A/N: Chyp, Leo's comment wasn't supposed to be an insult to men. He was trying to make a joke by saying that men are a genetic mess up, because they only have one x chromosome instead of two. Not that they are literally screw ups/pigs/jerks/etc... And I also apologize about the words squishing together. I can't figure out how to make them stay separate. I type them spaced out, but once they upload into the editor on FFN, they start sticking together. I go through and try to put a space between the ones I catch, but it only ends up sticking others together after I press "save." If anyone has suggestions, I'd be more than happy to try them out. (P.S. This chapter is a play on that one show, Numb3rs.)
Change Happens
Chapter 23: Charm3d
Her dark blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and the ends trailed down and stopped just above her shoulders. Her neck had a strip of black satin curving around, and heading back down the front side. It was obviously part of a black halter top.
Her back was completely bare except for a massive black scorpion tattoo that extended from the beginning of her neck all the way down to her lower back, just above her waist. It had two large claws and several spiny legs, as well as two giant feelers from its head. Each arm, just several inches above her elbows, also had a double ringed black tattoo that encircle them. Small scorpion claws appeared to hang from the lower ring, spread out evenly, on each arm.
Turning around, her luscious red lips were visible, as well as her the tight fitting black satin dress that hugged her curvy form. The top of the dress hung down eye catchingly low. Any lower and there wouldn't of been anything left to the imagination. A silver scorpion pendant hung at the center of her chest; each of its large claws were carved of solid ruby.
The mysterious woman stood before a classic black cauldron, which was nearly overflowing with a frothy red substance. She reached around the pot, grabbing a small jar of what appeared to be slimy eyeballs, and drew one out. She stared at it for a moment, noting that it appeared to be wide with terror, and then she plopped the green irised eyeball into her pot. It hissed as she slid the jar back into place
"Is it complete, Scorpia?"
"No," she replied icily. Scorpia hadn't even turned around to look at the crooked minion behind her. "I still need the blood of the one who cast the spell."
The minion bowed his wrinkled head, and stepped back into the shadows. His yellow eyes gleamed. "I'll retrieve it."
"You'd better," Scorpia growled. "There is a price to pay if you don't please me." She pulled a black ladle from the frothy substance, and let it drain back into the cauldron. She proceeded to stir her concoction lovingly.
----
"Phoebe!" Piper flung out her hands, freezing an fireball just inches from her little sister's face.
"Thanks," the psychic hollered over the crash of her foot connecting with a demon's jaw. She grabbed the demon by his lapels and swung him with all her force into the frozen fireball, instantly incinerating him. She jumped into a fighting stance and wiggled her fingers to the next in line. "Come n' get me!"
Piper's hands rose again, but as she emitted her explosive power, the demon dove out of her line of fire. Consequently, her power hit the television and a mushroom cloud of black smoke erupted from it. "Damnit!" She'd already tried her other two powers on the demons, but they seemed to be immune to such tactics. All she was left with was her explosive power, but they were too agile for her to catch them with it.
"Behind you!" Phoebe dove at her sister, knocking them both to the ground as a fireball flew over their heads and crashed through one of the stained glass windows. "They're pack demons," she whispered. "The only way to vanquish them all is if we get the pack leader, otherwise more will just keep coming."
"So what do you propose we do?" Piper hissed. She pulled to her feet, helping Phoebe up after her.
Instead, Phoebe grabbed onto her sister's shoulders and levitated them to the ceiling. "First we avoid those fireballs," she replied as she watched one glide under their dangling feet. "And then we get out of here."
"Won't they follow us?"
"We should have at least a little bit of time," the precognitive assured.
Piper cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth. "Leo!"
Orbs swarmed next to the sisters, formulating into her husband. A cloud of orbs still hovered around him as he orb-levitated next to Phoebe and his wife. "What are you guys do-" Suddenly his face creased with pain and then his body exploded into orbs, as a fireball hit his back. Moments later, the whitelighter reappeared.
Piper, not wasting another moment, latched onto her husband's collar. "Orb, orb, orb!"
Not wanting to be hit by another misdirected fireball, Leo orbed the three of them out without further question.
----
"What the hell was that about?" Leo groaned, as he appeared in The Villa with Phoebe and Piper. He wiggled out of Piper's grasp and rubbed his back where he'd been hit.
"Oh stop being a baby," Phoebe grumbled.
"Hurry, we need to know where Paige is."
"Paige? You need her?"
Phoebe and Piper eagerly nodded. "Without her, we can't vanquish the Thorax."
"Thorax?" Leo looked bemused. "That sounds like something out of Dr. Seuss."
"Did that feel like something out of Dr. Seuss?" Piper asked, slapping her husband's back.
"Ow!" Leo glowered. "Why didn't you just call her?"
"We didn't want to put the baby in danger, by havingPaige orb into the middle of a rain of fireballs."
"So where is she?"
Leo fidgeted.
"Leo?"
"You know what, maybe I should go get her?"
"Leo! What're you not telling us?"
"I'll be right back." Leo began to orb. Little did he realize that his wife was swifter than she looked, and jumped into his orbs just as he was almost gone.
----
A soft blue glow emanated from behind a flowering tree. Behind the tree, Leo angrily shoved Piper against it and slapped his hand over her mouth. "What do you think you're doing?"
Angrily, Piper smacked her husband's hand away and squinted her eyes. "Where are we?"
Leo poked his head around the tree and then returned his gaze to his wife. "You have to go, now."
"Leo!"
"Quiet," the whitelighter growled. "I'm taking you-"
"No!" Piper shoved her husband back and began to turn the corner, when something caught her eye. It was a large, white, rectangular stone. In fact, she soon realized, there were several of them surrounding her. She cocked her head to the side, as if finally realizing where her husband had orbed her. "Leo, are we..."
Leo nodded solemnly. He slid his hand into his wife's, and pulled her around the tree. He pointed.
Piper placed her hand to her mouth in a silent gasp.
"Now do you understand why you weren't supposed to come?"
"But Leo," Piper shook her head in silent confusion. "Why didn't she just tell me? Tell us?"
"You each grieve in your own ways, Piper. Paige just wanted some time alone with Prue, that's all."
Piper looked again. From her vantage point behind the tree, she could see her youngest sister kneeling at the base of her big sister's headstone. She could also see the sparkling tears on Paige's red cheeks. Her heart ached to reach out to her. When she did, however, Leo pulled her back. "No. You stay here. I'll get Paige."
Leo nudged Piper back behind the tree, and moved out from under its shade to reach Paige. He walked up quietly behind her, placed his hand on her shoulder, and knelt down beside her. "Paige?"
Paige glanced up with teary eyes. "I was waiting for you to come. And I know Piper's with you."
"You do?"
Paige slid her hand into Leo's outstretched one, and she climbed to her feet. "I sense too, remember? Look, don't tell her I know, okay?"
Leo nodded. "Are you okay to-"
"I'm fine." Paige brushed away the fresh tears from her eyes, with the sleeve of her hot pink Abercrombie & Fitch cardigan. "Go take her home." She orbed.
Leo headed back for Piper, but didn't get all the way to the tree before Piper met him halfway. "She wanted to orb home on her own," Leo only half lied.
Piper wrapped her arms around her husband's neck and buried her face into his shirt. She just wanted to get this day over with.
----
Mustard yellow particles of ash mushroom clouded into a vacant classroom. The demon, the same minion with glowing yellow eyes, appeared in front of a cherry oak desk with a name plate reading 'Miss Winterbourne'.
He quickly moved around the desk and reached for a stack of papers on the center of the desk. He grabbed them and began to flip through them. Seven papers into the stack, he came upon one that made a sickly grin creep onto his deformed mouth. In scribble purple crayon, almost illegible, was the name 'Pandora'. He eagerly waved his hand over the paper, a half drawn family portrait, and it glowed a deep shade of green for only a second.
Hearing footsteps, he returned the papers to their neatly stacked pile and repositioned them squarely in the center of the desk. He turned on his heel, seeing the doorknob on the Kindergarten classroom door beginning to turn. The minion's body enveloped into a cloud of dark yellow smoke, then dissipated into a swirl of mustard yellow ashes and disappeared from the room.
The door swung open and Miss Winterbourne ushered her Kindergarten class into the room. "Settle down, settle down." Moving to her desk, she collected a stack of papers and waved her hand at them. Telekinetically, they dispersed to each and every desk in the now full room.
Pandora Trudeau stared at her crayon picture for a moment.Without realizing it, she began to pick at her small cuticles, and her beautiful eyes began to glisten under the fluorescent lights from the ceiling.
The hand drawingconsisted of a pink square with a brown triangle atop it, a black square in the center of the triangle as well as two positioned near the top of the pink square, and a rectangle with a line down the center in between the above squares nearer to the bottom. On the front of a scribbled green patch, there was a stick figure of a man with blue dotted eyes and next to him was a tiny stick figure girl with black hair and blue eyes.
On the other side of the picture was another stick figure, also female but this one was at full height. Her stick neck, however, connected to an oval for a stomach. She had brown dotted eyes. And at the very top of the page, above the brown triangle, was another woman who bore a striking resemblance to the brown eyed one. She, however, had no oval stomach and had blue dotted eyes.
Pandora reached her hands into the cubby of her desk and returned with a simple pack of Crayola crayons. She flipped open the box and pulled out a black crayon. She moved her hand to the top of her picture and drew in long lines of black hair on the figure floating above the house, the Manor. She returned the black crayon and pulled out a blue one, and began to draw several dark blue dots all over the picture.
----Flashback----
Andy stood up, walking across the damp grass which had been previously sprinkled with water droplets throughout the service and stopped at the center of the left side of the ivory coffin.
"Daddy?"
Andy leaned down and scooped his daughter from the ground, adjusting her on his left hip. Peering over his shoulder, he motioned to Paige.
Paige waddled over to the coffin, tears threatening to spill as Andy reached out and squeezed her hand.
"It's time to say goodbye to mommy," he whispered into his daughter's ear and at the same time laid a comforting hand over the stomach which held his and Prue's unborn. The Inspector reached into his inner flap of his black blazer and pulled out a single red rose. He stared at the coffin for a moment, hesitating before finally laying the rose against the shiny ivory.
That was the moment that the sky finally tore open, releasing a torrent of cleansing droplets from the heavy black storm clouds and hazy gray mess above. They ripped through the air with a fury, soaking everything they came in contact with. It may have just been an optical illusion, but to onlookers it appeared as those it they came specifically towards the faces of Andy and Pandora, and possibly even Paige's pregnant stomach.
Pandora laced her tiny hand with her farther's and stretched out her arm to touch her aunt's stomach, as she relished the cold water on her body. "Blessed be, mommy."
----Flashback----
A wet drop splashed onto a still white portion of the paper, and began to soak into the paper. Pandora placed her finger over the paper and rubbed the watery stain in, making a spherical mark on the paper. She shoved the blue crayon back into the box and shoved it into her desk.
As the young witch grabbed at the edge of the paper to pick it up, however, she let out a yelp of pain. Pulling her hand away, she could see a blob of dark red pooling onto the edge of her finger.
Miss Winterbourne looked up immediately. "Pandora, sweetie," she ran instantly to the little witch's side. "What is it? What's the matter?"
Pandora sniffled as she held up her finger, revealing the bloody drop.
"Oh, Pandora, what happened?" Miss Winterbourne pulled a small tissue from her pocket and dabbed the little girl's wound.
Pandora pointed to the drawing.
"A paper cut?"
The telepath nodded.
"Oh, honey." The teacher led the little girl to the door. "Why don't you go to Miss Loveock's office, and she'll get you a band-aid? You do know where her office is, don't you?"
"A huh." Pandora moved out of the door as Miss Winterbourne held it open.
The teacher waited and watched as Pandora wandered down the hallway, and disappeared behind the corner. Then she turned, allowing the door to shut behind her, and tossed the bloody tissue into the trash can next to her desk. She returned to her seat.
At the bottom of the trash can, the small tissue with the blood spot disappeared in a clump of black lights.
TO BE CONTINUED...
