Part Five

Summary: The Avatars have turned down Cole's request to stop Richard Montana using his magic after he had a vision of him doing evil. Cole takes matters in to his own hands and returns to Earth, threatening Richard to stop using magic. He enlists the help of future white lighter Chris who agrees Richard needs to be stopped. In part five the sisters and Richard discover who they're dealing with.

"That's impossible, Cole's dead!" Phoebe shouts.

"Is he?" Paige asks her sister, "How do you know he's dead? Because you haven't seen him in a while?"

"No because he would have come after us." A still startled Phoebe replies.

"Wait, you know this guy? Why's he attacking me?" Richard asks, confronting Phoebe.

"It couldn't have been him, he's dead!" The middle sibling shouts back at Richard.

"Well he has some power for a dead person. He could have killed me at anytime!"

"Well that proves it, he's not evil or he would have killed Richard." A defensive Chris informs the rest.

"It wasn't him!" Phoebe shouts again.

"Stop being so naïve Phoebe, he's obviously alive and up to his old tricks, he didn't kill Richard because he wanted him to tell us what happened, the jerk obviously still thinks he's invincible. It's not his style to do the kill straight away." Paige intervenes, practically telling Phoebe off.

"What and you're the Cole expert all of a sudden!"

"No but I know him well enough to say he'll be back." Paige replies to Phoebe.

"All right, enough you two!" Their eldest sister demands. "Last year the Elders told Leo Cole had gone off the radar, then you went to see for yourself and saw no sign of him at his Penthouse, you said some girl was living there now."

"Yeah, she said she was a witch and that Cole had rescued her from a prison dimension but the thing that ruled there killed him." A slightly fibbing Phoebe explains.

"Yeah we know this but how do we know the girl wasn't lying?" Paige asks her sisters.

"Strange lie to make up Paige, plus we haven't seen him for the past year and the girl at his Penthouse hasn't attacked either." Phoebe tells her younger sister.

Richard and Chris had become nothing but spectators during the sisters' disagreement. Richard was pacing the lounge over and over, shaking slightly and brushing his hair back with his perspiring hands. Chris simply stood and watched, knowing better than to involve himself.

"Then let's be logical about this people, we go to the Penthouse and see what light the girl there can shed on all this." Piper informs her siblings. "What did you say her name was Phoebe?"

"No, you stay here with Paige and Richard; and Chris and I can go to the Penthouse. She's spoken to me before, she'll be more comfortable. Plus if she is any threat Chris is on hand to Orb me away." Chris nodded in agreement to his future mother.

Piper thought about it for a moment, since the reveal spell had worked she had been nothing but a figure of calm, something usually reserved for Phoebe.

"Fine but we're not being lenient on him this time Pheobs. If it is him we're gonna have to figure out a way to rid ourselves from him once and for all." Piper informed.

A still upset Paige tried to speak but her big sister Piper was quick to point in her direction whilst looking to Chris. "Orb downstairs, if someone new is living there you'll expose yourselves."

Chris finally taking action extends his hand to Phoebe, "Let's go." Phoebe takes his hand and they orb out.

As they orb in a blinding light surrounds them, temporally stopping them from seeing where they are. Once it fades Phoebe looks confusingly at her surroundings. "This isn't the Penthouse, where are we?" She asks her white lighter.

Although not answering Phoebe's question, he clearly knows more than his charge. "Cole?" He calls out.

"Cole? He's here? How do you know?" Phoebe questions her nephew.

"'Cos this isn't where I orbed us to." He explains.

"No… I bought you here."

Leo appears in the misty space Cole had taken Chris earlier, holding a sleeping Wyatt.

"Leo? What's going on?" An increasingly baffled Phoebe asks. "And why did you call out for Cole?" She asks Chris.

"Sorry Phoebe, but I'm with Cole on this one. Richard's getting too involved in dark magic, he needs to be stopped now before it's too late." Leo tells his sister in-law.

Phoebe simply looks baffled at the white lighters.

"Why did you bring us here Leo?" His future son asks.

"Cole created it, it's a place where the Elders can't watch, and we haven't got their support on this one."

"What do you mean 'Cole created it'?" Phoebe asks Leo. "What does he mean?" She asks Chris.

"Your ex is an Avatar, but he can't kill Richard himself – his kind forbids it." Chris informs her.

"What the hell's an Avatar! How do you know all this!" By now Phoebe was seething with rage, her white lighter and brother in law were talking in riddles so no one could blame the fact she was lost in this explanation.

"Someone pleaseexplain what is happening here! Cole, Avatar, kill Richard?"

"Sorry Phoebe I know it's a lot to take in, but you've kept things from us as well. Like how you helped Cole vanquish a powerful threat from two centuries ago. An Avatar is a powerful being out of the way from the struggles between good and evil, Cole had to become one to stop himself becoming the new Source of all Evil." Leo explains to his sister in law.

Phoebe looks puzzled but can't hold her smile; deep down part of her knew Cole would do something un-expected like that. "I still don't understand why he didn't tell me, I've been worrying about what happened to him for so long. But why does he wanna kill Richard?"

"Because he knows if he doesn't, Richard will kill us." Chris simply states.

"No, it's not that simple." Leo explains. "He's been lying to us Phoebe, his magic is growing because he's got access to a vault filled with shelves jammed with vials, jars and boxes…herbs and potions of every kind."

"'Richard, please stop using dangerous magic' probably won't get the job done." Chris tells his future aunt Pheobs.

"Why wouldn't it? He loves Paige, he'd never hurt her. Why can't we just tell him to stop?" Phoebe questions.

The trio are interrupted by a whirring sound and a sudden burst of air leaves Cole standing before his ex wife for the first time since joining the Avatars. "Because he's human, and the magic he uses is too powerful for any one man to resist. It's not the kind of magic the Charmed Ones use, its dark magic centuries old. If things continue down this path the man your sister loves will barely be recognisable as human, and he'll kill you all before taking up the vacant Source's throne."

TO BE CONTINUED!