Skye wandered the streets of San Francisco, watching the results of her work take form. She still wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing, but all she wanted was a normal life, and being a Whitelighter, not being allowed to see her family again, that wasn't a normal life.
Demons had surfaced, and they were terrorizing the city – they were terrorizing the world, and they were doing so in such large quantities that even the Cleaners, had they still had their powers, wouldn't have been able to clean this mess up. Skye was safe from attack, so she made her way up to a point where she could see the whole town stretched out around her.
She was heading towards a hill, and was met with Wyatt leaving his house, who asked, "What happened?"
Skye smiled weakly and looked out over the town. "I did it," she whispered. "I took magic away."
As she looked to Wyatt, she felt his hand slap her across the face. "You bitch, did you not realise what was going to happen?!" he yelled at her. "Thanks to you the whole world is falling to pieces! And there's nothing the magical community can do about it!"
"Magic ruined my life." Tears were forming in Skye's eyes. "I have to find my family. I did this for them."
Wyatt grabbed her shoulders and said, "Why? Why did you destroy the world? What can your family possibly gain from this?"
Skye wiped her eyes and said, "I told you I died two months ago. You want to know how I died. I gave birth to my daughter. A beautiful, little, baby girl. I was going to call her Kendra. She's supposed to grow up to be this incredibly powerful witch. Alone, she's supposed to be almost as powerful as the Charmed Ones. And I had to die giving life to her! What kind of fate is that?" Skye was crying hysterically now. "I just want to watch my little girl grow up, but because I'm a stupid Whitelighter I'm not allowed to even see her. So I decided to strip the world of magic, so no one else can be hurt by it like I was. Nobody deserves that."
"Skye, you've ruined the world by taking magic away," snapped Wyatt. He didn't have time for this. His brother was missing and the entire world was falling apart because of the help of some stupid girl who didn't understand how important magic was. "Your daughter won't become that powerful witch any more, because there's no magic for her to learn with. You've put the lives of everyone on this planet at risk because your spell only took magical abilities away. Demons still exist, and they are going to use their abilities to kill every last human being on this planet, including that daughter you want to watch grow up. Now, tell me. Where is my brother?"
XXX
Chris was still stuck in his cage, wondering what the hell had happened to him a while ago. He felt empty, and hollow, like a huge part of him had been sucked out and pulled away. But he was left with an even further determination to escape from his cell.
He picked himself up off the floor, and ran headlong into the cell door, which miraculously splintered; there was no force field preventing him from breaking down his cell door any more.
Grumbling through his new bruises, Chris got up and began exploring the Underworld cave system he'd been locked up in. He tried orbing out several times, but found himself unable to do so. Chris put this down to the fact that he was in the Underworld. He hid as Honjuu passed him, talking to a Leuctra.
"Stupid Whitelighter," he was saying. "You could tell she was a newbie. Had no idea how we work. And without her none of this would be possible."
"Master," the Leuctra said, "surely you don't intend to keep your promise to her?"
"What?" laughed Honjuu. "Keeping her family safe? They'll be the first to go …"
His voice trailed off as he and the Leuctra passed. Chris emerged from his hiding place twice as confused as he had been before. So the bitch of a Whitelighter had asked the demons for safety of her family? Why had she even been working with them, if they were going to betray her anyway?
Chris' wanderings found him in a tall cave, with a blackened cauldron in the centre. It looked like a large chuck had been taken out of the ceiling, for there was a huge, perfect round circle there.
And there were notes next to it.
Chris picked them up and read through them, and was incredibly hurt by what they said. They read out a spell. So this was what Skye had been working with the demons on. How she'd gotten away with it without the Elders knowing Chris didn't know, but it explained why Honjuu had needed Chris' blood. The notes cited an incredibly complicated spell on removing magic from all magical beings apart from demons, and the blood of the child of a Charmed One.
A laugh from the entrance to the cave caught Chris' attention. As he'd been reading, the Leuctra had obviously left Honjuu's side, because it was now standing facing Chris, bouncing a fireball up and down upon one of its tentacles.