Villains High: Stranger Magic In The Fae Realm Treasury

A purplish vortex opened up and a golden carriage pulled by a large green hummingbird emerged into a large land. The trees were titanic, making their green foliage look like green leaf clouds in the sky.

"Home, sweet home," Marius sniffed the air from the carriage window. "Pines, oak, cypress, redwood... The Fae Realm."

"It's great that your parents let you come home on such short notice," Ruby said as she peaked at the window.

"I still don't get why I had to come," Safír Dragon said as he slouched on the seat next to Kit Bogan. "I mean, I understand Chelsey Young's possible return, but I am the child of the most dangerous Shen Gong Wu. I could spit my fire on her and make her my personal sapphire zombie!"

"Yeah, but your Shen Gong Wu heritage and dragon heritage could help you track the Reversing Mirror in my family's big treasury." Marius leaned forward and held hands with Penna, who sat on the seat in front of him. "Besides, it's a double-date and Penna doesn't get uncomfortable while Ruby looks like the fifth-wheel friend."

"Gee, thanks." Ruby said grimly.

"My gratitude as well," Penna smiled weakly. "I'm still terrified. You guys have to deal with saving the world while I have to deal with the worst nightmare ever."
"Penna, I know your... lack of parental support left you with no dating experience, but my parents aren't the kind to misjudge upon first sight. They'll love you!" Marius gave his girlfriend a smile.

"Hopefully not too much that they set up a marriage in the Primrose Chapel," Kit said.

"Wow! Will you look at those giant flowers?" Ruby exclaimed.

They flew into the Fae Realm city. As Ruby noted, the fields were filled with all kinds of flowers one could list from A to Z but were (in a normal human perspective) the height of a college desk. With the sunrays glowing through the colorful petals, the forest of green grass and brown soiled earth got dark rainbow shadows. Many houses made of solid white stones and wooden bark tiled roofs formed the commoners section of the city, with bridges connected to certain areas to make civilians walk a bit above ground, merchants were selling their natural products under the sunlight, and children were playing on the stone sidewalks near fountains bearing statues of the monarchs. All the civilians were mixed species of fairies, goblins, elves, hybrid species, and imps scurrying around while most of the animals were squirrels, lizards, and hummingbirds used for transportation, regular insects as domesticated pets, and wild butterflies flying in flocks.

Some civilians below noticed the carriage flying in and cheered as they recognized it as the prince returning to the kingdom.

The hummingbirds made the carriage land before the Bogfae Palace, a building made of two massive boulder towers, vine shaped passages, golden windows, statues, a large flower garden, and an arena in the background. A group of people waited before them at the front steps of the castle: an old man in green leaf metal armor, a dwarf toad-faced hag, an elegant blonde fairy in a blue dress, an elf with a ladybug headband, a blonde black-streaked fairy in warrior clothing, a brunette fairy with strong purple mascara and a purple petal gown, and a goblin with dragonfly wings and massive exoskeleton. Judging by how the latters wore a golden crown and held a scepter respectively, one could tell that they were the Fairy Queen Marianne and the Bog King Lysander, Marius' parents.

"Mother! Father!" Marius was the first to fly out of the carriage and hug his parents with much love.

"Son," the Bog King said warmly.

"It's so good to have you back home," the Fairy Queen said.

"Junk didn't come back?" the fairy girl in armor asked Kit once they all got out of the carriage.

"He got multiple hours of detention for a misunderstanding with the janitor," Kit shrugged. "Many stained glass windows suffered."

"Ouch."

"C'mon, Marius! Don't leave your Grannyselda hanging!" The short hag pushed her way through and hugged Marius tightly. His friends chuckled at the sight of the prince getting hugged to death by the woman who turned out to be his grandmother.

"Yeah, some things from home never get old," he sighed. After making sure no area in his exoskeleton armor was injured, we went on to take Penna by the hand. "Mother, Father, this is Penna De Mort. My girlfriend."

Penna gave a silent curtsy. The Fairy Queen and the Bog King said nothing, but kept on a smile and bowed their heads. This made her gulp uneasily.

Later

The royal family led the visitors through the stone and gold corridors with hanging tapestries that made the palace seem like a labyrinth.

"Your story about Chelsey Young seems very ominous," the Bog King said. "We could use for a security check in the treasure room if the Reversing Mirror she seeks is still buried in there."

"It's already bad enough that someone tried to break into the Potions Archives just last night," the ladybug headband elf, Marius' Uncle Sunny, added.

"Wait, the Potions Archives was attacked?" Marius looked at his parents.

"What's a Potions Archives?" Ruby politely asked.

"It's like a library holding all potions known to species, but for some, it's also a place to keep under lock and key any potion that is deemed too powerful or dangerous for the specific species guarding the Potions Archives," Penna explained.

"You seem to know quite a bit about the Potions Archives," the Bog King remarked.

"Every species has one. In the wizarding world however, they evenly split the Potions Archives so that no country has an advantage of knowledge over the others. I saw the fraction that the Ministry of Magic held in the Department of Mysteries. Hated it on the spot."

"But I thought you liked making potions," Kit said in confusion.

"I do. But for some reason, the Ministry of Magic's fraction of the Potions Records had nothing but potions with main ingredients being mandrake roots." Penna wrinkled her nose. "I have a nasty allergy to them."

"You're allergic to mandrake roots?" Ruby grimaced. "That's nasty."

"I don't think we have mandrake root based potions in the archives, but how do your allergies react?" The Fairy Queen asked in concern.

"Yeah, aren't mandrake root supposed to be useful for causing hallucinations and unconsciousness?" Ruby asked Penna.

"I get a dose of both. Instant fainting and massive hallucinations depending on how close I get to a mandrake root, if I touch one, or if I smell its repulsive odor."

"Maybe this will help." Marius' cousin pulled out what appeared to be a scarf made of woven seaweed. She flew over and wrapped it over Penna's mouth as if it were a medical mask. "Colchis kelp. It's supposed to stir off bad odors."

"Thanks," Penna said gratefully.

They reached the end of the corridor, where a massive wooden door with strange twisted blue patterns awaited them. The monarch couple spread their wings and aligned them in perfect symmetry. The door let out a strange humming sound and slid open. They all stepped inside a large cylindrical room made of solid oak. All the walls were covered in shelves that went all the way up to the ceiling, each filled with glass cases that concealed diverse ingredients.

"Wicked," Ruby said.

"It's even bigger than Professor Yzma's lab!" Safír was impressed.

"This is the Fae Realm Potions Archives," the Fairy Queen explained. "From bottom to top, each shelf holds the ingredients to potions that are ranged from harmless to dangerous for fairies, goblins, elves, and all the kingdom's civilians."

"You mean each glass case holds the ingredients to a specific potion?" Ruby bent down to look at a case holding a frog, daisy petals, and a rock.

"Of course not. It's too risky to keep the actual potions in vials. What if somebody managed to sneak in and take the vial?"

"Which is concerning since the Archives got broken in last night," the Bog King said sternly. "Aside from the guardian, only the sovereign monarchs of the Fae Realm can open the door. Only my wife and I can open it by using our wings as the key."

"Even I can't open it until I become king and get a consort," Marius said. Kit gave a smirking elbow bump to Penna, who glared at her.

A blue glow came from the ceiling and landed onto the ground, forming into a teenage girl in a gossamer blue dress, blue sandals, and her black hair with teal and purple streaks tied up in a messy bun. Her skin was as white as chalk. "Your Highnesses," she greeted. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"Great, another love potion maker," Penna said sourly. The others looked at her in bewilderment.

"Penna!" Ruby said in shock.

"Oh, wait, is this because your grandmother used a love potion to drug your grandfather and the result of that union was your dad, who was incapable of love because he was born from a love potioned union, and that's why he's the worst dad of the year?" Safír realized.

"Try the worst dad of the lifetime!" Penna glared at the guardian in disdain. "My grandmother used your mother's blasted potion. So yeah, it's really not nice to meet the child of the Sugarplum Fairy."

"And you told me to not worry," the Bog King grinned at his wife.

"We can discuss racism later," Marius said. "Dragée, what do you know about the thief?"

"Hard to say," she said. "I'm the only light source in the Archives, but even my light wasn't able to reveal the mysterious penetrator. All I heard was a strange cackling that sounded oddly Southern and it only lasted like ten minutes. By the time dawn came, I saw that the Potions Archives was still in shape."

"Nothing was stolen?" Marius' grandmother said sourly. "You must be kidding me! You sent a false alarm?"

"I swear on the River Styx that someone did break into the Potions Archives, but none of the potions went missing!" She raised her hand to indicate the top shelves. "I even checked the top shelves and none of the most dangerous potion ingredients went missing! Not even my mother's love potion formula!"

"OK, but who could have possibly broken in?" The Fairy Queen began to fly around the Archives and inspect with the rest of her family.

Ruby leaned on the wall and knocked on it. "The wood's rather bulked in the interior. Must be harder than rock, nobody could have broken through it." She then knelt on the ground and scratched it with her nails, creating a piercing sound. "Even the floor's more solid than my adamantium nails, I couldn't dig a tunnel even if I had a bulldozer."

"I forgot your mom's Catwoman," Marius said. "Ruby, as a thieving expert, how would you have broken in?"

"I'm not sure the Potions Archives is similar to an ordinary bank. I'm mostly familiar with going through windows, ditching infrared lasers, sneaking through ventilation shafts, or cracking security codes," Ruby got up and pondered. "The Potions Archives has no windows, I don't know if they have booby traps, and I don't see why fairies would need ventilation. As for security codes, we only know that Marius' parents and Dragée are the only ones who can open the door... Although now that I think about it, can the door let the couple in as long as they appear to be the royal couple or can the door recognize the royals aside from physically?"

"It's not a dumb theory," Penna said. "Perhaps somebody posed as the couple and the door mistook them for the real ones."

"But the door didn't open at all last night, by Styx!" Dragée said.

"I guess we'll have to take your world for it since you weren't struck by lightning." Ruby went to the door and bent down for a better look. "The open space between the door and the ground is big enough to place a bean. Perhaps the intruder shrunk sizes to go under the door and grow back when he got it."

"And leave with nothing? I hardly used my spells to defend myself," Dragée added.

Meanwhile, while they were discussing, Penna's nose began to sniff something out. She raised her head and caught the scent going up to the top shelf. She walked over and tapped on Daylight's shoulder. Marius' cousin turned and saw Penna pointing to the top shelf, silently asking her for a lift. Daylight nodded and grabbed Penna by the waist and lifted her up to the top shelf. Penna kept sniffing until she spotted a glass case that stood out from the others. As it was all the way at the top, no one from the bottom could notice its peculiarity, but from where she now was, she noticed that the glass case was reflecting the other top shelf cases instead of letting the light go through the glass and bring some value into the compartment.

Penna used her nails to drag through the borders of the glass and successfully pull off the glass from the compartment. "Well hello," she said out loud.

This caught the others attention. "Hey love potion geek," Penna said drily, "do tell me why out of all the glass cases you have in your Archives, one of them was just a reflective mirror hiding a compartment?"

"A particularly dusty compartment," Daylight took a peak herself. "There's an area that looks brushed off. Not in a cleaning way, but as if a big object was dragged out."

"Dragée," the Bog King frowned at the guardian.

"I was only doing my job!" Dragée protested. "When I first started as guardian of the Potions Archives, the dying predecessor warned me of a 'phony case'. He told me 'Never let anyone, not even the monarchs, know that we have this potion. The traveler who gave it to me that it brought only corruption to humans and begged me to hide it away.' He didn't tell me which case it was, so I just assumed that nobody would take it since only I or the monarchs could open the door." Dragée looked at Penna. "How did you even figure out where the phony case was?"

"It smelled evil," Penna said.

"It smelled evil?" Marius arched an eyebrow.

"Live one hundred and sixteen years of my life in my house with my dad, his Death Eaters, and his monsters and you will understand," Penna said. It was now Safír's turn to make on large jump off the ground and use his claws to cling onto the top shelf while he sniffed the compartment.

"Wheatgrass... Salt... Dry frog..." He then gasped in horror. "Dead dragon!" He growled and jumped back on the ground. "You idiot!" He told Dragée. "How could let somebody steal the Lao Mang Lone Soup?"

"Lao Ma what?" Kit was confused.

"Lao Mang Lone Soup," Ruby articulated for her. "It's an ancient potion that can provide eternal youth and immortality to the drinker but with a cost."

"Yeah, it corrupts the soul and turns the drinker into an evil monster," Penna said. "How did you know that? You don't even take Dark History of Evil Deities."

"I spent too much time with Martin's mother," Ruby shook her head in exasperation.

"A potion that turns people evil?" the Bog King grew concerned. "Who would be crazy enough to drink that?"

"Chase Young," Penna said. "He was tricked into drinking the potion willingly. Once he drank it, he lost his good side and became evil forever. I wouldn't be surprised if his child, Chelsey, who pursue the soup as well. Despite being his child, she still drank the potion to keep her eternal youth."

"To think their diets... include dead dragons." Safír hugged Kit for protection.

"Great! Along with finding the Reversing Mirror in the treasury, now we have to worry about the burglar who stole an evil soup!" Marius said in frustration.

"I don't think that will be necessary, Bug Fly," Penna said, calling Marius by the pet name she gave him ever since they dated. She raised the glass in the air and brought it down onto her knee, shattering it in the process. Everyone almost screamed if she was desperate for seven years of bad luck, she lifted the remains of the glass, revealing that underneath its reflective surface, it hid another mirror.

"The Reversing Mirror!" Safír exclaimed. "Wait, what if it's a fake?"

"Care to experiment? You are a Shen Gong Wu after all."

Safír then changed his head into the one of a sapphire dragon and spit blue fire right at Penna, who held up the mirror and shouted its name. The Reversing Mirror glowed and reflected the fire blasts right back at Safír. He narrowly dodged it and Dragée extinguished the fire before it could burn the Potions Archives.

"It is the Reversing Mirror!" Safír exclaimed.

"But I thought you said it was in our treasury!" Marius' grandfather, Dagda, said in confusion.

"That's what we thought when Otrera showed us the Reflective Mirror in the treasury!" Ruby said. "But if this is the real mirror, then the one in the treasury is a fake! But why this switcheroo?"

"If it turns out, the traveler who gave the previous guardian the soup also gave the Reversing Mirror as a gift to the monarchs," Penna said. "The traveler must have warned the guardian of the potential danger the mirror would cause, so instead of leaving it in the treasury with the other gifts, he put a fake one in the treasury and brought the real one to the Archives, where he covered it with an actual reflective mirror and used it as a cover for the Lao Mang Lone Soup. I wouldn't be surprised if the thief in question was interested in both the soup and the mirror."

Later

The golden doors of the treasury were pushed open and anyone who never came to the Fae Realm before lost their jaws at the sight of the palace treasure room. The place was higher than the cathedral of Notre Dame and golden statues of fairies held up a dome ceiling made of stain glasses. Such a ceiling let in a rainbow of sunlight gleam upon the piles of coins, the collection of wrapped up carpets and tapestries, jeweled flowers, table statues, rings and necklaces concealed in glass cases, crystal balls, mirrors, and other marvels that made this place a hybrid of the Cavern of Wonders and Rumplestiltskin's antique pawnshop.

"Can I please have your attention?" The Bog King called out to everyone. "We trust you to not steal, but the treasure room itself is enchanted. The very walls are enchanted and can make the artifacts attack you if it senses ill-meaning on you."

"Some security," Penna commented as they went through the treasury.

Safír pulled out some earplugs and a scaled scarf to block his ears, nostrils, and mouth. "OK, now I won't go nuts with all this gold around me."

Just then, the room began to shake. The gold rattled before all the metal-based artifacts began to float in the air and create a tornado of metal within the treasury. Soon, all the artifacts were dragged into the tornado, and Penna spotted one of them in particular.

"The Reversing Mirror!" She used her magic to petrify some objects into a staircase for her to climb and reach the fake mirror. Just then, something appeared on her and trapped her head in a gray metal cage box. The tornado stopped, only for the metal objects to hang out and turn towards Penna. It was like waiting for an order to kill her. Penna looked like she was suffocating in the box.

"PENNA!" Marius exclaimed.

The metal objects moved to form a speaking mouth. "Hand the Reversing Mirror over! Or De Mort suffers from mandrake gassing!" It spoke.

"Margo?" Ruby clutched on the Reversing Mirror.

"Who?" the Bog King asked.

"Someone from Villains High." Ruby called out to the metal mouth. "Margo, let Penna go and let's discuss things out!"

"Kitty wants the mutant to lay down? I don't think so!" Some scepters in the mouth aimed at Ruby. Marius pulled her out of the way. "The mirror, now!" The case on Penna's head tightened. Out of horror at the idea of his girlfriend dying from her allergies, Marius snatched the Reversing Mirror from Ruby and threw it at the big mouth of metal. The mouth turned into a giant chest that swallowed the mirror and flew out through the open doors. The case on Penna's head let go of its victim and flew after the others. Marius flew to catch Penna in his arms. Her eyes' blood veins were turning yellow and her body trembled as she whimpered.

"Penna..." He choked. His father snapped his fingers and two fairy guards appeared.

"Take my son's lover to the infirmary and make sure the healers get her out of her mandrake exposure!" He ordered.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Marius handed Penna to one of the guards and the latters flew of with the patient.

Marius clutched his teeth. "Ruby. Who's this Margo and where do I find her?"

Back in Villainapolis

Margo put the Reversing Mirror next to the bowl of Lao Mang Lone Soup on her desk. The Southern Belle with the veiled cowboy hat clapped her hands.

"Ya done a great job, partner," she said. She picked up the Reversing Mirror and admired her reflection. "I done knew I could count on people like ya kind."

"My pleasure." Margo twirled her finger and the neck of her desk lamp twisted like a noodle. "Oh, and cool how you managed to sneak into the Potions Archives. They never suspected that you shrunk yourself to bean-size to sneak under the doors and steal from them."

"Chelsey Young will soon bow ta me," her partner chuckled. "But one needs knees ta bow, and she needs her body. Pack ya suitcases. We are going to Perish."

*End of Episode

*Characters Introduced:

Dragée Loveplum, daughter of the Sugar Plum Fairy from STRANGE MAGIC

Margo Lehnsherr, daughter of Magneto from X-MEN

*Next Episode: Perish, city of Vices