Neena

'"She's not evil. Not before now, at least. She's a witch, just like you. Well actually, that's not true at all. She's not just a witch. She's the first witch."

- Leo Wyatt talks to Paige about Neena.  Neena, also known as Isabel and Victoria', is the original witch, and actually mothered both the lines of witches and warlocks. Neena worked for the Greater Good for untold centuries until she became fed up with The Powers That Be consistently tampering with her and her "children's" lives. She teamed up with a warlock named Hogan, and set horrible things in motion but later killed him after deeming him no longer useful. She then teamed up with a formidable Darklighter named Rennek to carry out her seemingly diabolical plans for the world.

Ultimately, it was revealed that she was only a determined woman with a tragic life-story, and her plans were still well-intentioned, despite being misguided. In her final confrontation with the Charmed Ones, she ended up being defeated and her magic was bound, and she was banished to a realm of her own creation.

History
Her story starts from the first days of humanity. When the world was dark, a spiritual energy ran through everything that existed neither Good nor Evil, it was part of everything like air and earth. The Elders call it The All. Thousands upon thousands of years ago, a woman came across that Nexus. She alerted her mate of what she had found. At first they were afraid of it, but she pushed past that fear and tapped into this power. The woman was infused with more of the All than any human was supposed to possess. The woman shared that power with her mate and it changed them, made them immortal and invulnerable. It bonded them forever to one another and to the All creating a state beyond consciousness beyond the known universe; That place called the Higher Realm, a place of pure, utter bliss that they shared with the All.

However, their presence there affected the earth and their magical bond contained the All in the higher realm. The world started to die. The only way to save earth was for the woman and her mate to separate their powers. To allow the power of the All to flow freely again. The woman and man were forced to abandon the higher realm, never to return again. Once back on a Earth, the woman gave birth to a pair of twins that were conceived while she was in the higher realm. The first child was a female and had powers like her mother just not as strong, it is from this child that natural-born witches came. The second child was a male born with the same abilities but he used the magic for dark purposes and that gave rise to warlocks. The other children that came later had no powers to speak of but they and their descendants could tap into the magic as magic practitioners. In very rare cases these non-magical descendants can give birth to a full witch, but this can upset The Grand Design. Leo says that The Warren family did not just come into magic, but are a part of Neena's bloodline. Every time a witch is born, she inherits a tiny piece of the All. Not a lot, but just enough to have an active power.

With every new descendant, the All began to weaken: it was spreading too thin. It needed to reclaim some of the magic it had lost, it needed one of the two to return. So Neena's mate returned to the higher plane. But he did not abandon her, not by choice. One day, he was just gone, and she was alone for the first time in forever. They had no control over what happened to them. His return to the Higher Realm had become part of The Grand Design. The Elders were forced to make a decision. They chose her mate to go to the Higher Realm and not Neena.

As Isabel
Around the 17th century, the first witch was settled in Colonial Virgina and had taken the name Isabel. She was, at that time, a mysterious woman who was only spoken about in whispers, and reputed to possess the power of precognition. Charlotte Warren also stated that she was much more than just a witch. Charlotte came to Isabel to ask for her help and confessed to her the whole story: that she had conceived the child before marriage, and her fiancée was missing, and somehow she knew that he would not return. Last but not least, she revealed her fears of doing everything alone, and of being shunned and having her child punished for her indiscretion. Isabel explained that she knew exactly how Charlotte felt, as someone she loved had been taken away from her as well. Isabel then went on to tell Charlotte that it was her unborn child who knew that her father would not return, as she had the gift of Premonition and much more, unlike her parents. She also revealed that she knew more than what she could share, which was why she cannot help Charlotte abort her baby, and that she intended to help her in another way. She gave her a special talisman of the Triquetra, telling her that it would guide her to a local woman (Eva) who would help her deliver the child safely into the world. Isabel persuaded her to believe that this was for the best, as the child had to be born for everyone's sake. Her prediction was eventually fulfilled: with help from the future Charmed Ones, Eva aided Charlotte in giving birth to an extremely powerful witch: Melinda Warren, who would start the Warren/Halliwell line and prophesy the coming of the Charmed Ones.

Charmed Lives
Neena and a warlock, Hogan waited in a club for Weasel. An Angel of Destiny visits them and tells them whatever their plan is, it is not destined to happen. Neena sends the Angel away to an unknown plane while Hogan projects rage onto people at the club. Weasel meets up with them and hands them a piece of paper. Hogan takes the paper and Neena kills Weasel when he tried to make a move on her.

The paper appears to be a map when Neena and Hogan find the entrance to a cave near the Golden Gate Bridge. They go into the cave and end up in an ominous, lava filled lair.

No Rest for the Wicca
Neena and Hogan are conversing with a smoke-type being who appears to be in charge of them. It tells them that they must do something before it can return to full power. She and Hogan kill Paige's latest charge, a male witch named Brent.

Innocents Lost
Neena and Hogan are at the burial site of The Hollow and attack the new Guardians, taking a sample of soil and proceed to give it to their misty master. Neena casts a spell and brings the Source of All Evil back to life as a golem.

Mortal Enemies
In the Underworld, The Source is ready to make his next move, leaving Hogan and Neena behind to work on "more important things".

Unnatural Resources
Back in the Underworld, Neena is mixing up something in a cauldron while telling Hogan to be patient and being cryptic about not being trustworthy. After the Charmed Ones vanquish The Source, Neena casts a spell to share the Source's power with the demons in her presence.

The Heir Up There
In the Underworld, the Darklighter Rennek has teamed up with the Horned Demon and his minions in order to go on a rampage and massacre a group of Vampires. He sets his sights on the Vampire Queen, Lorna, who he claims that he won't kill yet. Lorna tries to feign innocence when Rennek points out that she had upset a friend of his. Just then, Neena shows up and yells at Lorna for not showing allegiance to her after she granted Lorna the powers to make her a Vampire Queen. Lorna wants to negotiate further, but a fed up Neena telekinetically moves a bunch of stakes which pierce and kill Lorna.

Neena is pleased that the vampires have been dealt with, as that allows her plan to proceed for the Underworld. Rennek, however, is suspicious that the demons don't know who they are really working for. He then calls Neena by two different names - Isabel and Victoria - and tells her that he knows her true intentions.

Oh, Henry
In the Underworld, Neena doesn't want The Charmed Ones involved with her scheme, which is why Rennek didn't attack them before. She would have left them out entirely if she didn't have to divide The Source's powers to make her army stronger. Rennek knows what Neena's real plan is, however the other demons don't. He has also collected enough orbs for her attack. She gets a group of demons to help her plan out the attack.

The Charmed Ones orb to the Bridge, where they find multiple demons attacking The Elders. Paige suddenly sees Kyle and tries to save him but Rennek quickly kills him with a Darklighter arrow while Neena takes his orbing power. Neena faces the Charmed Ones and is able to send Piper to another dimension. Paige tries to orb Piper back to her, but fails. Leo then comes out of the fog and recognizes Neena. He hurriedly tells them to orb back Home and he tells them of Neena's origins.

The All or Nothing
Neena has ran the Elders into hiding, and it is revealed that she had attempted to create a world where the tree of The All could be recreated, but the realm would not hold it, so she instead used it as a prison for her enemies: trapping Piper and an Angel of Destiny there. This other realm also damaged the Cosmic Void, allowing Cole Turner to appear in the realm.

Last Witch Effort
Leo tries to reason with Neena, informing her she will destroy everything if her plan succeeds, but she says that it's not her problem. Leo says she will be destroyed with everything else, but Neena says that the fusion of the Underworld and The Heavens will open a portal to the higher plane which holds The All and her beloved. Leo tells her this isn't her, but Neena replies that the Angels of Destiny and Elders made her like this by shaping the world around her and her children and that she is tired of fate dictating everything. Leo says she has killed dozens of Innocents and Whitelighters but Neena says she has never killed anyone any of her children. She tells him that she played by the rules, but she will no longer. She then combines the two orbs, one representing light and one representing dark, causing a thunderstorm to brew on earth.

The Charmed Offensive
Up There, the orbs of light and dark have merged into one giant sphere, and Neena is working her magic on it. The Warren witches wait beyond the gates of the Ancestral Plane, and Paige hears an explosion. She has Grams open the gates for Melinda Warren, and the Warren witches charge into the battle. Just before the sisters can get together, Neena reluctantly enters the fray. At that moment, Leo emerges with wings and a flaming sword. He takes out some winged demons, and Paige telekinetically orbs Neena away briefly. Sam, Henry and Coop arrive, with Henry carrying Paige's body. The sisters make Paige whole again. Neena returns, but Leo continues to take out demons, resulting in a standoff. Neena is angry that they are all ungrateful, as none of them would have existed without her.

Neena continues to justify her actions, and Phoebe uses empathy to feel Neena's emotions. Piper tells Phoebe to turn the emotions back on Neena; Phoebe tries and sparks starts flying from her hands into Neena's head. The emotions are too much to handle and they both fall to the ground. However, the psychic blast is powerful enough to incapacitate Neena for a short while. As Paige helps Phoebe up, Phoebe tells her sisters that she also felt compassion from Neena and realizes that Neena truly believes she is doing what's best. She then confesses to them that she did not know if she could use those emotions against her.

Piper tells them to move to Plan B: binding Neena's powers while she is still incapacitated. She then pours a potion on Neena's chest and the sisters cast their spell. However, they alone were not powerful enough to do it, but all the Warren Witches together are able to pull off the spell. After binding Neena's powers, the sisters turn their attention to The Sphaera of Light and Dark, with the help of the Elders and Leo's sword, they break apart the spheres, preventing the apocalypse and changing the Upper Regions back to normal, putting a stop to Neena's plans.

It was then that three Angels of Destiny showed up. While they agreed with Neena that there had been too much interference on their part and promised to make amends to her descendants, they refused to let her return to the Higher Realm as they felt she needed to be punished for her crimes: they banished Neena to the failed realm she created, where she would never escape since her powers had been permanently bound. However, understanding what drove her to her actions and their undeniable responsibility in the matter, they agreed to make some amends to her as well: six months out of the year, she would be allowed to be reunited with her beloved, as the only compromise they could offer.

Powers & Abilities
As the very first magical witch, Neena was naturally one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the Charmed universe, as proven numerous times through the incredible feats she performed with her witchcraft. The seemingly all-powerful Angels of Destiny themselves stated that they had very little control over her as she existed outside of time and space, and hence they could only be witnesses to her actions, preferably from afar (indicating a mixture of awe and fear of her). Even the Charmed Ones (the strongest witches the world had ever known) had to draw power from almost each and every witch in their family line in order to effectively cast a spell on her, and even then all they could do was to bind her powers.

Apart from the basic Wiccan powers of spell casting and potion making, she also had the powers of portal creation, fire throwing, energy beam and geokinesis, all of which were shown to be at a highly advanced level. Her magical aptitude was even able to affect the entire Underworld, and alter their strength and power. Since she had taken the powers of an Elder, it was theorized that she was now also able to access Up There, and she also demonstrated a proficiency in Latin, being able to use a Latin spell to merge the two Orbs. As a witch who possesses the powers of the Source (Hell) and the Elders (Heaven) (both of which she gained through trickery, cunning and force), anyone should consider her to be a most dangerous and formidable enemy, especially since she is a wise strategist and an expert manipulator, being able to trick Hogan and even the Source himself into working for her.

It is also possible that she might have some form of Glamouring power, as it was implied that she had assumed several different identities over the centuries that she had lived, and was able to easily see through Leo's and Paige's magical Glamouring disguises. Leo had also stated that she was invulnerable, and hence impossible to be destroyed. Another power she could also possess might be the power of Premonition, but to an exceptionally high level, given that she herself stated (during her conversation with Charlotte) that she could see into the future when she needed to, and she knew well each and every intimate event of the Charmed Ones' lives (about Leo being "put on ice", his children manipulated by the Elders and nearly killed).

In her final confrontation with the Charmed Ones and the Warren witches, however, her powers were permanently bound, and hence she finally became wholly vulnerable to the Angels of Destiny, who - as punishment for her crimes - banished her to a realm that she herself had previously banished them to, stating that she would never escape from there now. Therefore, it can be theorized that she was now nothing more than a mortal whose only specialty was that she would never grow old or die.

To Share the Source's Power

 * Ancient evil now destroyed.
 * Others rise to fill the void.
 * To build our strength within this hour,
 * Leave vanquished Source, but share his power.

To Bind Neena's Magic

 * Earthly Goddess twisted by loss
 * We bind your magic, we bind your strength, we bind your power
 * Now and forever.

Trivia

 * She is almost two and a half million years old, as Leo said she was around since the first days of humanity.
 * She knew Charlotte Warren and gave her a Triquetra necklace.
 * On Twitter, Paul Ruditis called her the Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
 * Neena's name is pronounced the same as Nina's, a mortal who was the Guardian of Pandora's box.
 * The origin of Neena and her mate shares many similarities to the story of Adam and Eve.
 * The Angels of Destiny allowing Neena's beloved to spend six months out of the year with her shares many similarities to the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone.

Appearances
Neena appeared in a total of 12 issues throughout the course of the comic series:


 * Season 9 -
 * To The Warren Born
 * Charmed Lives
 * No Rest for the Wicca
 * Innocents Lost
 * Mortal Enemies
 * Unnatural Resources
 * The Heir Up There
 * Oh, Henry
 * The All or Nothing
 * Three Little Wiccans
 * Last Witch Effort
 * The Charmed Offensive