update, but hopefully you can read it when you get back, hopefully with your head full, lol!
Alcandre: - Aw, thanks so much. *Hug* I'm sure to, don't worry!
Kiseki-no-neko: - Hey! Thanks for reviewing, Julia! I'm happy now! Lol, anyhoo... I love all of your possible fic titles (see above. Yup... That's all the way up there... ^)
goldstranger: - It's been a while, huh? Yeah, I'm glad to be writing again, definitely!
X3: - Ya, I know. Thanks for your review.
Claddagh Ring: - Thank you!
Freedra Kyes: - Can't tell you that, it's a plot secret! Lol...
M J Rosemary: - Wow, thank you! Don't worry, I always try to get it all out as soon as I can.
Ak8: - Thank you!
Pixie Wildfire: - Hey! I'm sorry to hear about you being grounded... It sucks to be a teenager, huh? Thanks for your review; it's made me feel so happy! You were in my inbox again! You're right; your second title is cool. I like it but see above... Yes, I'm aware that's all the way up there, but please g anyways lol. Thank you so much for your offer of support, and I was just wondering why your plot for Learning to Tango was ruined? Did you loose the writing bug on your story or something? I hate it when that happens, but I'd really like to see you writing again soon.
princesscatie21: - Yay, thanks! Another reviewer comes back to me! I guess I'm doing something right lol! Thanks so much!
darkdestiney2000: - That's great, thanks!
Anaxandra: - Ok, will do. Thanks a lot!
Wow, if you guys keep this up then it's gonna take me a page every time I want to reply to you all! Thank you!
Disclaimer: - Ok. Here it comes. I. don't. Own. Charmed. You. Don't. Sue. Me. Ok? Got it? Good.
**********
Chris sat cross-legged on the couch in the sun room, the Book of Shadows resting on his lap. The sun streamed in through the glass-panelled walls and fell onto the yellowing parchment pages. He turned another page, smiling slightly as he heard the familiar crackle, and sighed with contentment. He wasn't really looking for anything in particular, just the rhythmic motion of page flipping and reading was something that had always helped him calm down and think his best.
Across the room Wyatt was sitting in his playpen hitting a small, brightly coloured xylophone and making his 'music'. Chris tuned out the high, clinking notes and turned another page. A demon. With a thick black cross made with a permanent marker through him. Ok, someone had got slightly overenthusiastic there...
He suddenly wondered who had added the spell that he had used to take him back in time. He had never seen it in this past book... He turned over a few more pages to where he knew the spell was, and found a blank page. So the spell didn't exist yet. So someone in the future had created it. Meaning that even though he took the spell from the future Wyatt might still have a way to find it out. From someone. There was no way he could find it out from his Mom and aunts, they were all dead, but knowing Wyatt he would have found someone.
His heart felt cold at the idea of Wyatt here in the Manor. In the past where he didn't belong. In all truth he himself didn't belong here either, but the damage that Wyatt could do would be immense. And all of it would benefit his brother in the future somehow...
But no. it had been months since he had been taken to the future by Bianca. Wyatt would have found the spell by now, that is if he was going to at all... Chris reached for his glass of juice that he had left on the end table, and brought it to his lips before discovering that it was empty. He heaved the book off of his lap and put it in the empty seat beside him and went to the kitchen to refill his glass.
He got to the foyer and heard a muffled thump from upstairs and stopped in his tracks. Who was up there? Paige was at a temp job and Phoebe was out as well. As far as he knew Piper was still lying down after complaining of back pain. So who was upstairs? Unless it was Piper and she had fallen over whilst going to the toilet or something. He had been told that she had blacked out a couple of times whilst pregnant with Wyatt...
Chris orbed into Piper's room and found her lying on her bed, her eyes closed and some soft music coming from her stereo. She exhaled extra deeply and opened an eye, spotting Chris standing by the door.
"Hey, what's up?" She opened both eyes and looked at him.
"You didn't happen to roll off of the bed, did you?"
"No..." Piper left the 'o' shape on her lips. "Why?"
"I heard a thump from up here, are you ok?"
"Yes... I assumed that was you in the attic, though."
"I was in the sunroom..." Piper swung her legs off of the bed and, moving surprisingly fast for someone so heavily pregnant, grabbed her son's arm and together they orbed into the attic.
The attic was eerily quiet, with no movement and only some floating dust particles illuminated in a shaft of sunlight could be seen. Both of them looked around the silent room, waiting for something to happen. Chris' eyes flicked from side to side, taking in the whole room. He turned around to look behind him, but there was nothing there.
Piper gave a shriek as a demon jumped onto her back. It had appeared from empty air already leaping and it pulled her over. She landed heavily on the floor. Chris flicked a wrist and sent the demon flying into a wall. He helped Piper up, who turned and, with a flick of her own wrists, blew the demon to pieces. Again the attic fell silent.
"Kind of anticlimactic for a demon attack, don't you think?" Piper said quietly, slowly revolving on the spot, her hands raised and her ears straining to catch any sound. Three more demons appeared in the attic, just out of the air again.
"Yup!" Chris yelled, diverting an energy ball into a cabinet. The cabinet exploded, sending shards of glass flying and smouldering, splintered wood crashing to the ground.
"Oh, so you couldn't have missed the cabinet?!" Piper yelled, raising her hands. She flicked them at the nearest demon and, as the power hit it in the chest it exploded into thousands of tiny pink hearts that fell in a cascade in front of the demon. It swiped them from the air in disgust as the bright pink lights faded.
"Oh for Christ's sake! Damn pacifist babies!" Piper yelled, throwing her hands in the air.
"Huh? Piper, what's going on?"
"You're going on, that's what!"
"Uh..."
"I'm carrying a half-whitelighter, so therefore the baby is half pacifist and doesn't like Mommy blowing things up. It happened with Wyatt as well..."
"I can tap into your powers? Like Wyatt? Really?" Chris seemed oddly happy about that, and Piper rolled her eyes.
"Obviously!" She flicked her hands but instead of trying to blow anything up she froze the room, knowing that not even the biggest pacifist could disagree with that move. "Ok, let's orb!" The two of them disappeared in a shower of bright blue lights and reappeared in the sunroom. Piper took Wyatt out of his playpen, balanced him on her hip and went back to Chris.
"Ok, now we go get Phoebe and Paige."
"We could fight them off by ourselves..."
"What, blind them with cute pink hearts? Nuh-uh. It's time to go see my sisters."
**********
"Phoebe, your sister is here with your nephew to see you." Phoebe looked up at the woman that had come in and took off her glasses. She hit 'save' on her laptop and frowned at her dark-haired secretary.
"Chris isn't my nephew, he's too old..." She gave a nervous laugh. "Don't be silly..."
"Huh? You have another nephew?" Phoebe suddenly caught on.
"No. No, I don't... Wyatt's here?" She grinned. "Oh, that's what I meant... You should see him now; he does the cutest little..." She trailed off as it became clear that Rita was not interested in how cute Wyatt could be. "They can see me if they want," She said quietly. The woman left and Piper, Chris and Wyatt entered the office. "Hi, guys!" Phoebe said happily, spinning her chair around away from the desk and getting out. She saw their faces, and her own expression fell. "I'll just go put on some mildly sensible shoes."
**********
Paige arrived in the foyer in a flurry of orbs just as her two nephews and sisters appeared. She waited for them to materialise before speaking.
"Guys, what is it?"
"Demon trouble." Piper said.
"Do you think I'd order you home for anything else?" Phoebe asked, making for the stairs.
"No, but 'Paige, get home, now' is kinda mysterious, ya know? I thought Piper had gone into labour or something."
"Nope, Chris is still firmly inside me. As we can tell by the pretty little display of pink hearts earlier." Piper glared at Chris.
"Hey, it's not *my* fault!" He paused. "Well not big me anyway..." Piper narrowed her eyes and followed her sisters upstairs.
"Pink hearts?"
"Don't ask!" The eldest witch snapped, handing Wyatt to his brother and now leading the way to the attic. She cautiously opened the door a crack and peered through. The attic was empty again, but once again it was that strange kind of empty, the kind of empty that was there just before something happened. To quote a much-used cliché: The calm before the storm.
Piper opened the door and her sisters followed her in. Phoebe went to say something but Piper made motions to shush her, listening for something. There was a small sound behind her and she whirled around, throwing out her hands and freezing a marble in midair that had rolled off of a stack of boxes. She relaxed slightly, feeling stupid, but then heard her sisters shout. She turned and saw Phoebe in floating in the air, avoiding an energy ball.
"Energy ball!" Paige yelled, calling it to her and throwing it back at the demon before it could hit the door and dissipate. Her aim was off and it missed, smashing into the couch and blowing a cloud of white stuffing into the air, toppling it over.
"What is it with this family and destroying furniture?!" Piper yelled, flicking her hands. Three butterflies flapped their way over to the demon, and Piper groaned. The demon swiped at the air, but the fluttering insects stuck themselves over the demon's eyes, blinding him. The demon clawed at his face, but the bugs didn't come loose.
"See, there are some good pacifist powers." Phoebe said, channelling a demon's power and reversing its own energy ball, vanquishing it in a ball of flame.
"Glass!" Paige yelled, and a large shard from Chris smashing the cabinet earlier appeared and went through the blinded demon, not stopping until it embedded itself, quivering, in the boarded wall after coming out of the demon's back. The demon looked at the hole through its body, completely shocked, and turned into a pile of grey charred cinders on the floor.
More demons appeared but, as Piper raised her hands, disappeared just as quickly. The sister's looked around suspiciously but the attic was empty, and this time actually felt it.
**********
"Come on, come on!" Chris murmured in frustration, flicking quickly through the book. There was something familiar about those particular demons; he just couldn't put his finger on it... He carried on flipping through, past spells and potions; past vanquished demons and warlocks and came to the back cover. "Oh what? That's it?!" He slammed the book closed and jumped up from the couch, pushing both of his hands through his hair. "Damnit!" He made a aggravated motion with his arm and a vase of flowers was swept off of the sideboard and shattered on the opposite wall.
'Ok, breathe Chris, breathe... Don't loose control now...' He thought. He inhaled and exhaled again, closing his eyes. When he opened his eyes again he felt slightly calmer. He was looking into the mirror on the sideboard, not seeing his reflection because he was in the wrong position but seeing the rest of the room. He looked away from it and was about to turn back to the book when a movement caught his eye.
He looked again in the reflective surface and saw nothing. He didn't turn, but stared at the mirror, flicking his wrist at it. The power hit and bounced off - something he'd discovered that he was able to do in his mid- teens – and a strangled cry sounded out followed by a huge crash as a demon went straight through one of the sunroom's windows.
"Whoops..." He stepped up to the shattered pane and looked through at the demon lying on its back in the garden.
"I'll kill you for that!" The demon growled, forming an energy ball in his palm.
"Come on, try it!" Chris taunted, moving his hands so that they were in a better defensive posture.
"Wait, just wait! You'll fall, you're all so arrogant, all of you witches, and you're so..." Chris stopped listening and turned, realising that that demon was probably just a distraction. Three more were behind him; all standing with their arms folded and smirks on their faces. Chris spotted a green armband on a demon and his eyes widened.
"Wyatt..." He whispered, his heart going cold. Wyatt's tracker demons went out in squadrons, and the leaders of every gang of them wore green bands. Their job was to go to a target and bring it back. They had powers, in case of resistance, but they had nowhere near the level of powers that some of Wyatt's other demons had. They could just step in and out of different planes, which would explain the way that they disappeared and reappeared. He should have known what they were from the start, but after he'd taken the spell he's just assumed that Wyatt couldn't send anyone else to follow him, so...
The other sections of his Underworld army wore different colours to indicate a different trait. Strong, attack-type demons wore red bands, whilst a blue band meant upper-level respect and intelligence. An orange band indicated a fire-orientated demon, and a grey band meant a guard demon.
Demons for espionage wore a black or a white band to avoid standing out and to be less conspicuous, and a purple band meant an evil creature other than a demon; a banshee, a vampire, warlocks... All in all there were about twenty different colours and sections, and Chris thought that a certain symbol on a band meant something, because there were several different emblems, but he had never found out what they meant.
"Piper!" He shouted, dropping to the floor and rolling, avoiding an energy ball and crouching behind a wicker chair. He breathed heavily, waiting for a demon to come round the sides of the chair and... He flung out his arm, blasting it backwards into a table. Another one met a similar fate, ruining another window as it flew.
He raised his arm again. But a demon grabbed both of them, pinning them in front of him. He struggled and then squinted, throwing the demon over Wyatt's playpen and into a crumpled heap with his power. He turned and was seized around the throat, the demon lifting him high into the air. He grabbed the wrist that was squeezing him, attempting to pull it off but to no avail. His legs kicked uselessly at air, and his body was screaming for air.
"W-w-Wyatt... D-danger..." He croaked, watching his brother's force field spring up. He didn't really think that the demons would be dumb enough to kill the kid that became their boss in the future, but you never knew...
"Armchair!" Paige yelled, her and her sisters finally arriving on the scene. The chair hit the demon that was choking Chris, knocking it off of its feet and sending it sprawling. Unfortunately it didn't let go of the half-whitelighter and dragged him down with it. Piper flicked her hands and this time her baby didn't protest and she blew one demon to pieces, an armband flying limply and bloodstained to hit the wall before falling to the floor from the centre of the explosion.
Chris groaned and rolled over, getting shakily to his hands and knees and taking in deep gulps of air. Paige put down a hand to help him up, but the demon then grabbed the half-witch's ankle and when the demons left in the room dematerialized, Chris disappeared with them.s