Yes, it's been a while, and yes I'm really sorry. But there were niggles and stuff in here that took a while to iron out. Especially seeing as I don't know how to use an iron. Cough. Anyway, it DID turn out rather long in compensation (we got to twenty-five pages. Oops) so hopefully that's some good for you.
For Jo — because you're you and because I can.
"She can't be giving birth now!" Piper said, pacing across the attic and gesturing to Bridget, having to stop herself from shrieking. She ran a distracted hand through her hair. This was too much. This was all way too much all at once and she wasn't sure how she was coping. If she was coping. No, she was coping. She had to cope; she didn't have a choice whether to cope or not. She wasn't allowed to freak out — that was a right taken from her three years ago. "Her waters haven't broken!"
"Spontaneous breakage of the waters at the beginning of labour only happens in five to ten percent of cases," Paige recited automatically, propping Bridget up on some cushions on the couch. Piper blinked in surprise while Paige looked up, looping hair behind her ear. "What? You think I just pretended to study to be your midwife?"
"Oh. Well, no, but—"
"You'd think you'd be more sympathetic, considering the time you decided to let Wyatt drop out," Paige said, fixing her sister with a wry look. "I'm going to go and get some towels and maybe some water. I'll be back in a bit."
As her sister orbed from the attic, Piper swallowed and tentatively approached Bridget. She had dim recollections of the day she had given birth to Wyatt. It had been clouded by fear and pain and then relief, but she still remembered the gist of it. Would this happen with Bridget, but the opposite? What if the baby arrived and a guy with horns and a pitchfork and cloven hooves raced up on his flaming chariot? Paige was right, though. Babies just… came. They picked the time and place, not the Mommies, no matter how much they begged and pleaded and screamed.
Bridget gave a breathless laugh and Piper looked down at her. "Heh. The way Paige is acting, anyone would think I was… having this thing here." She laughed again, but it faded at the sight of Piper's face. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I need to… go to the hospital. And—" Another contraction overtook her and she yelled in pain, gripping the arm of the sofa tight enough to snap the wood hidden under the fabric. "Well," Bridget panted, "I guess my strength is… coming back."
San Francisco was big. And scary. And very big. Bridget made uncertain steps down the sidewalk. She didn't think she'd been here before — it didn't look like any of the streets she had ever been to, and certainly not the one with the ice-cream place she had wanted to go to. It had always seemed so simple when her mom had been there to follow but she couldn't see the red outside anywhere. It had to be around here somewhere.
But she didn't know where Here was. If she knew where she was then she could be at Dairy Queen right now, but she didn't think this was the street, because Dairy Queen was the street with KB Toys on it, and there wasn't a KB Toys anywhere near here. She'd definitely notice that if there was.
She pouted defiantly, not wanting to admit defeat. She thought ingenuously that maybe if she got to the end of this block and turned around the corner she'd see Dairy Queen and would be able to get some ice-cream.
Maybe she shouldn't have run away, she thought, as her path took her further and further into less and less desirable parts of the city. Maybe if she'd just stayed in her room where she'd been sent she would have got some ice-cream anyway. These forlorn thoughts trundled through the mind of nine-year-old Bridget as she looked up at a neon sign that was turned off saying 'Motel'. Whatever a motel was.
The further she walked away from where Dairy Queen should have been, the more the paving slabs started to jut out and wobble as she walked carefully over them, letting them lead her into what was probably an older, scarier part of town. She could hear a Police siren in the distance but she held herself up to the full extent of her tiny height and resolutely walked forwards. Maybe she should just go home, and then maybe her mommy would take her to Dairy Queen. She suddenly wanted her mother very much and a pang hit her. She wouldn't mind if her mother pinched her cheeks like her grandmother sometimes did, even though it hurt, and she wouldn't even mind being told to put her shoes on the rack where they belonged. If only she were here…
She looked around and saw another sign for a motel and some signs saying 'Bar' that were stuttering to life behind grimy windows. She shivered a little. If she had been out with her mom then her mom would have made her take a sweater. She wished she had a sweater because it was cold, and starting to get dark…
Learning to Tango
Chris's breath hitched in his throat as Bridget's cries echoed around the cavern. She was having their baby and he was stuck here, detached from the entire situation and only able to watch helplessly on nothing more than that damn crystal. He could feel the magic of the cage thrumming as he got dangerously close to the perimeter but he didn't care. He wanted to be as near to Bridget as he could possibly get and if that risked a shock, then so be it.
He hated this. He vowed to hunt and kill whoever had dumped him here and whoever had sent the demons after Bridget. She could have died. He wasn't sure whether he should be looking for Gideon or not, because, sure, the guy looked like Gideon, but Chris had first-hand experience of the pain the guy was willing to inflict he didn't think an Elder would do that, unless, of course, he was a rogue Elder. The witch-whitelighter scoffed at himself. A rogue Elder. Yeah, that was going to happen.
But if it did…
His train of thought was a little complicated and was clattering around on a circular track inside of his head, not really going anywhere. He mulled it over for a while. It was possible. Anything, technically, was possible. Some things were just less possible than others, that was all.
Okay, then. Suppose Gideon had gone evil. What for? What would it achieve? There had to be a reason behind why Gideon had suddenly turned like this.
Turned.
Turned . . . TURNED! Chris felt like a jolt had shot through his brain at the word and he actually checked to make sure he was nowhere near the cage's perimeter. Wyatt had been turned, and he was here to find out by whom so he could stop it from happening. He had always assumed it was a demon, but what if, somehow, Gideon had been turned? What if, with the change, he had set his sights on Wyatt because, well, he didn't like the power that Wyatt had and felt he had to get rid of it? Or wanted Wyatt's power for himself? Or something. It didn't really matter why, just as long as Chris knew how and when. And therefore could stop Gideon.
He was buzzing with this new information and was suddenly intent on escaping again. He used his power to move the fire truck towards him, as it hadn't actually gone out of the circle of crystals before. Putting every ounce of energy he had into it, Chris threw the toy as hard as he could towards the edges of his prison, but it stopped in midair and was shocked. He shied back a little from the sparks, holding up an arm to protect his eyes.
Eventually, it clattered to the floor slightly charred and with melted rubber wheels. Chris telekinetically hurled it at his now-dormant cage. Again, it was held in midair and zapped before smashing to the floor. The plastic windscreen had shattered and the ladder on the top was bent.
His jaw was set as he tried one more time, throwing it at the cage and holding it there, forcing it to take the entirety of the crystals' magic and not fall with his power. Suddenly, it exploded in a hail of plastic red shards. Chris formed an invisible telekinetic dome around him long enough to forcibly repel any pointy remaining debris.
He really hoped that hadn't been Wyatt's favourite toy.
Chris watched sullenly as his aunt orbed down to the kitchen for hot water and Piper tried to comfort Bridget. He felt so helpless and wanted to do something, but he knew fully well that there was nothing he could do. He was stuck here.
And then, quite suddenly, he wasn't.
Learning to Tango
"Piper, you're not getting this," Bridget told her, her hand still clenching around the couch's broken arm. "I need to go to the hospital," she said though gritted teeth. "NOW."
"We can't get you to the hospital," Piper reiterated, almost wringing her hands. "This baby is part evil. What if it comes out throwing fireballs?" She remembered her own fears of Wyatt being born swaddled in orbs (which he had, come to think of it) and exposing magic. Those fears had been justified, so who was to say that Bridget's baby wouldn't do the same?
"I'm EARLY!" Bridget reminded her with a growl. "Almost two. Frigging. MONTHS. Early! This is not normal, even if the baby was remotely normal. This can't be happening!"
Piper plumped Bridget's cushions some more. "I'll call Phoebe. She and Paige are trained for this. They'll get you through just fine," the oldest Charmed One cooed, smoothing the creases in the pillow absently and yet fastidiously, knowing that if she stopped doing something and thought about what was going on she'd probably panic. And she was the rock; the rock that everyone took for granted, yes, but she was the rock that everything was built on and if she fell into the sea of frenzy and became hysterical then everything else was going to slide was well. And then what would they do? Don lifejackets, probably. Buy a speedboat. She'd seen the cutest rubber ring for Wyatt in a shop window the other day…
She continued straightening the creases on the cushions, pinching and tucking and forcing the material straight. There was another sharp snapping noise as Bridget cried out and squeezed the sofa again, breaking another hidden piece of wood.
Maybe if she could take a shortcut down an alleyway she could get home quicker? She quickly debated this move and decided to go for it. It was, in all actuality, very hard to scare Bridget. The black-haired child was very rarely frightened of anything. She had her small aluminium softball bat in plain sight for when she went to bed, just in case the monsters people talked about were real. Well, they'd be real dead if she and her bat had anything to do with it.
Her babysitter used to give her a free reign of the TV while she kissed her boyfriend and did other odd stuff because it kept Bridget quiet. What her babysitter didn't know was that the only things her charge liked to watch after her bedtime during primetime were horror movies because everything else was boring, grownup TV. Screams and people-eating zombies wandering around were fun, even if she didn't really know what was happening, only pretended to.
Desensitised, people called her. It was a long word and her mind just brushed over it because it was a boring grownup word that was used on the boring grownup television that she didn't like. 'Weird' had more meaning to her, but then again she liked being weird. Weird was what kept people from demanding your milk money, and weird was what was going to take her down the alley.
It was funny, she thought, the things she was reflecting on between contractions. They were still quite far apart, but not far apart enough. She could deal with one now, and then perhaps another one next week sometime. It was kind of ridiculous, to be honest, Bridget thought, feeling sweat run down her face. To be thinking of that after so long… And yet, she sure as hell wouldn't be here today if she hadn't tried to find her way home through that alley. That was a given.
You know, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. If she hadn't gone down that alley, she would've ended up like the hunter in San Diego who was gutted alive by some blind monk guys working for evil. It was odd, the things they put in the hunter manuscripts. You would think that they would put comforting things in there, such as how they were all guaranteed to live to a ripe old age. That would be a better image to go into a fight with rather than envisioning herself with her guts hanging all over her pretty, shiny boots…
Piper was teaching her breathing techniques. She didn't want to know. She knew that all of this breathing stuff was a myth so women wouldn't know that they wanted lots of and lots of painkillers until it was too late for them to be given to them. That way, the hospitals saved on orders.
'Where are you, Chris?'Bridget thought desperately, her body tensed and waiting for another contraction.
Learning to Tango
Ben was flirting dangerously with unconsciousness. It was always there, niggling at him and he wasn't sure, sometimes, if he'd actually been awake the entire time. He doubted it, somehow, when he considered that there was itchy blood congealing on the back of his head, matting his hair together. He'd probably got a concussion. He'd possibly cracked a few ribs as well, but wasn't what was bothering him.
The cell he was in was barely big enough to contain him. It wasn't wide enough to lie down, but would be just about long enough to achieve it, not that he had tried. He didn't feel up to moving so he sat slumped against the wall, his toes practically touching the wall opposite.
He had been trying to make an astral copy of himself but wasn't having any luck. He hurt too much to even think about astral projection, and when he tried too hard, he stopped being able to remember things, which is when he thought he might have blacked out. He didn't know. He didn't think anyone knew.
He twisted the ropes binding him sluggishly, but they were tied tightly and chafing his wrists with every movement. He wasn't even sure if he remembered them being tied. Maybe he did. With the camera and the darklighter…
As much as he wanted not to, Ben gave up trying to free himself. It was lethargy that was fettering him anyhow, not the ropes.
He thought he was hallucinating at first. Or at best, just seeing spots brought on by having his head smashed into a very solid wall. But then more and more lights grew and he knew he wasn't seeing things as the spots merged into one.
Learning to Tango
Another contraction had come and gone, forcing Bridget to decide that it was high time she listened to Piper and her breathing techniques. She'd do just about anything to help her ride the pain out. Anything… Ugh, where was Nixa to knock her out again? Sure, it would hurt a little more than an epidural, but not this much, surely? Sure, she was a hunter. Sure, she needed to be able to deal with pain (thoughts of being thrown through a concrete wall came into play here) but this much pain? For this long? This was unreal. It was ridiculous. And she was hurting. She didn't think she would ever truly hurt, and yet…
Paige was sponging her forehead, face and neck with a cool, damp washcloth. They had changed her into a nightgown, much to Bridget's protests. It wasn't until Piper had given her nasty images about giving birth in her jeans that she had relented and allowed the lace… thing to be put on her.
She smiled tightly, copying Piper's breathing. The Charmed One was hampered slightly by her own tumid stomach, but she still managed to kneel on the floor and help Bridget through it. The only thing she hadn't offered was a hand to squeeze; she didn't feel like her hand going the same way as the arm of the couch.
The nearing percussion of heels muffled on the stair carpet made the three women look up expectantly as Phoebe entered the attic, clutching her phone in her hand.
"Paige, your message got kind of garbled. I think I need a new cell. Something's wrong with Bridget's baby? And Chris had been kidnapped? And something about Ben, too, and OH MY GOD!"
"Skipped lunch in favour of a latte, did we?" Piper asked her sister. Phoebe seemed to be a little more hyped up than usual. Caffeine on an empty stomach did that to a person. Not that she'd know. She'd been drinking nothing but herbal tea for months now, despite the fact that her son had grown up to be as dependant on the stuff as the rest of the family. Sometimes, she didn't know why she bothered.
"I asked for decaf," Phoebe told them defensively, "but the guy screwed up. And I wasn't going to send it back to him, so…" She caught sight of Piper's face and nodded, laughing a little. "And that is so totally not the issue here."
"Totally not the issue," Piper repeated tersely. "The baby's coming, and neither Ben nor Chris are anywhere to be found. We've tried scrying for them — no luck. Huge demon attack too. Oh, we're doing so well today."
"The potion," Bridget said, snatching the washcloth and moistening her neck.
"Do you think it will work?" Paige asked, taking the cloth back and dipping it into the bowl.
"Never failed us yet," Bridget affirmed with a smile, leaning back into the cushions. "Oh, God. Here comes another one… As soon as I get my hands on Chris I'm gonna— ARGH!"
There weren't any monsters here. Maybe they were only inside the TV and nowhere else. Well, she wouldn't know because she wasn't allowed to watch anymore. She had been mad about that for a long time. Her Mom had banned all TV for her after she had come home early and found Bridget watching this movie with scary men chasing this lady, even though it had been a really good movie. She thought her mom was a little madder at what the babysitter and her boyfriend were doing in the other room because there had been more shouting going on in there, but she'd never really found out what it was they had been doing. Soon after that, though, the throw from the couch they were on was tossed out with the trash.
She walked towards the end of the alley, because her house would probably be right there. Hopefully. And if it wasn't, then she could go through another alley, and another one until she found where she was meant to be. It wouldn't matter as long as she made it home before her mother knew she was gone.
The child idly wondered if this was part of her weirdness, whatever that meant. It was probably something to do with the cooties she apparently had, but she didn't think they existed either. To be honest, she wasn't sure anyone at her school had any idea what cooties were. Besides, after seeing her babysitter and her boyfriend do some very strange things and then be perfectly okay afterwards, Bridget doubted such things existed, because, if they did, her babysitter would probably be very sick by now.
She felt a strange feeling in the bottom of her stomach and closed her eyes, spinning on her heel. There was a man standing there who hadn't been there before. A very scary-looking man. She held her head up high, but there was no way she could ever be taller than him. He was like a giant. She thought that giants might be real. Her mommy had been angry when she saw Bridget watching the films she liked, but her dad hadn't been all that mad. He liked stuff about monsters and giants, too. He said he got to read books to her that he was saving for when they had a boy. Not that Bridget had a brother. Or a sister for that matter. Besides, she liked having Mommy and Daddy to herself, even without a TV.
She was going to whimper, but then thought better of it. Maybe if she made no noise and was very quiet he wouldn't hear her, or see her, or even come near, because that's what you were meant to do if you saw a dinosaur. It didn't work, though, because then he was striding towards her, kicking garbage bags out of the way. She suddenly remembered that the man in the story who had stayed still and quiet had been eaten anyway, causing her to gulp.
Her parents taught her to always know when to run. If someone came after you, turn around and go screaming to let everyone know. If someone grabbed you, fight as hard as you could; don't let them take you anywhere. If aliens started attacking like in that movie, don't stand around watching the red plants grow; take your bike and go. She blinked. Maybe the last one hadn't been her parents.
That's what she should be doing now, running. But there was that part of her that wouldn't, the part that wanted to attack. She looked left and right, swallowing as her eyes darted for possible solutions. Seeing a rubbish bag at her feet she dug both of her hands into the thick black plastic and hurled it at the man coming towards her.
She was surprised by how fast and far it flew, but she was more surprised when she overbalanced and fell to the tarmac. Her palms grazed across the concrete, stinging wickedly, making her eyes tear up for a few seconds when she saw the blood. It hurt a lot.
In the meantime, the garbage bag was about to hit the man. She was suddenly very sorry because she thought he might get hurt. It had felt quite heavy when she threw it, heavier than the normal things she had thrown. She had thrown it very fast and hard and far as well. He might get hit with it. Then he'd be angry and hurt, neither one of which would be a good thing.
She needn't have worried, though, because the bag hit the scary man full on and disappeared in a flash of red light. Light grey powdery stuff tumbled to the floor. This time, she did whimper. She was suddenly very scared because it was as if the people from the TV had come to life and had come to get her.
With her mouth open wide, she suddenly screamed as loud as she could. It echoed around the alley's walls, which changed and amplified her screech for all to hear. It was what mommy had said. If there are bad people, you should scream and run and not let them get you. Never ever. Some scary people hurt children and you were never meant to get into a car with them. He didn't have a car, though. Well, then she couldn't not get in because there was no car to not get into so she stood still, a little confused. If that scary man didn't have a scary car to not get into, did that mean that he wasn't a scary man?
The man's black coat was flapping around his legs as he walked and blowing out behind him a little. He was wearing some black jeans and a black top as well. He looked like a bad person. He looked like a scary person too, even though there wasn't a car. She bent down and picked up a stone, throwing it as hard as she could. It nearly hit him, but then it glowed red and fell to the ground in lots of pieces. He could nearly touch her, she realised, so she screamed again as loud as she knew how, screwing her eyes closed before turning on her heel to run.
She wasn't normally very good at running. It was boring, and whilst her legs were very good legs, they were also very short legs. They didn't let her go as fast as her friends, so she always came last. But today, she was running very fast, faster than she'd ever run before. She wasn't getting tired either. The point was that she was running away from the scary man, and that was all that mattered.
The nine-year-old opened her eyes from the scream and realised that she was about to run right into an older boy standing at the other end of the alleyway. He had messy blond hair and blue eyes. He looked strong, maybe even strong enough that he could stop the man. She couldn't stop the man. He was still coming after her. She squeaked and managed to skid to a stop by grabbing the boy's arm. The momentum nearly pulled them both over, but he righted himself at the last minute.
He wasn't going to fall over. No. He was big and strong and could stop the nasty man that was chasing her.
"He's after me!" she whimpered, pointing fearfully down the alley at her pursuer, who had only just broken into a run, startled by Bridget's sudden burst of speed. She realised she had a fistful of her saviour's top but didn't care as she hid behind him.
The boy looked startled for a minute, long enough for the man to be less than two metres from them.
"Do something!" Bridget cried desperately, smacking him on the arm. She didn't notice the boy wince at the blow because she was too busy panicking and wondering why he wasn't moving.
He didn't say anything, but he held out his hand and conjured a weird blue ball into it which he threw straight at the demon.
Learning to Tango
"Ben?"
"Chris?"
"I guess you're the Mystery Prize," Ben said weakly, his eyes closing. This was all kind of too much to take in. Maybe it would better not to even try.
"Hey, you still with me?" Chris asked, startled by his friend's silence.
"Mmm?" Ben mumbled, opening his eye a crack and looking over at his friend. Oh yeah. Chris was here. He remembered now…
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"A little," Ben said, shrugging it off and struggling to pull himself up higher against the wall. He swallowed and then cleared his throat. "How did you get here?"
"I have no idea," Chris told him truthfully, looking around the tiny cell. This was barley big enough to contain a rat, let alone two human beings. He almost found himself missing his dungeon. At least there was room to breathe in there.
"There's some game thing going on," Ben said, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes. "Like a competition to get past your mom and aunts to win prizes. It's weird."
"Prizes? What kind of prizes? You mean they're giving out new convertibles for the demons to ride around in?" Chris smiled, remembering Nixa's flashy BMW. God, she would have killed a demon for riding around in that, though. Slime on the seats and scales left in the foot well. Not nice, not at all.
Ben laughed a little and shook his head. "No. We're the prizes." He directed Chris to where they could hear voices coming from the next cave over. "And the owner of that lovely soprano is going to win us if she can kidnap Bridget."
Chris's eyes shot to life with anger. "She's what? I swear, if that darklighter hurts her…" He let the threat hang purely because he wasn't sure what exactly he would do. He'd always let gory punishments be decided by Wyatt. He was never really one for making a demon suffer — a quick potion or a spell or something sharp to the heart to send them blazing down to the Wasteland was all he needed. You didn't need to lop it to pieces one by one to watch it suffer.
"Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"You're sitting on my legs."
Learning to Tango
"Shouldn't I start pushing?" Bridget asked desperately, wanting this to be over. This was worse than she had thought. Why did woman have children? Why were they so willing to do this to themselves? And those woman that had two? Or three? How did they manage to escape being diagnosed as clinically insane? How the hell did that work?
"Not until you're fully dilated," Paige told her, tucking the blanket tighter around Bridget. "I think we need to lie you down. Phoebe, help me move her over to the daybed. On three?"
They heaved Bridget up, getting her to half stagger across the room, relying heavily on Phoebe's arm. While they did that, Piper had picked up the scrying crystal again and was letting it circle fruitlessly above the map. She wasn't going to let Chris miss the birth of his own son. She refused point-blank.
Bridget let out a small whimper as Paige and Phoebe lowered her onto the daybed. She leant back as Paige plumped the cushions, wincing as pains shot through her abdomen.
"There," Phoebe soothed, rubbing Bridget's arm lightly. "You're okay."
"Where's… Chris?" Bridget hiccupped, swallowing tears. "I want Chris. And Ben. I want Ben. Okay, that sounded weird… Am I delirious yet?"
"Yeah, apparently they're in high demand today," Piper said dryly, not looking up from the map. "Hold on."
"Please let them be okay," Bridget muttered, squeezing her eyes closed. "Please, please let them be okay…" She opened an eye to see if her mantra had caused the crystal to drop. It hadn't. Suddenly, she sat up, her other eye snapping wide. "Paige!" she yelled, pointing across the room.
Paige turned, hair rushing into her face. She swept it back behind her ear and saw the last trace of the darklighter's purple orbing cloud. She only needed one look at the deadly weapon that darklighter was holding loaded in her hands to feel fear. She had seen what they could do, seen how they killed… She covered it with false bravado and began waving her arms and calling for anything she set her eyes on.
Chairs and books and end tables and lamps and vases and cardboard boxes and couch cushions and candles and pictures all turned into streaking blue-white projectiles. The darklighter was pelted with the onslaught. The sounds of crashing and thumping filled the attic. Every time Piper gestured at the darklighter, she blew up one of Paige's missiles instead.
Paige broke off the barrage, panting, when most of the light moveable stuff in the room was piled against the far wall of the attic. Still, the effort had worked because the darklighter was floored, bleeding from various points on her face. Paige had successfully disarmed her, forcing the crossbow to skitter across the polished wooden floor. The Charmed Ones and the darklighter both looked at it for a split second before the darklighter threw herself at her weapon.
Piper flicked her wrists, exploding the crossbow into a thousand dark orbs that quickly dematerialised. The arrow which it was loaded with, however, sprung from the disappearing weapon and fired itself across the room at Paige. The witch-whitelighter squeaked and dissolved into an orb cloud so that the arrow thunked into the wall and embedded itself in the wood.
As the arrow hit, Bridget sat upright and clenched a fist around one of the cushions around her, a scream signalling another contraction.
Bridget didn't know what the weird blue ball would do to the man, especially when a garbage bag that looked a lot heavier had done so little damage. She peeked out from behind Wyatt, seeing nothing but his shirt in one wide brown eye. She was still breathing heavily from the run, but as the ball hit the man and sent him staggering back down the alley, she risked peering out with both eyes.
"Did you get him?" she whispered, seeming to have misplaced her voice.
The man was on his knees in the middle of the alley when, quite suddenly, there were now three men on their knees in the middle of the alley. Bridget squealed and ducked behind her mystery boy again, not wanting to look out. She didn't like this anymore. She wanted to go home. Better yet, she wanted go to the ice-cream place and have two scoops of butterscotch ice-cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles and…
The man made a weird blue ball of his own. Scared, she started tugging on her saviour's sleeve again, trying to get him to leave. She didn't want to go without him. He could make weird things that stopped the man for a while.
The other two men that looked just like the first got up, bearing crackling balls as well. She didn't like the look of them. They looked mad. Really mad. Her blond shield powered up another weird orb, but she pulled down on his arm and it went away. The scary men looked like they could throw lots better and anyway, if they got hit by the blond's ball, they might turn into more scary men. Those scary men would turn into even more scarier men, and soon Bridget wouldn't even know how to count them all because there would be so many.
"We have to go!" she panted, pulling him backwards.
"I can handle them," he said. Bridget missed the uncertainty in the blond's voice and his blue eyes, but she stopped tugging for a while.
"Didn't you see what happened! Hit them again and more will come!" He glared down at her and she stepped back, a little intimidated. "What's your name?" She asked a little shyly, twisting the bottom of her jumper a little.
He blinked at her. "Uh, my name's, uh... Wyatt."
"That's a funny name."
"No, it's not," Wyatt said immediately and a little automatically. It wasn't odd. It was his daddy's… dad's name. And his dad wasn't that odd, not compared to the rest of his family.
Bridget was pulling on his shirt again. She looked up into his face, pleading with him to move off that spot, but he wouldn't budge. She wasn't sure if he was scared or confused or… or maybe just very, very brave. He could be brave. Really brave. You would have to be to take on three scary men.
Then the scary men all threw their scary balls and she felt a tingling in her stomach that felt a little like she'd eaten too much ice-cream. She closed her eyes because she didn't want to be sick because that would make her look silly. However, when she opened them, the blue balls were crashing into the fire escape behind them. Maybe the men were bad at throwing and had missed? That could be it.
"Run!" Bridget commanded, taking his hand and bodily yanking her new acquaintance along.
His sneakers were scraping kind of slowly against the concrete, but she fought her hardest to pull him. She didn't know how she was winning because he looked tall and strong and she wasn't, but it didn't matter because at that point two noisy balls exploded where Wyatt's feet had been moments before.
He suddenly seemed to come to his senses and pulled her back. The oddest sensation overtook her, like someone poured a large dollop of cold shampoo over head. Everything went away in the light of bright blue orbs.
Learning to Tango
Piper gestured at Bronwyth but nothing happened. She gestured again and the darklighter put her hand to her cheek, which was grazed. Piper growled in frustration and pulled her hands back, concentrating on drawing all of her power into them. She flicked them one last time and the darklighter screamed as she was catapulted through the air. The thud as she hit the wall was sickening, but it didn't make Piper waver.
"Who sent you?" she asked, her eyes hard.
"I'm not going to tell you that," the darklighter sneered, about to clamber to her feet.
"Don't," Piper warned in a razor-edged voice. "Tell us who you are, who sent you and what you're here for in the next two minutes or I swear to God we'll send you on an all expenses paid vacation to the Wasteland. Got it?"
Paige orbed back in, clutching a bowl of steaming water in both hands. She set it down gently on the floor to minimize slopping of the scalding liquid just as Piper unleashed her power. It seared a burn into the darklighter's arm, eliciting a scream that made Paige jump and spill the water anyway.
Bridget held out her hand, but the only thing that appeared was a wisp of smoke and her hand fell. "Ben… and Chris. Where are they? You have to look for them."
"We're trying, honey," Paige said soothingly, brushing damp hair from Bridget's forehead again and dipping the washcloth into the bowl of cool water.
"I'm worried," the hunter panted, whimpering a little as another twang of pain hit her. "You've got to help them."
"We'll do our best," Phoebe said. "We'll do our best."
A fresh surge of tears fell from Bridget's eyes as another contraction gripped her body.
The cold feeling had gone away, but it had left behind dizziness that made Bridget feel sick. The warehouse walls were blurring around her and she suddenly fell over, scuffing her palms against the concrete again. There was more blood on her hands but she tried not to cry because the scary men were coming. She told herself that if she didn't cry her new friend was going to take her home or to Dairy Queen, but he wouldn't if she cried and looked silly. She had no doubt that he could do that because he looked like he could take her anywhere. He looked smart.
She turned around to demand that he take her to Dairy Queen but he was gone. She felt panic rise in her chest as she heard the many scary footsteps of the three scary men coming around the corner. He had left her! That wasn't very nice!
She looked around for a place that he might have gone. Almost right away, she saw a doorway in one of the warehouses and fixed her eyes on it, glaring at it. It had taken away the person who could get her ice-cream! She set her face and stormed into the warehouse to find him. He wasn't going to get away that easily.
"No! I won't have it, Chris!"
Bridget gasped when she heard the shouting, screwing her eyes closed and ducking behind a crate. She opened her eyes a crack and found herself in a gloomy warehouse.
It was a lady who was shouting, making Bridget wonder for a fleeting moment if it was her mother. Then she realised that it wasn't. It was someone else's mommy. She was glad that that wasn't her mommy — this mommy had looked very mad and her shouting was frightening. Even when her mom had been yelling at her babysitter, she hadn't been this scary.
"You are ten, Christopher Halliwell! Ten!" the mommy yelled. She was bending down to shout at three people that looked a little older than Bridget. "Ten years old! I've told you a hundred times, you're not to come on vanquishes!"
"But Wyatt—"
"'But Wyatt' nothing! He's twelve! And he has enough powers to protect himself! And you, Nixa. Just because you have super strength doesn't mean you should be here. You're just barely eleven! And Ben— sweetie, you do know that if the wind changes you'll stay like that, right?"
Bridget put a hand over her mouth to cover a giggle. One of the boys in the group was pulling faces at the yelling mommy.
"Who's there?"
Suddenly, Bridget realised that there were more ladies in the warehouse than she'd thought. She gasped and whipped back behind the crate, sliding to the floor and covering her mouth with her hand.
"Maybe it was the little girl from my premonition," one of them suggested.
Bridget was outraged. She wasn't a little girl. She was a grownup girl who could count to millions and millions and millions without her fingers and had gone on an expedition to find Dairy Queen all by herself.
"Sweetie? Are you here? We won't hurt you."
Yeah, right. That's what all the bad people sad so you'd believe them and walk into their house where they'd chop you up and put you in a big oven just because their windowsills tasted nice. The child folded her arms across her chest. Let them find her, if they wanted her, because she wasn't going to say a word. Suddenly, a shadow blocked the light from the doorway and she looked up. One of the scary men was standing there! She jumped to her feet, running around the side of the crate and into the middle of the warehouse where the scary mommy and the ladies and her saviour and the three children were.
"They're going to get me!"
"Wait, 'they'?" one asked, cocking her head on one side. "As in plural 'they'?"
"That's when there's more than one," Bridget said, her heart pounding.
The one that was talking to her laughed. "Yes. It is. What's your name, honey?"
"I can't tell you because you're strange ladies," Bridget told them, tilting her chin up.
She laughed again and her eyes crinkled a little. Bridget started to think that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't that much of a strange lady after all. "Oh. Okay then. Well, I'm Paige. And this is Piper and Phoebe. And Wyatt. And that is Chris and Ben and Nixa. But you better not talk to them — they're in trouble." She put a finger to her lips and Bridget giggled again.
"See! You encourage them!" Piper told Paige exasperatedly, throwing her hands into the air.
"Pfft. Oh, I do not," Paige dismissed, waving a hand. She winked at Bridget and was just straightening up when she was hit with a blue ball and knocked flying into the air.
Bridget squeaked and put her hands to her mouth as Paige cart-wheeled into a tower of crates and crashed to the ground. "Oh!"
"Chris, take your friends out of here!" Piper shouted, backing towards them. Wyatt made another blue ball appear and Bridget's eyed widened.
"No!" she implored. "Remember what happened last time?" She lunged forward and wrenched his hand down and smacked his arm again. He glared down at her but she glared right back at him.
"Last time?" Piper echoed, frowning a little. Oh, of course. She'd let Wyatt out of her sight for five minutes to yell at the orb stowaways and he'd gone to play hero. Ugh. Why couldn't either of her kids do as they were told
Without warning, the other two scary men appeared in lots of wavy lines. Bridget wanted to run and hide again, but there was nowhere to go. Wyatt was all the way across the room diagonally and she couldn't get to him without exposing herself. There were always the other children, who were standing about five metres straight in front of her. Maybe she could run to them?
Another blue ball was thrown by the demons but Phoebe narrowed her eyes a little and it stopped in midair then turned back, hitting its owner in the chest. He staggered backwards and fell to the floor. Another two identical men emerged out of him.
Phoebe put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, God. Please tell me I'm seeing double and I need to go back to the optometrist and complain."
"If anything I'd complain about the last pair of glasses he gave you," Paige said slyly, flicking her eyebrows up and down.
"Enough discussion about those!" Phoebe half-yelled, stamping her foot a little. "I liked them. So there."
"Wow. I really am the only adult here, aren't I?" Piper said, shaking her head and then rolling her eyes tolerantly. "Right: my turn." She flicked her wrists at one of the scary men. He crashed backwards into a pile of crates, but when he fell to the floor, there were another two of him.
There were now seven men in the warehouse, and they all looked identically angry. Bridget finally decided that a run towards the other children would be a good idea. She broke into a sprint and practically flew across the concrete floor. She dropped to her knees as her run ended.
"What's happening?" she asked, turning around to look at the fight just as Piper flicked her wrists and froze the entire warehouse.
"We knew he was immune to all weapons," Paige groused, getting wobbly to her feet. "But did we not know that magical weapons made them divide?"
Phoebe raised a hand. "Guilty. I may have, er, speed-read a little too speedily…"
"The demons are attacking us," Chris explained to the new girl, but realised he was talking to an unanimated person. He hated it when that happened. His mom always picked the stupidest times to freeze everyone.
Ben poked Nixa's arm and the blonde came back to life. She tilted her head a little and looked thoughtfully at the still-frozen child in front of her. "I think you can unfreeze her."
They often found that Nixa had amazing judgement, so Chris did as she asked, tugging her arm gently. Bridget blinked immediately as she jerked back into animation and then looked around.
"Did something just happen?"
Chris was about to explain when there was an explosion across the other side of the warehouse. His head whipped around, his eyes frantically searching until he caught sight of his mother being blasted off her feet and tossed backwards like a doll by an energy ball.
"MOM!"
A single tear rolled down Bridget's cheek, following a track, Paige realised, that showed that many more had preceded it. Bridget's face was composed, save for looking pale and dishevelled. She wasn't making a single sound; she was just crying. The tear dropped off her chin and another one from her other eye followed it.
"It hurts," Bridget whispered, sniffling. "It really, really hurts."
"I know, sweetie," Paige soothed. "I know."
The witch-whitelighter heard the crackling of an energy ball and turned, her eyes widening to see it heading towards Piper. Her sister brought up her hands and deployed her power, but the resulting blast threw the oldest Charmed One to the floor.
Phoebe scrambled up, and, ducking an energy ball, proceeded to punch the darklighter in the face. She then turned, spun, and kicked Bronwyth in the abdomen before jumping and snapping a kick at the intruder's face.
Bronwyth staggered backwards, clutching at her nose and Phoebe advanced, her heels clacking on the wooden floor. Suddenly, the darklighter's head snapped up and she grinned, conjuring an energy ball that threw Phoebe across the room and into the table containing Ben's potion.
The witch's body swept everything off the table and sent blue liquid sloshing all over the floor, mingling with other ingredients and giving miniature explosions as they did so.
"Leo!" Paige yelled at the ceiling, getting up and preparing herself to be the last line of defence. "Table!" The piece of furniture Phoebe had crashed into dissolved into an orb cloud and flew through the air at Bronwyth, who annihilated it with an energy ball. "Leo! Help needed desperately down here! Uh… chair!"
The darklighter wasn't so quick with her weapon this time and had to black orb out to save herself from being hit with the armchair. The heavy piece of furniture clunked and skidded across the floor, teetering on two legs before coming to a halt when it hit the wall and slamming down onto the floor again.
"I'm going to send that bitch's ass to hell one way or another," Piper growled, slamming her hand down on the back of the couch and using it to pull herself up.
"Good luck with that," the darklighter said sincerely, punching Paige under the jaw and sending her crashing backwards to the floor.
Piper flicked her wrists, but the power bounced off the darklighter's back, and the oldest Charmed One felt fear rise like bile to the back of her throat, worming its way up from her stomach. This darklighter was something powerful, which meant that it was going to take something powerful to vanquish her. Well, let her feel the wrath of the Charmed Ones, then. Let her fry before she laid a single filthy finger on her grandchild.
"The Power of Three will set us free," Piper began chanting in a clear, unwavering voice that carried through the attic. Her eyes were gleaming as she felt Paige scramble up and take her hand, joining the chant. "The Power of Three will set us free."
Piper looked over her shoulder for Phoebe, but the middle sister was out cold. The eldest sister almost cursed before she realised that she didn't want to break the chant. Paige was gripping her hand almost hard enough to hurt as they backed towards their fallen sister.
"The Power of Three will set us free."
Flames began tickling at the darklighter's shoes the nearer they got to Phoebe, so that she turned and howled, throwing an energy ball at them. In the time it took for Paige to call for it and redirect it at the darklighter, sending her crashing into the wall, the chant had been broken and the flames had stopped.
"The Power of Three will set us free," Paige said again, crouching down and taking Phoebe's left hand. Piper took the right. "The Power of Three will set us free."
The darklighter began screeching as coils of dark, oily purple smoke began to shroud her body as flames licked at her feet and legs. She lunged across the room and managed to grab Bridget's wrist.
"THE POWER OF THREE WILL SET US FREE!" Paige and Piper yelled in earnest, just as the flames surrounding the darklighter were hidden by a cloud of dark orbs.
"NO!" Piper flicked her free hand, but the explosion blew out the glass of the window behind Bridget and the darklighter as they both vanished in a cascade of bruise-like orbs and left the attic with nothing but dark smoke and the stench of burning flesh.
Chris ran across the warehouse to where his mother had fallen. Immediately, three energy balls were sent his way. He threw out his arm, flinging two of them into a stack of crates. The top crate gave a groan and fell on two of the demons, crushing them. The third one ricocheted off the corrugated iron wall and hit one of the demons in the back. Two more demons replaced the two lost under the crate.
"Mom, are you okay?"
Piper groaned and turned her head to one side, opening her eyes. "Mmm? Sweetie?"
"Yeah."
She sat up, suddenly more brisk. "Chris, I'm fine. I thought I told you to get out of here?"
"Yeah, but you got hurt."
Piper smiled and brought her hand up, gently pulling his head forward so she could kiss his forehead. "Yeah, I did. But I'll be fine. I want you to go home and take the other children with you, got it?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," Piper said, distracted as the two demons began clawing their way from the smashed wooden crate. "Straight home. You hear me?"
"Yes, Mom…"
"Good. Now…" She flicked her wrists and froze the warehouse again, giving Phoebe enough time to fish around in her bag and pull out vanquishing potions.
"I think these will only work on the original demon," Phoebe mused. "And we only brought one potion each. We've got a four in nine chance of hitting him."
"I'm liking those odds," Paige said confidently, nodding and readying a vial at shoulder height as Phoebe tossed a vial at Wyatt, who caught it and readied it similarly to his aunt.
"Eenie," Paige said.
"Meeine," Phoebe countered with.
"I've got a minie here," confirmed Piper.
"Good. MO!" Paige yelled, hurling her vial at the nearest demon. There was a bright flash as the potion shattered, but the demon was still standing. "Crap," Paige said, ducking an energy ball that the now animated demon had thrown at her. "Well, don't go for that one."
The demon threw another energy ball that streaked towards Wyatt. The blond witch-whitelighter threw up his shield and the weapon bounced off, sending the ball hurtling back into its owner's chest. Two more demons appeared.
"Wyatt!" Piper shouted.
"I'm sorry! It just bounced straight back!"
"Be more careful," Piper growled, gritting her teeth and hurling her vial at one of the demons who had been just starting to crawl from the wreckage of the crate before she froze the room. There was another flash of light, but no vanquish.
"Eleven demons, two potions. We need to do some serious re-grouping and rearming," Paige warned them tersely. There were now four demons active in the warehouse, all of whom threw energy balls in the direction of the corner where Chris was still crouched with his friends and the mystery girl.
"I told you to go!" Piper said, gesturing frantically at the children as an ice wall sprang up between them and the danger, discharging the energy balls. The sound of running footsteps behind her made Piper whirl, her eyes wide with panic and her heart thumping in her mouth to see Nixa dashing across the warehouse. She was sure she squeaked as an energy ball was thrown at the blonde child, but the nimble mini hunter dodged out of the way and threw herself at the demon, tackling it around the legs and toppling it to the ground. She shouldn't have done that. The demons may have been after Bridget, but they wouldn't hesitate to take out two hunters if the opportunity arose.
As soon as the demon landed hard, Nixa was jumping on his chest, shrieking at him. "My grandmother brought me this back from China! This is handmade silk! You nearly burned it!" There was suddenly a very loud snap, which caused the demon to gurgle and flash before disappearing, leaving Nixa jumping up and down on the concrete floor, carrying on her frenzy on for a whole minute before realising that she had killed the demon. "Uh-oh."
"Apparently, a snapped rib to the heart doesn't count as a mortal weapon," Paige mused, smiling with approval and nodding at Nixa. "Who would have guessed?"
"Don't you encourage her," Piper said. "You're not the one that will have to explain to her parents why their child was out at a slaughter."
There were three active demons in the warehouse and seven frozen ones. As Piper brought up her hands to freeze them again, she had an energy ball thrown at her. Wyatt conjured one of his own and threw it to intercept the one aimed at his mother's head. The resulting explosion hurled the Charmed Ones and Wyatt in different directions while the ring of fire burst through the warehouse, animating all of Piper's frozen demons.
The ice shield shattered, blowing chunks of freezing water all over Bridget, Ben and Chris. The rush of fire advanced on Nixa as she stared it down, dropping at the last minute to execute a combat roll underneath the flames. They ripped through crates behind her, sending sparks into the air.
"She's good," whispered Bridget.
"She's had lots of practice," Chris said, combing ice out of his hair with his fingers.
The demons all turned as one and lit up ten identical energy balls in ten identical palms, all aimed at the group of children.
"Uh-oh," Ben muttered, his head dropping onto his chest.
"Oh no! What happened?" Bridget asked, her eyes widened with panic. She was gripping Chris's arm tight enough to hurt so that he had to forcibly yank it out of her grip.
"It's okay. He's good at this." He was going to have bruises later.
"Good at what? Sleeping?" Bridget asked incredulously, her wide eyes glaring at the apparently sleeping witch beside her.
Ben appeared in a blur of red lights on the other side of the room, behind all the demons. He smiled. "Behind you."
They all turned and threw energy balls at him while Bridget squeaked loudly and buried her face in her hands, watching through little chinks in her interlaced fingers.
"What's happening?"
Ben disappeared, and with a gasp, his body woke up. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, go."
Chris scrambled to his feet and went to stand by Nixa. He balled his fists as the demons recovered from their confusion and turned back to face them. He flung out his arm and felt like he was moving it through his Aunt Paige's soup. The air seemed thicker and heavier as his power left his hand and hit the demon, knocking it to the floor. Telekinesis was hard. Lifting heavy objects with it was harder. He'd heard great tales of how his aunt Prue had flung demons into and off walls and all about the house, but he wasn't quite there yet. Wyatt was, of course. Leo had had him throwing around a sewing dummy hung with sandbags for practice. But even Wyatt had found it hard and tiring at first, which brought Chris some comfort. He used his power again anyway, sending another demon slapping to the concrete.
Ben looked around before getting up. Wyatt was unconscious against the warehouse wall, tossed there by the backlash of his own attack. Phoebe, too, was lying crumpled at the foot of a stack of crates. Paige was sitting up and rubbing her neck, her face screwed up in pain. Even Piper seemed dazed, her brown eyes unfocussed.
"Energy ball!" the youngest Charmed One called through gritted teeth, diverting one of the deadly orbs into the wall and away from Nixa.
"What is it with you and trying to ruin my things!" Nixa demanded, hurt. Tears sparkled lightly in her eyes. "Stop it!" She stamped her foot and set off towards the demon, her jaw set. "It's MEAN!"
"Come on," Ben said, taking Bridget's hand and pulling her up. "We have to go and help."
"But… but I don't know how to help!" Bridget protested in a high-pitched voice, nevertheless allowing herself to be led into the middle of the chaos because she didn't want to be left on her own.
"Do your best," Ben told her, wiggling his fingers and freezing one of the demons solid. Chris used his power and flung it to the floor, where is shattered. There was another bright flash and it disappeared.
"I think we need to get the proper demon," Nixa said, stepping off a demon before he disappeared from underneath her again. Hers disappeared in a flash of light as well — not the real demon.
Ben brought his hands up again and wiggled his fingers again, freezing another. Chris was about to wave his arm when Bridget started running and streaked past both of the witches at the frozen demon, dodging the grasps of unfrozen ones to get to her goal. She wasn't aware that Nixa was doing the same and as Bridget dove for the legs from the front, Nixa jumped and dove for the demon's neck from the back.
The result was that Bridget skidded forwards with her arms around the demon's legs, and Nixa landed hard on the demon's upper body. They had snapped it in two. Blinking in shock for a little while, they regarded each other with mutual respect as their target disappeared in a flash of light.
"Argh!" Chris brought his arm in close to his chest, his hand clamped around his forearm. The burn from a not-quite-deflected energy ball was oozing nasty yellow stuff and lots of blood. He felt the world blur a little with tears, but then wiped his nose on the back of his hand and used his good arm to bash two ice statues together and shatter them. Two flashes of light told them that he still hadn't got the first demon.
Another demon disappeared in a cloud of orbs and reformed near the ceiling. It fell like a stone and was dashed into a thousand glittering pieces on the concrete floor, his aunt's telekinesis more effective at demon slaying than his could ever hope to be.
There were just three demons left in the warehouse now, one of which became the target of the fallen potion Paige orbed toward them. It flashed off its body and did nothing. She cursed, feeling dizziness flow through her brain and addle it enough for her to no longer be able to prop herself upright anymore. Her elbows clumsily slipped and her cheek hit the cold, gritty concrete floor hard enough to knock out a filling.
Well, she guessed Piper had been right. Lollies would and had damaged her teeth. Damn cavities. You eat a couple of strawberry and cream lollipops and you're paying for it for the rest of your life. She may be the only sister whose vision did not require the aid of glasses, but she bet she would be the first to have to eat with the aid of dentures.
She did note that it was kind of odd that she was having random musings about dental hygiene while her nephew fought for his life, but, then again, she had been sure that the world did not normally have this much motion…
Ben froze two more demons which Bridget and Nixa both jumped on one each, knocking them over. With a tired gesture, Ben froze the last demon, then with a move equally as fatigued Chris, shattered it on the floor in a burst of bright light.
The two young witches slid, exhausted, down a stack of crates. Magic took energy. Lots and lots of energy. And that had to be replaced somehow, normally with sleep. Or calories. And seeing as how the latter didn't really seem to be an option right now, Ben and Chris's eyes started to close.
"Oh, my God! That was so cool! Can we do it again?" Bridget asked, turning to Nixa. "Please?"
"If we can find some bad guys," Nixa said, laughing and brushing imaginary lint off her top. She, too, got a thrill from the adrenaline rush.
"There!" Bridget shouted with glee, her eyes lighting up as she pointed. Nixa's head snapped up as another demon appeared from the shadows between a narrow alleyway between two crates.
"Chris!"
The two witches turned, only lethargically. When they saw the demon, their movements quickened, but it wasn't fast enough. The demon grabbed them both by the collars of their shirts and lifted the struggling pair from the floor.
The demon smirked at Bridget and Nixa. "Be right back." With a chuckle, he shimmered away.
"Okay, come on Phoebe. Come back to us, sweetie…" Piper gently tapped her sister's cheek over and over, making small slapping sounds against the flesh. "Come on Phoebe, this is no time to be sleeping…" Piper said, a little madder, cupping cool water from Bridget's bowl in one hand and trickling it onto Phoebe's face. Her sister's eyelids twitched a little, which Piper took as a good sign, gently beginning coaxing and tapping again.
"Isn't she awake yet?" Paige asked desperately, the scrying crystal dangling from her hand and circling over the map. "Oh, come on. This is ridiculous… They've gotta be in the Underworld or something."
"Well, the second I wake up Phoebe, we're going down there," Piper told her sister, glowering at the unconscious one.
"Oh, no you're not," Paige said, looking up from her scrying and shaking her head. "I'm going to orb you to Magic School."
Piper's eyebrows shot up and her lips pursed. "I see… Yeah, good luck with that."
"I mean it. It's not safe for a woman in your condition to be down there, especially seeing as how this time round, you are neither a Super Mommy nor endowed with a force field. So you're going to like it, missy."
"No one messes with my family. My son and my grandchild are down there as we speak. I'm going. End of argument."
Paige threw down the crystal and straightened up, sucking in a deep breath through her nose and narrowing her and her eyes dangerously. "Fine. Be that way." She waved her arm and called, "Magic School!" Piper's body broke up into thousands of shining orbs.
"Paige!" Piper's voice called, echoing and disembodied. "You are in so much trouble, young lady. Bring me back!" But then the voice, with the orbing lights, faded as Paige breathed a sigh of relief and strode purposefully across the attic, her heels clacking on the boards as she got to Phoebe and crouched down.
"Phoebe? Come on, wakey, wakey…" She got no response from her sister, so she looked to the bowl of cold water that Piper had been using earlier and picked it up, emptying it over her sister's face.
Phoebe woke with a gasp and sat bolt upright, spitting water out of her mouth and snorting it down her nose, clawing it out of her eyes. "PAIGE!"
Paige flicked her eyebrows up and down. "Oops. Come on. We have some demons to kill."
Learning to Tango
"How… 'dilated' is she?" Corr asked, pacing up and down past Bridget, rubbing his chin.
Bridget was on a huge stone slab in the middle of the room. The cold air was giving her the chills, and her skin began to pucker into gooseflesh as her hairs dragged it into raised bumps. She shivered, feeling the sweat and tears on her face become clammy and cool. She wanted Ben. Ben could make a fireball or something that would make her warmer. He could also use a few to kill the bastards that had captured her. Either one would be good right now.
Clea grabbed hold of the hem of Bridget's thin nightgown, prompting Bridget to sit up as much as she could manage and wrench it out of the demon's grasp with a look that could have melted steel.
"I wouldn't if I were you," Bridget growled darkly, her eyes flashing. Who were they to look at…. down there? She had nearly died when Paige and Phoebe had had to, let alone some demonic scum with a poor dye job.
"Well, lucky for me, you're not me. Otherwise I'd be in this state," Clea sneered, wrenching Bridget's hands away from the nightgown and seizing the hem again, pulling it up.
Bridget gave a yell as a contraction hit her, but at the same time kicked Clea has hard as she could under the chin. The kick had enough power to knock the demoness off her feet and to throw her to the floor.
"Told you," Bridget snarled angrily, reaching forwards to pull her nightgown back down and leave her dignity intact.
Corr grabbed her arm and forced her to lie down, producing an athame in his hand and holding it to her neck. "I suggest you cooperate," he sneered. "Just calm down, breathe, relax and push."
Learning to Tango
Chris's head fell to the floor in exhaustion. His heart was beating wildly and irregularly, and every now and then, one of his muscles would bunch and spasm. He had tried orbing out of the cage more times than he could count now, but try as he might, he couldn't even manage to orb anymore, let alone anywhere outside of the crystal cage.
He was taking up practically all of the room in the cell and was only just refraining from lying on Ben's legs out of courtesy by scrunching himself up. He wondered if his friend might be unconscious again, but thought that it was probably better that Ben stayed that way. Unconsciousness was the body's way of shutting down totally so that it could repair. And Ben looked more than slightly worse for wear.
The witch-whitelighter closed his eyes and swallowed, trying to slow down his thumping heart because it was actually unnerving him. It would give two strong beats and then a small fluttering one, and then stop entirely for what was way to long for how fast he was breathing, before starting the cycle again. Probably from the cage's magic messing with his body's electrical signals. Or something.
Well, you couldn't expect a guy to pay attention in every Bio lesson he had, could you?
His eyes were closing and he was starting to see sleep as the preferable option. Ben had the right idea, he decided. Just sleep and be done with it; let his body fix itself. He didn't actually remember when he had last slept, and now he was more exhausted than ever and maybe if he closed his eyes for just a second…
But then he heard a scream. A scream of pain. His eyes shot open, and his heart started thumping again. As exigent as it was to force his leaden limbs to move, he did so anyway, sitting up and staring at the door, waiting to see if the scream would sound again.
Around two minutes later it did and he knew. He knew that Bridget was down here. They had Bridget and the bastards were going to pay; they weren't going to get away with snatching Bridget and his baby. He was going to kill them. As irascible as he was already towards the demons, this doubled the feeling of hatred, making it worse, larger, greater. He was digging his nails into his palms as he gritted his teeth, his body vibrating with fury.
He threw a telekinetic blast at the door. The inside was already dented from similar blows, but this one made a larger dent in the metal. He threw another one and the hinges buckled and groaned. He hadn't known that he was capable of putting this much force into his powers, but now that he knew that this door was the only thing separating him from the hunter, it had to go. And, slowly, it was doing so. Dents turned the door into waves of rippled metal, and with a screech, one of the hinges tore itself free from its moorings and dropped to the floor.
He looked over at Ben, whose eyes were half open. He appeared to be concentrating hard on the door, shaking with the effort. The muscles in his arms were bunching as he fought to get his hands free, but then, a second later, it was as if a giant fist had punched the door. The magnetic force was strong enough to tear the clasp from the bead necklace Chris was wearing and hurl it across the cell.
"They've got Bridget," Ben murmured, rubbing his eyes. "I think we need to kick their asses and other bad things."
Wholeheartedly agreeing, Chris continued his onslaught on the door until he heard a key in the lock. Pausing with his arm in midair, he waited until the guard was in view and then made a fist, almost able to feel the demon's heart bursting between his fingers, blood trickling through the digits and over his hand as the demon screamed and burst into flames. Never let it be said that Christopher Halliwell had never learned anything from his brother.
He scrambled up and ran for the door but was blasted back down in a cascade of white sparks. He managed to get his head a couple of inches from the floor and saw the crystals glowing tauntingly at him.
"I'm guessing 'ow'?" Ben asked stupidly.
"Your skills never cease to amaze me," Chris said flatly, sitting up. The crystals' glow began to die down, to which the witch-whitelighter sighed, running a distracted hand through his hair. "There's gotta be some way we can get out there…"
"They're on in sixty seconds for the presentation shot," a voice announced. Chris froze, holding his breath and trying to discern how far away it was. It sounded again. "I said, they're on in sixty… fifty seconds for the presentation shot," it said again, snappishly this time. It was coming closer, Chris was sure. "Is there even anyone back here?"
There was a flash of flame from Ben's direction and Chris turned, slightly panicked, but all he saw was Ben rubbing his wrists and brushing charred threads of rope from the sleeves of his shirt.
"It took long enough," Ben grumbled, stretching. It had, indeed, taken a while for him to twist his wrists enough so that he could get his fingers into play and burn through the rope.
"What are you two still doing here!"
Chris could only guess that this was a demon in human form because there was nothing demonic about her appearance. She was of medium build with dark hair and carried a clipboard under her arm. She had a headset on that incorporated a microphone and an earpiece, which she was pressing into her ear. Chris followed the wire down to a battery back and receiver at her waist.
"Um—?" was the best Chris could come up with before the harassed-looking demon clapped her hands twice and shimmered them both out of the prison cell before turning on her heel and walking back out into the prison clock corridor.
"Whoa," Ben said, holding out his arms to keep his balance. "Okay, what just happened? Where are we?" There were blinding, burning lights in front of him and above him as well as a camera. Was he back where he had started? He barely remembered it the first time.
"What the hell do you think you're doing! You can't put him onstage!" There were more voices now coming from behind the lights, but their pupils were dots, shrunk to prevent the harsh bulbs damaging their vision so that they could not see into the darkness beyond.
"Ten, nine, eight…"
"Damaged goods! Do you want the show to look cheap! Just… just put the other one on and keep him out of shot."
"Yeah, so, I have no idea what's going on," Ben tried weakly. It didn't get a smile from either Chris or himself and he sighed, feeling the throbbing in his head coming back. Someone grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him backwards. "Let go of me!" Ben growled, struggling. But his movements were slow and clumsy and weakening with every thrash he made, and soon he was exhausted. And his head hurt more. And he was sleepy…
Corr walked onto the stage from Chris's right and put his hand on the witch-whitelighter's shoulder. Chris shrugged him off. "I'm warning you, if you try anything I will kill your friend and the bitch back there squeezing out the kid. Don't think I won't."
Chris ground his teeth and didn't say anything, just nodded once to show that he agreed and folded his arms across his chest, looking unhappy and chewing his tongue to stop himself saying something he would regret. Or something that his friends would be made to regret.
"Bronwyth, the darklighter, has completed the challenge and will be rewarded for her gallant efforts at getting past the Charmed Ones not once, but twice," Corr announced to the camera. "How about we bring her on? Let's bring her on. Bronwyth, my fellow demons."
Chris looked to his left, narrowing his eyes as a woman stepped out of the shadows. He recognised her as the darklighter that had attacked the Manor and nearly killed Bridget. Instantly his fists balled and he readied himself for a fight. He was going to kill her. Kill the scheming, evil bitch for what she had almost done.
The darklighter had burns all over her body. Her clothes were hanging off her in some places, completely seared away and revealing charred flesh beneath. The tips of her hair had singed as well, and she had cuts all over her face. Oh, that was so not the worst thing that was going to happen to her if Chris got his hands on her…
Corr kissed her left cheek, then her right and then her left again. "Here she is. Now… Shall we give her the reward she deserves?" He moved behind Chris, lightly spinning the athame that had materialised from nowhere in his hand between Chris's shoulder blades, who stiffened.
"Wait, what!" The witch-whitelighter yelped, turning to watch Corr and cursing himself for showing fear. "What's going on?"
"We're giving our darklighter friend here just what she deserves," Corr told him with a twisted smile, spinning on his heel fast enough to be a blur and plunging the blade into Bronwyth's back. She screamed, her spine arching away from the weapon, her hands clawing at the air as if trying to cling to life as she burned and disappeared. The athame crackled with little blue bolts of lightning.
"I don't understand…" Chris said uncertainly, narrowing his eyes and cocking his head a little at the demon behind him once the rushing of the inferno had faded.
"Just one final twist," Corr smirked at him, kicking out his legs, which were shaky enough as it was, sending Chris sprawling across the sandy floor.
"Now, viewers. Watch as we, the games masters, play the game. We're not just going up against the Charmed Ones — we will take all. Don't miss out. Stay tuned and watch us take it all; their lives, their powers, and their progeny." He crouched down next to Chris, holding his athame close to the brunette's face and allowing it to glint in the light. "And when we're done remember, viewers, we have two witches that could be yours for the keeping. Don't forget — you're watching Witch Wars."
Someone gave the command to cut and Corr stood up, lovingly polishing the athame when he heard a shout from across the studio.
"We can see the head!"
Learning to Tango
Dun! And there we are, until next time anyways. Liked? Didn't?
I JUST GOT MY E-MAIL TELLING ME THAT MY COPY OF THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE HAS BEEN DISPATCHED! AND IT'S 3am AND I AM NOW INSANELY NUTS! I WON'T BE SLEEPING TONIGHT! HEE!
Pixie Wildfire: - HEH! Oh, wow, that is totally not a pretty image…
chattypandagurl: - We need so many more Spaghetti-Os in this world. Seriously. It's like… gold in a can. You can tell I don't cook "proper" food much, huh? Thanks for reviewing!
ilovedrew88: - Heh, thanks for your review.
Aldrea7: - Hee! It nearly killed ya, huh? And, oh, God. Please, please don't remind me of bug spray. Raid is a scary, scary thing, my friend. You're finger terrifies me. I'll ask who else it's been poking and leave it at that because, honey, I know you're mind will do the rest. I'd pet you, but you might bite me, so… I'll just say thank you and you stay there. Further back. There. Good…
As Always: - HEH! Aw, thank you so much. I'm embarrassed now. And the baby's STILL coming. Heh. You'll have to wait on that one, I guess… I'll be over here whistling innocent and blushing and THANKING YOU FOR YOUR WONDERFUL REVIEW!
HauntedPast: - Sorry! Sorry! I try, I really do. But it's here now! And it's long! Thanks for reviewing.
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