Doesn't time fly when everything seems to be flying into a mad panic at work? I've just noticed just how long this chapter is... well, compared to my usual ones anyway. Sigh, looks like another 2-post job over on 4kids. Darn 10000 character limit...

Thanks to: Meg (the only person to review my last chapter - sigh), and Bristol Rovers for winning six games in a row.

Random Quote: Man, I could never settle down with someone whose name sounds like a footballer clearing out his nose (Lister from Red Dwarf, deciding that Khakhakhakkhhakhakkkhakkkkakh just ain't the genetically engineered lifeform for him)

"Phew! Oh man!"

"Sorry we're late you guys!"

Everyone in the room, who up until then were very busy getting to know each other, looked around to see Mimi and Nini in the doorway looking totally exhausted. The WITCH girls stared at them in astonishment as they recognised the pair of superstars standing right there before them.

"So where have you guys been?" Musa asked.

"You'll never believe this." Mimi started.

"They're only playing our DJ set..." Nini continued.

"...on Majix Radio!" the two girls yelled together.

"Never!" said Musa in astonishment.

"Uh-huh!" Nini nodded. "The Melody Sistas sound has crossed dimensions!"

"And they still don't know who we are!"

"It won't take long for everyone to figure it out though."

"After all, we did tell everyone we're from the Harmonic Nebula, didn't we?" Nini said with a grin.

"Wow... so you REALLY are the Melody Sistas!"

A vague look of astonishment appeared on the twins' faces as they looked upon the gang of starstruck schoolgirls gazing back at them in awe.

Tegryn chuckled. "Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Mimi, Nini... meet your biggest fans on Earth!"

"We have fans? Bouncin'!" Nini said, clapping her hands and grinning like an idiot.

"Um, hi!" Mimi said, waving nervously. "So you like our stuff, huh?"

"Do we ever!" Irma blurted out. "I mean, we only ever heard it on MP3 and the radio, but even then it sounds awesome!"

Cornelia nodded. "She's right, no-one's ever heard anything like it. Ever since your set, everyone's have been trying to copy your sound, but they just can't. How did you do get those effects anyway?"

The twins giggled.

"Oh, a little Sound Bubble here..."

"...a Bass Wave there..."

"...and Bob's your uncle! The Melody Sistas sound!"

"Sound Bubble? Bass Wave? What on Earth are those?"

"Oh, it's just basic music magic. It's kindergarten stuff... right Musa?"

"For sure!" Musa replied. "Any fairy from the Planet Melody can do it"

"Planet Melody? I thought you you guys said you were from the Harmonic Nebula." said Taranee.

"Planet Melody is located WITHIN the Harmonic Nebula." Tecna explained.

"I don't think it's really a nebula though," Musa added. "It's just a bunch of funky colours in space!"

"Oh, I see. So what's music magic then?" Taranee asked. "I've never heard of 'music magic' before."

"Haven't you? For us Melody fairies, music and sound are our element. It's where we get our power from - it makes us stronger."

"Music is an element? Sweet! We all have elements too, right girls?" Irma said enthusiastically. "Water's my thing. Hay-Hay's an air guardian, Corny does earth, Taranee's fire and Will's element is, um, some sort of energy... power, thingy. Quinty-something."

"Quintessence," Will corrected her. "It's an absolute energy force."

"Absolute energy?" Bloom wondered. "I guess that's kinda like the Dragonfire then. I'm just glad you're on our side!"

"Dragonfire?" Taranee asked.

"Yeah. It's an ancient source of power from my birth-planet."

"Does that mean you do fire magic as well? Cool!"

"Yep, and so does Charlotte." Bloom replied, before continuing to list all of her friends' magical abilities.

Shortly afterwards, Irma turned to Tegryn. "So Teggy, what's your element then? Hmmm? Teggy? Teggy? Teggy! Hello-oooo?"

Tegryn jerked his head up as Irma frantically waved her hand in front of his face. His mind had wandered away from the conversation a while ago and he had been busy involving himself in something far more important - a spot of three-way pat-a-cake with Polli and Piff.

"Sorry Little Teg, what was that?" he asked.

"Oh, pay attention Big Irm!" Irma grinned - she couldn't tell what made her smile more; the nickname Tegryn had come up with for her, or the one she had just made up on the fly just for him. "I said, what's your element?"

"My element? What do you mean?"

"You know, the force of nature... or technology in Tecna's case... where your powers come from. Your element." Taranee explained.

"Ah, right. My element. It's, um... oh... you know what? I haven't got the foggiest."

"You mean you don't know?"

Tegryn shook his head. "To be honest I don't think I really have an element. I just do whatever magic I'm taught."

"Yeah, that might be true." Musa cut in. "I've taught him a few music spells, but he sure ain't a music fairy."

"And if he really does have an element, it's definitely not fire." Charlotte added. "He's pyrophobic." (1)

"Pyrophobic?" said Taranee, her forehead screwed up. "You mean he's afraid of fire?"

"Uh-huh."

Tegryn shuddered. The thought of fire was enough to give him the willies by itself, but the thought of fire actually WITHIN his body, shooting out of him, consuming all that stood before him in front of his very eyes... he gulped and shook his head, trying desperately to get that disturbing thought out of his mind as quickly as possible.

"Right, it's pretty logical that fire isn't his element." Tecna pondered. "So what does that leave?"

"Maybe I can help." Will suggested as she pulled a small crystal attached to a cord out from under her top. "I can use this, the Heart of Kandrakar, to find his magical energy, and therefore his element."

"How?" Tegryn asked.

"Just come and sit next to me."

Tegryn started to get up, but was stopped by Tune who had suddenly popped up right in front of him.

"Oh no you don't young man - you're not disobeying the nurse again!"

"But I'm only going over there - it's barely a couple of metres."

"That's beside the point. The nurse has given you specific instructions not to leave your bed on two occasions now, and after everything she's done for you today, and indeed ever since you came here to Alfea, I think it's only right that you follow this one little request. After all, what kind of person would deliberately MMMMF! FMFMF! MFFFFMF!"

Tune's tirade was cut short by Tegryn's hand being strategically placed over her mouth, as he tentatively got out of his bed and sat on the other facing Will.

"Okay, I just need you to stay still and clear your mind, okay?" Will said, placing her hand gently and perhaps a little nervously on his chest. Tegryn nodded, barely noticing the deep magenta glow that had suddenly began to shine forth from the Heart.

"Ooh, I wonder what element he is. I bet it's air! He already has kind of a link to my family, so maybe that's it!" Hay Lin said excitedly.

"No way, it's definately water." said Irma. "You can tell by those luscious blue eyes of his!"

"Ahem! Helloo-o, Irma! Fiancée still in the room!" Cornelia spoke in a hushed tone, obviously none-too-impressed by her friend's lack of tact.

Musa laughed at their banter. "It's true though... he does have luscious eyes! Dontcha Teggy?"

But Tegryn didn't reply, for he and Will were both elsewhere as the young girl used the Heart to probe his spirit. For a while they sat, motionless, expressionless, not saying a thing, until eventually Will broke the silence.

"Hmmm... yes... I'm getting something here... he has a definite affinity with the earth..."

"The earth! I knew it!" Cornelia cried happily.

"I guess it kinda makes sense." Musa said smiling. "After all, he spent almost his entire life either walking on it, sleeping on it or living off it."

"Yes, but have you ever seen him doing anything even remotely like earth magic?" asked Layla.

Musa shook her head. "No, not at all. Maybe it's something he hasn't tapped into yet."

"Yes he has!" cried Mirta. "When me and him were fighting that creep Kaiser, he did some sort of weird earth spell on the witches. Oh, how can I describe it? He kinda made the earth sort of rise up and wrap around their bodies and then harden into rock. They were totally trapped! Don't you remember? No wait, of course you don't - you were all asleep at the time, weren't you?" she giggled.

"Hmm. So earth IS his element after all..."

Musa's conclusion was quickly interrupted by Will. "No. No it's not. He may have a connection with the earth, but that's not his element. It's..." she said, a look of concern and worry suddenly setting up camp on her pretty face. "No... no, that can't be right..."

"What can't be right? What is it?"

"I found the source of his power but... it's darkness!"

"DARKNESS?!" the astounded en-masse cry rang out.

Will nodded.

"But... how can that be? Teggy's anything but evil!" Irma said, looking just as perplexed as everyone else, as well as a tad upset.

"That's just it." Will replied, equally perplexed. "There's no evil in him, just... darkness."

"Of course! He was evil for a little bit, but we performed a purification spell on him." Musa explained. "At the time, we thought that we had driven out all the darkness, but I guess it was just the evil we'd got rid of."

"But I don't understand... how can darkness be the source of his power? How did it get into him in the first place?"

"Well, it all started just under a year ago, when I was trying to find my way home to China" explained Tegryn as he came out of the trance. "I had just entered Majix, although quite how I managed to cross into another dimension I'll never know - I thought I was in Spain at the time!"

"His lousy sense of direction again?" Will whispered to Musa.

"Yep, working overtime!" she tittered.

"A-HEM! So anyway, I'd been trekking through this forest and I came to a big lake, so I stopped for a well-earned breather. Next thing I know, I was confronted by a gang of three witches who were obviously itching for a fight."

"Witches? You have real-life witches here?" Irma asked.

"Of course, don't you remember him mentioning that when we first met him?" Taranee answered. "He said they have a bad rep here."

"Yes, that's right. Most of them are a pain in the butt... except for Mirta here - she's a hundred-percent sweety. But the three who I bumped into, Icy, Darcy and Stormy... now THEY are just plain nasty - I hope you NEVER get to meet them. Anyway, like I said, they were itching for a fight. I tried to defuse it but they weren't having any of it. A minute or two later, there I was, flat on my back, my body smashed to pieces and close to kicking the bucket, when Darcy comes up and zaps me straight in the head. I think she just meant to leave a marker so she could have fun terrorising my dreams later on, but as it turned out she'd left a spark of her own magic inside me, and her magic just happens to be based on darkness. So that's how darkness became the original source of my power."

"Ouch." said Irma, wincing. "So what happened next?"

Tegryn smiled. "Luckily for me, a certain gorgeous music fairy just happened to be in the neighbourhood. She heard everything that happened and came to that spot, only to find me left for dead. She brought me here to Alfea, and she stuck with me as I got better. Even though I was in a coma for two weeks, she stayed by my side the whole time. She kept me company when I woke up, and during that time we just clicked, and we got closer and closer and... well, you can guess the rest. I tell ya, she's done so much for me - she's loved me, she turned me away from evil, she's shown me things and taught me things I would never have dreamed of a year ago, she's reunited me with my long-lost family... and after all that, here we are back where we started!"

He looked at Musa as he said this to see that she was looking back lovingly at him. As they held each other's hands and gazed at each other as only two lovers could, the others looked on happily, basking in the glow of the pure affection being played out in front of them. Even through all the darkness, hurt and pain that Musa and Tegryn had to endure together, the fact that they were still so close, so inseparable, so in love...

There was no other way to describe the scene - it was simply heartwarming.

1. Tegryn's pyrophobia was an unfortunate side-effect of a purification spell performed on him towards the end of my second fanfic 'Back To The Old School' - http:// www. fanfiction. net/ s/ 3104189/ 35/