Disclaimer: This is an unauthorized derivative of Winx Club, a Rainbow S.p.A. production. I do not own Winx Club or any associated characters, plots, or settings. The previous disclaimer applies to this and all future chapters of this story.

this is how it starts (ready set go)

dawn the face of a new generation

Stella drew in a wondrous breath. "Oh, girls! It's…it's perfect!"

Aisha rolled her eyes as Stella salivated over the latest extravagant display in the front windows of the latest trendy fashion focal point at the heart of Magix. Apparently "blue was the new black!"

"Perfect for what?" Flora asked, pressing her palm to the window. Stella just grinned excitedly.

"Perfect for me, of course!" she gushed, rushing to push through the doors and jostling the four shopping bags she already had in her arms. "Alfea's next term starts the day after tomorrow and if we're going to be teaching, I'll need a fabulous new wardrobe!" Bloom stepped forward to hold the doors open for her, trying not to laugh.

"Right, because the thirty new dresses you've bought all this month won't last you through the week."

A crashing noise rattled the glass doors and cracked the display window.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, you bastard!"

The girls turned their heads in all different directions, searching for the noise and power which must have shaken the building, but couldn't find anyone; suddenly Flora gasped sharply and Musa pointed up. "There!"

"Where?"

"No, there!" Tecna pointed in the opposite direction.

"There!"

Bloom looked straight up; sure enough, a fairy was hovering above her, sparkling wings practically vibrating, they fluttered so fast. An energy blast swung at her and she seemed to vanish as it exploded into another building.

"Hey!" Bloom shouted; the fairy ignored her completely.

"You're one to judge!" called another voice, male this time. The girl, five feet away from where she had started, scoffed dismissively and opened her palms.

"I'm not the one trying to take over the world," she said derisively. "I'm not that self-centered."

Vibrant energy swirled over her left hand; slicing her right through it, she showered the man with darts of quick-moving power. As he dodged almost all of them, she appeared behind him and—Flora cried out—knocked him out of the air.

"Laura!" someone hollered; the girls looked around to the new attendant, another fairy, as the first fairy (Laura, apparently) turned her attention to the second.

"Finished?" Laura asked as a third fairy joined the second. The two new girls exchanged a sour look and Laura frowned.

"We captured Aster," she said bitterly as Laura nodded.

"Uh-huh," she said coolly. "Right, well, we'd better get going." She looked down to where the man had fallen; the Winx Club girls hadn't even noticed the third fairy move, but she appeared to be supporting him somehow. He hung beside her like a puppet on strings, snapping his bared teeth. She only glared at him. In a sudden flash of dim light, the mysterious girls and their captive vanished.

The Winx girls exchanged curious looks. "So what was that about?" Stella asked, completely baffled. Bloom shrugged as Tecna started clicking away on her PDA.

"Apparently, this 'Aster' guy has been causing a lot of trouble across the magical dimension," Tecna said, furrowing her brow. "I don't know why we haven't noticed anything; seems the authorities are trying to keep it pretty closely under wraps. I guess they've only just made it to our sector."

Musa tapped her fingers against her chin and shifted her weight to one side. "Those girls seemed pretty upset that they had only captured Aster," she said ponderously. Aisha nodded.

"He probably has accomplices," she said. "If the police are trying to keep this quiet, it makes sense that there wouldn't be information about them available publicly."

Bloom leaned against the cracked storefront. "But why haven't we heard about them until now? And that was pretty weird, them just showing up here and then leaving."

"I want to know how that Laura girl kept disappearing and reappearing so quickly," Aisha said, resting her hands on her hips. "Even if she had a Believix, I didn't see her change her wings at all; she couldn't have been teleporting, and anyway it wouldn't make sense to do it over such a small space."

Flouncing into the middle of their circle, Stella brandished a fistful of bags at her friends. "Girls! Have you forgotten why we're here?"

Flora smiled fondly. "Shopping, of course," she said. "Maybe we should let this one slide for now. If it comes up again, we'll look into it, but it doesn't really seem to be affecting us just now."

Bloom and Tecna frowned. "I guess," Tecna said, putting her PDA back into her pocket even as Bloom made a face.

"I don't like this at all," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "Tecna, did the information you found say anything about what Aster was looking for, or what he was doing?"

Tecna shook her head. "Nothing specific. All we have to go on is what Laura said."

"That she's not trying to take over the world," Flora said. "So it doesn't seem that Aster is going after anything specific, but still, I think we should leave well enough alone for now."

Bloom made a disdainful noise through her teeth as Stella grabbed her arm, dragging her towards the department store doors. "Fine…"