A/N: This chapter on the Shakespeare's, "Fair is foul and foul is fair." I'm sorry, I know this chapter is a shorter one. I'm sorry. I was trying to post this last night, but there must have been another glitch in the FFN system, because it kept telling me that I had an "empty document."
Change Happens
Chapter 3: Air Is Foul And Foul Is Air
"You know each other?" Paige gaped, flashing confused glances between her older sisters and her first charge.
"Well yeah," Phoebe exclaimed, pointing to Max. "I'd know that face anywhere! But the question is, how do you know Max?" Her brow furrowed and she placed her hands to her hips, eyeing her little sister.
"Oh, don't give me that tone, Phoebe Halliwell!" Paige narrowed her eyes. "And for your information, he's my first charge." She made a peace sign with her index and middle finger and then pointed them towards her sisters. "How do you know my charge?"
"Prue," Piper said, inching closer to Max and Paige. "His powers were unleashed after his mother died and a pair of robbers were using him to-"
"Rob a bank," Max cut in. He ran his dark hand over his thin layer of black hair. "Prue saved me. She helped me understand my power and embrace my mother's heritage." He looked curiously from Piper, to Phoebe, and finally back to Paige. "How do you know them, Paige? Are you their whitelighter too?"
"No," Phoebe waved her hand. "She's our sister."
Confusion instantly drowned Max's facial features. "What? But I thought-"
"I'm their half sister," Paige cut in. "We really don't have time to get into this. But the cliff note's version is, I'm half witch on our mother's side and half whitelighter on my father's side. I came to them after The Elders staged Prue's death and then she was brought back when I got pregnant."
"Wh-where is Prue?" Max asked, his gaze flicking to the elder Charmed Ones.
Piper and Phoebe exchanged sorrowful looks.
"Is she-"
"No!" The three sisters cried in unison, surprising not only Max but themselves all at the same time.
"But-"
"We don't know," the psychic snapped. She drew in a long, deep breath. "I'm sorry." She wiped her hand across her forehead. "We don't know. She was abducted by a demon eight months ago and we've been searching ever since then."
"But you're the Charmed Ones! How can you not know where she is?"
"This is very powerful evil that we're dealing with, Max. The Source. He wants Prue's daughter."
"Prue has a daughter?"
"She has two. But the one he's after is her unborn daughter, which is why he hasn't killed her yet."
"You mean-"
"She's still pregnant."
Sweat pierced the young African-American's brow, as he turned away from the sisters and headed towards the Book of Shadows. "Maybe I can help?"
"No!" Piper barked, flicking her fingers in angry frustration. "This is far too dangerous and I won't risk your life too!"
"I'm sorry, Piper, but I'm not a little boy anymore. Prue saved me all those years ago and now I want to return the favor."
"If we, the Charmed Ones, can't find her, what makes you think that you can?"
Max stared down at the leather bound cover of the ancient Warren tome. "Your Book of Shadows?"
"Why?" Paige asked, wary of her new charge and his history with her half sisters.
"You said she was abducted, right?"
"Yes."
"Do you know who abducted her?"
"What're you thinking?" The psionic asked. She walked over to the psychokinetic. "And she's not in the Book."
"She?"
"The demon who took Prue."
"But then-"
"Give me your hands."
"Why?"
"You said you wanted to see the demon who took Prue, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"Just trust me. If you want us to trust you with helping to save Prue, it has to work both ways."
Max drew out a breath he hadn't realized that he was holding in. "Fine." He placed his dark chocolate skinned hands into Phoebe's awaiting, milky palms. He was about to open his mouth, when a striking burst of psychic energy crashed into his mind, followed by a series of powerful images.
----Premonition----
"Come forth, Huldra."
The milky white,eight foot tall beast with a shield ofbulging musclesarose from the shadows and sauntered towards The Source. "I've kept her preserved, just as you've asked."
"I'm proud of you, Huldra. You've served me well."
Prue's abductor flashed her Master a wicked grin, before bowing low to the floor again.
----Premonition----
The psychokinetic staggered back, not used to such a blast of mental power. "How did you-"
"My power of premonition has grown a lot since we last saw you, Max." She narrowed her dark brown eyes. "Do you have what you need?"
"No, we'll need reinforcements."He turned on his heel and began to walk towards the door. Without looking back, he clicked his fingers and magical heirloom rose from its pedestal and began to follow Max's path. "Come on, you're going to have to show me where your kitchen is."
The youngest Charmed Ones exchanged ranging from surprise to paranoia and then as if one, they all glided towards the attic door.
----
Thick clouds of white dust flitted against air particles, before finally drifting off unto their own paths, clearing the air in front of Pearl's face. She quickly turned her head into the sixty degree angle formed by her craned elbow and released a thundering sneeze.
Brandon suppressed the urge to giggle, as he wiped his damp hands against his black jeans. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Pearl replied, waving her hand in front of her face out of fear that more dust might be lurking there to tickle her nasal passage.
"It looks great," Brandon approved, as he circled the chalk pentacle.
"So how exactly are we going to do this?"
"I figure that since the demon who took your aunt is composed of the air and water elements, we'll use fire, earth, and spirit to summon her." He tromped over to a path of overturned earth and scooped a pile of the dark matter into his hands. The male witch walked to the top point of the pentacle. "Spirit," he murmured, walking to the ancient symbol's center and glanced to his right. "Air," he took a few more steps and stopped at the point below air. "Earth." He gently bent down, placing the rich soil on its designated point.
"Brandon," Pearl grumbled, plucking a wriggling worm from the pile.
Brandon brushed his soil covered hands over his dirty pants. "What? It's an earthworm," he smirked, putting emphasis on 'earth.'
The Blessed One rolled her brown eyes and walked over to the small hole where Brandon had snatched the dirt from, placing the worm down and covering it with a small layer of rich dirt. "And how do you propose we get fire?"
"You've obviously never been camping," Brandon smirked, as he broke a few smaller branches from one of the lower hanging trees and headed over to the point across from earth.
"Never struck my fancy." Pearl raked her fingers through her long, dark hair. "You're not really going to try and start it with sticks, are you?"
"It's how cavemen did it." The boy witch knelt to one knee and began to skillfully shimmy the sticks together.
"It's not going to..." Her speech stopped mid sentence, when her ears caught the sound of a small zapping noise. The witch drew her hand to her forehead, cutting the glare of the sun. "It's not going to work."
Brandon sharply drew the stick in his right hand against the one in his left. The twig hissed, screamed, and then a small blue flame bit at his fingers. He grinned, struck the sticks together again, and then time the flame furiously rose against him, swallowing the whole of both sticks. It cackled as small bits of black ash fluttered away in the breeze. "You were saying?"
A small smile graced her lips, as Pearlinda crossed her arms across her chest. "Okay, okay. But what about spirit? How do we show that?" She blinked and her friend was gone. "Brandon?" As the whitelighter was about to turn, she felt his hand on her shoulder.
"Pearl, you're the most spirited person I know." He gently entwined his hand with her's and led her over to the head point. He released her and stepped back. "Just stand there, okay? I'll take care of the spell."
"But-"
Brandon drew his finger across his lips, signaling her to zip it. Then he dug into his jean pocket and pulled out a small, wrinkled piece of paper. "'Earth, fire, and spirit conspire!'"
Pearl's eyes shifted to the left as the flickering flame blazed into an inferno of raw, blistering power. Then her mocha irises darted to the right, latching onto the sight of the soil churning and expanding all on its own. Finally, she allowed herself to look down at her own hands, which were glowing with fluorescent lavender energy. She could feel her hair itching with magic, as it pulled in the opposite direction of her scalp. "Brandon!"
"'Water and air, my heart desires! Bring forth now, the demon for hire!'"
The robin's egg blue sky cracked with streaks of vivid, blue lightning as the color drained away to reveal a deathly shade of gray. Thunder echoed, like billions of metal cookie sheets crashing together. The trees began a choppy dance and ice cold pellets of water began to flee from the sky like the tears of a thousand ghosts.
The rain thrashed heavily into the center of the pentacle, but never actually touched the ground, as it was swept up by gale force winds, which eventually combined to form an unmatched cyclone. It spun wildly in an attempt to envelope everything in its immediate surroundings.
Fortunately the fire arched its way around the outer circle of the pentacle, forming a blazing ring of blistering orange-red flames. Then the brown earth expanded to line the inner five pointed star in a rich, mahogany color. Finally, the glowing purple aura that surrounded the whitewitch exploded like a parachute over the expanse of the pentacle. It formed a large, glowing purple bubble over the circle, meeting with the edging of the flames and then dropping down purple rays to meet the earthly soil over the star's lines. The cyclone was caught in the glowing constraints of the five sided pentagon in the star's center.
Suddenly the water seemed to pool from the cyclone, filling up the pentagon like a bathtub, and then merging together to form the massive, eight foot tall demon that had abducted the telekinetic Charmed One.
"You!" Huldra roared, raising her beefy arms and flinging them outwards. Hurricane force winds, combined with a tsunami of water, literally blasted the magical walls of pentacle. The fire was drowned out, the soil washed away, and Pearl slammed across the park and landing in a wet heap in a clump of bushes. "I should've taken all of you out when I had the chance!" She waved her arm again, summoning the water into a counterclockwise whirlpool, immediately sucking Pearl and Brandon under. Huldra's chest heaved, as she cackled at the sight of drowning victims.
TO BE CONTINUED...
