Two days before the wedding between JD Dunne and Casey Wells in Four Corners, the inside of Josiah's church, where they were to be married, was being cleaned and decorated. The men who'd taken on that task were some of JD's fellow peacekeepers that, along with JD, made up the group known as "The Magnificent Seven." JD had promised Chris, the group's leader, that marrying Casey wouldn't prevent him from continuing his peacekeeping work.
As usual, Ezra Standish leaned against the side of the church, occasionally commenting on what the other men were doing and not lifting a hand to help.
"Wouldn't hurt ya ta help some, would it, Ez?" asked Vin Tanner, stopping what he was doing and turning to face the gambler.
"It appears that you don't require my assistance, Mr. Tanner," answered back Ezra, always ready with a retort.
Buck Wilmington turned to face Ezra and threw a wet rag at the man. "Appearances ain't everything, Ezra."
Standish threw the cloth back at Wilmington, before walking out of the church in annoyance at both Buck's words and actions. His mother had always told him; "Appearances are everything, Ezra."
"Way ta go, Buck - now we'll never get his help," complained Vin as he finished scrubbing his section of wall clean.
"We're just about done here anyway," said Nathan, who'd already finished his task of cleaning one side of the church.
Although cleaning a church before a wedding was usually women's work, the men had volunteered to do it to repay JD for all the times he had helped them protect the town. There were many times that he had watched his friends' backs and stopped them from being shot.
Just then, Chris Larabee walked into the church to get his friends' help; "Boys, there's trouble coming." The other men stopped their jobs and turned to face their blond leader and good friend.
"Two men posing as Chris and Ezra are coming to town and we have to arrest them on sight," explained JD Dunne who now stood beside Chris just inside the church doorway.
Ezra Standish spoke from behind JD. "Where on earth did you hear such tidings, Mr. Dunne?"
"I just got these wanted posters of them, hand-delivered from a few towns over," replied JD, holding up the wanted posters with pictures of men who looked exactly like Chris and Ezra. He managed not to smile – everyone believed that the posters he had magically created to implicate the magically disguised witches were real.
"They were hand-delivered because that town knew the men were heading here, and they're very dangerous so we needed to be warned urgently," explained Chris, knowing that it wasn't usual for only a few wanted posters to be delivered by hand.
"A most intriguing turn of events," stated Ezra. "We either have twin-brothers of whom we've always been ignorant, or two men have, very professionally, duplicated our appearances. Personally, I'd choose the second explanation."
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Back in the present day, Nathan and Michael had orbed to the Underworld and were looking for the warlocks who were really to blame for the Potters' son, JD, being wiped out of their lives.
Nathan was unhappy about being in the Underworld without preparing for it. "Michael, I really think we shoulda made plans b'fore we came lookin' for them - who knows what they might do when they see us." Nathan wasn't trying to hide his proper accent now that he wasn't among the Potters, who were the only ones from whom he had to hide his origins.
"Don't worry, Nate," said Michael in a soft reassuring voice. "It'll work out jus' fine."
"I hope Vin grows up with your confidence - that's if he ever grows up. I hope we're doin' the right thing bein' down here."
"Relax, Nate - I got it all worked out. An' don't ferget ya got yer freezin' power."
"I'm only borrowin' it 'til we get JD back. I don't feel good about usin' somethin' I ain't even asked permission to borrow."
The two Whitelighters' path was then blocked by a large black demon with three horns: one either side of his head and one on top. "You don't belong here - leave now," he growled out.
"We don't really look like this," began Michael, "we've been usin' our glamour ta fool some witches." Michael didn't attempt to disguise his accent, as he knew that regional accents were just as common in the Underworld as they were on the Earth plane, as the Underworld was also a very large place.
"Do you expect me to believe that without any proof?"
Nathan sighed – demons clearly weren't all as stupid as he thought they were. The Whitelighter brought up his arms, pointed his palms toward the demon and quickly froze him before he could sound an alarm. Then the two Whitelighters used their orbing powers to transport them past the demon that was still blocking their path. Nathan heard Michael muttering about the guard soon unfreezing and raising the alarm, but there was no other option. Perhaps the Whitelighters could vanquish the warlocks before they were caught.
Once the Whitelighters had orbed a safe distance past the demon, Michael decided he needed to talk to Nathan about the big risk they were taking. "We cain't possibly get finished down here b'fore he unfreezes. He'll raise an alert an' we'll never reach the warlocks b'fore we get caught."
"Sometimes we have to take big risks, Michael. This is a big place and it'll take them ages to track us down. We need to quickly get to the warlocks now, so I'll write a spell to get us to them faster." Nathan smiled - now that he was half witch, he had gained the ability to write spells that would work. Not just any words would make something magical happen - they had to be carefully chosen, and only witches could choose the right word combinations for spells.
"That's a brilliant idea, Nate." Michael gently slapped his friend on the back in praise of his good thinking.
Nathan started off the spell by using the two warlocks' names. "With Ivor and Ivan...we need to be...so take us there...Michael and me." Writing spells on the spot was very hard Nathan realized, as he finished composing the spell. He hoped it would work despite how crude it sounded to him.
Bright white light surrounded Michael and Nathan. It only stayed about ten seconds before it vanished, and the two angels were then standing behind two identical warlocks in a cave that was well lit by wall torches.
"Are you two, 'Ivan' and 'Ivor'?" asked Nathan, feeling the need to check the spell had worked.
Both warlocks turned as one and were surprised to see two men standing there. Nathan and Michael both always dressed like still living humans, so no one could tell they weren't on first inspection. "Witches!" said the warlocks in unison, clearly shocked that any witches had found them. Humans without powers wouldn't have appeared in the cave, as it was only accessible by magical means of transportation. The warlocks would've sensed if the men were demons or warlocks, so just assumed that the men must be witches.
"Not quite," said Nathan, as he brought up his arms and froze the room except for himself and Michael. "Now what?" he asked his friend. Nathan had rapidly learnt how to control his freezing power, although he still couldn't keep anything frozen for long. Hopefully, the more he used his new magic power, the longer the effects would last.
Michael had been looking around the cave and had found something very interesting, which was so big, that he was surprised they hadn't seen it straight away. "Nate, look at the wall b'hind you."
As he turned and faced the wall, Nathan gasped in surprise. The whole wall was like a TV screen, and on it, he saw six of the Four Corners peacekeepers, waiting in a clearing in some woods. There was no sound, so the angels couldn't hear what the gunslingers were saying.
"Wow! That demon musta taken a camera with him," commented Nathan, impressed by such technology being used by the Underworld.
"The Time-changer demon has a special camera built into his neck that cannot be detected," said the deep masculine voice of one of the warlocks, having come unfrozen already. "It can magically send moving images from any time back to this screen."
"Ya can see everything he does?" asked Michael, amazed that their enemies could watch the demon in Four Corners. If the warlocks were going to share information, then he and Nathan might as well ask them some questions.
"Yes; so far his most glorious moment was when he stabbed the original JD Dunne," revealed the other warlock in a very similar voice to his brother. He was so confident that their plan would succeed, that he was happy to reveal the details of it to the witches. "Since then he's traveled back to intercept the two Potter witches. The demon will soon kill his next victim, and those two witches will be powerless to stop him."
Both warlocks smiled at their impending further victory against the witches - everything was going according to plan.
A thought suddenly struck Michael upon hearing the warlock mention the death of the gunslinger, JD Dunne. How come the angel didn't remember finding out that his friend JD had been killed back when he was alive? Maybe there was a time-delay since the change in the time-line, like the one that meant the witches could still remember the witch JD after he'd never been born. Perhaps there would come a time when Michael and Nathan would remember when the first JD Dunne had been killed before his wedding day; but hopefully time would be put right before then.
"I see there are only six peacekeepers, so I take it he looks like the seventh," said Nathan, who was suddenly feeling very helpless.
"Yes, he has glamoured into the youngest one - he is now a copy of the one who won't live to see his wedding day," answered one of the warlocks. The warlocks still hadn't said which of them Ivan was and which Ivor was.
Michael had another idea then. What if the demon going back a second time to before Old West JD had been killed meant that he had accidentally stopped himself from killing the peacekeeper now? That could be why the Whitelighter still couldn't remember the day in the Old West when he'd found out that his younger friend had been murdered. Something could've been changed in time after the demon had re-visited before JD's wedding, meaning that he wouldn't be able to kill JD a second time. The two Whitelighters, being in the Underworld, couldn't sense if the witch JD had been restored to life above ground.
"The peacekeepers can't tell the difference between the two JDs," said the other warlock with glee and a huge grin plastered on his face.
"You have a brilliant plan that surely won't fail. Since yer goin' ta succeed in yer plan and bring about the eventual extinction of all us witches, will ya at least tell us yer names?" requested Michael, knowing which buttons to push when dealing with evil. Michael was keeping up the pretense that he and Nathan were witches so that the warlocks wouldn't call in a Darklighter to kill the two Whitelighters with poisonous arrows that could only harm their kind. If a Darklighter succeeded to shoot the deadly poison into them, it would weaken them both until they eventually died - then they'd never be able to get rid of the warlocks.
"Of course; I'm Ivan and he's Ivor. You can tell us apart by our different colored eyes and our slightly different voices." He loved it when the enemy admitted that his plans were brilliant and couldn't be foiled. "My eye color was magically changed when I was a baby from dark-green to gray-blue so we were easier to tell apart."
"I'm bored with all this waiting - it's taking far too long to destroy them all," complained Ivor. "How about we kill both Larabees AND Standishes when the two witches get there?"
"A fine idea, brother. It will certainly speed things up if we kill two or more at a time." Ivan began to laugh. It was a deep, throaty laugh that he emitted and he was soon joined by his brother.
While both warlocks were busy, Michael decided that then was the perfect time for the next part of his plan. He closed his eyes and began chanting in Latin.
"Michael? What are you doin'?" asked Nathan, feeling startled and slightly worried by his old friend's actions.
The other Whitelighter ignored him and continued his chanting until he reached the end of the incantation. Then Michael startled his friend by starting to turn invisible.
A large mass of yellow orbs appeared in the room and then quickly cleared to reveal, much to Nathan's surprise, the witch Chris Larabee.
Now completely invisible, Michael smiled – his plan had at least partly worked. Unfortunately, the incantation hadn't successfully summoned both witches from the past to save them from being caught and imprisoned by the Four Corners' peacekeepers.
"Where am I? How did I get here?" asked Chris, clearly taken aback by being suddenly moved from where he had been.
"It doesn't matter - you were about to walk into an ambush set by the demon," explained Nathan hurriedly.
"What? You mean the demon traveled back to intercept us?" The blond was shocked by the news that the demon or his masters were smart enough to work out that the witches would travel back to before peacekeeper JD was killed to stop the demon. Then Chris noticed the large screen that currently showed the witches' ancestors stood not far from where he'd been with Ezra. As he'd had previous experience with demons who could send images of their location to screens in the Underworld, Chris knew that the Time-changer demon must be sending the images that he saw through his own eyes.
"Do you really think that we were so stupid that we wouldn't work out how you could foil our plans?" asked Ivan, annoyed that one of the prophesied witches had been summoned there. It meant that the Larabee witch couldn't be imprisoned to prevent him from interfering further with the warlocks' plan. "We're always one step ahead of you and your family, witch." Ivan began to laugh loudly at the foolish witch.
Ivor looked at his brother, worried that their plan could still be foiled because of the two witches showing up there unexpectedly. The two warlocks still assumed that the first two intruders there were witches.
"The half-demon witch is still in danger," reminded Ivan, sounding very pleased by his words. "Keep watching the screen." He had a magical link with his twin-brother that allowed him to sense Ivor's emotions, so he could sense that his brother was worried. By reminding the two witch intruders that the half-demon witch was still in danger, he was also reassuring his brother that they still had a chance for their plan to succeed. He was glad to see a crooked grin appear on Ivor's face, meaning that his reassuring words had worked.
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After arriving in the Old West and checking there would be no witnesses, Chris and Ezra had stood together and said the transformation spell. When it worked, they would fit in better and not attract any unwanted attention from the locals. The spell went: "Assist me now to metamorphose, into a character Four Corners knows, to the western savior inscribed on the paper."
Both boys had written the exact names of their ancestors below their copies of the transformation spell, so the spell would then turn them into copies of their ancestors. Ezra somehow knew that his ancestor was really called, "Ezra Patrick Standish," although it wasn't written in the history book. It was well known that transformation spells would only work to transform the users into copies, meaning the real ancestors wouldn't be displaced from their time by the witches.
Then both boys had both changed into copies of their ancestors and had started walking toward the town. As they'd appeared a safe distance away, there were likely to be no town-dwelling witnesses to their sudden appearance.
Suddenly, from beside Ezra, Chris gasped. Ezra turned to his side to see his brother vanishing before his eyes. "Chris? Where are you going?"
Larabee completely vanished, never having a chance to answer Ezra.
"Come back!" shouted Ezra, not wanting to be left alone in the Old West. "I can't do this alone." Normally, Ezra would feel confident about single-handedly vanquishing any evil being, but this mission was in a place he wasn't at all familiar with, and he was worried about accidentally changing an element of the past that could prevent him from ever existing in the modern world. With Chris to help him, he'd be less likely to make a critical error in the Old West.
"He can't hear you," taunted a triumphant, malicious voice, as the Time-changer demon appeared in front of Ezra. Then he grabbed Ezra's hand and disappeared, having just received a telepathically sent order from one of his masters.
To be continued...