Sword and the City Rewrite (Part VI)
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any of the characters… although, I really wish I did own at least a certain slightly neurotic, but charmingly adorable future Whitelighter. Unfortunately they belong to someone else. So does the episode Sword and the City.
Author's Note: This was a little wild hare of mine… and I just had to get it out. The episode Sword and the City originally ran in Season 6 of Charmed… one of only two episodes that season that didn't have Chris in it. I figured, there must have been some reason for it, right? Anyway, here's my altered version… Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this so far. It's really encouraging!
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A demon goes flying through the air as the sunshine shines down cheerily from above. Piper walks forward with Mordaunt trailing behind her as the demons crashes into a stack of hay. The eldest Charmed sister crosses the distance between herself and the demon, pointing Excalibur at his throat. Every so casually Piper questions Mordaunt, "Should I kill him?"
"You're the Queen," the man croons at her.
Piper sniffs, lifting her chin a bit and smiling coolly at his response. Looking down at the demon she has at her disposal she says, "I need one more knight to set up my round table. Care to join me?"
"Join you? Which side are you on?" the demon asks.
Mordaunt chooses to answer the question, "All we're interested in is the greatest power. Become one of us."
"What he said," Piper agrees.
"What do I get out of it?" the demon asks skeptically.
Piper looks down the blade of the sword at him, "You get to live."
In a glimmer of orbs, Phoebe and Paige appear. The youngest of the woman speaks up once they have solidified in the alley with their power-hungry elder sibling. "Piper."
"I should have known it was a trap," the demon growls as he gets up.
Piper points at him, "You stay put." To her sisters, her tone is icy, "You, I warned you."
"Sorry, your majesty," Phoebe says, immediately lobbing a potion at Piper. Piper raises the sword, destroying the potion effortlessly before it can touch her. Phoebe shouts, "Paige, now, orb her!"
Paige orbs out of the way just as Piper throws Excalibur at her. The weapon buries itself in a tank as it passes through the orb trail. Orbing back in behind Piper, Paige grabs hold of her older sister. Piper is having none of that and she reaches back and throws Paige over her shoulders. Paige flips, landing roughly on the ground in front of Phoebe not having accounted for that response. Piper extends her hand towards Excalibur. The enchanted blade pulls free from its new roost, flying straight into Piper's waiting hand.
"Impressive, huh?" Mordaunt asks smugly to the demon, "Now, make your queen proud."
Phoebe helps Paige up, a new game plan already trying to formulate in her mind. She doesn't get a chance to do more than casually contemplate it before both she and Paige find themselves being electrocuted by the demon. Their bodies drop to the ground, leaving their ethereal spirits standing over them.
"What just happened?" Paige asks softly.
"I don't know, but I don't think it's good," Phoebe responds.
Piper, Mordaunt, and the demon disappear, leaving the other two for dead.
Paige shouts, "Leo!"
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Piper, Mordaunt and the demon appear in the cave containing the Round Table. The demon strides over to take a seat with three other demons who are present. There is only one seat remaining open at the table at the last point of the pentagram.
Piper speaks to her demonic subjects, her knights as she moves towards the table with Mordaunt, "Welcome. I assume you're all wondering why you've been gathered here. But don't worry, if I wanted to kill you I would have done so already. You are the chosen few who will help chart a new world order, united under me"
"Excuse me, your majesty, we're getting ahead of ourselves," Mordaunt interrupts.
"Are we?" Piper asks.
Mordaunt says, "The small matter of the loyalty oath."
Piper nods, "Oh, yeah, that's right. Uh, administer that oath."
Mordaunt inclines his head to Piper. "Yes, your majesty." Turning to the demons gathered around the table, he continues speaking, "If you will all put your left hand…" One demon interrupts with a growl. "Or claw on one of the five points of the pentagram in front of you," Mordaunt instructs as he settles into the fifth seat. He puts his hand on the point before him and chants, "Supreme demonic powers, leave your host and find a new home in this willing heart." The pentagram glows and the demons begin to shake before one at a time they are vanquished, the trail of their powers flows along the pentagram at last settling into the waiting Mordaunt.
"What are you doing?" Piper asks, "Stop!" The last demon is vanquished, leaving its powers to settle into Mordaunt. Piper stares at him, "You vanquished all my knights. Why?"
Excalibur leaves Piper and floats into Mordaunt's hand, "Fulfilling my centuries old quest. To control Excalibur."
Piper gapes, "But it belongs to me."
"No, it doesn't," Mordaunt says, "It never did. But thanks to you and the combined powers of your knights, now it belongs to me. I'm the ultimate power."
"I don't understand," Piper says as the fog from the sword's clouding of her judgment slowly begins to lift.
"It's simply transferred power, that's all. You helped me become powerful enough to wield it, my dear Lady of the Lake. And now all that remains to do is to eliminate the true recipient of Excalibur before he grows old enough to fulfill his destiny as the son of a Charmed One."
Piper blinks and starts to take a step back from Mordaunt. The son of a Charmed One? Wyatt? Piper thinks automatically, feeling the leap of fear for her son constrict her heart. She hadn't been meant to control Excalibur. Chris had drawn it this morning, but, but he's not the son of a Charmed One. Clearly Mordaunt didn't know what he was talking about. But that didn't matter. Not if he thought that he knew who the sword's rightful owner was. The man in front of her thought that the sword was meant for her little angel and in his thinking, he intended to kill Wyatt. "You can't hurt him, he's protected."
"I couldn't before, but I can with this," Mordaunt says, turning Excalibur in his wrist. He moves forwards quickly, thrusting the sword into Piper's middle with a satisfying blow. "Long live the King."
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Chris is on his feet again, pacing back and forth in front of the bench as his mind continues to work over the staggering thoughts. Memories keep trickling in, filtering through the jumble of fearful emotions and worries that are currently weighing on the young man. His mother had used the sword in the past, before it had ever come into Wyatt's possession. He had heard that story growing up. He hoped they had had sense enough to leave the sword alone once he had left, that is a gnawing worry tickling in the back of his mind. It's enough to make him feel guilty for this much needed moment of self-indulgent pity. His mother had taken the sword and it had corrupted her, turned her to a craving of power, so the story went.
Wyatt had been misguided for as long as Chris had known him thanks to whatever had happened to him before Chris had been born. His older brother had always been pushing the boundaries between good and evil, ignoring the consequences of personal gain at every turn. His mother had been working on curbing that behavior, always glad to have at least one son who did the right thing. She had needed him to help her and to help counter-balance Wyatt, to try to pull him back from his continual struggle and downwards spiral. Wyatt was special. He was twice-blessed. He had such a great destiny ahead of him. Wyatt had great power and a great responsibility one day with Excalibur. He was Leo's pride and joy, while Chris found himself relatively ignored.
Except by his mother. She had always reassured him that he was special too and had reminded him exactly why. Wyatt needed him. She needed him. His family needed him. He was important in his own way and she would remind him that having 'great power' didn't always have to be taken literally as was the case with Wyatt. Sometimes, great power came from within and the strength of relationships, the strength of a powerful character.
Then his mother had died. Chris's only champion and one of the foundations for helping keep Wyatt grounded was gone. Wyatt hadn't lost it entirely yet, still skirting the grey areas, but after her death…
"Mom's death and the sword were the last straw," Chris whispers quietly to himself. He swallows hard as the pieces click into place. I don't want it! Chris's inferiority complex to his brother threatens to drag him down, I'm not good enough or powerful enough for Excalibur. He certainly doesn't feel deserving of it, especially after all of the deceitful things he had done since coming to the past. Bianca had influenced him more than he had realized. Chris shakes his head, arguing with himself, "You're jumping to conclusions. You don't have any evidence that the sword… but… he never had a real quest for power until after mom died. When he took the sword to get vengeance on mom's killer… that was when he…"
Like someone who has solved an age-old riddle, but doesn't like the answer that he has come to, Chris makes a face and stops his pacing. He sinks back onto the bench wearily. "…it really wasn't meant for him." Chris feels numb.
It was all making sense. All of the little things that Chris had missed were clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle. The fact that Wyatt's true quest for Power had begun after their mother's death and his premature possession of the sword. Piper had wanted him to wait until he was eighteen, but her early death had removed that obstacle. How many times had his mother caught Chris looking at Excalibur in the attic? The song he'd heard this morning when he had drawn it was the same one that had so frequently pulled him to the attic to look at it, he is sure of it now.
Not that it is a very comforting certainty to have. And how many times had Piper reminded him not to touch it because it could risk turning him evil? He had heard her time and again say that she could deal with one son having difficulties with the line between good and evil, but if her baby boy turned too it would break her heart. She needed him for support, needed him to help balance Wyatt. I did a great job at keeping him balanced, Chris thinks self-depreciatively. How wrong she had been about which son the sword would corrupt…
"…he wouldn't have stepped over that last edge if he hadn't taken the sword," Chris whispers heavily into his hands. The sword would never have turned Chris. Not if it was really meant for him.
A new resolve begins to creep its way into his bones. Yet another thing to tack onto his mission: making certain that the sisters knew that the sword wasn't meant for Wyatt. He had already done that this morning in part, unwittingly, in grabbing the sword that his mother had always told him never to touch. The sisters had seen it was meant for him… but they didn't know who he was. Not yet. He wasn't even born yet. He wasn't even conceived! People were counting on him, countless people in the future, and members of the Resistance. This had to become part of his mission as much as stopping whatever evil had begun the process of turning Wyatt down the wrong path.
Chris stares at his hands. They aren't shaking any longer at least. Still that does little to soothe the chill from the realization he had made. Nor does it comfort the sickening twist that finds its way into his stomach when he remembers another part of the story of Excalibur he had heard growing up. His mother had been told that the sword was meant for the son of a Charmed One. They had just always assumed that meant Wyatt, the first born, the Twice-Blessed. No one had ever even considered it could be meant for Chris, least of all himself. Chris pales at the thought that creeps in, "…they're going to figure it out…"
With that thought Chris stands back up, only to feel a shooting pain race through his stomach and climb its way up to his chest. Chris's green eyes squeeze shut as his face twists into a mask of pain and he doubles over. Panting, Chris rests his hands on his knees and tilts his head to look off in the direction the pain is coming from. "Mom…"
In a swirling trail of orbs he hurries towards her.
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Author's Note: We're coming into the home stretch now. Only two chapters to go! All these reviews are wonderful, thank you all so much! It's going to take me a while to manage to personally go through all of them to thank you all individually.