The kitchen.

::Petunius walks into the kitchen while rifling through the pages of the Book of Shadows. He places it on top of the center countertop before flipping the pages a bit more.::

"Hmm, a potion to bind powers, a power stripping potion...and yet nada on any potions to restore power of any kind."

::He waits for Piper to follow before looking at her expectantly.::

"Any ideas? Think we could improvise one?"

"Um, sure? Actually I seem to remember making a power stripping potion once, never one to get powers back though. Maybe if I..."

::Piper narrows her eyes at a saucepan and then dashes her hand forward, causing it to explode. She blows a tendril of smoke away from her face and shrugs::

"A gals gotta let off steam somehow... And you can really only improv potions if you have a spell to say in conjuction with them, it just doesn't work otherwise. So either way we're screwed. Unless we get to Paige or Phoebe and they say a reversal spell on us. Didn't think of that, did you? Mr walk into my house and rifle through my magic book. Huh? Didya? HUH?"

::Petunius watches Piper's little outburst with one eyebrow raised while his expression doesn't change one bit.::

"Are you quite finished? Okay then. So we go get Paige. She went after Carys and I just found Carys' location. Ergo, Paige should be with Carys by now. I'd suggest orbing, but Leo hasn't exactly been the most reliable on that front."

"Are your legs broken? No? Thought not. We can walk or take whatever car I have today. You people seem to think he's a magical taxi."

::Piper strides out of the kitchen and to the Front Door::

"Well if it walks like a magical taxi and talks like a magical taxi..."

::Petunius resists the urge to continue with that and follows Piper.::

::Luke walks into the kitchen and would you believe it? Runs into the Book of Shadows! He skims through the pages, finding bits of it interesting. Finding a conveniently handy pen and legal pad, he writes down some spells. Finishing that, he folds the paper and places it in his pocket.

He then turns to the page with the spell titled, "To Exchange Power." To test this spell, Luke reads it aloud.::

"What's mine is yours
and yours is mine.
Let our powers cross the line.
I offer up my gift to share,
switch our powers through the air."

[You damn kids and your crazy spells. Everyone in the house has their powers swapped around. Vince has Paige's, Piper has Petunius', Carys has Luke's, Paige has Carys', Petunius has Piper's and Luke has Vince's. Well done, Luke. Well done indeed. And no spells will help you sort this mess out. You're stuck with what you have till we say you aren't.]

(Hmm. I should probably take the spells I copied to the house.)

::Luke closes the Book of Shadows and walks to the front door.::

::Luke walks into the kitchen, retrieving the Book of Shadows before returning to the attic.::

::Luke wanders into the kitchen, conveniently not seeing Carys or Karen in the living room on his way there. He spots Piper's secret bottle of Jack Daniels, twisting the top off and pouring it into a glass. He opens the refrigerator to take a couple of ice cubes, downing the glass.::

::Hearing the knock on the door, Luke walks to the front door with his handy crossbow.::

::Luke enters the kitchen, carrying Paige's list of ingredients for a potion he was going to make. He turns on the stove and looks into the cabinet, finding a disorganized mess. Before starting with the potion, he pulls out everything and arranges it alphabetically and by cooking herbs, magical herbs and herbs used for both potions and cooking.::

(Disorganized bitches...)

::Luke starts making the potion, throwing some of the herbs listed on his slip of paper. He turns the heat off, throwing the billingsroot in. As a result of this addition, the potion explodes lightly, indicating that it was complete. Luke takes a baster, sucking up and expelling the potion into twelve vials, three for the four of them. He puts stoppers on the vials and places them in a bag, carrying them with him as he goes to the attic.::

::Arriving down stairs Theo looks at all the ingredients Luke left out, all neatly labeled and arranged.::

(This should be easy...I hope. If I'm not good at spells hopefully I will be good at potions.)

::He reads from the list and starts to boil the potions, adding ingredients when needed. After making the blinding potion he bottles it up into a small vial and sits it on the counter while he begins the others.::

(I dont know what this smoking potion is going to do...but I figure maybe create a huge cloud of smoke...ok get busy Theo.)

::He grabs a few pinches of this and that and throws them into the miniature couldron. With a 'bamf' Theo watches the potion light up for a second and then goes to place the dark orange liquid into 2 vials. Afterwards, he prepares to make his own creation of holy water and some other things he saw in the book.::

(Please let it work, please let it work...)

::Theo opens up a few jars and takes out the inhabitants of them. Next he grabs a small basin which was marked 'Holy Water', obviously blessed or something. Transferring the water into a small bubble-looking vial, he moves on to boiling the other substances. The young witch takes a palmful of pomegranate seeds and grinds them into a fine powder. Next he takes out a small bit of mandrake and rips it up into bits. Grabbing a pinch of comfry root he throws it in. Followed by some dark roasted wattleseed and a pinch of dried rhubarb leaf. Next he throws in some dwarf milkseed and a pinch of clematis seed. To top it all off he throws in some dried ragweed and some wolfsbane and ginger. He moves around the kitchen cleaning up before the potion boiled. A while later Theo comes across the boiling potion and turns the burner off. Sucking it up he squirts the content of the couldron into the round vial. With a bright glow the potion begins to swirl wildly around inside. Theo gulps and decides to pour the potion into three other vials, one for each witch.::

(Maybe I shouldnt tell them that I have no clue what this does...)

::The witch places the vials in his bag and heads back upstairs to the attic, hoping to impress the others.::

::Justin turns Patience to him and speaks to her in a low voice.::

"Look, you don't need to hit the kid okay? I mean, sure, he kind of lacks common sense and any kind of grace. And yeah, sometimes he may deserve a hit. But that doesn't mean that you need to go around smacking him on the back of the head. That's eventually going to effect his psyche. You know? I'm sure he feels bad enough about himself, I could tell from the way he just kind of... gave up when we snarled at him. We don't need a blubbering witch to deal with. Okay?"

::He looks at her, sincere concern in his eyes.::

"Look...I told him once already that since Tia was his doing that he was to take responsibility...psyche damage or not...I don't like repeating myself."

::She cocks her eyebrow.::

"Hello Dr.Justin/Miss.Bitch...you gonna lecture me after your little display in there?Lets not get hipocritical now. Besides...you know you like taking out your anger on the little brat as much as I do. Especial when he fucks up."

::Justin laughs a little bit and sighs.::

"I know I may sound a little hypocritical, but I just really don't think yelling at him and hitting him every time he fucks up is going to do us any good. I mean, would you stick around if everyone just treated you like shit? Regardless of how totally off base he is sometimes and how completely inept he has a tendancy to be, he is well intentioned, and he's trying. Just... I think we should hesitate before we attack him."

::Patience huffs frustratedly.::

"You know what...all the good intentions in the world aren't worth shit if we are dead. I'm hard on him because I have to be...the boy dosen't listen or think and it seems the only thing he responds to is physical pain."

::She pauses for a moment and then takes a breath as she prepares for a long speach.::

"Case in point...Tia...who the hell is she? I don't know...do you? No...you don't...because Theo dragged her here...putting us in danger if she is a demon or vampire...and puttting her in danger if she is a witch. He constantly tries to be incharge and I'll be damned if that is going to happen. Now I'm not saying I'm an almighty superwitch or anything...but I have more expeirence, reason, and all out common sense than he does. I don't have to be the leader...but he sure as hell isn't going to be either...and since when do you take up for him?"

::Justin closes his eyes and rubs his face with his hand, obviously stressed.::

"I understand exactly what you're saying, but what you don't understand is that hurting him is only going to make him want to be in charge more. He thinks that if he takes charge, he won't have to put up with the abuse anymore. Look, Patience, I know he's made a lot of mistakes, Tia being the most extreme as far as I've seen, but you can't keep treating him like a bad puppy. He's a human being. Yell at him, sure. Berate him even. But don't belittle him or hit him, because it's only going to end up causing more trouble before we're through. Honestly, how long would you put up with it before you went vigilanty on whoever the hell it was who was making you feel like less than a person? I just want you to think before you just whack him."

::He sighs and looks out into the living room.::

"As for me taking up for him... well... let's say I just don't handle unfair treatment well."

::Patience blinks at him astonished.::

"You want to talk to someone about "bad puppy" treatment? Well fuck you and the boat you came in on if you think you are any better. What do you think you are superior because treating me like a child is higher up on the chain? Because let me tell you...I'd much rather be Theo dealing with me popping him a couple times than me dealing with your insults and your patronization."

::She wrings her hands to keep them in place.::

"I honestly just can't be here...I don't know what I'd do...no scrach that...I know exactly what I would do but aparently it isn't up to your standards of how I should act...that and once I start I won't stop until this itch to hit you has passed or satisfied."

::She tries to take a calming sigh but it only aids in helping her focus her anger as she watchs Justin rub his face..::

"Oh what? You think you are stressed now? You don't know stress my friend. I'm gone...you see if you can do better."

::She heads for the door.::

"You follow me and I swear when you got burned will seem like a deep tissue massage by the time I'm done with you."

::She heads to the living room.::

::Justin's jaw drops as he watches Patience walk out into the living room.::

"Now wait just a fucking second here..."

(Who the fuck does she think she is?)

::Justin follows Patience into the living room.::

::She walks in and fixes herself a cup of coffee, before sitting down and drinking it.::

::Leo appears infront of Phoebe and smiles, before pulling out a chair and taking a seat to the side of her.::

"Hey Phoebs. How you doing?"

::He places a hand on hers andgives a reassuring squeeze::

"We're all at the club. Wanna join us?"

"Hey honey."

::She smiles at Leo and nods her head.::

"I'm fine, and sure i'll join you guys. I think some's been in the house...I need to talk to Paige abouse setting up some kind of crystal alarm system."

::He laughs and orbs them both out, back to the bar.::

::Luke whistles as he walks to the sink. He fills the bucket with water and then shuts the faucet off before returning to the solarium.::

::Piper walks in and goes through the motions of making tea. She flicks the kettle on and gets a couple of mugs, standing by the sink, and sighs. Falling silent, she remains in the same position for a few minutes. The kettle boils. She doesn't hear it. Her mind is filled with thoughts, fears, concerns, hope... everything.::

(I don't even know if this is real anymore. And what if it is? She can't just come back and that's that, there must be something behind it, there must be some catch to it...)

::She steps back a little and raises her eyes to the ceiling.::

"Well? What's the catch?"

::Silence. She sighs and makes the tea, taking the mugs back up to her bedroom.::

::Prue, dressed in a jumble of her sisters' clothes, heads in and looks around for something she thinks she might be able to stomach. It takes her literally twenty or so minutes to eat a banana, and afterwards, she feels sick.::

(I want to go out.)

::She looks at the pad of paper on the fridge, and the pencil hanging from it, then uses both hands to try to write a note. She manages, badly, to write 'out - prue' but it looks like a child wrote it. Grimacing, she leaves the house and walks towards the city. Conveniently, to the magic shop.::

:: Lirie wanders in, scanning the kitchen. Using some sixth sense she has, she is drawn to one of the upper capboards, where Piper hides the good wine. Rampaging through, she finally heaves out a bottle with a sigh of centent. Looking through the drawers, she finds the opener and opens the cork, taking a huge swig right out of th bottle ::

(MUCH better...)

:: Finishes the bottle within mere seconds and heads to the fridge ::

::Phoebe walks in after Lirie.::

"Did you just drink that whole bottle??"

:: Lirie draws out of the fridge with her teeth sank in a big chunk of chedder. One of her hands grips a bitten stick of salamy while the other holds an open jam jar, which you just know she dipped the salami into. She tucked the salami stick under her arm, and tears the cheese off her face, chewing quite non-discreetly ::

"There was only one there... were do you keep the good stuff, by the way? Cause this chedder..."

:: Bites off another huge chunk and chews ::

"... Sucks."

::Stares.::

"Wow."

::Stares more.::

"So does your power still work?"

"Of course it does! See?"

:: Lirie finishes off the cheese and bites into the salami after dipping it into the jam ::

(Mmm, strawberry...)

:: Remembering she was about to show Phoebe her power, continues chewing, nonchalantly liquidifying. Only not. Only the sheerest layer of her dead skin liquidifies, moistening her skin, thus causing the jar of strawbery jam to smash onto Piper's crystal clear floor. Baha ::

"What the fuck?"

:: Confused by the lack of puddliness, Lirie glances at her now free hand, but notices a bit of jam there, she licks it off and crouches down, dipping the salamy into the "seemingly" unfloored jam ::

"Eh... probably the exhaustion... and the hunger. I'm tired and hungry... yes."

:: Chews ::

"You can't? Good. You know, if you go through there and sit in a chair, we will give you everything you ever wanted."

:: Glances up with eyes wide and sparkling ::

"Ice sculptur?"

"Twenty. Twenty ice sculptures."

:: Smells something fishy ::

"And where am I suppose to accomodate twenty ice sculpturs? I want one... of a puppy. No! A pinguin!"

"This is a big place. Duh. You just have to go and sit down through there, we've already ordered everything. But we want to present it to you properly."

"Umm, o... kay."

:: Lirie looks at her werdly through a creased brow ::

"But I'm keeping the salami!"

:: Stands up and walks away from the jam, carrying the salami stick with her and she pauses near Phoebe ::

"Where...? To?"