A/N: Ok, so my fellow WWA members (and some reviewers) were wondering why I didn't make Tabitha a witch. Sorry guys, but I see her more as a fairy than a witch. It's also a vital part of the story later on…you'll figure out why as it goes along. Also, each school will be dealt with in separate chapters. This one happens to be about Alfea.
Disclaimer: Violets are Blue. Roses are Red. All some people need is a kick in the head.
A Brave New World
3. Learn to Fly
Dawn colored the sky with shades of orange and pink as the newest members of Alfea College for Fairies awoke the next morning. The first one awake was Tabby, who in turn woke up her sleeping roommate Amara with a loud declaration of joy.
"Man, would you look at that sunrise!"
"Go back to bed." The brunette princess grumbled, shoving a pillow on top of her head to block out her friend's voice.
It would take more than a pillow to stop Tabitha, though. "How can you still be sleeping? Do you even know what today is? Man, I am so psyched about this exam thing! This is gonna be awesome! We're gonna get to fly, Amara. Fly! Ow! Hey!" She protested as Amara's pillow hit her in the face.
"Shut up already, and let me catch up on my beauty sleep." The shorter girl mumbled.
"Fine." Tabby huffed. "I'll go see if any of the others are awake."
"Before seven? Not likely." Amara grumbled as the blonde girl left the room.
*~*One Hour Later*~*
"I don't think I've ever been this nervous before." Jubilee commented, watching in awe as Jean was called forward to take her turn in the Magical Reality Chamber. From the explanation that the Professor Palladium gave, the Chamber worked a fair bit like the Danger Room did back at the mansion, only it had the power to actually *enhance* the natural magic present in a fairy (or whatever else decided to enter the chamber). As of today, the five girls from Earth were going to learn just what their fairy forms looked like.
"Jubes, it's not even your turn." Tabitha pointed out.
"Yeah, but still…"
"Stop worrying, Jubilee. It's not a good emotion on you." The blonde stated, earning a nod from Kitty.
"Yeah, let's save all the worry and gloom until we're actually in the chamber." The petite brunette said as the chamber powered up.
Inside the chamber, an array of various 'monsters' appeared, and started attacking Jean. At first, the red-head used her telekinesis to simply fling the would-be attackers away, but as the chamber started to summon newer, harder to lift monsters, she began to panic. She didn't have what it took to face all of them! Not without a serious power boost.
It was then that one of the larger monsters got entirely too close. She'd let her concentration lapse, and now she could feel his breath on her front. Bad breath at that. He had to go. Now.
"Get away from me!" She shouted, a bright glow enveloping her body so that no one could see just what was going on. When it faded, the monster had been thrown back several feet, and Jean Grey got a change of wardrobe. Her new dress was a shimmery bright green spaghetti-strap number that fell to her knees. A diamond cut-out revealed a good bit of her torso and her naval, and was trimmed in gold. The straps of the dress were also gold, to match the strappy high-heeled shoes on her feet. And last, but certainly not least, a pair of green and gold wings sprouted from her back.
"I said go away!" She growled angrily at the monsters, using a sweeping psychic blast to knock most of them unconscious, and send those still awake flying backward.
"Very well done, Miss Grey!" She heard Professor Palladium's pleased voice over the speakers as she simulation faded. "That's the spirit! Now, on to the next one. Which one of you is Katherine?"
"Me, and it's Kitty, please." Kitty stood up as Jean powered down. "Only my parents call me Katherine."
"Very well, Kitty." The elf smiled warmly. "Please, step into the chamber."
Kitty obeyed, and felt a wave of apprehension as the door closed behind her. Would her simulation go as smoothly as Jean's? Or would it be harder?
It was certainly different. Rather than monsters, she got robots. Did it have to be so many robots? And did they have to look like Sentinels?
No matter. They were going down.
Taking a deep breath, Kitty went into phase and dove straight through three of the metal monstrosities, short circuiting their programs and shutting them down. Would have been a moment of victory if there weren't ten more of the darn things. And they weren't shooting.
Duck. Phase. Dodge. Repeat. She kept that routine up as long as she could, but was eventually forced back into a corner. Seeing no other options, she readied herself for yet another phase through. And hoped she didn't run out of air.
As she made her second dive for the group, she willed herself not to think about what all could go wrong. Right now, surviving was the only thing that mattered. She knew how to do this. She just needed to actually do it!
Somewhere during mid-phase, she felt a peculiarly warm sensation wash over her. She didn't dwell long on it, though, as she was still half way through a robot with several more to go. Once clearly on the other side, however, she noticed that she had gone through a total transformation.
Her hair, formerly up in a high ponytail, was now held back with a single clip of some kind (she couldn't see what, though) and flowed down her back freely. Gone were the workout sweats from just a few moments earlier. Those were replaced by a blue and pink shimmery halter top with a pink petal skirt and blue ballet shoes. Feathered pink and blue wings sat lightly on her back.
Hm. Wings. Oh the fun to be had with these babies! Without warning, Kitty jumped into the air and flew high above the robots, easily dodging the lasers and such they shot up at her. "Like, I think it worked like this." She said, focusing her energy into the palms of her hands and aiming them at the crowd of metallic minions. Unlike Jean's earlier attack, there was no massive force shoving them backward. No, this magic forced them to become intangible and sink into the floor. But only as far as their knees. Now immobile, the mechanized attackers could do nothing to avoid Kitty as she flew right down the middle of the whole group, disabling all of them.
"Wow, she's really good." Jubilee sat on the bench, mouth hanging wide open as her teammate made fast work of the reality chamber.
"You'll do fine too, Jubilee." Jean smiled at the younger girl. "It's not really as hard as it looks."
"If you say so." The Asian-American grumbled as Palladium called the next student.
"Princess Amara Aquilla. Huh. I didn't know Earth had any monarchies left."
"They do, thank you very much." Amara replied, trying to gather enough confidence to stop her hands from shaking as she walked into the chamber.
"Ah, I see." The Elvin professor replied with a smile she could hear in his voice. "Begin!"
For Amara's run, a volcanic world was generated, and several red-orange creatures with hair seemingly made of fire began to surround her.
"Oh, no you don't!" She ordered, going into her fiery form and blasting the creatures repeatedly with balls of fire. Fire didn't seem to be doing her much good, though. The creatures fed off of it and began to grow bigger.
Up in the control room, Ofelia—the school nurse—shot Palladium a concerned glare. "Are you sure this is safe? What if she can't hold them back?"
"Oh, she can." The cinnamon-headed man said. "Trust me, Ofelia, she's capable of so much more than she's aware of."
Back on the ground, Amara was fast running out of options. After accidentally knocking one of the little fire-beasts into a pit full of molten lava, she realized that while they thrived on heat they didn't do so well in a bath of liquid burning rock. She'd tapped into the power to control a volcano once before, but that had been more or less an accident. To do so here, she'd have to dive through the hoard and jump into the lava pit in Magma form to make it work. Not her first option, but since her hand-to-hand proficiency was pretty much non-existent, she decided to just go for it. A mad dash and a swan dive later, she was swimming in magma.
The "voice" of this particular mountain spoke quite strongly to her. It wasn't keen on letting her throw its innards around however she pleased, but in the end it was left with little choice but to obey her. She rode the crest of a massive wave of the molten rock back to the surface, and jumped up so it could fall down on the heads of the fire beasts. Then she would land and solidify them in a rocky cage. At least, that was the plan until she realized she was hanging in mid-air. Hot pink and orange X-shaped wings kept her from falling to the ground again.
Wait a minute. Wings? She pushed her hair back out of the way and…yep. Those were wings all right. She looked down and noticed that her whole outfit had changed. No longer in Magma form or in her civilian clothes, Amara now donned an orange cropped halter top with a diamond cut-out over her chest and pink beaded accents. A matching orange miniskirt with pink beaded fringe hugged her hips, and a pair of orange closed-toed stilettos graced her feet. ~It's like what those Latin dancers wear on TV.~ She thought to herself, deciding to give her new wings even more of a workout and fly back down to the pit of half-cooled lava. The creatures were writhing in discomfort. Hmm. She'd have to stop this whole writhing business. As soon as her feet touched the magma, it cooled into a rocky substance, trapping the beasts inside of it.
"Another job well done." Palladium's voice sounded cheerfully over the intercom. "You got all worked up over nothing at all, Amara. You're a natural at this! Now, a Miss…Jubilation Lee?" and here he thought fairy names were weird!
"Just Jubilee, Mr. Palladium." Jubilee said nervously as she passed by Amara. In the background, an excited Tabitha whooped "You go girl!" at the top of her lungs. Off to the side, the raven-tressed girl noticed that stern looking woman—the one with the glasses—shaking her head and muttering something about someone named Stella. ~I'm not sure what it is, but I'm sure it's not good!~ She thought, continuing on her way into the chamber.
"Are you ready, Jubilee?" The man asked. She nodded an affirmative, not trusting her own voice right at the moment. Scared as she was, she'd probably come off a bit like Minnie Mouse. "Very well. Initiate simulation."
Apparently Mr. Palladium liked to play with the settings on his chamber, because so far no two girls had gone through the same simulation. For Jubilee, it was fighting a bunch of shadow monsters in a dark cave. She tried lobbing small blasts at them, but they weren't doing nearly enough damage or shedding near enough light on her opponents to be any good to her. Plus, the darn things seemed to come out of everywhere! She needed to lighten the mood in here. Badly.
"Here goes nothing." She said, closing her eyes and readying herself for a massive attack. "Let there be light!" Both hands shot up in the air as multi-colored bolts of plasma began to rain down on the cave, keeping the creatures away from her. "Okay, that worked. And now for something completely different!" One hand went forward, trying to focus the exploding plasma into a stream-like attack. Instead of several little bolts, she got one big blast that barreled through the ghoul in her way like a Roman candle. "Wow. That's new." She said, turning to her right and nailing yet another shadow-fiend. "I guess all those training sessions paid off." She admitted as another ghoul disintegrate into nothingness. Then another. And another. Until they were all gone and Palladium finally decided to end the simulation.
"Nice outfit, Jubilee!" Kitty called out, causing the shorter girl to stare in confusion.
"Huh?"
"Look down, girl! You got an upgrade!" Tabby shouted. Jubilee did, and then stepped back in shock.
The first thing she noticed was that her hair was no longer lying against the back of her neck or hanging over her shoulders. Instead, she discovered, it was pulled back into a sweeping up do with a multi-colored clip (she could see the reflection on the metal walls of the chamber). Then there was the actual wardrobe. Her yellow jacket and white shirt were gone, replaced by a yellow triangle top with a bright pink wedge down the center and a pink ribbon holding it up for modesty's sake. Her jeans and sneakers were gone as well, and a yellow miniskirt and hot pink boots took their places. A pair of iridescent pale blue yellow and pink butterfly-like wings graced her back. "Oh wow."
"Yeah, exactly." Tabby said, jumping up from her seat. "My turn!"
Palladium had to shake his head at the blonde Earthling's enthusiasm. "Now that's the kind of attitude I like to see!"
"You're the only one that likes it." Griselda muttered as she walked into the control booth.
"Tell me about it!" Tabitha shouted back, looking completely cool with being stuck inside the magical reality chamber. "We gonna get going or not, Professor P.?"
"Of course, Tabitha." He smiled, looking over his array of levers and buttons. Yes, he had the perfect simulation for her! "Activating chamber…now!"
Tabby got the shock of her life down on the ground. Rather than far away worlds or robot factories, she got an amusement park. A frikkin' amusement park. Which made her wonder two things. 1. Did the Ferris wheel actually work? And 2. What would she be fighting.
"Hehehehehe!"
"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" She groaned. Clowns. It had to be clowns! "This is all kinds of wrong!" she shouted, tossing a few not-so-well aimed time bombs in the general direction of the advancing clowns as she took off for some kind of shelter. Unfortunately, there was none to be found. The game booths and tents were all occupied by, you guessed it, more clowns.
"Dammit!" She swore, glaring venomously at the wacky characters coming up on her with rubber chickens that happened to explode whenever they hit something. "This is just f'n great!" she growled. Nowhere to run to. No place to hide in. She'd just have to blow up the annoying Chuckles brigade. "You circus rejects wanna play catch?" She called out, forming a softball-sized bomb in her hands. "Here's a real fastball for ya!" With as mighty a throw as she could manage, she hurled it at a clown coming in her direction. Said clown exploded along with the sphere whenever it made impact, sending bits of gray goop everywhere, but strangely no blood. "Who else wants a piece of this!" She cackled madly, jumping on a nearby table. Several of the clown crowd grinned maniacally. "As you wish!" Several tennis-ball-sized bombs flew through the air as she spun in circles, cackling madly at the destruction she was causing. Trash cans, tents, prize booths—pretty much anything that was standing in her vicinity was now on the ground. Only a handful remained to deal with. But right now she was flying high on the ecstasy of causing destruction, and thoroughly enjoying the tingling sensation now spreading over her body. A quick glance down told her that she too had gotten a transformation—but not the same as the other girls.
No, her outfit was forged in hues of black, dark teal/green, and fuchsia that would cause many young fairies to think she might be a witch. A dark teal high-neck sleeveless top extended down her front to just about her navel, and travelled every bit as far down in the back. The only thing holding the front and back pieces of teal leather together were six strips of black glittery fabric, three for each side. Low rise leather pants, the same teal-green hue as the top, extended gracefully down into a pair of thigh-high shimmery black boots, and a black glittery belt adorned her hips. Up her arms, fuchsia fingerless knit gloves extended a few inches above her elbows, with black metallic gauntlets keeping them from sliding down any farther. A pair of teal and fuchsia dragonfly wings extended from her back, although she saw no use in them. She was having quite a lot of fun without them!
"Here, you Bozo wanna-bes!" She grinned, throwing large orbs of exploding orange energy at the synthetic clowns. Each one took out its intended target, but that wasn't enough for her. Not when she was on such a roll! Many smaller orbs rolled carelessly off her fingertips as she spun around, strong wings beginning to propel her upward ever so slightly. All until finally, the magical illusion was gone, and she was hovering several feet of the ground in a metal room, time bombs still falling off her hands.
"Oh my goodness!" Ofelia gasped. Even the transfers from Cloud Tower usually weren't this crazy!
"She certainly is a wild one." Palladium sighed, then perked up. "But, she is a fairy! Those wings prove it!"
"Dragon help us." Griselda sighed as Tabitha strutted out of the room like a supermodel going down a runway. "We'll need it to deal with that one!"