"Are you going out tonight?" Mr. Giles asked as the four of us descended the stairs.
I frowned.
"Going out? Going out where?"
"To the Bronze," he replied as if it were obvious.
"The Bronze?" I repeated and Mr. Giles smiled.
"It's a dance club. But perhaps you might better from a tour before you go anywhere,"
The four of us nodded in embarrassed agreement.
"I'll show you around if you'd like. I've got a few things that need finishing off though, so if you don't mind we can leave in about an hour?" he asked.
"Of course! Thanks so much for all of this," I told him gratefully and he smiled in response.
"Oh and where's Charles?" I asked, realising that he wasn't in the room with us.
"Charles is uh...well, he told me he was going out to look at...cars?"
The four of us laughed knowingly.
If there was one thing that might surprise you about Charles it was his strange obsession with cars.
Yeah- vroom vroom ones.
"He might be out for a while then," Jim commented and Mr. Giles laughed awkwardly.
"Yes well, uh, I'll let you know when I'm finished?" he spoke and the four of us nodded again, walking back upstairs to the room we were staying in.
"So I guess this town isn't a complete buzzkill," Casey said in reference to the Bronze.
"I wouldn't speak too soon, we haven't actually been inside yet," I replied and the others laughed at my pessimism.
"I don't know...I thought this town would be all doom and gloom 'the apocalypse is coming'. But its kinda sweet!" Casey mused and I shrugged in half-agreement.
If one thing was for certain it was that Sunnydale was going to be an experience.
...
"Ooh! Is this the elementary school?" I asked Mr. Giles later that day as the five of us-excluding Charles- walked through the streets of Sunnydale.
"Ah, yes! One of them at least," he spoke and I grinned as I spotted the playground up ahead.
It wasn't connected to the school, so I supposed that it was open to all means of the public.
There were a number of children playing, most of them around four or five and a wave of nostalgia washed over the four of us as we watched them.
But when I glanced back at Ellie and Jim I realised that it wasn't nostalgia they were feeling it was something else.
"That's...weird," Jim muttered softly and I frowned at him.
"What is it?"
"I can feel something. Like...power," he spoke and Ellie nodded.
"I can feel it too. Power that hasn't been discovered yet,"
"From a bunch of kindergarteners?" I asked and Jim shook his head.
"It's that girl. I think, anyway," he spoke, his gaze fixated on a small girl with fiery red hair.
"Who is she?" I asked Mr. Giles and he looked surprised I had spoken to him.
"I...I don't know. I don't often converse with those under the age of sixteen," he told me and I frowned looking back at the girl.
She was talking to another child; a boy with dark hair and the two of them were laughing about something.
It reminded me of Jim and I, back when we were still kids.
"Is it something to do with the Hellmouth? Do you think she's in danger?" I asked them.
"No. Its Wicca power, I can feel it. But she hasn't found it yet. I think she will one day though," Ellie murmured.
"Hate to interrupt this...whatever this is, but we're kinda borderlining creepy by just standing here and staring at these toddlers," Casey spoke, shaking us from our thoughts.
"Right," Jim said, and both he and Ellie pulled their eyes away from the children.
"What do you think it is?" Casey asked Mr. Giles who looked deep in thought as well.
"She could be a witch. Not now, of course, but she could become one. When she's older," he suggested and I glanced at Ellie and Jim.
"It just felt so...so strong," Ellie muttered and it kind of freaked me out to see her so shaken when she was usually the most responsible out of the four of us.
"Maybe she's a powerful witch? It's kinda hard to tell since she's four," I reasoned and both Ellie and Jim nodded.
"Yeah. Let's keep going," Ellie replied and Mr. Giles continued to show us through the town.
"So do you know where this Hellmouth opens? I feel like we should be prepared if you know, it does," I said to Mr. Giles.
"Uh, well, no. No, actually we don't but your Watcher and I have agreed that tomorrow we'll all do some research and see what we can find on the matter," he replied.
"Are we going to the high school library to do the research?" Casey asked and Mr. Giles glanced over at her.
"Yes. That's where I keep most of my ancient demonology texts," he spoke and I frowned.
"But if your students don't know then isn't that a risk? What if someone wanted to borrow a book and ended up cursing the world with some ancient incantation?" I asked him, concerned.
Mr. Giles laughed slightly and smiled at me.
"I don't put them on the shelves. I understand the risks as I've been on the Watchers council for some time now," he spoke.
I shrugged in response.
"Can we go to the library now? I kinda want to see if it's any different to the one back home," Ellie said and Mr. Giles nodded, leading us up the steps to a large building.
"This is the high school?" Jim whispered in my ear and I looked back at him with the same amazement in my own eyes.
The school was huge, with long corridors and classrooms at every turn. It was nothing like our tiny building with a maximum of twelve classrooms in the entire school.
We entered through a set of doors into what must have been the library but looked more like an ancient meeting room.
But we didn't have long to admire its wooden shelves and spindling staircase as Ellie and Jim shared another glance.
"Can you feel it?" Jim whispered and Ellie nodded.
"Dark, dark magic," she replied.
I looked over at Mr. Giles who was staring at the two of them in bewilderment.
"Mr. Giles? Is this where the Hellmouth opens?" I asked and he turned to look at me.
"Dark magic. That could mean a lot of things, but I do believe that there isn't much time to take chances. Casey I need you to go and find Charles if you wouldn't mind?"
Casey nodded, anxiously glancing back at the expressions of fear on Jim and Ellie's faces.
"Are you okay?" I asked Jim, fear encompassing me also.
He looked down at me and I realised I was gripping onto his arm.
"I...I don't know. It's so powerful...it's inside of me. My energy, I mean," he spoke.
"I think you should move away from where you're standing. That could be the entrance to the Hellmouth," Mr. Giles informed them, and Ellie and Jim took shaky steps towards where the two of us stood, my fingers still gripped onto Jim's muscled forearm.
They took slow breaths and turned to look at each other.
"Its gone. I can still...I can still feel it, but..." Ellie whispered, her voice trailing off.
"I think...I think that's where it opens, Mr. Giles," Jim said, glancing up.
Mr. Giles nodded, and led the two of them to the stairs.
"You two sit and try to ground yourselves. Summer and I will start research right away," he spoke and I nodded in response, following him over to the bookshelf he was looking through.
"Any particular titles I can look for?" I asked.
"Look in the indexes for mentions of Hellmouths and I'll see if I can find anything on Sunnydale history, especially to do with the supernatural," he replied and I dashed up the stairs past Ellie and Jim to investigate.
I couldn't tell if this was good news or bad news.
Ellie and Jim seemed pretty shaken up, but we might have found the location of the Hellmouth.
But if its closed energy could freak someone like Jim out, then I was afraid to see what it was like open.
Or worse, what came out of it when it was.
(A/N: Dun, dun, DUNNNN! hehehe- hope you guys are enjoying the story so far <3 Stay safe and totally tubular and I'll see you all in the next one xx)