Okay I know this is pretty late considering my other updates have been pretty well timed, but I have a good reason. I couldn't get the episodes on the website for a few days and then I just got a little busy. I just got back from my vacation in Miami and I've been packing for my next excursion. Sorry guys! This one is a little short but we have some long ones coming up so take this as a nice little break.

Gangs of Gardenia

Musa sat at her desk looking over the paper she needed to finish for WizGiz's class one last time. She glanced out the window and saw that the second sun was beginning to rise and thought that maybe it was time to get out of her pajamas and shower to begin the day, but she couldn't bring herself to move, her seat was far to comfy. Plus she wanted to make sure the paper was perfect before she handed it in later. It was a pretty important paper since it was worth about half of her semester grade. She sat back with the finished paper in front of her and smiled, the year was already half way over and it had gone pretty well, it wasn't without it's hitches, the witches stealing the Red Fountain Codex being the perfect example. But nothing was perfect.

She had been in an exceptional mood all week, ever since her 'non-date' or whatever she wanted to call it with Jared. The two had been texting each other all week with the occasional phone calls, although they hadn't really seen each other since the date, other than the one visit he made to get some 'finishing touches' for his article, not that Musa bought that. They weren't dating just yet, but they were in that exciting, flirty phase right before and it felt so good to be there. However she did find herself thinking about Riven also. There was a certain amount of guilt she was feeling about simply walking away to whatever they had going on, but she couldn't be expected to wait forever for him to finally decide he wanted her and it wasn't like he was very good at showing his affection for her. At this point she was beginning to doubt it was even there, and with her recent realization that he was not as innocent as she once thought, Musa found herself drifting to Jared. He was sweet and caring and made an effort to make her feel special and no matter what they said, ever teenage girl wanted that so badly.

"Do you ever check your mail?" Ali said walking in the room unannounced with a package under one arm and a large bouquet of flowers in the other. "This stuff was at your door,"

"Ooh," Musa said grabbing the package out of Ali's hand and putting it on the bed as Ali carefully put the flowers down on Musa's desk. "Let me see if Flora has a vase for those,"

"Don't you want to know who they are from?" Ali asked the already opened card in her hand. "Okay, they are from Jared! How sweet is that?" She squealed happily. "He is such a sweet kid, a little dorky but hey he's sweet,"

"Be nice," Musa defended, finding a vase in her room and placing the flowers inside as she took in the scent of the lilies, they were her favorite flowers after all. "My favorite, well it's a tie with roses," She noted staring at the lilies, softly brushing her fingers across the soft velvety petals. "You opened the note?"

"It fell and on the way to the ground it may have torn open," Ali said brushing off the accusation and jumping onto Musa's bed and grabbing the package and slowly peeling the tape off of it. Ali really did whatever she pleased until someone stopped her. "What does it matter anyway, this guy obviously likes you. Why don't you cut the crap and go out with him already?"

"Because," Musa said grabbing the package out of Ali's hand. She took a seat and then began to open it on her own. "I dunno, I just don't know if it would be a good idea right now,"

"Meaning what?" Ali asked until she figured it out on her own. "Does Musa want to have her cake and eat it too?" She asked with a sly smile spreading across her face.

"What does even that mean?" Musa spat as she finally pried the box open. Inside she found three stacks of invitations for the show at Red Fountain that was coming up. The dance team was going to a huge performance there and Musa was going to do a solo one as well. The event was supposed to be a big deal and Musa had been preparing for it for awhile, ever since Miss Faragonda had approached her about singing there a few weeks ago.

"You want the sweet guy who's showering you with attention and nice gifts," Ali said pointing to the flowers. "But me thinks you also want the guy that we both know you still like a lot. I mean who can blame you though, he is one nice looking piece of flesh and he looks like he could do a lot of things with that… sword," Ali said with a smirk obviously using sword as a euphemism for something else.

"The invitations are in," Musa said swiftly changing the subject as she felt her face heat up at the thought of Riven and everything he could do to her, something that had crossed her mind a few times before. But it wasn't exactly something she discussed and especially not with someone as blunt as Ali, she looked into the box and pulled out a stack of the invitation to the show at Red Fountain, they were simple invitation lined with scarlet ribbon.

"For what?" Ali said taking the bait and changing the subject, although the look on her face suggested that she was not about to give up on the subject just yet, she and Stella were very similar in that way.

"The big show at Red Fountain in a couple weeks," She reminded, hopefully this event would go off without a hitch since the last few major ones came with huge interruptions.

"So anyway, that's the reason I'm here, we kind of have an issue" Ali said standing back up.

"What kind of issue?"

"We have a couple weeks till then and we wanted to do back hand springs for the finale dance and Tessa broke her wrist in practice," Ali told her. "Like an idiot, I told her that she couldn't do that kind of flip with her stubbly little legs and she took it offensively,"

"Crazy huh?" Musa spat with sarcasm that was simply a perfectly example of how blunt Ali was. "Is she okay now?"

"Yeah but her wrist is definitely broken, we need a new girl for the show at Red Fountain," Ali told her. "The routine is too intense for her to be in it, she could mess her arm up even more, or worse, she could mess up the routine,"

"So we need a replacement," Musa concluded.

"Basically," Ali said. "I was thinking Layla, she was really good at practice when she was going to be in the show for the opening of Red fountain, so we know she's good, as long as she doesn't have stage fright I think we're okay,"

"Layla would be perfect," Musa agreed. "Well it looks liked you handled everything perfectly, I don't know why you came to me,"

"You are captain so I wasn't about to do something without your permission," Ali pointed out. "Besides, Layla is kinda skiddish around us, like she isn't a big fan of us for some reason,"

"She's just a little shy," Musa defended now knowing that Layla wasn't exactly the most open person in the universe. "But I'll talk to her about it, I'm sure she would love to be a part of the team for the show at Red Fountain,"

"Great," Ali said picking her small tote bag full of books up off the floor and standing up. "I should probably head down to class, I'll see you later,"

"Bye Ali," Musa said grabbing some of there things, deciding to finally to take a shower and get her day to begin.

"Oh and take it from someone who has been there a million times," Ali advised at the door, standing in the doorway before she left to go to class. "Juggling guys is not easy and they will find out about each other eventually, so you should probably chose, and soon,"

"I'm not juggling guys," Musa reminded. "I'm not dating either of them; hell Riven hardly even –,"

"Believe what you want," Ali interrupted. "But we both know you could have started dating Jared but you haven't and there has to be a reason for that,"

Musa rolled her eyes as the door shut knowing that Ali had a point. She couldn't just pull the trigger and end the little cat and mouse game that she and Riven had going on. It was all a lot to think about and she really hadn't decided on anything just yet, the truth was that she really couldn't decide so she wasn't going to. Not yet anyway.

Musa felt her stomach begin to rumble as she walked into the dining hall just as lunch was beginning to be served for those girls that decided to eat it early or the ones that were like Musa and missed breakfast altogether. She spotted her friends sitting at the table by the large windows that overlooked the quad and walked over to them with inviations in hand.

"And I hear you guys have the best music," Musa heard as she walked towards the girls hearing the conversation the girls were having about Earth.

"Second best," Musa corrected, feeling a strong connection to her heritage, there was no way there was any realm more musically inclined than her's and after her's Crescendo and Apollo (1) came close after. "And it's not exactly a close second, actually it's not even second, don't get it twisted,"

"I was kidding," Layla said with a nervous laugh.

"So where you been?" Bloom asked looking at her watch. It was now time for lunch and the princess had just decided to make her appearance.

"Just crawled out of bed," Musa admitted.

"You shouldn't sleep so late Musa," Tune began sounding eerily like her aunt Galiena, without the resounding judgmental undertones and martini in hand. "A true lady rises with the sun,"

"Yeah well we have two suns on this planet," Musa reminded as she took a seat on the lunch room table between Stella and Layla and passing the Red Fountain invitations to the girls, even though she was sure that the guys would give them the same invitations at some point. "And I chose to rise with the second one,"

"What are these?" Flora asked as she tore her envelope open and began to read the black embossed letters.

"Invitations to the concert at Red Fountain next week," Musa explained beginning to feel a bit anxious when she realized that she had agreed to perform with Stella as well. "Stella don't forget we're doing a song together there so please don't mess up,"

"I'm not a complete clutz," Stella told her. "And we're ditching today and going to earth,"

"Sounds good I'm in," Musa said deciding to ditch her classes. She had never really skipped class here, which was a little odd since she had spent a lot of time vacationing and running off to some of the most exclusive places instead of going to class. Of course that was mostly because Daniel and her friends loved to live the life they were born into and that didn't really include studying to them.

"Just like that?" Bloom asked.

"Yeah, why not?" Musa shrugged. She was actually looking for a bit of an escape for all the things she had going on here. There was school that was beginning to get a little less crazy since midterms were now over, but she still had a lot of work she was looking to put off, not to mention the decision regarding Jared that she had yet to make. She didn't want to string him along since she knew how annoying that was but at the same time she couldn't seem to let go of the one thing holding her back. A trip to earth seemed like just the thing to get her mind off of things. "It's getting a little boring here,"

"Alright then!" Stella squalled happily. "Let's call the boys to make them take us,"

"That would take days," Bloom pointed out.

"I see no problem with that,"

"How about we transport?" Bloom suggested seeing as how the other options didn't seem very feasible and it was how Bloom normally got home for visits.

"We can use a transport spell, it won't be hard to activate," Stella informed them. "It's how I got to earth in the first place,"

"Yeah but transporting all four of us plus the pixies will take a lot out of you for one spell," Musa reminded her. "We could all transport separately but since Layla ad I haven't seen Gardenia, there is a good chance we could end up on the other side of the planet,"

"We could power converge," Bloom suggested.

"And if that goes awry we are gonna end up in the realm of grim or something," Layla added.

"Screw it I'm gonna transport us all," Stella decided. "I'll just take a power nap when I get back,"

"Fine but if we end up in some weird realm again," Musa began.

"We won't now let's go!" Stella exclaimed loudly, her impatience rising through her as she threw up her scepter and called out a spell to transport all four of them plus the pixies.

Gardenia wasn't really how Musa had imagined it to be, Bloom always talked about as being some mythical place that was so tragically un cool because it was no longer home to magical beings and while Gardenia looked really retro, it had a certain charm about it. The building looked to be very old but as the girls ventured through the streets, Musa could see that this place wasn't so bad. "So where's your house?" Musa asked as the girls hopped onto a bus, following Bloom's lead since they really had no idea where they were going.

"It's actually across town, I thought I would show you guys around a little before I got back home," Bloom told them. "We're actually not too far from the park that I used to play at a lot when I was younger,"

"All I need to know is the direction of the closest mall," Stella told her.

"I hope it's okay that you are missing school," Bloom said as they rode along, occasionally hitting a few bumps in the road.

"I'm not exactly missing it," Stella laughed. "If you know what I mean,"

"Seriously, I just want to dance and forgot about school," Layla added.

"So what's the big visit with your mom all about," Musa asked as she gripped the rail above her head a bit tighter as the bus jostled due to the bumpy road.

"I want to talk to her about my search for my birth parents," Bloom said. "Because I'm kind of worried that it's gong to upset her,"

"Why don't we give Bloom some alone with mom time and then find a club," Layla suggested, Musa smiled at the prospect of dancing her worries away at a club and simply behaving badly, it was time she let loose a little.

"Good luck, only the sketchy clubs are open in the day time,"

"The bus is stuck! Let's fly," Stella said with a chipper smile as she lifted a few inches off the floor of the bus only to be wrestled down by Bloom.

"Stella no!" She gasped noticing that she had knocked Stella into a grumpy looking man who was seated on the bus along with the girls. "Sorry sir," Bloom sad nervously getting herself off the floor and looked at Stella sternly. "Stella, no magic in front of the NMB's,"

"I suggest we get off at the next stop," Musa said quietly as she looked around and noticed that she had attracted a lot of unwanted attention.

"I second that," Layla said.

"So what's an 'NMB'," Layla asked as the girls stood in front of the park in Gardenia.

"It stands for non-magical being," Musa explained to her. Bloom had decided to get herself home to see her mom while she left the girls to explore the city on their own and see how the non-magical world worked.

"So it's against the rule to use magic on them?" Layla asked sounding a little disappointed.

"Yeah well that and if we use magic here than Miss Faragonda will totally know where we are," Stella added.

"So how about we get something to eat and then hit the mall!" Stella said excitedly hopping in front of the girls and skipping on the sidewalk.

"Sound fine with me," Musa said feeling in the mood to go shopping, she figured she would explore earth as much as she could, maybe it would be fun. "But I wanna go to a club afterwards,"

"Deal," Stella said jumping up and dragging the two to the mall. "Now let's get some cute new outfits,"

"Hey check it out a dance club," Layla said after the girls got out of the mall in their new outfits and walked through the streets of Gardenia.

"Bloom said only the sketcky clubs were open during the day," Stella reminded. "I mean, it isn't even a weekend, whose gonna be in there besides losers, dropouts and rejects,"

"Who cares as well as they are dropping some hot beats," Layla pressed.

"Come on what do you say Stella," Musa asked as they walked up the steps to the entrance of the club.

"I say you have fun girls," Stella said taking a step back from the club.

"Back to the mall?" Musa asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh darling how did you ever know?"

"Fine have fun," Musa said with a long sigh. She took a step forward. "You coming Layla?"

Layla nodded and followed Musa into the club as Stella waved goodbye to the two and went back off to the mall.

"This is what I needed," Musa said as she and Layla danced in the middle of the dance floor.

"Yeah but this same beat has been going on forever, is that on purpose?" Layla asked.

"I think so," Musa admitted with a laugh.

"Why don't you sneak a little magic in and play 'DJ Musa'?" Layla suggested knowing full well they weren't allowed to use magic when they were on earth.

"As long as we are not using the magic on people," Musa agreed, she then sent out a spell and skillfully shot it at the stereo and instantly the music changed to something a little more suitable for the girls to dance to.

Just as Musa began to dance to the beat she had conjured up she felt someone grab her forcefully and but their hand over her mouth. "Stay cool and you won't get hurt," A low voice told her sternly in her ear.

"Hands off," Musa commanded before firing a sonic blast at either side of the man's head, knowing just how painful it had to be since her attack amipfied sound waves and at the close of a proximity, the guy wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon.

"Musa?" Layla turned hearing the attack and seeing with surprise that Musa had just broke the one rule for the trip and used her magic on a human.

"I think I may have blown our cover as far as no magic on people goes," Musa explained nervously, looking around and seeing that maybe Bloom was right about going to a club in the middle of the day.

"Alright this just became a private party for the suits and everyone can beat it," Another gang member that just happened to look exactly like the one that had his filthy hands on the musical princess, the one that had actually done that was still passed out on the floor. The club emptied quickly and the only people left were the people that were a part of this gang and the two faries.

"So what's with the drama?" Musa spat, she knew she had a problem with keeping her mouth shut, especially in situations that would benefit from some silence, but Musa was the kind of person who didn't shut up just because she was supposed to.

"Our rival gang has challenged us to a brawl tonight," One of the members explained. "And you're gonna help us with your magic tonight,"

"Seriously? Brawl?" Musa taunted with a roll of her eyes, feeling like she walked into a bad gangster movie. "Careful not to stain you spiffy suits," She added sarcastically.

"I don't think that's helping," Layla whispered seeing that they were not only outnumbered but now there was very little chance that there was going to be no way to charm their way out of there.

"You wanna zap'em?" Musa asked feeling a bit ansy, feeling the magic running through her veins and all she really wanted to do was teach these boy bands looking thugs not to mess with her.

"If we do than Faragonda will know that we're here," Layla reminded.

"Chances are she already knows," Musa reminded.

"True," Layla said and quickly fired an attack with all her might.

Musa and Layla finally unleashed their attacks on the gangs and were unexpectedly joined by the pixies for help and managed to escape the club and the gang only to face Griselda and Faragonda, saving them from the trouble they were in.

"You broke not one but two rules," Griselda yelled as she paced behind Faragonda's desk in the head mistress's office. "You skipped class without prior notification and you left the realm without permission, it's completely unacceptable,"

Musa looked down at the ground wondering why she always seemed to get caught when she was at Alfea. Back home she had skipped all the time and nobody batted an eyelash about it, and if there was a problem, a quick check was written and the whole incident was forgotten. Unfortunately the princess didn't have that power here so she had to deal with the consequences of her bad decision making.

"I'm afraid that you girls are going to have to clean the entire school," Miss Faragonda told them, going back to the punishment she had used the year before when the girls had broke curfew.

"Aww no way!" Stella whined.

"But we're going to the potions fair in Magix this weekend," Musa told them hoping they might lighten their sentence.

"Not anymore,"

"And I'm assuming we can't use magic," Bloom added.

"Only the magic of good hard work," Miss Faragonda told them and then dismissed them from her office.

1. Apollo is the Greek god of music, figured it would be fitting for a planet in the musical realm.

That was another short one. I want to update as soon as possible but I have a trip to Aruba coming up and I've been packing again since I just got back from another trip. So I'll hopefully have the next chapter up soon before I leave.

xoxo,
princessm