Chapter 1: detention

The room flooded with light as Flora yanked open the flowery green curtains, her bubbly voice making Bloom grin sheepishly as she pulled herself up sleepily from her cluttered bed, tumbling comically onto the rug, flapping her arms as they tangled in her flam-red hair. The sleep still in her eyes and feeling the softness of the blue rug on her face, she stayed there, trying to pull an imaginary blanket over her head.

Flora giggled and, waving her fingers in a sparkling cloud, watched as her favourite creeper plant beside her bed grew up the wall and climbed down to where Bloom was sleeping soundly on the floor; and ticked her awake. Flora was in fits, but if looks could kill, Bloom's poisonous expression would have floored her.

Laughing lightly, Flora's face took on a quizzical look. "Hey, what time is your detention, sweetie?"

"Uh, 10:30. Why?" she replied, suddenly looking horrified. It was already 10:18, and Griselda was expecting her. Bloom leapt up from the floor and threw the mountain of books, clothes and bags off her chair. At the very bottom were what she was searching for: her blue trousers and top. Hurriedly pulling them on, hoping to God they were on the right way around, she grabbed her bag and mumbled a goodbye to Flora, stumbling from the room.

Flora supressed another giggle at the torrent of shirts and textbooks littering the floor on Bloom's side of the room. She thought absently about finding the rest of the girls, but she wasn't willing to risk waking Musa or Layla up, so she retreated to her bed, hoping Tecna would come to find her when she could figure out how to not wake Layla up when she left the room.

Stella was – surprisingly – already there waiting when Bloom showed up, skidding to a halt outside the library. Stella had a frown between her drawn on eyebrows and she was uncharacteristically quiet, so Bloom thought 'best not talk to her yet'. Griselda was overseeing their detention, so God knew what was in store for them. They walked through the ancient wooden door – and stopped. Griselda stood with her arms crossed, talking her newest quill pen against her beloved clipboard. Surrounding her in towering stacks was every book from every shelf in the whole library. Together, the two girls thought 'God, we should not have tried to get our own revenge on the Trix.'

A rarely seen smile crept up Griselda's thin lips when she noticed that the girls had come in, and stepped maliciously up to them, still tapping the pen. "So girls, another detention."

"It's been too long, Ms G!" Stella said, looking much too happy at her own smart-arsery.

"Quite. Be that as it may, for your little, shall we say indiscretion, at Cloud Tower last week, angered Ms Griffin highly."

"But I thought she hated those witches as much as we do?" Stella said.

"You destroyed three classrooms in her school and blew the front door off!" Griselda was hopping, reliving the memory, so Bloom stepped in.

"Yes, professor, we're sorry. We will apologise to Professor Griffin. What do you want us to do now?" Bloom said, hoping to diffuse Griselda's temper. It seemed to have worked for the moment, so Griselda put them to work sorting and cataloguing every single book Alfea owned. By themselves. Great.

The 'fiction' section of the library was very small compared to the rest but it still contained nearly 800 books. In 45 minutes they were done with it, although it was mostly Stella sitting in a chair and Bloom moaning at her to help while she sorted books. Stella even resorted to reading a book once, something Bloom inwardly doubted she'd ever done before. The librarian thanked them profusely and often, grumbling whenever Griselda came in to check on them.

By about 11:30, they couldn't be sure, time passed so slowly, they'd moved onto the 'History of Magic' section, which must have contained at least 5,000 books. This area of the library was dusty like the books it housed, and Bloom cursed Griselda for sending them here for their Saturday. The 'no magic' rule had to be broken several times as the shelves rose 9 levels high, and the books weighed more than Stella did, so she left most of the heavy lifting to Bloom.

Red-faced, Bloom fluttered down from the top level of the shelves and landed with a stomp beside Stella's latest chair and said with a pouty face "Stella can you please help!? It's a detention for both of us, y'know!"

"Yeah, but it was your idea!" Stella whined, dropping the book she was pretending to read on the ground, forgetting to catalogue it, again.

Bloom muttered under her breath at her blonde best friend and recorded another book on the register. Crouching at the dwindling pile of books, she picked up another one, heavy and old with a distinct layer of dust, and looked at the cover intently. There was a picture on the front of three women, tall and skinny with straggly grey hair. She recognised them from somewhere, but she couldn't place it, and it itched in the back of her brain.

"Hey, Stell, have you seen these people anywhere before?" Bloom said. Stella leaned out of the chair and scanned the book cover. A puzzled look came over her face as she studied it, and she recoiled as Bloom realised, jumping up from where she was crouching very forcefully.

"Oh, my God, it's the ancestresses! I knew I recognised them, this must be them before they, sort of, died." Bloom exclaimed, dropping the book with a thud onto the carpet. She couldn't resist the temptation; she opened the book on the first page, and began to read.

The Ancestral witches can be traced back to over 12,000 years ago, as the absolute source of evil. Originally from the realm of Whisperia, they ruled over this realm for many thousands of years, until the decided to turn their sights elsewhere.

Since the beginning of their long lives, they have been opposed by the great dragon and her legacy: the Dragon Flame, but have only recently gone to battle with it, In 1998, they attacked the ancient realm of Sparx, destroying it and everyone living there.

Bloom stopped reading, a tear running down her cheek. Stella sighed and put a hand on her arm. "It's okay, sweetie. We'll put it right, one day."

"I know, Stell." Bloom smiled at her best friend and laughed at herself. It shocked her that it still upset her after nearly 3 years of knowing who she was. Bloom sat up and said, suddenly wondering "Wait, I wonder what happened to Whisperia. I've never heard of that realm before."

"Oh, I have. It still exists, but apparently it's very secretive, no-one really goes there, or goes out of there." Stella explained. "Anyway, keep reading. What does it day about them most recently? Anything about what happened to your realm, anymore, I mean?"

For many years after the Ancestral Witches deserted their realm, their descendants continued to rule over it. They produced a long line of kings and queens, but, it didn't end well for their line. In 2003, the most recently born descendants of the witches vanished from their realm and parents, and no more has been heard of them.

Bloom stopped again, thinking this time. What if…

The girls looked fixedly at each other, wondering.

"Do you think it could be-" Stella's pensive voice was cut off by a clap of lightening, making the two girls flinch back from the source. As the smoke cleared, they strained their eyes to make out the figures before them: three of them, pale and straggly, mud and small stains of blood covering their shocked faces. One of them coughed and spluttered the word "Help."

"It can't be-" Bloom's raspy voice whispered. But it was.

It was the Trix.