Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I finally got time to update! Please let me know what you think! xx

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Deflated Red Fountain theme as we zoom in on the Specialists among the debris of the arena.

Ugh! Brandon grunted as he and a junior Specialist worked together to heave a broken slab of marble out of the way. All around the wreckage-filled stadium formerly known as Red Fountain's training arena, other specialists were doing the same.

"Hey buddy, a little help here?" Sky called out as he and junior-specialist Jaime finished pushing their slab into the corner. Wiping his brow, Brandon strode over to his friend, and together, they began pushing the slab of splintered concrete.

"It sure doesn't— feel like— we've graduated, huh?" Brandon remarked between successive efforts to heave the slab forwards.

"You— read— my mind," Sky grunted, turning to lean up against the rock with her shoulder. "This is— practically— Codatorta's— first-year— training class— all over again."

Finally, they reached the wall and stopped to catch their breath. Riven, who had just come up to the stadium after going on a perimeter inspection with Timmy, came over to join them.

"Hey, Riven. How's it looking out there?" Sky asked him, raising his head to greet him.

Riven shook his head. "Not good," he answered gravely. "You see that?" He pointed to the crack in the floor that started at their feet and continued to the halfway point of the stadium floor. "There are rifts like that everywhere, along the outside, along the inside, it's such a structural hazard that Timmy says it's a miracle that we're even able to be in the building at all."

"Structural hazard, huh?" Brandon repeated back to him, scratching his head.

"That is to say, if Saladin hadn't put his enchantments in place in time, this whole place would have fallen apart," explained Timmy as he came over to join them.

"Oh, man. How long do you think repairs will take?" Brandon asked his genius friend.

"Well, at the rate that it's going so far, and with the level of magical enchantments needed to heal the physical structure from within the foundation… restoring Red Fountain to its full physical integrity would take…" Timmy whipped out his advanced computer-calculator, a device he always kept on hand, and began typing in the numbers. After reading the results, he gave a start. "Over four years!" he reported in shock.

The other specialists were visibly stunned as well.

"What? Four years?" Riven was the first one to vocalize. "Are you sure there isn't something wrong with your algorithms or something?"

Timmy shook his head as he looked over his numbers again.

Whew. Brandon let out a low whistle. "Four years sure is a long time to spend in this place," he said.

They all nodded glumly at this prospect.

Just then, a cry went up from the other end of the arena. All four specialists snapped to attention and rushed over to where their other classmates had already gathered.

"What is it? What's happened?" yelled Sky, the first one to reach the scene. Pushing through the crowd of junior specialists who made way for their post-grad superiors, he finally reached the figure that had collapsed on the ground and let out a sharp gasp.

"Helia!"

…

Meanwhile, in a dank prison cell in the dungeons of Domino…

Icy lounged on her hard prison chair as if it were an ice throne, swinging her legs over one of the armrests, while her arms and back draped over the other.

To her right, her older (but only by two minutes) sister Darcy had laid claim to the prison cot bed and was mindlessly inspecting her nails for the hundredth time, as if the hypnotic purple polish would be enough to teleport her away from this horrible place.

"I'm so bored, ugh!" their younger sister Stormy groaned from her position on the floor. She had become so bored, it seemed, that she had abandoned the furniture altogether, opting instead to prop her legs up against the mortar wall with her wild curly hair and magenta-covered back flat against the cold, hard ground.

Lazily, Icy glanced down through her eyelids at her younger sister, who had begun tugging out strands of her own hair and in an attempt to spark fire to them with her storm-based powers.

"Chill it, Stormy," Icy said, unfeelingly. "You know your lightning powers don't work in here."

"Yeah, well at least I'm trying to do something," Stormy shot back. "Ugh! I just want to get out of here and destroy something!" she pounded the ground in frustration.

At her little sister's whining, Icy's hand tightened into a fist. "Don't you think I know that," she finally snapped, slamming her fist down against the hard wood grained armrest of her chair. "And I'm trying to figure out how. Ugh! These stupid anti-magic charms. There're so dark even I'm having trouble undoing them. But eventually…" she rubbed her temples, forcing herself to return to her nonchalant concentration.

Stormy looked to her sister Darcy.

"Hey, don't look at me, you couldn't even get a spark to form from your finger," Darcy deflected.

"Well, could we get someone really bad and evil to break us out, then?" Stormy asked, twirling a strand of her storm grey hair between her fingertips. Every bit as fidgety in body as she was in spirit, she began restlessly twitching her leg, too.

To this, Icy clenched her jaw vehemently but kept her tone sickly sweet. "Now, Stormy, dear sister, I thought we all agreed that we weren't going to do team-ups anymore."

"Yeah, every time we have a team-up we always end up on the losing side," Darcy reminded her, scrunching her nose up at the thought of their ill-fated previous team-ups.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," Stormy waved their sharp tones off. "No more Lord Darkars or Valtors or ancienct ancestral witches."

"It's just that, it's… been a while you know," she said with concern, citing the entire year that they had spent in these prisons without so much as a sight of escape. "Don't you think we should have planned our escape by now?"

Just then, a funnel of wind appeared in the center of the Trix's cell. Stormy sat up to attention as wind whipped around the cell, pleased but surprised at this new development. Despite her sisters' nonchalant demeanors, she could see that they were, too.

When the whirlwind stopped, a dark figure stepped forward to reveal itself. From her vantage point on the ground, Stormy traced her way up svelte leather-clad legs, over the tops of which flowed a green high-low dress so dark it may as well have been black.

The newcomer's boots, too, seemed just the teeniest bit off black, veering on purple. In fact, the only pops of color Stormy could identify in this woman's outfit at all were the emerald green crystals that glimmered from her nails and the slightly lighter variation of a moss green that colored her lips. Naturally, her hair was a pure, jet black.

Still not used to the unexpected newcomer's presence in their cell, Stormy instinctively drew back as the young woman licked her reptilian, moss-green lips and spoke.

"Hello, ladies," she said.

…

Meanwhile, back at Alfea…The Winx convene in Stella's room as the sky outside their window turns to a palette of sunset colors.

Oomph! Musa landed on the bed with a sigh, letting it absorb all her weight as she stared at the ceiling. After a long day of orientations and opening ceremonies, she was exhausted, and glad to finally be in her room with her friends, where they could finish, or rather, begin, unpacking. That is, of course, after they had all convened in Stella's room for a satisfactory amount of time.

"…And then, just as everything was going well, that hideous beast came thundering in, destroying everything in its path," Stella said, busy relaying to Layla all the events she had missed during the previous day's hectic graduation ceremony.

"Even our strongest convergence spell didn't work against it," added Techna from the corner where she and Bloom were playing with Kiko.

Flora nodded as she came over to offer everyone tea.

"Wow," said Layla, gladly accepting a cup.

"Yes, we thought that we were done for, right then and there," Stella narrated dramatically, throwing her hand against her head for emphasis.

"But then the strangest thing happened…It turned and ran away." Even Stella couldn't help her bewilderment from showing on her face. "Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, nobody knows why, but one minute it was busy trying to break Red Fountain apart and then the next, it leapt down and just walked away from the fight." said Bloom, chiming in.

"Wow, sure sounds like a lot happened while I was gone," Layla said again, though her heart wasn't fully in it. Stifling a yawn, she got up. "I think I'm going to head to bed," she said, making to leave.

"Thanks for the tea, Flora."

"Huh?" Baffled, Stella called out from behind her, "but it's only 6:30!"

…

As Layla walked down the corridor, having bypassed her own room to go outside for some air, she heard a pair of panting footsteps run up behind her. Turning, she saw that it was Flora, and she let her concerned friend join her as they leaned against the pillars looking out into Alfea's main courtyard.

None of them spoke, choosing instead to stand in silence as they stared into the mélange of fruity colors that made up the evening sky.

"It's beautiful," Flora finally murmured, unable to contain herself. Layla nodded beside her.

"It's the same color as Nabu's flower," she said wistfully, pointing to a patch of pink sky. "I saw him, you know," she said suddenly, turning to her friend. "I saw his, his spirit. And there isn't a single day where I don't wish it had never happened."

Fresh tears of frustration threatened to spill over the rims of her eyes. "I wish it hadn't been him," she clenched her fist passionately, but almost instantly she deflated again, falling into Flora's arms. "Oh, Flora!"

Flora, who had been listening empathetically the whole time, stroked her friend's hair as she held her in her arms. "There, there," she said gently. "He'll always be with you."

"Girls!" Just then, Techna came running across the courtyard towards them. Flora and Layla started from where they were, turning to the sound of urgency in Techna's voice.

"What is it, Techna?" asked Layla, wiping the sniffles from her eyes.

Flora turned to Layla, ready to comfort her friend at the development of any more troubling news. But when Techna delivered her message, it wasn't aimed at the grieving princess of Andros.

"Flora, we have to get to Red Fountain quick!" said Techna, panting to catch her breath. "It's Helia."

…

Back in the Trix's dingy dungeon cell…

"So, how would you fine ladies like to get out of here?" Echidna asked the Trix as she curled her licorice-colored lips in a deliciously evil smile.

Still recovering from their initial shock at her appearance, the Trix didn't respond at first, but Icy was quickly the first one to recover her composure. Returning to her nonchalant position in her chair-turned-faux-ice-throne, she eyed their guest suspiciously, giving her a once-over from the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry, but we don't do team-ups anymore," she said frostily, leaning back further in her chair to show that she would not budge.

"Not even at the price of freedom?" their visitor asked, bemused.

Icy glared at her, wishing that she still had her ice powers so she could freeze the smug look right off of the other woman's face. Unfortunately, she didn't, and inwardly, she had to admit that she had a point.

"And what would be in it for you?" she asked sharply, refusing to give in.

"Besides the satisfaction of helping some fellow mistresses of the dark arts once again see the light of day?" their guest replied smoothly, her smirk never leaving her face.

"Yes, besides that," responded Icy, narrowing her eyes.

Their guest curled her lips up again. "Well for me, it's …a family matter," she said enigmatically. "Let's just say I help you escape this drag of a place, and you help me unleash darkness and destruction upon the magical universe?" she dangled her offer before the three witches.

"Did you say destruction?" asked Stormy, instantly perking up.

"And darkness…" mused Darcy, clearly intrigued.

"And what ultimate power will we need to get in order to do that?" asked Icy, even more suspicious than before as she saw her sisters being enticed by the promises from the enchantress before her.

To that end, Echidna smiled again. "Darkness is all the power we'll need," she responded. Snapping her fingers, she opened a portal at the door of the Trix's chamber and gestured with her hand.

"Shall we?" she asked.

Stormy grinned. Darcy laughed. The maniacal hunger for chaos and mischievous gleam of cunning had returned to their eyes.

Turning, all three women looked to Icy, the only one in the cell still sitting resolutely atop her dinky 'throne.'

After taking her time to carefully weigh all her options in her head, Icy finally heaved herself laboriously off the offending chair, kicking it aside as she stood.

"Fine," she decreed icily. "Let's go." Pushing past her grinning sisters, she stepped into the swirling black vortex and out to freedom.

…

Back to Red Fountain as the Winx hurry in past the damaged and crumbling Red Fountain exterior.

The Winx filed into Red Fountain's weapons supply room, a small, circular room which had been made into a makeshift resting chamber for Helia while the specialists of Red Fountain waited on Saladin's magical healing spells to deem the corridor to their infirmary safe for passing.

"Wow, this place really has been roughed up," Bloom remarked to Sky as he and Brandon escorted the girls through the door.

"That's one way to put it," Sky replied, gesturing his arm over to where his Headmaster Saladin was already standing.

"Helia!" Flora cried as soon as she saw her ailing boyfriend lying motionless on the table. "Oh, Helia, are you alright?" she rushed to his side.

Behind her, the rest of the Winx and their headmistress Faragonda came to join her, coming to the bedside where Red Fountain's Headmaster Saladin leaned worriedly over his nephew's face. Crowding around gravely, they awaited for their Headmasters' diagnosis.

"Have you found anything out yet, Saladin?" Faragonda asked her colleague as she placed a gentle hand on the sick boy's forehead.

"Well, the good news is that there are no signs of physical injury, and no internal bleeding," Saladin informed her, pacing back and forth. "But he hasn't moved a muscle since he collapsed this morning."

Sky and Brandon shared a glance, silently agreeing that this was the closest to distraught that they had ever seen their former teacher.

"Well, why don't I have a look then," said Faragonda reassuringly, placing her hands of either side of Helia's head so she could get a concentrated reading on his aura.

The students backed up to give her some space.

"Omi-visa-cura, omi-visa-cura," Faragonda began to glow as she chanted her spell. Everyone in the room watched in silence, seeming to collectively be holding their breaths. Expectantly, they looked to Faragonda when she finished.

As Faragonda opened her eyes, her face was grave. "Just as I feared," she said. "This is the doing of an ancient dark magic, one that has not been seen around here for a very long time."

Flora piped up. "If it's dark magic, then we can fix it with our fairy dust, right?" she asked hopefully.

Faragonda shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Flora. While fairy dust may work on spells and enchantments cast using dark magic, it has very little effect against the workings of darkness itself."

The Winx gasped at that, but she continued thoughtfully. "Although this magic hasn't been seen for centuries, I wonder if there may be one way—"

"I'll do it," said Flora before Faragonda had even finished her sentence. Already, the others could see hope blossoming in her chest.

"Yes, we'll do anything to save Helia," Bloom seconded, stepping protectively to her friend's side.

"Absolutely," Layla agreed, giving her friend an affirmative squeeze.

"We'll go, too," volunteered Sky, stepping forward along with Brandon.

Faragonda shook her head. "You boys will be best served to stay here. You are needed here to help rebuild Red Fountain." The two specialists bowed their heads dutifully. "Yes, m'am."

"But you're all determined to go, then?" Faragonda asked, turning to the Winx. She searched each of their faces, seeking out their true intentions.

"Of course!" "Definitely." "We're all in this together!" Every one of them voiced their support for their friend, but it was the looks of pure determination etched into their faces that convinced her. Faragonda nodded, satisfied. "Alright, then," she said.

"This mission will require you to go back to Tir Nan Og."

…

Stumbling out the other side of Echidna's portal, the Trix took in their surroundings. Across the barren expanse of dirt and dust, a dark and menacing granite fortress rose from the ground.

"What is this place?" Stormy breathed, wide-eyed.

"Ladies," said Echidna. "Welcome to Callisto."