"SO? Did you get it?" asked Paige in a rush. "I mean..." she caught herself, "did everything go okay?"
The elder Phoebe smirked. "Smoothest jump so far, actually."
Prue nodded matter of factly. "And we have the totem."
"Nice attitude, by the way," the older Piper remarked at Paige.
Paige cocked her head quizzically. "Eehhh?"
The Phoebe of Paige's time gave her a wry grin. "Do you happen to remember four women, one older than the rest? Giving you a hard time for stealing... and smoking? In China Town when you were about 15? They confiscated your bracelet?"
Paige pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment, squinting her eyes shut tightly before she began to play with ring on her finger - a classic fidgety move for Paige when embarrassed. "Well!" she barked in a bright laugh, accompanied by an embarrassed smile. "That was you guys, huh?"
The three sisters nodded, with Piper's smirk especially self-satisfied.
"Huh! Hadn't thought about that in years! Well! You know... youth and all..." At the amused look from her sisters, Paige continued to try to close the subject she was trying to drop. "I suppose I shouldn't have thought I'd get out of this whole convoluted thing without some embarrassment from my past self. Look... Yeah, I know, I was a pain-in-the-ass teen. And I'm sorry. Okay? Can we just drop it?"
Piper let out a bark of a laugh at this. "Hell!" she shrugged. "I was just hoping to give you a little bit of a hard time. But I'll definitely take the apology!" Piper dug the bracelet out of her pocket and tossed it at Paige, who caught it in a move mirroring Piper's move when Paige had tossed it to her. “You’re still not allowed on my shuffleboard team, though” she added with a wink.
Paige dangled the tear drop shaped stone before her face. "Never thought I'd see this again. Heck. I never even knew why I was drawn to it! Or why I didn't recognize it in the book..." As a mutual silence fell across the group, Paige cocked her head. "Sooo... now what do we do?"
"Well..." began Penny, as she leaned her left hip against the loveseat and crossed her arms. "As I see it, this Kaalaya may or may not know that we've put an end to his plan to erase Leo's mortal days, so..."
"Odds are that either he's going to act on his final plan. Or against us," filled in Paige.
Penny nodded in approval. "Exactly. Very good!"
Paige shrugged the compliment off with a smile. "Well, you do this long enough..."
The older Piper, not so interested in the exchange, pushed on. "Okay, so which?"
Chris piped up at this. "Well, given that he can only open so many portals in so many time frames-"
"-it stands to reason that he probably has no clue if his little scheme worked. For certain, at any rate," finished Prue. The others nodded their agreement.
Penny shot upright from her relaxed position. "The first thing we need to do is destroy this... thing!" She gestured at the tear shaped stone.
Chris nodded. "We've got the one that he wants. Probably the only one he can locate, or else Grams wouldn't have been the first to note it in the book. Unless she only did that because you came back... or forward? Whatever. Came to get it."
Both Pipers brought fingers to their temples and began to rub. The elder of the two held up her free hand. "Just... yeah." She shook her head. "Sorry. Go ahead."
Penny added her assent to what Chris was saying. "So - once we destroy it, no ritual."
"And no ripping apart of the universe," finished the younger Phoebe.
“There’s just one problem…” interjected Prue. “We can’t destroy it.”
“It’ll be tricky, but there’s always a way, honey,” said Penny.
Prue shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean.” She turned to the older Piper and Phoebe who had come to 1993 with her. “Didn’t either of you notice the bell above Quan’s shop door?”
Piper shook her head in the negative, while Phoebe furrowed her brow. “Yeah. Pretty standard. Are they for luck or something?”
“Normally, yes. Many Chinese shops have a bell above the door, with a coin in place of the standard metal ball. It’s supposed to attract prosperity every time it rings.”
“Right… Feng Shui, right?” said Phoebe.
Prue nodded. “Right. But this one had a Triquetra.”
“Okay, odd. But what does it mean?” asked the younger Piper.
“Quan said he took on the totem in exchange in exchange for the most powerfully blessed ward against evil ever known,” older Piper replied to herself.
“So we can’t destroy the totem because Grams is going to give it to him?” replied Paige. “Greeeat.”
Penny meanwhile, had retrieved a small velvet box. “I must have, or will, give him this,” she said, pulling a silver triquetra on a silver chain from the box. “If all of you were to bless this with a protection ward, it would be twice-blessed by the most powerful force of good on this earth. Quite rare. And even more powerful.”
“Right. By why not leave it here, protected in the Manor?” asked Paige.
“I think you’re all more than familiar with what a target this house is. Keeping such a dangerous item would be risky even if Kaalaya weren’t targeting the family,” said Grams.
“Not to mention, he’s probably been searching for this a millennia,” added Prue.
Penny nodded. “The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. The Quans are a powerful magical family, despite having no powers. Give them such a powerful ward in addition to that, and it’s one of the safest places to hide such an item.”
"Okay, so we bless this thing, Grams asks him to protect it until 1993, at which point he should put it on display, but not sell it. And let Paige shoplift it,” replied Prue.
“And then we just have his demon ass to vanquish," added Paige.
The older Piper dropped her hand from her head, crossing her arms, brows furrowed. "Right. But that still leaves the question of how we vanquish a demon who isn't here. Or - anywhere."
"Well..," began Prue, ever trying to be the problem solver."We did vanquish that one demon, Abraxas, who was in his own reality bubble." She squinted for a moment. "At least... that's what it seemed like. Right?" She looked at all the other sisters, who each, aside from Paige, nodded.
"So, we... summon him somewhere? Like that park where we vanquished Abraxas?" asked the younger Piper.
The older Piper nodded. "Yeah. I think so. Except not that park. The Manor is actually the spot of our greatest power."
Penny nodded as well, seeing where this was going despite not knowing exactly what the incident they were describing was. "Yes! The Nexus! If you were to perform the Triad ritual yourselves... well - three of you anyway - yes! Not only would you have the power to destroy the curse on the amulet, but probably enough to break this damnable demon's little pocket universe once and for all! You've been to each point in time yourselves – one of you at least – so it should meet the requirement. In theory, of course," she waved her hand about and shrugged as she said the last.
Chris leaned back, rubbing his fingers through the back of his hair. "Is that really a good idea Grams? I mean, that much power in the hands of anyone..."
"This from the guy who made us gods?" shot back Paige with a smirk.
The three sisters from 1999 all opened their mouths simultaneously, looking like a group of landed fish, before shutting them, realizing they probably wouldn't get an answer anyway.
Chris shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying that was a good idea. Looking back, that is."
"Well, I think it’s the only option we've got at the moment," said the older Piper.
"But a ritual meant to make the Triad? Couldn't that turn us evil? I mean, it’s an evil ritual, right?" asked the younger Phoebe.
Chris shook his head. "It’s a power grab – not evil per se. Like you guys always said, it’s not the power that corrupts the person, it’s the person that corrupts their powers."
"We taught you that?" asked Piper. "What, do we just become walking aphorisms in the future?"
Chris chuckled. "Not quite like that. But yeah, you did. That and seeing both possible futures for Wyatt... I know it’s true."
Penny nodded. "I may have only spent a day with you girls, but I know you can handle it and do what’s right – which is to destroy that power forever once it’s in your hands. Besides, Kaalaya is bound to send someone after you once he figures out we have that totem. It’s the best plan we've got."
"So we need to act fast," agreed Prue, the third matriarch of the Halliwell line in the room. "But if the demon needed two beings from other... classes or levels or whatever, to make this work, wouldn't we need the same thing? Or the good guy's version anyway?"
Paige raised an eyebrow sardonically. "I think we’ve already got that."
The older Phoebe, following her line of thought, nodded and smirked. "Witch, Whitelighter, Elder?"
Paige returned the smile. "Exactly."