Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 27, 2008 15:28:58 GMT -5
Chapter Four - Deadly Darklighters and New Powers
and the darklighter
Wyatt and Chris got their Frisbee and headed for the park. Wyatt parked the van and both brothers climbed out. Chris had a brand new, red Frisbee in hand. Wyatt locked the doors and pocketed the keys. They walked for a bit until they found and empty clearing.
“This would be more fun if we had more people,” Wyatt commented as he waited for Chris to throw the Frisbee.
Chris had a vague recollection of a time when he would have given anything for a peaceful time like this with his brother. “Maybe, but then it wouldn’t be just me and my big brother.”
Chris threw the Frisbee to Wyatt, who threw it back. Chris threw the Frisbee, again. This time Wyatt couldn’t catch it and it landed at his feet. He leaned down just as a fireball flew over his head, hitting a tree behind him. Chris saw it and turned around fast. A dozen feet away he saw a Darklighter. Another fireball came from the Darklighter, this time headed toward Chris/ Chris waved his hand and the fireball changed course, hitting the ground.
“Wy!”
Wyatt looked around and then a branch orbed off the ground to reappear over the Darklighter and hit him on the head. The Darklighter staggered, but righted himself. Wyatt used the time to run over to Chris. Chris waved his hand, again, sending the Darklighter backward. The Darklighter turned invisible, stunning the brothers.
“Did he just . . ?” Chris asked gaping.
“Uh, huh,” Wyatt responded stunned.
“He didn’t just . . .”
Wyatt shook his head. “Uh, uh. No orbs.”
“He threw fireballs,” Chris commented. “Who’s to say he uses orbs?”
“Good point,” Wyatt conceded.
Chris spotted a fireball headed toward them and waved it away. Then he grabbed Wyatt’s shoulder and orbed them out of there.
While most of San Francisco had changed over the last twenty plus years, the back room of P3 had not. The room was dark. There were posters all over the wall with a mirror in the middle. Against one wall was a couch. In the front of the couch were two crates with a board on top of them, creating a table. Some boxes were lined up against the wall not far from the couch. There was also a layer of dust covering the floors and everything, giving testimony to the reason nothing had changed there. No one had been there. In blue-white orbs Chris and White orbed into the room. Wyatt looked around as Chris plopped down on the couch.
“Is this P3?” Wyatt asked, trying to orient himself.
“Yeah.” Chris waved his hand in the direction of the light switch and light filled the small room.
“Why are we here?” Wyatt asked, taking in his surroundings.
“I feel safe here,” Chris told him. “It’s familiar.”
Wyatt sneezed and looked at Chris. “From what?”
“Everything.”
Wyatt looked around and stopped in front of the mirror. “This place looks like a shrine.” He sneezed and added, “A really dusty shrine.”
Chris got up off the couch. “Come to think of it, it hasn’t changed much.”
“What?” Wyatt looked at his brother confused.
“Hey, Wy, have you ever been in here?”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I think the door is kept locked and I think someone put an anti-orbing spell on it, so that anyone who did try to get in here would be caught . . . or so I was told.”
Chris frowned and tried to orb. When he couldn’t his frown grew deeper. “That’s just great.”
“You know Mom’s van is still at the park.”
“So’s the darklighter, a darklighter who can throw fireballs and turn invisible.”
Behind them dark orbs fill a spot and disappear, but the Darklighter is not visible.
“That’s dangerous,” Wyatt commented worried, “leaving him there. We should leave here and get back to the park.”
“He could sneak up behind you and you wouldn’t even see him until . . .”
Chris was cut short and Wyatt’s shield went up around them. Chris looked at Wyatt puzzled. “What?”
“Look,” Wyatt told him pointing.
There was a darklighter’s arrow on the ground just outside the shield. Chris shivered. “Forget what I said about feeling safe.”
Wyatt and Chris started looking around the room hoping to spot something that would lead them to where the Darklighter was. Chris noticed footsteps appearing in the dust. Not wanting to alert the Darklighter he continued to look, but this time for something to hit the Darklighter with. Chris’ eyes rested on the board making up the top of the table. With a fast movement of his wrist Chris sent the board flying horizontally a couple of feet above the footsteps. The board slowed down as if it hit something and the Darklighter began to reappear. By the time he hit the wall, he was fully visible.
“Nice, Chris.” Wyatt congratulated him with a grin.
“What are we suppose to do with him?” Chris asked as he looked down at the Darklighter. “Darklighters aren’t exactly pets and they sure aren’t safe.”
“I’m not sure. How exactly does a darklighter throw fireballs, anyway?”
Chris knelt down and picked up the athemé that had fallen out when Chris had thrown the Darklighter against the wall. He held it in his hand a moment and then held it up to slow Wyatt. “With this.”
Wyatt gave him a look. “It’s just an athemé.”
Chris shook his head, memories of two athemé’s coming to mind. One that looked like this one and one that had . . . but now was not the time to think about that. “Not quite. It’s a power stealing athemé. In the past there was an underworld game show. They used these to steal the powers of witches they killed and other contestants who they also killed in the effort to win.”
Wyatt looked down at the athemé in his brother’s hand. “Creepy. I wonder why I never heard of it.”
“Maybe that was the only time Mom and her sisters came across it. I don’t know. G . . . I was attacked protecting . . . anyway, that came not long after that.”
Wyatt gave Chris a strange look. “Not long after what? Protecting whom?”
The Darklighter groaned, causing both Chris and Wyatt to turn to him. Wyatt hulled him up by his jacket and glared at him. “Who sent you?”
The Darklighter glared at him. “No one.”
Chris help out the athemé just out of the Darklighter’s reach. “How many powers does this have? Why did you attack us? Why choose today?”
The Darklighter was silent. He tried to dark orb out. Chris shook his head. “No orbing, buddy.”
The Darklighter lunged at Chris. Chris stumbled back and disappeared as he fell toward the couch. The athemé fell out of Chris hand and under the couch.
Wyatt grabbed the Darklighter again and shook him. “What did you do to me brother?”
Chris was on the couch. “I’m fine, Wy.”
Startled Wyatt dropped hold of the Darklighter and looked toward the couch. He saw no one. “Chris?”
The Darklighter used the opportunity to turn invisible. Chris saw the Darklighter disappear and followed the footsteps in the dust. Then, he saw an arrow appears out of nowhere headed toward Wyatt. With his hand he sent the arrow back in the direction from which it came, turning it around in mid air. By then Wyatt’s shield was up. The arrow hit it’s target and the Darklighter turned visible and then exploded.
Wyatt looked toward the couch. As he watched Chris reappeared. He was standing in front of the couch.
“You just disappeared,” Wyatt told him relieved to be able to see his brother, again.
Chris frowned. “What are you talking about? I was there the whole time.”
“No,” Wyatt told him with a shake of his head, “I mean you . . . you were invisible, like the darklighter.”
“But that’s not one of my powers. I’d know if it was.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I’m telling you, power or not, you were invisible. I thought the darklighter did something to you.”
Chris walked over to the board he had thrown earlier and picked it up.
“Are you listening to me?”
Chris brought the board over to the crates and placed it back on top of them. Then he picked up one of the cushions on the couch and pulled a key out from under it. He pocketed the key and looked up at his brother. “How could I become invisible? It’s not anything Mom or her sisters could ever do. I’m not twice blessed like you, so I don’t have random powers that appear out of nowhere.”
“Put you are part elder, right?” Wyatt pointed out.
Chris looked at him. “So?”
“Well, I don’t remember much about them, mostly because when there wasn’t magic around there was no point, but it seems it seems to me that elders can be invisible.”
Chris looked at Wyatt. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? It makes sense. I have some of my powers because Dad was a whitelighter, well when you were born he wasn’t a whitelighter. He was an elder. They have similar powers, but they also have other stuff . . . like invisibility.”
Chris groaned. “Great. I have to figure out a new power.”
Wyatt laughed at the annoyed look on Chris’ face. “You have to figure out a new power and you are annoyed about it. I have to figure out all my powers, because unlike you I haven’t been able to use them for more than twenty years.”
Chris gave his brother an annoyed look. “Yeah, well you try to process two lifetimes worth of memories and on top of that learn how to use a new power and you see just how easy it is. I’ll take the powers only any day.” Chris sat down on the couch and sighed.
“Well, according to Mom, when I was little I use to go a little haywire. Sometimes I wouldn’t let people touch me, because I would have my shield up.”
Chris chuckled. “Yeah, that was me.”
“What was you?” Wyatt asked confused.
“I was the one you wouldn’t let touch you.”
“Interesting, so I guess you kind of already know what I was like when I was little, even before you were born.”
Chris shrugged. “Yeah, well, everyone loved you.”
“Even you, little brother?”
Chris sighed. “Believe me, it I didn’t we would be here.”
“What are you talking about?”
Chris ignored him and walked over to the boxes and started looking through them.
“What are you doing?” Wyatt asked walking over to join him.
“I’m looking for something,” Chris told him. “These boxes appear to have my stuff in them.”
“What are you looking for?”
Chris pulled out a leather backpack. He examined it. “This isn’t mine.”
“So put it back.”
Chris shook his head and tossed the backpack on the couch. “No, I can use that. It’s my room. I’ll sort it out with Mom later if I need to.”
“Your room? What are you talking about? Clue me in here, Chris.”
Chris stopped looking through the box and looked at his brother. “This was where I stayed while I was in the past.”
“Why didn’t you stay in the manor?”
“I told you. They didn’t know who I was.” A look of guilt crossed his face as Chris added. “They didn’t trust me.”
“They didn’t trust you?” Wyatt asked in disbelief. “How on earth did you manage to survive? If they didn’t trust you how did you stay as their whitelighter?”
Chris shrugged. “I lost track of how many times L . . . Dad fired me. He took me off their account. He tried to assign me to other charges as well or instead. I’m not even sure why he didn’t set them up with a different whitelighter when he had me off their case.”
Wyatt shakes his head and tries not to laugh. “I don’t get it. What did you do to annoy them so much?
“Isentdadtovalhalla.” Chris said in little more than a breath.
Wyatt stared at him confused. “Huh?”
Chris sighed and slowed down. “I sent Dad to Valhalla.”
Wyatt’s mouth gaped slightly before he responded. “Are you insane, little brother?”
“No.” The one word was the only response Chris gave.
Wyatt looked at him. “Okay, then. Why did you do that?”
Chris looked at Wyatt chagrinned “Sad as it will sound, I had to get Dad out of the way. I needed them to need me as their whitelighter.”
“You are something else, Chris,” Wyatt told him shaking his head.
Chris reached into the box and pulled out a T-shirt. He tossed it over to the couch with the backpack. He walked over toward the couch. As he reached the makeshift table he stopped and looked at his brother. “So what powers do you know that you have anyway?”
“Besides orbing and healing?”
“Yes,” Chris said with a roll of his eyes, “quit bragging.”
Wyatt gave him an are-you-serious look. “Bragging?”
“I can’t heal,” Chris said matter-of-fact.
“Oh.”
“So what else?”
Wyatt thought about it, reaching into long forgotten memories. Very little came to mind. “I can orb stuff like Aunt Paige, the shield. Other than that I don’t really know.” A barely remembered conversation came to mind. “Though I guess in theory I can blow stuff up.”
That one was new to Chris, especially coupled with the uncertainty in Wyatt’s voice. “Blow stuff up? Like Mom? And what do you mean in theory?”
Wyatt shook his head trying to remember. “Not like mom, no.” He sighed. “In theory means that I’m pretty sure I haven’t used it, but I’m told I can.” Wyatt looked back at Chris. “It’s not like I’ve used most of my powers in the last twenty years or so.”
Chris was surprised. “Oh. Nothing else? I mean you have to have more powers. You are the twice blessed.” Chris squatted down next to the couch and pulled the anthamé out from under it. He wrapped it up in the T-shirt and stuffed them both into the backpack, making sure Wyatt can’t see what he’s doing.
From behind him Wyatt spoke. “Sure. I guess I do, but I don’t know what they are. I guess I’m just going to have to find out.”
Chris stood and pulled one strap of the backpack over his right shoulder. He looked over at his brother. “Are you ready to leave?”
Wyatt gave him a look. “The door’s locked. We can’t orb. What do you propose we do? Break down the door?”
Chris shook his head and pulled the key out of his pocket. “Nope. Use the key.”
Wyatt looked at the key. “Where did you find that?”
Chris grinned. “Right where I left it twenty-three years ago. This was my room. I had a key to it.”
“In that case let’s go.”
Chris walked over to the door and unlocks it. He dropped the key back into his pocket and opened the door. Chris turned around and looked back at Wyatt. “Let’s go get Mom’s van and get back to the manor. I’d like to look around before she and Dad get home.”
“You aren’t going to answer my question are you?”
“Question?” Chris asked not remembering any unanswered questions.
“The one about why we wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love me.”
“Oh. That question.” The one he’d hoped his brother would forget.
Wyatt nodded. “Yes, that question.”
Chris looked at his older brother. “There are so many things that I am not sure of, so many blanks. You are my older brother, I do love you, and there are very few things I wouldn’t do for you, but once, in another life time, you asked something of me I would not do. It is hard to reconcile you with the you that you were. I’m glad, more glad then you will ever know, that things are the way they are, but it’s hard. I will tell you about it as I feel comfortable, okay. Don’t ask more of me.”
Wyatt looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ll let you go with that for now.”
The relief on Chris face was obvious. He put both straps of the backpack on his shoulders and looked over at his brother. “To the park then?”
Wyatt inclined his head. “To the park.”
Chris walked out of the door followed by Wyatt who closed the door behind him. Chris brought out his key and locked the door before pocketing the key, again.