"Tada!" Chris said, and he laid the last of the food in front of his girlfriend. "My special mushroom omelet, made just for you."

"Oh, it looks delicious Chris!" she exclaimed, quickly grabbing her fork and taking a bite. "Wow, this is good!"

Chris smirked "But of course. I told you I could cook." He paused and smiled as he watched her enjoy the food. "Do you want some toast?"

Without waiting for her response, he held out his hand "Toast." He called. Seconds later the plate appeared in his hand in a swirl of orbs. "I'm so glad I can do that in front of you now," he muttered "It was hard to remember not to use magic every time we were together."

Bianca finally laid down her fork. "Agreed." She said as she took a piece of toast off of the plate "It'll be so much easier now that I can shimmer to your place. Driving can be such a nuisance."

"So besides shimmering, what are your powers?" He asked curiously, buttering a piece of toast for himself and taking a large bite. That topic had not entered into their discussion the previous night and he was really beginning to wonder exactly what a phoenix was capable of.

"Well," she began reluctantly "Like I mentioned most are of a demonic nature…I have fireballs, athame conjuring, the ability to drain another beings powers, advanced reflexes and sensing."

Chris stared at her for several seconds and she could not read his expression. She hoped he was not put off by the fact that most of her powers served a destructive purpose.

Much to her relief, his face suddenly broke into a smile. "Wow, impressive. Remind me never to make you angry." He chuckled.

"You could never make me angry, you're much too cute." She replied, leaning across the table to give him a tender kiss. "So, what about you angel-boy? What powers are you hiding?"

With a sigh, Chris began to fidget with the table cloth. "Wyatt's the powerful one." He muttered "I'm nothing in comparison."

"I don't care about Wyatt, I care about you. Just tell me Chris." Bianca retuned, frowning slightly. Although Chris had mentioned him often, she had never actually met his older brother. She had, however, always had the sense that there was a deep animosity between the two; now she knew why.

Wyatt was more powerful, their father favored him; Chris was jealous.

"Fine" the boy replied quietly "I can obviously orb, I also have telekinesis- both orbing and regular- invisibility, sensing, healing, glamouring, hovering and this weird lighting bolt thing that I have never been able to control."

Bianca looked at him in disbelief. She never would have guessed that Chris possessed so much power- and if he possessed this much, she could only wonder what his brother was capable of.

"That's amazing."

He shrugged. "Not really, telekinesis is the only wiccan power. I'm hardly a witch at all."

"What do you mean?"

Chris sighed again and bit his lip nervously. She could tell that this was a topic he would rather avoid.

"I mean that almost all of my powers are whitelighter powers, I'm useless as a witch. I can cast spells and mix potions, but that's about it." He replied, a hint of sadness in his voice.

"I don't understand." Bianca stated. "Hovering is a wiccan power…and what about the lightening thing?"

With a shake of his head, Chris began to explain. "First of all, Levitation is a wiccan power- hovering is a whitelighter power. It may seem the same, but its works differently. Even telekinesis could be both…but I like to think that I at least inherited something from my mother's side, and the lightening thing is defiantly a whitelighter power- well, technically an elder power…"

"Elder? You're half elder?" she said in disbelief "Chris, that's amazing, you must be the only one."

"Yeah. Horary for me." Chris replied un enthuastically. "Actually, I think that's why my whitelighter side is so dominant. When Wyatt was born, my father was just a whitelighter, so Wyatt has a balance of both. But then my father was promoted, and I think that elder genes are more powerful than the witch genes, so I'm not balanced at all."

Bianca nodded and took another bite of her delicious omelet. "Well, in my opinion that's a good thing. You can take whitelighter duties over vanquishing- that's nasty work sometimes, trust me. And besides," she added, her voice dropping to a whisper "I personally find the whole angel thing a turn on."

After starring at her silently for several seconds he suddenly burst out in to laughter. Bianca was glad to see a smile return to his face. "Good to know." He replied "So does that mean you wouldn't object to an angel taking you out for nice romantic dinner Monday night?"

"Not at all." She leaned towards him again for another kiss, but stopped seconds before their lips met. A jiggling sound, almost like bells echoed in the kitchen, causing the two lovers to jump apart."

"What the-?" Bianca questioned

Chris, however, knew exactly what it meant, and he gave a slight wince. "I hate to cut this short, but that means the elders want to see me…I'll be back later, after I see what they want, and then go to the manor to tell my Grandfather I'm okay…he's probably wondering why I didn't come home last night…"

"Alright, I'll see you later angel- boy." She said, smiling playfully.

The boy rolled his eyes and, with a quick peck on the cheek, orbed out in a beautiful shower of blue.

'I hope the he doesn't get called up there often' Bianca thought sadly, as she began to pick at the remains of her breakfast.


Chris materialized 'up there' in front of the doors to the main councils chambers.

"You are requested inside." The guard informed him curtly

With out hesitation, Chris pushed open the heavy white doors, and found himself before a panel of six elders.

"Ah, Christopher, excellent. I see that you received our call." The oldest, centrally placed elder said quietly as the boy approached.

"Yes sir." He replied, addressing man who had spoken. "Why did you summon me?" His tone was somewhat clipped- he had still not forgiven them for assigning him extra charges, and he hoped that he had not been called up to receive any more

"Patience young one." The elder muttered serenely, before continuing. "We merely wished to see how your new charges were working out…the last one in particular, she is a special case."

"Bianca?" he whispered, confused as to the meaning of the man's remark.

"Yes, the phoenix. Most of her kind do not have whitelighters, but we sense that she is not as cold hearted as most- we believe that with your help she will choose good over evil."

Chris nodded nervously- he was unsure if they knew about the previous connection between him and his charge. He had a strange feeling that they didn't- he may have only been half whitelighter, but he still doubted that they would approve of the union. "I agree." He replied slowly "She does not seem corrupted by evil."

The old man smiled, and several around him began to mutter. "Yes, excellent. She is a powerful force to have on the side of good. We sense that there is a new threat rising, rallying forces in the underworld, and if good is to have a chance, then we must recruit as many as possible."

Taken aback by this remark, Chris said nothing for several seconds. A new threat? Did that mean a new source? What ever it meant, it could not possibly be a good thing.

Maybe if he told Wyatt, the two of them could look into it and eliminate the problem before it got too bad…

"I understand. I will try."

"We are sorry to burden you with this, Christopher, but we believe that because of your understanding of witches, you have a better chance of relating to the girl. If she does, however, get out of hand, we will not hesitate to have her vanquished, do not worry."

Chris' eyes flashed with rage at the mere thought of anyone threatening Bianca, but he quickly forced his face into his trademark neutral expression. "Anything else you wish to say?" he asked, his teeth slightly clenched. He now wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

"No, you are free to go…Do not forget about the assembly meeting on Tuesday."

"Thank you sir." Chris muttered, giving a slight bow, before turning and leaving through the big doors; orbing was prohibited within the main chamber.

He had taken only a few steps out of the threshold, however, when he suddenly collided with another figure.

"Sorry" he grumbled, as he picked himself off the white marble floor.

Looking up to see who he had hit, his grim face instantly lit up with a smile.

"Sam!" he exclaimed happily. "Its so nice to see you. Sorry I wasn't watching where I was going."

"It's alright." Sam chuckled, "You living people are always in such a hurry."

Chris laughed quietly, and gave the older man a quick hug. Sam, the whitelighter father of his Aunt Paige, had always been a great mentor to the young boy. It was he, and not Leo, who had taught him how to heal, and develop his other whitelighter powers after the events of his fourteenth birthday. He had become almost a second grandfather to him.

"Yea, I was about to head back to the manor actually. We should catch up sometime though; I haven't seen you for awhile."

Sam looked down sadly. "I have a few more charges now, that's been keeping me busy. I don't know if you heard, but ten whitelighters were killed last month- there has been a rise in darklighter attacks- so I volunteered to pick up the slack."

"Yes, "Chris replied "I had been told about that. I wonder what's causing it."

Sam shrugged, "No idea, but hopefully we'll figure it out soon. I have to go, but I'll find you during the meeting Tuesday, we can talk."

"Excellent. See you then." Chris called, as the older man dissolved into blue orbs.

With a quick look at his surroundings, Chris closed his eyes and orbed to the Halliwell attic.


As soon as Chris reached his destination, he could sense that someone else was there.

He turned around quickly, and was relieved to see that it was only Wyatt, flipping gently through the book of shadows.

"Hey bro, was wondering when you'd get here." Wyatt said with a smile, looking up from the aged text.

"Hi Wy. What's up?"

Wyatt silently headed over to the attics couch and gestured for Chris to join him.

As the two brothers sat down, Wyatt gave his reply. "Nothings 'up' Chris, I just wanted to come by and see how my little brother was doing. I haven't seen you in awhile."

Chris shot him a strange look. "Oh, I'm fine I guess. Keeping busy, got some new charges…"

"Oh, so you've talked to the elders recently?" Wyatt interrupted him in mid sentence.

"Yea, just got back from talking to them actually. It was odd, they said something about a new threat rising…do you know anything about it?"

An odd look crossed the older brothers face, and Chris would had almost have believed it to be fear if he hadn't known Wyatt so well.

Wyatt was afraid of nothing.

"A threat? No, I'm sure if there was one, I'd know."

"How could you? You've been studying in the magic school library; you won't even let me interrupt you."

Wyatt gave a quitet laugh. "I always know Chris."

"Right…well, I'm sure I can tell you more about it after the meeting."

Wyatt stiffened in his seat, and slowly turned to make eye contact with his brother. "Meeting? When?"

"Tuesday morning, 9:00. Why?"

The older boy shrugged and managed to look nonchalant. "I just like to know what my favorite little bro does with his time." He paused "You know Chris; I don't see why you waste your time with all of the whitelighter stuff. We both know that elders are idiots."

"I do it to help people." Chris replied, not really wanting to peruse the subject further. That was only part of the reason; the other part was that he knew that was useless as a witch. He wasn't powerful like Wyatt.

"Chris?" A voice called suddenly, from the bottom floor. "You there?"

Victor was home.

"It's Grandpa. Wanna see him?" Chris asked Wyatt.

Wyatt shook his head "Nope, no time, got to go." He responded before quickly orbing out.

Chris sighed- that has certainly been an odd visit…maybe all of those hours of research had finally pushed Wyatt over the edge.

Wyatt orbed back to his underworld lair.

Innocent little Chris had given him the exact information he had needed.

With a wave of his arm, he summoned in the leader of his darklighter army.

"The whitelighters gather Tuesday at 9 am. Be ready." He stated, sitting down in a near by chair.

"Yes. My liege." The darkligher replied with a low bow, before disappearing from the room.

Wyatt sighed and placed his head in has hands. His plan was finally going to be put in to action, and he knew that he should be thrilled- but something was still eating away at him inside.

He had tried to convince himself on many occasions that nothing mattered; his mother's death had shown him that good and evil meant nothing- only those with power and authority could survive. He had set his sights on over throwing the mortal world and imposing a new era- one based on power and nothing else.

But there was one problem. Something did matter.

Chris mattered.

And this simple fact alone was what was stopping him from complete detachment from human emotion and morality.

He loved his brother, and no matter what he did, he knew that he would never really stop.

Wyatt knew what he had to do; it was the only way he would allow himself to carry out the plan.

With a wave of his hand he summoned another demon before him. "Litronous, I need you to distract Christopher Halliwell tomorrow night." He stated, standing up so that his presence would seem more imposing. "Capture him, bring him here, and do not release him until I give the command."

"But sir." The demon protested. "He is difficult to capture…I cannot guarantee…"

"You will guarantee it!" Wyatt roared.

He hastily walked over to a near by shelf and cautiously removed a potion from it. "Here." He handed it to the demon "Hit him with this, it is vaporized darklighter poison, it will knock him out for several hours. Cage him, and await my order."

Nodding, the demon bowed, and shimmered out of the cave to prepare for his task.

A/N In case you didn't get that- Wyatt is planning to eliminate all whitelighters during the meeting, and he doesn't want Chris present (thus the capture)

Also, by Love, I meant brotherly love- so don't get any ideas…this is not that kind of story ;)

PLEASE REVIEW (then I'll write more!!!)