Frustrated
Chapter 4 – He's my what?
A/N: Well, it's been a while since the last update, but this is the longest chapter I've ever written so far for any of my stories, so I hope you're not that angry with me anymore.
Disclaimer: No, it is still not mine it's all someone else's. I'm immediately going to email every one of you in case that changes.
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Piper stared at her future counterpart incredulously. In fact everyone in the attic, including her future husband, were staring at her.
"Wh… what?", Piper stuttered in a quiet and lost voice. Her brain seemed unable to have that piece of information sink in. It seemed just way too strange, too impossible, so highly unlikely that she had to have had understood it wrong. He could definitely not be who her future self said him to be.
"He's my son", future Piper repeated with a voice that was shaking slightly. She was afraid of what her past self was going to do or how everyone else in the attic was going to react.
"You're kidding", Past Piper said a little out of breath.
Future Piper just shook her head.
Past Piper walked over to the couch trembling and let herself fall on it with a loud thump. Her head was spinning. As if this day hadn't been complicated enough. Now this?
It was completely unbelievable for her. He? The neurotic annoying half whitelighter from the future at whom she had shouted only a few short hours ago for defending her child from her neglect.
For defending himself.
Piper's eyes grew wide as she realized something. She stared at her belly as if it just had let out a pink cow. The microscopic, barely an inch big organism growing inside her was him. For a moment she had a horrible image in her head of her giving birth to a fully grown twenty something until she realized he was not going to come out that way.
Why was she even thinking about that?
She was really confused now, she realized that. She could barely form a decent thought in her mind, all the information she had gotten over the course of the day was pouring down on her mind mercilessly.
She was having another child, that child would kill itself and it was Chris. Chris. Completely unbelievable.
As her mind drew a connection line between these bits of information she noticed something odd. That would mean Chris would kill himself? But he was alive. Definitely.
In reality she was only thinking these thoughts to distract her mind of all the other thoughts that were to painful to consider.
Her memory flashed back to all the occasions she had yelled at him, were she had treated him horribly. To the special occasion today morning were she had told him she had never wanted the child, that it was an accident. That he was an accident.
Oh my god! She had told her child that he was a horrible accident! What kind of mother did that? How could she have even thought that the child was something bad to happen to her? No matter whether it was Chris or not she should've been happy about finding out and had started loving it from the first second on.
Until now Piper hadn't noticed the tears running down her cheeks but now she did. She could only imagine how this must've hurt him. What kind of feeling was it to have your own mother tell you that you were a huge horrible mistake?
Slowly acceptance was sinking in. She didn't mind about the fact that he was her son so much anymore. Of course he was, it only made sense. He had known them exactly from the first moment on. He knew their names without even asking for them, knew the house exactly and never had any problems touching the book of shadows. He was family.
She needed to make up for what she had done. That much was clear.
Everyone in the attic had watched her reaction and they were all anxious to hear what she was going to do about it.
Both Piper and Paige were completely stunned. And yet it made sense. But it was very confusing to both of them. Him being their nephew? That was just too confusing.
Before anyone could say something though, the attic door was opened and Leo came in.
He was pretty shaken up. His son was definitely going to kill himself. How was he supposed to believe that, or to accept that? He stopped short when he saw that the people in the attic weren't fairing much better than he was, but for different reasons.
Future Leo and Piper looked scared and both had their gazes fixed on Past Piper who was crying and staring at her belly, completely lost. Both Phoebe and Paige seemed rather shocked and very uncertain what they should do.
"What happened?", Leo asked worriedly.
Everyone turned around to look at him. He really had a talent to show up late and ask annoying questions.
Past Piper looked at him with desperate tears in her eyes. "Chris is our son."
For a moment Leo just stared at her, not really getting the meaning of what she had said.
When she realized he was too lost in not realizing what she had said she continued, "The one I'm pregnant with"
"But… that's impossible", he said after a moment in which his brain had tried to understand the given information but had surrendered.
"No it's not", future Leo said with very little patience for his younger self. They really had more important issues than the past people's disbelief of the given information.
"But… but Chris said that child will kill himself", Leo argued. Obviously someone who had killed himself could not be here and doing all the things Chris had done.
"Good point", Paige agreed. This was indeed a detail that seemed pretty illogical to her.
Future Piper didn't really know what to do. They had already revealed way too much and Chris would kill them if not for the fact that they were already dead. But he needed the support of the past people, otherwise he didn't stand a chance to accomplish his mission, or stop Wyatt from taking over again in the past. Chris would never have admitted it, but if he tried to do all that alone he would fail, that was a fact.
So she decided something that he would probably hate her for. But she didn't care. She looked at future Leo, because she knew he knew what she was thinking. He saw the unspoken question in her eyes and nodded slowly, showing his agreement.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she turned around slowly, to look at the past versions of herself, her sisters and her husband and began to tell the tale of how her and her family's life had been ruined in the summer of 2018.
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There was a dead silence hanging over the inhabitants of the Halliwell manor after Future Piper had finished telling her story.
None of them were able to really express what they were feeling about it. Especially Paige was shaking after she had heard about what Wyatt had done to her future self. That was just way too heavy to articulate words to comment on this.
"We need to change this", past Leo said when he couldn't stand the silence anymore. This was about the future it hadn't happened yet. It didn't have to happen. He was not going to let it happen.
Past Piper just kept looking on the floor, but she whispered, "Agreed."
"So you see we need to help him? He can't do this all on his own, and now that Wyatt is on the loose it gets even more difficult", future Leo said as calmly as he could manage. He had not expected that hearing all these things again would stir up so many emotions, that it would be so hard to only listen to these events being told. He could only imagine how his wife had to have felt telling them.
"Yeah, definitely", Phoebe said determinedly. She had her arm around her younger sister who was shaking slightly and looked even paler than usually. Soothingly Phoebe added to her, "Don't worry Sweetie, that's not going to happen, we know about it now, we're changing it"
Paige nodded reluctantly. She felt pretty lost in all these information they had received, but she knew this was not the time to feel bad about it. There were way more important things to focus attention on.
"We need to talk to him", past Leo exclaimed. His voice was shaking slightly, but he did his best to control it.
Future Piper looked at him confused and asked, "Why?"
"Because we need to coordinate. If we're going to help him, we need to tell him we are helping. And we can decide who takes care of which problem", past Leo clarified.
"Yeah, you're right", Future Leo said. He felt a little awkward at agreeing with himself, but since he had a point it was only logical. But it seemed weird anyway.
"I think it's best if either me or Phoebe call, I mean, no offense, but he doesn't like the four of you that much, does he?", Paige said, cautious not to offend anyone. But it was the truth, so it needed to be said.
The two Pipers and two Leos looked at her and all of them seemed to be going to protest, but they all realized that that was futile, because Paige was right.
She didn't wait for an answer but started screaming, "Chris! Chris, it's important!"
They all waited for some seconds, but nothing happened. Confused, Paige tried again. "Chris! Chris we really need you here!"
Again there was nothing happening.
"Maybe he doesn't want to come", Phoebe supposed rather helplessly.
"Or he can't", past Leo said.
"But he has to", past Piper stated. Not only because they needed to coordinate, but also, because she had to see him, she had to see him to finally accept the fact that he was her son.
"Well, we could summon him", Phoebe said uncertainly. She had the feeling he would yell at all of them for doing that if he was doing something important.
"Do you think that's a good idea?", Paige wanted to know uncertainly. It did not seem like a great plan to her, she couldn't help it.
"Maybe not. But what else can we do?", Phoebe asked with a helpless shrug. She shared her sister's doubts, but it was their only option.
"I think Phoebe is right, we should do it. We need to coordinate with him, whether he likes it or not", future Piper said. She was pretty certain he was going to get very angry at her again, even if summoning him was not the reason, but she had told them his secret and revealed to all of them who he was. And he was not going to be happy about finding that out.
For a single illogical moment she considered telling the others not to tell him they knew about his identity. But she had to be honest with him. If she wasn't there was no chance he would ever forgive her for everything. She doubted that he would anyway, but she did not have the strength to lie to him.
"Ok, well, let's write a spell", Phoebe said. Actually by 'let's write a spell' she meant, 'I will write a spell'. As silly as it seemed, she liked spell writing and she was actually looking forward to that part.
Without waiting for an answer she grabbed a notepad and started scribbling on it.
"Do we need candles?", future Piper asked uncertainly. She wanted to help, but she had no idea how.
Phoebe responded, "I don't think so".
They all waited and looked at her back anxiously. She turned around and said, "Would you mind not staring at me? I'm trying to concentrate." The others blushed a little and turned to look at other things, even though now they realized more than ever how very boring the attic was.
After some minutes Phoebe ripped the sheet of the pad and exclaimed, "Done!"
They all rushed to her to examine her work. "Seems good", Piper said after she had read it some times.
"So let's do it", Paige said. She was a little scared how he would react when he was just summoned away from wherever he was, but she was someone who rather faced her fears than to dwell on them.
Together the three witches from the past chanted,
Son, nephew, whitelighter dearCome to us who call you here
Return to this place where you belong
Help rectify the things done wrong
And they were all half relieved when they saw the familiar swirl of golden lights that usually accompanied the summoning of someone form in front of them.
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Chris knew that the situation was really bad. He had decided hiding was no use, since the demon girl had already spotted him. So now he stood upright in front of her.
At least he was standing when he died. Great.
He couldn't help but think about why the hell fate hated him that much? Couldn't it give him such a perfect opportunity to end his sorry existence in this stupid universe some time when he could really use it? No, apparently it seemed like destiny loved to play its cruel games with him, so he had to be in a life threatening situation, right when he couldn't use one at all. Right when he needed to stop his egomaniac brother from destroying the world.
The demon girl smirked at him. She was almost a foot smaller than him but she did have the upper hand in this situation.
"So, you'd rather be killed with an athame or with a fireball? It's all your choice", she asked him with a huge false smile plastered across her face. She seemed to be enjoying herself. At least one of us is having fun, Chris thought sarcastically.
He decided there was no time to play around at the moment. Partly because he needed to stop Wyatt from screwing up and partly because he was just tired of talking.
But his chances stood pretty low. He knew that. He only had two real powers, not counting the whitelighter sensing and hearing calls thing, and one of these was disabled now, thanks to his lovely older sibling. Some funny twist of nature had stopped him from developing any new powers after he had died and been resurrected. That was pretty bad, since Wyatt had only received the biggest part of his powers when he had been fifteen and it seemed safe to assume that the same thing would have happened with Chris if his powers hadn't stopped developing.
The big forces of good had a pretty lousy way of equipping their "last hope" as they called it with useful supplies. On one hand they wanted him to safe the entire world from the evil that had taken over, but on the other hand they did not give him any powers to do that. He sure had reasons to hate these guys. And this was just the kind of situation where he was reminded of that.
Just to make the situation even better he suddenly heard a voice in the back of his head calling his name. It was Paige. Now that was really what he wanted, being stuck in a situation being possibly the end of his life and on the other hand hearing voices calling him to where he couldn't go for his lack of orbing abilities. With a quick thought he set her on mute, ignoring any further calls she might've made. He really didn't need that kind of distraction right now.
He decided it was no use to dwell on his power issue, since that had never gotten him anywhere, so he made use of the one power he still had. With a quick wave of his hand he sent the young demon flying through the entire cave and crashing into the opposite wall. He was surprised to see that he had quite forceful done so, judging from the huge pieces of debris that had freed themselves off the wall on the impact.
But it had not done a lot to improve his situation. Instead the demon stood back up, now supplied with some nasty bruises and seeming to be very pissed at him.
"Fire ball it is then", she said with a deep growl of anger in her voice. She didn't loose any time and created the deathly instrument in her hand at once. She threw it at him with full force, but before he had the chance to dodge it, something very weird happened to him. He felt a pull and suddenly his vision was full of golden lights…
The demon girl on the other hand saw him disappear in a fashion that was one which no one could do on their own. He had been summoned away, she could tell from the lights.
"Cheater!", she yelled at the ceiling. Than she crossed her arms, sat down on one of the stones on the cave's floor and started pouting in a very un demon like way.
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It took Chris some seconds to realize what had happened. For a moment he stared at the people in the attic in utter confusion. He knew he didn't look very smart in that moment but he just couldn't help it. Wyatt had disabled his orbing, so how could he be here?
But then his gaze caught sight of the candles surrounding him and the sisters standing there with a sheet of paper.
And he realized they had summoned him. For a moment he didn't know what to think. They had gotten him out of the situation without even knowing he had been in it, but on the other hand why the hell did they want to summon him in the first place? He was some kind of grateful for their intervention, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made to him.
"So, who is going to explain?", he asked with a questioning look on his face. He didn't see the necessity to tell them about his demon encounter. It didn't really matter.
"Oh Chris…", he heard a faint voice say. He looked straight at past Piper who had spoken and stared into her red eyes. They had been red before, since she had seemingly decided it was more helpful to cry the hell out of her eyes instead of doing something useful.
But there was something different about her look. Something which he couldn't identify at first, or rather didn't want to accept. He looked at his future mother for a confirmation of his suspicion and when he looked into her eyes he saw it.
It was the same.
The way the two women were looking at him was exactly the same. This affection and love mirroring in both their eyes was something he was used to of his Piper, but not of her past version. She would never look at him this way unless…
His face turned pale, then his eyes narrowed he looked at his future parents and with a considerable coldness in his voice he said. "You told them." It wasn't a question.
Future Piper immediately knew this was bad. Her son was pissed. Really pissed. She could tell from all the experiences she had had with him that he was even more angry at the two of them than he had been some hours ago when he had yelled at her and her husband. She had to be very careful now or else he was definitely going to blow up, not literally but still it would be pretty bad.
"Honey, please, listen to us, we had to…", she started in the futile hope she could still calm her youngest son down, but he interrupted her before she could really start explaining.
"You had to!", he repeated loudly and angrily. "I'm sorry did I get that right? You had to simply go here and tell them the one secret I worked hardest to preserve during my stay here? You had to override all future consequences warnings you've ever been given? You know damn well that this could alter the future in really bad ways, this isn't your first time to do time travel for crying out loud!", he yelled.
He took a short pause to take breath but he didn't leave enough air time for anyone else to say something. "I mean seriously, sometimes, or rather all the time I have the impression you two only exist to piss me off! And once I think now they understood me, now they'll try no to make matters worse you two do just that! I mean, are you so stupid or do you just like acting that way? I thought you had understood a little bit more what to do and what not to do the last time I yelled at you!" He shot a quick glance at his watch. "Which was, by the way only two hours ago!" He decided to stop yelling for the moment and listen to the stupid excuses his parents had doubtlessly already made up. He glared at the two of them.
Future Piper had desperation evident clearly in her voice. "Chris, please, we had to make them understand, they had to know, you could use their help and they can only provide it to you if they realize who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. Chris, we only want to help you." She prayed to heaven he would understand. She needed him to see what she was trying to accomplish, she needed him to understand that she only wanted to help him. Every one of those hateful glares he was shooting towards her were crushing her heart. After all he was still her baby and she still loved him more than anyone could imagine.
"Yeah great, just the help I needed, undermining all the things I've been working to accomplish ever since I got here. Just great", he replied, his voice drowning in sarcasm.
"Sweetie, please…", future Piper begged with a new verge of tears in her eyes.
"Don't you 'sweetie' me!", Chris growled. She had lost the right to call him that way a long time ago, and he was very aware that she probably knew that. Her behavior often seemed to him as if she was trying to forget everything that had happened and pretend everything was fine. But he would never forget. And it would never be fine.
"Why did you summon me, anyway?", he asked, now turning to the others in the attic who had watched the exchange between him and his mother with looks on their faces that were showing great discomfort and guilt. And he was really annoyed by these looks.
"Well, we want to help you, so we thought it was best, if we coordinated with you", past Leo hesitantly tried to explain, while his future version was holding his wife and tried to comfort her a little while she was crying again.
Chris sighed. It did make sense on some level that they had summoned him, even though it was a pretty blunt and stupid method to get to talk to him. Had he been in some other situation it could have caused a lot of damage, possibly destroying an opportunity for him to stop Wyatt, but since it had not been that kind of situation he decided to let it go. His family's stupid methods had saved his life this time, so there was no point in yelling at them for doing it the way they had. And truth to be told he was tired of yelling.
He realized they were all looking at him a little anxiously, as if they were afraid he was going to yell at them again. So he just said, "Great, then coordinate."
They seemed to be a little surprised by him not being angry at this and not getting into the matter further. They had more or less expected he would disapprove of this action, too.
Under different circumstances it would have caused him some self-doubt that everyone was always expecting him to yell and were startled when he didn't, but he didn't care at the moment.
"I'm waiting. You have obviously already thought of some kind of genius plan or otherwise you wouldn't have summoned me, right?", he asked with a lot more calm voice, even though he had a pretty good idea of what was going to come. He tried to think of how probable it was that they really did have a plan but he simply couldn't think of a less likely thing to happen.
They all blushed a little, which looked a little funny and told him all he needed to know. Of course they did not have a plan of any kind. Past Leo tried to defend them by saying, "We were hoping we could develop one together with you"
Chris jut rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch in the attic. "So, in other words you had absolutely no idea what to do and summoned me in the hope I would have one, right?", he said with his voice still quite calm. He knew that his mother would consider this to be the calm before the storm, and was bracing herself against another wave of yelling on the inside. But he had no intention to yell now. He simply didn't want to anymore.
"Good", he continued without letting them have time to confirm his thoughts. "Then I'll tell you what to do. You want to help? Okay, I have something for you to do. I will go back to where I came from and try to prevent adult Wyatt from taking over power, while you six are going to find out what was responsible for turning him, if there even was such a thing and he didn't just become this way all by himself, and then you'll call me, so we can vanquish the thing, whatever it may be. But if you don't find anything within four hours I expect you to discard the problem in another way."
"Four hours?", Paige protested. "You expect us to find the cause of him turning in four hours after you haven't found it in almost a year?" She couldn't believe it. Chris knew that was impossible, and a deadline like this was really not fair at all, since they had absolutely no idea where to start. What did he expect them to do? Do magic? Ok, well, they could do magic, but there was absolutely no hint for them what could possibly have caused Wyatt's turning.
Past Piper on the other hand was worried by something else than the narrow deadline. She stared at Chris with a pale face and asked weakly, "What other way?"
He looked her in the eye, with no hint of emotion in his gaze. "If you don't manage to stop him from turning evil, you are going to need to get rid of the problem itself" He knew he was expecting something of her which she would never be able to do, but he didn't care. She was responsible for the problem's existence so it was up to her to end it.
She was apparently the only one in the attic who understood what he was hinting. She clapped her hands over her mouth and said breathlessly, "No, you can't, you can't be asking me to do that, please, that's impossible", she begged him. She searched his face for a hint of sympathy or maybe for the realization that he wasn't serious, but she could only see in his steely gaze that he was indeed serious. Dead serious.
"What, Piper what does he mean?", Phoebe asked oblivious to the meaning of her nephew's words.
"He wants us to… to kill Wyatt", Piper said through her sobs.
"What! You can't be serious, he's our son, he's your brother, he's only a baby!", past Leo yelled at Chris.
Chris stood up unimpressed and stepped a little closer to the past version of his father. He looked him straight in the eyes with a look of ice on his face that made Leo shiver involuntarily. "So? It's the easiest way to get rid of the threat. Rather than yelling at me for the idea you should rather be thanking me for the fact that I haven't already killed your precious little favorite son off." He turned to look at everyone else in the attic. "I'm not even necessarily asking you to kill the child, you got four hours to make him good again"
And with that he instinctively tried to orb out. And much to his surprise, it worked.
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He reformed on the golden gate bridge, uncertain what to do, and feeling a little guilty about the way he had talked to his family just some seconds ago. He had given them a deadline that was almost impossible to meet and set an ultimatum that was the worst they had ever heard.
He had actually asked a mother to kill her child. He shivered a little at the thought of what message that had sent. It meant he was an emotionless, cold and possibly evil guy without a heart. And that realization hurt him, even though it wasn't really surprising to him. He felt really bad about having said these things.
For a moment he forgot about all the bad things that had happened to him because of his family's behavior. Instead he thought about the pain he had obviously caused Piper by saying these harsh things. He took a deep breath.
He had basically been bluffing. He didn't really have any idea, how to stop adult Wyatt from doing anything he pleased, and his only hope was that if his younger self would be stopped from turning evil, his older version would change and be stopped by his own then new developed conscience.
And telling the others they were supposed to kill him was at least a way to get them to see the urgency of the matter. Chris was basically desperate. If this didn't work he had absolutely no other way of saving everyone. Still he despised himself for what he had done and said. And he was really sorry. He himself hadn't been able to kill that innocent young child with the bright blue eyes and the cute blonde curls, so how where his parents supposed to be capable of doing that. But he didn't expect them to do that anyway.
But then another thought struck his mind? Why had he been able to orb out of the attic? He tried to orb from one pillar of the bridge to the other, even though he didn't like the other one, just to confirm his thoughts. It worked without any problems. Apparently Wyatt's spell had just made it impossible for him to orb out of that specific cave, but not affected his general ability to orb. That was a pleasant surprise. Finally something had not been as bad as it had seemed like at first.
He tried to concentrate again. He didn't have the time to feel sorry for Piper or anyone else for having been so mean. He had to figure out a way to get rid of his older brother, the adult one, in case the others didn't find the reason for his behavior.
If something did turn him, a nasty little voice in the back of his head reminded him. Maybe that kid was just destined to be evil, while Chris was destined to be hated by his family. His recent order had definitely done nothing to improve that situation, but he didn't care. He couldn't afford it.
He had stopped caring about what his family thought, so now he had to get to work. He knew that his brother from his time was lost to evil. There was no way he would ever turn good now. And truth to be told, Chris would never be able to forgive him for all that he had done, for all the pain he had single-handedly caused only to get more powers for himself.
So Chris had to kill his Wyatt.
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Past Piper's knees had stopped supporting her and now she was sitting on the floor crying. She was oblivious to her family's attempts to comfort her, with phrases like "he didn't mean it", which was a pity, for her empath sister had felt that Chris indeed hadn't meant it but had only attempted to scare them. Even though from the way he had acted that was hard to believe.
Past Leo was desperate. They definitely had other things to worry about right now than Piper being shaken up, like Chris' deadline, but they needed the power of three if they wanted to accomplish anything.
A thought hit him how he could get her attention. It was something he would never have done under normal circumstances, but these were hardly normal circumstances. He took a deep breath and prepared for what he was about to do. The pacifist in him was screaming to let that idea go, but Leo hardly had any choice.
He raised his hand and slapped Piper clearly across the face. Not hard, he would never try to hurt her deliberately but still enough to get her attention.
For a moment she stared at him in shock, but he obviously had succeeded at snapping her out of her state. "I never thought you would be the guy to hit you wife", Piper said with her voice shaking slightly while she was still staring at him as if he was completely crazy.
"I'm really sorry, but Piper, we have a deadline to meet and I have no intention of letting Chris down on this one", Leo said. He tried his best to disguise how much the thought of his little angel being killed by one of the good guys had shaken him up. It was just impossible to believe.
"But… he wants…", Piper said weakly.
"He was bluffing, Phoebe felt it", Leo explained hastily. Although after the act he had given that was pretty hard to believe. "But still, we need to help him, he wanted to encourage us to work faster, and as much as I disapprove of the way he tried to convince us, he still deserves our support. And we need to meet that deadline"
"He… he was bluffing?", Piper asked hesitantly, but it was evident that she had stopped crying.
"Yes", Phoebe confirmed. She was getting all dizzy by all the emotions flying around in the room, but she didn't want to be so selfish to complain about it.
"But that deadline is impossible", Piper said desperately.
"It doesn't have to be, we only need to work hard enough", Leo said. Chris had indeed set their timeframe very narrow, but they just had to do the best they could. Leo still ha his mind on what future Piper had told them earlier. He wasn't going to let his son down again, even if he used pretty bad things to motivate them for speed.
Past Piper nodded slowly. "Then let's get to work"
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Chris had had no idea where to go and after a while of orbing around he had found himself in a store for magical weapons. It was a very special store. He had been here once or twice in the future and he liked the concept of it.
The owner, a young witch who was a genius in the matter of constructing new and interesting weapons was very fond of staying neutral. Her work was always excellent, which was probably the only reason everyone was accepting the requirements she said for her costumers.
Her motto was "Leave the war outside". No one was allowed to use powers in her shop, nor to shimmer, flame, blink or orb in, everyone had to get to the front door.
Her costumers where all kinds of demons and darklighters but also various beings of good. And much to the surprise of everyone it worked. The costumers managed to keep their differences aside when they were in the shop and even in front of it there were no fights. That basically resulted in the fear, that if her weird model wouldn't work, she would stop making weapons for everyone and that would not help either side.
Chris looked through the shelves but could find nothing he found useful against his brothers. There were some admirable pieces of handiwork which would definitely be a big advantage in a fight with ordinary demons, but Chris didn't have the feeling these things would to him any good in a fight with his brother. He was way to strong to be harmed by these kinds of weapons.
Chris decided that he indeed needed some advice. He made his way to the counter where the owner of the shop stood and just finished supplying a darklighter with new arrows that were seemingly enchanted so their aim was improved and they could fly longer. The darklighter left the counter and as he passed Chris, Chris shot him a disapproving look which the demon returned. But none of them made any aggressive moves or said anything. The concept of the store really did work. But that didn't mean the costumers liked each other very much. It was just the natural rivalry between darklighters and whitelighters.
Chris arrived at the counter and the young witch smiled at him. She had chosen to ignore the way Chris and the darklighter had looked at each other. Instead she had kept herselfoccupied with spilling a potion on the table. With concentration on her face she reached in the puddle and pulled out a beautiful athame that seemed to be forming out of the liquid.
"May I help you?", she asked in a cheerful voice.
"Yes, that would be great", Chris said gratefully.
"Very well, what do you need?" she asked while looking at the athame she held in her hand sadly. The weapon was slowly beginning to melt. "I need to improve the stiffness", she muttered under her breath. Then she put the athame back in a cauldron where it dissolved completely.
Chris watched that intrigued and almost forgot about the other things he had to care about. "Well, if you need a potion that can turn into an athame I must disappoint you", the girl said with a small smile on her face.
"Oh it's not that, don't worry. I need something to vanquish a really powerful being, possibly the most powerful being existent", he explained. But somehow it sounded weird to him, wanting to vanquish his brother. No matter how badly the guy deserved it, it just felt strange saying it out loud.
"Oh well, what about an enchanted sword or an enchanted athame?", the girl asked helpfully.
"No I don't think that would be the best thing", Chris said hesitantly. An athame just didn't seem powerful enough to him. A Darklighter's arrow would be nice to kill his brother with, since he still had whitelighter blood, but it was not really the best idea for him to handle a Darklighter's crossbow. He wasn't exactly sure, but he believed that it could also have bad consequences for a whitelighter to use one of these things.
"Well, there's hardly anything else except for potions, but I don't do potions, sorry", she said with an apologetic look on her face.
That was bad. Chris needed something, since his active powers were really useless against his older brother. He thought about it. If there was no other possibility he would need to get some sword or athame, but he doubted that any of that would be powerful enough and he didn't have very high skills for handling either of these weapons. And besides, even the most powerful enchanted sword would look very stupid against Excalibur. He wasn't sure whether his brother had brought that item with him, but it didn't really matter very much anyway.
"Unless…", the witch started and snapped Chris out of his thoughts.
"Do you have something?", Chris asked with a hint of hope in his voice.
"Well, yeah, but it wouldn't be a good idea", she said hesitantly.
"I don't care. What is it?", Chris asked excitedly.
She bent down behind the counter and retrieved a round item that was yellow and had a button at the side. "This", she said. "It's a device that makes power implode on itself. The idea is that the more powerful the being attacked with it is, the bigger is the boom. If your enemy is really that powerful it will definitely kill him"
"Great, I'll take it", Chris said. This seemed like a gift from heaven. Wyatt was very powerful, so this would create hell of a boom. He reached out to get it, but the girl snatched it away from him.
"What's the matter?", Chris asked confusedly.
"It's not for sale", the girl said and shot him a disapproving look.
"Why not?", Chris asked and stared at her in utter disbelief. He needed that thing, it was his only chance to finally finish his older brother off.
"Because it is still in the testing phase. There's no guarantee that it will work at all and in the phase it is in, it can only be activated by pushing the button, but it stops working when you let go of the button. It can only be used if it touches the victim and it kills everyone that touches it, but it has to be touched to work, so it's basically suicide to use it", the young with explained.
Suicide Chris couldn't explain it, but even after all these years this word triggered something in him. It had always seemed to him as a way to get happiness. And even though he knew now he would not get happiness from it the word still had that sound to him.
"I don't care, I need it", Chris said desperately.
The girl took the thing and put it back under the counter. "Check back in a month or two, I guess by then I will have it working properly. It is against my rules to sell items that are not fully developed yet", she said with a look of steel on her face.
"I don't have a month or two", Chris pleaded, "I need it now, or the world will go to hell"
"Do you know how often I hear that from whitelighters? I don't care what's at stake, that's none of my business. I won't sell it, that's my last word", she said and crossed her arms.
Chris knew that she very stubborn. He had learned that in the future and he was pretty sure that was no different in the past.
He sighed in frustration and left the shop without even saying goodbye. Secretly he wondered why she had even shown this to him if she hadn't wanted to sell it anyway. He was really angry now, and truth to be told he was lost now, too. This shop had been his last hope. Well, one but last. The last hope was the others finding out who turned Wyatt. But he didn't really believe they would succeed.
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The tension in the attic was unbearable. It had been two hours of fruitless search and they were still right where they had started.
Phoebe had tried to get a premonition from Wyatt to see who would turn him but instead she had only gotten premonitions where his parents had bought him a huge bowl of ice-cream. She wasn't sure, but she had the distinct feeling he had influenced what she had seen to give her a hint of what he wanted. Of course he didn't understand the importance of what was going on and that finding the one who would turn him evil, but it was a lot more pressing matter than ice-cream.
Paige had written spells over and over to see what would happen to Wyatt in the future and to see what would turn him, but none of them had had any effect except for one which had caused a potted plant to grow a moustache which hadn't been exactly helpful.
Past Piper and Leo had tried to help their future selves remember whatever events had taken place when Wyatt had been a child that could tell them who was responsible for turning their little angel into what had become of him. But they could remember nothing suspicious. Maybe there was something, but as ghosts who were out of the afterlife at the moment none of them were able to access the full extent of their memories. At least not of events that had taken place such a long time ago for their perception.
"This is useless!", Paige exclaimed and hit the plant whose moustache had now extended to a full beard with her notepad.
"Paige, anger is not going to help", both Leos said at the same time. For a moment they were both startled at saying the exact same thing and looked at one another in confusion. Paige meanwhile ignored her two brothers in law's behavior and said, "This isn't anger, it's frustration."
"I could've told you the same thing", Phoebe said while she was cuddling Wyatt who was sitting in his playpen. The thought of Chris suggesting they killed this innocent little child was still shaking her up a little.
"Yeah, always nice to have an empath around to analyze your feelings", Paige said with a sarcasm in her voice that reminded most of the people in the attic of Chris.
"We need to come up with something else", Past Piper said, sharing her sister's confusion. She had finally managed to get a grip and was now focused on the task again, but the complete lack of progress her family was making was really getting on her nerves.
"There's nothing else we can do, there's nothing in the book", Future Leo said when a different thought hit him. They couldn't do anything else. But what if they asked someone for help.
"A seer!", he suddenly exclaimed.
Paige looked around the room startled. "Where?", she asked when she didn't see one.
"Not here, but if we can find one, we can look in the pool and find out who did it", Future Leo said with excitement in his voice. He couldn't believe why he hadn't thought about this sooner. This was just perfect.
"Would that work?", Future Piper asked her husband confusedly.
"I think it would", Phoebe said, amazed by the idea. "Unlike me, seers can control what they see, the one who was there when Cole turned… you know… could do that" Phoebe was reluctant to remember that matter, when she had turned evil for her true love. When Cole had become the source.
"Can you find one?", Past Piper asked her future husband with a hint of hope in her voice.
"I think so. They don't conceal themselves, because they want to have costumers. Most seers deal with information." He closed his eyes and concentrated.
Everyone in the attic held their breath, except for Wyatt and the plant while he searched the Underworld for their possible way out of this mess.
He reopened his eyes soon. "I've got one"
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When they orbed into the big cave they were amazed how nicely it was decorated. It looked more like a living room in some nice apartment than a demon cave. The stone that made up the ceiling was completely straight and looked like any room in a mortal home. It was painted in light blue and didn't have any cave characteristics. The only thing reminded them that they were indeed in the underworld, was the fact that the room didn't have any windows. On the large couch in the middle of a room sat a women who was currently busy painting her toenails. Next to the sofa there was the seer's pool.
She looked up when the intruders came in. "Can I help you?", she asked without any hostility in her voice. She didn't seem to be offended by sic beings of good entering her home unannounced.
"Nice room", Paige commented involuntarily. But she was genuinely impressed.
"Thanks", the seer said with a smile.
"Can we have a look into your pool?", past Leo asked. Just after he had spoken these words he realized that this sounded pretty dirty, but he tried not to think about it. The seer didn't seem to mind. She waved towards it and said, "Sure, help yourself."
They all immediately rushed to the thing, too busy to be suspicious why the demon was so cooperative. They looked into it anxiously, but nothing happened.
"Why doesn't it work?", Paige asked in confusion.
"Well it's not like you just look and it tells you what you want to know. I need to trigger it first", she said while trying carefully not to paint any point that was not supposed to be painted.
"Then trigger it", Leo commanded.
She put the nail polish aside and stood up. She waved over the pool and it began to whirl.
"Now concentrate on what you want to know", she advised them.
"Why are you so friendly?", Phoebe asked suddenly. She didn't believe a demon would help them without a second thought so easily.
"You're the Charmed Ones. If I didn't cooperate you would vanquish me. And I don't want to be vanquished", the seer explained calmly.
The rest of the family just concentrated on their question over and over again. And all of them were very shocked when the waves exposed the features of the last person they would've expected to turn Wyatt evil…
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A/N: Sorry about the long wait and the bad chapter, I was just lacking inspiration. Sorry, no personal responses, it's really late over here right now. I'll do some next chapter. There's only one chapter left to go on anyway.
Please review despite the bad chapter.