Angelically Charmed: Dark Tearsand Little Fears
Apprehensive, Piper sat on the couch as Amanda pressed the button on the remote to start the video. "Why wasn't the portal opening?" she seized watching the opening credits roll across the screen: Robert DiNero, Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. "Wow I'd forgotten how yummy Kevin Costner was back then"
"Yummier than Uncle Leo?" Amanda grinned fast-forwarding the video to the place where it had been stuck at Darryl's the night that Andy had first disappear. "There!" she jumped off the couch pointing to the screen. A set of mobsters had just come onto the screen firing Tommy guns.
"There don't you see her? She's the opening to the portal" A woman wearing an amulet stood in the background.
Leaning forward, Piper watched the movie with great intent. At first it seemed as if the woman's amulet was casting a reflection from the sun onto the mobsters but Piper knew otherwise. "Okay so how do we get in?"
"Orb" Amanda laced her fingers with Piper's pulling them both into a blue flurry of orbs
"Orb?" Surely it had to be more complicated than that. "You really want to orb us into the TV? Have you lost your freakin' mind?"
"Not the TV, the genre of the video" Chicago 1930 to be exact. Two seconds later, Amanda and Piper appeared in the middle of a busy street where bullets were whizzing past their heads.
"Couldn't you have picked a better spot?" Piper's roared shooting up her hands just a bullet was about to strike Amanda in the chest. The bullet stopped just millimeters from the teen's heart, frozen in mid air.
"I didn't pick it!" Amanda howled spotting the woman with the amulet, "She did!"
"Witches Damn!" the woman hissed sprinting across the street. "I have to warn Francis!"
"C'mon, we have to follow her!" Piper tugged, Amanda's wrist taking off in dead run down the street before flicking her free to hand to unfreeze the mortals. The two witches continued to run until they entered an ally.
"Stop or I'll blow you to hell!" Piper panted releasing Amanda's hand so that she could throw her own up into explosive mode.
"I'm already there!" The woman tore the amulet from around her neck, aiming it at Piper as a white blast shot out from the pendant, causing the witch and her niece to jump out of the way. Both rolling in separate directions
"Nice trick but mines better!" Waving her hand in classic form Piper fired off a blast of her own striking the woman in the leg. "Ouch, that's a pretty nasty wound you have there" Piper snipped waltzing over to the spot where the woman had fallen. She paused for a moment, watching the woman twist in agony. The front upper half of her left leg was gone. Curious Piper moved two of fingers causing the woman's leg to partially regenerate. For the first in her wiccan life, Piper had been able channel her molecular acceleration to combine it with her power to slow time.
"Whoa Aunt Piper when did you learn how to do that?" Amanda panted crossing to her aunt.
"Uh…just now, I think" Piper knelt at the witch's side speaking in a clear and direct. "Now if you don't want me to take your other leg, you'd better tell me what I want to know"
Francis stood in front Prue's cell, shooting a silvery looking beam from her palm. "Typically, a stroke can be caused by age and high pressure and what a pity, you appear to have both"
The beam encased Prue's entire body making her fall to her knees. She was aging again and this time it was at a more rapid pace. The veins in her temples were pounding, protruding from beneath her skin; accompanied by a strange pain radiated through her head making it feel as if she were going to explode.
"You blood pressure is rising, soon there will be bleeding throughout your brain" Francis taunted with an amused smile. In just a few moments, the infamous, charmed witch and leader to the Wiccan Realm would be nothing more but a vegetable.
From his cell, Andy wrapped his hands around the bars feeling his own blood pressure begin to rise. He could no longer stand to watch Prue be tortured "Stop it damn it! I'll do anything you want!"
"Anything?" Jerking her hand away for a split second, Francis cast the beam upon Andy throwing him through the wall. Concrete and rubble shattered, rendering the tracer broken and battered "Then Shut-up" Stupid Angelic Mortal, she never really needed him in the first place. It was Prue she wanted.
"That's not a very nice thing to do to a man you supposedly love" Prue croaked managing a tiny squint of her left eye. Nothing happened.
"Who ever said I loved him? It was you I want. Deceptive whore or should I say Hellfire? Ring any bells?"
"Bane" Prue whispered before succumbing to the power of the beam, and joining her husband on the floor.
Capone stood behind Francis with his hands shoved in his pockets. "You know that since your using magic that a white lighter can heal her, right?"
"There are no white lighters here who have the power to heal," Francis returned missing the sparkle of blue lights depositing Piper and Amanda in the corner of the room.
" Heal this!" Piper shouted flexing her hands to form a massive surge of molecular combustion inside of Francis. The blast was so enormous that it somehow managed to singe a piece of her hair from the waves of heat. Piper stood still for a moment shielding Amanda from the heat and debris.
Amanda slowly raised her head from where it had been hidden underneath Piper's arm, "Wow that was pretty good"
"A little too good" Piper swallowed gazing at the emptiness and debris that covered the spot where Francis had been standing. Looking around she could have sworn that she'd seen another person standing behind the sorceress but Capone was nowhere to be seen.
"Mom!" Amanda quickly orbed into her mother's cell where Prue was laying on her stomach. Skidding to her knees, the young witch turned Prue over onto her back, and brushed her silver hair away from her face. "Mom?" Amanda couldn't help but whimper, "You're old"
Responding to the sound of her daughter's voice Prue painfully managed to move her eyes beneath their closed lids. Focus she told herself, trying to open her eyes with little success"
"C'mon, Mom you can do it" Amanda pleaded gazing down at her mother's horribly wrinkled skin.
Prue's brow moved slightly giving her daughter a glimmer of hope. Why weren't her facial muscles responding though? How in the hell could it be so hard to open your eyes? Tears began to fall from behind Prue's closed lids, streaking down her face as Amanda mirrored her emotion.
"Please Mom, I need you" she swallowed looking over her shoulder to the pile of the rumble that had been created when Francis had thrown Andy through the wall. Blood was pouring out from the back of his head, painting the concrete crimson.
"I need both of you"
Still standing on the other side of the bars, Piper looked upon her broken her family. With both of their counterparts gone, Prue and Andy were nearly immortal. They couldn't die, "All we need to do is get them Leo," she promised hoping that their there wasn't a fate worse than death.
In the attic, Declan kneaded Amanda's shoulders as they watched Leo and a male elder lay the hands of healing upon Andy and Prue. "Don't worry, they'll fix them good as new" Dipping his face into her hair, Declan kissed the top of her head.
"I wish I could be so sure" Tear glinted in Amanda's eyes as she rolled her eyes upward, yearing for a soft kiss.
"I love you" Declan whispered, pecking her lips.
Piper sat beside her sister blotting the tears from Prue's face with a tissue. Her eyes were shut, yet the tears continued to flow. "It's okay, Prue you and Andy are both home now. Leo's going to fix everything" She adverted her gaze to Andy noting that the Elder had managed to heal his wounds without the success of conscience.
"Leo, why is that Prue is able to cry but she can't move or open her eyes?"
"I don't know," the white lighter answered pulling his hands away. All he'd managed to do was to turn Prue back into her normal looking self. "The sorceress magic must be stronger than we thought"
"Piper" the Elder looked up from he was healing Andy. "Can you get me a bowl?"
"Sure, you can use the one on the potions table" Piper held a dark wooden bowl in her hands as the Elder's gently turned Andy's head to one side."
"Place it under his ear"
Curious, Piper did as she was told, remaining silent as the Elder sent a blast of healing light to the left side of Andy's head. Several seconds later bright orange firefly looking bugs began to pour out from Andy's ear filling the bowl.
"Ewe, what the hell is that?" Reacting naturally Piper jerked her hand in shock staring down the swarming little creatures that were scurrying over one another to get out of the bowl.
"Memory parasites. They are used to cloud the mind to create mental images of visions that do not really exist. It's a demonic form of mind control" The elder explained flexing his fingers so that the bowl would disappear
"Images as in sex and marriage?" Piper returned watching the wedding ring from Andy's disappear, "Pretty effective trick, I just hope that Prue will be able to understand" Again Piper adverted her eyes to her sister, continuing to watch the tears of darkness flee down her face.
Andy coughed, sucking in a deep breath of air.
"Dad? DAD!" Watching her father begin to stir, Amanda wasted no time in bolting from Declan's arms so that she could with her father. As soon as father and daughter embraced: they were engulfed by a bright light transforming their powers instantly back to their natural path of existence.
"Whoa" Piper shielded her eyes fighting to see beyond the glare. Amanda's body was slowly shirking back to it's normal self, turning her back into her normal eight year old magical self.
"I had big powers like you!" Piper her heard her young niece say as she settled into Andy's strong fatherly arms.
"I know, Angel Girl, I know"
Piper started to smile until she heard the sound of a child's sniffling from behind her. Eight year-old -Declan stood with his bottom lip quivering fighting back tears.
"I want my Daddy back too," he sobbed, prompting Leo to reach out and stroke his fine dark brown hair.
"That's not possible buddy. I think destiny has a new plan for you" Leo flicked his gaze to Piper as she planted her hands firmly on her hips and strode to his side.
"And what new plan is that?"
"Me" A bright set white swirls filled the room bringing the human form of Bane Jessup to attic.