Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Yes, just more talking in this chapter, but you guys should find something, anything, interesting in the chapter. Give me a break though, school's back and I'm totally screwed.

Phantom Rogue: No, demons aren't that bright. Maybe about 2 of them but otherwise, no. YES! That was my complete intention. Okay, maybe not completely but I needed some way to get them all together so that their friends got to know them again and not think the girls abandoned them. Their romantic interests being close is just a really nice bonus. Although I'm not sure about Kimberly and Tommy... Let's see what my creativity leads me to. ;)

Star Fata: Glad you liked it. Hope you like this one just as much.

nightlancer6000: I'm glad you love the story. Thanks for reading; here's an update. And actually, I haven't found many who know how to play that game. I don't know why; it's pretty fun... most of the time. :)

Enjoy their chattering.

Chapter 12:

The subsequent morning was spent moving any necessary items into the two houses across the street and the one next to the Halliwell manor. The three dwellings came nearly completely furnished, thanks to Wyatt and Chris no doubt, so the ex-rangers had no real moving to carry out. Of course, the moving was made easier due to the fact that Kimberly, Taylor and Ashley could travel miles in the blink of an eye, which their friends remembered only after they hauled the three girls' beds down the stairs and almost out the door.

"Couldn't you three tell us that you could do that before we dragged these mattresses down," Zhane let out, taking in a huge breath to rest.

"You didn't ask," Ashley said, passing by and tapping him on the shoulder with a smile before going out the door to check up on the house Wyatt gave her the keys to.

Just then, Kimberly and Taylor came into the house, announcing that they got spare keys made for everyone, or at least everyone they expected to come. The houses were allocated one to each Charmed One, and from there each girl's team members would stay with her. Tanya was to stay with Kimberly's group since she was in the Zeo group whose members were a part of Kimberly's team when she was a ranger.

"Did everyone else come yet?" Kimberly asked when all the keys were distributed. At about 5 A.M. in the morning, Aisha and Rocky reached the Halliwell manor for the same reason as all the other former rangers. They were caught up on everything and agreed to stay with the rest, finding no huge reason to return to Angel Grove just yet. Later, Jason, Adam and Justin arrived, though not so injured as everyone else when they came. Everyone was now waiting for TJ, Carlos, and the male members of Taylor's Wild Force team; they figured the rest of them would come by the end of the day.

"Nope, not yet," Ashley answered. "Still waiting for the rest of the guys.

"Oh, well, guess we'll give them their keys when they get here."

"Until they do," Taylor suggested, "how about we each get situated into our new houses for the next few weeks and leave Wyatt and Chris to save the world as usual?"

"Nice, just nice," Chris replied sarcastically.

"Just check up in a few hours," Wyatt reminded the girls. "And if any demons pop up-"

"You'll call us, we know," all three girls finished before leaving to go their separate ways.

"Of course you do," Wyatt replied under his breath. "You guys should go with them and we'll see you guys later," he said to everyone else. As they all bid each other quick goodbyes for the moment and went after their friends, Wyatt waited until they left before turning to his little brother. "Time to go search for some answers."

By the time the rest of the former rangers of the three teams arrived, everyone agreed on a late dinner which Kimberly started on with the help of all the other females in the 'house'; she finally relinquished her hold on the kitchen. By the time they were finished, at first glance, they thought they'd have enough to tide them over until tomorrow afternoon or evening. Until they remembered the guys and had a second thought on the amount of food they made.

As dinner came to an end and the six delayed guys were caught up on the situation, Kimberly, Ashley and Taylor asked the Halliwell brothers if they had found anything of help to them. Finding no useful information, Wyatt suggested the whole group go into a session of Q and A, seeing as how the girls' friends were obviously brimming with eager and anxious questions.

"Ask us anything," Kimberly let out after finishing her plate.

"Where's dessert," Rocky and Zhane asked simultaneously, earning hits on the arms from their girlfriends.

Ashley left to go into the kitchen and returned with an unopened package of Oreos that she tossed to the former Silver Astro Ranger. "Here, have some cookies."

"Now, any questions pertaining to our current situation," Taylor asked.

"I've got one," Rocky said, his mouth stuffed with three Oreos. Swallowing them after a glare from Aisha, he finished his inquiry. "What was with that whitelighter thing you were talking about last night? You never explained that to us."

"Right, I didn't," Kimberly remembered. "Okay, here's the thing: as witches, all three of us have powers we learn to control and use. After a while we saw that they differed in their types. Thousands of powers are generally categorized as those of a whitelighter, a demon, or those of a normal witch. I didn't know how or why but I ended up with whitelighter powers. That's why I can heal and regenerate things; whitelighters are known for healing and creating life."

"What about the other two types," Trini asked. "And Ashley and Taylor's powers?"

"Ashley's powers are normal witch powers while mine happen to be demonic powers," Taylor answered earning some instantly cautious stares when she announced her power type.

Ashley knew what they were thinking and decided to clarify whatever confusion there was. "Technically, yes, that would mean Kimberly would be a whitelighter and Taylor would be some kind of demon. But Kimberly never died and was never offered the place of a whitelighter, nor was Taylor offered the chance to become a demon and killed five humans for that position. We don't have control of the powers we get; they just come to us and we have to learn how to control them."

"It might have something to do with your Charmed statuses," Chris offered casually. More questions were raised at what Charmed statuses were and what they had to do with the girls. "We don't know how this came to be but demons and most witches refer to Kimberly, Ashley and Taylor each as the Charmed One of something," he explained. "Kimberly is the Charmed One of strength and memories, Ashley is the Charmed One of love and humanity, and Taylor is the Charmed One of rage and passion."

There was silence for a minute before the Charmed Ones uttered a concurrent, "Huh?"

"What does that have to do with our powers," Ashley asked.

"That makes no sense whatsoever," Taylor followed.

"We aren't sure, really," Wyatt admitted. "The only thing we can think of is that it has something to do with how you three were seemingly randomly chosen and how you all got your powers about five times as quickly as you were supposed to."

Cassie inquired what Wyatt meant about the girls getting their powers prematurely, which he answered without any respite. "Usually, witches acquire an initial power that takes months or even a yearto control. Then they go on with just that power until they gain another to learn to use. However, the second and subsequent powers come at least a year and a half later and so on. Somehow, Kimberly and Ashley got five powers in less than three years and Taylor obtained three in two years. They're way ahead of schedule."

"Think about how much work we had to do in order to control all those powers," Taylor said with a soft laugh.

"We still don't see the connection with their separate abilities," Billy stated.

"We can't either," Chris responded. "We just have to wait."

Cole asked of whom the girls were fighting against this whole time; they all knew as Power Rangers, they had a common goal to defeat the great evil of their time and wondered about that of the Charmed Ones.

"Just demons, to tell the truth," Taylor answered her past teammate. "Typically, there should be the Triad or the Source to fight against but the Source is dead and as far as we know so is the Triad. Neither can be reincarnated, as long no one gets to the Hollow."

"The Hollow?"

"It's a power that allows you to strip a witch or demon of their power and even kill them," Ashley replied. "And it also consumes you more with each power you steal and each person you kill, so much that it eventually makes you so evil that nothing can help you, most likely the Source."

"Someone who is near impossible to kill," Kimberly added.

T.J. thought it was interesting how the girls knew all this. He assumed they knew it from experience but he asked anyway. "How do you know about all of this? Did you three actually destroy these two… beings," he said uncertainly, not finding the right word.

Ashley merely shrugged. "We just do. We never actually encountered them, but somehow we just know. It feels like we've been through it but we know we haven't. It's just a feeling we can't shake." The response didn't answer anything.

"Actually," Kimberly started, "it's the same for a lot of things we do. Sometimes, when we work with other witches-"

"Or leprechauns, fairies or nymphs," Ashley added.

"Or any other magical beings," Taylor put in.

"We know how things work with them, even if we've never met them before. And with some demons, it feels like we've fought them before. It's weird, we know, but it's true."

"Doesn't that bother you guys?" Justin asked, finally happy he had something to ask.

"Of course it does," Ashley said, "but we leave it up to the idea this is just some big destiny thing we have to do. A lot of things are too unexplainable and after a while with no answer, you just have to leave things up to the hope that they're meant to be unknown."

After that, everyone was sure they had more to ask but didn't know exactly what. They gave up on the inquiries of the girls' situation with the magical world and started on questions they were begging to ask after not seeing them for so long.

"What have y'all been doing this whole time, besides all this fighting demons stuff?" Zack asked.

Kimberly decided to answer first, since it was her teammate who asked and it seemed the person who answered depended on the team the person who asked came from. "Well, I retired from gymnastics after some more competitions after the Pan Globals. I didn't want to go onto the Olympics like everyone thought I would; the hope just didn't fuel me like it used to. Since I moved here, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I ended up finding a job as the gymnastics coach for the team at a high school around here. I help coach the cheerleading squad part-time with Ashley there too, and I'm a counselor at the community center. I also help Wyatt and Chris with P3 whenever I can."

"P3?"

"It's a nightclub Chris and I own," Wyatt supplied.

"Why is it called P3?" Aisha asked.

When they answered that they were never quite sure but they said they supposed it was something similar to the girls not knowing why they were the Charmed Ones, they returned to Zack's question from before. It was Ashley's turn to answer as the second Power Ranger turned Charmed One.

"As for me, I got the job as the part-time cheerleading coach at the same high school Kimberly works for and I teach a few dance classes at the school too. I help out at P3 whenever I can, but I've been trying to become a clothing designer for over a year now, which has actually been coming along pretty well."

Ashley's friends were happy to hear that she was finally going after her dream of becoming a designer. She was a great cheerleader and dancer, but she always wanted to be a designer and they knew she deserved it after all her hard work. They saw Ashley give a small smirk, wondering what she would say next.

"Actually, because of the whole designing thing, I got Taylor here to do a little modeling thing for a presentation for my designs, which seems to be something she's quite good at."

Taylor could've killed half the orgs she and her team defeated with the glare she was throwing at Ashley. "Not funny, Ash."

"I never said it was," Ashley replied innocently. "I just thought it might be a nice little addition on my part, since I knew you weren't going to say anything about it."

"You're right, I wasn't," Taylor said stiffly before looking toward her friends, "because it's completely trivial and was a one time thing."

This time, Kimberly smirked. "A one time thing that got you into a high fashion magazine."

Taylor turned her glare toward her other sister. "Shut up," she said fiercely, though it sounded faint to everyone else. Kimberly returned with a slightly smug smile.

"And what about you, Earhardt?" Eric asked, hiding his laugh behind his question. "What have you been up to?"

Turning to her former colleague, Taylor remembered Eric had a tendency to call her by her last name; itbecame a habit when she worked for the Silver Guardians Flight Division. She knew everyone expected her to give Eric the same glare she gave her sisters. However, when she looked at him, all she saw was a challenge she couldn't back down from. Somehow, she couldn't get angry with him when he asked with the laughter she knew he was barely holding back.

"Well, seeing as how I couldn't sign up with the Air Force on this part of the country or you guys would've found me, I couldn't stay with the Army. I did however find a job as one of the coaches for the track team at the same high school where Kim and Ash work, and I'm one of the night managers at P3."

"Wait, how come you're a night manager at the same place Ashley and Kimberly work?" Max asked.

"We just help out," Ashley answered. "Plus, with all the work we do at the school, we can't put as much time at P3 as Taylor can. That and she's such a better manager than either of us would be."

"It really doesn't matter," Taylor provided. "All the money goes to paying for the bills and the stuff we do together around here."

Almost all their friends were trading glances with each other and Ashley didn't want to use her empathy on her and her sisters' friends to find out what they were feeling or thinking.

"So," Jason started, "you three work at the same high school and you help out at the same nightclub that Wyatt and Chris own?"

"We know it's a little odd," Kimberly replied. "But we spend most of our time together anyway. Besides, if we went after all these other jobs, we wouldn't have time to do all the stuff being a Charmed One requires. If I was a gymnastics coach at some big facility, I'd practically have to live there and worry about all the gymnasts in my care instead of the innocents who really need me."

"If I dedicated my whole time to coaching the cheerleading squad, worked at a dance company, or started on becoming a designer when I first came here, I wouldn't have time to control my powers and fight demons as well as I can," Ashley added.

"Had I joined the Air Force again," Taylor finished up the trio, "I'd be too busy training new pilots and I'd have to basically live at the compound, which would leave almost no time for me to help Ashley and Kimberly fight demons. It's better that we stay together, even in our jobs. Besides, we like the way things are."

"But what about using your B.A. in dance you earned while you lived in L.A.?" Carlos asked Ashley. "You worked hard for the degree and you always wanted to use it."

"I am," Ashley answered simply. "The thing is, I don't think I'd be happier working for a huge dance company than being a regular dance teacher at the school and doing everything else I'm doing. I mean, Taylor's been an Air Force lieutenant and Kimberly has a Master's in psychology and they're both just as happy with the way things are." Ashley didn't even have to ask her sisters for the validation of her answers; she just knew it.

Trini was curious when she heard about Kimberly's degree. "You have a Master's in psychology?"

Kimberly forgot she never mentioned the fact to her friends. "Yeah, sorry I forgot to tell you guys. I got it while I still lived in Florida. I worked double time for my Master's and worked with this psychology facility for teens. I guess that's why I took the job as counselor at the community center." A few 'wow's passed between Kimberly's friends, never realizing she had an interest in the field before.

"Seems like you guys have been busy with everything since you moved here," Wes spoke for the first time, feeling a little out of place without anyone from his team besides Eric.

Taylor turned to her ex-colleague. She was glad he was getting into the conversation; she may not have showed it but she did consider him a friend, at least more than an acquaintance. "I guess," she shrugged, not sure if she ever considered herself being busy in the last two years besides fighting demons and learning how to use her abilities. "But it all turns out great in the end. The only thing that really keeps us busy is to get to Sister Hour on time." Taylor hadn't realized she said the last part somewhat absentmindedly until the males on her team gave her slightly questioning looks and Alyssa asked what she meant by 'Sister Hour'. She found Kimberly chuckling beside her.

"That's my fault," Kimberly said, raising her hand. "I had this thing back in Florida with the girls who worked out at the facility and lived in the same apartment complex as me. Every other Friday, after practice, just to welcome the new girls, share each others' good news or just to talk, we'd pick a place to hang out at or do something altogether. We came up with a little system to make sure each girl did something she liked, besides gymnastics of course. Every 'meeting', one girl would pick the place or activity for everyone to do and we all had to do it. Every other Friday was another girl's turn and so on."

"When Taylor arrived two years ago," Ashley began her part, "we knew we had to work better as a team, but the more important thing was that we got to know each other so that our team and our bond would be near unbreakable for demons to ruin. There was already a connection but we didn't really know each other. So, after nearly killing each other because of a demon's spell, Wyatt and Chris brought up that we had to work not as three individuals in a team but more as sisters. That was the important thing about the Charmed Ones before us; they were sisters before they were ever witches, even though being Charmed was what brought them together."

Kimberly then described how she proposed the idea of doing something every other Friday together that each girl chose every other week. After a few months, and turning the get-together into a weekly thing, Ashley jokingly coined the term 'Sister Hour' for the time they spent just getting to know each other. As it turned out, it made all three think about how far they had actually come to know each other and decided the name fit perfectly.

"We used to do whatever we could think of," Taylor started, "but now, we just do a few separate things."

"Three, to be exact," Ashley put in.

"And what would that be," T.J. asked.

Ashley, Taylor and Kimberly traded smiling glances before Kimberly spoke first. "I always choose singing at club, or sing while I play the guitar until I took a break from playing a few months ago." She hoped her friends wouldn't ask why she stopped playing the guitar for a while. Honestly, most of her just didn't want to play the instrument for awhile. As for the rest of her, she decided she needed the respite to get away from another part of her past for a little time. She gave a grateful smile when none of her friends said anything, though she made sure not to show it.

"I usually decide on dancing at P3 or taking a dance class at the community center," Ashley said. She knew everyone from her team would understand why. Initially, it was a part of her she would never let go of and she wanted to share that with the two she knew would become her sisters. Eventually, it became a way to stay in touch with her past, which she found out she needed to stay happy. "Both Tay and Kim have taken to it very well, if I do say so myself."

"Most of the time, they mix the two together and we spend two weeks making fools of ourselves at P3," Taylor added, her tone confusing almost everyone, not sure if she was annoyed at the fact or if she was being sarcastic with spurious irritation. "I always end up choosing painting."

"Painting?" Max and Danny asked simultaneously with shock.

Taylor knew that the rest of her team, Eric and Wes were wondering the same thing but thought better of their actions. "Okay, so sometimes I choose just plain drawing but, yeah, painting."

"I never knew you were into painting and art," Cole commented, surprised the previously strict leader before him would have an interest in something based on abstract creativity.

"I never told you guys. I probably never would, either, if it weren't for this."

"Kim and I actually like it a lot," Ashley said. "I feel guilty that we make her sing and do a dance routine every two weeks in a row."

"Even if she's having fun," Kimberly added with another chuckle.

Taylor returned her sister's laugh by sticking out her tongue. "Anyway, that's how we spend almost all our Fridays and I'm glad Kimberly suggested it; it's brought us a lot closer. Plus, Kim's right; I do have a lot of fun with them."

"Hey, I've got an idea!" Ashley cried out with a beaming smile. She turned to Taylor and Kimberly on her right. "How about we go to P3 tomorrow with everyone for Sister Hour instead? It'll be fun and they can all see the club."

Both sisters opened their mouths as if ready to answer but turned to each other for quiet deliberation. After half a minute and a shared shrug of the shoulders, they turned to their friends. "What do you guys think?" Kimberly asked.

They all looked among themselves as if they needed each others' approval. Finally, they agreed to the idea.

"Okay, then," Taylor declared. "So, tomorrow we all meet up at P3 at… 8:30?" Everyone nodded their agreement. "I'll see you guys there. I have to see over some stuff tomorrow over there before we open. And don't worry," she turned to Wyatt. "I'll pay for their cover when I get to the club."

"No worries," Wyatt returned. "They're already covered. They already have the manager's discount. And besides, I'll just take it out of your paycheck," he added with a smirk.

Taylor was about to hurl a throw pillow at him but thought better of it. "Sure, no problem. Just remember, you and Chris pay for all the bills this month instead." She left to start on washing the dishes before her mentor could say anything in return.