A/N: thank you so much Succubus :) here's another update, hope you'll like it!
Chapter 3
Returning back from her nostalgia, Paige slumped down on her chair, the stress from teaching her class taking its toll on her. She rubbed her tired eyes, and drew in a sharp breath. Stifling the urge to summon Mr. Right, Paige waved her hands over her table instead, where a stack of test papers magically appeared.
Retreating into the comforts of her chair, Paige slinked back and took her red pen from her desk drawer. As she yanked the wooden drawer open, her eyes fell on a framed photograph of her and her two sisters from behind the high stack of unmarked test papers.
She grinned, taking the picture frame from her desk, and grasped it firmly in front of her. "Piper, Phoebe," she whispered, a hint of longing and sadness in her voice. She cast a tired look at the stack of unmarked test papers lying on top of her desk, and then glanced again at the framed picture; deciding between finishing her work and visiting her sisters.
She looked at the test papers once more, and finally decided. "Screw it, I'm going home!" she exclaimed excitedly. Closing her eyes, she focused on the image of Halliwell Manor, fondly remembering the house's warm ambience, and concentrated until she sensed the familiar feeling of her body dissolving into tiny blue and white orbs.
Within seconds, her body reappeared in a brilliant show of blue and white orbs in the Sun Room of the Manor. She opened her eyes, excitedly taking in her surroundings, and squealed in delight. "I'm home!" she exclaimed to herself.
Paige turned her head as the sound of laughter echoed throughout the Manor. She listened carefully, and followed the jovial sound- the roars of laughter were coming from the living room. She hurried to the living room, where she found Piper resting on the couch, watching an old re-run of a Harry Potter movie on cable television. Paige noticed the letters WB blazed on the left-hand screen of their television; looking up from the huge white logo, Paige saw a young red-haired wizard casting a spell using his wand.
Upon seeing this, Piper burst into another fit of laughter.
Puzzled as to why Piper would laugh at a wizard casting spells when she herself was a witch, Paige entered the living room and called out to her eldest sister, "What's so funny, Piper?"
Hearing her youngest sister's voice, Piper turned around in surprise and jumped from her seat. "Paige! You're home!" Piper rushed to where her sister stood and hugged her tightly. "It's been so long! How are you? How's the school? Have you been eating well?" Piper began bombarding Paige with questions, while she hugged her tighter and tighter.
"Ow!" Paige screamed, cutting Piper's questions, "You're crushing my ribs, Piper."
"Whoops!" Piper finally released her hold on Paige. "I'm sorry, Paige, but it's been five whole months since you've been here! How are you? We've missed you so much!" Piper looked at Paige once more and smiled, happy to see her sister again.
"I've missed you so much, too!" Paige answered cheerfully, returning Piper's warm smile. She was looking at Piper, memorizing her eldest sister's features, comparing them with the image of Piper five months ago.
Paige squinted, scrutinizing Piper's face thoroughly, and snapped, "I knew it! I knew there was something new with you!" Paige detected a change in Piper's face the moment she turned around from her chair and ran to her, but she just could not place her finger on it.
Piper jumped, this time in shock, as Paige suddenly shouted unexpectedly. "Goodness, Paige! You made my heart skip a beat! What? What is it?"
"There," Paige said matter-of-factly as she pointed to Piper's cheek. Paige noticed a slight difference in Piper's facial skin tone when her elder sister ran to her and hugged her. It was as if Piper had applied on too much make-up on one side of her cheek to cover something- something that Paige could not distinguish, something that Piper was trying her best to hide from Paige. "What's that on your face?"
Paige saw Piper grimace, a facial expression that the sisters equated for "Oops, busted." But, Piper decided to play hardball and innocently asked, "What? Haven't you seen make-up before?"
Paige stared at Piper accusingly, crossing her arms over her shoulders. "Make-up? Yes. A successful lie coming from you right now? No. Now what are you hiding behind that make-up? Don't make me use a Truth spell on you," Paige threatened.
"Nothing, Paige! I'm not hiding anything," Piper repeated exasperatedly, though her previously defiant look softened and her gaze lingered on the floor, which added to Paige's rising suspicions.
"Oh, really?" Paige pressed on, "then what do you call this?" She held her hands out, an image of a towel appearing in her mind, and called out, "Towel!" Suddenly, a towel magically orbed from the laundry-room and materialized into Paige's hands. Before Piper could react, Paige threw herself forward at her eldest sister, using all of her weight to pin her. Her hand grabbed Piper's head and held it firm, and with her other hand, used the damp towel to wipe her sister's face. She wiped a little too harshly and Piper winced in pain, pushing Paige back instinctively.
"Ow! What was that for?" Piper said, rubbing the sore red spot on her face where Paige rubbed it too fiercely. As she continued to massage her cheek softly, the make-up cleared and the redness of her face slowly faded, exposing a long scar embedded on her once smooth face.
Paige gasped as her eyes fell on Piper's cheek. "Piper! Wh...what happened to your face? Who did that? When did you get that?" Paige's eyes bulged from her eye-sockets, as it was her turn to bombard Piper with her own set of questions.
Piper covered her ears as Paige continued to ask her more questions about the mysterious scar, and slumped back down on the couch, waiting for Paige to finish. "Done?" Piper asked her youngest sister as she saw her lips stop moving. Reluctantly, she withdrew her hands from her ears and looked at Paige.
Paige stopped talking and nodded her head. "So, what happened?"
Piper turned her head up from the couch and shook her head, as if trying to forget a hurtful memory. "A lot of things apparently," Piper replied and sighed. She looked at Paige and tried to force a smile. "Ever heard of the Witch Huntress?" Piper asked, referring to the demon that attacked the Manor a couple of weeks before.
"The Witch Huntress?" Paige cringed; the mere mention of the demon's name sent shivers down her spine. She shivered as she remembered the information she had collected about the demon from her WitchCraft studies. Paige slowly discerned to Piper what information she had on the demon, "The Witch Huntress is an upper level demon with sharp claws that are highly lethal to witches. She kills and drains the powers of witches on..." Paige paused, and quickly realized something, "on the night of the blue moon...and the blue moon was..."
"...two weeks ago," Piper completed Paige's sentence and smiled weakly.
Paige's eyes widened, "Oh my Goddess, Piper! I am so, so sorry! I wasn't here to help you vanquish the demon!" Her eyes looked apologetically at Piper. "It...my...I was so caught up with all the test paper checking and all the research in Magic School...I am so sorry, Piper. Do you want me to help you vanquish the demon now? Because I know just the perfect spell to vanquish her sorry ass," Paige explained, trying to make up for her absence.
"No need, Miss-I-am-so-busy-with-Magic-School," Piper joked half-heartedly, alleviating the situation. "We already took care of her sorry little ass." She winked and grinned triumphantly at Paige, remembering the fiery vanquish in the Halliwell attic two weeks ago. "Along with two bounty hunters, Trok Demons, a couple of delusional warlocks who thought that they could take on the Charmed Ones," Piper said as she slowly lifted her fingers, ticking her mental checklist of the demons that had been vanquished for the last five months since Paige was in the Manor. Piper was about to continue to recount the various vanquishes that happened when the younger Halliwell interrupted.
"Wait, hold on a sec," Paige said, "Stop and rewind." She stared at Piper as if she were the one who was delusional. "You already vanquished the Huntress? How? You can't vanquish the Witch Huntress without the Power of Three, remember?" Paige looked at her sister, checking for signs of stress and fatigue.
Piper nodded, "You're right, well, sort of." Piper closed her eyes and tried to remember the vanquish that happened a fortnight ago. "Actually, Paige, we found another way to vanquish the Witch Huntress."
"Another way?" Paige's eyes widened again, this time in sheer disbelief. "How?"
"Well, according to the Book of Shadows, the Witch Huntress can indeed be vanquished by the Power of Three," Piper said, the entry of the Witch Huntress from the Halliwell Book of Shadows popping immediately into her mind. "But, there was one more piece of information you missed out on. A very crucial piece of information. Apparently, the Witch Huntress has another weakness besides the Power of Three- the Undead." Piper paused and looked at Paige, waiting for any reaction or response.
Paige blinked rapidly, obviously confused with what Piper had just told her. "Come again? Did you just say the Undead? As in ghosts?" she asked curiously, a million questions running around her head. "Where and how did you get a ghost to help you? As far as I can remember, most ghosts are not very well known for their charity."
"Didn't have to find one," Piper shrugged nonchalantly, "we had Phoebe."
Paige looked at her sister incredulously, "Phoebe? What do you mean?"
Piper was about to explain to Paige how Phoebe had stabbed herself with an athame in order for her to turn into a ghost, when the house shook with an intense vibration. Piper and Paige heard a loud explosion that came from the attic. Before the two Charmed Ones could react, another loud explosion followed, shaking the entire Manor, and both witches fell on their feet. "The hell!" Piper screamed out, as she hurriedly got up to her feet and helped Paige get up.
Rushing to get to the attic, Piper grabbed Paige's arm as they ran to the stairs, taking two steps at a time. As they got to the top ring of the stairs, Piper thrust her arms out and blew the rickety door of the attic. "Phoebe!" she screamed out worriedly as she saw smoke streaming out of the attic. "Phoebe!" she called out again.
Waving her hands in front of her rapidly, Paige entered the attic with Piper, calling out to her other sister. "Phoe cough cough!" The thick smoke that streamed out of the attic assaulted Paige's eyes the moment she stepped inside, sending a burning sensation to her eyes. Her eyes welled up with tears and her vision clouded; she walked blindly around the attic, fumbling around to find her sister, blinking madly. She coughed as the smoke forced its way into Paige's nose, and constricted her throat. cough cough
A gust of wind suddenly breezed its way into the attic from a broken stain-glassed window, blowing the black vapor out of the antique-laden room, leaving ashes and soot inside the attic that marred the furniture and antiques with a black smudges.
In the center of the tousled room in between blown up antique tables stood Phoebe, face covered with soot, grinning sheepishly. "Hey, Piper!" she said as she held up a glass vial overflowing with a bubbling greenish-blue liquid on her right hand, and a glass vial half-full with a reddish liquid on her left. She turned her head and was surprised to see her younger sister standing beside Piper. "Paige! What a surprise! I have news for ya, never mix Mandrake root with Dragon's Blood, it'll blow you away!"
With that, the two glass vials slipped from Phoebe's grip, and she slumped to the floor, unconscious, lying in between the two potion puddles.