Hehehehehe... don't be mad!! I know I know, long time no see, right? Well I've been busy! This summer and school year have been busy for me!! I've joined the army, been taking on AP classes, and taking SAT's!! And I'm only a Junior!! in high school! OK so like I said, I've been busy, but here's a chapter for you!! Thank you soo much to those of you who reviewed and put this on their alerts!! Once again so sorry for the long wait!!
"Why do you guys always look at me when something bad goes on? There are plenty of other people in this house that could have set the alarms off. How do you know it wasn't Wyatt? Huh? He healed me after he pushed me down the stairs, he used magic!" Maria accused, pointing at her oldest brother.
"Yes, but it was you who blew that lamp up while we were arguing, Maria. Plus my healing doesn't have anything to do with Halliwell magic. It's the whitelighter in me." Wyatt pointed out.
"Well whoever it was you know you are not allowed to use magic until we disabled the alarms." Grams scolded.
"Wasn't it Maria who set them off the last time, anyways?" Bella pondered. She then received a smack from her cousin.
"Traitor!" Maria scoffed. Bella just smiled innocently.
"Will someone please go check out the house just to make sure, and turn those alarms off!" Grams ordered.
"Maria, Wyatt, go check it out, please. And stop bickering!" Piper said. The siblings climbed the stairs, whisper arguing. Their mother only sighed as her oldest and youngest turned off the alarms. Chris chuckled watching his brother and baby sister fight.
He walked over to Melinda and Prue, who were talking about getting back to their schools to finish classes. A loud crash, followed by a scream, was heard overhead.
Piper, Phoebe, and Paige looked at each other anxiously. Phoebe looked at Chris and Prue, the two oldest with powers.
"Stay here, make sure nobody leaves or gets in, OK?" When she saw them nod, she left to help her sisters and niece and nephew.
Piper reached the top of the stairway first. As she looked out into the kitchen, she heard voices.
"The others are here somewhere. Check in the basement. I'm going to the attic."
"Yes, sir."
The first voice the sisters recognized: Zankou. So it was true he was back. The other voice must be one of his henchmen. The demon turned and walked to the kitchen.
"Piper, blow him up!" Paige whispered. Piper did, and he was gone in a puff of smoke.
"Paige orb us to the attic, quick!" Piper said. Paige grabbed her two sisters and orbed them away. They landed in the attic.
Zankou and about a half a dozen demons were looking for the Book of Shadows. He wasn't surprised to see the Charmed Ones before him.
"Hello, girls. Long time no see. How have you been?" He said casually, like he was greeting old friends instead the women who sent him to the wasteland.
"Not bad how was hell?" Phoebe shot back angrily. "Where are Wyatt and Maria?"
"Downstairs, trying to fight their way through my demons. I have to say, after this many years of being out of practice, they're not bad. Maria is still fiery as she was ten years ago, she got a good kick in." Zankou rubbed his jaw.
"That's my girl." Piper said, not breaking eye contact with the demon.
"Yes well, I have a few surprises for her. Some of my most powerful demons are dueling with her right now." Just as he said the words, the girls heard a scream come from below them. A loud crash, as if someone was being thrown against a wall, resounded throughout the whole house.
"Maria." Piper whispered worriedly.
"Don't worry, she can take care of herself. She's tougher than she looks." Paige reassured her.
A few minutes earlier...
Wyatt and Maria set about turning the alarms off, when they heard footsteps in the living room. Maria hurried to investigate, and upon seeing Zankou and too many to count demons, she charged them. Wyatt right behind her.
Maria blew up the closest demon to her and punched his partner. One thing the Halliwells learned about demons was that they were horrible at hand-to-hand. So they all trained and worked at perfecting their hand-to-hand. Maria and Megan were the best at it.
She fought her way to their leader, who smirked as she struggled against four of the stronger demons restraining her.
"Well look who we have here. Maria, you are still as beautiful as you were the last time I saw you."
Her response was a kick to the jaw, and when she heard a crack she smiled. "Zankou, you're still as ugly as you always were. Looks like a decade in the wasteland did no good for you. Oh, well too bad, you'll be going back there soon enough."
"I don't think so. Boys, take care of her and her brother, find the others they're here somewhere."
One of the demons holding her punched her in the stomach, eliciting a scream. They threw her into the table, breaking it.
Wyatt wasn't doing much better. For some reason his whitelighter powers weren't working. So he had to rely on his strength and smarts. There were three demons on him, and as he heard his sister scream, he saw her getting thrown into the table, and then nothing. All he could see was black.
Maria saw Wyatt go down and one of the demons carried him off somewhere. Focus, Maria. Wyatt can take care of himself, you need to concentrate on your situation. She charged back at the demons surrounding her and managed to wound one of them by trying to blow him up. One of them held an ax, and as he swung it at her she dodged it and grabbed it. She axed him and the one next to her. Now she was left facing two. The one who she wounded charged at her, causing her to drop her ax.
The demon swung at her and hit her in her face. She felt blood trickle down her face. He may be dumb, but he's strong. Damn I think he broke my nose. Ignoring the pain, she fought back. A couple more attempts at blowing him up, he was finally defeated. Now facing the last demon, she realized that she recognized him.
"Andrew?" She barely whispered.
"That's right, Maria. I would just give up if I were you. Wyatt's already knocked out, and it won't be long before the rest of your family joins him, including yourself. You are no match for me." The demon boasted.
Oh no! Andrew knows me better than anyone, he's right. I can't possibly beat him... No wait you are stronger than this! I can't let him get to the basement. I can do this! "That may be true, but that doesn't mean I'll ever stop fighting, Andrew."
He frowned and grabbed her, throwing her into the kitchen door. "I'm going to get to that basement one way or another."
She spun kicked his head, and tried blowing him up. They were now in the kitchen, and she frantically looked around for something to aid her. Spotting knives on the counter behind him, she punched him in the gut. As she made to grab them, he threw her into the basement door.
The occupants jumped as Maria came flying through the door. Chris yelled at everyone to get back, as he put up protective crystals around them. A bubble enveloped them all, Cullens too, and Chris could only watch as his sister got beat up.
Andrew kicked her in the gut, landing her on the ground. Maria held her stomach as she coughed up blood onto the ground. She peered up at her brother to make sure they were safe. She knew it was killing him to see her like this, but his job was to protect the rest of the family.
"When I'm finished with your sister here, I'm coming for you. We'll be done here in a few moments." Andrew taunted Chris. Chris glared at the demon, who was now circling the girl on the ground.
He kicked her a few more times, each time more blood appeared on the ground. "So this is the mighty Halliwells? This is the so-called Ultimate Power? You can't stop us. Your brother is lying unconscious in the Underworld somewhere, your mother and aunts are going head-to-head with Zankou right now. Do you really think you can win? Your all alone, Maria."
"Your wrong, Andrew. As long as there are good people out there, we are never alone. You cannot win. The sisters have gone against Zankou before and have won, and they'll do it again. As for you, Andrew, you forget that we have two generations of Charmed Ones, plus the Ultimate Power on our side. What do you have? A demon who has been destroyed once by the Charmed Ones? Your the pitiful one, not me. I have my family and friends behind me, and all you have is a demon who would kill you in a second if it meant that it would save his life. Whereas, any one of these people in this room would gladly die for one another if it meant that their lives would be saved. Our bond is stronger than you think, and it is that that will destroy you in the end." Maria stood, still clutching her ribs, and wiped off some blood on her face as she faced Andrew.
She glanced behind her at Chris, who was smiling encouragingly. They shared a look before he nodded. Maria turned back to the strong demon and started chanting. Andrew looked around fearfully, as smoke encompassed him. Demon and witch glared at each other before demon disappeared in fire.
Chris kicked a crystal away, breaking the protective bubble around them. He rushed forward as he saw that Maria's legs were giving out. He caught her before she hit the ground, and guided her over to a chair. Her cousins and brother surrounded her as she coughed up more blood. Chris bent down to her eye level.
"What happened, Maria? What'd they do to you?" Maria recounted what happened to her and Wyatt. She was halfway through, when the sisters came back downstairs. Piper looked worriedly at her daughter.
"Oh my God! Look at what they did to you, Maria? Where's Wyatt? Paige come over here and heal her." Piper moved out of the way so her sister could get closer to her niece.
Paige moved her hands over Maria's wounds, but nothing happened. She tried again, but the same thing happened. "Somethings wrong, I can't heal her. My whitelighter powers aren't working."
"It's Okay, I'll be fine. I've healed the normal way before, I'll do it again. Wyatt's in the Underworld. I'm not sure what happened to him, though." Maria shrugged her aunt off.
"At least have Carlisle look at you. Carlisle?" Piper looked around and saw that the Cullens were huddled in a corner. She looked at them curiously, before she realized why they were like that.
"My blood. Oh God, I'm sorry guys. I totally forgot about that." Realization dawned on Maria's broken face.
"No, it's alright Maria. It's not your fault. I'll take a look at you, why doesn't everyone else go upstairs? That is if the demons are gone?" Carlisle stepped forward.
"Yeah Zankou and his goonies left right after he realized his secret weapon was destroyed. I still can't believe he used Andrew to get to Maria." Phoebe said disgustingly. Everyone left the basement except Carlisle and Maria.
Carlisle carefully looked at her face, inspecting her black eye and broken nose. Next he inspected her ribs, noting that she broke 3. He gazed into her eyes for a few minutes. She noticed him staring and tried to smile.
"What? Am I really that ugly?"
"Quite the opposite actually. That was very brave of you, Maria. Of course, I really shouldn't expect anything less from you. I seem to remember that you always charged head first into battle, without thinking. You are just as brave now as you were then. Anyways, you have a broken nose, a black eye, 3 broken ribs, and a broken ankle. How you are still alive, I have no idea. You are one lucky girl."
"You should know by now, Carlisle, luck had nothing to do with it." Maria tried to laugh but it hurt to much. She winced as she grabbed her side. Carlisle stood and told her that he'd be right back and went up the stairs.
He saw his family and the Halliwells all gathered in the kitchen, looking at the damage. Piper heard him come in at looked at him anxiously.
"Maria has a broken nose, 3 broken ribs and a black eye. I can't tell for certain but I don't think her broken ribs have pierced her lungs. She is one lucky witch." Carlisle reported.
"Either that or a really stupid one." Chris murmured.
"I don't really want to take her to the hospital, Carlisle. Can you do something for her? Hospitals ask too many questions, questions I really don't want to answer." Piper asked.
"I'll need my bag from my house. Edward, do you think you can run home and grab it? Also my medicine bag, too?"
"Of course, Carlisle. I'll be back in a minute." With that the bronze haired vampire was gone. They heard footsteps on the stairs and Maria appeared in the doorway.
"OK, now you know I don't like being left alone down there. Even with the Nexus gone, it's still creepy." Maria wobbled over to her family.
"Maria! How did you get up all those stairs? Your ankle is broken. You shouldn't be walking anyway!" Grams admonished her.
"Well the sooner you have me patched up,doc, the sooner I can go look for Wyatt. Don't even think about arguing with me. With everyone's powers all funky, you guys won't be able to sense him. Our bond as the Ultimate Power lets me do that. You know I'm right." Maria said as she sat down in a chair.
Piper contemplated her decision. "Fine, but you are not going alone. Carlisle, do you think your family could accompany her down there?"
"Of course, Piper. That is no problem. We want to help." Esme answered for her husband. The women smiled at each other warmly.
"Thank you Esme. I'll go get the transporting potion ready. And the one to get back home. At the first sign of trouble, you are to use it, you hear me?"
"Yes mom." Maria said.
Edward returned with two bags. One was Carlisle's regular doctor bag and the other was smaller and it held medication bottles. Esme helped Maria into the living room so that Carlisle could bandage her up.
Twenty minutes later, Carlisle had just finished wrapping her ankle. "Your all set to go. Come on, let's go see if your mother is ready for you. Alice, could you help Maria?"
Alice walked over to the broken girl and put one arm around her and helped her stand. "Thanks, Alice right?" Maria asked.
"Yeah, and your welcome."
"I'm sorry about the blood. I should probably go change, huh?" Maria looked down and saw that her t-shirt was stained with blood.
"It's okay, it's not your fault. Most of us can handle it, except for Jasper. He's the blond next to the big guy, Emmett. He's the newest one to our lifestyle. He still struggles sometimes." Alice shared with her.
"I think I should change, though. I don't want to tempt him anymore than I already have. I feel really bad." Maria looked at the stairs that led to the second floor. "Was it always that many steps? It seems like someone added some to it. Dad! Did you add steps to this?"
"No honey, it has always been this long." Leo came around to his daughter.
"Ugh. I really don't want to climb all those steps-" She was silenced by Emmett who scooped her up and ran her to the top of the steps. He put her down before she knew what was going on. "How did I get up here?"
The vampires all laughed, especially Emmett, at her expression. "Oh haha. You vampires." Maria rolled her eye (the one that wasn't blackened). She hopped to her bedroom and went inside. Ten minutes later she exited wearing black sweatpants and a green tank top. Emmett was waiting outside her door to take her downstairs.
At the bottom Alice was waiting for her. Once again Alice slid one arm around her waist to help support her weight. The rest of the Cullens surrounded them. Piper gave a half dozen vials to her daughter who stuck all but one into her pockets.
"You know what those are for, right?" Phoebe asked her niece.
"Yes. Let's go." Maria turned to the Cullens. "Everyone get into a circle and take each other's hands. Alice take my hand and Jasper hold onto my arm." When everyone was doing as they were told, Maria threw the vial down in front of her, in the middle of the little circle they made. Smoke rose and engulfed them all, and soon they all disappeared.