Chapter 3: Hiss

The demon, disgorging venom, splashed all over the floor due to Piper's efforts, making it sizzle with an olive light, the same time as Phoebe's levitating leg slammed into another demon's chest, whilst her direct punch fell powerfully onto the face of another, making both of her targets stumble backwards and into the middle of the mess on the floor and getting eaten up by the poison they soaked up.

Phoebe touched ground next to Piper a little bit unbalanced, only a couple of steps away from the rest of the attackers, almost completely surrounding them when a large arc of lighting propelled over them and cleared the whole room of the new lower level, but rather many demons out of the blue, or maybe not so much, they just didn't notice the Elder materialising back in the midst of all the confusion.

"Thanks Leo," Phoebe sighed, "that was close," she said, looking at the complete mess the whole place had become once more, "I guess there's no point to cleaning up, cause there will be more demons coming soon."

Piper smiled at that and turned to thank Leo with a look herself. Her smile

vanished, being swapped to an apprehensive scowl when she saw the lifeless looking form Leo placed down carefully on the remains of the carpet, "what's wrong with him?"

"It doesn't matter, let's get Cole's blood and Leo could take him back without him knowing about it," Phoebe urged them.

"It doesn't work that easily, Phoebe," Leo admitted.

"But you said it's gonna be easy after you got him. Besides, do we have time? Our psycho sister or whitelighter might attack any minute."

"I think we need to actually make her attack," Piper frowned, "we need the power of three for the vanquish. Thankfully, we know from my experience that it works even if one of us is unconscious, so we have to conjure Paige and hit her with something. Then, we can summon Saroruka as well."

"Preferably at the same time," Leo advised, "is there any intact container here we can use to put some of Cole's blood in?" He looked around confused. Even metallic ashtrays were melted apart by the amount of fire balls that must've gone down since his absence.

"Ah, wait," Piper was fishing in her pocket for a second and pulled a baby bottle out, "I was just going to sterilise this," she stepped over to Cole's motionless body and also picked up one of the glass splinters of the Chinese vase. She hesitated a little bit over where to cut him, then decided on his index finger. Even if they needed more blood, she would press it out, rather than hurt him more than was necessary, "why is he comatose?" She asked Leo repeatedly when Cole weakly moaned at her touch.

"Well, if I brought him back as I do with your Grams, his blood would not really exist as such, cause he would be a ghost? That is why it took me so long, I had to make some agreements, use some connections..."

"What? Does that mean he is alive?" Phoebe freaked.

"He doesn't look all that alive to me," Piper commented

"I had to bring him back alive, yes. He will get round soon, but remember, it took some time last time as well when he came back from the wasteland for him to get

back full to force and his powers to become stronger."

"Stronger?" Phoebe echoed, "you wanna say he will get invincible again? In...let's think...circa three months time?"

"I would assume that would be the case."

"Phoebe, could you please mind the spells and argue with Leo later?" Piper took charge, "Leo, could you go check on Wyatt? He should be safe, but..."

The disturbing sound for a demon of Leo's orbs finally persuaded Cole to

awareness. Shifting slightly, he opened his eyes. Why was he on the floor in the manor? For an agonizing flash of time, the bodily cell memories of being vanquished swarmed his mind, momentarily making him terrified. But then he also remembered the time he spent in the nothingness of afterlife, even if he didn't know how long that exactly was. Lifting his head a little, he glimpsed round and saw Phoebe scribbling something, while Piper was putting out some crystals next to him on the floor. Heck, he wasn't even aware of being back, who do they want to vanquish now? Him? He let his head fall back onto the floor, thinking of shimmering, but it didn't work. With the terrified realisation of a man who suddenly came face to face with his own personal nightmare, he tried traditional moving of his limbs instead, not sure if he wanted to see Phoebe at all, or was too tired of running. In addition, he was annoyed that once again they used him in some plan he wasn't aware of, which wasn't helping.

"Calm down, it's just us," Piper stepped next to him, noticing all the emotion that went through his mind and showed on his face.

"Just?" Cole grunted as every joint in his body seemed to have creaked from being unused. He never felt so unpleasant in his entire life, but then again, this wasn't his life. Or was it?

"What was that for?" Cole asked looking at his hand, dripping of blood. They took some sample of him for their potion? It didn't make sense at all. Bring him back to vanquish him again?

"There's no time for explanations now, Cole," Piper helped him up, "we need you to fight and we need you to do it now till we get a free minute to vanquish the big bad," she joined her sister, blocking an incoming attack.

By the time Phoebe threw her next kick at the invader and the second raider emanated a jade coloured shaft of light despite Piper's efforts to blow him up, Cole had already formed his first fire ball.

tbc