Sorry about the long wait... but I was hiving fun drawing more 11th Clan members and watching people play children's card games. Anyway, moving on from worship of LittleKuriboh to the story I confess I don't own Winx club. What, you're not surprised?

Have fun!

Light curtains gently drifted in the breeze coming from the infirmary windows the next day, carrying the far-off chatter of students in the main courtyard to the ears of a bored fairy leaning on the windowsill, blonde hair flicking slightly in the wind as she looked enviously out at the sunshine.

"Is he still asleep?" she asked eventually, turning from the sunshine to walk over and plomp herself down on the dark mage's bed as Flora looked up from her book at her friend.

"Yes. His watch said..."

"She's an AI," Tecna interrupted, "and her name is Abi."

"Thank you, Abi said he does tend to sleep for varying periods of time," the nature fairy looked down at the sleeping man with a slight flicker of worry in her eyes, "It's been a while though..."

"My psychic beetle has run some scans and found that although he is asleep, mentally he's quite active," Tecna informed them from her seat, "It's as if he's learning in his sleep..."

The girls lapsed back into silence, Musa yawned sleepily and was just about to go back to sleep when DMP stirred, Stella hastily standing to get out of his way as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, seemingly continuing what he had been saying in the dream, "...so I can combine my dark shield with an ice layer to multiply its reflective abilities."

When all of the fairies stared at him the familiar grin returned, telling them their new friend was back to normal even before he spoke normally, "Oh right... my dreams are strange."

When the fairies nodded and went back to what they were doing Bloom remained watching DMP, or rather slightly above him, with a frown that made Musa raise an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Hey Bloom... What's up?" The fire fairy still kept her attention on the drowsy figure as she replied absent-mindedly to Musa's question.

"When he said he was human I was wondering why I couldn't see his inner self... But now I can. And I think I can see two..."

"That would be why Sebjon said they weren't fighting you, right?" Musa asked, looking over to the man for confirmation, only to be interrupted by Stella.

"Oh who cares about that? I want to know why his hair's changed!"

"Trust you to ask about the hair..."

With a yawn DMP grinned, ruffling the dark brown curls that had been pressed flat against the pillow, looking strange after the blue-tipped black spikes that they had gotten used to, though they were probably the same length in total.

"The answer to both is that I'm powered down," he explained, "Like you I transform, but the outfit isn't part of the deal and neither's the cool sequence. As for the mind thingy, every magic user has a small coating of magic that normally stops that kind of stuff. Didn't you ever wonder why you could take a fireball in the face while it would kill a human easily?"

"I guess that makes sense..." Layla said slowly as DMP made a move for his bag, then noticed the cans on the table next to him, looking up to see Musa and Bloom sharing a grin. He grabbed one of the cans and opened it, taking a drink before looking to the group.

"So what happened then?"

"Icy, Darcy and Stormy have been apprehended," came a firm voice from the doorway, all seven occupants of the room looking up to see the headmistress walking towards them, "the others we have no idea about. They vanished into a light portal leaving the witches behind."

DMP nodded before replying, "at a guess they've moved on to the next universe then."

"I'm not detecting any 1st clan activity in known systems," his watch replied, having picked up the hint in his tone. The mage then looked up at the women with a shrug.

"I suppose they could have gone home... Random question... Have any dark portals appeared around here?" When there was no reply bar a couple of confused looks and a polite raised eyebrow he sighed and explained, "like the one I came from... They appear automatically when I'm needed somewhere else... looks like some kid mixed up all the dark paints they could find?"

"The only portal we've seen recently is the one that bought you all back to Alfea," Faragonda replied, taking a step away from the bed as DMP swung his legs out and stood with a stretch.

"I guess that means I get some holiday!" He bent to rummage through his bag by the bed and pulled out what looked like a refined version of a hovering skateboard that theoretically shouldn't have fitted in the backpack. Any questions from people about either board or pack were cut off by the man's next question, "Got any good tracks around here?"

"Musa's got tons," Stella offered as Faragonda left. Layla was looking at the board curiously, wondering if it worked in a similar way to a surfboard as she virtually ignored the conversation.

"I meant race tracks..."

"What is that thing?" Layla said suddenly before DMP looked down at it.

"It's a kind of Extreme Gear, you can get skates and bikes too," he said, then shrugged, "basically it's a hover board..."

"Well I guess you could try the lake," Musa said with a shrug, "Riven loves racing around the paths on his hover bike."

"Good point..." DMP said thoughtfully as he slung his backpack onto his shoulders, "I really should have remembered that, see ya in a bit then." With that DMP promptly opened the window and jumped, feet connecting to the board and flipping it round before he landed and shot out the main gate, drawing some appreciative murmurs from the milling students.

"He doesn't wait long does he?" Layla said with a groan, "I wanted to ask him for a go..."

"Well we can always go and find him," Tecna said calmly, "I still want to talk to him so that I can have a look at his database. I just need to calculate the best method of integrating our systems..." she trailed off into thought as Layla stood, took Tecna by the shoulder and pushed her out, the others laughing and following.