MAGE ; benny weir [1]

nine

Sarah and Ellie were sat in the entrance hallway next to several posters for that new 'Dusk' movie coming out. Ellie glanced to the repetitive propaganda and groaned.
"Why is Dusk so big, again?"

"Because," Sarah began. "It's practically a ticket magnet. Those movie workers are going to get paid a LOT more this weekend."
Sarah was going to continue until she stopped and began to gawk at what came through the entrance of the school.

"Sarah? Sarah. Talk to me, dude," Ellie said, shaking her until she matched Sarah's eyeline and saw what she was staring at.
The two watched as Erica strutted in with the whole vampire squad. She was in clothes that the dress code couldn't even handle and her hair was flowing next to Jesse's shoulder.

The girls got up off the bench and walked up to Erica and Jesse's gang.
"Hello, girls," Erica wickedly smiled. "Oh, Sarah. You look a little underfed."

 Ellie was lost for words at what she was even looking at. How does a girl go from geek to glam in two days?
"What happened to you?" said Sarah, almost laughing.
"Oh, you know," Erica exhaled. "Just the best thing ever."

"It's not too late, you know," Erica added. "Join us, Sarah. Then, we can be best friends forever."

"Well, forever is longer than math class so we'll just go and-!" Ellie began, pulling Sarah away from them. Erica quickly grabbed Ellie's shoulder.

"Oh, shy girl thinks she's big and tough," Erica said with a pouty lip.
Ellie's eyes turned into a quick glare while she still held on to Sarah. "I'll show you big and tough if you don't lay your undead hand off my shoulder," she said.

"Oh wow, Shy Girl's got some guts," Erica said, her face breaking into a sneaky smile. Sarah stared at Ellie as she glared into Erica's eyes. Sarah began to feel her hand still on her arm, clenching into a fist until her knuckles turned white. 'If I didn't have fledgling powers, Ellie would have ripped my arm off by now,' she thought.

Sarah snapped out of her gaze as Jesse butted into the altercation.
"Sarah, you've been replaced." He turned to Sarah's ex-bestfriend and had a heavy make-out session right in the entrance hall. Ellie shoved Erica's arm off of her shoulder and took Sarah again.
"Let's get out of here."

As they made their way down the hallway a bit more, Sarah saw that Ellie still had that glare on her face. "Hey, don't listen to her," she began to tell Ellie.

"I know I shouldn't, but I still do."
Sarah put her hand on Ellie's shoulder, sympathetically. "You're not shy. Well, I don't think you are."

"...I needed that, honestly."
Ellie took a deep breath and lowered her shoulders. Why should she listen to those monsters, anyway? They're blood-thirsty, undead, self-obsessed vampires. What do they know about her?

The two girls reached down the hallway and found Benny and Ethan sat down, looking at their laptop screen. Ellie sat down next to Benny.

"Hey, what'd we miss?" she asked, looking at their laptop. Benny turned to her and said, "The absolute worst news yet."
"We have to go see Dusk 3."

——————

As soon as they had all of their weapons packed, Ethan, Benny, Ellie, and Sarah walked down the stairs of Ethan's house to say 'bye' to Ms. Weir and Jane.

"Alright, Jane. We'll be back soon, okay?" Ethan reassured her.
"If we don't get sucked dry," Benny added.
"What?!" Jane asked.
"Uhh, n-nothing," Ellie told her.

"Benny's just hoping he doesn't cry during the movie because he's a wuss," she added, swatting him on the back of the head.
"Ow! ...I deserve that," he groaned in reply.

"See you, Grandma," Benny yelled before Ms. Weir entered the room.
"Wait, dear! I have something for you kids," she said, stopping the kids from leaving just yet.

"Uh, no, Grandma. We really gotta go. Um, I already ate. I don't really think we need any-?"
Benny was quickly interrupted by his grandmother unwrapping about a dozen sharp daggers rolled in a cloth. "-Decorative knives?"

"If you're going to be battling the bloodsuckers, you're gonna need these," she said, handing the roll of daggers to Ethan.

"W-Where'd you get those?" Benny asked, completely lost.
"Spend almost a century in this town and you pick up a few things," Ms. Weir replied. "Oh, and one more thing."

"I have something else for you both," she added, pointing to Ellie and Benny. They checked a fast glance at one another in confusion.

Ms. Weir handed them a thick, brown leather book with sticky notes taped to certain pages. "Now, I marked a few spells for you two to use but be careful. They don't always do what they tell you to when you haven't practiced."

"Wha...?"

"Are you a witch?" Jane curiously asked from behind the kitchen table.
"Oh, goodness no," Ms. Weir replied. "But she is."

Ms. Weir nodded her head towards Ellie, acknowledging her newly found identity. Ellie widened her eyes and asked, "W-What do you mean?" 

Ms. Weir went up to her and took her hands. "Do you see the bracelet on your wrist, sweetheart?"
Ellie looked down and noticed her familiar bracelet, but it was... glowing. She was beyond confused. "Never seen it do that before..."

"That bracelet is the source of your power. It has been passed down for generations," Ms. Weir told her.

"But, this bracelet was my mom's...?"
Ms. Weir threw a wink in Ellie's direction, only causing so much more perplexity. "My mom was a witch?" Ellie asked.
Her own mother? Not in a million years.
"From the looks of it, yes, dear. She was indeed a witch and a good one at that," Ms. Weir told her.

"You and Benny aren't that much different," Ms. Weir continued. "Spellcasters and witches only have one difference: their source of power. His power source is solely based within his personality while yours is based within an object."

Ethan made a mental note of this exact moment: this was first time he had ever seen both Benny and Ellie speechless at the same time.

"Now, both of you," Ms. Weir continued. "Only use the spells that are bookmarked."
"Yes, ma'am!" Ellie and Benny said together. Ellie tried to make the most out of this. She could be sad about stuff later.

Ms. Weir turned to Jane and finally answered her question. "Dear, I'm an Earth Priestess. They're very different from witches."

"And Ethan here," she added, turning to him and completely catching him off guard.
"He's a seer. That is his path." Ethan looked at her, confused on what a 'seer' was.

"You get visions, don't you? They're supposed to start around puberty," Ms. Weir said, bluntly.

"Grandma!" Benny yelled, while Sarah and Ellie laughed.
"Oh, alright. Off you go," she said, motioning them out. They turned to walk away before Ms. Weir yelled at them.

"If you scratch my car, I'll turn you into a toad!"

——————
A.N.

Hello, again! This was an important chapter so I tried not to make it extremely long. But oh my god. Ellie's a witch! And her mom was, too! There's a whole bloodline of witches and wizards in her family that she never even knew existed! Welp, more on that in a couple chapters. Thank you!