6

The school was given advance notice for the remainder of the week. The Hounder Organization absolutely required Timothy Neogene to be in the Ivory Tower for business reasons, confidential of course. All work for the teen was to be collected and delivered to the front gate of the Tower. The guards would scan it for foreign objects and possible threatening items, then deliver the package of homework to him in the Tower. The remainder of the S-List continued going to classes, spreading out stories of supposedly hush-hush operations that ranged from a hostile takeover of Parker-Brothers to a plan to buy OPEC. Elmer was feeling somewhat better about the pink hat he wore when several students passed him by, wearing faded hats of various colors and cheering as they saw him with the only pink hat allowed in the city. The other S-List kids held down the fort and posted verbal barriers that made it nearly impossible for Remy to get close to the Ivory Tower without looking like some jealous, greedy little bastard out to steal funds.

"Bulla Scintillare!" the brunet cried aloud, hurling the triple spheres of condensed Fire mana at his target. They exploded on impact, filling the room with flashes of light and heat and sending the droid skittering about with black streaks along its hull. Timmy panted, dropping to one knee as he tried to get a few seconds of rest. As promised, Caleb had come out of his emergency repairs roughly fifteen hours after the meeting in the Ivory Tower and promptly told Timmy to get back into the training room, pick out one of the spells he'd created himself and cast it continuously until he was drained of mana.

It sounded crazy and at first Timmy refused to do it. The angel kicked him into the room, sealed the door and flooded it with the training droids on high aggression.

"Do it, or I'm not Rezzing you." Caleb snapped into the intercom. So now here was Timmy, spending a full hour hurling the least expensive of his mana manipulation spells at droids that crawled all over the floor in attempts to stab their little claws into his body. Speaking of which...

"No, not again!" Timmy moaned and summoned another set of the spheres, "Bulla Scintillare!" He tossed them out, the trio tumbled through the air, then just seemed to fizzle into nothing, dissipating back into the air as the brunet collapsed and curled up, covering his head as he waited for the droids to attack. They never did; every single last one of them froze in place and the com crackled back to life.

"Okay, break. I'm analyzing the data. Good work." the angel remarked and Cosmo and Wanda poofed into the training room, fluttering down to him in concern. The pink-haired fairy pressed a tiny hand to his forehead, then pulled it away, shaking it free of sweat as their godchild curled up tighter, gasping for air.

"Cosmo! Do something! Get water or a sandwich or some juice!" she yelled at her husband, noticing him just floating there. He snapped out of his trance and shook his head before waving his wand and poofing a glass of water into the air. Wanda grabbed it in both hands and held it out to the boy. "Timmy, here's some water. Come on, sit up and drink some." she urged softly. His only response was another soft moan. She bit her lip, blinking back tears. "Timmy, come on! Water! Get up!" she pleaded, then shut her eyes and flew back, aiming her wand at him.

"No!" Cosmo yelped and tackled her, spilling the glass of water and sending the fairy's wand spinning across the floor, "You spilled the water!" Wanda struggled again, snatched his wand from his grasp and aimed that instead.

"He's out of magic! I'm gonna help him recover and you'd better not stop me!" she declared and cried in shock as the green-haired fairy grabbed the wand back, smacking the star on it against her head.

"Not fairy magic!" he scolded and got up from the floor, holding his arms out as he looked over his drenched self, "Can't heal that with fairy magic. Too risky." He walked away, then took flight, squeezing water from his clothing. "Besides, he's doing fine now. See?" He pointed down at the brunet. Wanda blinked and watched the young immortal stretch his hand out and lift his fingers to the air. A shimmering cloud of white formed in a small puff before his fingertips, then began trailing in threads into his hand.

"Timmy?" the fairy questioned in wonder and the boy lifted his head to blink tiredly at her.

"Huh? Oh, give me a sec, okay?" he sighed, "I'm recharging." The puff faded after a few minutes and he pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Phew. I wish I had something to eat." he remarked in an exhausted tone. Wanda jumped for her wand and lifted it in concert with her husband, granting the wish. A plate with a sandwich appeared before the teen and he blinked in surprise before flashing his godparents a grateful smile. "Thanks!" He wolfed it down quickly and the couple conjured up a second glass of water for him.

"Oh, you ate? Good. They're coming again. Keep using the same spell." Caleb announced. Timmy stood as the droids resumed their march, fed up with the stream of bizarre orders.

"That's it! Knock it off and tell me what's going on!" he yelled as the fairies flew out of the way. He spread his arms out, dozens of the Fire mana spheres circling around his hands like miniature glowing planets. "Bulla Scintillare!" he exclaimed and abruptly brought his arms together, crossing them as the cloud of mana spheres rained down on the target droids and erupted into multiple explosions of light and fire. The com clicked on again.

"I was wondering when that would happen. All right. Get up here and I'll let you know what I've been doing." Caleb called out, a bemused tone in his voice and the door finally slid open. Timmy blinked in confusion, looked up at the fairies as they mirrored his expression, then shrugged and left the training room. Well, at least he was going to get some answers now.

--

Caleb was studying the monitors as Timmy walked in with the fairies perched on his shoulders. Genis sat limply in a nearby chair, motionless. Giving it a curious glance, the brunet reached out and poked at the silent android who, strangely enough, was wearing the funereal black outfit of his teacher guise instead of his usual green outfit. He asked about it as he mentioned the lifeless robot in the corner.

"Repairs. He's been shut off for now. And my magitech clothes need final repairs, so I'm wearing this as a separate outfit. No more distractions." the redhead muttered and tapped at the screen, "Take a look and tell me what you see." Timmy peered at the monitor with him, taking in the video feed of himself hurling out the spheres of mana at the droids.

"Me getting my butt handed to me?" he guessed dryly and Caleb shook his head.

"How about looking at the gauge?" he suggested and pointed at another screen. The second monitor held an image of Timmy, followed by a pair of colored bars on a graph, one in blue, the other in green. As the video began, the blue graph began to shrink at an amazing rate. But as time passed, the speed at which the blue bar lowered was slowing down. When the droids stopped the attack, it hovered just above a thin red line drawn across the chart. It began to slowly climb up, moved faster while Timmy on the video stretched out his hand to the air, then returned to normal once he'd eaten. The final stage of the video played and half the bar vanished with the enhanced Bulla Scintillare. "See what happened?"

"What is it?" the brunet asked in confusion, looking between the two monitors in attempts to understand the connection.

"When you first started using the spell Bulla Scintillare, it used up a large amount of your mana. However, as you continued using it over and over, it began to cost less and less." Caleb remarked, studying the charts again, "It's as if by practicing it, you're reducing the amount of mana it takes to be created." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. How exactly do you cast this anyway?" he asked curiously, "I'm not sure I can really help you until I know your procedure." Timmy blinked up at the angel, then shrugged, sending the fairies fluttering for space.

"I dunno. I just think it, I guess." he replied and scratched his head, "Let's see. I needed to clear out the ground units at that first Spire, so I figured some bombs would do the trick. Then I remembered those little smoke bombs that the police would use on mobs in New York, so I thought those would do the trick." He held out his hand and murmured softly for the Light orb to appear. "I had the Light orb down pretty good, so I decided to make Fire mana do the same, but if I packed it tight into a ball, it might make a bomb. I tried it out and that's how I got Bulla Scintillare." Timmy finished, making the orb vanish and be replaced by the three spheres of the Fire spell, "Huh, I didn't have to really focus on the change that time."

"Hmm, that might be what's reducing the mana cost. The more you have to concentrate on shaping and inventing the spell, the more mana is used up to help you focus." the android deduced, "When you do it over and over, it becomes like a habit, second nature. You do it without really thinking about it, like instinct. So it costs practically nothing to do it." He looked back at the video and grinned, "Also, you're not doing the magic circle when you got halfway through the droids." Timmy blinked and looked down at the monitor with him. He was right; early in the battle, the brunet had the circle of light spinning at his feet as he threw out the spheres. Eventually, the circle faded, forgotten, as the frenzy of throwing out the spell at a faster rate took over the boy's mind.

"Whoa! I thought you needed that to do magic!" he yelped, "How could I still be using Bulla Scintillare without the circle?!"

"It's not an elven spell. The circle only appears for magic-users who use elven spells because it lets them know they have permission to tap into that Element. It tells them they have contact with that stream of mana." Caleb returned, "You don't need it because the contact is always there, it's always flowing through you. So to form the visual contact is just a waste of mana; part of you was focused on that, but your mind dropped it as useless once you saw the droids coming after you faster than you could hold back."

"So the Faerie Ring didn't help with reducing the amount of mana I use in spells because it all came from my thoughts?" Timmy asked, holding up the silver ring. The android gave a half-shrug.

"I think it didn't work because it was made to reduce the mana cost of elven spells. You're not using elven spells, so it's just sitting there doing nothing." he clarified, "The same with the Mystic Symbol around your neck. It speeds up the cast time of elven spells, but we can see from these charts that your speed relies on your familiarity with the spell. The better you get at it, the less concentration it takes to picture the spell in your mind, and the faster it is to cast it multiple times." He watched the boy remove both accessories and take a deep breath before flicking his hand out. The Light orb bloomed into existence above his palm before he even had the chance to exhale. "See? You use that nightlight of yours so often that it's nothing to you to just pull it into creation." Caleb finished with a grin, "I bet it didn't even cost a full unit of mana!"

"Okay, so my speed of casting spells is based on how well I know them, which is based on how well I can picture them in my head." Timmy remarked, tossing the ball back and forth in his hands, "It's using my imagination as a kind of gauge? The faster and better I can imagine the spell, the faster and less draining it is to cast it. Is that right?" The android nodded eagerly.

"Exactly! Your creativity is the mold for all your spells; your power relies on that to be brought to form!" he agreed.

"And this is conjuring and transforming? Not really magic, but close enough to let me do whatever I want as long as I can imagine it?"

"Yeah!"

"Then why does it make me feel so exhausted afterwards?" the brunet grumbled, clapping the orb between both hands to snuff out the light. Caleb sighed and rubbed his head.

"Probably because you're draining your personal mana supply to cast the spells. You know what fire feels like, so when you use a Fire spell, you're not really calling for Fire mana; you pull the mana from yourself because it's already there and you add the Element based on your memory of it. You create Fire mana from yourself." he explained, "If you would focus on pulling mana from the stream around you and use that, you wouldn't get so tired so fast." He frowned and rubbed at his chin in deeper thought. "That's more transforming. That's definitely alchemy. You have the memory of what different Elements feel like, so you apply the qualities from your memories to different streams of mana. This changes the mana from one Element to another. Hell, if you applied it to objects and substances, you could even change their physical makeup!"

Timmy yawned in boredom, letting his mind drift as the android went on cheerfully talking about other subjects and random theories. So his magic wasn't really magic, it was an ability to transform, manipulate and conjure through his imagination and using mana as the clay to do it. And the memory of Elements? What was that? Fire was hot, it burned and was bright and made him think of reds and oranges and shades of yellow and gold. Was that the memory of an Element, or was that just basic common sense? Every kid in the world knew what fire was like and how it felt; why should knowing it affect mana when it was called?

Because mana was neutral? No matter who called it, good or bad, mana would come and serve. It didn't matter what Element it was, mana was still mana, and it was still neutral. Like energy. Energy was what kept things going. Mana is what keeps magic flowing and it's also what made sure there was still life and matter. So change the mana, the energy, and different things would happen as a result.

Stopping it had a result, too. Telling mana to just halt in place like when he told it to stop in that nullifier, it made the whole thing just freeze up like ice. More than just ice; it froze so completely that it shattered to pieces when it hit the ground. That was manipulation of mana, telling it what to do for him.

Then there was the day he made a disc out of Earth mana and threw it at Chester. He'd just been playing with it, made shapes out of it, then stumbled across the idea of using mana as a physical weapon. He made the disc, then wondered if it were possible to do similar things with mana from other sources beyond the basic Elements. He never got around to trying it, but maybe he should, once he got the hang of his other spells so they didn't make him completely crash after a few castings. This must be the transformation of mana, pulling it from different sources to be used as something else.

So then what would conjuring be? Was it from pulling mana from within himself? Was it from adding the memory of what he wanted something to feel like, act like, be like? If the spell came entirely from himself, the mana, the Element, the way it worked and all, was that conjuring? Timmy looked over at his fairy godparents as they played with their wands, a luxury that had been put aside as they budgeted magic now restored thanks to Romi's charge ladder system. Wanda lifted hers with a smile and a cookie poofed into the air. Cosmo lifted his and a stuffed bear appeared before him. Both items were exchanged and Wanda cuddled the bear cheerfully as Cosmo munched down on his treat.

Timmy never bothered to question where those things came from when he wished for objects. Some of them were easy to figure out, Wanda would probably remark on how something was made or where it was made or how it worked, signs that a wished-for item was just summoned from one place to his hands. But little things -a cookie, a teddy bear, a blanket, a milkshake- were forever a mystery. Just a wave of the wand and there it was and no remark from Wanda on how it came to be. It just was. Was that conjuring with fairy magic? Could he mimic that with mana?

Cookies had mana, right? They were made of lots of things that had mana when they were alive; they were just transformed into the ingredients that made the cookie. And eating cookies could restore mana, so that mana had to come from somewhere; why not the cookie? It's why you ate it, right? And Timmy remembered the taste of cookies, the feel of it, the warmth of a fresh-baked chocolate chip morsel that incited another pang of homesickness. Was that memory the memory of a cookie's Element? Could it be possible to draw the mana from himself, add the memory of what he knew was a cookie and create a cookie from nothing?

"Mm-mm! That was lovey-licious!" Cosmo cheered after finishing off the cookie, crumbs flying with each syllable, "I wish I had another one!"

Timmy shut his eyes, concentrating. The shape of the cookie, how it looked, how he remembered it from seeing it in his memories, from seeing it hanging in the air after Wanda poofed it there. Then the memories attached to the cookie; its warmth, its smell, its chewy texture and the sweetness of the chocolate chips, the comforting feeling of knowing he was loved when he received one. He put out a hand, picturing the cookie in his mind being placed into his palm. He focused on that image until he felt too tired to hold it in place. Maybe it wouldn't work... he was only human, after all. That kind of magic, that kind of ability, was probably reserved only for fairies.

So why was his hand feeling so warm?

"When the hell did you get a cookie?" Caleb suddenly asked as the boy opened his eyes slowly to stare at his hand. Cosmo cheered and snatched it up, chomping away without a care as Wanda blinked and went pale.

"Where did that come from?" she asked her husband.

"I did it! Ha-hah!" Timmy exclaimed happily and promptly fell back into a chair, "Geez, I'm tired. You were right, Caleb. Thinking about it takes a lot out of you." He grinned. "I'm going to practice every spell I have until I can do them like that!" He snapped his fingers and laughed. "I bet this is what Cousin Danny went through while learning how to do all of his ghost powers!" Wanda huffed and turned on the boy in sudden anger.

"Listen, Sport, you might be having fun with all this transforming and conjuring and stuff, but let's lay out the bottom line here!" she snapped and jerked a thumb at herself, "We're the fairy godparents here! Me and Cosmo! You wish it; we dish it! Leave that kind of magic to us! You're supposed to be the offensive magic-user! Stick to attack spells!" Timmy stared up at her in shock, baffled by her reaction. What was her problem? He thought she would be happy to see that he managed to do something cool on his own. Why was she mad? She flew lower, glaring at him straight in the eye. "Timmy, promise me you will never do something like that again. You will not make things like that just appear ever again. Promise!" she growled. The boy shrank back, eyes wide.

"O-okay! I promise! Sheesh! Sorry! What'd I do?!" he exclaimed in confusion. The pink-haired fairy only sighed in relief and fluttered off to steal a bite of the cookie in Cosmo's hands, inciting a playful chase around the room for the last chunk of chocolate chip cookie. Caleb watched them zooming around and rubbed his head, puzzled.

"I will never understand fairies." he murmured.

Two days passed since Timothy Neogene began training at the Ivory Tower. Trixie looked up at the white marble building and took a deep breath. Wishing for answers was getting her more dead ends than she liked, but she wasn't one for giving up. Not when there was a mysterious magical boy dangling like bait on a hook in front of her nose. She smiled and fingered her pendant. Apollo seemed bored with her search, answering carefully worded questions with dull responses that not only gave her little in the way of clues but also made her want to fall asleep. She wished herself to Fairy World once, tried to get into their records and was immediately tossed out on her rear end, a first for her.

Finally, she went to Remy, careful to hide Apollo from the blonde. She cooed and purred and buttered him up with words that brought him out of his furious mood, and then asked to see if he had any data on Timothy. That immediately sent him back into a foul temper and she raced to avoid having something large and metal chucked in her direction. But he had to have something; he told Timothy during that school yard fight with the bladed trap that he had investigated his background and found something fishy about him. So data existed and was being held somewhere.

Determined to find out how Timothy died so that he could be avenged, she decided to try a different approach to getting her hands on that information. She wished for it. Apollo rolled his eyes, but he muttered a prayer, waved his wand and disappeared for an hour. When he returned, he held a disc in one hand.

"Here. Can you wish for something else now?" he had grumbled. She wished for an outfit to wear to the Ivory Tower. Something that would make her look her best and make the magic-user's eyes pop out. While he fluttered off to do that, she threw the disc into her computer and studied the files. With their contents, she was certain of discovering the boy's truth and bring peace to him at last.

Or at least turn the whole blackmail table around so someone else would be on the business end of it.

She walked up to the guard standing at the door and announced her name, adding in that she wanted to enter the Tower and talk to Timothy. The older man laughed and waved his hand at her, shaking his head.

"Stop it! You're killing me!" he guffawed, "You're the twentieth kid who's tried gettin' in here! Heh heh heh!" Trixie frowned and put her arms akimbo. She wasn't getting turned away that easily.

"Look, just announce my name to your superior or whatever. Timothy is going to want to see me!" she argued and her eye twitched slightly as the guard went on laughing. "Ugh, fine. I wish you'd take a nap under that tree over there." Trixie finally sighed and pointed at the tree. The guard followed her aim in laughter, allowing Apollo to shimmer brightly as the red pendant and grant the wish. In a burst of red smoke, the guard was camped under the tree, snoring his cares away. Trixie smiled winningly and pranced up to the front door of the Tower.

There was a speaker built next to it, along with a panel that looked rather complicated with its buttons and screens and little lens. Was that part of the Tower's entry security? She blinked at it, puzzled, then pressed the button for the speaker.

"Um, hello? Is anyone there?" she called into it and released the button, waiting.

"This is Tower Control. Identify yourself." a woman's voice announced sternly in return. Trixie pressed the button again.

"My name is Trixie Tang, Queen of the A-List Populars. I want to speak to Timothy Neogene." she told the woman firmly. That should do it. Now, they'll open the door, let her in, and she can go...

"Access denied. Go home, young lady, and do your homework. Timothy is far too busy for you." the woman replied primly. Trixie scowled at the speaker for a moment, then hurriedly wiped the expression from her face. Couldn't leave it like that for too long, it would ruin her makeup. She hit the intercom instead.

"Listen, miss. Timothy is going to want to see me. I have something he might be interested in." she began evenly.

"Young lady, he is very busy. He has little time for visitors, especially unauthorized visitors. Please leave or you will be escorted from the premises."

"Ahem." Trixie cleared her throat and brought out a printed copy of one of the files, "'Dental records of Timothy Neogene. Dated February 3rd on this year of 2001. Signed by personal orthodontist, Dr. Raine Sage. Date of entry into dental records nationwide, August 20th of the year 2002.' Gee, why would it take a whole year to put something like that into a computer?" She waited with the paper in her hand until the speaker came back on.

"Trixie? Is that you?" the voice of Timothy Neogene called out. He sounded tired. What was he doing that made him sound so sleepy? "Where did you get that?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you. I had to get these from Remy so I could help you." she cooed into the speaker. There was a pause, and the front door finally opened for her, sliding aside with a futuristic hiss. She stepped inside and stopped as her breath was taken from her.

The Ivory Tower looked pretty on the outside, with its white marble walls, silver trim and the darling little engraving of Timmy Turner facing the school with his happy smile. But the interior was magnificent! Smooth white granite and marble floors and walls, tall columns of white and silver lining the paths formed by lush red carpeting, a huge fountain set in the middle of the main chamber... it was as if she had stepped into the opening hall of a multi-million-dollar company. The ceiling spanned far above her head, painted with images of forests and mountains and strangely dressed adventurers.

"Who are those people?" Trixie murmured as Apollo poofed free and looked around with her. He blinked and craned his head up to check out the paintings himself.

"Dunno. They look like they came from long, long ago." he replied softly, "Even further in the past than I can remember. And I'm over fifteen thousand years old." A bell tone sounded and Apollo immediately poofed back into the pendant as Trixie turned towards the source of the sound. A pair of doors opened in one wall, an elevator, and Timothy stepped out with his own fairy godparents in full view. She smiled and hurried up to him, clutching her handbag tightly.

"Timothy! I knew you'd want to see me!" she purred and his face turned a slight shade of pink. She grinned again and looked up at his fairies, her own pulling free again to stretch and greet the other godparents. "Is it okay for you to just let them follow you around like that?" Trixie asked in confusion.

"They're permanently bound to me, so I don't ever have to worry about Jorgen. And Hounder is allowed to know about them." the boy answered vaguely and rubbed his head, "So, about those records..." Trixie smiled and looped her arm around his, hoping her new blouse and skirt ensemble was working its wonders.

"Oh, let's find a nice place to sit and talk, okay? This place is amazing! Can you tell me all about it?" she cooed, twirling a lock of her hair around one finger. The brunet blinked at her, puzzled, then sighed and nodded, leading her to a second elevator, this one made with clear glass walls. They stepped in and gazed out at the building as it lifted them through the floors.

"The Ivory Tower was built as a meeting place for the S-List and members of the Hounder Organization and the Archives of the Twin Blades." he told her softly, "Our main concerns are the destruction of the Dark Spires and the development of my magical abilities." He gave a small yawn and shook his head to try to stay awake. "That's the lab where certain experiments are done, that's the training room, where I was practicing some spells when you showed up..." Trixie tugged at his arm excitedly.

"Really?! How cool! Can you show me some spells? Please?!" she pleaded and the two fairies hovering around him shot her disapproving glares. "Why are your fairies so mean?" she added with a pout. Timothy put a hand to his head with a sigh.

"It's not that. They're just a little worried about me. I've been doing a lot of training and I really haven't gotten much rest." he explained and frowned, "They don't get it; I have to learn how to use my powers so I can do a better job of stopping Crocker's plans and Remy's towers. If I don't, then more people are going to get hurt. They could even get killed! And it'll be my fault."

"Don't think like that. You'll be a great hero!" Trixie told him honestly, "You saved Apollo and you took out those two Spires. You're doing a wonderful job so far."

"But that last Spire took down one of my closest friends, and all because I wasn't careful." Timothy told her seriously, "It just proves that I'm only a Hero-in-training." He stepped off the lift with her and entered the training room, the Asian girl tagging along behind him. She looked around, taking in the sight of damaged walls, broken machines and smoking bits of rubble. Her eyes went wide as she turned back to the sleepy-looking teen in dark clothes.

"You did all this?!" she exclaimed, her fairy whistling in appreciation. Timothy grinned.

"Part of it. Cosmo and Wanda have been training with me, so some of that is their doing." he answered and Apollo flew up to them in awe.

"You guys can dish out some real damage! How do you do it?! Fairy magic hasn't been this destructive since Cosmo covered Pompeii in lava!" he cried. Wanda huffed and folded her arms over her chest as her husband rubbed his head sheepishly.

"Yes, well. It takes a lot of battling to make sure we don't get captured by those fairy traps!" she declared, "And it's not easy when they're all set to chase after Cosmo's stupid butt!"

"Hey! It's not all my fault!" Cosmo shot back irritably.

"Yes it was! You're the one who stood there like an idiot and let Crocker run off with your DNA sample!" the pink-haired fairy snapped and he resumed his sheepish smile.

"Oh, yeah! I guess it is my fault then! Heh heh!" he laughed. Trixie blinked up at them in confusion, then tugged on the brunet's sleeve.

"Show me a spell, please? I'll tell you all about what I learned if you do!" she bargained and he sighed in exasperation.

"Fine. But I really am serious about those things. If you have any files, I definitely want them." he told her, "I can't have Remy snooping around in my history. It'll ruin everything!" He looked out at the room and frowned. "Target droid! Passive mode!" he called out and a small metal door in the far wall opened, letting one little robot toddle out. Trixie waited expectantly, eager to see the same display of power that she had witnessed in her room long ago. What was it that he called it? Photon?

"Are you going to do that light one? The one that blew up the disc in my room?" she asked him. Timothy gave her a puzzled look.

"Photon? I was thinking more along the line of Bulla Scintillare." he remarked, "You want to see that one instead?" Trixie threw her arms up excitedly.

"Do the biggest, best one you've got!" she cheered, "Something really awesome!" Timothy tilted his head thoughtfully, then smiled.

"Oh, you want something fancy?" he chuckled and winked, "Only the best for Trixie! Okay, here goes!" He stepped forward and threw out his hand. "I've been working on this one ever since I learned I do magic differently than my teacher." the brunet remarked, "Lustrare Spiralis!"

Trixie watched in awe as a galactic spiral of lightning bloomed around the target robot, shimmering and crackling as though thousands of stars were orbiting the machine. Then it all collapsed violently into the droid before exploding in a mass of electrical power that flung parts of the robot all over the place. She screamed as one piece came straight for them, then gasped as a waterfall showered down before her, shimmering blue like crystalline glass. Timothy held out a hand to show off a matching colored shard floating over his hand.

"Sorry. That got a little out of hand. Luckily, I mastered the mana shield so it doesn't drain me so badly when I put it up." he told her in embarrassment, "But that's one of my strongest spells, so far. I'm working on a few more, but it's hard work thinking up all the parts for them."

"That was amazing! Wow!" Trixie cheered, "With that much magic power, I bet you could tear down a whole Dark Spire on your own!" Timothy winced and shook his head.

"Not with a field of nullifiers surrounding it. Just one of them near me totally throws me for a loop and I can't even conjure up a Light orb." he explained and dropped the shield, giving her a stern look. "Now, about those records..." Trixie held up another printout.

"Oh, you mean this?" she asked sweetly and began reading aloud from it, "'Record of Timothy's charitable contributions to the Archive Museum of Historical and Mythological Culture. Dated March 3rd of the year 1996. Date of entry to online records, August 20th of the year 2002.' Huh, it's the exact same date as your dental records. Isn't that funny?" She yanked the paper just out of Timothy's reach as he lunged for it. "Hey, hey! I'll give it to you! I've got the whole disc of these things with me, but it's only a copy of Remy's records." she pointed out and gave him a catty smile, "I'll give you the disc and all its information, but you have to do something for me."

"Oh, not again." Timothy sighed, one hand going over his face as he uttered a soft groan, "Fine, fine. What do you want?"

"Make me a part of the S-List. I want to stay close to you for protection. Remy's still ticked at the fact that I got Apollo back and if he finds out that I swiped a copy of his records, there's no telling what he could do to me or my fairy godparent." Trixie told him and sidled up to him, tracing little hearts onto the front of his shirt. "As long as I'm with you, I'll be safe. Please don't let him do anything bad to me and Apollo. I can still keep looking for the data to avenge you, but I can't do it alone. If we work together, I'm sure we can give you some peace." she added softly, "Maybe if I help you, it'll make up for those times I could have helped Timmy but didn't. If it weren't for the social ladder and all its rules, maybe I could have really been friends with him. Maybe he'd still be alive; I'm the reason he climbed that stupid jungle gym, so it's my fault he... he..." She uttered a soft sob and hugged the brunet, hiding her face as she began to cry.

"I had hoped she wouldn't do that." Apollo muttered, folding his arms over his chest, "She's going to ruin her makeup and then she's going to want to wish it back to normal."

"Hey, don't cry. I'm pretty sure that kid wouldn't have blamed you for it. The whole thing was just an accident." Timothy stammered helplessly and looked up at the trio of fairies, "Cosmo, Wanda, what do I do?"

"I don't like it, but it's probably the best idea to let her join the S-List." Wanda conceded irritably, "If only so we can keep an eye on her. This looking for information for us just so she can get something from you deal smells like a rotten trap, but we don't have much choice." Trixie lifted her head to glare at the fairy, then pulled a handkerchief from her handbag to dab at her eyes.

"Oh, I ruined my makeup! Apollo, I wish it was the way it was before I started boo-hooing." the Popular remarked. The flame-colored fairy rolled his eyes but lifted his wand anyway, poofing the girl's face back to normalcy. She giggled and cuddled the brunet closer. "So that's all! Just make me an S-List Popular; I'll keep pretending to be an A-List kid and see what other pieces of info I can get from Remy." she repeated her demand and Timothy sighed.

"As you wish." he grumbled, "Now, the disc." She picked it out of her handbag and held it up, grinning as he plucked it from her fingers and studied it carefully. "So Remy collected those files about me and put them all on a single disc?" he asked. Trixie nodded, pulling back to better face the boy.

"Yeah. According to the disc, the investigation into your past was code-named Black Hound, and it was gathered from all kinds of sources. People he bribed that were close to the Hounder Organization, private investigators sent to interview and search through public records, his own hacking of the private records using his fairy's magic; all the data he collected was put into that one collection." she remarked and furrowed her brows slightly in thought, "And yet, he only got a little bit of data, mostly records of all the good things you've done. Strangely enough, all of those records have the same time-stamp on them. August 20th of the year 2002. Hmm. That seems familiar."

"Must be a crazy sense of déjà vu. It probably means nothing." Timothy replied hurriedly and pulled the girl along by the arm, "C'mon! As a new member of the S-List, you have to try out some of our after-school snacks!" Trixie followed along, trying to keep pace as her mind scrambled to snatch onto her previous thoughts.

"Huh? But, the time-stamps! The dates!" she exclaimed, "I just want to know why they're all the same date!"

"Sloppy typing! It's not important! Let's go before they stop serving chocolate shakes!" Timothy called back in forced cheerfulness. Trixie sighed and shook her head. Well, maybe the dates really weren't that important. But if that was the case, why was she still getting that weird feeling like there was something pivotal about that date?