I'm so tired so therefore you must excuse anything horribly wrong with this, I'm dying of sleepiness here...
Cries of pain punctuated the gloomy air of the cave. Another weakened sob of anguish as two bright runes burned through the darkness, focused on Wyatt. The blonde teen was pale, on his knees in front of the demon as the markings on his foe drained the very magic from him.
"You're killing him!" Piper sobbed, feeling cold metal cut into her wrist as she struggled against the manacles binding her. "Stop it!"
"He's the most powerful one here…" Phoebe said quietly, moving shackled arms towards Piper for a hug of comfort, "He can get through it…"
"Not if we let the demon drain him!" She squinted and unleashed another explosion at Drox, but the power glanced off of his chest. She felt so hopeless, he was killing Wyatt… And all she could do was sit here and blast the demon with useless explosions. She gave a vicious wrench to the chains binding her to the wall, and slowly a rivulet of blood ran down her arm.
"Let us go! We'll kill you!" Piper yelled, tears glistening in her eyes.
Beside Phoebe lay Prue, still unconscious from the blast earlier in the forest. She was bound in much the same way as her mother and aunt. Paige and Megan were to the left of Prue, unbound, but in a crystal cage that was containing their orbing power. Megan, too, was still out, but Paige was up, feeling even more helpless than Piper.
"And how do you plan to do that?" Piper's eyes flicked to the corner, where the few shards of glass and damp earth were all that was left of the potions they'd brought to kill him with.
"There are more of us Halliwells out there," Phoebe said defiantly, her eyes glinting, "It's not just us,"
Piper looked behind Drox at Wyatt, who was beginning to gain some colour. She decided to keep up Phoebe's distraction.
"He'll be looking for us right now, and he'll bring others…" She said, "You'll be vanquished by the time the sun goes down,"
"Oh really… And where would this mysterious protector be?"
"Off somewhere getting ready to kick your butt," Phoebe put in, seeing Wyatt gain more strength with each passing second.
"You're mistaken, you're grasping at straws. There is no other Halliwell; you only want to distract me from him!" Drox turned to punctuate his statement and blasted Wyatt into the wall.
"Don't!" Piper pleaded, but the demon was deaf to her cries, turning back to Wyatt and closing his eyes as he sucked in the teen's power.
"What did you say that for?" Piper hissed at her sister, rounding on Phoebe immediately.
"Say what?"
"About another Halliwell?"
"Because it was distracting him from Wyatt…"
"Yes, but now if he thinks that's true he's gonna go and look for Chris… Chris has never been vanquishing, and he's gonna have a demon after him… Oh…" She put her head in her hands and massaged her eyes. "I don't know what to do…" She said in a surprisingly small voice.
"Chris can probably handle himself if he really had to, besides, he's a Halliwell, and it's what we were all born to do. And then there's his friend, the Olsen kid. Ben, he's a witch too… He'll do just fine, Piper. Just wait and see,"
"Ben, I found them," Chris announced as soon as Ben picked up the phone.
"You did? Where?"
"It's in the forest where they went to fight the demon, I used Aunt Paige's amethyst crystal with the necklace Mom gave me and bing there they were."
"Chris, look, I'll try to get out of this dinner thing, just stay-" He was talking to the dial tone and said a word he probably shouldn't have said when they had company and was immediately banned from the dinner table in disgrace.
"Chris!"
Chris jumped, dropping the wooden spoon. "Whoa, Ben. Hey,"
"What are you doing?" The Halliwell rolled his eyes and stepped away from the pot bubbling on the stove.
"For Drox…"
"Potion?"
He opened the cabinet and grabbed a jar out. "Yeah…"
"Well before you get too involved in that would you mind kind of… collecting my body?"
"Hm?"
"My body," Ben repeated as Chris measured out toadstools, "I can't stay as a projection forever… I'm in my room,"
"Sorry, yeah, ok…" He orbed out and Ben looked sceptically at the bubbling mass in the pot, gingerly putting in Chris's toadstools and waiting for the explosion that never came.
Moments later Chris reappeared, holding his unconscious self by the arm.
"You know I always find this weird…" Chris admitted, looking at the two Bens. "I mean you're there and you're here…"
"Spare a thought for me, who actually has to be there and here…" His head drooped as he projected back into his body.
"You put the toadstools in?"
"Yup, and it didn't even explode… Great, huh?"
"If you say so…" Chris said dryly, looking down the list, "Ok, do we have any… aconite?"
"Probably…" Ben went over to the glass-fronted cabinet that Piper kept her ingredients in, "Your Mom has everything in this kitchen."
It didn't take him long to locate the aconite, as between Piper and Paige they had the cabinets very well organized.
"This is going to take forever."
"How long did it take your Mom?"
"Not as long as it's gonna take me, I've only had the crash course version of potion-making- Argh!" Chris cried out, as adding a dusting of salt caused the potion to blow up in his face.
An hour later Chris had streaks of black smudging his face and Ben had one covering his nose. But, in the vials in front of them stood the fruits of their labours, the potion to kill Drox.
"Ok… I'm gonna call my Dad… Leo!"
Not an orbing noise could be heard, the Manor remained empty. "Dad! Dad, I need you!" Again no one came, and Chris started to get annoyed, "He always does this to me! DAD, DAMNIT, get here NOW!" Still nothing.
"Leo?" Ben asked hopefully, hoping to pacify Chris. "Hey, LEO! MR. WYATT!"
"Dad, come on, Mom's in trouble…" Chris cocked his head to one side, hearing a faint jingle. Ben, with no whitelighter powers, didn't here the sound.
"Is he jingling?"
"Yeah." Chris said through gritted teeth, "Dammit, Dad, Wyatt needs you!" He bit out, putting a stress on his brother's name as a last resort. Almost immediately Leo orbed into the kitchen, his usual robes floating around him.
"Wyatt's in trouble?"
"Yes, so am I and the rest of the family as well, just so you know,"
"Is there a demon?"
"Yes, but-"
"Where? What did it do to Wyatt?"
"Nothing, but-"
"Then what, where's Wyatt then?"
"I don't know, but-"
"Well…"
"DAD, LISTEN TO ME!" Chris yelled, slamming his hands forcefully on the table; startling Leo into silence, "Thank you," He breathed, swallowing before continuing, "Mom, Wyatt and the rest of the family went on a vanquish," Leo opened his mouth to speak but caught a green glare from Chris and closed it again, "A demon called Drox. What do you know about him?"
"Only that he's able to suck the powers out of witches, and then use them to become stronger… If he's hurt your mother…"
"Well he won't have a chance; I've made the potion now I'm going to vanquish him. I just need you to-"
"Chris, wherever Wyatt is he's going to be fine, he'll vanquish Drox no problem, I'm sure of it. It doesn't need you to barge in there and risk your neck… Although it might be a way of redeeming yourself, seeing as how you didn't go to help in the first place…"
Chris made two disbelieving sounds, too angry to speak. He tried several times but couldn't force out sound.
"Look, Chris, it's great that you care but they don't need you, ok? Wyatt will do fine on his own, trust me on this one," Leo clapped a hand on his son's shoulder and orbed back Up There.
"I don't believe him!" Chris began when his Dad had gone, "I don't believe him… Wyatt will do fine on his own… Oh, yeah, he managed to get captured and stay captured, didn't he? Just, just… Just ARGH!" He kicked the counter, leaving a scuff mark from his sneaker and three of the cabinets imploded.
"What do we need your Dad for anyway, this is what we've been doing half our lives, this is what all that practice with the Andura demons was about… We can do this Chris…"
"The demon captured the Power of Three and my brother, Ben… Do you think we're going to stand a chance? Do you think to pathetic teenage witches are gonna vanquish him?"
"Less with the pathetic. You're Dad's obviously got his head too far up Wyatt's ass to see what's going on, so let's call Bridget and Nixa and go and see to Drox, ok?"
There was a pause in which Chris stared at the shattered glass inside the cabinets, "Ok…" He held out his hand and the cordless phone zoomed off of the cradle and into his waiting palm. "Let's do this thing, huh?"
Ok, it's now tomorrow, so today I'm due in Greenwich, London. I shall take my computer with me, but Internet access will be hovering at around 0.5 % of my usual amount, and writing will be strictly limited as well, so unfortunately probably no more posts for this weekend. I am, however, finally out of school and am on Summer vacation for the next 8 weeks so yeah… More fic to come! And I'm really tired, so I have no clue what I'm writing… Sorry if you find my responses unsatisfactory…
Twisted Flame
Aldrea7: - Not many people like Bianca… Meh, oh well. I wonder why you don't like her? Is it because she was with Drew Fuller? Well duh… :P Go hug your poster or something. (Kidding, although your probably already do, lol)
Dominique1: - Too be honest it's too late for me to remember my name, let alone how old I made Chris… So yeah… yeah… yeah… Ok, where was I? I'm going away in… 3 weeks… As well as this weekend… heh… fun, fun, FUN… NOT…
NoAlias: - I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what anything means any more… I'm so damn tired… Sigh… Last day of school was… yesterday now… Sleepy and we're driving to London tomorrow… gah, why me??? Well they don't know Chris broke the window, some random football jock fell through it for all they know.
Claddagh Ring: - It was you that gave me the bare skeleton of a cat fight… Sorry, I'm just so tired right now…
flephanie: - Lol, I stole the main points off of someone else and just expanded on them… Lol, thanks.
Willows2: - Having only been to a US mall around five times in my life and never having seen a fight in one I have no clue how long security takes… (I'm British, btw, and therefore don't shop in American malls all that much…)
HollyShadow : - The family is found out!
PiperHalliwell025: - Thanks