Anything you see here that's salient from the world of 'Charmed' is the property of the WB, Brad Kern, Spelling Television and all of the other crazy people who roll across the screen at the beginning at end of the episodes. No infringement is intended and any resemblance to anyone – living or dead – is entirely coincidental.
Phoebe tightened the backing of her left earring, squinting in her mirror on the vanity table. She was sitting on the edge of the stool, concentrating on making moves contrary to those displayed in the mirror. The witch had gone for more-conservative-than-her-usual-style studs today, but she had managed to lose the back of the right one somehow, and had no idea where it was. Her earring was going to fall out unless she found it soon… Laying the small diamond on the surface she frowned at her now uneven reflection and mused for a while as she unfastened the left one too. She then got up and exited into the upper hallway.
She clucked her tongue in thought, pausing for a second. She had already finger-tip searched the entirety of her bedroom rug, and she had been in Paige's room this morning 'borrowing' this new lipstick she'd seen her sister sporting. Maybe the backing fell off there. She knocked on Paige's door before opening, but the room was empty and still except for the curtain fluttering slightly in the breeze from the open window.
She did a quick sweep of the room - noticing that her 'borrowing' of Paige's lipstick was justified as there was a pair of her own shoes tucked under a chair that she had missed when she was in here this morning – and by chance saw the tiny back glinting, nearly hidden under Paige's bed.
She thought she felt her hand tingle as she reached under to get it, but that was probably just the comforter's tassels, she reasoned.
And then, with a shriek and a chunky, high-heeled sandal thudding to the rug she was gone.
Don't Look Under the Bed
"DEMONS!" Paige yelled, jumping to her feet. "Coffee table!" she yelled, and the piece of furniture orbed through the sunroom doors and on top of the group of demons. The magazines that used to reside on it fell to the floor with several splats and as Piper ran into the parlour from the dining room waving her hands she skidded on a particularly glossy one depicting some kind of celebrity scandal or the other and fell on her butt.
The three demons started to unpick themselves from the remains of the coffee table as Piper accepted a hand up with a glare at Paige. She flicked her hands out, but the demons were only mildly affected, staggering backwards.
"CHRIS!" Piper hollered at the ceiling as Paige continued to direct any kind of weapon she could see at the demons. Piper winced inwardly as wood splintered and glass shattered around her.
With a point of its finger, the demon blasted a swaddling of orbing lights out of the air with a stream of fire, dissipating them and whatever they were carrying. Paige blinked, momentarily shocked and stopping her barrage for a split second too long.
Suddenly the air was filled with the narrow streams of fire – only about twice or three times as thick as an arrow and just about as long - and Paige pulled Piper down, sincerely wishing she hadn't orbed the coffee table at the demon, because it would now at least have offered some form of cover.
"Couch!" she squeaked as a line of the bolts surged towards them. The couch orbed in front of them on top of the mess of magazines and a shattered pot plant. Acrid smoke coiled from the sofa as it singed and Piper thanked God that they had had the sense to by something fireproofed. Although to be honest they were hardly going to buy something that would spontaneously combust at the first sign of a spark, not in this house.
"Where the hell is Phoebe?" Piper growled, popping her head up to try and freeze the scene. The demons didn't freeze either and she shrieked, throwing herself onto her side, narrowly avoiding landing on baby Chris in her pregnant stomach. The stream of fire aimed at her shattered a vase of flowers on the marble-topped table behind her. Water gushed all over the floor as Piper yelled yet again for her missing sister, then her son.
"Mom, what-" Chris had appeared in the doorway of the conservatory and was immediately blasted in the back and blown face first onto the couch where he lay unmoving.
In a cloud of orbs the white wicker couch rose into the air from behind the demons and landed on them, giving Paige time to vault the parlour's couch and yank the large sliding doors of the conservatory closed, using a lamp's flex to tie the catch in place. The door shook violently and a wisp of smoke coiled through the gap.
The double doors to her left just shattered completely, knocking her to the floor in a barrage of splintered wood and glass shards. Grunting she crawled army-style, embedding glass in her elbows, to the couch where she yelled for Piper to take Chris's arm while she grabbed his leg. As a last-ditch attempt she orbed glass at the demon, but it smoked out and she concentrated on orbing the party of three out of the parlour as the demon rematerialized and walked through the door-less doorway with its partners, crunching on debris.
"Phoebe!" Piper yelled as the orbing lights faded around her, placing her in the attic. "PHOEBE!" She crossed to the door, enunciated both syllables angrily and ventured out onto the landing.
"Piper, where are you going?" Paige asked, flipping frantically through the book of shadows and keeping an eye on her stirring nephew, who was lying on the floor moaning.
"I've got to find Phoebe! Keep looking!"
Paige was about to protest further but Piper was already descending into the shadows of the Manor's upper hallway.
Don't Look Under the Bed
Piper snuck along the landing as much as a pregnant woman could sneak, wincing as she heard the sounds of the ground floor being completely trashed. A floorboard squeaked underneath her and she hurried on, hissing her sister's name.
"Phoebe! Get your ass out here right-" The three demons smoked in in front of her and she raised her hands, blasting them all backwards down the hall as she hurried for Phoebe's bedroom. The door was ajar and Piper burst through, locking it behind her and turning, expecting to see Phoebe meditating or listening to music or maybe even working, but the room was empty.
"Crap," Piper said, leaning against the door which shook against some kind of onslaught, probably fiery, that would be leaving scorch marks on the wood. "PAIGE!" She yelled to the ceiling, loud enough for her half-sister to not even need her whitelighter senses.
The three demons smoked in again and fired at her all at the same time. She ducked and the door was obliterated in a rain of smouldering splinters. She scrambled backwards, just in time to see Chris running down the stairs and flinging out his arm, vanquishing a demon with its own weapon.
"Run!" He commanded, dragging his mother up without allowing her dignity under the armpits and giving her a push towards the attic. Over his head, a light fitting on the wall exploded and he hit the deck, feeling the air leave his lungs. He made a motion with two fingers and a splinter of wood rammed itself through another demon's stomach, vanquishing it.
Piper, torn between saving herself and Chris's foetus or the adult version sprawled across the wreckage strewn floor eventually ran back towards the attic stairs, blasting the remaining demon backwards before disappearing around the corner. As she tried her best to run up the attic stairs she was glad she'd had Leo orb Wyatt to Magic School that day. It was best that he wasn't here right now. She finally burst into the attic, where Paige stuffed a piece of paper with a vanquishing spell written on it into her hand.
"Where's Chris?"
"Here," the witch-whitelighter said, taking the stairs two at a time. He stopped, panting, a graze bleeding freely on his cheek. "Couldn't… kill him…" He gasped, before swallowing and straightening up. "Got a spell?"
"I couldn't find Phoebe," Piper fretted, just as Paige was blown clean across the room into a bookshelf. Piper opened her mouth to say the spell but with pinpoint accuracy the demon incinerated the piece of paper before throwing a jet of fire at Piper herself. Chris directed it back at the demon, which smoked out, and the firestream fizzled out on the doorframe.
Paige dragged herself up from the floor just in time to yell out a warning to Chris, who turned quick enough so that the fire only grazed his side. The stream, however, headed straight for Piper. Paige orbed a fallen book from beside her into the path and the two collided, just as Piper knocked the demon on its ass again with her power.
"Fiery demon in my presence,
Let your element be your riddance!"
Paige dropped back to the floor then just as the demon erupted into flames and exploded.
"Just for the record?" Chris said, "I am not on cleanup duty."
Don't Look Under the Bed
Okay, there it is folks. This is a trial – the review button is there. I could be snotty and say that I don't intend to update ever again if I don't get enough reviews, but I know I'll come crawling back, so do as you please, heh.
Okay, for those of you that know me already and are wondering why the hell I'm writing mindless crap instead of posting Chapter 9, it's because Chapter 9 is threatening to become another telephone directory, and I'm trying to edit it down, but all I've done is edit it up. Oy. This is completely unrelated and without my original characters, but I hope just as enjoyable.
Did I mention where to find the review button?
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