Chosen
Chapter 1 - Welcome To the Hellmouth Part 2

"So we're all agreed that something weird's going on here?"

"Personally, I'm a little disappointed there aren't any little party treats. Y'know, like those little cocktail sausages and crackers and-" Umi was cut off as Rhianna gave her a warning look, glaring at her from her perch on the huge sofa that took up most of the space in the little sitting-room. After the incident earlier that evening, the rest of the gang had been called over to discuss any theories they may have as to why in the hell their worst fears were suddenly popping up out of thin air.

Both Grace and Telary had repeated their stories to the rest of the group, who in turn recounted their Terrifying Tales(TM). Grace was still a little shaken and continually glanced down at the floor, as though making sure that it was still there. Telary, on the other hand, seemed to have regained his usual vibrant perkiness and was currently fighting with Harry over the last remaining chair. Raven and Rhianna were still in shock over their recent ordeal, but were intent on solving the problem nevertheless.

"I just don't see how any of this can be happening. I mean, we haven't come into contact with any Evil Beastie in the last few weeks that could hate our guts for any reason, so I think that rules out any little vengeance spells and such. It just doesn't add up!" Grace said hotly, folding her arms and leaning back in her seat. Harry, who had won the Battle of the Chair and was now sitting next to Grace, looked intensely worried and shuffled his chair away from her. Raven chuckled at the expression on his face and leant against the wall, folding his arms. "Where's Hawk, anyway? He said he'd be here-"

The front door crashed open, announcing the latecomer's arrival. But the group sensed immediately that something was wrong, judging by the way Hawk's breath was coming out in short gasps, his eyes wide. He dashed into the living-room and leapt behind the sofa on which Rhianna was sitting.

Through the open door, a swarm of what seemed to be shining nails came flying through the door. They paused slightly, as though searching for something, then flew towards the sofa. Rhianna shrieked and ran towards Raven, the 'nails' puncturing the sofa as they hit. The others jumped out of their seats and backed against the walls, watching as the shining objects wriggled out of the soft padding of the couch. As they hovered in the air, the group realised that they were syringes with razor-sharp needles, the long piece of metal glinting in the light. They seemed to have given up on Hawk and turned to the others, one shooting towards each of them.

Grace yelped and held one of her precious books in front of her face as the needle flew towards her. She heard a soft tinkling sound and, when she slowly pulled the book away from her face, she saw that the syringe had smashed all over the cover. Umi simply ducked as another needle flew at her, sending it crashing into the wall. Raven dodged his own syringe and proceeded to yank Harry out of the way as the needle flew at him, missed and went flying out of a nearby window. Realising it's companions had been defeated, the last syringe simply vanished with a soft 'poof'.

Hawk's head peered over the top of the couch, fear still in his eyes. Rhianna walked over to him and held his hand, pulling him to his feet. "Thanks for the help," she said dryly, smiling at him. Hawk rolled his eyes and collapsed onto the sofa, sighing. "Wait till you have a gang of razor-sharp needles flying at you. I bet you would've done the same thing!" The rest of the group sat down too, while Raven shut the front door.

"This is nuts," Telary stated, glancing worriedly at the others. "I mean, we're all seeing 

our worst fears and who knows what they could be doing? And who says it's just us? People all over town could be experiencing the same thing!"

"I think we'd know about it if they were," Harry said slowly. "We'd've heard about it by now, and people'd be panicking left, right and center." Rhianna nodded, making room for Raven as he sat next to her. "He's right," she said. "In any case, we have to find out what's going on here. People could be in danger."

Suddenly, Grace gave an excited squeak and reached for her bag, pulling out a battered and ancient book. She licked her finger and flicked through the pages quickly. Harry gazed at her incredulously. "You keep Demonology books in your bag? Let me guess - a little light reading for when the stress of killing demons becomes too much?" Grace ignored him and placed the book on the table in the center of the room. Pointing at the present page, she said, "This is it. This is what we're looking for."

"'The 'Yirah' demon or 'Heartless'," Raven read aloud, scanning over the page. "'Can recognise a person's worst fear and bring it into reality. As its victim gives into fear and becomes weaker, their soul is lost and they eventually die.' Hmm... sounds lovely." he muttered, leaning against the wall again. Umi shuddered and closed the book, slipping it back into Grace's bag.

"I s'pose you want to go looking for this thing?" she asked warily, glancing at Hawk and Raven. "I, for one, don't want to see all those snakes again, and I'm pretty sure Rhi doesn't want two dead bodies clogging up her hallway." Ignoring Umi's comment, Rhianna frowned slightly. "But we haven't all seen our worst fears," she explained. "Harry and Raven haven't seen a thing, have you?" she asked, tunring to them.

"Nope," Raven stated, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But I'm just putting it down to good luck. What about you, Harry?" Harry jumped and got to his feet slowly, scratching his forehead.

...what about the green light? Maybe that was the thing that's causing all these problems, and it would explain why Rhi saw her fear a few minutes after... but it didn't feel right. I was... scared? Not exactly, but I know I didn't like having it in the room with me. How can I be afraid of a shiny green ball?

"Harry?" Rhianna asked, stepping towards him. "Did you see anything?" Harry shook his head, folding his arms. "No... nothing."

--

"So this," Raven said gingerly. "...is where you think this 'Heartless' is?" He, Grace and Hawk were in a dark, damp tunnel that smelt strongly of human waste and general grime. Water dripped from the ceiling as they walked along, moss staining the walls. Yeah. They were in the sewers.

"I don't 'think' the Heartless is in here, I know it is," Grace said simply, shining her torch in front of them. "How d'you know?" Hawk asked suspiciously, stepping over the body of what appeared to be a rat which was floating in the ankle-high water.

"If I were an evil, fear-inducing super-demon, this is where I'd be," Grace explained, walking past the two boys as they stopped, staring at her. Raven glanced down at Hawk and muttered, "Well, that's encouraging." They began to walk forwards again, stopping suddenly when Grace called back to them. "Uhh... guys? Hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but-"



"It's a dead-end." Hawk said dully, shivering. "Another one. Grace, we've covered most of the underground tunnels and we haven't found a single thing. Can't we go back up now?" Grace sighed and nodded, turning round. Raven and Hawk winced as the torch shone into their eyes, but she didn't seem to notice. "I guess so..." she muttered, trudging past them and climbing a nearby ladder. Raven paused before turning back to Hawk.

"The way she's acting, you'd think she enjoyed it down here..."

--

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were trudging through Sunnydale Cemetery, cold and tired. They'd spent hours in the sewers and were still soaked from walking through several inches of dirty water. After several minutes of mindless wandering, they came to a stop near one of the crypts. Hawk and Raven groaned and collapsed upon the ground, not caring about the wet grass beneath them.

"How long do we have to keep doing this?" Raven grumbled, scowling at Grace. "I mean, I wanna kill this thing but-"
"What the hell?"

Grace and Raven turned to see Hawk staring at a nearby headstone, completely shocked. Getting to his feet, Raven walked over to him and knelt down, eyes widening slightly when he read the words carved into the stone.

Rhianna Forger
1990 - 2008
Always In Our Hearts

"What the...?" Grace stood behind the two boys, arms folded. Raven shook his head slightly, standing up. "My worst fear," he said quietly, gazing at the headstone. "What is?" Hawk asked, getting to his feet and leaning against the crypt.

"Letting Rhi die." Raven said simply. He and Grace jumped as a startled yelp came from behind them, and turned sharply to see Hawk falling backwards through the steel door of the crypt. They ran forward to help him, but stopped as they entered the huge stone room inside. Tree roots hung from the ceiling and four coffins lined the walls. It was the center of the room, however, that caught their eyes.

A gaping hole took up nearly the whole floor, what seemed to be spider's webs lining its sides. Hawk groaned and rolled over, only to roll straight into the hole. Raven and Grace ran forward and hesitated, before jumping in after him.

They fell with a thud onto the soft, dry earth several feet below the crypt. Hawk was already on his feet, grinning down at them. "I know we've been going for hours, but there's really no time for taking a break now," he smirked, gripping Grace's arm and helping her to her feet. "Shut it," Raven snapped, brushing dust and earth off his clothes. "Let's just find this thing before my jeans get totally ruined."

They walked deeper into the narrow tunnel that lead away from the dusty cavern they left behind. The walls were covered in webs and roots, the two substances swiping at their faces as they walked along. It was dark and Grace's torch had long since ran out of battery, causing them to walk slowly in the almost pitch-black. After a while (they weren't sure of the time; they knew it was very late, but since they couldn't see Hawk's 

watch, they were pretty stuck) they came to another dead-end, covered in thick webs and dust.

"This is it?" Grace muttered, scowling. "I thought there'd be at least one beastie down here- AGH!" she shrieked as something leapt towards her and knocked her to the ground. "Grace!" Hawk yelled, pulling an orb from his pocket. It rose into the air and glowed brightly, filling the small tunnel with light.

A huge spider was standing over Grace, its fangs dripping with a green liquid. Raven gaped at the massive creature before grabbing a rock and throwing it towards the spider. It bounced off the arachnid's abdomen, causing it to screech in pain and turn away from Grace. Hawk leapt at it, swiping at its eyes with his katanas and sending the creature's blood flying in all directions. It screeched again and crashed its front legs against Hawk, sending him flying across the cavern. Grace had gotten to her feet and opened one of her books, chanting a spell under her breath.

The spider now attacked Raven, its fangs snapping at him as he backed into the earthy wall. As it threw its fangs towards him, he ducked, causing the spider's fangs to miss and simply get a mouthful of dirt. Raven crawled underneath the spider and glanced up, spotting a bright marking on its abdomen; it seemed to be a black and red Heart shape, jagged thorns crisscrossing through the marking. Pulling a small dagger out from his belt, Raven plunged the blade into the Heartless' abdomen. It gave a deafening scream and began to wobble on its spindly legs, crawling away from Raven and blindly banging into the walls surrounding them. All suddenly went quiet as Grace stopped chanting, and for a split second, the spider froze. It gave a final screech of pain and fury, and exploded in the center of the cavern.

Raven, Hawk and Grace sat very still, covered from head to toe in green gunk. Hawk was the first to move, wiping a huge glob of the stuff from his face. "...Grace? Can you maybe not use that spell again?"

--

Sunlight shone through the windows of the Magick Box the next day as the whole group gathered inside the shop. Harry, Telary and Rhianna were sitting at the round table in the corner, reading more demonology books as Grace and Umi squabbled impatiently at the till. Hawk and Raven were in a room at the back of the shop which was used for training; inside was a variety of different weapons and a few dummies for them to practise on, and a few startled yelps signalled that Hawk was winning their current spat.

"Y'know, it's weird that Harry was the only one of us who didn't see anything," Umi stated brightly, walking over to the three at the table. "Are you sure you didn't see anything?"

Harry glanced up at the other two at the table, now whacking each other on the head with two of the largest books. He turned back to Umi and studied her face thoughtfully. He'd always liked her slightly more than the others, but now he wasn't sure whether it was just friendship he wanted, or something a little more-

"Harry!" she said loudly, waving her hand in front of his face. "Did - you - see - anything?" Harry smiled faintly and opened his mouth to answer, but stopped himself. Maybe you shouldn't mention the green light... it'd only get everyone worried, and what good would that do? They've got enough going on already without you dumping 

something else on their shoulders. Harry shook his head and smiled at Umi, propping his legs up on the table. "Nope. Didn't see a thing."

Umi sighed in frustration and walked back over to Grace. Harry grinned and turned back to his books, resting his head in his hands. When the time came, he might tell them; after all, it wasn't that important right now.

Righto, that's end of the first chapter. I think I'll be writing each chapter in two parts now, since it's too much trouble writing the whole thing out at once... To be honest, I'm not really satisfied with this chapter, since it all feels like the whole thing goes to quickly... but I'm sure I'll get over it.