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The Guardians of Magic

Even without Phoebe's psychology degree and self-help experience to offer insight into Ginny Weasley's mental state, Paige was aware that what she was doing right now was at least in a grey area. When Ginny was clearly already dealing with a psychologically traumatising experience and blaming herself for something terrible, Paige couldn't be sure if the young witch was making this offer in a healthy mental state. After what she'd been through, it didn't take an expert to wonder if Ginny was basically trying to get rid of her magic to stop herself being in a position to hurt anyone else again, which might be an extreme response but would at least make a grim sense.

The worst part was that, even if Ginny was giving questionable consent, she'd also made an accurate point that she was essentially the most expendable member of the team's magic users right now. From what Paige had been told about everyone else's abilities, they weren't even sure if Nick or Emma had any obvious magical powers that Paige could take away, Bo's abilities might not be affected by the spell even if it worked, and Wanda and Billy had basically received their own powers from an outside source in the first place so might not respond well to having those powers taken. Even if this worked, it was possible she'd only be able to use it on less than half of their current team, but at least they'd know what they had to work with.

"OK," she said as she sat opposite Ginny, the girl trembling but looking resolutely at Paige over the small table between them where Paige had placed the Book of Shadows. "I've had to modify this spell a bit for the current situation, but there's no reason it shouldn't work… Once again, you're sure you want me to do this to you?"

"Yes," Ginny nodded, clenching her fists even as her gaze remained fixed on Paige.

"Even if-"

"Do it," Ginny snapped, even as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"Right…" Paige nodded, recalling the way she had sometimes basically hugged herself for assurance as she prepared to make a risky decision. For all that she and her sisters had sometimes spoken about giving up their magic, the idea of taking someone else's powers away for good… and especially when this plan relied on her being able to give them back after this was done…

Here goes nothing, Paige thought to herself, hoping that she wasn't about to make a mistake before she spoke her new spell.

"The power of magic we must conceal

From those to whom our enemy appeal.

Withdraw until I bid return

The magic of this Guardian."

As Paige spoke the last word, Ginny sat back with a sudden gasp as something lifted out of her body, hovering above the two witches for a moment before it faded away.

"How do you feel?" Paige looked cautiously at the young witch.

"…OK," Ginny said, tone tentative as she looked at herself. "I mean, I feel… different… but I don't really… I don't feel bad, if you know what I mean?"

"Right," Paige said, indicating where Ginny had placed her wand beside the Book. "So… try it?"

Hesitantly, Ginny nodded before she reached over to pick up the wand and give it a brief wave. When nothing happened, Ginny gave it another couple of experimental shakes before she looked at Paige with a tentative smile.

"Looks like it worked," she smiled.

"Yeah," Paige nodded, crossing her fingers under her chair that this part would also be successful. "Now for the other part… Return!"

Ginny literally yelped in surprise as a new wave of sparks emerged from her wand, nearly falling off her seat as her magic returned.

"It worked!" Harry grinned, hurrying over to give Ginny a hug (Paige tried not to smile too much as Ginny's face turned a shade of red just a bit lighter than her hair from the contact) while Fawkes let out an approving trill at this new development.

"OK, so we know you can do it for her-" Dave began.

"And for most of you."

"Oh, now you turn up?" Kenzi stepped forward to glare at the projection of Doctor Strange that had once again appeared in the middle of the room. "You couldn't have told us something before we had to spend ages worrying we'd be taking Gin's magic away for good?"

"As I have mentioned before, my responses are comparatively limited," the projection said as he gave Kenzi a pointed stare. "I am essentially a moment of Stephen Strange's life that has been projected here to aid you; as much as he wanted to aid you, I cannot volunteer information for you of my own accord."

"Because… you're essentially a living search engine?" Dave said cautiously.

"That is one way of viewing it," Strange inclined his head in acknowledgement at the Prime Merlinian. "I cannot volunteer information to you of my own accord…"

"But you can answer our questions if we know what we need to ask?" Willow looked at him with a cautious smile. "Like, now that we've tested that spell on Ginny, you know that we'd need to know if that can work on all of us?"

"In most cases," Strange confirmed. "Obviously Vision would not be affected as he is not magic, and I would not advise taking Billy's power when it was a gift to him in the first place."

"And there's no point using it on me," Angel observed.

"And I just need to leave my Power Coin behind," Tommy put in.

"Probably safer if I don't do it to myself, on that topic," Paige mused. "I mean, we know I can cast this spell and undo it, but given how our magic is so different…"

"Yeah, safer if you're one of the people we don't use this on," Nick nodded in agreement.

"So… if we should not use this spell on Billy, what about me?" Wanda raised a cautious hand. "I received these abilities due to an experiment; could this spell take them away from me?"

"Is it even possible for what I am to be… taken like that?" Bo asked, a part of her actually sounding intrigued at the idea as she looked cautiously at the projection.

"In the case of Bo Dennis, her power is essentially part of her biology that I would not advise be removed, although it can be shielded from the Empirikuul with relative ease."

"And that won't work for the rest of us?" Willow asked.

"As well as Bo, Detective Burkhardt and Sheriff Swan could be shielded once you know what to deflect as their abilities are relatively discreet," Strange affirmed. "Like Angel said, he is comparatively safe as he is biologically deceased but possesses no magical power of his own, but it would be best to take care when sending him out. For the rest of you, if you wish to depart this trailer in secret, the spell is your only chance to do so until you know more about what you face."

"Right…" Paige looked cautiously at the new spell for a moment, only half-registering when Strange vanished back to wherever he came from, before she shrugged. "Well, at least we know we have a few more options available."

"What is a … search engine?" Merlin asked cautiously.

"Not relevant to what we're doing here," Paige shook her head. She wasn't sure if telling Merlin too much about futuristic technology would be a bad thing or just a weird thing, but she wasn't going to try and deal with that particular mess if she didn't have to.

"Uh… question?" Willow raised her hand as she looked at Paige. "If we can… well, if this spell can take away our powers, could we maybe… give them to someone else?"

"Huh?"

"Hey, that could be worth a shot," Dave nodded in approval. "Think about it; we need to unleash some serious ass-kicking on someone or something, so we turn one of us into a major powerhouse-"

"Too risky."

"You're sure?" Mildred looked curiously at Paige.

"I mean, obviously I can only use my own experiences from my world, but bad things tend to happen when you mixed magics like that," the former social worker explained. "About a year before I met my sisters… I think I already told you about the time they tried to use magic to cure a virus?"

"Yeah," Nick nodded in recollection.

"From what they told me, the doctor who treated Piper became obsessed with the idea that my family's blood might have some universal antibody he could use to treat other diseases," Paige continued. "I'm not sure what made him think it was a good idea, but he was injected with his own samples of their blood, and it… well, he went a bit nuts."

"Nuts?" Ginny repeated uncertainly.

"Crazy," Billy clarified before he looked at Paige. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the doctor could use most of my family's powers, but since he was a mortal who was never meant to use magic… the way it was described to me, he basically had a mental breakdown. He apparently just tried to help out at first, like warning his colleagues that a man was about to have a heart attack, but by the end he was going out and attacking criminals to take their organs for people who needed transplants."

"Oh God," Emma looked sympathetically at Paige.

"That's…" Mildred swallowed slightly. "Should I feel bad that I… understand what he might have been thinking?"

"No," Angel looked firmly at the young witch. "There is a difference between understanding why someone does something and approving of them doing it; that you can do the first doesn't mean you're doing the second."

"The point is that I'd rather not try transferring our magic into one person like that," Paige said, even as she looked sympathetically at Dave. "It's not a bad idea, but it's got too much potential to go wrong."

"Fair enough," Dave nodded at her. "Thanks for explaining, anyway."

"We're mounting a campaign against a universe-destroying army; I think we can safely say that the only time we should stop asking questions and exploring strategies is when we're dead," Emma pointed out.

"And not even then in Angel's case," Billy pointed out with a smirk.

"Stop me if this is another stupid question, but should we be concerned about the possibility of Empirikuul soldiers looking for us?" Wanda raised her hand. "Considering how quickly they sent people after us when we arrived here…"

"Good question, but I don't think we have anything to worry about right now," Dave put in. "They might have come after us when we arrived, but they didn't exactly chase us afterwards. We should be careful if we run into anyone who actually has those short-range scanners on hand, but from what we've seen I'm fairly sure that we'll only set off their long-range sensors if we actually use our powers while we're out there."

"That scanner identified me-" Bo began.

"Short-range scanner is probably a different system," Dave cut her off. "If they could just rely on the large-scale scans they wouldn't need the handheld model in the first place."

"That makes sense," Tommy nodded. "Back home my team are always able to keep track of the monsters Rita sends down against us from our command centre unless they're actively trying to hide."

"Not that this isn't fascinating, but could we get back to the matter at hand?" Kenzi raised her own as she looked around the room. "I mean, now that we know we can turn your magic off for a bit, who do we depower for this research trip?"

"Not Merlin or Wanda," Angel said.

"Hey!" the two indicated looked sharply at him.

"No offence, but from what you've told us, you don't have the kind of non-magical skills that would be useful in this situation," the vampire pointed out. "Merlin wouldn't even know what to do with modern technology, and Wanda… you're fairly new to all this, right?"

"You make… good point," Wanda muttered.

"Again, I'm not going to send any of the kids out unless we know there'd be some advantage to it," Nick put in as he looked at Harry, Ginny and Mildred. "Vision's definitely going, Angel's not the best call if we want to do this now, and Billy is a 'maybe' if we think we'll need his other side at short notice, but for the rest of you…"

"Ex-thief here; count me in," Kenzi raised her hand.

"Same here," Emma added.

"Aren't you the sheriff of… where you live?" Dave asked.

"I had a rough background," Emma shrugged.

"Uh… if we're doing science stuff, I could give that a shot," Dave added. "I mean, if whatever those scanner things scan for is some kind of energy, I might be able to work out what it's looking for…"

"If you think you're up for it," Nick looked over at the student. "If you've been using magic to deal with your threats…"

"I went into action when I lost my ring before I managed to do magic without it; I'll be fine with back-up," Dave nodded.

"Where Kenzi goes, I go," Bo put in.

"And computers are… kind of where I started out," Willow added. "I mean, the ones here might be more advanced than anything I'm used to, but I could give it a shot…"

"OK…" Nick looked around the room for a moment before he nodded. "Vision, Willow and Dave go for the science, Emma, Bo, and Kenzi for their experience, and… Tommy and Billy can go for security."

"Oh, just realised I didn't mention something," Paige put in, looking over at Willow with a smile. "Remember how I told you I thought you were my charge?"

"Charge?" Mildred asked.

"Full Whitelighters are normally assigned to help people back home, and I've… had a little training in that part of my heritage," Paige explained. "It's complicated, but when I got here, I found Willow and Angel because I got the same sense I had when I was searching for my… first charge back home."

"So you can sense where Willow is?" Mildred looked at Paige with eager curiosity.

"And go to her if she calls for help."

"Go to her?" Merlin asked.

"Via orbing," Paige said, standing up and giving a quick demonstration as she orbed from one side of the room to the other. "If Willow explicitly calls for my help, I should be able to respond and get to her."

"Neat," Bo nodded at her.

"And Fawkes could go with you," Harry added, the phoenix letting out a reassuring trill as his name was mentioned. "He can travel by flame in… well, it's similar to that; if you can't get everyone out yourself, he can help."

"Sounds like a plan," Nick nodded at Harry before he looked around at the others. "If you're all up for it, let's go."