Chapter 10
None of the girls understood what was going on. What did Miss Griffin mean by what she said?
"Miss Griffin, what are you doing?" asked Lucy, visibly worried.
"You'll see it soon..." said Griffin in a menacing voice.
"We came here to help!" said Mirta.
Griffin laughed.
"Like I said before, it's not me who's in need of help..."
Griffin raised her arms, and yelled some arcane words. Suddenly, all of them realized that they weren't in Cloud Tower anymore, but in some sort of ruined city. The land was rough, a cold wind blew, gray clouds covered the sky, although they didn't blocked the sun completely. Mirta, Flora and Lucy recognized the place: it appeared in one of Griffin's flashbacks.
"What's going on?" asked Layla.
"Oh, this is just in case you want to run away," explained Griffin. "As you can see, we're far, far away from Magix."
"Why are you doing this?" asked Stella.
"That's not Griffin," concluded Tecna.
Griffin began to clap again.
"Bravo, fairy," said Griffin. "Although that's only half true. This is Griffin, indeed, but how she should be."
Nobody missed that she was now talking in third person.
Bloom asked the obvious:
"Who are you?"
"That question is irrelevant," said Griffin. "But let's say that I'm someone who wants to set things right."
"Set things right?" blurted out Musa. "Do you call what you've done with Cloud Tower 'set things right'?"
"Speaking of which, where are the rest of the witches?" asked Lucy.
"Don't worry, they're fine," said Griffin. "I wouldn't harm any of them. They're young and misguided, but fortunately I can fix that...too bad that I can't say the same about you."
"That's enough!" shouted Stella. "Enchantix!"
"Stella, wait!" said Bloom.
Stella converted in her fairy form, and rushed to battle Griffin. The apparently possessed headmistress grinned.
"It seems that this little fairy wants some action," said Griffin.
"More than what you may bear!" shouted Stella, right before turning her ring into a scepter. "Solar Flare!"
Stella released a wave of light at Griffin, but the witch protected herself with a shield.
"That's the best you can come with, fairy?" asked Griffin. "Chaos Flames!"
Griffin counterattacked with her trademark green fire attack, that took Stella totally by surprise. She instinctively covered herself with her arms, but took the whole attack. The rest of the girls rushed to help her.
"Stella!" said Bloom. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," said Stella, standing up "I don't remember Griffin being this powerful!"
"It's obvious that whatever has her under its control has enhanced her powers as well," said Mirta.
"Watch out!" said Layla, realizing that Griffin was about to attack again.
Griffin raised her hands, and conjured an even bigger green fireball, and threw it at the girls. They were able to avoid the impact, but the subsequent explosion knocked them aside.
"Let's finish this already," stated Bloom. "Enchantix!"
Bloom and the rest of the fairies turned into their fairy forms, ready to fight. Griffin seemed oddly pleased.
"Excellent!" said Griffin. "Give me your best shot!"
"Regarding of her power, I doubt that Griffin can resist a convergence spell," said Musa.
"That may kill her as well," replied Tecna. "We must find a way to free her from whatever is controlling her."
"I think that I have the solution," said Bloom as she took her fairy dust vial, and poured it over Griffin.
"Fairy dust?" asked Griffin. "That little fairy trick won't work on me!"
"It has no effect!" said Bloom, shocked. "How it can be?"
"Maybe that thing is immune to it," wondered Tecna. "I guess that we have to beat her the old fashioned way."
"We could weaken her first," suggested Musa. "And then use the fairy dust."
"Let me try," said Flora. "Green Luxurious Ivy!"
Ivy plants grew from the ground and wrapped around Griffin. However, Griffin surrounded herself with green fire, burning the plants in the process. She then summoned a ball of dark energy and threw it at Flora, knocking her down.
"Flora!" shouted Mirta, rushing to help her.
"Don't worry, little reject, all of you will follow her fate as well!" menaced Griffin. "Meteor Storm!"
The clouds suddenly turned red, and big balls of rock and fire began to fall from the sky. The meteors created huge implosions upon impact, forcing the girls to disperse and retreat. They hid behind some wrecked buildings.
"Damn! She's trashing us!" said Stella in frustration.
"We realized of that, Stella," said Musa.
"Then why don't we do something about it?" asked Stella. "It's Griffin, for God's sake, not Darkar nor Baltor!"
"We can risk hurting her too much!" interjected Lucy. "Remember that she isn't herself."
"And being reduced to ashes is better?" asked Stella dryly.
"Imagine what would you do if Faragonda was in her place."
"However, Stella's right," said Tecna. "We can't mess around anymore!"
A meteor crashed on the girls' hideout, forcing them to go out to the open. Although the rain of meteors finally stopped, the whole place was on flames because of it.
"Where's Griffin?" asked Mirta, looking around.
"I don't know, I can't see anything with all these fire!" said Musa.
"Maybe I can do something about it!" said Layla as she flew higher. Layla extended her arms, closed her eyes and concentrated. Suddenly, it started to rain, although pouring would be a better term. The flames began to shrink until they were nothing but smoking embers.
"Great job, Layla!" praised Musa.
"I still don't see Griffin," said Layla, looking around.
As if on cue, Griffin appeared behind her, and blasted her from behind, and fell down, much to the girls' horrors. Fortunately, Bloom reacted in time to catch Layla before she crashed into the ground.
"Is this all the power of the Winx Club?" mocked Griffin. "It's really this all what you can do? What a disappointment."
"Okay, I had enough of that hag!" shouted Stella as she flew to face Griffin.
"You again?Did you come here for more?"
Ignoring the taunt, Stella prepared to unleash one of her most powerful spells, as her whole body glowed gold like the sun itself.
"Sunbeam Supernova!" shouted Stella as she cast a explosion of sunlight from her body.
Griffin tried to block the attack with a shield like she did before, but since Stella didn't spare any energy in order to make the attack as strong as possible, the shield could only absorb a small part of Stella's spell, and the old witch received the attack almost in full force, knocking her down like she had done with Layla.
"Ha! What do you think about us now?" said Stella.
Griffin rose from a pile of debris.
"I see that you're now showing your real power," said a injured Griffin. "Good..."
"Why does she want us to injure her so badly?" wondered Tecna.
"I don't know," said Lucy. "But this can be only a part of her plan."
Hobbling, Griffin walked toward them.
"You're really strong," praised Griffin. "And you have power, indeed. And now, I'll test that power!"
Griffin stopped, and levitated a few meters into the air.
"It's over!" said Bloom. "You can't barely stand up!"
"Oh, it's not over, my naive fairy," said Griffin, as a dark aura enveloped her whole body, and grew. "In fact, the real battle starts now!"
"Impossible!Her energy is increasing!" said Tecna, alarmed.
As the dark aura grew, it also began to take shape. Two long, thin and shady arms ending in pointy fingers sprouted from its sides, and something similar to a head formed in the upper part. Instead of legs, its body ended in several tentacles. Griffin was now inside a giant being made of pure darkness.
"And now, fairies, you'll DIE!" shouted Griffin. Griffin's voice was superimposed onto another deeper voice.
The giant shadow monster swoop the girls with one of its dire arms like they were flies. Seriously wounded, the girls stood up.
"What the hell is THAT?" asked Musa.
"It's a demon known as Void Lord," said Lucy. "A being of pure darkness that needs to possess a physical body to survive. It's very powerful."
"Fine. How can we beat it?" asked Stella.
"I don't know," said Lucy. "I didn't even know that they still existed."
"I guess we just found out," said Bloom.
"Look out!" shouted Layla, pointing at the Void Lord's incoming swing.
"Heat Flare!" shouted Bloom.
Bloom created a sphere of fire in front of them, and the Void Lord's attack hit it instead of the girls, burning its arm in the process. However, it quickly regenerated.
"I have a plan," said Tecna. "Flora and Layla, try to immobilize it, meanwhile the rest of us will blast it."
"I hope it works," sighed Layla as she and Flora flew towards the shadow monster.
"Yes, fairies, come to your doom," said Griffin from inside the Void Lord.
"Oh, will you shut up?" asked Layla, annoyed. "Morphix Chains!"
Like she did before with the black knights, Layla summoned strings of morphix that wrapped around the shadow giant's body, rendering it immobile. However, Layla found that the Void Lord was even stronger than the knights.
"Do you think that your chewing gum will stop me?" asked Griffin, struggling.
"This will help as well," said Flora. "Nature Grasp!"
Several roots grew around the dark creature and entangled around its body.
"Okay, it's all yours!" said Layla.
The remaining six girls cast powerful beams of energy at the shadow monster, ignoring the fact that they could harm Griffin as well. The six attacks created a huge explosion upon blasting the black monster, who let out a frightening shout of pain. When the smoke of the explosion faded, they saw that the Void Lord was very damaged, but quickly recuperating.
"Nice try, girls," said Griffin. "But useless!"
The attack also destroyed Layla's morphix and Flora's plants, so the Void Lord was again free. Suddenly, the monster began to dilute until turning into shapeless dark energy again, floating around Griffin.
"Hurricane of Nightmares!" shouted Griffin.
The dark energy began to revolve around the old witch until it turned into a huge, black tornado that trapped the girls on it. The hopeless girls screamed while Griffin laughed maniacally. Lucy tried a desperate move.
"Lash of Agony!" said Lucy while casting the same green and blue energy chain that used with the black knight before, and wrapped around Griffin's neck. The witch let out a scream of pain, and the tornado suddenly stopped. The dark energy reshaped again the form of the Void Lord, and broke Lucy's attack.
"Well done, Lucy!" said Mirta.
"Don't thank me yet," said Lucy. "We're still on a losing streak."
However, Lucy's attack had caught Tecna's attention.
"When you attacked Griffin, the tornado stopped," stated Tecna. "Maybe we're approaching this from a wrong point of view."
"What do you mean?" asked Musa.
"We've been trying to harm the Void Lord, with no success, but we didn't try to attack Griffin."
"You're saying that...Griffin is its weak point?" asked Bloom.
"Correct. It makes sense. The Void Lord seems to feed on Griffin. It needs her. But if we damage its source of energy..."
"We'll force it to leave Griffin's body, right?" said Mirta.
"But, if we don't measure our attacks, we could kill her," said Bloom.
"Let's do it," said Lucy. All the girls looked at her surprised.
"Are you sure?" asked Stella. "What about what you said before?Aren't you worried about her?"
"Of course I am!" said Lucy. "But no matter how much I admire or care about Griffin, there's no other choice. Witches are taught to do what it has to be done, even if it entails a sacrifice."
The Winx girls were shocked by such statement.
"Besides, Griffin would want us to do it."
"Okay, let's go," said Tecna. "Same strategy as before, except that this time we will aim at Griffin."
And so they did. While Stella and Musa distracted the Void Lord, Flora and Layla trapped it in a prison of morphix and entangling plants. The remaining girls attacked again, this time aiming at its heart, and with less powerful attacks. The first wave partially damaged its chest.
"Quick, another barrage, before it regenerates!" hurried Tecna.
The second array of spells damaged its chest completely, as well as Griffin. The Void Lord screamed in agony, while trying to break free from its prison. After the third wave of attack, they wondered if Griffin was still alive, but so was the Void Lord.
"It doesn't work!" said Stella. "No matter how many times we hit her, that thing doesn't go away!"
"That's because it won't go by itself,"said Mirta. "We need to tear it off from Griffin's body."
"And how are we going to do that?" asked Lucy.
"With this," said Mirta, picking his fairy dust vial.
"Of course!" said Bloom. "Let's do it!"
The seven fairies flew in circles around the injured shadow monster, and poured the fairy dust on it. The Void Lord screamed in agony and twisted itself, leaving Griffin's body while losing its form until turning into a shapeless mass of dark energy. Finally, it let out a loud scream and disappeared in the horizon.
The next second, the eight girls plus an unconscious Griffin found themselves again in Cloud Tower's upper terrace. It was finally over.