“Gave you a scare there, eh?” added Piper at her Grams expression.
“Why you…” began Prue, but try as she might, a smile still broke through her gritted teeth and she gave Paige a playful shove. “You are so lucky none of us are going to remember this. Or my revenge would be so sweet…”
Paige glanced at Triad Piper with a raised eyebrow as they seemed to be in some sort of exchange. “She what - Really?!” she exclaimed aloud. “And here I thought Phoebe was the queen of all revenge pranks!”
“Who do you think I learned it from?” replied the older Phoebe, guessing at what Piper had just told Paige.
“Don’t blame me for your delinquency,” intoned Prue in false warning.
Younger Phoebe nodded. “You’re right. You never had the gift for it like I do!”
Penny smiled in relief, along with her grandkids, but quickly refocused the group. “Now,” she began and swung the basement door open. “Let’s get back to putting things as they should be before Chris’ grandchildren show up, saying we’ve messed something else up!” she proclaimed and headed back up to the attic, her family not far behind. “Starting with blessing Ninsun’s Tear.”
“Wait a minute, I’m confused,” said the younger Phoebe.
“Don’t even think about saying it,” warned the older Phoebe when Prue began to open her mouth.
“Sure, ruin all my fun,” replied Prue with a playful smirk.
“Anyway,” continued the younger Phoebe. “If you got Ninsun’s Tear from the future, who already got it from Grams, wouldn’t it already be blessed by us? Who got it from the future, too…” She pressed a finger against her temple. “Ouch.”
“The ward was activated when Kaalaya attacked,” said Triad Piper. “And it was drained of its power upon use.”
“That’s what the shield protecting us was,” added Paige.
“Meaning you were protected by the power that you, or we, blessed it with, so you would be able to be take in the Triad’s power, right?” said Prue.
The younger Phoebe exchanged a look with her older self, who just shrugged. “Just go with it. I learned a long time ago that it doesn’t need to make sense, as long as it works.”
Leo nodded. “That’s the nature of paradoxes. And why messing with the timeline is best not done at all.”
The older Phoebe held up her hands. “Hey, you won’t get any argument from me!”
Once Penny, all the sisters, Chris, and Leo were all settled upstairs Penny and Leo made quick work of preparing a blessing ceremony for the triquetra charm. The non-Triad sisters meanwhile worked on a potion to go with the warding rite.
“Thistle… ashwood… turnip blossom…” read off the younger Piper. She scanned the ingredients laid out on the table. “Is that everything?”
Prue and Younger Phoebe nodded. “Looks like it. How are things going with Larry, Moe, and Curly?” Prue asked, looking at Piper, Chris, and Paige, who appeared to be communing in an animated, but silent fashion, across the room.
“Still talking in their little twin language over there,” answered the older Phoebe.
“Still hearing perfectly well, too,” answered all three, though the tone sounded more like it came from Piper.
“So creepy,” said Prue, shaking her head.
“The sooner you finish the sooner we can separate them,” said Penny.
“And we’re going to do that how, exactly?” asked the younger Piper.
“We’re working on it. Or would be, if we could get some peace and quiet with our thoughts and focus,” replied the charmed Triad, the tone recognizable as Paige to Phoebe. ‘Or maybe Chris,’ she considered. ‘Or Piper. Those three are more alike when they’re annoyed than they’ll ever know.’
“Normally, destroying the item which was used to create the bond would also dissolve it, but apparently we can’t destroy it, since Penny needs to give it to that shopkeep in China Town,” replied Leo.
A poof of smoke, followed by a golden glow indicated that the potion was ready. “Bring that over here, dear,” said Penny. “I think we’re ready to begin.”
Prue brought the still-bubbling cauldron of potion to the center of circle of salt which Penny had poured out on the attic floor and gently placed it down. “So, what’s with the salt, anyway?” she asked.
“Dear, have you done any reading to educate yourselves at all?” said Penny, using the scolding tone she had when Prue hadn’t done her homework growing up.
“Uh – the Book of Shadows… what else is there?” replied Prue. “You don’t expect me to believe something put out by Random House do you?”
“You’d be surprised,” answered the older Phoebe. “And Grams, give them a break. It’s not like we grew up with this stuff. Heck, I still thought leprechauns were myths until a couple years ago.”
“Leprechauns?!” exclaimed Prue and the younger Phoebe. “How adorable are they?” asked her younger self.
“You remember that cranky old janitor at our Jr. High School?” asked the older Phoebe rhetorically. “Like that. Only less helpful.”
Younger Phoebe’s face dropped a bit. “Oh.”
“Oh, they’re okay I guess. But you’d think guys with pots of gold would be a little less whiny. Anyway, salt repels evil forces. Thus, the circle.”
“Which we will be performing the blessing inside of,” added Penny.
“Okay,” said Prue. “So, now what?”
“Chris, Paige, Piper, I want you three to stand over here, at the book. The rest of us will use you as a focusing point,” said Penny.
“How do we do that?” asked the younger Piper.
“Ok, well, how will they do that?” asked Prue.
“We know,” the three intoned. “We can already feel it. Probably the threads of magic that flow through all things. It’s called the Ethereal-“ at this tangent, Paige and Piper stopped speaking and rolled their eyes as Chris continued. “-Tapestry. The Avidaivid ritual draws on the principle magical threads that come from the one True Source – you know, of magic – and are weaved through all existence. So, like a spider sitting on his web, we can feel the ‘vibration’ of others moving along …the …threads…” He finally trailed off, realizing that he was speaking alone, and everyone else’s eyes had glazed over. “Anyway, that’s how whitelighters feel their charges, or servants of the Source can sense. We have that same connection, just enhanced, by becoming a Triad,” he finished quickly.
“Ditto,” said Paige and Piper in unison, both wearing devilish smirks. “We should have had him teaching at magic school.”
Older Phoebe quirked her right eyebrow up. “Chris? A teacher?” she chuckled.
“Hey!” said Chris and Piper in unison before Chris continued. “I happen to help out Dad from time to time.”
“Alright, while I’m not exactly digging on the idea of us being the bugs caught in your magical spider web, I get what you’re saying,” said Prue. “So, do we need to do anything special?” she asked, turning to Penny and Leo.
Leo shook his head no as Penny nodded. “You merely need to focus on your Nephew and sisters – all of you do – and while we say the spell, Leo will drop the trinket in it at the correct moment. And voila! Simply as that. Now, are we ready?”
The group nodded and took up their places along the inside of the protection circle of salt. Penny turned the podium around so that everyone could see the protection ward blessing spell. The non-Triad members of the group joined hands, while Paige, Chris, and Piper held their hands, palms out, as if to absorb the groups power from the ether, and they began the recitation.
We call upon our Warren magic,
Bane of evil, without respite,
Ward the bearer of this trinket,
Let no darkness hide from thy sight,
When blessed words meet elixir’s might.
At the last word Leo dunked the silver triquetra amulet into the potion and stepped back as Piper, Chris, and Paige’s hands began to emanate a soft glow. The amulet answered in turn, bathing the circle with a warm golden glow. The effect lasted only a few seconds before everything returned to normal.
“Well, I’d say it looks like it worked,” remarked Prue.
“By George, I think we just might get out of this little adventure before I go grey,” said the younger Phoebe as she picked up the amulet out of the cauldron.
“Shh!” hissed the younger Piper before lightly slapping her on the shoulder. “Don’t jinx it!” Phoebe rolled her eyes with a toothy smile.
“She’s kinda right though,” said the older Phoebe. “I mean, getting back to our own times is easy enough, but the only way we’ve found to break the Triad was to vanquish them. And even then, it only banished them for a while.”
“Well, that’s obviously not an option,” replied Prue.
“And we can’t destroy that stupid totem, ‘cause we need it to be in the future to bring it back here… God, do I hate time paradoxes,” grumbled the younger Piper.
“I’m afraid I’m at a bit of a loss myself, girls,” said Penny.
“We’re not,” replied Chris, Piper, and Paige.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” asked Prue.
“We’ve been communing,” the three answered. At the amused look from their sisters/aunts, the three leveled what could only be termed the Halliwell glare. “You got a better word for it? That’s what we thought,” they deadpanned in Piper’s tone.
“Alright! Sorry! What have you got?” said Prue.
It was Paige alone who spoke this time. “Simple. We give up the power.”
“Uh, yeah,” Prue furrowed her brow. “That’s the idea. But the question is still how.”
“That is how,” replied Chris. “The power within us isn’t possessing us. We posses it.”
“Like when we received the powers of the ancient Grecian gods,” added Paige. “Only when we declared ourselves gods did we possess the power to defeat the Titans.”
“And no one could take it from me until I was ready to let it go,” finished the older Piper, remembering the moment she’d been forced to accept losing Leo to the Elders.
“And without a home… the link to the Triad powers should go back into Ninsun’s Tear,” said Leo.
“Well, I think it’s worth a try,” said Penny.
“No offense Grams, but that almost seems a little too simple,” replied Prue.
“But not without precedent,” replied the older Phoebe. “You saw for yourself, not too long ago, right? When I had to be burned at the stake for us to learn our lesson and return home?”
“Wait, you what?!” exclaimed Penny.
“Bad alternate future Grams, relax. Don’t worry about it, it’s not going to happen,” said the younger Piper. Penny looked at her granddaughter skeptically but let it drop in favor of the more pressing issue of getting her girls home.
Prue shrugged. “Alright, you’ve got a point. I mean, what harm could it do if it’s not even a spell?”
The younger Piper threw up her hands. “Seriously, people! Do you want to jinx this, saying that kind of thing?” causing everyone else to laugh.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road then before Piper starts knocking on every piece of wood in the attic,” said the older Phoebe.
“Here goes nothing,” said the charmed triad. They all drew in a deep breathe and exhaled slowly, clearing their minds to focus on willing the threads binding them together, and to the one true source of magic, to loosen. The three could soon feel something come undone; akin to feeling a balloon tied to your wrist with too loose a knot slip off and away. The rest of the family watching the three saw nothing at first, then, suddenly a brilliant golden light flared in the trio’s eyes. The light quickly fled from the window to each witch’s souls before being sucked back into the tear-shaped stone that acted as it’s link between the material and ethereal realms.
Before Piper could respond a blinding flash of light filled the room. When Penny opened her eyes again she found the room empty of all but herself and Leo.
He glanced about, confused as well. “I’ll check with the Elders,” he said quickly before orbing away.