Travis Loket gripped two of the young potentials hands and pushed the third in front of him. He sighed. He knew the three were only 5, but still, when were they going to learn?
*At least the Rosenberg child is fairly well behaved* he thought to himself. * But these three more than cover for her*. A day hardly ever went by that they weren't in some kind of trouble. This time he had found them in the council's armoury, playing with the weapons. All potentials were forbidden to enter there. And even most of the Watchers weren't allowed in.
But he was puzzled as to how they had got into there. The door should have been too heavy for them to open. It was solid lead, and it took two full- grown men to open it. How could these three tiny things have opened it?
Not to mention the lock. Only he and the most senior of the other watchers knew the code.
Well he could wonder about that later. Once these three were back with Giles. Travis really didn't know what to do with children. They confused him. Especially these three. They were so strong, fast and good as fighting. In that respect their maturity was that of an adult. An extremely well trained adult.
He knew these three were technically prodigies. They could outclass students three times their age. But then they pulled stunts like this. And his opinion of them spiralled downwards.
He shook his head. Well they were Mr Giles' responsibility, not his, thank goodness.
"Mr Giles!" He called when they neared the little slayers house. Giles came walking out with a look of dread on his face. It soon left when he saw the trio accompanying Travis.
Giles sighed with relief. He had thought Travis was going to entrust him with another child to look after. Since the Potentials were with him, that meant that the three of them had just been up to mischief. That he could deal with.
"Where were they this time" he asked Travis, plastering a stern look on his face. He looked at his charges faces. Kendra looked guilty, Faith defiant. Buffy just looked sheepish. And Willow she looked- hang on a minute, Willow wasn't with them.
"They were in the armoury" Travis told him, dropping Faith and Kendra's hands and pushing the three towards Giles. He glared at them.
"What on Earth were you doing in there?" He asked angrily. Some of the weapons in that building were extremely dangerous. And valuable.
"You could have been badly hurt" He continued, in a slightly more normal voice.
Travis looked uncomfortable "Um, well I'll leave you to it" he said, and scuttled off.
Giles continued to scold his charges. He impressed on them the seriousness of this. They could have been locked in. Been injured. Broken something. Giles was sure he wouldn't have been able to stand it if they had been hurt. He adored the children, although he tried not to show it.
His charges were all looking ashamed by the time he had finished with them. They looked so sorry he couldn't punish them. He was sure they understood what they had done wrong, and wouldn't do it again.
He remembered his fourth charge. "Girls, where's Willow?" he asked them. Instantly the three turned on their innocent faces, which he had to say were a lot better than Willow's.
"Isn't she here?" Faith asked sweetly. Now Giles was really worried. Faith being sweet? He thought not.
"Girls" he said warningly. Kendra cracked. She was better than Willow at withstanding his glare, but the other two outpaced her by far.
"She kinda accidentally turned herself into a kitty, and now she can't turn herself back" He should have guessed. Magick again. Willow was pretty well behaved about most things, but when she saw a spell she liked, she used it.
The armoury doubled as storage for the more advanced spells. So Willow had been on in this little escapade too had she? Once again he was amazed by the child's ability. He hadn't managed that spell until he was in his late twenties. And he had been one of the earliest.
"Where is she?" he asked. He was glad he had personal experience with that particular spell. Otherwise he would have had to ask one of the other Watchers to help him. And he really didn't want to do that. Another would not be forgiving to Willow about this type of thing. And he didn't want the girl in too much trouble, she was just curious, that was all.
He would have to spend more time teaching her if she was going to keep doing this kind of thing. She needed to be able to reverse spells as well as cast them. He decided that he would tell her that her punishment was extra magick lessons. She would believe him of course, and work extra hard because of it, even though it was something she liked doing.
A small orange tabby kitten walked out from behind a nearby bush. He quickly said the reversal spell and the small cat turned into the small Willow. She had a very contrite and sheepish look on her face.
"I'm sorry Giles. I forgot to memorise the reversal spell, and I couldn't read when I was a kitty" She told him. Of course she couldn't. He was surprised the child hadn't known that. She would have still had her intelligence, but she wouldn't have been able to read, write, or talk human.
If she had memorised the spell however, it would have been easy enough to speak it in the language of the animal she had turned herself into.
Giles put a stern look on his face. "I'm sorry Willow, but you cant keep doing spells, I'm afraid I'm going to have to assign you 2 extra hours of lessons with me each day" There, that should do it.
His ruse worked "Yes Giles, I understand" the child said, looking at her feet.
Giles smiled around him. "OK everybody, you're all forgiven, just don't do it again" His charges nodded agreement.
"I believe the proper thing to say here is; Who wants some Ice-cream!" Giles proclaimed.
His charges shared a look. He was a softy, and they all loved him for it