That night, the three of them, Luke, Jackie, and Alex, sat in the family room.

Jackie: “So do you think the binding spell worked?”

Alex: “No. I couldn’t really find his mind. The tonic must have blocked it. The spell should’ve worn off by now.” – He turns from Jackie and faces Luke. –

Jackie: “So what happens now? What do we do?”

Luke: “There isn’t much you can do. Just keep fighting.”

Alex: “Keep fighting…after this? The Elders still expect their ‘precious Charmed Ones’ to fight evil when evil is our own brother?” – He looks at Jackie, then back at Luke. – “No Luke. I don’t think I can. I quit. I lost my mother and father to evil and I just lost Mike. Tell them to find someone else.” He gets up and starts for his room.

Jackie: “You’re not serious are you? We can’t just stop.”

Alex: “Well, we’re about to. And even if we did go on there’d be no point.”

Luke: “There isn’t anyone else. The three of you are the only ones strong enough for this.”

Alex: “I doubt Michael would want to vanquish himself.”

Jackie: “What do you mean?”

Alex: “Without Michael, there is no power of three. We aren’t ‘Charmed’ anymore. There’s no way we could continue the fight. Evil won… we failed.”

Luke orbs to stand in front Alex and grabs his shirt, clearly angry.

Luke: “You are not going to give this up. You have to keep fighting. If you don’t…The Order will fall.”

Alex: - He grabs Luke’s hand and takes them off his shirt. – “Watch me.” – He pushes Luke to the side and goes to the attic. The book of shadows sat there closed. The cover was different again. The three joining ovals that made up the triquetra were separated, one of them taking the form of a thorn vine, the other two still the bright gold metal. ----------------------- The Source’s Chambers: Piper: “So…how do you feel?”

Michael: “Free. At last free from all that fighting. I don’t know why I didn’t give into this before.” – He turns to look at a crystal on one of the center altars and puts his hand out in front of him. – Phoebe: “What are you doing?” Michael: “Just trying something.” – He stares at the crystal and focuses on it and only it erasing everything else from sight. For a second his eyes gave off a black light. The crystal became red and became surrounded by fire but went through no other change. – “I was right. My powers were going to be expanded. Just like in the dream.” Phoebe: “And that’s just the beginning.” Paige: “Phoebe, aren’t you worried about what The Seer said about the Black Council?” Michael: “The Black Council of Mages?” Piper: “Yeah. How did you know about that? The Elders didn’t tell anybody except their white-lighters and they were sworn to secrecy.” Michael: “Our white-lighter told us couple months ago. He said the oracle, Baram…something, predicted the fall of The Elders and the rise of The Arch-Council.” Phoebe: “So she was right?” Michael: “Is that bad?” Phoebe: “According to prophecies if the Arch-Council rises all witches and warlocks will become mortal and live a life based on their karma.” Michael: “So what do we do?” Phoebe: “Not much we can do. And there’s no one we could ask since you vanquished The Seer.” Next to Piper, a clutter of black orbs appears. Piper: “Leo! What a nice surprise.” - They lean in for a small kiss. – “Michael this is my husband, Leo.” – Leo looks Michael in the eyes and notices something but because he wasn’t sure he kept it to himself. – Leo: “Wow. You guys actually managed to turn a ‘Charmed One’ evil.” Paige: “Did you doubt we could?” Leo: “Well he was a…” Piper: “ A ‘Charmed One’. Yes, we know.” - Obviously tired of hearing the phrase over and over again. – Leo: “Yeah but he was also half white-lighter. Paige was the last of you three to change because her white-lighter side kept fighting.” Phoebe: “Leo what could you tell us about the Dark Council of Mages?” Leo: “Not much except that their abilities exceed those of witches. I can try to find something out if you want?” Piper all of a sudden became confused. Piper: “Wha…what do you mean? Orb up to The Elders to ask them?” Leo: “Yup.” Paige: “That’s crazy. They’ll catch you.” Leo: “No they won’t. I’ll just disguise my orb. Be back in a little bit.” – He closed his eyes and became surrounded by the dark orbs. As he started to rise the orbs changed from black to blue. – Phoebe: “Wonder why he never offered to do that before?” Piper: “He hates Cole. Remember?” Phoebe nods an ‘oh yeah, I forgot’ and Paige turns to Michael. Paige: “So…up for a bit of training?” Michael: “Training?” Piper: “Yeah, usually Cole handles that type of stuff but since we’re the only ones left as a challenge we got to do it.” Michael: “Sure. Yeah, I guess.” Piper, Phoebe and Paige surround Michael. Even with his powers expanded he didn’t think he could take on all three witches at the same time. He kept circling so that he could keep an eye on them all but they were rotating as well which made that a little harder. Out of nowhere a fireball hits Michael’s back. He turns to look at Phoebe who is standing with her hand out forward. Phoebe: “Always be alert. Use all your senses.” ----------------------- A Week Later, The Manor: Alex sat in his room looking up at the night sky. Everything was lost. To Alex, evil had triumphed over good and nothing could save the world from its corruption. But Luke was right. They were The Elder’s only hope. But Alex wouldn’t unless Mike came looking for it. The door swung open hard and Jackie walked in with blood on her arm. Alex looked at her and jumped to his feet. Jackie: “We got trouble. A demon just came in here to ‘finish us off’. I managed to fight him away but it’s definitely coming back.” Alex: “All right. Well if he’s coming back we might as well kill it if we could. Get Luke to heal you then come up to the attic. I’ll see what I can find. What can you tell me about him?” Jackie: “Umm…he was carrying a short blade or sword and he was immune to my deflection power.” Alex: “If he’s immune to our powers it makes it that much harder to defeat him. Especially if it’s just the two of us.” This has to stop. Jackie summoned Luke, who they haven’t seen for a couple of days, so that he could heal her arm. She informed him on what’s going on as they went up to the attic. Luke looked at Alex. Luke: “So you’ve changed your mind.” Alex: “Nope. But I don’t want us dead either.” – He stops at a page with a demon holding a Spanish Rapier. – “Is this him?” Jackie goes to the book to see if the demon on the page was the demon she had encountered. Jackie: “Yeah that’s him.” Alex: