BEFORE NIGHT AWAKENS

By Sickle Sword

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Disclaimer: I don't own Chris, Wyatt, Charmed etc. I DO own, however, the ideas in this fic and the random characters that appear every once in a while. So if the WB producers can live with that, so can I. Barely.

A/N: Thank you to all my faithful readers! I would have never made it this far without you!

denna5: Here's another chapter! A huge thank you for all your support in the whole story, you will never know how much your encouragement meant to me. And I meant what I said in the A/N, without your reviews, I would have stopped ages ago. So again, THANK YOU!

Nemesis' Arrow: I hope that you will like this chapter as well, though I admit it's a bit. . .weird. Anyway, I really wanted to say thanks for everything, the encouragement and the good criticism that made me want to keep writing and get better. And from one disturbed writer to another- don't sell yourself short too. The fact that you're writing says a lot of good things about you and your writing style. I'm following your stories with short breath (though from unknown reason fanfiction refuses to let me review...) and like them very much!

I would also like to thank Succubus-69, tickled pink :) , rafiki, deranged black kitten of doom, paige fan, vintagegirl, Aine , Queen Isa, Tami, Slain, and of course, to my ever- dedicated Beta Reader AK8 that had to go through my mistakes and fix them, yet didn't complain and made me smile with her kind words. You're the best!

It should have been me who had told him the truth, even when I didn't know the meaning of the word truth, for I have lived in a lie. I should have held him close to my arms and closer to my arms and even when he chose to go away, I should have followed. It should have been me who died. Not him.


Chapter 15: Apologue



Then there is a loud noise. And after that- quiet.

You see something floating towards you and your brother, its light blinding you. But it's not the pure aura that you were unfortunate to envision so many times that emits from it. It is gray. Tainted. It's coming closer to you and you come to realize who it was.

Adam.

You thought Wyatt killed him, and you mourned him. Despite of everything that had happened, it took you awhile to get over his death. After all, he was your brother. Like it or not, he was there for you in the past. And somehow, that once lost brother has now come back from the dead. Back to you.

"Hello, brother" you hear Wyatt's greeting and even while hearing that non-caring, almost impassive, words that he speaks, you know he is terrified. Just like you. Even more, in fact. After all, he was the one who had killed his own brother.

"I have come to reclaim what is mine" you hear Adam's whispering. He doesn't have to scream, you are sure his voice is heard even in he farthest corner of this giant room.

"I am ready for you" Wyatt steps forward. You wish to disappear. Not to see your brothers killing each other. Again.

"This is not your fight, Wyatt. Stay out of it" Adam smiles toward you. Your stomach turns upside down when it understands before your mind what he's saying. It can't be that he's talking about . . . you . . . right??

But apparently, this is exactly what he means and blue light surrounds you both. The same bubble that protected Wyatt before it was gone together with his innocence. This time, however, it isn't protecting you. You are trapped in it, with him.

"Wait, I don't understand!" you try to see reason where there is obviously none. You don't want to fight him. You don't want him to fight you. Whoever wins, you will lose anyway.

"You are right" you are amazed to see that he's lowering his head in acknowledgment. Hope rises in your chest. Maybe he wouldn't fight with you after all?

But he continues speaking, crashing your new born hope. "You deserve an explanation.
When we were first foreseen brought into the world, there was chaos. How can it be, the Lady of the Four Wings asked the creator, that the new generation of The Charmed Ones, will be like that?
We were identical in everything to The Old Charmed Ones. There were three of us, the oldest was the strongest, the middle was the mediator and the youngest, me, had the weirdest powers. Not necessarily the weakest, just, not your conventional ones. But with us, something was screwed right from the beginning. To explain it, it would take some time.

Hush now and listen, for the knowledge of the Gods is about to be spread.

In the era of the Bronze, we first came into the consciousness mind. Men created totems to worship the gods above, and the gods made the totems alive. It was that time when the first Tigris and Hoopoe came into being, just a fictional creation of your resident dreamer. Once they understood the potential, more and more clays were spoiled in that manner till unseen monsters were created. Then, the gods made it stop. Outraged, the humans declared a war. Not the smartest thing to do when you face the ultimate power. Only, the gods weren't the ultimate power. To defeat the man they created, they needed a truce. One that could not be made.

I am coming to the point soon, please stop shifting uncomfortably. It's annoying.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the times of The Great War. Men battled earth, moon fought men and in the midst of everything, there was silence. Higher force decided, quite wisely if I may, that it must come to an end. So, the power was taken from the unworthy. It was the instant that the war ended, that we were foreseen. A being so powerful who will challenge the gods when the time is right.
The time passed and the land slept for 5 millennia, give or take a few centuries. During that healing time, the breed of man prospered beyond recognition. What stayed, however, were the powers involved. They knew that our time would soon be, so they prepared themselves, and the world. Bit by bit, every Warren became stronger to show the world the potential of what might be. The Charmed ones? Only a glimpse of what WE could have done if we were together.

Yes, we've failed to do what we were meant to do- to liberate the man from the hold of the gods. Or maybe that wasn't what we were destined to do in the first place, and that was only a wishful thinking from the prophet's lips. Anyhow, in the prophecy there was only one being. You thought it was Wyatt, I thought it was Wyatt, and so did the rest of the world. Wyatt, as I came to realize, is a very powerful human being. But he was never the most powerful. You see, when a power so great is coming into the equation, there have to be powers to balance it. And as the one being was separated to 3 shreds, connected to the soul, something happened. Now, there were three. The one who answers the lure of evil, the one who will never adrift from the right path, and the follower. Balance"

"Wyatt was . . . the follower" you whisper with horror, refusing to realize what it fully means, what it means about you. No! It can't be right!
Only, your heart already knows that it is.

Then Adam is looking at you with the same piercing glare that he used when you were kids, and you struggled with your entire entity to escape from it. You don't want to hear the rest of his words. Sure, it always bothered you that you were weaker than your brothers. Yet you fear the secret Adam can tell you about yourself. Why? Because then you might realize you have lived in another lie. And frankly, living within so many lies can twist the way you see the world. And you fear, no, you're . . .simply not sure, that if another thing is proven wrong, when you see the truth next time, you will believe it.

"Yes" Adam is smiling smugly. But that's not the only thing that radiates from him, there's also. . sadness? "And I, I was destined to evil.
It's alright, I came to accept it. It is who I am. I've fought with all I had from being evil. Even when the powers inside me proved me that I can't be good, I was never meant to be good, I still struggled. In the end, I understood I can't fight it anymore.
As have you.
I have watched from above when I was still. . .too attached to understand. And I saw your struggle to become someone you were not. To be me. But you couldn't. For you could do many things, but you couldn't turn down your heritage. In this case, you have no free will. As I never had. Easier to blame fate? Maybe. But that's all I have to explain my situation. And yours. You know it."

"So if Chris was . . the good one. ..and you were . not. Why am I who I am?" Wyatt's voice is penetrating through the blueness, perforating your soul. You can feel his anger toward the injustice of everything. He thought he was the wheel that the events circled when that was never true. He is trapped in the same situation you are, only, you realize, he's not used to being smacked out of balance. You are.

"I'm afraid that you are not going to like the answer for this one" Adam continued with the same mystical, highly irritating voice, ignoring the rest of the world. You hear Wyatt whispering with scorn 'I'll like it lesser than what you already told me?' and you frown. You are sure you are not going to like it either."Well, Wyatt, you, just like Chris and I, were never given a fair chance. You absorb emotions and ideas from your surrounding, us. I was the more dominated one, therefore, you were at my side"

"But then you died. I wasn't under your control anymore. And Chris went back. Neither of you were there to 'manipulate' me anymore. Yet I stayed the same. "
Wyatt nearly whines and you feel sorry for him. You really do. And you love him even more than before. Because he was always, just like you, no one. And while you had most of your life to come to that conclusion, he only had 5 seconds. It does a lot of bad things to your self esteem.

"Because, Wyatt, the bond between us is not meant to be broken by space and time. I floated around, unknowingly tainting you and possessing you to your dark side, Chris was never nurtured to become great, his powers were only defensive. So, he was less powerful, less influencing, than me"

"Hey, I'm still here, you know" you shout, needing them to stop talking about you like you are an outsider, analyzing your life cruelly, cutting everything you knew in big chunks. So what- you start processing the knowledge- you are also powerful? Can Wyatt be someday free from both your influence? And if all of that was destined, can you even change it? And then fear controls you- when Adam finishes talking- will you still be here?

"Yes, Chris, you are powerful. Yet you could always change the past, it wasn't written that the world will be the way it was, only that there will be a war. Too apocalyptic, perhaps, but that's the way things are. The absolute war between good and evil- whoever wins, wins. And after that, we won't influence Wyatt anymore. Ever."

You look at your brother, and you know he's telling the truth. A survival instinct awakens inside you as you look at his stony face and feel the same compassion you have felt toward him and his blindness your entire life. He only saw darkness. You also saw love. And he was right, despite all those 'free will' clich?'s something was always wrong here. You always felt you were never the captain over your life. They simply happened, washing you along with them, and you followed. It always swept you to unexpected shores. .
. . really?

But it's not of importance now. Now, you have to take responsibility, no more cowering, you can't fail yourself one more time. Only one will survive in this, you know it. You only don't know who you want to survive. And from which reasons.

He's standing directly in front of you, fire blazing in his hand. He's about to throw it at you.

In a slow motion, you duck and miss it by inches. Pff, you were lucky. This time.

You try to think about what to do now when something is materializing in your hand. A box. Opening it, there are exploding potions inside.
Cool.

You throw them at your brother, fine, so your aim isn't that great, but you succeed blowing the knife he sent. So what if it's not his head, it was effective nevertheless.
You picture something falling on him when in the next moment a refrigerator falls over him.
Where the hell did THAT power come from? If it wasn't a war, you would be all over the floor now, smeared and hiccupping from laugher. But you can't do it now. You have to stay focused.

You don't know what is worse- that you are actually trying to kill your brother, or the fact that you're starting to think about him less than a brother, and more like an enemy. You need to eliminate him, for your survival.

He gets up and the refrigerator vanishes. You should have known it wouldn't take him a lot of time to gain clarity again. He smiles devilishly at you and something green is blazing toward you. You have no idea what it does, but something is telling you that you really don't want to find out.

You moved too slowly, it hits you. You feel pain spreading over your entire body, paralyzing you. Ok, so now you know what it does. You have to avoid it. It hurts too much.
There's another green thing flaring in his hand. Desperate to make it disappear, you throw something brown of your own. A ray of earth, your mind mocks. No, you don't have a clue what it is and how you summoned it, but it seems to do the trick as Adam doubles down, panting, a bush replacing his hair.

You let yourself a moment of feeling human again as you pause to see if he's alright. Big mistake. That green thing hits you again, and this time it's making everything inside you freeze, unable to breathe for a moment, your lungs burning from absence of air.

He takes advantage of your temporary paralysis and sends fire toward you. It's getting closer. You don't know anymore if you want it to hit you or not, only to make the pain stop. You close your eyes, preparing yourself for another jolt of pain.

It doesn't come.

You open your eyes and see that the fire melted into the air. Adam looks at you approvingly. He's toying with you, you realize. He has so many more powers, he's simply trying to make you feel like you fought.

But he said that you were powerful too, didn't he?

This time when the fireball hits, you force yourself not to even flinch but imagine that you are frozen. Okkkey, too much frozen. On the upside- you don't feel the flame.

Something inside you awakens as you start to get angry. He's your brother, yes, but he's trying to kill you. You can feel that he's starting to get serious. That's not very brotherly like behavior. You call greater powers and feel yourself being filled with energy. Something has to be done, or you'll die.

Soon.

This time, it is you who steps closer, freezing whatever he throws at you. And you blow it up. You know these are mom's powers and you don't hesitate this time to inspect them or to ask why they are here. You are only grateful that they came.

Adam snarls and lifts his arms in the air. You feel . .. shattered. There's no other way to describe it. Like you are made from thousands of ice chips that are now crumbling and tearing your veins.
The pain is unimaginable.

Feverishly, you call whatever force for help. The wind comes. You let it.

A horrible hurricane is dancing between the two of you and for a split of a moment you let yourself drift away to remember that when you wanted, the nature heard your call. You start to believe that maybe you had strong powers all this time.
And you start to realize that it will take more than being a believer to survive this time.

The floor is opened beneath his legs but he's fast enough to drift and sends you a little gift of a horror raven lament, unearthly tearing you from the inside.

The level of the game has just been increased.

You fight each other in what seems to be hours. You unleash elements as he calls upon the powers of the world underneath. He turns your hand into a skeleton and the wind is waving his hand away. You call Poseidon. He calls Hades.

You both are tired. You both are exhausted. You both are dying to end it, to have someone die. The crowd that in the beginning was astonished that you held against Adam so long, no longer cares. If you could, you would have offered a standoff. But you know better than that. He won't agree. You won't agree. Yes, you are no longer ashamed to admit, you want to win.

Without even thinking, you throw a fireball at your enemy. You ran out of tricks.

"No! This can't be!" he stares at you, mouth hanging open. The air of calmness and tranquility finally going away. Good. This whole façade was really starting to get on your nerves.

"Why not?" you step closer, your mind blank as you throw poisoned arrows and black fireballs toward him. You just found out how to win. "Because I'm good?" you throw another fireball to emphasize, nearly hitting him. Not really knowing where your mind leading you, you simply talk. To hear you own voice, to hear that you are still alive, and because something inside you tells you that you should listen yourself too. That this is the only way to survive. "This is where you've got it all wrong. I nearly believed everything that you told me. Everything was finally making sense. Only one thing got me thinking." Whoa! You Lecture? You never LECTURE! Apparently when you are in dire need, you do.
"You said that I can't stray from the right way. Only, I already had. I killed an innocent in bargain to save Wyatt's life. And I've killed many more, Adam. With full awareness of what I'm doing. "

"No! You're lying!" he screams again, anguished. You know how much this whole good versus evil scenario meant for him, and how much it will be painful to break that belief. He struggles to get up and is choking you, desperate to shut you up. But you have changed and discovered so many things about you in the last hours, so many more powers. One of them was blocking his.
He knew to where you were coming- war.

"Yes" you smile tenderly. Not nice of you. So what? You've never said you were a saint. "We are masters for our own choices. We always were. And duh, this is easier blaming fate for that one, but it will be way too low. I could never understand Wyatt's reasons of becoming him, but I will never blame fate for that. This won't be right. And you, you were born blind, Adam. For more than one reason" you hold him telekinetically, forcing him to hear you. Just like you heard him before. He's struggling, but you are stronger. He will be a believer in the end. Just like you believed his lies earlier. "You may say it's because you were meant to face darkness. I say it's because it taught you to sympathize with the weak. But in the end- does it even matter why? Stop finding reasons in everything, Adam, I stopped.
Not everything happens from a reason"

"No" he's whispering, his feet buckling as he is now down on his knees. He's not fighting you anymore and you lower him gently on the ground. He doesn't even seem to realize. In fact, maybe he never felt it in the first place, you never knew what it was like being him. He lifts his head proudly as his empty eyes are burning into yours. You feel sorry for him, you really do. You can feel his pain almost as if it was yours. You step closer, putting a protective hand on his shoulder. He maybe did some wrongs, and it might be a little hard for you to forgive, but he's human. He's allowed to make mistakes. And frankly, not everything in this world is about him or you. Sometimes things simply happen. You can accept it, now.
You've come a long way.

You step away from him and instinctively turn away to see your mother crying. Wondering why she's crying this time, you don't have to guess long. You see something red on your fingers.
Blood.
Shit.

The bastard stabbed you when you came closer. So how come you don't feel the pain . ..aw! You were wrong, you can feel it very lively, thank you. You really preferred it earlier when it was painless.

You look straight into the abyss that is your brothers' eyes and meet with a surprise. He senses that something is wrong. He didn't mean to stab you!

"That's ok, Adam" you try to soothe him. Hell, you're trying to soothe yourself. He's a good person, honestly. After all, he's your brother. But being blind gave him a hell of intuition. Really. You're not sure you would have known that you stabbed your brother accidentally with your eyes closed. . .awww. So not going there.
Everything is burning. Kind of like the last time you died, only now EVERYTHING hurts.
Damn. Who knew eyelashes can feel pain? Who wanted to know?

You open your eyes just in time to see the blue curtain falling down as Wyatt staggers rage filled toward Adam. Somehow, you can see what is going to happen. Not good. 'No, Wyatt, don't do it!' you try to force your mind saying those words but you feel too heavy to do anything about it. And tired. Really tired.

You are too late, anyway. Adam goes down as well as the world just lost another person. Way to go, Wyatt.
Thinking about it all over again, you guess that it's better that way. Maybe this is how things were supposed to be. Finally Wyatt will be able to make the world a better place without any of you manipulating his brain.
He is going to be a hell of a leader. How do you know it? A hunch.
And belief. After all, if you hadn't thought there was good inside him, you would have never gone back to save him.
Pity that you didn't know that all this time the only person he needed to be saved from –was you. If you were stronger, he would have been in the side of light.

Mother is coming closer to you, holding her hand in yours. Just like you did when she died in your arms when you couldn't save her. Just like she can't save you now. You wonder if she knows that, and if someone out there appreciates the heavy irony.
You try to smile at her. . .ok, wrong idea. Smiling hurts. Badly. Come to think about it, breathing hurts too. Everything is on fire right now.

"Mom" you whisper. You don't want to die alone. There's no point anymore keeping it a secret. You hope she heard you. You don't think you can force enough air to your lungs to say it again. But she heard. It's fine. Everything is going to be fine now.

"No" she's crying desperately. She's in denial. Just learnt that you're her son and everything. Not to mention that she has another son. And he's dying too. God, you hate the word NO. It's so pessimistic. Making you feel like the world is coming to its end. When in fact, everything is going to be alright. Here, nearly all the pain has already left you.
This time, you don't think you will have second chances.
You just know so.

Hey Adam, what are you doing, standing there in the midair and waving like a maniac. Hey, wait up!

You are coming too.

You look at the final time backward to those who will have to handle your absence and you don't feel a thing. You've done what you came to do, now it's up to them making you a future.

You hold Adam's hand and together, as brothers at last, you step to the world beyond.

That's it, folks! I am thrilled to say that this IS the last chapter. There will be no miraculous resurrections and the world will not all of a sudden be a better place. I know that some answers stayed unanswered but that's in my opinion all the beauty of imagination. I also know that you might be upset with the way I've chose to end it, but this is my version of things and in my opinion, the ultimate battle between Chris and Adam was unavoidable and the only way the future would be changed will be when the Charmed Ones see for themselves the future, and lose in the process all their children (Wyatt will stay bad, it's. . hmm.. an habit. You try breaking a lifetime habit and tell me it's easy.
A hell of motivation, you've got to admit.

But hold tight! I may be tempted to do an epilogue, so keep checking for updates and avoid killing me!


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