Title: Sovereign Bound

Author: Kelie

Rating: R (Violence, Crude language, etc)

Summary: (Sequel to The Wisdom of War) Piper, her sisters and Leo try to gain control of their children's' wild tempers and roaming spirits as they approach the time when they will need to take over as the "Charmed Ones".

"He needs strict guidance, if he's to rule." He insisted.

She shook her head, looking awfully bemused. "I just don't think we're getting through to him. Every time we try to get close to him, he just backs away." She began to tear. "I'm afraid we're loosing him."

It was eighteen years after she's given birth to her first son; Piper was not exactly at her youthful peak. With the help of being an elder, Leo too had joined the ranks of the middle aged. He looked to be roughly two or three years older than Piper, even though he was much older than that. Still, they seemed from outward appearances to be a normal, married couple. They had never been normal, however. They were both magical beings with powers they used to fight evil. Piper was one third of a powerful force known as the 'Charmed Ones'. Leo had been their guide, angel and guardian for years; he'd healed their wounds and mended their hearts throughout the years.

Downstairs Phoebe began to fight with her own child. A teenage daughter was nothing less than evil, especially when she was trapped in a house where demons were the main reason her dates never ended well. Unfortunately, that was something Phoebe understood all too well. However, during the throws of a fight as this one, remembering your youth was not of top priorities.

"Come back here!" Phoebe scolded. "If you walk away from me, I'll bind your powers for the next.... Month!" She screamed.

It didn't matter, her daughter – Shiri – trampled up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door. Her bedroom, which was shared with her cousin – Ryan, had once been her Mother's room. It had since been turned into her room, and then when she was two it became her cousin's room as well, they had to keep the girls together. The house was crowded. To compensate for the growing number of people in the house, her mother had moved into the sitting room, which had been changed into two larger rooms. Her Aunt Piper and Leo had taken one room, and her Mother had taken the other, while her cousins Wyatt, Chris and Victor took their Mother's old room. Aunt Paige had been the only one to keep her room, which she had gotten from her Aunt Prue, but she had never gotten to meet her. Shiri had heard stories, from before she was born, about the days when Prue was alive – but stories were just that to a teen; stories.

She slammed her door and flung herself upon her bed. Ryan, who had just finished putting her dress on, saw her cousin crying, she sat down on her own bed across the room and waited for the sobbing noises to settle.

"What happened?" She asked Shiri.

Shiri sniffled and sat up, rubbing her nose. "It's just not fair." She cried.

"Your date get ruined?" Ryan asked, sympathetic.

She nodded. "It's not just that. I have no life. I'm sixteen, my sweet sixteen party turned into a battle against the latest demon of week! Piper had to freeze my friends for four hours while we cleaned the guts off the ceiling!" She bellowed.

Ryan moved to sit next to her cousin. "It's not their fault, you know?" She reminded.

"Look at you, you're fourteen, but you're more rational then me." Shiri straightened her shirt. "I guess I should say sorry..." She admitted.

Ryan smiled. "I think that would be a good idea."

Meanwhile, Piper's boys were down the hall, having a very different conversation. Wyatt was sitting at their desk, while Chris was tossing a baseball up and down on his bed. Victor, who was five years younger than Chris was drawing in his notebook, instead of doing his homework.

"You just don't get it." Chris ground his teeth. "You think its all about you, but this could blow up in our faces. It's dangerous, to all of us." He pressed.

Wyatt shook his head; he didn't want to hear any of it. "I don't care. I love her."

With that he orbed out, presumably to see the girl of his dreams; even if it meant the destruction of his family.

Victor turned to his older brother Chris. "Mom is gonna be so mad." He worried.

"You have no idea." Chris nodded.

His little brother really didn't have clue. Wyatt's girlfriend was not just some girl. She was heir to the throne of a demonic over-lord. She was in line to take over when her father died, which would also give her immense powers, and a lot of control in the underworld. Amy was her name, but flaying victims was her game. Her Father was a flayer demon who uses his skins for all sorts of things, including powerful ingredients for demonic rituals. Not only did Amy's family have great power in the underworld, but they had amassed great wealth through the selling of their skins to demons, and with that wealth they had gotten influence over the human population as well.

If Wyatt was to join union in any manor with Amy's family, it could mean the downfall of a delicate balance that his mother and her sisters had worked so hard to create. All this was happening at the cusp of a new era. An era in which he and his brothers would become what they had been born to be, the next line of Charmed Ones – destined to protect the innocents and destroy evil. Wyatt's affair with Amy was in complete contrast to that destiny, and it endangered them all in ways he couldn't even imagine.

"Uh oh." Leo sighed, opening his eyes. "Wyatt is gone."

Piper flew into a maternal rage. "Damn that boy, I'll ground him into next Thursday, and don't think I can't." She warned.

The universe had given Piper partial control of her sons' powers. This was to keep them in line, and make sure they didn't use their powers for the wrong reasons. In doing so, Piper had become the Mother of all magic; a role which the book of shadows defined as the creator of the beings by which the universe would be rewritten. Basically, Piper had the powers of her sons, in order to balance their great force. This did not mean her sons didn't have their powers, they did. It was simply that their powers were not fully realized, until the day came that they were ready to receive their powers, or if Piper died. Either way, as the mother of all magic, Piper had not only gained significant power from her children, but she had refined her own temporal power to the point that she could literally move through time itself, transporting herself, or people and objects, through the present, future or past – a form of transportation, and a weapon against evil all rolled into one.

Leo smiled at his wife and kissed her cheek. "I don't think that's going to help. We both know what its like to have a destiny too large to comprehend. He's young, it's hard. We need to give him time."

"He doesn't have time, Leo. He's eighteen, and soon we're going to have to give him Excalibur, and after that – who knows what his teenage hormones will tell him to do!"

Leo agreed. "Its hard, especially knowing that he could possibly turn, but I believe in him, and I believe we did the best we could. We raised a good person. It's up to him now, to stay that way."

"Something is just – off. I feel it, it's like something is influencing him." Piper sighed angrily.

Leo nodded. "I think he's being influenced by normal teenage issues, like school, graduation, girls – not to mention his powers are growing."

"I feel him slipping, not just from us... but from what we stand for." Piper finished, she rubbed her husbands arm and walked away, dismayed by her feelings.