Chapter Thirteen
"It's a large bowl," said Chris from behind Piper. She didn't look back, looking instead forward as she had been for the last hour. "The centremost portions is slightly raised and so are the island so that they aren't flooded.
"We've got mountains along the edges and a large amount of foliage. Trees tightly clumped together, we've made it so that they'll grow larger with the amount of water they take in, and any excess is let out through the pores so they can go to the clouds."
"Why not just mountains?" Piper asked as she watched it all. From this far off she couldn't see the edges of their pocket dimension, though she knew it to be there; a large white crystal peaked through, towering into and beyond the sky, the thing letting out low that permeated everything.
There were four others, she knew, placed so that they drew out a square which bordered the dimensions; both a measure of protection and providing light. The things had the strange effect that there was light in the way of shadow in some places.
"Elena," said Chris: "I'll call her, Elena," said Phoebe. "Beyond her manifestation, she liked the aesthetic. Not to mention conjuring rock became boring after the first ten years."
"Ten years?" said Piper, looking away from everything for the first time. Away from the rows of plants in front of her house, the forest which lay beyond, the fairy and pixies and gremlins that she'd seen scampering beyond. "How long have you been here?"
Chris shrugged. "The first thing we did when we built this was gear a mechanism that warped the relative time," he said. "I think we had it a ten years to one earth second at one point."
"And yet you've all not aged," said Piper.
Chris shrugged again. "Death as a concept hasn't had time to feel its way here," he said. "We all made potions so that when stay as you remembered us." He snorted. "Thirteen kids and all of them looking older. Can you imagine the nightmare name wise when we're all eventually in one room."
Piper smiled a little at that, but even now she hadn't gotten all the names. She pushed and they came to the fore: Chris, her oldest, Melinda, Wyatt, Christopher, Trish, Samson, Olivier, Mable, Eloise and Elliot, Nadeen, Carmichael and Pamella.
"Where are the rest of my children?" she asked.
"Mel, Samson and Olivier are training dragons with a few of our cousins," he said. "Wyatt is with Harry and they're training some of the demons they've been able to scrounge up."
"Call me Heir!" the boy said.
"None of that," said Phoebe. "Harry's a perfectly good name."
Harry pouted, his hands crossing as he glared at the floor. In those moment he looked like anything but the Heir of All Evil.
"The others are in town doing one thing or another," said Chris. "It's getting really hard keeping track. FYI, I really hated being the responsible one."
"You're the oldest, hon," said Piper giving him a little smack on the cheek.
"Not really," Chris muttered. "I'm Topher's age if we're being honest. Melinda is technically the oldest. Wyatt and the me and Topher."
It was complicated how time travel could be, especially in its true incarnation. Chris and Christopher, biologically the same person down to the t, but growing up under different environments had forced them both to develop differently, so much so that they looked different enough that they no longer passed for each other.
"But you've lived the longest," said Piper. She sighed and turned to look back outside, catching something big flying in the distance. "When are we going to meet? Devise a way forward?"
Chris glanced at his watch. "About an hour," he said. "Mean time should I take you on a tour?"
"I'd like that," said Piper.
888
"This is crazy, right?" said Phoebe with a large grin. She and Piper were moving through a courtyard filled with strange smelling flowers, the sound of bees buzzing and yet they stayed well away from them. "That it came together like this?"
"It's a little headache inducing, truth be told," Piper muttered. After Chris had given her the tour she'd had time to meet some of her kids, passing along messages before giving herself even more time to work at unravelling the mess of memories in her mind.
It helped that she could break the rules, ensure that time passed differently in her house versus everywhere else.
"You get used to it," said Phoebe. "Learnt that the hard way. Even now I'm watching various visions. See the future and changing it where I can. But less on that and… You have a thing with lighters don't you?"
A total of six of her kids had come from whitelighters. Chris, Wyatt, Christopher and Pamella the children of a whitelighter, while Eloise and Elliot where the scion of a darklighter.
"The same could be said for you and demons," Piper muttered. But then it was only one demon in particular: Cole. While the rest of them had allowed themselves to have a varied amount of husbands through the timelines Phoebe had only had one, with the witch telling her sisters that she was continually working so that she would have different children in each timeline.
"Where is Cole?" she asked. "Or the others? Will they be making an appearance at any time in the future?"
"Too dangerous," said Phoebe. "Between all the supernatural races and powers out there, even with protections someone could slip through."
"But doesn't that put them in danger?" Piper said. "I've learnt to bury everything down throughout my timelines, all of it has come together in my feelings dulled for my husbands. But you… Cole is—"
"I know," said Phoebe. She stopped, letting out a sigh. "Cole and I had many wonderful years. Right now we have to focus on our future. Speaking of which they're—"
She was interrupted by Harry who appeared with a flash of fire. The boy was grinning, having let his form fall to reveal was lay beneath; he was on the taller side, lean in physique and with red eyes with gold pupils, short horns protruding from his head.
"Hey, Mom," he said. "Aunt Piper. I'm your escort for today. Wyatt wanted to come but I beat him to it."
"Aren't you…rambunctious," said Piper.
"Yes, he is," said Phoebe giving Harry a hug. The boy seemed to make an effort of looking upset but that quickly washed away to a grin.
"Mom," he said, he said wriggling from her grasp. "Stop. We have business to work towards."
"Well," said Phoebe. "If you weren't off having fun with Wyatt all the time I didn't have time to do this earlier."
"Well yeah," said Harry. "Wyatt's sort of my quasi-dad."
Piper felt a shiver pass up her spine and she shook her head, her expression twisting in distaste. Harry let out a loud guffaw, enough so that he slapped his hand at his thigh, fighting for breath.
"That always gets you," he said between a laugh. "I was hoping to get one in before your entire flood of memories rolled through." His grin slipped away pretty quickly. "But seriously. Everyone will be waiting for us."
"Let's just go," said Piper.
Harry got close, hugging the both of them before fire started; it was a circle at first, far off before it started drawing closer. The fight bit into her and then quickly climbed her body. Not burning but warm. Pretty quickly it rode up and then she felt a twist and the scenery warped.
Piper stumbled a little forward and looked around. They were in a very large room, chairs at point though a majority of them were empty; in the middle of it was there was a small table with eight nine chairs, everyone who would be attending was already sitting.
Prue beside Peter; Paige beside Primrose; Chris sitting with a space between him and Wyatt and two more empty seats. Piper moved to sit between her sons while Phoebe sat with Harry at her side.
"I think we can now begin the meeting," said Chris. "A recap for those whose memories haven't fully come back."
"This is my first time back," said Paige, "and that would be me."
"It's a lot," said Peter. The boy was a mix between his mother and father, his skin on the dark side, his hair short and colour and his eyes a light brown. "Spread out in multiple timelines but the gist of it is that we have measures in which we can take down the Angels. We've got the Nameless Demon or the Hollow. Both of them with their own problems."
"The smart thing to do," said Piper, the memories have already rushed past. "Is getting them both. Just to make sure that the Angels are dealt with."
"The Hollow requires we be allied with both good and evil," said Wyatt. "I might have the Source and Harry might be the Heir, but we've still got enough good in us that we don't count. It works better for us if I have this timeline's power."
"But isn't that a slippery slope?" said Prue. "There's only so much evil you can hold before it starts to warp your mind and emotions. How you act and what you do with your power."
"My thoughts on the matter," said Chris. "Which is why I think we should go the Seer. She wants power going by my timelines and what I've seen in the various branches. If we promise her this, at least the chance to do something of worth in the future. She'll be open."
"Which helps because it's easier to contact her," said Phoebe. "The moment we step out of here and this place's protection I can just project the vision."
"What about the Oracle?" said Peter. "She's loyal to the Source."
"We'll have to flood her with visions," said Phoebe. "Of the coming attack, on all fronts, every demon they have doing something of worth."
"That's treading dangerous ground, though," said Harry. "I don't want to start my rule in the Underworld with pittance for people to rule over."
"That sort of decision makes things hard," said Chris. "It gives us less room to work with the Oracle."
"I know—" Harry started only to be interrupted by Paige.
"The Tall Man," she said. "The Source feared him and he couldn't be destroyed. The only reason that he was destroyed was because of Harry, here, which is a boon in and of itself."
"But these are the Angels," said Prue. "What certainty do we have that this will affect them?"
"We don't," said Piper. "But something has to affect them. That would be too much power concentrated in one position."
"It would also be a waste," said Wyatt. "That much power and all you can do is destroy timelines."
"Self-inflicted rules," said Peter. "It's how they work."
"It's how morality works," Primrose pointed out, speaking for the first time. Piper couldn't help but nod at that too.
"Less abstract and more practical," said Chris. "That's one alternative open. We've got enough of a framework that we can sort out the detail later. The Nameless Demon."
"We'll have to look for him," said Peter. "My sensory ability is good, but…I don't even really know what I'm looking for, it's magical signature, that sort of thing. Add to that it might be in dimensions…"
"Also electricity," said Harry. "Which means the electricity demon. We could use real electricity but the demon has a measure of intelligence which means it'll be able to actually do something if anything wrong ever happens."
"Something else we have to find," Peter muttered under his breath.
"I'll look," said Primrose. "I'm not as powerful as Aunt Phoebe with my visions. But I can look into the timelines that work into us finding the demon."
"Thanks," said Peter. "Another broad strokes sort of plan," he said. "This is the point where we split up. The various forces and the direction we'll be working."
"Before that is our cover," said Prue. "Is it safer to stay here. Act at times or—"
Phoebe took in a large breath. "Our timeline was just destroyed."
But there was no influx of memories this time which made some sense. They hadn't done anything new this timeline.
"We planned for this," said Chris. "There's one timeline where you came here and another where you waited a day before moving. We'll skip to that timeline. That version of me should—" there was a sound of chiming and another Chris appeared.
"They know," he said. "I'll spend my time here. They've agreed to put and I've got their memories. We should give them a few days to get accustomed to everything before we start making moves."
"All of this is starting to give me a headache," Piper heard Paige mutter.