Champions All
by W/T4Eva
Sisterhoods
[reviews]
"All right," Piper said to Phoebe, "what's going on? What are you up to?" The three sisters were standing in the back garden of the Halliwell Mansion. A few minutes previously Phoebe had signaled her sisters to be quiet and had then led Piper and Paige outside.
"And what was that spell you just did?" asked Paige.
"I did a privacy spell," said Phoebe quietly, "and now I'd like to do another one with the Power of Three. I'll explain after we've finished."
"OK," said Piper, but it better be good."
The three sisters spoke the spell as Phoebe spread the contents of a steaming pot in a circle around them on the grass. As soon as all was done Piper spoke up again. "Now what..." she began.
"Shhhh," whispered Phoebe with her hand over Piper's mouth. At the same time she grabbed Paige's arm and pulled both of her sisters close to her. "Stay absolutely quiet, whatever happens," she whispered.
A few moments later there was the familiar sight of the bright lights indicating the arrival of a Whitelighter and there was Leo. By now Phoebe had a hand over Paige's mouth as well. Piper glared at Phoebe but stayed silent and waited to see what would happen next.
Leo glanced around him but clearly did not see the three sisters, nor did he see the ring in the grass. He looked a little puzzled but then went into the house.
Phoebe pulled her sisters down so that they were sitting close together on the grass. "OK, I made the spell to hide sound as well, but there's no need to take any chances," she said quietly. "Talk quietly and stop if you see anybody around."
"Did you do all this to avoid Leo?" asked Paige. Does she think Leo's gone bad she thought?
"And if you did why? Don't you trust him?" asked Piper. This better not be another round of my sister turns evil or I'm gonna scream she thought.
"I trust Leo to do what he thinks is best for us," said Phoebe. "I don't trust him to do what we think is best for us."
"You think Leo's up to something," asked Paige. "What exactly?"
"I think Leo's been up to something for a long time and I think he's doing what the elders tell him to," said Phoebe. "That's why I hope those spells are hiding us from the elders. Once we disappeared off their radar I expected Leo to turn up looking for us and presto, there he was."
At that moment Leo came back out of the house clearly having looked for the sisters inside without success. He walked around the garden still looking puzzled and then went over to the side of the house and orbed away.
"OK, give," said Piper. "What do you thinks going on?"
"I've been thinking about Prue," said Phoebe. "The whole Willow and Tara business made me wonder why we couldn't talk to Prue. That excuse about it being too soon is quite literally getting old."
"Well it's been a while since we last tried," said Piper. "Let's try again now."
"No go," said Phoebe shaking her head. "I tried again this morning. No joy."
"So what do you thinks happening?" asked Paige. "Do you think the elders are blocking Prue from responding to us?"
"Maybe," said Phoebe. "That's one possibility. There are others."
"Such as?" asked Piper.
"Prue may not want to respond."
Piper shook her head. "No, I won't accept that. Prue would never do that."
"Prue would do that and more, if she thought it was for our own good," said Phoebe.
"What other possibilities?" asked Paige.
"Well...this may be a long shot but...we're doing spells to call the dead. What if Prue wasn't dead?" suggested Phoebe.
"Oh honey," said Piper putting her arms around Phoebe. "She's dead, we know she's dead, we saw her. Besides, the Power of Three was broken."
"Let's just suppose for a minute," continued Phoebe doggedly. "We know a lot more about magic than we used to. If you wanted to fake your death do you know enough magic to do it, because I do? Don't forget Prue was always stronger than us. If Prue decided to drop out of sight she could have done it and she could have broken the power of three at the same time."
"Now wait a minute," objected Piper. "First you say Prue might be alive, now you're saying she's the one who was behind all this, whatever it is. I'm not convinced it's anything at all."
"Weren't you just saying this was all the elders and Leo," asked Paige.
"Look, I'm just making suggestions," explained Phoebe. "I don't know what's behind it. What I do know is there's something fishy about us not being able to contact Prue. I think Leo and the elders know something about it that they've not told us. I don't think Prue or Leo or even the elders have done anything other than what they thought was in our best interests, but I don't know."
"So what's your plan?" Piper asked Phoebe. She knew her sister too well to believe that Phoebe just wanted to talk. She had something in mind and she wanted her sisters to help her with it.
Phoebe smiled. "I want us to do a spell, right now, to take us to Prue, wherever that is," she said. "I've got all the ingredients and the wording here."
After a short hesitation Paige spoke up. "I'm in," she said. "I know I don't miss Prue in the same way that you guys do but I really, really miss not having known her." To Paige Prue was something of a legend. The fact that she was at the same time her sister had made Paige very frustrated that they had never met.
"You know there's a risk don't you," said Piper. "This might be a one way trip." Phoebe nodded. "That might be why Leo and the elders don't want us to contact Prue," continued Piper. Phoebe still kept silent but Piper could see that Phoebe and probably Paige as well, were determined to go ahead, with or without her. "OK," said Piper, "let's do it."
Phoebe nodded again and opened the bag that she had with her. She never had any doubts about Piper agreeing. Piper misses Prue as much as I do, thought Phoebe, maybe even more. She had however been pleased and a little surprised by Paige's prompt agreement.
After a few moments Phoebe had everything ready. Piper and Paige stood close to her and they joined hands. As they finished chanting the spell the world about them started to fade.
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Amy sat on the floor of the front room of the Summers House to carry out her spell to find the Sunnydale potential. Buffy, Dawn, Giles, Xander and Anya sat about and watched her as did the five potentials, Vi, Molly, Annabelle, Rona and Sophie.
"Hey, do you think this girl, this potential, goes to Sunnydale?" asked Dawn.
"Probably, she's got to be about that age. I wonder who she is," replied her sister, mentally going through the girls she knew at the school. Since she unconsciously tried to think of somebody she thought was like her she failed to come up with any likely candidates.
"Could be anybody," said Dawn. "Could be that glamazon in gym class, what's her name? Or, my lab partner, Margot, the freak. Boy, I hope not, because she totally fainted right in the middle of our foetal pig dissection. Somehow I just don't think she's cut out for the slayage biz."
"Well, we'll know soon enough who the next potential is. Somebody's life is about to change," said Giles.
"You know, if it is Margot, she's so gonna faint," said Dawn.
"How long will it take?" asked Molly. "Will we find out who it is right away?"
"Pretty much," replied Amy. "The spell will conjure up this brilliant light, and the light will find the potential and it'll illuminate her with a glowing aura," or at least that's the way it's meant to work she added mentally.
"I don't remember a glowing aura when I became a potential," said Rona.
"And I don't remember Aura glowing," said Xander.
"That's because you weren't allowed into the girls' locker room," said Anya.
"I've enchanted this map," said Amy gesturing to a map on the coffee table, "so we can track her basic location. We'll have to hot-foot it, but I'm betting we find her tonight."
Some time later Amy sat in front of the lit fireplace. She had a mortar and pestle on the hearth and her ingredients were laid out. Dawn, Anya and Xander were also still in the room. The potentials, except Sophie, had gone into the kitchen to eat. Buffy had taken Sophie on her first patrol. Giles had gone to the UC Sunnydale library to carry out some research.
As she recited the spell, Amy threw each item she mentioned into the fire:
"To light the aura of the new, skin of snake and chrysalis too.
To indicate the fresh reborn, tumbleweed and rosebush thorn.
An egg that means the life to come. Take this, oh spirit, and my spell is done."
As Amy finished the spell recitation, an orange haze emanated from the fireplace. Everyone in the room wrinkled up their noses and started coughing.
"Oh, good God," said Xander, "what is that smell?"
"I'm fairly sure that's the smell of a hardboiled egg being thrown into a fire," said Anya covering her nose with her hand.
"Uh-huh," agreed Xander.
"The smell will lead us to the potential," said Amy also covering her nose with her hand.
The orange haze from the fire had gathered in the center of the room, making a mass of glowing light. Anya, Dawn and Xander stood in a circle and the light moved around in the middle of the circle.
"Is it supposed to be shimmying all over like that?" asked Xander at the same time wondering if Amy really knew what she was doing. He remembered all too well what had happened at Sunnydale High a few years before.
"I don't know, I don't think so," replied Amy deepening Xander's misgivings.
"I'm gonna open the door and let this place air out," said Xander waving at the air in front of him as he walked to the front door. Suddenly, the mass of light congealed and formed into a solid beam and headed straight for Dawn
"Dawn!" cried Xander.
The light hit Dawn with such a force that it picked her up and pinned her to the wall. The light went straight into her, and she dropped to the ground, her chest still glowing orange. Somewhat disoriented, Dawn looked at Amy, Xander and Anya with wide eyes.
"Looks like we've found our new potential," said Xander.
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Piper, Phoebe and Paige found themselves standing in a forest glade, or as Phoebe thought a clearing in the jungle. They had cast the spell during the evening but it now seemed to be about midday. Perhaps they were in a different part of the world she thought.
"So where are we and where's Prue," asked Paige. "Didn't the spell work?"
"We'd still be in the garden if it hadn't worked," Phoebe explained, trying to convince herself at the same time that something hadn't gone wrong.
"Let's have a look around," said Piper walking towards what looked to be a path leading out of the clearing.
They walked along the path for about ten minutes and found themselves on what appeared to be a tropical beech. This is crazy thought Phoebe, that spell should either have left us in the garden or taken us straight to Prue.
"Look at this," said Paige who had wandered a little way along the beech while Piper and Phoebe had been looking at the sea. Piper and Phoebe walked over to her. Stretching away along the beech were footprints, human footprints from bare feet. Piper slipped off a shoe and measured her foot alongside one of the prints. It was exactly the same size. "Same size as me," she said, "which means the same size as Prue."
They set off to follow the footprints. "I'm glad they're barefoot prints," said Paige. "This is just the sort of situation you read about where somebody follows footprints all around an island and then realizes they've been following themselves."
As they walked along they saw a formation of rocks jutting out of the sand ahead of them. It was soon clear that the footprints lead to the rocks. As they walked they gradually made out a figure sat on one of the rocks. A person who was sat down watching them approach.
The three sisters quickened their pace and soon they were running forward. Could it be? It looked like it might be. It was! It was Prue. Prue was sitting in the rocks watching her three sisters run towards her. The three running sisters all had broad smiles on their faces. Prue however looked worried, very worried.
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Wesley came downstairs having spent the night at the hotel after the big fight the previous night with the demons and vampires. As usual after it was all over the local population was making the familiar mental adjustment. He had heard mention of gang warfare and drug violence even though it should have been clear to any witness that there had been creatures in downtown LA that were far from human.
Even the darkness was now being explained away. Wesley had had the TV on whilst he dressed and had heard reference on a news programme to the recent incident of heavy pollution darkening the sky in LA for several days.
Wesley could see nobody about in the foyer but saw Angel alone in the office and went in.
"Nobody else about?" asked Wesley. "Am I the first out of bed?"
"You're nearly the last," replied Angel surprising Wesley. "All the girls have gone shopping. Faith and Tara don't have anything so the others are gonna kit them out. As I owe them big time I'm paying."
"Cordy and Willow are taking Faith shopping?" asked Wesley doubtfully. I don't remember them exchanging two words last night he thought. I didn't think they'd all forgive and forget so soon.
"Well no," replied Angel. "Faith went with Gwen and Kennedy. Cordy and Fred went with Willow and Tara."
Wesley nodded, needing no further explanation. However Angel seemed to be down. Well Angel was usually down but even so. "I should think you could afford a little happiness at the way things turned out," Wesley began. "Didn't Willow..."
"I've been thinking, remembering what I...what Angelus...what I did when I was Angelus," said Angel.
"Something bad?" asked Wesley.
"No, nothing really bad," explained Angel. "It's as if he was holding back. He never actually killed anybody, anybody human that is."
"And this is bad?" asked Wesley.
"I think Angelus was being influenced by me," said Angel, "and if that's true..."
"You're worried that Angelus might influence you," completed Wesley. "It doesn't necessarily follow you know."
"How so?" asked Angel.
"Well you might have been supplying a little of something that Angelus lacked," suggested Wesley.
"A soul you mean?" asked Angel.
"Soul, conscience, a sense of right and wrong, who knows," said Wesley. "Anyway Angelus doesn't have what you lack. He's incomplete, you're not. It won't necessarily work the other way round."
"But why this time?" asked Angel. "It never happened that way when I was Angelus before."
Wesley shrugged. "Maybe it's cumulative, maybe you have a stronger and stronger influence on Angelus each time you change," he suggested.
"Sort of like Jackal and Hide," said Angel. "With each change the effect is stronger?"
"Rather a reverse of Jackal and Hide perhaps," said Wesley who had a sudden thought. "Don't you think the original Angelus, the monster who killed his way across Europe, would have killed Buffy? Don't you think you still had some small influence on him even after you changed into Angelus in Sunnydale?
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"You know, in all the years we've known each other this is the first time we've been shopping together," said Willow to Cordelia.
"You could have avoided a few fashion disasters if you'd spent some quality time shopping with me rather than all that time researching through Giles' dusty old books," said Cordelia sounding more and more like the Cordelia Willow knew and..., and had gotten used to.
Willow, Tara, Cordelia and Fred were sat at a table in a quiet corner of a small cafe having a coffee and a short rest before completing their shopping day out. Willow had enjoyed herself enormously dressing Tara, or rather letting Cordelia take charge. As Cordelia said, when it came to shopping and fashion she was the Slayer.
"Do you think...," began Tara but she didn't finish because Cordelia abruptly slumped back in her chair and looked like sliding off it altogether. Willow and Fred rushed to either side of her but Cordelia rapidly recovered.
"Another one?" asked Tara. "Are you all right? I can, uh, help if you need it."
"Tara's got this great ability to um..." began Willow who looked at Tara wondering if it was OK to continue.
Tara continued herself. "I can heal in an emergency, especially if it's a mystic thing, caused by demons and so on."
"No, I'm fine," said Cordelia, "now that I'm part demon it's not serious any more, just a little headache."
"Part demon?" said Willow, exchanging glances with Tara. They both had the same memory in mind, the visit of the Maclay family to Sunnydale two years before. "Who told you, you were part demon?"
Cordelia explained what had happened to her. How the visions had got more and more painful and had threatened her life. How Skip had come to her and how she'd decided to become part demon.
"But not a bad demon," said Fred nervously. "She's still Cordy, she's still on our side."
"That was very brave of you Cordy," said Willow. I didn't think she had it in her she thought. Cordy really has changed a lot.
"The only thing is," said Tara, "you're not part demon. There's no demon in you. You've been lied to."
"What!" said Cordy who did not know whether to be glad or sad, "Are you sure? Because I've done a few things since it all happened."
"Believe me," said Tara. "If you were part demon I'd be able to detect it."
"You can do that?" asked Willow.
"Yes, if I have reason to look carefully," said Tara. "This creature Skip was lying to you. It was probably him or whoever he was working for who gave you the pains to make you agree to what they wanted."
"But what about the visions?" asked Cordelia, "and the other things that I've done." She explained how she'd got the visions from her friend the half demon Doyle and the 'demon' powers she'd used since she'd seen Skip. This led on to her explaining about her second meeting with Skip, and her now very vague memories as a 'higher being.'
"I can explain some of this but I need to go report this all to somebody who knows a lot more than me," said Tara. "The powers you've used, even the visions, are not demon powers, they're witch powers. Your friend Doyle didn't have the visions because he was part demon but because he was part human, that is to say part witch."
"So I'm a witch?" asked Cordelia.
"If only Xander were here now," said Willow. "We called you the wicked witch of the west for months after we saw the Wizard of Oz together."
"Yes, you're a witch," agreed Tara. "Your powers have gradually been awakening and getting stronger. You wouldn't have been able to take Doyle's visions if you didn't already have some power of your own. It's an old trick to make a witch doubt herself by telling her that her power comes from the devil."
"So what was this Skip up to?" asked Fred.
"I don't know," replied Tara, "but I know somebody who might know. Look, there's more than enough stuff here for me. Can you guys get it all back to the hotel? I'd better go and see him now. I'll see you back there later."
Willow, Cordelia and Fred agreed to take care of the shopping and Tara left. To Cordelia's surprise Tara went into the ladies room. Willow explained that Tara simply needed to get out of sight so she could orb away.
Willow, Cordelia and Fred gathered up the shopping and left. It was only as they were getting into the car that Cordelia remembered to tell the others what her vision was all about.