Previously on Winx Club: "In one month's time, Countess Cassandra and I will be married," King Radius had said, to the great chagrin of his daughter. "Guards, seize that awful creature!" "Get her!" And Stella was hit, and crashed through the window. "Stella!" Bloom had yelled, going after her.
Chapter 3: Pretty Pretty Princess
I watched helplessly as Bloom dived down to help save Stella. Stella was screaming as she continued to grow closer and closer to the ground. Finally, Bloom got close enough to her and grabbed her hand and tried to carry her up, but seemed to be having a hard time.
"The dark magic in the rain…" She struggled to say, groaning. "It's zapping my strength."
Stella yelled in fear as she saw that she was beginning to sink to the ground again. And finally, it became to much for Bloom and so Bloom had to let go, dropping Stella. The Solarian princess screamed probably as loud as she could.
Bloom gasped. She yelled up to us. "Guys, help me!"
The three of us flew down, taking after Bloom and Stella. I was worried. Not only that Stella might get hurt, but also, how would we break the spell placed on her? It must've been done with powerful dark magic that we hadn't learned how to overcome yet.
"I'm coming Stella," the Dragon Fire fairy assured her, reaching out for her hand. She managed to grab onto her hand again.
Flora, Musa, and myself zapped them with some of our powers to help Bloom. We gasped when they started to fall back on the ground again. Oh no.
We flew toward them, and grabbed onto Stella. It grew hard for the rain was draining us, and rapidly. We did our best to hold and made it down safely.
"Wow, this rain," Musa pointed out. "It's like anti-magic."
"It weakened our spells and our strength, but luckily we still had enough winx left to save Stella," I added.
"The way I look," Stella said. "I'd probably be better off if you hadn't."
"We'll get you changed back Stella," Bloom assured her, giving her a small hug. "In the mean time, I think you look kinda cuddly."
"Yah, kind of like a cross between a frog and a bear. Or on second thought, maybe a dragon," the fairy of nature agreed.
"I'm green, I'm HIDEOUS, and I've given a whole new meaning to the term bloated," Stella corrected them. It was hard for me to watch Stella put herself down like this, but I had to remind myself that this was Stella, and appearances were pretty much everything to her. I could just imagine how hard it was for her to know that she looked this way.
"It's a spell; we'll figure out how to break it," Bloom told her.
"Stella! Bloom! You guys alright?" We could hear Brandon shout over to us.
Stella gasped. "This is bad."
Sky and Brandon were approaching us quickly. The fairy of the sun appeared to be greatly afraid of seeing her boyfriend.
"There is no way I can let Brandon see me like this," she told us, hiding behind a tree.
I felt sorry for her. I couldn't even try to think how this whole thing must be effecting my friend. Hopefully we'd break the spell quickly so her confidence would return.
"Hi there you guys," Bloom said to Sky.
"We were worried about you," he replied, "is everybody alright, Bloom?"
"We saw the explosions," Brandon added, gesturing to the palace tower were smoke could be seen. "What happened?"
"Fire spell back dropped," I replied vaguely. "No biggie."
"But then up in the aviary, guards fired at Stella and knocked her off the roof," the fairy of the Dragon Fire finished.
Brandon looked worried. "Well then where is she?" He asked, crossing his arms.
"She's…looking for an escape route so we can get off the palace grounds," Bloom quickly replied, covering for her . I could her Stella groan. "Yah. That's right. Something that the guards don't know about."
"Yah, and she might not be back for quite some time," the fairy of nature added, standing next to me. "So you probably shouldn't wait. You should just go get the ship and then we can meet you."
"Uh, this doesn't sound right," Sky said, scratching his head. He clearly didn't believe us.
"Yah. What are ya tryin' to hide?"
"Watch out!" Musa called them, saving us from having to try to explain ourselves.
All of us looked up and saw bright lights and we knew that palace guards had chased after us. Oh great.
Sky got hit in the back by one of the beams and fell onto the ground.
Brandon got overwhelmed when some of the guards began to surround him, their happens firmly grasped, ready for attack.
Sky struggled to get up, but winced in pain and groaned.
"Sky! Hold on!" Bloom called out. She attempted to run to him when I stopped her by catching hold of her elbow.
"Wait Bloom, this rain has zapped all our winx. We can't fight the guards like this," I told her firmly, letting go after. "Let the guys handle it."
I watched as the two of them began to take out their weapons and began to defend themselves, and us.
"Sky!" Bloom shouted to him after a few minutes. "Try to get the to the ship! Here! Take this!" She threw him the remote and he caught it. "We'll send you our coordinates."
"You got it!" He replied, firmly grasping it as another guard charged after him.
After a little bit of fighting, we saw Stella peer out from the tree. "They gone?" She asked cautiously.
"They're keeping the guards busy," the red haired fairy replied.
I'm going to be honest. I felt completely useless just standing there. I bet the others did too. I mean, we're the Winx Club. We're normally the ones who handle things like this. If only that rain hadn't drained us of our powers.
"Well, I do know a secret passage," Stella told us, and began to lead the way. "It's this way."
Suddenly, we could hear barking and we knew that this wasn't good. Stella saw them and tried to run faster.
"Stella, are these the dogs you told me about?" Bloom asked her. "The ones that are stronger than dragons?"
"Yep!" She yelled as we hurried.
I continued to go faster but then I heard Stella scream louder. I looked back and realized that she had tripped.
We ran back and I was so relieved when I saw that the dogs weren't hurting Stella at all. In fact, she was petting one of them happily.
"My father gave me these dogs when they were just puppies," she explained, smiling.
"Oh…cute," Flora said, attempting to compliment.
Standing up, the Solarian princess told the dogs, "Okay, good boy. Go on home now."
The dogs panted momentarily before they calmly walked away, obeying Stella's order.
"What do you say we find that secret passage out of here?" The last princess of Sparx suggested.
"Sure thing." She led the way. "It should be, right up ahead," she told us, pointing up to an area with a great amount of trees.
We started walking and trust me, I really wish we could've flown. It's much easier and doesn't use up as much energy. But, one must deal with what was has, right? I could live with it…for now.
After we'd been walking for a little while, Stella said, "Hey you guys, thanks a lot for covering for me back there by the palace. If Brandon saw me like this, as good a guy as he is, you can bet he'd be gone faster than a Solarian sunbeam."
"That's not true," Flora told her, and I agreed. "Brandon's not like that."
"All guys are, Flo, it's just their nature," the fairy of music corrected her as she stared up into the sky. It was still raining, and I could feel myself getting weaker by the second.
"Hey! It's right up there," Stella said suddenly, pointing. "It's in a hollow tree."
"How will we know which one?" I asked, confused. All the trees I saw before me looked similar.
"Fret not," she assured us. "When I was a little girl, my puppy Couture and I entered a seasonal treasure hunt. We were s'posed to find spell-flowers, but instead we discovered a series of elf tunnels that were inside an old, hollowed out, oak tree. I tied a ribbon to the branch so I'd always know which tree it was."
"And that came in very handy in life when I used the passage to sneak out to dances and parties and stuff. And now I'm using the passage to sneak away from a party: my own." She ended her sentence with a laugh.
"Hey, laughter is supposed to be a healing force," Bloom said.
We walked up the tree where we could clearly see a pink ribbon attached to one of the branches. Walking into the tunnels, at first we stayed quiet, looking around.
As we continued to walk, we discovered that the tunnels' floors were muddy, and they stuck to our boots.
"Boy, this tunnel is really creepy," the fairy of nature commented.
"Yah, it looks like some kind of weird animal den," Musa agreed.
"Well, it never did before." Stella told us.
It was dark inside, so using the little powers I had left, I attempted to make it easier to see. "That should lighten.." I trailed off as I groaned. My boots were getting stuck in the thick mud. "Good thing that I have tall boots on."
"This stuff is gross," agreed the fairy of music.
Flora seemed to be disgusted as well.
"I wish I had enough energy left to cast a dirt deflection spell," Bloom said.
We continued to walking through the tunnels.
"To tell you the truth, I don't remember all this mud," the fairy of the sun and moon said as we continued on. "Or that bottleneck."
"That bottleneck looks dangerous," Flora added.
I stopped walking and looked to see a small, narrow passage at the end of the tunnel. Would we be able to all fit? Logically, probably not, but we had to try or else we'd never get out of Solaria.
"If it narrows down, we could get stuck in there," Bloom told us.
I began to scan it to see if we could fit. "According to my scan, the passage isn't that deep." I assured them, smiling.
Bloom peered inside. "Did your scan detect anything slimy in there?"
"I'll go first," I said, just so she could trust my information.
"Hey," Musa told me, "if anything grabs you, just shout and we'll pull you out."
Slowly I began tot walk inside, carefully. I grew worried as rocks began to rain down, but made it out and into another tunnel.
I stood and waited for a little while, waiting for the others. Finally, everyone but Stella had made it.
"We made it," Flora said cheerfully as usual.
We started to walk away when Bloom said something that made us stop.
"Hold on. Are we forgetting something?"
Musa was the first to answer. "Narrow passage, plus-sized fairy. Not good."
I could hear Stella shout as we ran to go get her. "Plus-sized fairy? That's not very nice." We could tell that she was stuck.
We approached and began to try to pull her out.
Grabbing onto her hands that were now webbed, Bloom assured her, "We got you Stella."
"And I didn't mean anything by calling you plus-sized," Musa added.
We'd finally succeeded. We fell to that ground as Stella was freed, and then she fell down herself.
"Musa, you're to concerned with your figure," she said.
There were more gasps as more rocks began to fall and we felt shaking coming from the cavern.
"This part of the tunnel's right under the lake. Let's get out of here fast." Stella told us.
We quickly agreed with her instructions as a huge boulder fell so we ran away from it. It's time like this that I wish being a fairy didn't involve wearing such uncomfortable footwear. I'd been soaking my feet in hot water as soon as I got back to Alfea.
Stella gasped once we'd reached a fork in the tunnel. "This wasn't here before…When in doubt, go left!" She suggested, pointing.
Luckily, we made it just in time as the boulder was took big to enter the tunnel.
"If this wasn't here before, then someone must've dug it," Bloom explained.
"Someone or some-thing," the blond haired girl agreed.
"What do you mean some-thing? Something like what?"
Stella screamed when she looked up. "Like maybe those giant spiders!"
"There's nothing I hate more than being in a cave with giant spiders," Musa said. "And no magic."
A spider approached us and I was scared out of my mind. Considering how I come from a digital realm, we generally don't see creatures as much as you would in other places. Especially, not bugs.
More arachnids came out, creeping us all out.
Stella screamed.
Soon, most of the other girls were beginning to get caught in the spiders' webs and were getting stuck to the ceiling. Since I'd gotten away, I used most of the magic I had left to save them.
Then, we ran away to another part of the tunnel where there was water. We jumped inside, and those of us who had a little winx to create an air bubble so that we could breathe. But, to our shock, some leach-like creatures were sucking onto us and they made me feel extremely weak.
Most of us sunk down to the bottom, passing out. But, the next thing I knew were in some sort of fountain about water.
"The leaches are gone," Bloom smiled. "Thanks Stella."
"Hey, I might not be pretty, but I'm still tough."
Once we were back outside, we began to talk over what we would do.
"We have to call Brandon," Bloom was saying to Stella, "but if you wear this"-she said, creating a pink robe for her to wear with the little powers she had- "he won't be able to see you."
"Okay," Stella agreed. "Go ahead."
"Once the guys get us back to Alfea, we'll break the spell and get you back to your normal self," Bloom assured her.
Then, the guys did show up and took us back to Alfea at last. It felt so good to be back at the beautiful, placid school for fairies. Who knew how much I'd miss to be at school! But, hey, anywhere is better than getting chased, right?
Most of us had changed back into our regular clothes and we head through the school to the library to try to find a counter spell to fix Stella back.
"I can't keep hiding from Brandon," said Stella, "sooner or later he's gonna see me."
As we looked for some books to go over, Bloom and Flora were trying to convince Stella that they could put Brandon under an illusion spell so that he'd only be able to see her inner self.
Later, we went with the guys to find the Mirror of Truth that could help break the spell on Stella…supposedly.
We were on the ship when I started to pick something up on my monitor.
"Something's happening on my monitor," I said. "It looks like a tear in the atmosphere."
"We're going into a storm!" Timmy exclaimed.
Sky said, "It's not a storm Timmy; it's weather that is actually attacking the ship."
"The temperature outside the ship is falling fast," Bloom added.
"I've never seen weather change this quickly," I told them. Oh, I most certainly hadn't. What was going on?
Luckily, we made it through then, but suddenly something else was spotted. I looked up and gasped. Please don't tell me that's a…
Sorry for not updating in so long. I was just having a hard time trying to write for this chapter, but here it is. Hopefully the next one won't take as long. Please review if you like it or have any suggestions.