Author's note: Flora makes reference here to an event in the Winx Club comics that didn't make it into any of the television series incarnations. I believe the event happened in issue number seven, but I could have my numbers mixed up.

In Plain Sight

7. The Catalyst

Daphne sat perfectly still, blue-green eyes staring at the dusty floorboards beneath her feet. This couldn't be true; it just couldn't be! She wasn't a princess from some dead planet! She didn't die trying to save a non-existent younger sister. She was Daphne Blake from the planet Earth and the youngest child of her parents. "I think there must be some mistake." She whispered. "Your machine must have mistaken me for someone else."

"There were no errors in the data or its computation." Tecna replied. "I double and triple checked it after it spouted off the first result, as your friend Velma can attest to."

"I'm sorry, Daphne, but science doesn't lie…even when it runs on magic." The bespectacled woman sighed. She still wasn't entirely sure about the 'magic-based technology' thing that Tecna seemed to draw her power from. However, after repeating the same test multiple times and coming up with the same results, Velma was forced to admit that Tecna's diagnostic had been accurate. "Your power signatures are identical, and you look like identical twins."

"It can't be simple coincidence that you share the same name." Miss Grimwood stated. Coincidences were non-existent in the magical dimension. "Like it or not, you were once Dafne of Domino."

"Then why don't I remember any of it?" the redhead exclaimed. "I've been in plenty of creepy castles to solve cases, but I certainly wasn't raised in one and I don't have a younger sister!"

"Actually, Daph, I think you do remember." Shaggy spoke up, causing the others to stare at him. "Remember a few nights ago? You told us you were having dreams of a palace and a baby? Maybe, like, it's your past memories."

"But why wouldn't I have remembered? And how did I go from being an adult to a baby, if the story is true?" The coppery-haired woman narrowed her eyes at her long-time friend.

"I cannot answer the second outside of a powerful spell, but it is possible that whatever caused your age regression also sealed away your memories." Miss Grimwood stated. "Your dreams—those reflections of your past life—began as soon as you unconsciously began to develop your powers, correct?" The young fairy nodded. "Then by unlocking your magical potential, you should be able to unlock more of your memories."

"Who are they, then?" Daphne demanded, her voice cracking with pent-up emotion. "The woman and the baby. Who were they?"

"Your mother and your baby sister, Queen Miriam and Princess Bloom of Domino." Layla-Aisha answered.

"Bloom?" Daphne made a face, clearly not impressed with that choice of name. "She's the princess of some really powerful other realm and the best name they could give her was Bloom?"

"I'm not sure if her birth-parents or her foster parents are responsible for the name." Layla shrugged. Bloom never said where the name came from, and the Androsian princess had never been curious enough to ask about it. "Not that it matters. When your past self 'died', she did so after bringing Bloom here so she would be safe from the evil witches that toppled Domino."

"Oh, God, my life is a screwed-up children's story!" Daphne lamented, burying her face in her hands. Princess dreams were best reserved for little girls with imaginary friends, not grown women majoring in journalism. "How did this happen to me!" Her life was so normal two weeks ago!

Fred's strong hands held onto her smaller ones. "We'll get through this, Daphne. There's got to be something we can do."

"Oh, there's several somethings." Tecna stated. "Especially since all four of you have been giving off moderate to strong magical readings."

Fred blinked in confusion. "Huh?" How could that be possible? If he did have magic, he surely would have felt it before now…wouldn't he?

"There is a very high probability that you and Shaggy are Specialists—warriors who use latent magic to power their weaponry." The Technology Fairy explained, confidence in her own theory never waning. "I would need to run some aptitude tests to be absolutely certain, but it shouldn't be a difficult matter to sort out."

"Now wait a minute, I'm not a warrior." Shaggy protested. "I was a temporary werewolf once, but I've never, like, fought anything. You guys must be sensing the magic from the reversal spell."

"Reah! Rell!" Scooby-Doo nodded emphatically along with his master, causing the whole room to look at the pair as if they had suddenly thrown on top hats and started dancing a jig.

"Temporary werewolf?" Velma gaped, obviously not expecting that answer from her shaggy-haired friend. "When did you find time to become werewolf without us knowing about it?"

"Like, last summer, before I came here to teach, Dracula had me turned into a werewolf so there would be one to compete in their monster car derby." Shaggy shrugged it off as if it hadn't been a life-altering experience. "Winnie's dad already retired and moved out here to be closer to his family, which is why they were short a monster. But before the race, I made a deal with him: if Scoob and I won, he had to make me human again. We won, and he had his witches cast a reversal spell."

"Reversal spell?" Flora knit her eyebrows together, recalling a run-in she had with a young man affected with the werewolf curse at the end of her first semester at Alfea. "You can reverse the lycanthropy curse with magic?"

"Well, since magic turned me into one in the first place, it, like, makes sense that magic could reverse it." The beatnik scratched the back of his head nervously, never having given much thought to the matter before today. Headmistress Grimwood nodded in agreement and further elaborated his point.

"A powerful enough magical entity or a group of entities can reverse the process if indeed the original curse was caused by a magical spell and not a bite from another werewolf." She tilted her head to gaze at Shaggy. "But such powerful magic would be bound to the person it was used upon for decades; it's little wonder you still sense it now, only a few months after the incident."

"Okay, presuming that Shaggy's werewolf story is true and I have weapon-type magic, how do you explain Velma?" Fred frowned. He still didn't believe Shaggy had been living a secret werewolf life and hadn't told any of them about it.

"We think she may be a mage-class magic user, given her magical signature." Flora spoke up. "Of course, this is all just guesswork on our part, since she hasn't actually shown any active magic like Daphne."

"So, her magic would work like Sibella's." Daphne reasoned. "She's great at casting spells, but she doesn't really have a designated power source and can't transform because of it."

"Precisely." Tecna smiled approvingly. "She catches on quickly." Much more quickly than Bloom, anyway.

"At any rate, now that we know what we're dealing with it will be easier to get you all trained in how to channel and defend against magic." Miss Grimwood spoke. "Velma, until we better understand what form of magic you have, Tecna and I will be handling your training. Flora and Layla will continue working with Sibella and Daphne until we know for sure whether or not their Musa can take time off from her duties on Melody to come help."

"Once you get a better handle on your powers, I will start teaching you the basic skills expected of a princess." Layla added, looking at the redheaded woman.

"I haven't given any thought to being a fairy princess since I was eight years old." The purple-clad fairy muttered. "I'm already way behind Sibella, and she's from this planet…"

"And technically a princess in her own right, but that's beside the point…" Shaggy remarked.

"It's nothing difficult or magical." The dark-skinned Androsian reassured her. "It's a lot of trivial things like dinner etiquette and proper decorum for dealing with nobles from other worlds. I'm sure you'll master it all in no time."

Velma remained quiet as the (alleged) magical beings continued their discussion, her mind swirling with questions. Daphne, a girl she had known all of her life, was really a displaced princess from another world? The werewolf curse was real and could potentially be reversed by magic? More confusing yet, she supposedly had magic of her own?

How had everything she had come to know with such absolute certainty changed so drastically in such a short amount of time?