Chapter 5: The Ruptured Power of Three

"Asleep again?" Cole asked. Piper had just appeared in front of him. She looked around, confused.

"No," she answered. "I'm not. We were just fighting a demon. It hit me with an energy ball. I must have knocked me out."

"What's wrong with you?" Piper looked at him strangely.

"What do you mean 'what's wrong with me?'" she asked. He gestured for her to look at herself. She did and saw that she was semitransparent. "Oh no."

"What?" Cole asked, with a tiny hint of concern. "What's wrong?"

"I think I'm dying."

"Paige, orb her to magic school," Phoebe said. "We'll take care of Farkal. Just get her healed." Paige ran over to her sister and orbed away. Phoebe fixed her eyes on Farkal. He threw an energy ball at her. She ducked to miss it.

"What do we do?" Darlene asked.

"Throw potions at him," Phoebe answered, pointing to a table that had some potion vials on it. "Hopefully, one of those will stop him." Darlene started randomly throwing potions. Most of them were exploding ones that only phased the demon for a moment.

"They're not working!"

"Keep trying," Phoebe said, giving Farkal a kick in the chest. "One of them has to do something." Darlene threw a blue potion. It smashed at the demon's feet and a mysterious smoke started to engulf him. When it cleared, they saw that he had been turned into a pig. Farkal shimmered away in his pig form.

"You guys have potion that turns demons into pigs?" Darlene asked.

"Yeah, I sorta made that one for a certain someone at work." They both laughed for a little bit. "Alright, we need to get you to safety. It won't be long til one of his demon buddies changes him back and he comes again."

"Where do you propose I go?" Darlene asked. "He always follows me. No matter where I go, he's always a step behind me."

"This is bad," Piper said. "Really bad. I can't die." She continued rambling on, which was giving Cole a headache.

"Just shut up for a minute, would you?" he finally said. Piper stopped pacing and glared at him.

"Who are you to tell me to shut up?"

"You rambling on and pacing around isn't going to stop you from dying. It's up to your sisters now."

"Oh yeah, that makes me feel a lot better," Piper said. "I'm dying damn it. What do you expect me to do? Sit here and do nothing?"

"You can't do anything though," Cole said. "As I've said before, powers don't work here. What are you going to do, talk yourself awake?" Piper knew that once again, he was right and she wasn't. That didn't mean she had to admit it.

"Whatever, Cole," she said. "I'm leaving. I'm going to walk around and try to find a way out of here."

"Good luck," he said back to her. "I've already looked. Nothing out there but endless forest." She started walking off.

"It's worth a shot," she called back to him. He got up and followed her. "You don't need to follow me. I've got this under control."

"Like hell you do," he said to her. Suddenly, Piper vanished from sight. Cole stopped and looked around. He couldn't believe it. "Oh no. She can't be dead. Phoebe will never get back together with me now."

"Piper, are you okay?" Paige asked once her sister regained consciousness. Piper looked and saw that she was in magic school. Paige and an Elder were standing over her.

"No," Piper said. "Please, no. Don't tell me that he healed me."

"It was the only way," Paige said. "We couldn't let you die now could we?" Piper looked at the Elder with a nasty look on her face.

"Don't expect anything from me just because you healed me," she finally said. "Because you're not getting anything." The Elder rolled his eyes and orbed away.

"I can see you're back to normal, so to speak," Paige said.

"Not entirely," Piper said. "The dumb ass didn't heal my disease."

"We should get you home to rest then," Paige said.

"No," Piper said. "We need to look in the Book of Shadows. I don't want to meet up with Cole again." Piper stood up. "Ow. I feel really stiff." Paige grabbed onto her and they orbed back to the manor. Leo was waiting for them when they arrived. He rushed over to Piper.

"Are you okay?" he asked soothingly.

"Yes, I'm okay," Piper said rather harshly. "Now get away from me so I can get to work." Leo backed off with an obvious hurt look on his face. Paige saw this tension and decided it was best for her to go.

"I'm going to go check on Darlene," she said, orbing away.

"Piper, what's wrong?" Leo asked.

"What do you mean what's wrong?" she asked.

"Well, first off, you didn't need to blow up on me in front of Paige like you did."

"I didn't blow up on you," she answered, with a testy tone. She started to look around. "What did I come here to do?" Leo looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't remember why I wanted Paige to orb me here."

"Maybe so you can go lay down," Leo suggested.

"That must be it," Piper said. She started moving her head in a weird fashion.

"Now what?" Leo asked.

"I'm seeing little spots," Piper said. Leo was starting to get worried.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get you down to bed." He started to pull her a little. She grabbed at her chest. "You're chest hurts too?" She nodded her head a little. "You need to get to sleep. I'm going to call the doctor."

"We need to stay in this public place," Phoebe told Darlene. The two were sitting in a crowded restaurant. Phoebe saw a blue light shine under the bathroom door. "Good, Paige's here." After she said that, Paige walked out of the bathroom.

"Hey," she said once arriving at their table.

"Hi," Phoebe and Darlene replied.

"Got any plans, Phoebe?" Paige asked.

"No, I don't," Phoebe said. "We can't keep her in a public place forever and it seems near impossible to vanquish Farkal without the Power of Three, which is a little ruptured at the moment.

"He's here," Darlene suddenly said. "He's behind me." Phoebe looked. Farkal was sitting, out in plain sight, at the bar drinking a beer.

"What's he doing?" Phoebe asked. "Why would he come visible?"

"He knows we won't attack him in a public place," Paige said. "But he won't attack us either." Suddenly the whole restaurant froze, as if Piper had used her power. Everyone stopped moving, besides Farkal. He got up and started walking towards them.

"You were saying?" Phoebe said.