Hey, everybody, this Wesley. Here is the beginning of the second episode of the second season of the 'Complete' series. It, like everything else I'm doing, is a work in progress, so it might change as I continue to write it. I'll try to get it done as efficiently as possible, but, as usual, I promise nothing!
"Let the object of objection return,
So that its existence may be reaffirmed."
Wesley stepped away from the Book of Light, wondering if the spell he had just cast would be effective. He waited alongside his brothers for some sort of sign to signal that everything had worked. The more they waited, however, the less hopeful they became. Matthew finally grabbed the Book and flipped through it, confirming that the spell had in fact not worked.
"You didn't really think that a spell you got off some TV show would work, did you?" Matthew snapped at Wesley.
"I'm sorry," Wesley said defensively, "but none of your spells have worked! These are desperate times, man! Besides, Charmed has some good spells!"
"That's pretend," James said, siding with Matthew, as usual. "This is real life."
"Please," Wesley said under his breath.
"Well," James said, "I guess we have to come up with something else to make the words in the Book reappear."
"Well that's just not possible!" Matthew exclaimed, flipping through the Book of Light. "Words just can't…disappear!"
"They can and they did," James said with a tone that held both reassurance and uneasiness.
Matthew continued to ignore James' words of reassurance and kept flipping through the Book of Light, the centuries old spell book that had been passed down to him and his brothers. He carefully looked at every single page, hoping that whatever had happened was some stupid magic trick that was easily fixable, but every time he came to the conclusion that something terrible had actually caused the words in their most prized possession to disappear. He briefly put the empty Book down and shook his head before continuing.
He had been having these brief instances of dizziness and light-headedness for a while now. He couldn't explain why, and neither could his brothers, but he certainly wasn't sick. He felt fine. He had even gone to the school clinic to get some kind of explanation, but he only heard what he had expected to hear: it was all in his head.
"You okay?" Wesley asked.
"Yeah," Matthew answered. "Just another dizzy spell."
"Maybe it's exhaustion," James suggested. "You've been spending all your time going from the Book to homework to your job to anything else not fun."
"He's right, you know," Wesley agreed.
"I'm fine now," Matthew said. "Besides, this is a very important issue here. If we don't hurry up and get to the bottom of it, we could die."
"I'm too young for that," Wesley said.
It had been about a month since the incident had happened. At that time, the three brother witches had joined their evil counterparts, the Council, in order to defeat Sabo, a magical being who had sought to bring an end to the world. Since then, September had rolled around and things had never been the same for the Complete. Demons and warlocks and other malicious creatures continued to attack them relentlessly, much more than usual. Without the aid of their Book of Light, though, they remained at a serious disadvantage, one that could ultimately cost them their lives if they weren't careful enough. Luckily, they had managed to vanquish all threats against them, but their victories were only by the narrowest of margins.
Now, with the added stress of classes, things had become more difficult for the brothers. Moreover, with James having matriculated over to the main campus of Emory University, forty miles away from Oxford College, where Matthew and Wesley still attended, it had become increasingly harder to organize plans and, in general, get things done.
At this point, James, the oldest of the three siblings, was able to move things with his mind, an offensive ability connected to his aggressive personality. Over the past year, his power had grown to the point where he could literally sweep people off their feet, or even throw them forcefully away from him, which usually was the case when he was being attacked. In addition, he had developed a secondary power, that to clone himself, although he could only partially control the new ability. His was considered the strongest power of the three brothers, and he was often called on to use his powers the most.
The middle brother, Matthew, had the power to alter his body density to either extreme. Known as phasing, this special ability gave him the option to either pass through solid objects, such as walls or doors, or to become as solid as steel. His power, having the possibility to go both ways, reflected his calm demeanor and middle-of-the-road role in the trio. His power could be seen as both offensive and defensive, and it had definitely been used in both cases.
Wesley, the youngest of the three, and half-brother to the others, had had plenty of chances to refine his power to stop time; after a year he could choose to freeze certain objects or people, as long as they were susceptible to his power. However, his power, being derived from his instinctive nature to panic, more often than not was used as his defense mechanism. After a good deal of soul searching on his part, he had discovered that not only was he James and Matthew's half-brother, but that he could virtually teleport himself from one place to another by means of glimmering. He would disappear in a shower of blue and white lights and appear somewhere of his choosing…in an ideal situation. He had not had the power for long, and given his instinctive nature, he couldn't control this second power at all; it only happened in times of extreme panic.
And now they sat, in the house willed to them by their parents in a suburb of Atlanta called Buckhead. They sat, completely baffled by this new problem that had arisen. The question that was going through all of their minds was, how could this have happened? No matter how many times they retraced their steps, none of them could accurately pinpoint the exact moment when everything went downhill.
"Well if you ask me," Wesley expressed himself, "it all went downhill when we signed on to become witches in the first place. Whoever heard of witches living in the real world, anyway? Especially male witches?"
"Don't start that again," Matthew said. "Every time something goes wrong, you blame it on becoming a witch. 'Go back to our normal lives.' 'Abandon the whole witch thing.' That's your answer for everything. It's not gonna happen."
"And nobody asked you, anyway," James added.
"So what, now you're on his side?" Wesley asked provocatively.
"No," James said. "I'm just saying…"
"People!" Matthew shouted, sensing an imminent argument. "We have enough problems as it is. I've got a ton of homework to do, I have to go work at the Writing Center in a couple hours, it's Sunday evening, and oh, I forgot to mention that our Book of Light is missing its words!"
"If we stopped arguing," Wesley asked calmly, "would that shut you up?"
"It better," James added, then changing his tone. "Listen, I know how tense things have been around here for the past month. School's back in and this is the only time that we can regularly see each other since I'm taking classes at the main campus now. It's hard, but at least we have all have this house as a common ground. We need to all calm down and try to put our heads together. I'm sure the answer is right in our faces, but we're too busy fighting with each other to notice."
"But the answer could be anything," Wesley protested. "We've gone through this for days now. Whatever the answer is, it's anything but in our faces."
"And all this looking for it has taken a toll on my sleeping habits," Matthew said. "I'm going to take a little nap. Wake me up in an hour."
"What's wrong with him?" Wesley asked James innocently as he pointed at Matthew, who was making a beeline upstairs to his bedroom.
"Who knows?" James replied. "Probably needs to get laid."
"Agreed," Wesley said, smiling. "Meanwhile, how's life at the "Big E? We've never really had time to catch up on old times."
"What old times?" James asked. "We've been living here for a month already!"
"Fine," Wesley said. "You try starting a conversation, then."