Dark Destiny

(Charmed Sons Virtual Series)

Season One, Episode Two

Dark World

Scene Four

"No, no, no," Wyatt groaned irritably. "Haven't you ever used your powers before?"

"Well… sure," Michael admitted hesitantly, afraid Wyatt might laugh. "But it was always by accident. I never tried to use them. Why would I want to? All it does is cause me problems."

"Not anymore," Wyatt countered firmly. "I'm going to teach you how to master them if it's the last thing you do. Now get up – try again."

With a groan, Michael climbed to his feet, rubbing his aching spine. To help him activate his powers, Wyatt had been shoving him down, throwing energy balls at him – whatever he could to get Michael scared enough to want to go backward or forward in time. Personally, Michael didn't think any of this would work in the slightest. If his mother's and sisters' deaths couldn't make him want to go back in time, how could his own sense of self preservation? All he cared about was them, and he had failed at protecting them anyway.

He remembered with immense clarity his younger sister's struggle for survival, something every person had nowadays. He saw her eyes wide, blank, her lips moving soundlessly.

I'm sorry…

And Chris had taken that from him. Chris had taken Danielle's life before she could barely begin to use it. He was evil – the bastard murdered an innocent girl in cold blood, all the while pretending he was allies with them.

I want him dead, Michael thought viciously. I hope he burns in hell for all of eternity.

"Well done," came a sinister voice behind him. He opened his eyes to find himself standing at the other end of the room. How could that have happened – he didn't remember ordering his legs to move...

"What happened?" he asked in surprise, glancing around him as if expecting to see the earth shift under his feet.

"You moved ahead in time – albeit by a few seconds only. But we can change that; now that you know what activated your powers, you can go as far ahead as you wish. Well done," he repeated, grinning. "What scared you?"

Michael shook his head, still too shocked to think properly. "Not scared," he murmured at long last, his throat dry. "Pissed." His eyes hardened as Chris's face popped into his mind once more. Clenching his fists, he grabbed hold of the raw emotion bubbling to the surface. A flash of tight pain erupted in the pit of his stomach at the thought of his mother's body lying motionless on the floor. Stephanie covered in blood. Danielle – his baby sister, whom he had sworn to protect until the end of time should something happen to Mom – eyes glazed and lifeless. All of them dead when they shouldn't have had to be killed. There was no reason whatsoever.

Without him realizing, his very body melted into the background, vanishing from view. Wyatt waited briefly for him to return and then smirked when there was no sign of the boy. He was a quick study.

A breeze blew softly across Michael's face, whispering music into his ear. Wait… how could the wind blow when he was indoors? His eyes flew open to reveal a dank alley, the alley right in front of the room he shared – used to share – with three females.

Heart pounding at the thought of seeing his home once more, he scrambled over to the cardboard boxes that hid the entrance and quickly slipped inside.

"Who's that?" called a wary voice, and Michael froze.

As he whimpered, "M-Mom?" his voice caught in his throat. It couldn't be; she was dead, wasn't she? Or had that all been just a dream – a nightmare? It had felt so real, but then again so did this. The stench of old sweat drifted lazily to his nose, the occasional, echoing scream permeated the walls. The air tasted dry and stale. This place was home.

His previous rage at Chris melted away and he ran to his mother, engulfing her into a giant hug, refusing to release her. He heard a light snicker behind him, recognizing Stephanie's mocking tone as she made some crack about Jeanne being the only woman he would ever hug. He didn't bother to respond, just closing his eyes to hold onto the scene forever.

"Very good," Wyatt said, and when he opened his eyes he was back in the training room, nothing but boulders and four walls. "Where were you this time?"

It took Michael a moment to find his voice and another few seconds to speak without it cracking. It had been so real. Why was he tormenting himself like this? "My mother – she was alive. I saw her."

"Ah, so you went to the past this time. Good. You know how to go both ways, then. I think we can stop for the day. Go take a shower; you look like hell warmed over." And just like that Wyatt was gone, orbing off to spend time with Mel or god-knew-what. What did overlords do when they had spare time?

Michael sank down against one of the smooth, stone walls, drew his knees up to his chest, and sobbed. "I'm sorry," he murmured, hoping his family could still hear him wherever they were. "I'm so sorry."

"Mike," Danielle called, still unable to pronounce her brother's whole name.

"What's up, Dani?" Michael sighed. The seven-year-old knelt in front of the girl's face and asked, "What do you want?"

"I want Mommy," she replied simply.

"Mommy's at work," Michael explained for the umpteenth time that day. "She won't be home 'till late, remember? I'm making dinner tonight."

"No. I want Mommy."

"Yes," he countered forcefully. "Don't you think I want her here, too? But how else do you think we can get money 'n stuff if she doesn't go to work every day? It's not like we've got Daddy 'round to help us."

And there it was – the reason they were like this.

Michael didn't remember much about his daddy. He remembered flashes – like Malcolm reading him a bedtime story before he went to sleep, kisses on the forehead, walking in on his parents kissing in the kitchen, a slap across the face… Just stuff like that. He asked his mom about that last memory one time, but she convinced him it was just a dream.

He remembered asking her, "How come Daddy don't live with us no more?" and her answer had always been the same: Daddy was sick and couldn't take care of us. Michael had long ago gotten used to have no father around, but sometimes it was hard for him to accept it. Like the Monday after Father's Day when all the other kids at school rambled endlessly about what they gave their dads or where they went for the weekend. Like now when Mom was at work and Michael was forced to cook and watch the two toddlers until she came home. He was seven for crying out loud; he wasn't ready to take care of kids!

"D'you want to play a game?" he asked Dani with a muffled groan. He wanted to be playing baseball with all the other boys his age. That always looked kind of fun to play; why couldn't he own a mitt or a bat or a ball?

Never say it's not fair, he reminded himself bitterly. There's always someone worse off. That was what Mom always told him when he became inevitably embittered with his position. You might not have a dad to take care of you, but others don't have any parents.

So, instead of crying out in frustration – instead of screaming and stamping his feet and whining about how unfair his life could be – he plastered a smile on his face and reached out to take Dani's hand.

"Come on," he said gently.

Chris paced the length of the cramped space, shaking his head, deep in thought. His mind spun wildly with the contemplations racing through it, and he tried desperately to make sense of all of them. Anxiously, he drummed his fingers against the side of his leg, restless and uncertain.

No more than two nights ago, the closest people he knew besides his family and the Beckett sisters (who no longer lived anyway) had been murdered. The single room they called a house had been burned beyond recognition, and all the Resistance could find were three corpses. There was nothing to use to scry for the fourth body, so they had no way of knowing whether the only male of the family still lived.

Chris paused in front of his bed, closed his eyes for a couple of seconds as if trying to visualize where Michael might be, and then spun around to continue his ongoing march. When there was a timid rap on the door, he ignored it, shaking his head. He couldn't deal with more bad news right now.

"Chris, it's me," called a voice from the other side of the door. For one painful moment he thought the voice belonged to his best and oldest friend, Talia Beckett. They had met at the tender age of ten in Magic School and had taken to each other immediately. It was a little shy of two years since Talia and her older sister Jenna had been tortured and murdered at Wyatt's hands.

Chris's heart clenched at the thought. Wyatt had not only murdered his only brother's best friend; he had tortured and killed his own girlfriend – and all that just to prove he was above the human weakness of emotion. It made Chris sick.

"Come in," he murmured at length, his voice subdued as he flicked his wrist to telekinetically unlock his door. It eased open, and in walked a Phoenix and Wyatt Halliwell's personal spy.

Until she decided to spy for us, that is, Chris thought with a grim smirk. It was about the only thing that had gone right in his life. Wyatt assigned Bianca to find Chris, build his trust, and then shatter his heart and body in the cruelest way possible. He wanted her to report to him every so often, feeding her information about the Resistance and his brother. She was to make him fall in love with her and then kill him herself.

She got as far as step one – getting Chris to fall for her – and made a fatal mistake. She loved him back. Ever since she had admitted her true feelings (and who she really was) with Chris, she had been spying for him. Double-crossing the famed, twice blessed witch, a dangerous and deadly feat to attempt.

"What is it?" he asked softly, his eyes refusing to meet hers.

"Phoebe sent me," she explained. "She said she can sense your frustration a mile away, and she couldn't take it any longer."

"Why didn't she come herself?" he demanded gruffly. What – did all the girls sit around gossiping about him? Did his aunt shared his private emotions with the whole world?

"Didn't you hear me?" she retorted. "She could literally feel you a mile away; how do you think it would have affected her if she were to stand in the same room with you? She'd have a seizure!" Crossly, she folded her arms over her chest and waited for Chris to look at her.

When he did, she could see the anguish concealed deep in his eyes. Her gaze softened somewhat as she asked, "What are you thinking about?"

If anyone else had asked, he would have shut him or her out. He used to open up to Talia and Talia alone, but his best friend was gone now. Bianca had been his pillar of support since then. She had sworn allegiance to him and to the Resistance, and he trusted her with his very life.

Running a weary hand through his hair, he sank onto his bed and closed his eyes. "They can't find a body," he sighed at length.

"What?"

"Michael," he clarified simple. "They can't find his body."

"That's good, then, right?" Bianca replied brightly. "I mean that means he's still alive, doesn't it? At least Wyatt hasn't killed him."

"That's not necessarily a good thing," Chris muttered under his breath, sitting up suddenly at the mention of his brother's name. How could the Wyatt he knew actually cause all this havoc and destruction? This was the brother who spoke to him telepathically before he ever spoke aloud to the rest of his family. This was the brother with which he possessed the strongest bond he had ever thought possible.

He had murdered Talia, Jenna, so many other innocent people, and now this – the Fitzwilliams: Jeanne and her two young daughters. The girls weren't even old enough to fight for the Resistance, and already they had been targeted.

"Chris, how can you say that?" Bianca cried in disbelief. "He's just a kid; he's completely innocent."

"For now," Chris agreed, snorting inwardly. Kid?He's just a year younger than I was when I started the Resistance.

Attempting to lighten the mood, Bianca pulled herself onto the bed beside Chris and began to kiss the back of his neck. "Hey," she murmured between kisses, "relax." She paused and smirked, "All this stressing out won't help your stomach digest that birthday cake."

Chris rolled his eyes at the comment. Nine days had passed since his birthday; how many times would she bring up that day? Besides, just because Phoebe and Paige found some extra ingredients to bake doesn't mean it was cake – whether they tried to bake one or not. His two aunts' cooking skills were nonexistent. He had been afraid to taste their creation and rightfully so.

"Right," he said dryly. "I'm sure."

Bianca's lips continued their perusing of his body as she leaned over his back to kiss his cheek. Then, she turned him around to meet his lips.

After a brief moment, he broke away, shaking his head. "I can't do this now," he said blushingly. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

The Phoenix nodded in acceptance. "That bad?" she questioned.

"Phoebe got a premonition yesterday," Chris informed her dully. "She went with me to the site to try to get a reading on Michael. She saw them getting killed."

"She saw Wyatt?" Bianca gasped. Since this whole war had begun, Chris attempted to shield his two aunts. He didn't want them to meet Wyatt and see the monster he had become. It was one thing to hear that their beautiful, baby nephew had done all this but another thing entirely to actually witness it firsthand. If they saw him – saw what he looked like now, how he disregarded his late mother's teachings – they would be devastated.

"No," he replied tightly. "She saw me."

Bianca frowned. "Come again?"

The witchlighter stood up so suddenly that Bianca fell forward, barely catching herself from falling off the bed completely. At the last moment her training kicked in, and she was able to grab the sides of the bed to keep from slipping. When she rearranged herself into a more comfortable position, she glanced up at her silent boyfriend. He was more than agitated, she noticed; he was restless – he was pissed.

"He sent a shapeshifter"—he spat the word as if it were a curse—"so that Michael would think I killed his family. And Michael went with him willingly. He wants revenge. That's all he cares about now. Killing me."

"Okay," she sighed after a pause in which the stillness of the room grew heavy and uncomfortably thick. "Okay. So Michael is gone – is there any way to get him back?"

"No," Chris replied tonelessly. "You know Wyatt. He won't let a prize go."

"A prize?" Bianca echoed. "What do you mean? So he got a witch on his side – big deal. It's not like Michael's another twice blessed or anything, right?"

"No. Not exactly," answered the witchlighter almost reluctantly. He twisted around to look at her, reading the unasked question in her eyes. "He has the power to manipulate time and space. He can jump from past to present to future, from realm to realm. He can change what was to change what will be. He could wipe out every single one of us in the Resistance before we're even born."

The silence grew louder until Bianca could barely stand it, suppressing the urge to cover her ears with her hands. "Oh," she managed to whisper in a strangled voice. "This is bad."

Chris laughed harshly at the simplicity of her statement. "Yeah," he concurred, "Bad."

(End.)

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