Disclaimer: I don't own the Winx Club or any of its Spin-offs.
This is a story that I'm not entirely sure why I began. The setting is an AU, happening after the events of the first movie.
Chapter One: Kantakka Reawakens
"I can't be late!" Tecna thought aloud, as she found herself barrelling through the skies above the zigzagging streets of a foreign world. The realm was called Apex. Thousands of years prior, a great schism had occurred on planet Zenith. Those who stayed on Zenith had decided to reject emotion, and embrace logic above all. Those who left had become the people of Apex, who had valued the link between emotion and logic. Biologically, the people of Apex and Zenith had been remarkably similar, given their common ancestry, but over time, their ideals had driven them completely apart.
Just as the people were, the physical planet itself had been similar, yet incredibly different to Zenith. While the buildings were just as tall, and there were just as many automatons as on Tecna's home realm; Zenith was a snow covered planet, whilst Apex had been a predominantly sand and rock covered planet. Despite that, the city Tecna was in was plentiful with water, and other pleasantries that would normally be absent on a desert planet.
Tecna's destination had been a large dome building in the distance, made of a chrome-like metal. Being the guardian fairy of a technological superpower, she had been invited to a special press conference, along with King Cryos. An Apex scientist had apparently reached a massive breakthrough in the field of robotics, one that could change the very nature of the way people would think about life itself. At least, that had been what the letter Tecna received had said about the nature of the event.
The chrome building was now within spitting distance, and Tecna had descended into a dive down to the front entrance. There were several armoured security guards standing watch outside of the building, along with a young woman carrying a clipboard.
"Please wait!" Tecna yelled, as she touched down on the ground. The guards and the woman all looked at her with slight caution. "I'm Tecna of Zenith, and I'm here for the conference." She pointed at the woman's clipboard. "I should be on the list."
"Sorry miss," the woman said, her voice thick with false sympathy, "but, I'm afraid we can't let anyone in after the conference has started."
"But I can't miss this!" Tecna protested. "It's too important!"
"Then you should have been on time," the woman replied callously.
"Isn't there anyway you can let me in?" Tecna asked. She cursed under her breath. She loved her friends, but at the same time, if it wasn't for them, she would have been on time.
The woman rolled her eyes, and let out a quiet sigh of exasperation. "Look, I can't let you inside for security reasons." The woman let out another sigh, this one with more empathy than the last. "Maybe, you'll be able to meet with a few of the other ambassadors, after they leave the conference."
Tecna nodded, still feeling disappointed over her lack of access. "I'll try that then." She walked over to the wall next to the entrance, and leaned on it. "But, I'm not moving until they finish." The security guards shuffled slightly, and glared over at her, before looking back to the woman. She raised her hand up, and shook her head. The guards fell back to ease.
The conference hall had been a surprisingly comfortable locale, filled with hundreds of chairs, made of a soft black material, which could become softer, or firmer, based on a command from a button on the armrest. Several ambassadors had gathered to witness the announcement, from all sorts of realms all over the magical dimension, though most of the realms involved had been technological superpowers. Special seats were available at the front of the hall, right near the speaker's platform, specifically for the political parties of Apex. The seats were even colour coded, to match with the political alignment. There had been four different coloured chairs; orange, green, purple and grey. Not all of the chairs had been filled, but the grey chairs had been nearly completely empty, with only two attendees. Strangely, the political party which had been designated to sit in the area was the Revolutionary Machine Party. However, even the two that did show up did their best to keep their faces hidden, as if they had been embarrassed to attend the event.
King Cryos looked around the Zenith section in slight confusion. All but one of his company had made it to the event. The missing person, was Tecna, the guardian fairy. The king grumbled slightly, somewhat disappointed that the girl hadn't come to the event. No matter her excuse, it was a rather unprofessional move in the king's eyes, that showed a lack of proper respect. Cryos tried to distance his mind from Tecna's absence, and focused on the platform at the front of the room, where a young man with long brown hair, wearing a dark green suit walked up to the platform. The lights dimmed slightly, as the screen behind him lit up.
"Can you all hear me?" the young man asked. The members of the audience all nodded. For each of them, it had sounded as if the man had been simply engaging them in a one-on-one conversation in a quiet room, without even any voice amplification. Looking at the sides of the halls, there had been no speakers on the walls. The room was designed for efficient sound travel, but that still couldn't have been enough for his voice to be so clear. "It's a new sound travelling technology, called the sound thrower. We're just trying it out for a little test run."
The audience let out a collective "Ahh."
"But that's not why you've all been asked to attend today, now is it?" The man continued. "But, how rude of me! I've not introduced myself yet. I am Professor Dalis'Eti." Even King Cryos had difficulty containing the surprise he had felt. The man speaking to them looked no older than sixteen years of age. He was the genius professor? "What you've actually been called for, was to see this." The young professor gestured to the large screen behind him, which began to display images of a new computer chip, along side an image of a brain, a heart and what had appeared to be strands of DNA. "What do these three have in common?" The professor asked rhetorically. "Until now, the answer has been nothing. Often, we might try to put them together, and we can have some marginal success. We've created artificial intelligence, which can learn and think... albeit constrained by the limits of logic and reasoning. What I present to you today, is the second technological singularity. A machine that can learn, think and most importantly... feel."
One of the two figures sitting in the Revolutionary Machine Party designation shuffled slightly, and whispered into the ear of the other figure, who nodded slowly.
"The DNA strand is to represent a truly unique machine in every way," Professor Dalis'Eti continued. He was barely able stop himself from smiling from ear to ear. "No matter what, no two machines will ever be the same, in the same way that no two living creatures are perfectly alike. Most importantly, we are able to achieve this, without involving biological matter in any way whatsoever. These machines will go beyond what any artificial intelligence in the past was ever capable of. There will be no limit. No hindrance to what these robotics will accomplish. Feelings will not be programmed functions, not a glorified calculator, where you input a statement, and receive a predetermined answer. Rather, they will be learned, and truly experienced, the same way you or I feel emotion. And most impressively... this has all been accomplished without any magic whatsoever." The entire crowd erupted in excitement at this last statement, with the exception of the Zenith visitors, and the Revolutionary Machine Party. King Cryos had been unable to determine the importance of a construct feeling emotion. If logical perfection was a lack of emotion, what good was moving in the opposite direction? The shorter of the two Revolutionary Machine Party members quickly reached into his pocket, and pulled something on to his mouth. The taller of the two stood up, and approached the professor, fighting his way through the mob of people who had gathered around the young man.
The young professor looked upon the man from the Machine Party's face with slight unrest. It had appeared to be very much within the uncanny valley – that point where machines had been slightly shy of human appearance, and as a result were quite repulsive – with almost rubbery skin. Around his eyes, the rubber skin didn't quite cover what lay underneath, where a metallic skeleton could be seen around the eye sockets. His eyes were strange glass-like objects, with watery crystals in the centres acting as his irises.
"Young sir, please put this on," the man said, with a heavily synthesized voice. He held out a small black suction-cup shaped object, with a flexible loop of string attached. Whatever the object was, it was intended to go on the professor's mouth.
"Who are you?" The professor asked. He looked at the mask sceptically.
"You may call me Monster," the man replied. He practically tackled the professor, and shoved the mask on his face, as a cloudy white gas began to fill the room. Before the people inside could even scream, they had begun to drop to the floor. The professor's eyes widened in horror as he watched the hundreds of guests fell over and died. A few had managed to bang on the exit vainly before dying as well.
"What's going on in there?!" Tecna cried. The heavy banging at the door came in a single quick burst before being completely silenced.
"The door's locked!" one of the guards exclaimed. They stepped away from the door, before melting it with a single shot from one of their lasers. Tecna was immediately sickened when she saw the dead bodies behind the door, slumped over in a large pile. The guards quickly ran into the room, before they all began to fall over and die as well. Tecna hesitated slightly, before she ran in as well, hoping that her backup respirator would save her.
"General Masiina," Monster said coolly, "all of the witnesses are dead." The shorter figure with the mask nodded tersely, before removing the hat he had been wearing, and flipping his collar down, revealing long blonde hair, and a very feminine face.
"You're a woman?" The professor asked, genuine surprise in his voice. "How could you do such a thing?!"
"If people get in the way of progress, then they die," the general responded. She had a rather luscious voice, that betrayed her heartless words. She turned and saw Tecna, who had been staring at them. "Monster. You missed one."
Monster turned and glared at Tecna, who had since transformed into her Enchantix fairy form. Her pink hair had grown slightly down her back, two three-pronged wings formed on her back. Her chest and waist were protected by a relatively small amount of fabric. Wire-like coils wrapped around her lower legs and feet into sandals. "Look at that outfit," Monster said, slight humour in his voice. "Is she some kind of tart?" Tecna merely gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. He was trying to trick her into taking more breathes than was necessary.
"Don't underestimate her," General Masiina said. "She's been able to withstand the gas that killed everyone else in a single breath – and, she's an Enchantix fairy." Massina leaned in closer to Monster, to the point where the two were looking at each other eye to eye. "We don't have time for this."
Tecna was knocked down when the metal comprising the roof let out a groan of anguish as it was torn apart. She clutched at her ears to try and stop the sound. When the sound had passed, she looked up, and saw a large bird-shaped robot floating above the roof. General Masiina and Monster had already been on board, along with the captive Professor Dalis'Eti. The professor had been banging at the glass of the exit, and Tecna could read his lips well enough to tell that he had been crying out for help. Tecna threw a spell at the ship, only for it to bounce harmlessly off of the reflective surface. Thinking quickly, Tecna shot another spell, to conceal a small tracking device she threw onto the hull. General Masiina took one last look at Tecna, and waved mockingly, before the bird-bot zoomed off into the distance.
The pink-haired fairy watched helplessly as the robot flew off, likely carrying its passengers to the safety of a base. She quickly returned her mind to the present, as she began to run through the room, looking around, hoping that she wouldn't find what she feared she would find. However, those fears were realized, when she found the body of King Cryos, cold and motionless on the ground. Coming from his mouth was a mixture of foam and blood. She cupped her hands over her face and let out a ragged sigh. The hole in the ceiling had allowed for the excess of gas to escape, cleaning the room slightly. It was not long before a crew of emergency workers wearing HazMat suits ran into the building, to offer what little aid they could. Tecna pulled out her palmtop, and explained to them what had happened, and who she was. Being a member of the Winx Club had helped her explanation greatly. She had left the care for the dead to the aid workers, before she flew up through the hole in the chrome ceiling, and flew off into the distance. On her palmtop, she could see that the robot had stopped moving, though it had been rather deep in the Apex desert. Determined to see justice wrought, she quickly flew off into the desert, after the killers. She contemplated calling the other members of the Winx, but ultimately decided against it, given the limited window of opportunity she had. If she had called, there was a chance that those responsible would get away with their crimes. Not to mention, if they had brought Professor's Dalis'Eti with them, it would mean that they likely had a plan involving his research. While Tecna hadn't known the full details, she had heard the hype surrounding it, and if people like Monster and Masiina were interested, and willing to kill, it could have disastrous impacts.
Tecna was fast, but she wasn't able to keep up with a machine with beyond mach capabilities. The sandstorm in the desert wasn't helping at all. She could barely keep her eyes open more than a squint, at risk of exposing herself to the danger of the element. In the distance, she could make out the outline of a group of colours. It was no mirage. All sorts of scrap metal, all gathered in one conspicuous location. Evidently, the Revolutionary Machine Party had been relying on the sandstorm to keep them hidden. Near the pile of scrap, there was a bright white wall. Behind that wall, a large military complex. There were large guard towers at every corner of the gate, and the base itself had been comprised of small and tall buildings alike. It was as if it were a small city in the middle of the desert.
Tecna ground her teeth behind her tightly shut lips. She quickly flew above the gate, only to be stopped by a force field even her palmtop couldn't detect. Upon impact, she felt as if countless volts of energy had just shot through her body. She fell limply down into the scrap pile below. She let out a pained scream as her leg was wedged into the thin gap between two serrated pieces of metal. She carefully pulled her bleeding leg out of the gap. Looking down on the wound, she could see that the cuts were not only deep, but numerous. A crippling injury. The smells of coppery blood, rusting metal, burnt hair and cooking flesh filled her nostrils. She was filled with sudden regret over the impulsive nature of her previous actions. Maybe emotions do only get in the way. Her leg wasn't going to stop bleeding anytime soon. Her only hope was to make her way back to the city, and seek hospitalization.
"Well, well... what are you doing here?" Tecna's heart sank as she heard the familiar synthesized voice. It was Monster. She slowly turned her head to face him. The rubbery skin was no longer covering his entire face, but was now only over his lower jaw. It was apparent that that was the only part of his face where his flesh had been organic. The rest of his face was a smooth metallic skeleton. His false eyes had been removed, and were now just two blue crystals within empty sockets. "Pretty little fairies shouldn't be all the way out here." He reached out and grasped Tecna's lower jaw with his left hand. His hand was warm, and made of real skin and bone. He violently pulled his hand away, and replaced it with his right hand, which had been cold metal. He tightened his grip, threatening to crush Tecna's jawbone. Before she cried out in pain, he pulled his hand away, and knocked her over. "Angel! Come to me!" Monster yelled. Tecna glanced up at him, and saw that he was getting onto a metallic animal mount of sorts. It appeared to be a gryphon made of reflective black metal. It was only as large as the sizes that the animal had actually been, when found on various realms. Bigger than a person, though not by much.
"Shall we dispose of her, Monster?" It had seemed as if the robot gryphon had spoken, however, its voice was less robotic than Monster's own had been. In fact, it wasn't robotic at all. It had sounded like a normal, young woman's voice.
"We shall, Angel," Monster replied. He gently stroked the back of Angel's head. The robot cooed happily as it took flight above Tecna.
Tecna's breaths had become quick and short, perfectly in rhythm with the beating of her organic heart. Her mouth had become completely dry, and her lips were cracked. She couldn't help but feel completely helpless. Is this how it ends? She wondered. Is this it? Angel quickly swooped down, and slammed into Tecna with her hard, metal wing. Tecna was knocked back from the impact, and landed back down on the pile of scrap metal, a few yards from where she had started. She looked around, and saw her head had landed just a few inches away from a sharp spike of metal jutting out of the ground. For a moment, she wasn't sure whether to be grateful or not. Will Timmy ever know what happens to me? Her mind couldn't help but wander, even though she thought she had been staring death in the eyes. Not wanting to waste her final moments, she managed to stand – despite her bleeding leg – and turned to face Monster and Angel.
"Digital Blast!" cried Tecna. She shot two streams of green energy towards the duo. The spells collided with the two, though they had appeared to have been completely unfazed by the attack. Tecna's eyes widened, and her arms fell down to her side. "That should have done something at least." Angel began to dive at her once more, this time aiming the sharp tips of her black wings at Tecna, like knives. "Protective Energy Shield!" A large green bubble appeared around Tecna, who crossed her arms in front of her chest, bracing for the impact. Angel's attack cut right through the barrier, and into Tecna's arms. The pink-haired fairy was once again knocked away, but this time with fresh bleeding wounds. When her body collided with the scrap once more, she had felt as if she had gone completely numb all over.
"Without a Konolento, you don't stand a chance," Monster mocked. "Angel, let's finish her off with at least some of her dignity intact." Angel nodded, and flew up into the air once more. Tecna's vision was beginning to blur into a black tunnel. Blood mixed with magic had dripped down through the scrap pile, all over. It had been painted red with her blood. She stared up into the sky, and saw that Angel and Monster had been floating within the path of the sun. A few rare tears began to fall from her eyes, and mixed with some of the blood that had been smeared on her face, before falling to the metal below. At the present, she didn't even know why she had cried.
Am I scared? She wondered. For me? Or for someone else? Her mind was slipping. She couldn't even attempt to move out of the way anymore. She had no strength left. She shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable end.
"What the hell?!" Monster yelled. Tecna felt herself being flung through the air once more, though it was not the result of a painful impact this time, but rather from the scrap metal she was upon being blown away. She opened her eyes slightly, and saw the outline of another metallic monster standing above her, features silhouetted because of the bright sun behind it. Immediately, she shut her eyes once again. "Kantakka?!"
"You will be safe with me," A deep male voice said. Tecna's eyes were barely able to open, as she felt herself being picked up by the jaw of the new animal. The beast quickly flung her onto his back. "If you cannot fight, then I cannot fight. If we can't fight, we should run." Tecna's neck was quickly jerked around, as the monster she was seated upon suddenly rushed off into the distance, easily surpassing mach speeds. She had felt suddenly awake once more. "Don't look now, but we're being followed." Ignoring the robot, Tecna turned her head around, and saw that Monster and Angel had been chasing them rather closely. "Can you fight in your state?!"
"Yes," Tecna replied. She had gained her second wind. Perhaps with the help of this robot, she would be able to fight back.
"So long as we fight together, we stand a chance," the beast said. He gradually began to slow his pace, until he managed to turn himself around. Now, Tecna and her beast had stared in a showdown with Monster and Angel.
"Traitor Kantakka seems to have returned to the world of the living," Angel said, with scorn in her voice.
"Weak minded Angel seems to be as blindly obedient as ever," Tecna's beast, Kantakka replied. "Always pleased to lick the boots of your master, aren't you?" Angel growled at Kantakka's comment. Monster attempted to calm her down by stroking the back of her head. For the first time since she had been thrown upon him, Tecna decided to take a good look at just what Kantakka was. He appeared to be a bull-like creature, with a unicorn's horn, and the wings of a falcon. His metal body had given him a predominantly golden colour.
"The legendary Konolento reawakens," Monster said. Even through his heavily altered voice, hints of fear could still be heard in his speech. "But how did this girl reawaken him I wonder?"
Tecna was beginning to feel completely dizzy. The blood-loss was definitely beginning to take its toll upon her. She struggled to keep her vision from doubling. She tried to focus her mind on stopping Monster, for the crimes he had committed. That would keep her going. "Let's win this Kantakka!" Tecna yelled. The bull-like creature looked up at her and nodded. Angel and Kantakka charged at each other ready to begin their bout.
"Author's" Notes: And so ends this first chapter! There's something appealing to me about putting characters named Monster and Angel together on the same team. On my Profile, I hinted at a story about where the Winx would have gone, if I was in charge of the series. This... is not that story. This is something much stranger, that hit me like a pile of bricks.
Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave a review with your thoughts, comments and criticisms! :D