Disclaimer: I own nothing. Charmed and all its characters belong to their respective owners.

FALL OF THE ELDERS

Hearing the crashes and shouts from the attic, Piper ran up the stairs to her sisters, only to find two boys who looked to be in their late teens helping Phoebe and Paige up.

"Oh no. What happened this time?"

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Who are you?" she asked the boys.

"Zeke Daemon," one answered. Piper didn't trust him. There was just something about him that shouted dangerous, loud and clear.

"I'm Chris. Chris Perry," the other said. Piper's gaze snapped to his face, and she felt a strange, unexplainable feeling of… protectiveness? Care? Love? She couldn't understand why she was feeling those emotions towards a boy she'd known all of two minutes.

"Friend or foe?" she asked, although she already had an idea about who to trust and who not to.

"Not sure yet!" Phoebe said, brightly. "Although they did save us. Come to think of it, what would have happened if we had looked into her eyes?"

"Who's eyes?" Piper asked.

"Meta's. She's a Titan. Almost killed Paige," Chris said, disapproval evident in his voice. "You're lucky Zeke and I got here in time."

"Okay, came here from where?" Piper asked.

"The future."

"The future?"

"Yeah, but only like 20 years or so."

"Who sent you?"

"We can't tell you that."

"Why not?" The obvious distrust in Piper's voice and expression as she looked at Zeke hit Chris hard. A part of him had foolishly hoped that his mother would recognise them both in some spiritual way, but it seemed he was wrong. Anyone could see plainly Piper's wariness when it came to Zeke. Chris had been so caught up in what it would be like to see his family alive after so long, and how he'd have to pretend he was someone else, that he hadn't even considered how Zeke would feel. It hurt that his own mother didn't trust Zeke, the one who'd been with him through the good and bad, the person he loved move than anyone else.

"Because anything I tell you could change the future for worse instead of better."

"I- I'm sorry. Change the future? Why does the future need changing?"

"Because Paige wasn't saved today. She was killed. By Meta. That was the beginning of the fall of the Charmed Ones."

"Why do I feel like you're making me choose between my nephew and my sister?" Phoebe asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Because you're slightly overdramatic?"

"I'm a little overdramatic?"

"Look, can we just do this please?"

"Okay, fine. Bring on the earthquake causing Gods."

"Watch this," Paige said, holding up the potion vials. She orbed in the same place and looked around for any sign of Meta, who appeared moments later. The potions thrown at her did nothing. She threw Paige across the attic, where she hit the wall and lay still on the floor. Though Phoebe continued to throw potions at her, Meta's eyes glowed white for a second. When Piper ran through the door, her eyes widened upon seeing Paige unconscious and what she hoped was just a statue with a really good likeness of Phoebe. Upon instinct, Piper kept trying to blow up Meta, until she disappeared again.

"Leo! Leo!"

She ran towards Paige, falling to her knees beside her.

"Paige? Paige! Leo!"

"What happened?" Leo asked, orbing in.

"Just heal her. Paige, heal her!"

Leo held his hands over Paige but nothing happened.

"Leo, come on. Heal her!"

He shook his head. "I can't. It's not working."

"What? Why isn't it working? Leo, it has to work!" Piper knew why it wasn't working. She just didn't want to accept it. It would make it real, and she didn't think she could handle losing another sister.

"Piper, she's gone."

"No. No! Paige, c'mon. Wake up. Paige!" Piper cried, desperately.

"It's no use, Piper," Leo said, pulling her close to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder as she sobbed.

Paige Matthews was dead. Another Charmed One was gone, and this time, there would be no one to reconstitute the Power of Three.

"Wait, the fall of the Charmed Ones?"

"Yes. Since the Power of Three was gone, you didn't have the strength to defeat the Titans."

"And someone else didn't have the strength to do what needed to be done," Zeke added, darkly.

"The Titans took over and the world went to hell."

"We are gathered here today, to celebrate, and to remember the life of our sister. If life is a day, so our sister has passed into night. We who remain…"

Piper was barely listening to what was being said. She'd lost another sister, a sister she met only two years ago. She realised now there were so many things she wanted to tell Paige, so much she wanted to know about her youngest sister; so much that neither her nor Paige would know.

Phoebe stared at her baby sister's coffin. The tears wouldn't come. She was wracked with guilt. She was the one who'd been with Paige when she was killed. If only she'd stood her ground, talked Paige out of the plan, maybe she would still be alive, instead of lying cold and still.

They were scared. Piper, Phoebe, Leo, the whole magical community. They were all scared. Terrified. Without the Power of Three, none of them knew how they could possibly defeat the Titans.

More and more Elders and whitelighters were being killed by the day. The Elders who remained had gone into hiding. Fairies, elves, witches, all benevolent beings, banded together to try protect them. But it was a futile effort. The world was quickly becoming a much darker place, and the Titans didn't restrict themselves to only Elders and whitelighters. Any being, magic or not, who stood in their way, was killed without hesitation.

It was hell on Earth for anyone magical.

Until the day Leo saw a certain Elder, one of the few who supported him all through his time as a whitelighter, killed in front of him. That made him realise what he had to do. That was what gave him the strength to be able to do it.

"If we didn't come back to save you, Paige would have been the third whitelighter killed."

"Third?" Piper asked. "I thought only one was killed."

"Not anymore."

A scared looked crossed Piper's face.

"Leo! Leo!"

He orbed in and Piper allowed herself a moment of relief. "How many missing whitelighters are there?"

"That's what I was just coming to tell you. One more has gone missing."

Chris, who had been watching Leo coldly, turned to Piper and gave her a pointed look.

Leo, following Piper's gaze, turned around to see Chris. Just like his wife, he felt an unexplainable longing to protect him. A paternal instinct. He could not understand it. He had only felt this way with Wyatt before. So why was he feeling this towards a teenage boy he didn't even know the name of?

"Who are they?"

"Chris Perry and Zeke Daemon. From the future," Phoebe said, quickly.

There was a small crash from downstairs.

"What was that?"

Piper hurried down the stairs and gasped at what she saw. A fairy was hovering in the air in front of her. Looking past the tiny creature, she saw that her house had been taken over by all kinds of magical creatures.

"Sorry," a dwarf said, looking at some shattered glass on the floor. "We'll pay for that. So long as you can keep the world from ending."

There was a few moments silence.

"Okay, this is all too much," Piper finally sighed. "Come along people! Move it, move it, move it," she said, attempting to shepherd all the beings out.

"Hey," one dwarf said. "Stop manhandling us. We're not your pets."

"No, you're just a pain. Now go on."

"Woah, check out the size of that oracles… orb," Phoebe said, wide-eyed.

"What the hell is going on?" Piper asked, once she'd managed to get all the beings in a room and shut the door on them.

"In case you haven't noticed, the world's a mess. Something terrible is happening out there. Everybody sense it," the elf nanny said.

"The Titans?" Paige asked.

"Must be," Leo replied.

"So you all came here figuring that we would stop them?"

"Well, you are the Charmed Ones, aren't you?"

A wailing filled the air.

"Do you always leave the little one unattended?"

"No!"

The elf nanny turned to attend to Wyatt when Piper stepped forward.

"Hang on! You are not the nanny. We rejected you."

"No," the elf corrected her. "I rejected you. But. I suppose I could fill in. Just for a bit."

As she disappeared, phoebe cried, "Did she just hire herself?"

"You need to go watch her," Piper said, turning to Leo.

"But what about the Elders? Shouldn't I go tell them the Titans are back?"

Shaking his head, Chris went back up to the attic, where Zeke was waiting for him, flipping through the book. Although Zeke was half demon, he'd never killed any white magic practitioners, and so the book sensed the humanity and good in him.

A few moments later, Piper walked into the attic.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? Checking your information on all the beings in here. Once the Titans are vanquished, you're going to have to work on these demons. By the way, you should update your goblins entry. It will come in handy one day," Zeke said.

"Goblins?" Piper said, disbelievingly.

"Trust me. One day, it's gonna get ugly," Chris added.

"Look," Zeke said. "I know you don't trust me. But we're just trying to help."

"If you want me to believe you, then start by telling me what you are. Witches?"

Chris and Zeke shared a look. They'd decided Chris would pretend to be a whitelighter and Zeke would be a witch. It was too risky to outright tell them Zeke was part demon. They would have to wait until the Charmed Ones trusted them, or they just wouldn't be told. Chris had a feeling they wouldn't ever trust them enough though, and he couldn't blame them.

"A whitelighter."

"A witch."

"Alright, well why don't you tell me how to defeat the Titans then."

"That's just it. You can't. Not even with the Power of Three. The only way the Elders could stop them lasting time was by infusing mortals with a hell of a lot of power. Much more than you three have."

"So they can do that again."

"They can't. Once the Titans had been stopped, the power went to their heads. The mortals declared themselves Gods and made others worship them. The Elders swore they would never make the same mistake again."

Zeke watched as Chris continued to talk to Piper. Her distrust towards him was understandable. He was even glad about it. Her instincts were warning her that he was dangerous, which he was, for even though he would never intentionally harm her or any other benevolent being, he was part demon, with demon powers. Those instincts were what kept her alive so long in his future.

But with Chris, she seemed more confused than suspicious. At times, it looked as though she was fighting with herself, trying to work something about, trying to be logical and reasonable. Trying and not quite succeeding. Zeke wondered if it was a mother and child bond. He wouldn't know. His own mortal mother had been killed by his father soon after his birth.

He snapped out of his thoughts as he heard Phoebe walk in and saw Paige's orbs.

"Paige? Have you told the Elders?" Piper asked.

"Yeah. I explained everything. The weird dreams, Phoebe's premonition…"

"Your near-death experience due to your recklessness?" Zeke asked.

"That too. Just not quite the way you worded it."

"Okay, well what did they say?"

"That they don't know any way to vanquish the Titans without using the power of the Gods which they said was a grave mistake they once made and wouldn't make again."

"Alright, well do they know why the Titans after attacking whitelighters?"

"They need the orbing power," Chris said.

"Orbing power? But why would they… Oh God. Leo! Leo!"

Phoebe looked around the room, confused. "What? What did she just figure out?"

"Nothing good."

"Nothing good? Can you speak in something other than riddles for once!"

"Uh, I think she realised the Titans are after the Elders," Paige said, slowly.

It took only a glance at Chris and Zeke's faces to confirm it. This was the fall of the Elders.

Well, there's chapter 2. What did you think?