AN: Hope you've all been having a great year so far! It's been a while! :D More AN's at the bottom, as per usual for me. I always have too much to say. Enjoy!

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The next morning found Ethan tense and worried...but luckily, still safe in the Weir household. Grandma had gone out early, much earlier than Ethan or Benny had woken up, and had left them locked in the house, with a note telling them not to leave for any reason other than an emergency.

So, there Ethan sat, staring gloomily out the window as Benny bustled around, oddly chipper after getting only five hours of sleep.

"Coffee?" Benny asked as he set down a steaming mug in between Ethan's elbows that rested on the table. "It's no cappacino with an extra shot of expresso and foam...but it's caffeine."

"Thanks, B." Ethan took the cup and accepted the passed peppermint creamer and sugar Benny was adding to his own coffee.

"So..." Benny approached the subject carefully. "When do you think you'll be coming back to school?"

"When does school even open again?" Ethan asked curiously and Benny internally did a victory dance as he managed to take Ethan's mind away from his worries for a moment.

"In a couple of days." Benny smiled, pleased with himself (and sometimes Rory too) for successfully causing yet another problem to cause their school to shut down for days at a time. Over the last two months, they had caused three lockdowns and evacuations, two health department searches, and one 'dangerous animal' search.

"It's really a good thing that you're so good at causing trouble." Ethan chuckled lightly and Benny beamed.

"Well they don't call me Benny Makes Trouble Weir for nothing."

"No one's ever called you that." Ethan was smiling into his mug now. Then he stood up and went to get a second breakfast burrito out of the oven, his appetite coming back to him. Outside was a glorious day...blue skies, fluffy clouds scattered here and there, and gently blowing breezes flowing through the still green leaves. The leaves would begin to lose color soon, Ethan noted as he removed a tin wrap from around his burrito and bit into it.

Grandma Weir had said the night before that she was going to cast a spell and put them in lockdown when she left. But since she hadn't done that, and instead had just left a note. It meant something worse. It meant she trusted them to listen to her...and never Benny nor Ethan could betray that trust, could they? Neither boy had brought it up, but the morning still dragged on for what seemed like forever.

And so they stayed, for three hours, from nine in the morning until twelve. And when Grandma came back, Ethan was absolutely buzzing with restrained energy. He had been giving his thumbs a good workout for the past half half hour before she walked through the door, with all his twiddling. He wondered if this was how Rory felt, like, all the time.

"Did you find anything?" Ethan asked desperately, and Grandma sighed as she sat down at the dining table and pulled out a small stack of papers. She also pulled out her small electronic tablet from her purse and set that down too.

"Yes, I did." Grandma's face wasn't worried, exactly. More like perplexed. "I found much on today's adventures. Let's go into my study, boys and have a look at these documents I've acquired."

Ethan almost couldn't wait until they got to the study, but somehow he did- and before they knew it, Grandma Weir was pulling out three stacks of realistic but faded tickets that had obviously been printed out with a poor amount of ink.

"Well, there it is, sad as it may be." Grandma shrugged. "I have connections, boys, but sometimes, they run out of ink."

"What is it?" Ethan asked, and then picked up the pile- only to realize that there were actually three stapled packets of paper. The top slip in from the first stack he picked up was a bus ticket to the Canadian-American border, then three more tickets, altogether making it a round trip to...

"California?" Ethan asked, shocked. "What would they be doing in California?!"

"Vacationing, looks like..." Benny squinted at the stack of tickets he was holding as well. "Ojai Valley Inn and Resort..."

"Is this real?!" Ethan asked hoarsely, relief washing over him at the prospect of his family being alive- and, assumedly, safe. "Tell me this is real..."

"You're family is fine, Ethan." Grandma nodded at him. "I've double and triple checked- all of this checks out. For the past two days, your family has been staying overnight at this resort in California. I had the guest registry searched in that hotel, and confirmed their seats with the flights they had taken. Your mother has also been quite active on social media for the past few days, and both of your parents have taken time off work for the next few weeks. None of it looks to be faked."

"But...Jane?" Ethan asked, still not processing the situation. "How did-"

"It seems the girl's teacher has agreed to make arrangements for her." Grandma's lips pursed then. "A private tutor for two hours each day, and online assignments. A very convenient setup...and quite an expensive one."

"But...but how could they leave me?!" Ethan was flabbergasted. "So they just up and leave without me?! With-without even calling or texting?! I mean come on, I know I haven't been the best kid lately, but-"

"Well, that's another thing." Grandma rubbed her temple. "Another thing entirely. Ethan, your family has left under the impression...that you are with them."

Grandma reached into the folder she had brought with her and dropped another stack of tickets onto the table- a stack with Ethan's name on it.

"What?" Both boys asked, and leaned in to look- and then startled when Grandma pulled out a photo from the folder as well. A photo of Ethan and Jane, sitting in a golf cart, and smiling without a care in the world. Jane...and a fake Ethan.

"Woah...woah." Benny expressed, looking at the photo and then back at the Ethan sitting next to him. As the boys soaked in the picture, Grandma tapped one spot on the paper with a long but perfectly cut and filed fingernail.

"Remind you of something you lost?" Grandma asked, and then studied Ethan curiously as the seer searched his pockets for his phone. The phone that was quite clearly in the picture with fake-Ethan. From the quality of the picture, Ethan could even make out the screen on the phone- which was opened to the central page, and displayed what looked to be all of Ethan's personal apps- and he could even make out his Star Wars themed case around the screen.

Pulling out his phone, Ethan set it on the table and opened it. Nope- all his apps were there. All of them, and his case was still there.

"I didn't lose it." Ethan said quietly, confusedly. "It's...right here. Isn't it?"

"Goes to show how much care your werewolf sire has put into convincing your parents that this fake Ethan is the real one." Grandma said, and jarred Ethan out of his thoughts. "That one is just full of surprises, isn't he?"

"You think Sylvan did this?" Ethan asked faintly, and felt his head swim as Benny looked at him worriedly. "Why would he?"

"Why does he do anything?" Grandma asked, and then shrugged. "Unless, of course, it was your odd group of friends with the underground tunnels, Ethan. But I highly doubt that. From what you've told me, it seems far more likely that Sylvan has done this. For what purpose, I'm not sure of, yet." She stood up and walked around to where Ethan was sat.

"What are you doing?" Ethan asked, concerned but not worried as Grandma put her hands on his shoulders.

"Finding out wether or not someone is feeding off your memories." Grandma Weir said as Benny gave her a reproachful look. The elderly lady then said, "Relax, Ethan. This won't hurt a bit."

Then, she held her hands up, palms facing Ethan's ears, and Benny saw the twin rings of glowing magic circling her palms. Having seen this spell only once before, Benny panicked and reached out to stop her.

"No!"

A resounding ringing like a gong shot through the room, and as Benny found himself suddenly very sleepy, he saw Ethan's head drop forward, and his shoulders relax.

"Grandma...what?" Benny asked tiredly, rubbing his eyes.

"I need to make sure this is the real Ethan." Grandma nodded, and then stood straight pointing a finger at her grandson, and Benny found himself suddenly very awake. "Help me move him."

Forty minutes later, Ethan and Benny found themselves once again within the comforting confines of the spellmaster's bedroom- Benny, absorbed in the pages of a book at the computer desk, and Ethan lounging on the bed.

"You'd think," Ethan sighed, holding an ice pack to his head. "...I'd quit letting people get the drop on me like that."

"It was just Grandma," Benny dismissed with a wave, looking into his spell book. His brows had been furrowed in concentration for the last ten minutes. "If you had actually been someone faking it..."

He trailed off and Ethan raised his eyebrows, throwing the cap of a plastic bottle at his friend from his position on the bed. Benny only made a noise of protest and shooed him away with a hand over his shoulder.

"If it had actually been...?" Ethan prompted, and blinked when Benny marked his page and stood up, grabbing his striped jacket off the back of his computer chair. "Where are you going?"

"I'm cold...and food must be here." Benny rubbed his hands together and sighed hungrily. "I can almost smell it."

Deciding not to add that his canine-senses would probably smell it first, Ethan just smiled and held the ice to his temple. He was happy that Benny was acting normal for once in a great while.

"I can go for Chinese right about now." Ethan hummed pleasantly. "Especially after you dropped my head against your bed frame on the way in here. Pain does work up quite an apatite."

"I said sorry!" Benny protested. "You said you were fine. You're black-eye is almost gone!"

"Oh yeah, that's right." Ethan continued to tease. "After my head hit the frame, the fifty-pound book precariously balanced on it fell on my face."

"Hm...It wasn't fifty pounds..." Benny looked away, and Ethan chuckled, seeing his friend's ears flush. He decided to be nice.

"Just get the food." The seer smiled. "Then maybe I'll forgive you."

"...whatev'z!" Benny marched out of the room without looking back, shoulders hunched. Ethan only grinned, and then quickly stood up, wincing at the dull but prominent ache in his head. His black-eye was indeed almost gone, but for some reason he was feeling especially weak for the last few days.

Maybe it was from all the stress, Ethan noted, and dropped the ice pack onto Benny's bedside table. Finding out his parents were missing had taken a toll on him...and it didn't exactly help that there was someone with them who looked just like him but wasn't. If the fake Ethan was anything like the dark doubles from Grandma Weir's soul-copying camera...he didn't want to think of it. The fake-him thus far has seemed mostly benign, but Ethan knew that could change anytime.

Glancing at Benny's notebook, Ethan curiously opened it to the pages Benny had been studying, and hummed in interest. This was certainly something new...and what he had thought was Benny's regular grimoire was actually a book about magical stones and other materials.

Curiously, Ethan looked at the particular material Benny was interested in, and found it to be something called Obsidian Hell Stone- a stone so dark that it draws in any negative energy around it and traps it. Interested, Ethan takes a picture of it with his phone and then goes downstairs to join Benny and his grandma for a rather heavy but delicious and well-deserved lunch.

Briefly glancing out Benny's bedroom window, the teen startled and quickly turned back.

Ethan's eyes narrowed, irises subconsciously turning a bright blue as his pupils intensified and expanded. With vivid detail, and slowly, as though time had ceased for a brief moment, he witnessed a figure in a black robe move behind a tree. It had been a considerable distance into the trees, and maybe too far for a human to see...but it had been there. And Ethan was absolutely positive it had been watching him.

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"Uhh..." Benny expressed, uncharacteristically hesitant. "Maybe I shouldn't go in. Maybe I should wait out here..."

"Look, they're cool, okay? And we've only got a half an hour before the next bus stops here, otherwise it's a two hour wait."

"...okay." Benny shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck, gazing up at the hotel room Ethan had pointed out. "Yeah, alright...its just..."

"Dude, are you actually nervous?" Ethan asked, surprised. "When did you suddenly get shy?"

"I'm not shy," Benny gave him a dirty look. "I'm just...I've never met actually another magic-user. Or sorceress besides my Grandma, and...that creepy Moleo scout leader."

"I'm sure you've met others," Ethan rolled his eyes and stepped forward, gesturing for Benny to follow. "Besides, these guys...they're..."

Benny waited as Ethan struggled for the right words. Ethan sighed, and then gave him a small smile.

"They're great." The seer said with fondness. "They saved me when they didn't have to. I was just some kid about to be- well, they went out of their way to try and protect me. I owe them a lot, and when I said I was going to tell you everything, I meant it. They can probably explain some things better than I can."

Knocking on the door of their normal hotel brought a sleepy but happy blonde, who quickly took Ethan's hand and held it excitedly.

Katee was halfway through a story about how she and Tasha had been out in the woods just three hours before searching for an artifact when she realized Benny was behind Ethan.

"Oh...hi." Katee smiled and Ethan could physically see the wear on the girl. Though older than him, by God-knows how many years, she looked a bit like Jane right then, and Ethan felt a protective ache well up in his chest. Katee looked at Benny and released Ethan's hand to wave at him.

"I'm Katee." She tilted her head a bit, and her eyes flashed green for half a moment. In that moment, Ethan knew that Katee had just realized her own behavior. She truly hadn't noticed that someone else had walked in behind him. It worried Ethan- she must have been more tired than she knew, to have missed something so simple.

"I'm...Benny." Benny grinned awkwardly, and then accepted a hug with a surprised sound. Katee looked even smaller when compared to Benny's height and stature. "Woah! I'm uh...happy to meet you too."

"I'm not usually this touchy." Katee said, and released Benny, beaming up at him, though her smile was somewhat dimmed. "I'm really...fatigued right now, ha..." She chuckled lightly, and moved to sit at a small table by one of the curtained windows.

"It's cool." Benny smiled back and joined Ethan when they went to sit with her, pulling out two cushioned chairs. "It's great to finally meet you."

"You too." The blonde werewolf looked tiredly into a cup of what appeared to be coffee and creamer. "Though I'll admit...it's weird having you so...close."

"What do you mean?" Benny asked curiously.

"It's just...well, I've seen so much of you over the past months." Katee smiled gently, and Benny's eyes widened a little. "Oh yeah...I mean, the preservation of any life is important- magical bloodlines especially, but..." She looked at Ethan with her big, bright eyes, and Ethan found himself blushing a little. "You're always with him."

"Ethan?" Benny asked, pointing to his right as Ethan shot him a look. "Well, that isn't weird in the le-ah!"

"If you must know, I asked her to look out for you while I was away sometimes." Ethan glared, removing his foot from where it had stepped on Benny's.

"I didn't ask!" Benny yelped, and leaned down to rub his foot as Ethan sighed.

"Don't be rude."

"I'm not the one ste- ouch! E, my hand!"

Sheepishly, Ethan coughed and turned to face Katee again, who was watching their little scuffle with knowing eyes Ethan wasn't sure he liked. Struggling to remain in control of himself, Ethan ignored the glare Benny was giving him and reached across the table to lay a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Did we come at a bad time?" The seer asks. "Maybe we should just come back-"

"The bathroom's open!" Tasha calls out as she walks past in just a set of black lingerie, and both boys look away quickly. The other female shakes out her short, choppy and buzzed hair as she throws her towel over a chair and goes to dig out clothes from a dresser. "You're turn Kate. Sorry I took so long, but there should be hot water now. I just had to get all that shit off my skin."

"Tasha, dear." The blonde hums, untroubled. "We're entertaining company."

"What? Really?" Tasha turns and sees the boys. "Oh...hey Ethan."

"Hey Tasha." Ethan answers meekly and raised his head just a bit in greeting before he turns away again. "Look, I can see we really came at a bad time-"

"Nonsense." The sorceress waves him off and Ethan looks up when he hears Benny squawk. The spellmaster's chin is in Tasha's hand, and his eyes are equal with the woman's firm stomach, just above her navel-piercing. "I couldn't have set a better time."

"Gaaah..." Benny gulps and then closes his eyes. "Uh, nice to meet you...are you the wizard?"

"Well, I prefer sorceress." Tasha's mouth quirked tiredly. "But either works, I guess. I'm Tasha. I'm sure Ethan's told you all about me."

"Yeah." Benny stared up at her in contemplation. "I'm Benny Weir, nice to meet you."

"Hm." Tasha nodded and took a seat on the bed closest to the table. Her eyes met Ethan's and she smiled. "How've you been kid? You didn't come back that night...or call. Or text."

"Sorry." Ethan said with a small smile of his own. "I got kinda busy after that."

"I figured as much." The black-haired woman pulled on a white shirt and then a pair of cargo pants. "So, what's up? I can already tell this isn't a visit for pleasure. Then again, you brought him with you, so I can't imagine anyone's in immediate danger."

"That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about..." Ethan stood up then and Benny's eyes narrowed with confusion as the other teen took his backpack and pulled out the folder grandma had shown them earlier that day. Katee also sat up to attention as she glanced at the folder. "I don't think my parents are in any immediate danger, but...something's wrong."

"You mean, something other than your choice of footwear?" Tasha looked down at Ethan's muddy, worn-down sneakers. "Dude, you need a new pair of shoes."

"Be serious for a second!" Ethan huffed, and slid his feet underneath his chair. "My house was torched last night, and now my parents are gone on some mysterious vacation...not to mention the fake me that's with them, and this weird chest me and Benny found-"

"That wouldn't stop spouting nonesense about our doom." Benny interjected. "I'm pretty sure it was just lying. It was so weird...and after all of that, nothing was in the chest."

"There's something else too..." Ethan spoke up, before shooting an unreadable look toward Benny. "Earlier today, I saw someone in the woods. He was wearing a dark robe thing, and he moved out of sight once I'd seen him."

"Sounds like some serious shit." Tasha sighed, and then stretched her arms out. "Well, there goes our manicure day, Kate. On the plus side, Ethan, we may have a lead to follow, if you aren't already aware of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that your school was raided last night." Tasha gave a small smile. "While the school itself isn't in working order yet, from all the evacuations and police searches, someone broke into the administration office, and the principals office. Jason's got us hooked up all over town, so we can monitor the main buildings just fine."

"Jason knows how to hack?" Ethan asked, surprised.

"Jay's a man of many talents." Katee piped up from where she'd been absent-mindedly tracing lines on Benny's palm.

"What do you think, Ben?" Ethan smiled over at the flustered spellmaster. "Think we should check it out? It may have been one of your little experiments gone wrong."

"Nah, it wasn't. Nothing of mine or Rory's would've had reason to break into the administrations office." Benny replied, seemingly deep in thought.

"I think we should go anyway."

"I doubt we'll be finding any valuable fingerprints." Benny snorted. "But I don't think your house fire and the break-in happening at the same time is a coincidence. If nothing else, whatever was stolen might give us a clue about who these people are...or what they want."

"If they're people at all..." Ethan muttered, and then shivered as he remembered his highway ride from hell with his supernatural sire. "When Sylvan and I rescued Katee...there were a lot of things in that RV. Some of them looked human, but..."

Everyone remained silent, wearing expressions in varying degrees of solemnity and anxiety.

"Anyway..." Ethan shook off the morbid thoughts and stood. "Benny and I will check out the school. See if whoever was there slipped up and left something behind."

"Want me to come with?" Tasha asked. "I don't think Katee's up for much right now, and Jason won't be back for a while."

"We got it, thanks." Ethan smiled, and then nodded at Benny. "You ready?"

"Let's go." Benny stood too, and as they said their goodbyes, he couldn't help but let out a breath of relief. Fascinating as the meeting was, he was happy that Ethan had included him in the plan to check the school, and only him.

Selfish as it may be...and childish, as well, but Benny was really happy it was going to be the two of them for the rest of the day. Even with all of their problems, it almost seemed like things were going back to normal.

"What is it?" Ethan asked, and Benny looked over at him from his window seat on the bus. Chuckling briefly, Benny looked back out the window, realizing he'd been smiling for the past minute or so.

"Nothing..." Benny forced himself to stop smiling like an idiot, trying to shake off any weird thoughts. "So, what do you think we'll find at the school?"

"Eh, besides the hallway of doom and Principal Hicks' ugly coffee mug?" Ethan shrugged. "Probably a bunch of nothing. If we actually get in, we could steal back all the stuff we've had confiscated from us and blame the robbery."

"I'm starting to have second thoughts about this." Benny shook his head. "Whoever was in there looking around, maybe it isn't anything related to the supernatural. Even if they were looking for something magical, you'd think they'd have their pick of the student body...there's gotta be at least a few others with gifts like ours at Whitechapel High...so, why the administration office?"

"Hicks' office too." Ethan reminded him. "Who knows? Actually, that's a great question. If they were looking for some kind of item, you'd think they'd have other places to look. So..."

"Maybe they were looking for something specific?"

"...hard to say." Ethan admitted reluctantly, and glanced at his phone, which had just vibrated. His mom had just posted something to social media, and he'd turned on those kind of alerts since finding out they were in California..

"Even if they were...why Hicks?" Benny puzzled over it. "Why him? Why not...like, the janitors closet? You can hide all sorts of things in there...or the jocker rooms..."

Ethan chuckled Benny smiled, happy he'd made his friend smile.

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AN: Considerably shorter than my other chapters...but I should have another one up in a day or two. :) I was actually going to wait a while to post this, since not much is happening in the story right now, and I think you guys deserve more than one 4,000 word chapter,. Buuuut inspiration hit me a little while ago for the next chapter, and I decided to post this one! What the hell! :D

I'm so so sorry for being gone and not updating in so long. A lot of shit has gone down, including another death i, espein the family, and breaking my damn foot. I literally hobbled around on a broken foot for a month and only noticed something was wrong when I felt a bump sticking out the bottom, near the knuckle of my big toe- turns out that's where the breakage was, and it healed crooked! Now I have an appointment tomorrow to discuss when I'll have to get it rebroken and set straight. I really hope they don't fuck it up more, and I really hope I'll be able to walk right again without any life-altering problems. I'm gonna be in a cast! :C I'll have to use those fucking arm-sticks and I won't be able to do shit! D: I can already feel the soreness in my back and tailbone from needing to sit/lay down for so long! But at least spring is upon me and I don't have to worry about slipping around on the ice anymore.

I'm lagging behind in like everything! But I don't think I've updated this story since last August! D: The horror! Anyway, drop a line if you'd like to give moral support. :)

Until next time!

(Updated: Thursday, March 15th, 2:52 am, 2018)