Author's Note: Charmed Canon played with a lot of inaccurate things. For the sake of other fans, I'm setting Prue's birth as October 27, 1970, which makes her the first in the seventh generation of Warren witches (assuming a generation is 30-35 years). Piper's birthday is arbitrarily June 5, 1972. Phoebe's birthday is November 13, 1975. And Paige's birthday is August 2, 1977. Their mother dies in the summer of 1978.

This story will be multi-chapter. I haven't started the next two parts, but this part will cover Season 4. (I hope I have explained that well) Anyway, please flood me with reviews so I know where I need to improve and fix things.

All Hell Breaks Loose

"I think we made it. Do you think we made it? I'm sure we made it!" Piper rambled as she jogged up the concrete walk.

Prue still fumbled with her door keys. Despite the severity of the situation, the eldest Halliwell sister was unwilling to use her magic to open the door. "I don't know! I'm sure Shax would have attacked by now if we hadn't!"

The lock finally tumbled and gave way. "Who would have attacked by now?" demanded Doctor Griffiths.

For three years, the three sisters had fought over one hundred demons, warlocks, ghosts, and other forms of malevolence with their own good magic. They were the seventh generation of Warren witches, the long-awaited Charmed Ones who represented the culmination of good magic in their family's line in part through their bond as sisters.

They had encountered their most challenging year yet since their first few months in the craft. Piper was almost prevented from marrying the love of her life, Leo, because he was a Whitelighter and prohibited from falling in love with the witches he protected. After many trials and almost endless tears, the Powers That Be had permitted the guardian angel to wed Piper in an elaborate ceremony in their home.

Phoebe's boyfriend, Cole, was literally Leo's polar opposite, a vicious and lethal half-demon who had been sent by the Source of All Evil to kill the Halliwell witches. Somehow, Cole had fallen in love with Phoebe and through many months, he demonstrated how much he truly loved and cared for her. Two weeks prior to their entrance with Doctor Griffiths, an attack at the Manor had demolished all of Phoebe's faith in him and put all three sisters' lives at risk. A banshee's destructive wrath in San Francisco had threatened Phoebe's life, and surprisingly, it was a confession from Cole that had spared her the agony of living and dying as a banshee.

Prue and Phoebe shoved the doctor through the ornate double doors of 1429 Prescott Streeet. The balding surgeon, although genial and kind, for the most part had annoyed them. Prue thought he looked like a rat; Piper thought he resembled a blue-eyed ferret; and Phoebe found herself comparing him to a bug.

It was unfortunate that the sisters were no longer under the influence of the thought-hearing spell they had used the previous year.

"Phoebe, were we attacked in the Manor or at the hospital?" Piper demanded urgently. "I swear I just felt something, like a chill or something."

"I don't know! I saw the attack, we saved Doctor Griffiths, and we kicked ass! What more do you want?" Phoebe whined, closing and locking the front doors.

"I would like to know more about the demon we were up against!"

"Demon?" repeated Dr. Griffiths.

Piper sighed. She was the sister who worried about details and about the interference of magic in their lives. Lately, it was causing her more distress. "You probably didn't even pay attention to the premonition because it wasn't about Cole," she said snidely.

"I thought you expressed all your feelings about Cole at our last sisters' meeting?"

"Yeah, well, that was two nights ago!"

"Alright, Phoebe," Prue interjected, "how about you go upstairs and check for a spell to vanquish Shax?" Phoebe nodded in agreement.

"Spell?" Dr. Griffiths' ferret-like face contorted with confusion.

"That means, do not get sidetracked with any Cole potion or any Cole spell, because we've got enough demons to deal with right now! The only ones we're concerned with saving right now, are us!"

Phoebe pouted. "Piper, chill," Prue admonished, "this is not the Barbie Battle of 1980 all over again, okay?"

"Okay. Sorry, Pheebs." Piper gave her sister a side-hug in an effort at reconciliation.

"It's okay. I'll go get the spell so we can destroy some demon ass." The youngest Halliwell sprinted upstairs.

"Ok, now what Cole potion are you talking about?" Prue asked, once Phoebe was out of hearing range.

"Excuse me?" Dr. Griffiths waved his arms like a drowning swimmer. "I'm still here! Can someone please explain to me what's going on?"

Piper sighed and turned to her elder sister. "It was your idea to bring the ferret home, Prue. You explain things to him."

The elder Halliwell sister sighed, realizing her error and being anxious and emotional about the loss of seven Innocents since Leo and Piper's wedding. "Dr. Griffiths, you are a good person, and there's a demon after you."

"What?" The man looked like he was on the verge of a heart attack.

"Look, you do good things. You heal people, you save people's lives. We're not sure exactly why the demon is after you. Either you've saved too many lives or you're about to save a life they don't want you to save. But they definitely want you dead."

Two demons so powerful, Phoebe could practically feel the magical energy dripping from them, walked into the chambers of the demon Belthazoar. Towering with shaved human heads and ripped upper bodies, the demons were identical to the black leather, silver studded garb that identified them as the select guard of the Source. "So…has time changed up there? Are my sisters alive?" Phoebe asked tearfully.

For Phoebe, her boyfriend Cole, and her brother-in-law Leo, less than six hours had passed since the demon Shax had attacked the Halliwells in their home. In that span of time, magic had been exposed when a TV crew filming across the street captured the Prue and Piper wounding the powerful Shax in retaliation for his attack. Chaos ensued. Dozens of fanatic people had encamped on the Halliwell's lawn, accompanied by thirsty TV crews and even a few crazy conspiracy theorists. In a turning point, a mentally disturbed woman named Alice Hicks shot Piper because the Halliwells did not welcome her into their coven. Although Prue had rushed Piper to San Francisco General, Piper tragically died from her wounds.

It had catalyzed an unbelievable deal: In exchange for remaining captive in the Underworld and learning to practice the Dark Arts, Phoebe asked the Source, via Cole, for the demon Tempus to reverse time. She and her sisters had battled the demon two years earlier, wounding him in their battle for control of a sinister Time Loop engineered for the Charmed Ones' deaths. Neither the Powers That Be nor the Source had the kind of power to reverse time that Tempus did, because Tempus' foray into the manipulation of time proved the costly danger of interfering with the flow of time. The Charmed Ones had wounded Tempus in their battle.

Yet, Cole had reported that the Source had complied with her request. "The Source ordered Tempus to reverse the flow of time. Everything up there has been restored to the moment before the witches were attacked."

"Great," Leo said, "we're outta here." He started to cross the room toward Leo, but one of the muscular demons stepped into his path.

"The Source made a deal with the witch. If she stayed, then time would be reversed. Are you trying to double cross us, Whitelighter?"

"I don't have time for this. I have to save my wife." Leo Orbed from in front of the demon to Phoebe's side and reached for her nearest arm. Before he could touch her, the other guard hurled a medium-sized energy ball at him. Phoebe gasped as Leo dissolved into a cloud of orbs, slammed against the rocky walls of Belthazoar's chamber, and collapsed unconsciously to the floor.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "This isn't part of the deal!"

"The Source has decided he would rather have the Charmed Ones dead than divided." Both guards formed energy balls in their hands.

"They?" Dr. Griffiths repeated incredulously. "Who are they?"

"They are the Source of All Evil and his personal assassin, Shax."

Piper nodded smugly at the brevity of Prue's explanation. Dr. Griffiths seemed even more flabbergasted. "And who are you, Charlie's Angels?"

"Um, no, we're…" Prue shuddered.

"What is it?" asked Piper.

"I just felt a chill. Phoebe?"

There was no response from upstairs. "Oh, I get it. This is some kind of sick joke," Dr. Griffiths said.

Prue ignored him. "Phoebe, are you coming?"

"What is this, a bad episode of Candid Camera?"

"Hey Pheebs," Piper chimed in, "any day now would be great."

"Did my second wife put you up to this?"

"Maybe I should go upstairs and check on her. She's been really sensitive about the Cole thing since he saved her from being a banshee," Piper said.

"I swear that woman will do anything to get back at me. She was the one who broke up our marriage, you know."

"Good idea, I'll…" Before Prue could finish her sentence, a gale force wind blasted the doors of the manor open. Piper and Prue, standing to Dr. Griffiths' right, were propelled backwards into the dining room by the powerful cyclone that roared into their home. The doctor backed away from the whirling wind.

In a flash of lightning, the winds became an imposing figure of a demon. Shax, the Source's best assassin, was a lethal killer. With smoky blue skin and robes colored like the winds that roared constantly within his towering form, he seemed more like he belonged in a meditation circle or among a crowd of chanting hippies in Ashbury than a demon. His ash white hair billowed from his skull, giving the impression that he lived in a wind tunnel. Only Shax's milky white eyes and husky torso made him appear solid.

"Phoebe!" Piper yelled, tasting blood where her teeth had torn her mouth.

"Who are you?" Dr. Griffiths demanded cowardly.

Shax studied the mortal carefully. He had never considered a response for anything but pleas and begging, because his arrival signaled only one thing. "The end."

He wound his arm back, as if he were about to pitch a ball at Dr. Griffiths. In that second, Prue surveyed the scene before her. 'I'll be damned before I lose another Innocent the way I lost Andy. He died here in the Manor because I didn't try hard enough to save him. I put myself and my sisters first, not this time.'

Prue launched herself from the floor with a warrior's yell. She slammed bodily into the balding doctor as a gust of wind erupted from Shax's claw. The blast of wind was numbingly cold, a small mercy as it propelled her slim body through the wall partitioning the foyer from the sunroom.

"Prue, no!" Piper thrust out her hands to immobilize Shax. The demon slowed down, clearly too powerful for Piper's most useful defensive power. As he fought through her magic, Piper raced to Prue's side. Her elder sister was sprawled on a pile of debris with trickles of blood running from mouth and ears. "Leo! Leo! Leo, where are you? Phoebe! Leo!"

Shax broke free of Piper's molecular immobilization power. Piper stood up and faced the roaring demon. "LEO!"

Another gust of wind erupted from Shax's left claw. The middle Halliwell slammed agonizingly through the remaining wall to land beside her unconscious older sister. Debris tumbled upon the unconscious witches.

Phoebe levitated above the first round of energy balls, somersaulted, and landed upon the attacking demon with a precisely executed scissor kick. The sound of thundering footsteps raced down the corridor toward Belthazoar's chambers. "Hey, if you guys can hear me," Phoebe said with an upward glance, "now would be a great time to develop another active power!"

She glanced over at Cole, still in human form, as he struggled to battle the other identical demon. Phoebe raced to aid her boyfriend with the martial arts skills she had honed in two years without an active magical power. The demon she had attacked recovered, grabbed her ankle, and proceeded to toss the youngest Halliwell into the wall of the chamber with the ease of lobbing a wad of paper.

Cole slammed his head into his assailant's and flung the unconscious demon to one side. "PHOEBE!" Red and black tribal markings erupted all over his tanned skin as Cole underwent the transformation from his half-human appearance to his stronger, demonic form. Anger and pain always facilitated the change, and the upper level demon felt both at the sight of his beloved Phoebe on the floor. With his amplified demonic strength, Cole began to batter the demon facing him.

Across the room, the other guard formed an energy ball and raised it over his head. He turned his head at the sound of three other guards, these with flowing dark locks and metal cuffs on their upper arms, entering the room. "Boys, I'm about to single-handedly annihilate the Charmed line," he bragged.

"I don't think so," Phoebe said. She levitated from the floor and delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the demon onto his back. The energy ball sailed into the air and landed on him, snuffing out his life instead of Phoebe's. "Leo! Leo!"

Leo was out cold. Two guards rushed Belthazoar, and grabbed his arms. The third socked him in his chiseled stomach. "Leave him alone!" Phoebe yelled. She launched herself into the air again and latched onto a stalactite hanging from the ceiling as two more energy balls seared the air where she had stood only a second prior.

"She's a pretty little witch! Too bad we have to kill her," growled one of the demons below her.

"Yeah, but let's do it quickly before the Source kills us!" The three demons restraining Cole began to murmur in what sounded like a chant over the demon. The fourth reached into his knee-high leather boots, pulled out an athame, and pressed it to Belthazoar's thick neck. "Come down here, witch!"

"Why don't you make me?" Phoebe shouted back.

With them out of the way, Shax focused his cloudy white eyes on the defenseless doctor. To the balding man's credit, he did not cower, back away, or beg for any mercy that he would not receive from the demonic hired gun. Shax was aware that the doctor's display of dignity was based less in his boldness and more in his terrified state of mind. A kill without the glory of facing a formidable opponent was without glory.

But a kill was still a kill.

A blast of gale force winds sent the surgeon spinning through the air. He crashed through the dining room, tumbled across the table, and landed inside the window. Shax's killing winds were so powerful that they wedged the doctor's body into the frame where glass had stood, with a spike of wood driven into the man's chest.

Shax gazed upon yet another successful assassination. The two witches were hardly a match for his obviously superior powers, yet he had heard they were tireless, cunning opponents. It would only be minutes before all the air in their bodies exited and they died. The doctor had even less time than that; his heartbeat was already slowing. Shax allowed himself a gloating grin before he dissolved in a bolt of lightning and exited the witches' home in a swirl of wind. He slammed the doors shut, shattering the windows in the front of the house in his wake.

Her words struck home at the demon's pride, and he flung a high-powered energy ball at the blond witch. Phoebe released the stalactites, somersaulted, and landed on the demon's head. Her plan worked perfectly as her weight and momentum combined to break the demon's neck. He vanished in a burst of flames, as Phoebe rolled away from his corpse. She rushed toward Cole but heard Leo's anguished groan from across the chamber.

If she went to Cole's aid, they could Shimmer from the Underworld, but she would still need Leo to be conscious if she was to save her sisters.

If she went to Leo's aid, they could Orb from the Underworld, take Cole, and still save her sisters.

The choice was obvious.

Phoebe ignored Belthazoar and the other demon to rush to her Whitelighter's side. "Leo?" Phoebe shook his semi-conscious form. "Come on, Leo! We have to go save Piper and Prue!"

Belthazoar suddenly broke free of his captors and telekinetically flung the Source's guard across the chamber. As Leo's eyes opened, he reflexively grabbed his aching head and saw Phoebe approach Belthazoar. "Cole? Are you okay?"

"Phoebe," the demon growled. The blonde witch grimaced, so he shifted back into Cole. "Thank you, Phoebe."

Leo sat up. "Phoebe, we've gotta go. Piper and Prue need us."

The blonde clairvoyant all but ignored him. "What are you thanking me for?"

"Thank you for making it so easy to kill you." Cole slammed an energy ball the size of a basketball into Phoebe's stomach. The blonde witch couldn't even scream before she was incinerated.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Leo cried out. Suddenly cognizant of Cole's attention, the Whitelighter Orbed before Cole hurled an energy ball at him.

His teeth bared in anger, Cole slammed his fist into the rock wall nearest him. "Damn that Whitelighter! I wanted them all dead."

One of the guard rose to his feet, rubbing his sore neck. "You did well, Belthazoar. You've destroyed the Charmed Line, eliminated all your competition, and won the allegiance of the Source's guards. Even if the Whitelighter is still alive, he has nothing to live for now, while you have the Source's throne ahead of you."

Cole smiled triumphantly. It felt good to be evil again.

Leo Orbed into Halliwell Manor in the exact spot where Phoebe had summoned him in an alternate reality. His fair, angelic face was turning ruddy from crying and tears blurred his vision. But Leo clearly saw the dark-haired man kneeling beside the bodies of his wife and his sister-in-law. It could only be one being in the Halliwell Manor at a time such as this.

"No!" he yelled and shoved aside the Angel of Death. "It's not their time!"

"Don't you think I know that?" the angel retorted. He glared at Leo and rose to his feet, bristling with aggression. Before the two angels could go to blows, Prue and Piper stirred on the floor near Leo's feet.

"Piper?" the blond Whitelighter breathed.

"Leo?" Piper groaned and stared at her husband through half-lidded eyes. "What happened?"

"Yeah, where's Phoebe?" Prue asked Leo.

The dark-haired angel, obscured from the witches' view, muttered, "I have to go." He vanished in an unmistakably blue-and-white cloud of orbs not dissimilar from Leo's own.

Prue's and Piper's mouths gaped open, and Prue's eyes were suddenly moist. "W-Was that A-Andy?" Piper asked her elder sister.

"I don't know who that was," Leo interjected, helping both sisters to their feet with a yank from his brawny arms, "but we've got serious problems. Phoebe's…Phoebe is dead. Cole killed her."