CHAPTER SIX

"Ow, you're hurting me!" Chris complained to his captor, as he was roughly dragged backwards.

"Shut up, or you'll get a bullet in your head, kid," the man holding him replied.

Chris had seen many different types of weapons and vanquishing potions in his short life, the most common being the energy ball, but he had only ever seen guns on the television. Mainly when he had been sitting on his Dad's knee while he was watching the news. He didn't really know how they worked, but he guessed that a bullet in the head was not a good thing.

Chris looked all around frantically trying to locate Wyatt, but all he could see was a sea of guns pointing in his direction, which he worked out was also not a good thing.

"Stay back, I'm warning you, I will shoot him!" his captor yelled at the police who were starting to get a little too close for his liking.

Chris watched as the police started to back away, and he also felt the grip on his body loosen just a little. He considered whether he should try to orb away. He didn't know where he'd orb to, but anywhere was better than here. Then he remembered hearing his Mother telling Wyatt not to orb in front of strangers, so decided he was in enough trouble already with getting lost and everything, so he wouldn't risk it. He didn't know how a bullet in the head would feel, but he decided that it might be preferable to the consequences of defying his Mother.

"There's a door over here," Chris heard a voice behind him call out, and the next thing he knew he was being awkwardly dragged backwards at a much faster pace than before.

"Wyatt!" Chris called, trying one last time to call for his brother, before he was pushed to the floor of the dark room they had just entered.

Before he had a chance to move, Chris felt a knee being pushed into his back, and the gun pointing to his head once again.

"Quick, find something to tie his hands and feet," a voice yelled.

Chris lifted his face off the cold, dirty cement floor and yelled in the strongest voice he could muster, "I don't know what kind of demons you are, but my Mother and Aunts are the Charmed Ones and when they find out what you're doing to me, they will vanquish all of you!"

"Vanquish us! Well, we've got ourselves a wild one here, probably a drug addict." One of the men said as he started tying Chris's hands and feet.

"Ouch! Could you loosen them a little please, they are really hurting." Chris asked politely.

"That's the point!" The man said as he tightened the ropes even more.

Chris could feel his wrists and ankles start to burn as his captor pulled even harder on the ropes that bound them. Despite this, Chris remained silent realising that anything he said was only making his situation worse. When the man had finally finished, Chris found himself being dragged by his shoulders, and flung in the corner of the room. He could hear the men talking as he tried unsuccessfully to turn himself over into a more comfortable position. Ironically, this was a position he was used to being in, having turned over onto his stomach in his cot on numerous occasions, only to find it impossible to turn back again. Now, though, with his new orbing power, things would be different.

He turned his head and looked up at his captors, seeing that their attention was now focused on their conversation, and decided that maybe he could quickly orb himself out of the ropes that had already made his hands and feet go numb. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Immediately he disappeared in a cloud of orbs, reappearing right next to where he had just been lying, only now in a sitting position and without the ropes tied around his hands and wrists. He looked up at the men as he rubbed his wrists trying to get the circulation flowing again, luckily not one of them had noticed.

Chris sat in the corner quietly trying to work out how he was going to get out of this situation he was in before one of the men holding him captive finally realised he was no longer tied up.

"Hey, he's untied himself," he said sounding alarmed as he pointed his gun towards Chris again.

"How did he do that? There is no way he could have untied those knots himself," the man who tied them stated.

"I don't care how he did it, just tie him up again!" Another man demanded.

"No, please, I promise I won't orb out of here, just don't tie me up, the ropes really hurt," Chris pleaded politely. "I don't know why you're doing this, but I've had a really bad day, and I just want to go home."

"I've had enough of you and your weird talk. It's just our luck to find a spaced out druggie as a hostage."

"I'm not a druggie, I'm a witch." Chris said indignantly.

"A witch! Okay, if that's what your drugged out mind is telling you, fine, but whatever you are the situation is simple, either I tie you up or shoot you. It's your choice," the captor threatened as he moved towards Chris.

Chris, feeling tired, hungry and aching all over, could not control his temper any longer. He'd tried to be polite, but he realised there was no reasoning with these people. As the man was approaching, he lifted his hand, and using his telekinetic power motioned toward him sending him flying backwards into the other men, knocking them all over like pins in a bowling alley.

All the men, trying to recover from their tumble, immediately lifted their guns and pointed them to a now standing Chris.

"How did he do that?" One of them men shouted to the others.

Before anyone could answer, Chris said, "I told you I'm a witch, and I've tried to be nice, but you keep being rude, so I'm going to orb out and find my brother. But before I go," Chris motioned with his hand, and the guns in the men's hands all went flying toward him, "I'd better take these away from you, because you're going to end up hurting somebody."

Once he had all the guns he disappeared in a cloud of orbs in front of the stunned bank robbers.

Piper, Leo, Paige and Phoebe all materialised behind a conveniently placed dumpster at the end of the alley Chris was being held captive in. It was late in the afternoon and the alley was quite dark from the shadows of the surrounding buildings. They quickly moved to be part of the fast growing crowd, making sure their arrival had not been noticed, but soon realised that everyone's attention was well and truly focused on the drama unfolding in the middle of the alley.

"First thing we've got to do is find Wyatt, he has to be around here somewhere." Piper said as she started to look around.

"How are we going to get to Chris?" Phoebe asked, "It's bedlam around here. You can't freeze the whole alley, can you Piper?"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to freeze the helicopters filming up there," Piper said as she pointed to the four helicopters from various news services circling above them.

"There's Wyatt," Leo called to them when he spotted his older grown up son standing near some police who were keeping the crowd from advancing onto the crime scene.

"Thank God," Piper said as she tried to make her way through the crowd. "Oh, this is ridiculous!" She cursed as she realised that it was going to be very difficult to get to him. With one hand movement she froze the group of people immediately in front of her.

"Piper, do you think that's wise?" Phoebe asked after seeing what she had just done.

"I need to get to my son, Phoebe, and everyone else is too busy watching the real life cop show to notice anything else."

Quickly, the family group made their way through the frozen crowd. "Wyatt," Piper called when she was close enough to be heard.

Wyatt turned, and the look of relief on his face when seeing his parents approaching was immediately evident. "Oh, Mum, Dad, I am so glad to see you," He said as Piper reached up to give him a hug, at the same time she put her hand up and motioned for the frozen crowd to go back to normal. "I didn't know what to do. It all happened so quickly," Wyatt started to explain.

"It okay, honey, we're here now and we'll fix this." Piper said as she gently put her hand on his cheek.

"How did you get here?" Leo asked him.

"I wasn't strong enough to orb us out of the Underworld, so we just kept orbing around down there until we came across a demon who knew Chris. Well not this Chris, the other Chris. He said he had helped him find demons that had something to do with his brother being evil," Wyatt explained.

Piper and Leo looked at each other knowing that the day may come when they'll have to explain the other Chris to Wyatt, but wordlessly they both knew that today was not the day.

"Anyway, the demon shimmered us here, and then these guys just came running down the alley and grabbed Chris, and then there were police everywhere. I tried to stay with Chris, but they wouldn't let me go near him. I didn't know whether to orb to him or what to do." Wyatt blurted out.

"You've done well, buddy," Leo told him, encouragingly. "Now we've got to work out what we're going to do."

"Well, all I know is I want my baby back, and if that involves freezing everyone here and grabbing him, then that's what I'll do. Chris must be going out of his mind at the moment." Piper said sounding very worried.

"We've got to be careful, Piper, if we expose magic the cleaners could take him away like they did the last time." Paige warned.

"Piper! Leo!" They all heard a familiar voice call.

They turned to see Darryl slowly making his way through the crowd towards them.

"Hi guys, " Darryl said as he looked at the worried family group in front of him.

"Hello Uncle Darryl," Wyatt replied.

Darryl opened his mouth to speak, but then did a double take at Wyatt, wondering who he was.

"This is Wyatt." Piper said.

"Wyatt? What, from the future?" Darryl asked.

"No, this is the Wyatt you know, he's just been accidentally aged 22 years by a spell." Paige told him.

"Of course," Darryl said incredulously. Then it dawned on him, "So the Chris I saw on the news who has been taken hostage is not Chris from the future, but the baby aged?"

"Exactly." Phoebe answered.

"It is so hard to keep up with you people! And I'm not even going to ask how he came to be out here." Darryl said shaking his head.

"Well, Chris and I got lost in the Underworld…" Wyatt started to explain.

"You know what, Wyatt, don't worry, I don't think Uncle Darryl really wants to know," Phoebe told him gently.

"Darryl, how do we get to Chris?" Leo asked.

"We've got to be careful, remember there's still an outstanding warrant for his arrest. I'd rather Sheridan not connect the dots on this one." Darryl told them.

As the family group were deep in discussion about Chris's rescue, they were unaware that Chris had made his escape and had materialised discreetly in another part of the alley. Crouched down in another doorway not far from them, he looked around and was relieved to see no one had seen him orb in. He stood up, still holding the guns he had taken from the bank robbers, and looked around looking for the safety and familiarity of his older brother. A little bit further up the alley he spotted the distinctive curly blonde hair belonging to Wyatt, and started to make his way in that direction. As Chris got closer, to his great relief and excitement, he could see his parents and aunts were also standing with Wyatt, and so moved more quickly.

Once he finally arrived, he was about to speak when he realised his parents were in deep conversation with Darryl, about something very important, so decided to wait until they had finished.

"We've been after these bank robbers for a while now, so trying to reason with the police is going to be very difficult." Darryl explained. "They've taken Chris into a storeroom and I don't think they'll hurt him because he's their ticket out of here."

"Well now that they've gone into a store room I could orb us in Piper, no one but the robbers would see us." Paige suggested.

"That's very dangerous, Paige, they could shoot you as soon as you materialise," Leo warned.

"Or Chris," Piper added.

"No, they won't shoot because they don't have their guns anymore," Chris added.

Shocked by the sound of the familiar voice coming from behind them, the whole family group turned to see if their suspicions were true. There, standing quietly was a very bedraggled looking Christopher Halliwell.

"I used my powers to take the guns away from them before I orbed out. I know we're not supposed to orb in front of strangers, Mum, but they weren't being very nice. They kept threatening to shoot me in the head, and the pain I had this morning with the hangover was bad enough." Chris explained calmly.

"Oh, Chris!" Piper exclaimed, her relief at seeing her younger son spilling over as she moved to hug him. Leo followed close behind.

"Can we please go home now, I just want to have something to eat and drink and rest. I'm so tired, it's been a really long day, and I think I've missed my afternoon nap. You know, I was never really a fan of that nap, but from now on I promise I'll never complain again."

Piper didn't know whether to laugh or cry as she listened to Chris's casual explanation of the ordeal he had just gone through. "Oh, honey, look at you," she said as she saw his grazed face, and then noticed the red burn marks around his wrists. "Of course we'll go home, right now," Piper said to him, "And we'll get you cleaned up and Wyatt will heal you, then you can have something to eat, and after that straight to bed."

"Sounds good!" Chris said smiling with relief. "Here, Uncle Darryl," he said as he handed the guns to him.

"How am I supposed to explain how I got these?" Darryl asked.

"Say you found them in that Dumpster for all I care, Darryl. The important thing is the robbers don't have them anymore, so you shouldn't have any problem apprehending them. As far as we're concerned though, it's over." Piper said to him.

"Come on, let's find somewhere we can orb."

The very relieved and now complete Halliwell familymoved away, leaving Darryl to sort out the bank robbers.