"Leo!" Piper shouted, desperately. When she failed to get a response, she carefully moved her head around the dumpster she had taken refuge behind and saw at least a dozen different demons heading in her direction. She looked down at her unconscious sister lying next to her, blood dripping from a nasty wound on her forehead. "Hang in there, Paige, I'm sure he'll be here in a second," she said more to reassure herself than her unconscious sibling.
"Leo, we need you, now!" Piper called again as she stood up to freeze the rapidly advancing demons. Unfortunately, as had been the case on several occasions during this battle, not all the demons froze. At least four shimmered out, but she ignored them for now, concentrating on blowing up the frozen demons that remained. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice shout out to her, "Piper, look out!" was all she heard her husband say, before being grabbed from behind. The experience of many battles taught her to lunge forward, flipping the demon over in the process, and then she finished him off by using her exploding power.
"Stay down!" Phoebe shouted at Piper, and then threw her remaining potions at the three demons about to attack behind her sister.
Piper cautiously lifted her head from the dirty alley asphalt, as Leo ran over to her.
"Are they all gone?" She asked him, holding on to the hand he offered to help her up.
"For now," he said, looking around. "Where's Paige?" Leo asked suddenly noticing she wasn't with Piper.
"She's injured, you have to heal her. I moved her over here behind the dumpster," Piper said as she walked in that direction.
Leo and Phoebe followed her, and Leo bent down to heal the obvious wound on her forehead.
As the wound disappeared under Leo's glowing hands, Paige's eyes started to flutter open.
"Is it over yet?" she asked her two sisters and brother-in-law who were staring down at her.
"We don't know, how do you feel?" asked Piper.
"Better, thanks," Paige answered, while trying to get up.
"Well, we're all out of potions, so I think the best plan would be for us all to orb back to the Manor to get some more," Piper suggested, "and I can check on Chris at the same time. We should have heard from him by now."
"You three go back while I check with the Elders to see if the immediate threat is over," Leo told them. "Once again, if you need me, just call,"
Leo, not waiting for their approval, immediately disappeared in a cloud of orbs.
"Okay!" Piper shouted to the sky after he disappeared.
"Well, let's go home," Paige said to them as she held both their hands making the three of them disappear also.
A few seconds later, the three battle weary witches rematerialised in the kitchen of the manor.
"You two get some more potions ready, while I go and check on Chris," Piper said as she walked toward the stairs.
As she got closer to the attic she could clearly hear some sort of fighting going on. She opened the door and was immediately confronted by her two sonsfighting each other. Both were injured, having cuts and bruises visible all over their bodies. Their clothes had been ripped, and she noticed Chris had bad gashes on his left shoulder and across his stomach that were bleeding. Wyatt was also not unscathed having bad wounds on his right arm and right leg.
"Chris!" she shouted.
Both Chris and Wyatt had not noticed their mother enter the room, and her calling out startled both of them.
"Mum!" Chris exclaimed. "Get out of here," he shouted back as he moved his hand in her direction and she found herself being orbed out.
Piper orbed into the Living Room downstairs. "Damn you Chris!" she cursed as she started to climb the stairs again.
Phoebe and Paige hearing her arrival ran into the Living Room as she reached the bottom of the staircase.
"What is it?" Phoebe asked her.
Piper turned to look at them, "It's Chris, he and Wyatt are sword fighting in the attic, both are injured, I've got to stop them." She said as she started to make her way upstairs again.
"How did you get down here?" Paige asked her.
"Chris orbed me out," she shouted back down to Paige from the top of the stairs.
As Piper ran along the hallway to the attic stairs she shouted desperately for Leo, who immediately appeared in front of her blocking her path.
"What's wrong?" Leo asked, seeing how frantic Piper was.
"Our adult sons are fighting each other in the attic. They'll kill each other if we don't stop them. I tried before, but Chris orbed me out," she said, almost hysterical.
"Wait a minute, let's think about this," Leo started to say.
Frustrated, Piper tried to push past him, "We don't have time!"
"Piper," Leo said, grabbing her and turning her to face him. "If you go bursting in there again he'll only orb you out once more. I'll orb us both in, and we'll try and stop them together."
Piper suddenly thought back to her conversation with Chris earlier that day.
"But how will we stop Wyatt, Leo? I can't hurt my own son!" She said to him.
"You might have to, to save Chris. Don't worry, I'll be there to heal him, just try to wound him, okay. Trust me." Leo said convincingly.
Piper immediately felt at ease. It never ceased to astound her how his voice of reason was able to instantly calm her in even the most dire of situations.
"I trust you," she said.
"Okay, you ready?" He asked her.
She nodded, and the two of them orbed out.
Neither of them were prepared for what they saw when they rematerialised in the attic. Chris had Wyatt, who was completely defenceless, pinned against the wall with Excalibur pushed hard against his throat.
"You give up?" Chris was asking him.
Before Wyatt could answer, Chris turned to see who had just orbed behind him and in the process he ever so slightly dropped his guard. Unfortunately for him, that was the only opening Wyatt needed. With all his remaining strength, Wyatt pushed Chris away, which caused him to loosen his grip on Excalibur at the same time. Wyatt used his telekinetic powers to take control of Excalibur pushing it towards Chris' back as he fell.
Piper could see what was happening and motioned her powers toward Wyatt to stop him. It did not stop Excalibur, however, and Piper looked on in horror as she saw Excalibur wedge itself into Chris' back. At the same time, because of her magical attack on him, Wyatt was flung backwards into the wall, a small explosion coming from his stomach. She watched helplessly as both her sons fell motionless to the floor.
"Oh, God, no!" she exclaimed as she ran toward both of them.
She reached Chris first and turned him on his side. Chris opened his eyes and looked up to her.
"Hey," he whispered.
"Don't worry, your Dad's going to heal you, you'll be fine." She said as she turned to look for Leo.
But Leo wasn't there. Frantically she looked around the room. Leo was nowhere in sight.
"Leo! Where the hell are you?" Piper hysterically shouted at the top of her voice.
Tearswelled up in Piper's eyesas she turned to look back down at Chris, barely conscious on the floor.
"Did you see? I beat him? I actually beat Wyatt," Chris said to her
."Yes, I saw," she said trying to force a smile, "just hold on, I'm going to check on your brother."
Piper moved over to Wyatt's still motionless body. He was unconscious, and very badly injured with a wound to his stomach, but he was alive.
Piper knew that neither son had long to live, and sat on the floor between the two of them shouting desperately for her husband to appear, "Leo, please, we need you. Your sons need you." Then breaking down crying she put her head in her hands and whispered "they'll die soon, Leo, please."
Leo materialised in a very dark place. He looked around and saw nothing but darkness.
"Where am I?" He shouted. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"
"We need to talk," came the reply from a familiar voice behind him.
Leo turned around and could not believe who was walking toward him.