Post by StoryGirl83 on Sept 30, 2008 23:24:51 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-One – Three Ways to Fight a Demon
Magic school was a place of great mystery and confusion and right then the Great Hall was empty, except for Leo, Piper, and little Wyatt. Leo rolled a cart full of books past where Piper and little Wyatt where. Little Wyatt was standing between a couch and a coffee table, Wuvey firmly in his grasp. Piper was sitting on the ground next to her. On the coffee table in front of them were all sorts of toys, building blocks, a rubber ducky, and so much more.
Piper reached across Wyatt to grab his bear. “Oh, thank you.”
She had all of Wyatt’s attention as he pulled the bear away from her and looked down at Wuvey.
“Sweetie, why don’t you let mommy see the bear?”
Leo looked up from a book he was going through on the cart. He watched them with a smile on his face.
“Come on, why do you want that silly bear anyway?” Piper asked trying to appeal to something, though she wasn’t sure what. “Look it. Come on.”
“I don’t think you’re gonna convince him like that.”
“I just don’t get it,” Piper told him, looking at their son. “I mean . . . he seems as sweet as ever.”
Wyatt looked over at her, as if he understood that they were talking about him and wanted to silently reassure his mom. Piper turned and smiled back at him.
“Of course, he does,” Leo told her with a worried look on his face, his head tilted to the side.
Through clunched teeth as Piper rose and walked over to Leo she asked, “So can you tell me how this boy turns into the future of all evil?”
“It’s not us as parents,” Leo assures her.
“Yeah, you can say that as much as you want,” Piper informed him unconvinced. “But it’s gotta be.”
“No,” Leo reacted quickly, picking up a book to show her as he talked, “I, I found a reference on cursed objects changing children in incremental degrees over time.”
“He’s two,” Piper pointed out, unnecessarily. “How much could he really have changed?”
“Not much,” Leo agreed readily. His brow wrinkled in worry and thought. “But if he keeps in this direction, the next twenty-five years, he can be pretty far off path. He will become the young man we saw.”
“This is ridiculous,” Piper declared walking away from Leo, over to a couch. Leo followed her and sat down next to her. “I mean, if it’s all because of that stupid bear, then there’s gotta be a magical way around it. A way to change it. A way to change him.”
Leo nodded and mumbled agreement. “Right. Of course.” He looked away in the direction of their son.
Piper looked at him, looking for the rest of the sentence. “Right. Of course. But what?”
Leo sighed, still looking in Wyatt’s direction. “It’s . . . just that curses are difficult.” He looked back at her. “Often times, it’s how it came about that’s more important than the magic itself.”
Piper obviously didn’t get what he was saying. “Okay, well, we’ll figure out the why later. But right now, we need to fix this.” Piper turned her head to the right and looked down at the Book of Shadows on the coffee table next to her.
Wyatt, Vicus, and Chris were still down in the underworld, in Vicus’ lair, though Vicus still didn’t know about Chris presence. Wyatt had his eyes closed, and his face lifted toward the ceiling as he concentrated on something neither of those with him could see.
Vicus walked about to Wyatt and asked, “How much longer are we going to wait?”
“Patience,” the evil Wyatt admonished him without opening his eyes. “Scrying takes time. And there’s the vanquishing potion that’ll keep my aunts busy for at least an hour.”
Chris’ ears pricked. Wyatt had been ignoring everything he said for about twenty minutes. He’d also been ignoring Vicus’ occasional comment, or complaint. Wyatt simply wasn’t interested.
Wyatt’s words also caught Vicus’ attention. “Vanquishing potion? You never said anything about that.
Wyatt opened his eyes and looked down annoyed. “What? Do you expect they’re just gonna show up empty handed? Come on. It’s not gonna be that easy.” He lifted his head up, again, and closed his eyes trying to concentrate once more. What kind of idiot id this demon? Wyatt asked, suddenly involving Chris in the conversation, again.
“I don’t like this,” Vicus told him walking away.
“Stop worrying,” Wyatt told him turning to look at him, once more. “The rest of the collective is just a shimmer away. And besides, my aunts won’t be able to see you when you’re cloaked.” Wyatt closed his eyes once more and looked toward the ceiling. “Wait. They’re coming.”
Chris double checked his own cloak and watched. He didn’t know what Wyatt was up to yet, and right now that worried him.
Paige and Phoebe orbed in, hand and hand. Paige held a black bag of some sort in her free hand.
“Have any trouble finding the place?” Wyatt asked from several feet away.
Chris rolled his eyes. Finding the place hadn’t been that hard for him, but then we following his brother. They were following demon ash. He wondered how much of a difference that made.
“Where’s Vicus?” Phoebe asked, getting straight to the point.
“Around,” Wyatt informed her, unconcerned. “But you should be worried about me.”
“Look,” Paige told him, wishing he would understand. “We just wanna help you.”
“What makes you think I want your help?” Wyatt shot back.
“Because we know you,” Phoebe told him, “and we know you’re good.”
Good or not, right now Wyatt was controlled by evil, evil that might yet harm his family. Chris wasn’t going to let that happen.
“That’s a lot of potions you got there,” Wyatt pointed out in a monotone. “I thought you thought I was good.”
“These are for Vicus,” Phoebe informed him. “As soon as we get rid of him, all of this will be over.”
“Good luck finding him,” Wyatt told her with only a slight raise of his eyebrow to show off any emotion. As to what emotion it was, Chris had no idea, and Wyatt had no intention of sharing.
Since Chris had yet to find a way to locate Vicus when cloaked he didn’t see much chance of them locating him. Or he didn’t until he realized their plan.
Phoebe looked at Paige. Paige looked back at her. Together they began throwing potions randomly at the floor, walls, and anywhere else that was within range. Chris edged closer, but he made sure that he was completely out of their range.
Seen only to Wyatt, Vicus smiled and chuckled a little. Wyatt turned to look at him. Foolish demon.
Chris didn’t really have time, nor the inclination to contemplate what his brother was complaining about. He was more interested in the direction Wyatt was looking as he sent the thought Chris’ way.
Phoebe threw another vial against a wall in the opposite direction.
“Man, you girls are way off,” Wyatt informed them, a little bit of laughter in his voice.
“We have lots more potions,” Phoebe assured him.
“Maybe I can help you out,” Wyatt suggested straight faced.
Vicus looked at Wyatt worried.
Wyatt held out his hand. Light slipped off it in a sand storm of energy, and hit Vicus, making him momentarily visible. There was a hesitation as energy built up around that area, until Vicus was fully visible, and unable to put his cloak back up.
Chris blinked at his brother in surprise. What was Wyatt up to?
“What are you doing?” Vicus asked, echoing Chris’ thought.
“Making a point,” Wyatt told him in the creepy monotone he was keeping up. He looked at Phoebe and Paige. “Go ahead. Vanquish him.”
Paige threw a potion at Vicus as soon as Wyatt quit speaking.
“What?” was all Vicus got off, before the potion hit him and he burst into flames, only to disappear flames and all seconds later as if nothing had happened.
“So you thought you’d change me back, did you?” Wyatt asked taking steps toward them.
“Why didn’t that work?” Phoebe wanted to know.
“Because I’m not under any spell,” Wyatt informed both of them. “And you can’t just change me back simply by vanquishing Vicus.”
Chris crept closer. What was Wyatt up to? There was still something no at all right here. There was something very strange going on with Wyatt, something stranger still then the fact that he had been turned evil.
“He still got to me,” Wyatt continued, unaware of Chris’ continually closer steps. “And this is how evil grows over the years.”
That's always been your problem, Chris. Stuck in the old good versus evil morass. I'm so past that. It's all about power; it's as simple as that.
The words his brother, this brother, yet different, had said to him came back to him as he listened to Wyatt speak. Somehow the thought seemed familiar. And yet, wasn’t that what evil was really, a search for power at whatever costs? Even then, Wyatt hadn’t been ready to have power at all costs, just most. He hadn’t killed his brother, and when he had killed one family member, he had not taken her powers.
Wyatt was unaware of the tumultuous thoughts going through Chris’ head and their aunts were unaware even of his presence. Wyatt continued without pause. “I don’t plan on giving you a chance to change me back. In fact, I’m gonna make sure you don’t. But first, this should keep you busy for a while.” Wyatt waved first one hand, then the other to the side, red glows surrounding them as demons shimmered into the room, dozens of them, too many to easily escape, too many to even count. “These are the ones that killed Vicus.”
Wyatt!
Not interested, Christopher. Watch it or I’ll tell them you are here.
A low murmur ran through the crowd of demons as they digested the news Wyatt had just delivered.
“Have fun,” Wyatt told them with a glint of a smile, before he started to turn away. He stopped and turned back. “Oh, and . . .” he pointed a finger at them, “no orbing, Aunt Paige.” He waved his hand and Phoebe went flying through the air, hitting a desk and falling hard onto the ground. Wyatt orbed out in black orbs resembling millions of flies buzzing around and the group of demons slowly began to close in on Paige and where Phoebe sat on the ground.
Chris looked once more at the spot where his brother had orbed out on him and sighed as Phoebe and Paige started to fight the demons. Chris remained invisible as he fought along side his aunts. Much as he’d rather not, helping Wyatt would have to wait. Maybe their parents would have better luck.
Back in the great hall, little Wyatt was playing with all the toys on the table. He was secure enough that he was no longer holding Wuvey, but the bear was in easy distance, as if there was a hard distance for a child who could magically bring the bear back to him without a word.
Several feet away Piper and Leo sat on another couch looking worried at their young son. “Try it,” Leo suggested, his hand playing nervously with his chin. He looked at his wife as she began to read a spell.
“Evil taints what was once held dear. Remove the curse away from here.”
Both of them looked expectantly at their son, but if anything happened they couldn’t see it, which meant nothing had.
Leo looked anxiously at their son and then turned back to his wife. “Well, I guess we’ll just try another one.”
Shaking her head, Piper told him. “It’s not gonna work; just like the last fifteen spells didn’t work.” In frustration she added, “Nothing’s gonna change that d**n bear.”
“Well, we can’t just give up,” Leo persisted. His son was not going to turn into that evil young man they saw. He just couldn’t, not after everything that had happened, not after Chris had died for his big brother, not after Leo had stepped over the edge and killed a fellow elder, and ultimately lost his elder powers, becoming a mortal, again.
“What if it’s not just the bear?” Piper asked sadly. “What if the problem is Wyatt?”
Leo stared at her for a moment before saying, “You can’t think like that, Piper.”
Piper continued to look at her husband sadly. “Why not? I mean we try and make the right decisions, and we try and keep him away from bad influences. But ultimately, he’s his own person. We can’t control him forever.”
Leo looked off into the distance at their son playing at the table. There was sadness in his eyes. “And we shouldn’t try.” He looked back at Piper who sighed and looked away. “Look, all you can do is try and be a good influence on him.”
“And then a demon comes in right under our noses and changes him completely,” she added in frustration.
“Okay, well, we knew something was wrong with Wyatt earlier,” Leo reminded her briefly looking at Wyatt before returning his gaze to his wife. “We sensed it. We tried to do something about it. That’s the best you can hope for as a parent.”
Piper looked at him blankly. She blinked and thingyed her head. “Or we can try another spell.”
“You know, maybe that’s the problem,” Leo said looking off at their son. “We’re just trying another spell.”
Piper didn’t see what the problem was. Vicus had used some sort of spell, why should a spell undo it. “So?”
Leo looked strait ahead as he spoke, “So why didn’t the demon do that?” Leo turned his gaze to Piper. “He didn’t just appear today. I mean, what kept him from taking the bear and cursing it if it was that simple?”
And yet it still involved a curse which was a type of spell. “I don’t know,” Piper admitted reluctantly.
“You know, maybe because he needed something else from Wyatt,” Leo said, thinking as he stared straight ahead, “and not just the bear.” Leo turned to his wife. “But his trust.”
Piper and Leo were so busy concentrating on each other and fixing the problem, that at first they didn’t hear the sound of orbing. The did hear the deep, unnatural voice of their evil, adult, son as he said. “Mom. Dad.”
Piper and Leo both turned to look at him in surprise. “How’d he get in here?” Piper asked Leo.
It wasn’t Leo who answered. “I’m still a Halliwell, aren’t I?” Wyatt asked as he walked toward them. “I always hated this place.”
Piper and Leo both stood and walked toward him. “What do you want?” Leo asked, defensively. This was not what and who he wanted his son to turn into. Things were out of their control and he didn’t like it one bit.
“What do you think I want?” Wyatt asked. You could almost hear him rolling his eyes. Really, Dad. You know the answer to that. “Young me, to make sure you don’t screw me up again, trying to turn me good.”
Piper took a few more steps until she was only a couple of feet from him. She looked up, which didn’t help the being stern or the being mom part, but she didn’t let that bother her. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t really have a choice in that matter.”
“What are you gonna do, Mom?” Wyatt asked straight faced. “Kill me in order to protect me?”
Piper appeared to be considering it, then she inclined her head. “It’s a thought.”
Wyatt clearly didn’t believe her. He just breathed out a bit of laughter and reminded her that, “You always said spanking was barbaric.”
Piper looked at him. Anger welled up in her, not at him, but at the demon who had done this to him. He was her son, and yet he was evil. That was something that should never be. She reached up her hands and waved them before Wyatt could react. The resulting blast sent Wyatt across the room, into a stand holding a vase. The stand fell over, knocking the vase to the ground, smashing it.
“Ouch. That hurt.” Wyatt pushed himself to a sitting position. As he stood he spoke, “Seriously never had you pegged as the type of parents who’d hit your kids.” He dark orbed out and reappeared in dark orbs on the other side of the room, behind them.
Piper and Leo turned around. “You stay away from him,” Piper warned.
“Should I stay away from this, too?” Wyatt asked glancing down at the Book of Shadows, laying open on the coffee table.
Piper looked down at it, as if she had forgotten the Book in her concern for her son. And it was only right that she should be more concerned about her son than a book, even that Book.
“You can’t touch it,” Leo told him with absolute certainty.
“Why not?” Wyatt asked, figuring his father was just trying to stall. “It’s my magical inheritance, isn’t it?” With that, Wyatt reached down to pick up the book. The book pushed him back with an orange glow. Wyatt looked wounded over at his father, waiting for an explanation. Why didn’t that work? I have always been able to touch the Book.
“You’re evil now,” Leo told him, by way of a reminder and an explanation.
Rarely thwarted and never daunted Wyatt extended his left hand. It glowed orange, like the cursed bear had earlier. Perhaps an after effect of the spell? Little Wyatt, who had not once looked up from his toys, disappeared in dark orbs and reappeared holding Evil Wyatt’s right hand.
Piper turned from looking at where little son had been to where he was now standing next to himself. In an authoritative voice she commanded, “Let go of him.” There was a little catch in her voice. Fear? Sadness?
Evil Wyatt kept his eyes on her as her squatted down to the level of his little self. “Don’t wait up for me,” was the last thing he said before both versions of Wyatt disappeared in dark orbs.
Piper and Leo stared at the place where their son had disappeared from. Things had just gotten harder.
Chris orbed into the bedroom that his baby self shared with the small version of Wyatt and collapsed on the floor breathing heavily. His invisibility slipped off almost the instant he materialized. After a moment he forced himself to sit up. Why, Wy? What is going on in that head of yours? But he knew. What was going on was that a demon had taken over, a demon who was now gone, but what he did was not. Now that his aunts were safe Chris had to find Wyatt and talk to him.
Chris stood up and looked around the room. Uneasy eyes stopped suddenly as he saw a small figure asleep in the crib. Chris walked over to the bed unsure if he wanted to confirm what he thought he saw. He looked in and sure enough, he saw himself, asleep in bed. Great. Wyatt is causing trouble and they forgot I was here. He looked down for several seconds debating what to do. He obviously couldn’t just leave himself alone, at least not this version of himself, but could he really take himself along on what he was doing? Finally, deciding he had no choice Chris reached into the crib to pick himself up, and felt something hit his leg. Chris stopped and looked down. He saw a rattle lying on the floor with no one around. Unless he wasn’t the only invisible one. “Who’s there?”
There was no response to, so Chris started to bend down again, only to be hit with something else, something sharp, painful, and magical. When he looked down this time, there was nothing, but his jeans had gained a rip in them. He looked around the room. “Okay, so apparently my parents didn’t leave me unguarded. I just can’t see the guard, which means, what, I inherited Wyatt’s elf nanny?” Chris looked around. “Listen, I can’t see you. Obviously the tween places are working properly for the moment, but can you please trust me. We’ve met before. When I was here in the past for over a year, before I was born. Please.”
Chris waited for a moment, hoping for a response of some sort. Maybe he would just have to try and pick himself up, again, and see what happened. Then, he heard something hit the floor. He looked down and saw a cloth item. He knelt down and picked it up, looking for a clue as to what it was. Two shoulder straps, two foot holes, and a third strap to wrap around a person’s waist later, he decided it was some sort of hands free devise to carry a baby in. To carry him in. That apparently was an okay from his invisible guardian. Chris smiled and glanced around. “Sorry, I can’t face you, but thank you.”
Chris looked at the carrier more closely trying to decide how exactly to put it on. He didn’t have much time, but he didn’t trust that the nanny could keep him safe if something tried to attack this room, so he had to work fast.
Wyatt arrived in Vicus’ now empty lair with his little version next to him, in blue-white orbs. His entire body transformed. His hair grew short, again. The facial hair disappeared. His clothes turned light colored, again. Wyatt dropped hold of the hand of his little version and fell to his knees. Little Wyatt stood next to his silently.
The older Wyatt started sobbing. “What just happened?” he asked between sobs. After several minutes Wyatt’s breath was coming in gasps, but the tears had stopped. After several more seconds he got that under control.
Little Wyatt watched silently. He hugged Wuvey to him and walked a few steps away from Wyatt. Wyatt saw him and held out his hand. Little Wyatt disappeared in blue-white orbs and reappeared at Wyatt’s side. “I think you need to stay with me.” Why am I in control, again? Is that really what I will become if someone doesn’t turn me back? Wyatt looked down at the little version of him. “Are you okay?”
Little Wyatt looked up at him silently. He blinked, but did nothing else to indicate he even noticed Wyatt.
Wyatt sighted. “I’m you. Does that make any sense?”
Little Wyatt just looked at him.
Wyatt shook his head sadly. “Won’t you say anything? I don’t like carrying on conversations with myse . . .” A smile crept onto Wyatt’s face as he trailed off, “which is exactly what I am doing.” Wyatt stood up and reached down. He pulled his little version up into his arms. “Come on, let’s get you home. Mom and Dad have got to be worried.” He exhaled slowly. “But they are mad at me, so we can’t go straight to them.”
A demon shimmered into the lair behind Wyatt and something happened. Wyatt turned into the evil version of himself, again. His hair, face, and clothes, all returned to what they had been since Vicus had cursed Wuvey. It was as if the brief moments looking like his normal good self had never been. Someone in the far back of his mind the evil Wyatt heard a voice screaming, a voice very much like his own, wanting out. Evil Wyatt turned around to face the new comer. “Well, well, well. I see I have company. Are you here to help me?”
“With Vicus gone,” the demon began.
“I am in charge here, if that is what you mean.”
The demon nodded his head.
“In that case, are there any left to fight?”
The demon nodded. “There are.”
“Good. I need you to gather them here and wait for my return. I have some things I need to take care of.”
“Can I help?”
“Just get the others.”
The demon nodded and started to shimmer out.
“Wait.”
The demon rematerialized. “Did you need something else?”
Wyatt smiled with evil intent. “No, I just need you to leave on foot. Once you have left the lair, you may shimmer.”
The demon frowned and gave him a quizzical look, but he headed toward the exit on foot.
Evil Wyatt looked down at little Wyatt in his arms. “Now, let us go get our little brother. I want him on our side.” With that, Evil Wyatt vanished in black orbs, Little Wyatt silently in his arms.