"Ok, someone tell me what the HELL that was!" Bridget demanded, finally finding her dropped athame and shoving it back into her waistband, clearly annoyed. Being blasted onto her ass often made her irritable, and for good reason.
"Well I would say ask Ben..." Chris trailed off, looking at his friend. What had just happened here? How had Ben done... whatever he had done? He had never seen such a display of power from his friend before. Come to think of it, it didn't look like Ben had ever seen such a display of power from himself either, which was judged by the fact that it had knocked him clean out. "But- But yeah." He said uncertainly. Ben was down, and that was not a good thing.
"Ok- Pain..." Nixa groaned, startling Chris from his thoughts and putting a hand to the back of her head. In front of her, tiny coloured lights were darting in front of and exploding like fireworks. Watching them made her dizzy, so she took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. Behind her, the ice on the trees had started to recede, melting and shrinking into nothing as if it had never been there at all.
"Are you ok?" Chris asked, concerned. She had hit the tree pretty hard. However, He had seen her take worse hits than that. Still, he wouldn't be a good friend if he wasn't concerned.
"Did you miss the part about pain?" Nixa grumbled, standing up on wobbly legs. The lights were back with friends this time, and she felt sick again. She struggled not to vomit.
"No." Chris said, wondering why he had asked such a stupid question. Did it look like she was ok? He watched her blink to clear her vision. "Can you walk?"
"I'll be fine. The sad thing is that you get used to this stuff after a while. I hate my job- Ow..." She sucked in a deep breath again; shaking her head one last time in a vain attempt to clear it. "I'll just walk it off." She finally decided, not knowing if she was capable of that right now. She changed the subject. "What was that, by the way?" She winced, hoping no one noticed. It didn't look like they had.
"Ben..." Chris paused, struggling for more words. "And that's all I have so far." He eventually admitted, grabbing Nixa's elbow as she wobbled again and helping her. To Nixa this was chivalrous; to Bridget, this would have been sexism.
'What, you think when a girl hits a wall she can't walk without a guy on her arm?' Was often heard if she was offered any aid in standing after a fight. Chris smiled slightly. It was a bold faced lie on her part of course.
"Chris? You're standing there grinning, are you feeling ok?" Bridget waved a hand in front of his face, blurring the fingers into around twice her usual number.
"Huh, what? Yeah, sorry. My mind wandered and kinda forgot to come back." He said sheepishly, bringing his mind back to earth with a solid 'bump'. It would do no good to have his thinking power somewhere else right now.
"I thought that happened a long time ago." Bridget deadpanned. Chris pulled a face at her and she turned to look at Ben with a slight frown on her face.
"Thanks a lot."
Bridget ignored that response. "I vote we go poke him until he wakes up." She said chirpily, walking over to the spot where her friend lay and rolling him over so he was on his back.
Suddenly, the air above Ben became solid and, in the midst of wavering lines, a demon appeared and backhanded her across the face. She stumbled backwards, tasting blood in her mouth but reaching for the athame, withdrawing and throwing it at her foe. It passed through his shimmer and embedded itself in a tree, splitting the trunk until it oozed sap. They looked at the spot where he had been and realized that Ben was gone too.
Last One Standing
"Wyatt, Honey... Wyatt, wake up, Sweetie... Please?" Piper pleaded, her voice getting louder and more desperate as gentle cajoling failed. Why was he still asleep - had the demon done permanent damage to her baby?
"Piper, let him sleep, he needs the energy." Phoebe soothed, rubbing her sister's back gently with the clink of iron metal links. If anything Wyatt needed to sleep just to take a little bit longer of Drox draining him. Phoebe was surprised her nephew lasted this long, but that was not something she wanted to tell Piper.
"But-" Piper said, still protesting. If only he could wake up, then he might have a chance to defend himself against what was coming. Or, even better, orb them all out of here and safely back to the Manor. She was such a bad mother, such a bad oldest sister, letting them all come out here like this without properly knowing what could happen.
Prue would have been more level-headed, she thought bitterly. Maybe she would have played it cool. Piper sighed inwardly, knowing that an inferiority complex to a much-loved but long-dead sister was sad at best.
"She's right, Piper. He'll wake up when he can." Paige added, looking up from her sleeping daughter. Megan was breathing slowly and rhythmically, just as if she were only sleeping and not in some kind of magic trance. The Charmed Ones, who had been blasted with his stuff all of their Wiccan lives, apparently had built up more of a resistance to this that the kids. Paige made a mental note never to bring her daughter again.
She watched her niece, Prue, who had started to stir not long ago, but she hadn't woken up yet either. She was just going to sleep on and on. It was like some pathetic fairy tale, only this one was very real. She smiled at her daughter, flicking blonde hair off of her nose tenderly. Yes, Megan's demon-hunting days were over, most definitely. It wasn't right to expose her to this.
Phoebe was summing up the situation still, working it over and over and seeing if she could see any possible flaws in the demons plan, something, anything that could work towards their advantage. There was one thing and one thing only that her mind kept coming back to, the one little ray of hope. "Do you think Chris is coming?" The middle sister asked softly after a while, voicing her brief, fluttering faith for the first time. She spoke carefully, as if just asking the question could dampen the flame.
"It's not like his Dad's coming any time soon." Piper said bitterly, having torn her throat out calling Leo's name only for him to fail to materialize. "Chris will come, I know that. He's a Halliwell, and it's just- I don't know if he can do it, you guys. I should have let him vanquish demons before, it's all he wanted to do, and I didn't even let him practice and now... Well we're all stuck in this situation and a completely untrained teenager is out only hope. I love him, I really do, but I don't think my love is in any condition to be able to help him now. I just didn't want to hurt my baby. Or even get him hurt..."
"Aw, Piper. Chris is tough, we know that already." Paige said. Chris survived everything that was thrown at him by Life and more, they had seen proof of that in everything he had ever done.
"Yeah. Yes we do, don't we?" Piper settled back against the wall, somewhat comforted. Paige was right, Chris was a good kid, and on top of that a witch with the powers of the Halliwells right behind him. "Chris will- Chris!"
She had cut herself off, seeing a long-haired brunette head slung over Drox's shoulder. "So much for being tough." Piper hissed through gritted teeth. Her heart sinking she faced the worse. Her son was captured and that made all of the family.
"Wait," Paige said suspiciously, catching sight of part of the face. "Piper, that's-" The youngest sister began, being the only member of the Halliwell sisters who currently didn't require glasses. She was cut off by Drox.
"Is this your saviour? The last of the Halliwell witches?" Drox dug deep into the pockets of the teen's jacket and pulled out potion vials and the spell, throwing the vials at the ground where he had smashed the rest of them and forcing the paper to burst into flames, dropping the last pieces of ash on top of the unconscious form. As the powdery grey substance fell Piper felt her hope and pride fall with it. This was it.
Drox twisted a sadistic smile onto his face. He was finally going to do what no demon had been able to do so far – kill the Halliwells and gain the powers of the twice-blessed witch, using them to become the ruler of the Underworld.
He had won, they had lost.
"I gave him some power from his brother. This is his brother, right? Not a cousin?" He received no answer. Piper was too angry to speak and Phoebe felt her chest being crushed as the hope inside her heart died. Paige just said nothing, willing her sisters to look at her so she could at least try and relay a message to them.
"No matter, when I have him enough power he just collapsed." He laughed, kicking his captive in the stomach. "Might wanna work on that, especially as you're meant to be all-powerful." As he spoke he levitated the kid flipped him over in midair, suddenly throwing him into the wall. Piper distinctly heard something snap and she glared daggers at Drox.
It wasn't until Drox had thrown Ben into the wall beside Phoebe that anyone else but Paige noticed that Drox hadn't in fact kidnapped Chris, but one of his friends.
Relief immediately washed over Piper, followed by waves of guilt for thinking such a thing. Phoebe's hope was rekindled again. Her nephew was still coming. Her smart nephew was coming with reinforcements and had plied them all with potions. He thought like a true witch.
Drox gestured and sent chains coiling and slinking their way up Ben's arms, pinning him to the wall, forcing them tighter out of glee. "Oh, this is a sorry sight. Nearly time so say bye-bye to the Halliwells?" He turned back to Wyatt, who groaned slightly as Drox began to suck the power from him again, barely able to make the noise let along fight off the attack.
"Why has he got him?" Piper hissed, looking at the unconscious Ben. "I really don't want to explain to his mother that we nearly got him killed." It was bad enough she had put her own children in danger.
"See, I told you Chris was tough. He's still out there." Paige said, her face lighting up. "Chris is coming. Yup, he takes after his Aunt Paige, don't you know."
Last one Standing
"We lost Ben. Great, we lost Ben..." Nixa muttered, snapping a path through the undergrowth and snagging her clothes and skin on brambles and twigs. There was so much blood on her hands that she couldn't see where one cut ended and the next one began.
"Calm down, we can rescue him when we rescue my Mom and the rest of the family." Chris reassured her, stumbling over something hidden in the dark. The one flashlight that hadn't been broken in Drox's attack was dimming with every step they took. Chris smacked it against is palm and the bulb flared brighter for a split second before dimming again.
"Ok, stand back." Bridget announced, pushing to the front of the group, unsheathing her sword and beginning to slice a track through the brambles with it.
It barely worked, the sword not designed for hacking such tough stalks and thorns but she managed to wrench a few of the plants up by the roots as she marched dutifully onwards.
"This sucks, you know that?" She said, frustration causing her to get her sword caught in the woody stems. Bridget gave an over-large wrench and finally cleared her way through the thicket.
"I think this is it." Nixa said, looking into the dark mouth of the cave with niggling apprehension. She clutched the hilts of two athames tighter in her hand and fought away the fear.
"Well come on!" Bridget, ever reckless, was already striding towards the cave, ready for a fight.
"Whoa, wait!" Chris called suddenly and she spun on her heel, looking at him quizzically. "I mean, how do we know this is the right place? You don't know what's in there."
"Chris, it's a cave in the middle of a huge forest surrounded by a wall of brambles. I have the cuts to prove this. If it's not where the demon is hiding out then what's the worse that could happen? A big old grizzly bear pops out because I stopped him hibernating?"
Bridget had a point. She often had a point when she was really sure about something. Ok, so her points oozed sarcasm, but that was irrelevant. What really mattered is that she was probably most definitely right.
"Ok, but if a bear does jump on you, don't blame me."
"I won't. Now... Weapons at the ready and let's all kick some ass?" Bridget was itching to be off; all she wanted to do was to do her job.
"Ok, you and Nixa distract Drox long enough for me to get my family untied or whatever and orb them away. Just distraction, not full-scale fighting until he hasn't got anyone to use as a hostage, ok?"
"Right." Bridget nodded once and turned back to the cave, marching through the gloom fearlessly.
"Good luck." Nixa and Chris said at the same time. Grinning, Nixa made her way in after Bridget.
Chris waited, counting to prevent himself from rushing in there. When he got to one-twenty, he strode in, keeping one hand around the vials in his pocket. He had given one each to Bridget and Nixa, but Bridget at least would prefer running the demon through with a blade instead of using the potion.
As soon as he entered, he saw Bridget and Nixa dodging energy balls, keeping Drox's eyes on them and off of Chris's rescue attempt. He was immediately grateful but he wished that they'd provoked him to use a less deadly form of attack than energy balls. He winced, seeing one crackling orb blow past Nixa's side, barely missing her. He hoped they were ok; he didn't want his plan to get them hurt...
Chris held out his hand and a crystal shot across the floor into his palm. He bit his tongue to stop himself swearing and dropped the incredibly hot lump of white stone to the ground.
"Chris!" The newly-awakened Megan was the first to spot her cousin, but Chris made frantic gestures to keep her quiet. His Aunt Paige turned as soon as her daughter had shouted and so did Prue.
Phoebe was admiring the Hunters' skills with martial arts, mesmerized by the ducking and weaving and wishing she could snip twenty years off of her age and regain some of that old flexibility she used to have.
Piper, however, was watching behind half closed eyes, squealing every time an energy ball nearly found its target. This was so dangerous! What if he hit one of them? What would she tell their parents? Piper squeaked again, but turned as she felt Prue slapping her arm.
"Aunt Piper." She jerked her head in the direction of Chris and Piper looked around to see her son. He made the same frantic shushing gestures he had used on Megan as she opened her mouth and she shut it again, narrowing her eyes at her son's cheek.
He gave a helpless shrug, forcing himself to focus on the task in hand and not on the fact that two of his friends were risking their lives for him. He gestured slowly and the chains binding Prue to the wall and they clinked together lethargically. He made an angry noise in the back of his throat and, checking the demon was still fully occupied, flicked his wrist and busted the lock clean off. Prue quickly shook them off and, managing to crawl and rub her wrists at the same time without falling on her face, she slowly made her way on all fours to her cousin and Aunt Paige.
In a swirl of orbs, Piper, Phoebe and the unconscious Ben dissolved and reappeared in front of Paige, who wanted nothing more than a quick get away. All she wanted to do was get out of here and not have to come back, and having Chris bust the chains was pointless when she could just orb everyone out of their restraints.
The orbing immediately set off alarm bells in Drox's head and he turned, catching Bridget in the stomach with his arm and throwing her into the wall. She grunted and fell to the floor, her sword clanking down moments after her.
"Aunt Paige, GO!" Chris yelled, still hidden as an energy ball blazed towards the group.
"What about you? And Wyatt?" Piper said as Megan ducked under the energy ball. "You are not staying here. Don't even think I'd let you."
"We're gonna be fine, Mom, I'll orb us home." He flashed his mother the vials of potion in his pocket and the sight comforted her somewhat but not nearly enough to silence her mothering instincts.
"Chris you get here right now and have your ass orbed straight home or-" Paige squeaked with fear as en energy ball headed towards her and without thinking, Phoebe picked up on it and threw her half-sister's natural reaction into play –orbing. They all disappeared.
Chris breathed a sigh of relief. That made them all much less of targets. Vanishing tended to do that to people. He knew Ben would be annoyed at him for letting him miss out on finally nailing the demon, but he was unconscious, what was Chris meant to do?
All he had to do was kill the demon and find his brother, then orb all four of them back to the Manor. Chris paused, running the plan through his head. What sounded wrong there? He smiled slightly, thinking what Bridget would say: It was too simple.
She may be right, but the simplest of plans were often the best, right? He stood up, watching as Drox grabbed Bridget's sword and crumbled the blade into silver dust. Her mouth dropped to the floor and the useless hilt followed a second after as she delved into her boot and pulled out an athame.
"You stupid little bitch." He spat. "I had the Halliwells right here, right where I wanted them. He punched her in the jaw and, while she was still reeling, kicked her into the stomach, the force of the blows landing enough to knock her to the floor, gasping for breath.
Nixa pulled out her potion and held it at shoulder height, a look of hate running across her features. He grinned at her, opening his arms wide to expose his chest. Nixa, having been in this game far too long for her liking, was not distracted and did not lower the potion.
"I thought I'd seen you somewhere. You were in the forest, weren't you? Seeking out the Halliwells?"
"So what?" Bridget asked, finally able to suck in enough air to speak up. She could see Chris creeping up behind Drox, potion at the ready to throw. If it was her job to keep him talking to she could see the sucker burn then so be it.
"So you're well plied with potions, then? From the witch creeping up behind me?"
It took too long for Chris to register what the demon meant, and he dropped both of the vials as Drox turned and hit him in the chest with an energy ball. He hit the floor after flying in an arc, grunting on impact.
"Don't try to sneak up on me." Chris felt as if someone had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart and crushing his lungs, forcing him to expel the air and not allowing him to take anymore in. "You can't win."
Chris felt himself weaken, and he realized that Drox must have been draining his powers. He struggled harder to draw a breath.
"Oh- Oh yes, this one's definitely a Halliwell... I can feel all that family bloodline shit..."
"You're killing him!" Bridget yelled, allowing panic to flare up in her dark eyes. She quickly forced it away, snatching one of Nixa's steel daggers and using two swipes of them to try and stop Drox. One found his shoulder but the one that should have pierced his skull crumbled before her eyes.
She threw that hilt to the floor in anger, but not before twisting the blade lodged in his body for maximum damage and tearing it out, drawing his attention away from Chris. She punched him in the face and he staggered, countering with an elbow in her nose. She grunted in pain and went down, blood spurting from her nostrils, seeing Nixa launch herself into the air and kick him under the chin.
Nixa threw her potion but it curved neatly and into a waiting hand. Chris dived for the potions he had dropped and Bridget thrust her hand into her pocket but they all shot towards the same point.
"Wyatt?" Chris said in disbelief, seeing his brother clutching the potions. "Wyatt, we need those to kill him with." Chris said uncertainly, getting up off of the floor. What was going on, was Wyatt helping this demon?
"What do you want to kill him for?"
"Wyatt? Uh, you in there? He's a demon, remember?"
"He's got my powers, Chris." Wyatt stepped out of the shadows and Chris had never seen him so drained, but still his brother stood steady, still gripping their potions in his hand.
"You want them back? Come and get them, then. Shall we get rid of these pests first?" Drox knew he stood a much better chance of winning with only a nearly-drained Wyatt to fight against. All he had to do was take the tiniest amount of power and the witch-whitelighter would collapse.
"He's right, Chris. Stay out of this, will you?"
"Wyatt, I'm not going to let you- Hey!" His brother had orbed the crystal cage around him, the same one that had been used on his aunt and cousin at Chris's first words of protest. Anger immediately bubbled to the surface; Wyatt knew how much he hated being trapped like this. "Wyatt, this isn't you, what's going on?"
"He's got my powers, Chris. We're going to settle this score."
"Chris is right, Wyatt, this is nuts! Just vanquish him!" Bridget said, dabbing at her nose gingerly with the back of her hand.
"Look, I don't actually remember who you are so just stay out of this, ok? Both of you." Bridget opened her mouth to protest but Wyatt pulled in the last reserves of his strength and waved his hand at them, orbing them both out.
"What did you do to them?" Chris demanded, panic tingeing his voice. What was wrong with his brother, why was he acting like this? Where had he just orbed Bridget and Nixa to? Had the demon somehow done this? A shock zapped through his body as he got too close to the walls of his prison and he was knocked to the floor.
"They're at the manor. They were getting in the way."
It was hard for Chris to second-guess the state of his brother's mind right now. All he could work out was that Wyatt wasn't thinking too clearly right now. He tried again, but confusion clouded his brain with poor judgement.
"Don't hurt him." Chris pleaded with Drox, seeing Wyatt sway with light-headedness.
"Demons don't have a better nature to appeal to, I'm afraid." Faster than Wyatt could react, Drox grabbed for the potions in Wyatt's hand. Chris noticed something just before Drox knew he'd made his last and fatal mistake.
There was an odd smirk on Wyatt's face and the demon gasped. Wyatt flicked his eyebrows up and then down again, looking at Drox's chest where his hand was embedded up to his wrist. Chris watched his brother's arm muscles contract as Wyatt squeezed.
Dark purple orbs started travelling up Wyatt's arm and the blonde closed his eyes, relishing the rush of power back into his body. It was unbelievable how awful being powerless could make you. Wyatt suddenly felt pity for all of those mortal innocents, the ones that had nothing. He was a witch and he now had all of this to bend to his command.
"Wyatt, that's enough. That's not all yours!" Chris said, his voice shaking slightly. Wyatt waved a hand and the cage blasted him back down again, effectively silencing his brother and all of his good versus evil doubts.
Slowly the orbs faded and Wyatt twisted his arm violently, causing Drox to scream in agony before exploding outwards in a ring of fire that Chris shielded his eyes from.
When the flames had faded everything, including Wyatt, had gone.
Last One Standing
Heh, sorry about the new page breaks, people, I got fed up with not allowing me to use my usual ten asterisks and then having to put just a line in, which is really, really time consuming. Anyways sorry for the delay and may thanks to:
Pixie Wildfire: - Ok, but only because the Pink Ranger scares me. Thanks for reviewing and beta-ing, hun.
Ashlee: - Lol, thanks.
Claddagh Ring: - Well I updated slightly later than expected... Heh... Anyways I hope this chapter answers some of your questions and if it doesn't then ask the questions, lol, and I shall answer them. Thanks for reviewing.
Erica: - Comedy! Lol, someone told me I should write a sitcom parody the other day... Heh, no thanks. Thanks for your review anyways.
cherry7up56: - They'd better... Wait, they did... Well Wyatt did... Heh anyways I'll stop babbling now and say thanks.
Jessie: - Ok, soon was a no... I try to be quick but it doesn't always work out that way...
Rafiki: - Yeah I guess I could make him stand up for himself a little bit, lol. Thanks for your review.
DoRK47: - Lol, thanks for the enthusiasm.
Kiseki-no-neko: - Yes, the trilogy title is borrowed from Switchfoot, I didn't steal it. You can't prove it =P Just kidding. Heh, I need to kill the family, but not in this fic. I have other fics to do that in... Heh, I like my dentist, he's nice to me... Our old one used to give out candy afterwards... But that was odd because he's a dentist... Anyways we have this one now.
Crimson Amber: - Yeah, about that update... It got lost in the mail... It got lost on the Internet :: Shakes fist at the Internet ::
Stony Angel: - Yay, fun! Heh, ignore me.
Aldrea7: - Can I saw ew here? Really, really big ew...
Queen Isa: - Thanks a lot, I liked your review.
Charmed Amber: - Lol, I know, it sucked. Lol, yes, Alex is back. I forgot you'd been a reviewer since way back there when I sucked even more than I do now. I need to get a bigger vocabulary; I've just used 'sucked' three times in three lines. Heh. --
Chattypandagurl: - Many, many people liked that scene; I liked writing it, lol. Thanks for your review.
princesscatie21: - Soon, hey? My excuse is that it got lost on the Internet. I posted it ages before now, honest!
As Always: - Thanks a lot.