Author's Note – Thank you once again Laurie Lu and Ligia Elena for your consistency of giving me reviews for this story. Also thank you to Mediatorsk & PaigetheSuperWhitelighter for your kind feedback. I have been really bad at replying the reviews but would you believe me that I didn't figure out that function until a couple of weeks ago? Stupid me.
I had planned this big, fat last final chapter but then I thought that maybe it would be too long so I have now made two chapters out of one. Was it a bad idea? Let me know. And Laurie Lu, Paige is in this a tiny, little bit (and much more in the next) but I hope you can forgive me. I will definitely let Paige suffer more in the future, I promise ;)
Chapter 13. – Days of Our Charmed Lives, Part VI – Finally Finale
Benny's Report, Day 110– around 11.00 (p.m.)
Benny sat alone under the house of the Halliwell sisters with the last message from his agents in his hand. He was truly shaken. One of his finest agents - Björn, had deliberately gone into another dimension with the woman he was supposed to spy on. It was against all protocol!
He was overwhelmed by guilt; he should have seen this coming. Björn had showed signs of having sympathies for Piper Halliwell before. If Benny had relieved him of duty this wouldn't have happened. Now, Björn was lost in another dimension with no way of getting back and it was all Benny's fault. He closed his eyes and held the mobile tight in his hand as if Björn's life depended on it. He was not going to loose one of his agents like this. No way. Benny was going to find a way to rescue Björn. Even if that meant he had to use magic and once again invoking The Curse of Kalla Bong.
The two women stood still in the water watching as the last remains of their way home were nothing but a few wisps of smoke. None of them could believe it - they were stranded in an unknown dimension. Esmeralda started to hyperventilate; she dug her fingers painfully into Piper's arm.
"Oh my God! The rope is gone… the rope is gone… Oh my God, THE ROPE IS GONE! We can't get back! Oh God, what are we going to DO?"
Piper took a deep breath and swatted some weird insects away as she looked around where they were standing. Where were they? The air was humid and warm – it felt as if it was going to rain soon. It was very dark, probably night, but as her eyes grew more accustomed to the surroundings she saw that they were standing in the middle of a pond in some kind of jungle. The vegetation was strange and thick, all plants and the trees having red colors instead of green. The water they were standing in only reached them to the waist but it was hard to tell how deep it was a few feet away. In the corner of her eyes she saw something moving towards the water. "Esmeralda… "
"What are we going to do? The rope is gone… no way back. Oh fuck! What are we going to do! " Esmeralda was still in shock, rambling on about the rope.
" …Esmeralda, I think we better get out of this puddle now." Piper yanked in the handcuffs that were holding them together, hoping the other woman would come out of it.
Esmeralda suddenly became aware of Piper beside her and yanked her hand angrily back. "What!"
Piper pointed in the direction of where she saw something move. As her eyes got better and better in the dark she realized it was an alligator-shaped animal that slowly was sliding into the water. When it touched the water it started to smoke, like the animal was scolding hot. The alligator or whatever it was also started to glow with a warm white light. It looked really big.
"Oh Shit!"
Both Piper and Esmeralda started to move as fast as they could to the nearest strand. But they soon found out how hard it was to move quickly in the water handcuffed to each other. As they got to the riverbank they were met with another problem – it was almost impossible to get up on the muddy slopes. They tried but they just glided back into the water again. The luminescent alligator was closing in on them. When it opened it's huge gap and wheezed at them, smoke was coming out the mouth. Piper closed her eyes; she was petrified. This was not how she thought she would go – a brutal death in some godforsaken jungle-dimension, by the jaws of giant alligator that was shining with more light than a Christmas tree. Then she thought of her two wonderful boys growing up without a mother… No! That was not going to happen! Piper opened her eyes and started to pull herself and Esmeralda in the direction of a huge tree that was leaning over the pond. The water suddenly got deeper and Piper felt how the panicked Esmeralda was pulling her under the surface. The alligator-animal came closer…
The huge, glowing predator was only inches away from Esmeralda and Piper when the water suddenly exploded with a huge splash. Something invisible attacked the animal with incredible force causing the water to boil around them. Piper could hear the alligator-animal scream with rage under the surface as she was struggling to get up. With huge effort she shot up of the water and got hold of a branch from the tree hanging over them. The alligator-animal and the invisible creature continued to fight behind her and Piper had no intention on staying to see who would win. She didn't really know how she managed to climb onto the branch and get to safety with Esmeralda hanging onto her in the handcuffs but moments later they both were laying panting for air, safe on the ground.
"That was… that was too close!" It was all Piper managed to say before she threw up a disgusting mix of pond water her own blood (that she had been forced to drink in order to get the dimension they currently were stranded in).
"Oh my God, oh my God!" Was the only thing Esmeralda was able to say over and over again as she curled up into a fetal position on the ground.
Piper had no energy to try to comfort The Ripper Demon, instead she lay down on her back and took a deep breath and let the seriousness of the situation seep in. What kind of place was this? And where were her two sons? Piper could feel that they were alive, but that was all. She had no idea of their whereabouts or if they were in danger. As she laid still on the ground and the adrenaline from the escape from the pond was slowly going out of her system, Piper started to notice that she was in a lot pain. Every angle in her body ached. She was full of cuts and bruises and her broken collarbone was throbbing with an intensity that was almost unbearable.
Suddenly there was a rustling of the leaves in jungle. Both of the women tensed immediately and looked nervously around. Not another animal! A little figure jumped in front of them, scaring them both. He looked like a smaller version of Gonzo from The Muppet show. The little animal looked intensively at the two women with a furious expression on his face. When neither Piper nor Esmeralda had anything to say, the Mouyawan Gonzo just shook his little head in disappointment. He paced back and forth in front of them working up his anger to an absolute boiling point. Finally he exploded and started to scream at them in a language they couldn't understand. He screamed and flailed with his small arms for a long time. The situation was just too weird for them to react – both Piper and Esmeralda just sat there and took it, unable to respond. Finally the little animal had enough and with a snort he turned his back on them and walked away. Almost seconds after he had left the two women, it started to rain. The rain was lukewarm and tasted like shampoo.
Piper put her head back to the ground and let the rain wash her face. "I don't think I like this dimension."
Björn looked at them from behind a tree. He was holding his left arm where the giant Mouyawan alligator had bitten him. Björn hadn't really had any time to think before he had jumped in front of the big reptile, he had just done it. It was totally against regulations to risk your life for an assignment like this but he just couldn't bear the thought of Piper getting hurt.
Piper and Esmeralda were silent for a long time after the little angry animal left them.
Finally Piper snapped out of her thoughts: "So where are Wyatt and Chris? You said this double triple spell was going to get me to my boys."
"Ssssch! Not so loud! Someone can hear us." Esmeralda looked panicked around as to see that they hadn't woken up any more weird animals.
"I don't care, I just want to get my sons. Besides if anyone comes, I just explode them."
Esmeralda snorted. "Yeah, just like you tried to explode us at Jenny's place. Good luck with that."
"Watch this!" Piper said with a growl and tried to explode some of the thick vegetation in front of them. Nothing happened. "Strange… " She tried again but nothing moved, not even a single leaf. Angrily Piper turned to Esmeralda: "What have you done to my powers?"
Esmeralda shrugged. "Nothing. You just suck I guess." Piper gave Esmeralda a look that suggested that she was one second from strangling her so Esmeralda continued: "I promise you that I haven't done a thing to your powers. Seriously, it can be the dimension or the spell that may have messed up your powers. I have no idea, ok? Right now I just want to find your sons and get home as quickly as possible so I suggest that you stop accusing me and start to try to find them."
"How?"
Esmeralda sighed and started to talk to Piper like she was an idiot or a very small child. "The Double Burger Triple Dimension Jump Spell is all about the blood so close your eyes, concentrate and feel the blood calling to you."
Piper did as she was told and again she could see the strange veiny patterns in front of her eyes. The pattern had a certain pull, a strange feeling of direction… "Chris and Wyatt will be a couple of miles in that direction." Piper pointed to the left.
Esmeralda got up with a certain amount of effort and gave Piper her hand to help her up: "Ok, let's move our asses out of here."
Björn watched them as they started to walk through the jungle and then he followed them within a safe but undetectable distance as he was on the lookout for other dangerous creatures that might hurt them.
Trying to go from A to B in a jungle is more difficult than you might know. It's as much climbing as walking. Add to this the uncomfortable predicament of being handcuffed to someone else and you will have a pretty good idea of Piper's endeavor as she were trying to get her sons. Eventually the women found a pace and a routine that worked for them. They even managed to have some small talk while they were making their way through the jungle.
"Are you sure it was Jenny that burned the rope?"
"I have no doubt about it." Esmeralda said through gritted teeth. "If… I mean when I get home; I'm going to kill her slowly. I'm will break every bone in her body with a heavy hammer, pierce her ear drums with big, fat nails, let eels eat her intestines while she is screaming with pain. After that I'm going to rip out her eyes and… "
It was rather unnerving to hear all the gory details of Esmeralda's planned bloodbath for Jenny, so Piper interrupted: "But why would she do that? I thought you were… I mean you two looked… eh… close."
"Yeah, as close as two Ripper Demons can get." Esmeralda sounded bitter.
"Huh?"
"What I mean is that this is what Ripper Demons do all the time - we betray each other within a heartbeat. We are raised to be ruthless. We hurt, backstab, and even murder each other as long as it benefits our own interests. It's more or less tradition to be killed by another family member. But right now it just doesn't make sense to me; Ripper Demons get rid of their family members only if we have something to gain and Jenny has nothing to gain by putting me in this dimension. I just don't see how she can throw away me at a time like this? As soon as we had found your boys I would have killed you and gotten back to our dimension with them so that we could start a new family. Everything was so perfectly planned…."
Piper couldn't help to wince as Esmeralda said the last two sentences. Her ex-friend's betrayal still felt like an open wound.
Esmeralda's expression shifted from angry to something undeterminable. "I thought that Jenny and I had something special going on. It's hard to find someone who's ambitions match your own, you know." Then she shook her head and the angriness once again crept back into her voice. "This is so typical of Jenny! She always liked to play games."
"Games? Esmeralda, this is not game. We're stranded in the middle of a jungle in an unknown dimension!" Piper made a sweeping gesture of the surroundings. "She must have had a pretty good reason."
"Oh, I gave her plenty of reasons all right but I never thought she would carry a grudge. She's a Ripper Demon for Chrissakes!"
"Well, I say that you must have done something awful to her for her to do like this. What did you do to her?"
Esmeralda laughed. "Where should I start?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm Jenny's big sister and the number of things I have done to her is countless. Emilio and me had to make sure she was of the right stuff so we were very hard on her when she grew up. As I just said - living in a Ripper Family is tough and we wanted Jenny to survive. You have no idea how many kids my brother and me had to get rid of until we found Jenny to be part of our family. You can very early see if your adoptee has what it takes or not. You have probably seen it yourself with Paige."
Piper remained silent and closed her eyes for a second, not wanting to think of some of the parallels between Paige and Jenny. Sure, Piper had been tough on Paige when she was new to the family and magic but she had done it out of love. The recent complications surrounding Paige and whether she was Piper's sister or not made it even more painful and ironic to think about.
Esmeralda continued, more talking to herself than to Piper: "Growing up and surviving childhood in a Ripper Family… you have to develop a pretty thick skin. If you aren't mean enough you won't live long, especially if you haven't got any powers like Jenny. Emilio and me never thought she would live past her first fifteen years, but she did and she surprised us all. We did some pretty unspeakable things to her as a kid… I just never thought that she would hold it against me."
Back in our own cozy, dimension, at Jenny's apartment - Phoebe and Paige had watched in horror as Jenny had put the little rope on fire.
"What did you do?" Phoebe was staring at the burning little rope.
Jenny gave them a happy smile. "I just set the rope on fire."
Silently they watched the rope disappear in the flames. Phoebe felt that something was very, very wrong with the whole situation. "But how are they going to get home now?"
Jenny looked up from the remaining ashes of the rope. "They won't… there's no rope left."
"What? WHAT? You just took away the only way for our sisters, for my sister to get home!"
Jenny shrugged. "Yes. You'll get over it."
Before Phoebe could start ranting and raving over Jenny's insane answer, Paige cut her off with a question to Jenny: "Did you plan this all along?"
Jenny just smiled at her.
Piper and Esmeralda had been struggling through the jungle for hours. Finally they were standing on some kind of plateau where they had full view of a big valley before them. A black river was running through the gorge and the scenery could have been described as beautiful if it weren't for the unnatural colors of the wild jungle (red) and the dark sky (green) that was foreboding a thunderstorm. A thick mist was rising out of some parts of the vegetation, especially in the lower parts of the valley. It made it look very creepy and both of them women couldn't help imagine dangerous creatures hiding in the fog, waiting to attack them.
"Look!" Esmeralda pointed at something by the river.
Piper squinted her eyes and wished she had x-ray vision that could see through all the haze. But then she saw it – a dim light flickering just by the water. The more she looked the more lights she saw. "It's some kind of village down there I think". She closed her eyes and the blood red veins came back, all pointing at the lights. "That's were Chris and Wyatt are. I can feel it."
Esmeralda looked a little hesitant. "You sure?"
"Yes I'm sure. Let's go." Piper yanked the handcuffs and they started their journey downwards the slopes of the valley, swatting away the small flies in the warm summer rain.
Piper tried to kill one of the bugs by hitting her arm. "Have you noticed that all the insects speak English?"
"Yeah, it's kind of irritating. I think one of them is trying to sell me 'The Encyclopedia Britannica'."
It was true. All the insects flying around them were speaking to them in English with small, annoying voices. It was hard to hear what they said, especially since they were so many of them. Piper had tried to pick up what they were saying several times in case of getting some important information but when she discovered that most of the flies only wanted her to buy a two-year subscription of "Reader's Digest", she gave up.
Björn was silently watching the women from a safe distance. He too had seen the lights by the river and was deeply worried. The jungle was full of eyes and whispers. Not whispers from the small, infuriating flies (Björn had finally bought a one-year subscription of "O, The Oprah Magazine" with a 52 discount and a free towel, just to shut them damn flies up), but terrifying, malicious whispers that occupied the air. His excellent hearing could also pick up faint drums that were getting closer and closer.
"Is that drums I hear?" Piper stopped the two of them and they both stood there and listened intently. For a while they didn't know if it was their steadfast heartbeats or something else.
"Yep. That's definitely drums." Esmeralda actually looked a little bit scared, something that Piper never thought she would see. "Are you sure we are going in the right direction?"
Piper closed her eyes in order to once more see the jaggy lines of read veins. The pattern seemed a little bit more intense, redder this time. "Yes, my sons are in the bottom of this valley and that's where we are going." So they continued their path towards the mysterious lights, as the drums and grew louder and louder. Thankfully the rain increased the force of its downpour and drowned the sound of the scary drums a little. Piper wanting to think about something else for a minute decided to ask Esmeralda a question she had been thinking of asking since they got to the dimension.
"Esmeralda?"
"Yes?"
"Are you never going to ask me about your children?"
"Who?"
"Who! Justin and Emilia of course! Your two beautiful children that you left in our attic, aren't you the least concerned about them?"
Esmeralda just smiled. "You can keep them."
"What! That's not funny!"
"Seriously, you can keep them. Feed them to the dogs or give them away as Christmas presents, do whatever you want do with them."
"How can you say a thing like that? They are your children!"
Esmeralda stopped in her tracks and looked at Piper. "Those weren't my kids. Jenny fixed them for me from her adoption agency or from somewhere."
"That's terrible!"
"You have no idea how easy it is to get a couple of kids these days. If the price is right, that is. That's how Jenny thought we got her… we told her that her parents had sold her to us. But in fact Emilio and me killed them." Esmeralda sounded like she just had told Piper a joke.
Piper was appalled. "You are truly a horrible person! No wonder Jenny wanted to send you to another dimension!"
Esmeralda, who never liked any form of criticism, quickly got angry. Her voice becoming ice-cold: "Being judgemental are we? Honey, you are in no position to preach to me about sisterhood."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"C'mon Piper, you wouldn't have befriended me, confided in me if you were so happy with your sisters."
"I love my two sisters!"
"Ha! I thought you had three sisters? Which one do you exclude from your holy sisterhood - the one that's dead, or the half-breed that you suspect isn't your sister?"
Piper was speechless for two seconds, and then she shook her head. "That was cheap. You are just putting words into my mouth, trying to make me doubt my sisters."
"Oh please! You haven't trusted them in along time and you know it! The truth is that you think they are useless, that you can't rely on them to stand by you and protect your sons."
"You're lying! They are my sisters! We are The Charmed Ones!" Piper's words sounded hollow, even to herself.
Esmeralda looked at her with a mix of pity and contempt. "Yeah right, I guess it was the faith in your sisters and The Power of Three, that made you turn to Dark Magic and me."
A bang in the air announced the thunderstorm coming. A wind swept through the trees and with it came a smell that filled Piper with dread.
Esmeralda sniffed in the air. "Can you feel that?"
"Yeah… it smells like someone is grilling… " Piper felt the panic bubbling up from under the surface. "Meat. It smells like burned meat."
Esmeralda gave her a wicked smile. "Maybe they are grilling you two little brats… "
A flash light up the jungle after Esmeralda's tormenting words. It wasn't as much the flashlight that blinded Piper, as it was the fury that engulfed her from top to toe. They say you see red when you get very angry. Piper saw black. She flung herself on top of the other woman, her hands around Esmeralda's neck. The rain mirrored Piper's feelings by hammering down on their heads with an intensifying roar that drowned the screams from the two. Esmeralda quickly recovered from Piper's attack and turned into a worthy opponent as the fight went on. Their struggle soon became mud wrestling as the rain turned the ground into slippery clay and puddles of dirt. They fought with an unrelenting abandon, using all the strength they could muster from their exhausted, injured bodies, chained to each other by the handcuffs. They lost track of time and universe as they took out all their fears and frustrations on the other, subconsciously egged on by the steady drum beat that got louder and louder. And closer and closer…
They were so consumed by their fight that they never noticed the small feet that suddenly surrounded them. As the rain started to recline Piper and Esmeralda became aware of their surroundings, and the fact that they no longer were alone. More than a hundred little pygmy warriors were standing around them in a ring, watching the two women with intense black eyes and raised spears.
"This isn't good… " Esmeralda stated as she and Piper slowly and painfully disentangled from each other. Both were embarrassed over their fight and the fact that no one of them had won. As they stood up, over a hundred spears hurriedly were pointed in their direction. The little warriors looked worried, as Piper and Esmeralda were twice their height. Piper took a good look at her captors and she thought they all looked like a mix between the mummy pygmies from the film "The Mummy II" and the Mayan ghost in the comic book "The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls" (great comic by the way). The pygmies all had dark complexion, jet-black hair in an Egyptian haircut, small pointy teeth and big black eyes. Most of them were almost naked, only wearing a small loincloth. The weird eyes and the fact that all of them were nothing but skin and bones made Piper believe that the small warriors were some kind of mummified zombie army.
An older pygmy with a big, golden necklace stepped forward. "Come with us!" He spoke a broken English and he said it in voice that left nothing to argue.
A group of little warriors made a square around Piper and Esmeralda, with their spears pointed at them, as they started to walk behind the pygmy leader.
"Where are you taking us?" Esmeralda asked.
"To The Colonel. He will punish you." The little man said as he walked through the jungle, his back turned to them.
"But we haven't done anything! What can he possibly punish us for?"
"Un-American activities. "
To be continued in "Chapter 14. – Days of Our Charmed Lives, Part VII – Finality"…