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Chapter Seven: Phantom Pains

November 17th, 2021. 2:00 pm

Chris leaned on the door frame heavily, rubbing a hand along the ridge of his shoulder in an attempt to get rid of the phantom pains. That was the only downside of healing, even after all the damage was gone, the mind took a while to catch up, and right then, his whole body felt like one big bruise. He gave up trying to get rid of the feeling after a second, eyes going back to the door in front of him. The door was modest, matte black with frosted glass, out of the way in the back of the High School's staff wing. The only thing differentiating it from a janitor's closet was the humble and yet utterly terrifying name plate on one side. Chris leaned toward the glass, hoping that no one was actually home, but, sure enough, he could see shapes moving behind frosted glass. The feeling of remorse he'd been holding back chose that time to wash over him, he accepted it and knocked on the door shortly.

The sound of a chair scraping across carpet, a single, hummed bar of a song too old for Chris to recognize, and the door open, revealing a slightly bent old woman. Her lips stretched into a patient smile, eyebrows arcing quizzically over old librarian glasses. She was a small woman and looked to be at an age where the only thing that kept her spine from curving was sheer iron will. She leaned against the door, looking a mite smug.

"Mr. Halliwell? Well, strike me dead and call me Betsy, I never though I'd see the day you were on time for something." She clucked her tongue and gestured him into her office. Chris just rolled his eyes at the statement and tucked his hands into his pockets. He didn't let her words get to him. As always, the stern edge to her words were tinged with a good deal of sarcastic humor if you knew where to look. Sarcasticly rude was the old teacher's natural state of being, something they had in common.

Her name was Ms. McCaffey: The scariest person ever on staff at his high school. She was the one that freshman knew about before they even arrived, rumors of her hauling kids three times her size out of classrooms or verbally eviscerating kids who thought they were too smart to show a modicum of respect to their elders. Well, those sorts of stories had always drifted from old to younger sibling. Chris was no exception. He could clearly remember the look on 14 year old Wyatt's face after he'd been called into Ms. McCaffey's office. No one had bothered to ask why Wyatt had landed himself there, and after one look at his horrified expression, Piper didn't bother either. She figured that anything that could terrify the twice blessed was punishment enough.

Chris's experience with the woman wasn't much different at first, but only for a while. Chris had never been the model student. His grades were always mediocre at best as demon attacks made it hard to schedule study time. "Family Emergencies" riddled his attendance record like swiss cheese. Then there were the spell backfires... especially the one that turned the principal into a jackalope. Things just never seemed to work in his favor, so none of the teachers particularly expected much from him.

All except Ms. McCaffey. She didn't take his luck as an excuse, she expected excellence and nothing less, and she pushed him for it. She was probably the only reason his grades were in the state they were currently, and also the only reason he hadn't been expelled after that whole getting arrested thing the year prior. Chris overheard that little talk she'd given to Principal Calliger and it went something along the lines of, "if you expel that boy over something this asinine I will call your mother, young man, and I'll give her a piece of my mind."

Principal Calliger had slunk out of that conference with his tail between his legs and Ms. McCaffey had followed shortly after. All she did was crook an eyebrow in Chris's direction and say, "I hope the coppers allowed you to study for the upcoming test while you were incarcerated, otherwise you are now a day behind schedule." It had been the most heartwarming thing he'd heard all month.

For some reason that was totally beyond him, Ms. McCaffey saw greatness in him, and she would accept nothing less than that. That was why this was going to hurt...

"Well," she said after easing gingerly into her chair and retrieving a slim folder from one side of her desk, "You would have seen this sooner or later, but I see no reason to stall." She turned the folder around and tapped a finger on the top. "Look now, and revel at the glory."

The air in his lungs flashed out, "I got a perfect score... " He said in pure amazement, time seeming to freeze as he stared at the test results. He snatched it out of her hand a little more eager than he was intending to, "No way." He scanned the summary sheet under the number, trying to see if it was somehow faked. He'd been half asleep when he took that test, and he really hadn't been expecting much of anything to come from it. He lifted his gaze to look at the very smug woman across from him.

"If you were any other kid, I'd be alarmed by your surprise." She tapped at her desk with a stray pen, "But then again, if anyone were smart enough to cheat, I think they could have passed it anyway. Congratulations Halliwell, you know what this means right?"

She took his shocked silence as a sign for her to continue, "This means you'll be able to go to the colleges you deserve to go to, even with your current GPA. Granted, you'll still have to work around your 'criminal' record, but since that's all really local business at this point I think you'll be able to pull it off if you look out of state. You know, Harvard, MIT, Etcetera." She leaned back, looking supremely pleased.

Chris stared at the results a moment longer before quietly shutting the folder and putting it back on her desk. "I can't."

She frowned, "Why the hell not?"

He didn't quite manage to meet her eyes, "Something came up." The phantom pains of recent injuries taunted him. His birthday had been as eventful as advertised. So eventful it had made the last couple years seem tame in comparison. This birthday had come with teeth, and the teeth hadn't been coming for just him this time, they'd been coming for all of them.

"Hogwash!" Ms. McCaffey snorted, "'Things coming up' is simply not a good enough excuse. You're too smart and you've worked too hard to let something get in your way. You deserve more than the direction you're heading."

Chris stared at a particularly interesting bit of wall, eyes narrowed, "Yeah, well sometimes 'things' are more important." He wasn't really concentrating on the conversation at hand. The memories were filtering in already He could hear the girl's screaming even now. The attack had been so well orchestrated, so smart. They'd went after the younger Halliwells first, Trisha and the twins, to keep Wyatt and Paige out of the fight, too busy healing to participate until the last second... then the demons struck where it hurt most.

Chris forced his eyes closed for a second and looked back over at Ms. McCaffey who was looking at him with narrowed eyes, not quite suspicious, more concerned. He felt the guilt seep back in and sighed.

"Regardless of what those test scores were going to be, I wanted to come in today to thank you... and apologize." He pressed the words, trying to fit in as much genuine meaning as he could, "You've done a lot for me, and you don't know how much that means."

...The walls had been scorched by the time Chris had woken up, back raw from a well aimed energy ball. Mel was quietly bleeding up against one wall, Henry Jr. wrapped protectively in her arms. One of the demons, skin black as pitch and riddled with fluorescent green veins, was standing over an unconscious Wyatt, Excalibur gleaming in its claws. The demon raised its arms, Chris tried to work feeling back into numb body, the sword came down-

Chris flung him across the room with a force he didn't know he was capable of. He was on his feet and on the demon in less than a second, using his telekinesis to speed up his movements. From there on his memories became fuzzy. The next thing he knew, his mother was talking to him in a soothing voice, trying to pull a demon gore covered Excalibur from his hand. He'd lost an hour, and somehow the rest of the demons found themselves inexplicably vanquished. The demons hadn't taken him into account, none of the demons worried about weak little Christopher...

"I can't leave now." Chris looked down at his hands in his lap. If he hadn't been there... if he had been across the continent, sound asleep in a dorm room at some upscale college, oblivious... "My family is more important."

Ms. McCaffey regarded him quietly, hands folded in front of her. She waited until Chris had the guts to look at her directly before speaking and when she did, her voice arrived with the same dry sense of humor he'd grown to expect of her, "If I hadn't of met your parents, I'd think you were part of the mafia, Mr. Halliwell."

Chris cracked a laugh, despite himself, "Sometimes I think that would be easier." He admitted, half smiling.

The old counselor gave a tired sigh and slouched, "Promise me one thing, Halliwell." She pinned him with a steely gaze.

"What?"

"One day, when 'things' don't keep getting in the way." She air quoted the word with an eye roll, "Don't let your talents go to waste. You're meant for great things."

After a moment, Chris got up from his chair, reaching across the desk to shake her hand, "Glad at least one person thinks so."

November 16th 2027 1:20

Most of the time, the members of the Phoenix Coven weren't exactly the rowdiest crowd by any standards. They were capable of it, sure. Phoenixes were capable of anything. They were experts at blending, at fitting into the cracks of their target's lives, pretending they had the emotional capacity to care about their targets up until the moment the contract needed to be completed. It was why they remained in demand. Some demons may appear normal, but they didn't have the first clue about the social skills required to slip into normal society. Sometimes these things required finesse, and if that was what Phoenixes were made for.

It was only on their occasional get-togethers that the Phoenixes allowed themselves to return to their natural state: calm, serene, and with as few emotional disturbances as possible. The most hectic things about these meetings was usually only a harsh whisper from parents to children who hadn't quiet caught on to how the world worked.

Even knowing all that, Bianca found herself breathless at the utter silence of the place, the only disturbance being the sound of her shimmering in quickly followed by the wind chimes of the wayward Halliwell on her heels. She shot a look over at her should just as Wyatt solidified.

"No one told you to follow me." She said coldly, conjuring an athame into her hand. Wyatt returned the look, entirely unimpressed, gesturing at the sky. Excalibur appeared in a short second, dropping into his palm out of a cloud of orbs.

"I think mine is bigger than yours." Wyatt smiled sharply and spun the blade once, adjusting the grip. Bianca just stared at him blankly for a moment, almost disbelieving at the sheer amount of frustration one man could cause. The only thing keeping her from stabbing the "almighty twice-blessed" was her thin grip on her own self control. She was pretty sure Chris would forgive her if she only wounded him superficially.

"Charming." She ground the word out before dismissively turning her back on him, set on continuing down the hallway they'd appear in, steps measured and quiet.

Wyatt followed behind her, keeping to her lead on the silence. The hallway they were in was impressive, imposing black support beams arched up into the ceilings to meet at the center, a light fixture resembling the mark on Bianca's arm hung suspended from the top, glowing with an ominous red light. The stretches of walls between the beams weren't so much walls as long, continuous runs of complicated stained glass. The tinted pieces were carefully worked together to form stories Wyatt had no real context for, black iron framework laced in between to give structural support. He examined one closer, he noticed one thing they had in common as he pointedly stared at a mosaic depicting a Phoenix witch holding up what looked to be a severed human head... none of these stories were peaceful.

Wyatt cast a carefully suspicious look at the witch walking in front of him and at the surroundings. She seemed to have dismissed him fully, either thinking he was too dumb to catch on or she was just too busy to care. Despite his jokes, Wyatt wasn't oblivious. He knew trouble when it looked him in the face. Much like magic school this place was enchanted, however the feel was entirely different. Magic school's wards felt clean and comforting. This place felt oily and just... wrong, sinister.

'Ah, Chris,' Wyatt thought to himself, grip tightening on Excalibur, 'What have you gotten yourself into?'

He looked back up front just in time to catch Bianca narrowing her gaze at him, he stared her back down, unflinching. Then came the boom.

An old man, dark skinned and gray haired, flying out of one of the side rooms, propelled by a massive explosion that melted the stained glass into puddles of muddy goo. He hit the floor, sliding across the expensive marble flooring until he pushed up against a support column and finally stopped. Bianca was next to him in a flash, forgetting every inch of her training. She buried her fists in the man's coat, having dropped her athame a couple steps back, and flipped him over.

"Oh no," she whispered to herself, running a hand over the old man's face, "Grandfather,"

She didn't need to test, there was no life in his eyes, just terror. She closed them gently and laid him down on the floor, only then whipping around to stare at the smoking frame where a door used to be, melted by her late Grandfather's power over fire. There, standing in the center of the wreckage, completely unharmed, was the pale man, thin and seemingly inconsequential.

The Pale Man looked at them with the barest hint of amusement, lip twitching in a not-quite-smile. Then he turned on a heel and started walking away from them. Even that wasn't normal. As he walked, he seemed to blink in and out of existence like a strobe light that was slightly out of sync. As Wyatt watched him go he felt a rage build up under his skin. He didn't know who or what this guy was, but regardless of that, no one got away with messing with his family.

By the time Wyatt climbed to his feet, the Pale Man reappeared at the end of the hallway in front of a set of large black double doors. Bianca was next to him bubbling with the same black rage as he was, and they charged after him in near unison.

1:20 pm. (Library)

"When time changes, it isn't a neat fix. It's like busting open a door. Sure you get to where you need to be, but things don't fit back together like they used to when you're done." Chris leaned against the library desk, trying to explain something even he didn't fully comprehend yet. His parents and aunts sat in front of him, grim faced but attentive, the first time in either of his memories he could remember having them defer to his expertise.

"After we changed time, it was the same way, it didn't quite fit back together. The two timelines were forced to run side by side. This one, which is actually progressing, and the old one, which is more of a phantom timeline. It's there, but it's not effecting anything. It's just waiting there until the last part falls back into place and the timelines can merge back together."

Leo nodded in understanding, wrapping an arm around Piper's shoulders "And it's doing that right now."

"Yeah," Chris shrugged, "Or it did a couple hours ago with the whole almost dying ag-" he quickly stopped at the looks on his family's faces. Apparently they weren't quite ready for flippant comments about dying yet. "Moving on. Let's just say that I was the only thing keeping them separate, until an couple hours ago, I was still out of sync. If things were able to go on as they were supposed to, that would have been the end of it. The times would have settled back together and I wouldn't have to be dealing with this shi—sorry mom, this stuff all over again."

Phoebe choked down a smile, "So what's the problem then, professor?"

Chris only took a moment to roll his eyes at that, "The problem is with this... guy. Whatever he is, demon, warlock, whatever. As far as I can tell from his psychotic ramblings, he seems to think time was better the way it was before. He wants to change it back." He had to stop his own growl of frustration at that sentence. That anyone thought they had the right to mess with all the work he'd done, what he'd died for... Chris let out a thin breath before pressing on to the most important part, "The problem is that, for a little while, it's possible for him to. In this first twenty four hours, time is at its most vulnerable. It's not done knitting together yet and can be reverted if you press the right triggers."

"And those would be?" Piper ground out in her best deadpan sarcasm, already anticipating the answer.

Chris winced inwardly, "The easiest way? Well..."

"They'd have to kill you." Paige said softly, everyone in the room could practically feel Piper's eyes narrow dangerously, hand latching onto Leo's. Chris gave a half nod, half shrug, not quite resisting the urge to smile at the terrifying force that was Piper when her children were threatened. It was more than a little comforting knowing that your mother could make anyone who would like to do you harm spontaneously explode.

"But," Chris added finally, "As we can all see, he failed at that. Whatever he was trying to do didn't work. I don't think he was ready for a fight at all. He's too used to hiding behind his powers. I don't think he wants to deal with that again, so he'll probably go to plan B... and, yeah, this is where the doomed part comes in. I don't exactly know what Plan B is.

The theory is that he just has to find a way to make this current timeline more like the previous one. The easiest way to to that is to find people in the old timeline who are supposed to be dead and well... re-kill them. The problem is, with the old timeline being what it was... pretty much everyone is supposed to be dead."

1:25 pm

The two witches threw the double doors open, casting looks around the room for the small man. He wasn't there, but the room was far from empty. Strewn all across the room were bodies, blood slicking the elaborate marble floor and tinging the inlaid mosaic of a phoenix even darker. Bianca's breath froze in her lungs as she recognized each face, eyes catching on the red marks displayed proudly on their bodies. Much more proudly than Bianca had ever allowed herself to be. Some had large bleeding gashes, some were dotted with what looked like arrow wounds though there were no arrows to be seen. Some of them just looked ill, like they'd been that way for years, cheeks sunken in, skin tight over bones. Some weren't even dead yet, but dying nonetheless.

Careful keeping her panic beneath her skin, she scanned the crowd for one specific figure... and she found her. One blonde head among them. "MOM!" Bianca crossed the space with precision, not disturbing a single person on the floor until she found herself, yet again, cradling a member of her family. Wyatt watched her, knowing it was futile. He could sense it from where he stood.

"Did you realize..." A voice broke into the room, bodiless and seeming to come from everywhere at once. Wyatt spun Excalibur around in his hand, glaring at the room, looking for the owner of the voice. He didn't really have to guess. A voice that creepy could only belong to the pale man. Bianca's glare was a great deal more venomous, fingers curling into claws.

"Realize what?" Wyatt answered, impatient. The voice chuckled in return.

"Realize that you've been cheated?" The voice spoke. Wyatt spun to look at empty air even though he was sure he sensed someone there a moment before. "Your family has been promised time, and time, and time again that it would have peace...That the fight for good and evil will be finished."

Wyatt kept silent, he knew when the time for jokes was, and this was not it. He kept tuned in, senses stretched out to catch that glimpse of presence he'd felt.

"Could you imagine a place where that exists? Where good and evil are no more, where you can have your own slice of utopia?" The voice asked almost innocently, wistfully. Wyatt just listened, eyes narrowed. "Imagine, your own Camelot. Pristine, crimeless, where demons no longer hunted innocents, where witches are known. Magic is no longer feared, no longer hidden. Where your family and all those who spent their lives defending the innocent are known as the heroes they truly are?"

Even through her current black temperament, Bianca was listening to the words. She used the time to refine her anger to a fine, clean edge, every muscle tense. She spared a second to stare at the Eldest Halliwell. This was all obviously targeted at him, and, to be honest, some of the words even sounded good to her ears... that was a world where all her problems would disappear. Where she wouldn't have to be a phoenix and she could be with whoever she wanted. Still, it didn't cloud her judgment at all, she was still going to eviscerate the man the minute he was brave enough to show his face. Wyatt though, she didn't know him, and she wasn't quite sure he was able to draw the line so succinctly. He sure as hell didn't seem to be denying anything.

"Now imagine, that the utopia you have created was ripped from you. Its existence erased, you wouldn't even have the memories of it to comfort you. Your life's work, gone. Poof!" The man giggled at himself, "It happened, Wyatt. You don't even know it. It was happily taken from you by someone you thought you could trust."

For the first time, Wyatt spoke, eyebrows raising up, "Who's that?"

"Your brother."

Wyatt swung Excalibur in an arc of light, the bare metal coming down just beside the Pale Man as he materialized, embedding itself into the wall. The Man was frozen, wide eyed. Wyatt just glared at him.

"If you ever think you could possibly turn me against Chris you are absolutely insane." Wyatt growled before tearing the sword to the side, but the Pale Man was gone by the time he did.

"Oh well," The voice said cheerfully, "I should at least thank you for bringing the last Phoenix to me. Now I can set things right." The whispers of the cold feeling Wyatt associated with the man pinged on the edge of his radar once again, completely across the room. He didn't even have time to turn before Bianca felt the slight shifting of the air behind her and the press of a finger against the back of her neck.

1:25 pm (Library)

The people in the room didn't notice it the first time, the slight imperceptible shift in the air. It was merely a bit of static in the world, like two radio frequencies crossing over, battling for dominance. It lasted only a bare second. Chris fought the shiver creeping up his spine, eyes narrowing. He hadn't seen it, but he had felt it. His eyes flicked around the room, into the vaulted cathedral ceilings, looking for any sign.

"Something's wrong." Piper stated, no question in her voice at all. She hadn't sensed it, but she didn't need to, she could read her son easier than any book. She stepped beside him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, face calm and as ready for whatever life might pitch at them. It was something he'd realized they had in common a long time ago. That cool, unblinking, deadpan approach to the dangers they faced. The temperament that made people who didn't know them very well think they were heartless, cold. The Halliwells knew better by now. Piper and Chris just had their priorities in order. There was always time to panic later, to do so now would just keep them from doing what needed to be done.

Chris gave her a sideways look, smiling warily, "There always is, isn't there?"

The world shifted again, the well lit library flickering into a dark parody of what it was. The walls were scorched, the shelves all but empty of books. Instead, the remnants of burnt pages were scattered across the floor so thick you couldn't see the stone underneath it. The only light in the room was the sight of the red sky coming in from artificial windows, meant to look like the world outside.

A few seconds later, it flashed back, returning them to the comparatively pristine conditions of the library, even with its current spell caused carnage. For a short second, no one spoke, too shocked to say anything.

"It was one of the first things he did," Chris said lowly, "Destroy the school... and everyone in it."

Phoebe stared up at the ceiling, face grim "We have to stop this..."

"I will..." Chris almost growled the words even as a something tugged on the edges of his whitelighter senses. It was barely a whisper, he almost didn't hear it over the blood thumping in his ears. He concentrated on it, pulling the sense forward and felt ice flood his veins. "Bianca."

A/N:

Little delay here because this chapter decided it didn't like how it had been written and demanded me to fix it. It's still short, but this is pretty much the beginning o' the madness. As always, reviews are gold and I'd love you forever for them.