Sunlight Halation: I must say, as always, I'm intrigued to hear what you come up with. Though, to add to the Season 5 example, the girls breathed underwater again, didn't they? My memories are still fuzzy, but Aisha didn't use Morphix there as far as I can recall. And yup! You can't expect every princess to be a spry little thing, of course! Plot twists abound!

Enjoy the story.

"Naida Magic Winx!" The words felt magical, literally. Though many fairies didn't invoke words while they transformed, it just felt completely right to say them as her mother had before her when Aisha Andros joined the Winx Club as an official member.

Naida felt the invigorating magic wash over her as water submerged her entirely. She extended her hands out as she spun on her heel, dragging the water around her into ribbons that lashed around her body, warping into a one-shoulder top and knee-long leggings when she came to a stop. She somersaulted mid-air, water quickly flowing around her into the form of a skirt that burst into a tutu when she landed. Clapping her heels together, water splashed around her, forming strappy sandals and swirling into the shape of her wings before the fairy flew out of the water, surfacing with a gasp of air.

Clad in a glittering teal outfit, the new fairy wore a sleeveless crop top, paired with a tutu of tulle over a set of knee-length leggings, also matching the same colour. Her sandals were identical in colour, matching the pattern, and were held in place by straps of darker teal. Her wings, though, were webbed, almost shaped like fins of a fish, primarily white with tinges of bluish grey, as well as the main 'frame' of the wings being a more solid blue-grey hue. The fairy took in her new form, even as she announced her transformation loudly for all to hear, "Naida, Fairy of Oceans!"

Her wings carrying her weight easily, the Androsi crown princess knew that she had to return to her room and call the other girls immediately. For one, she had to tell them that she found Hydrus. Building off that, she had to tell them about his message to her — the dark and ominous feeling of it didn't leave her with a good sense of the future at all. Other than that, though, the Fairy of Oceans really just wanted to show off to her new friends that she was now a fairy too, along with Maho and Tiara. The fairy flew off in the direction of the palace, the moisture clinging to her body repelled as she sped home, drying herself off in the process.

As she reached the tall spires of the Androsi palace, Naida flew towards the balcony where she knew her room lay just beyond, alighting on the blue and white bannister and jumping down onto the grey-tiled balcony floor. She reached out and threw open the translucent sliding doors to her room, only for the girl to stop and pale when she looked inside, tensing up entirely as she stared at the people sitting on her bed. "Uh... mum, dad..." she stammered out, her blue eyes wide and blanching in fear at the possible repercussions for her actions. "W-what are you doing here in my room?"

Her mother turned a stern blue gaze onto the Crown Princess, making the girl fidget and step back, shrinking a little from the reprimanding glance. The queen sighed as she stood up, reaching out to take the girl by the hands and pull her along with her to sit on the bed, with the princess between her parents. "Where were you, young lady, that enabled you to transform?" The dark-haired woman pinned her stern gaze on the girl unflinchingly as Naida fidgetted nervously under the look. "Do you know how worried we were when we opened your door and realised that you weren't here?"

Her father placed a hand on her shoulder, his eyes a little softer than those of the Queen of Andros. "Nai, we're just worried about your well-being," he explained gently. "Especially after what's been going on with the girls and you being attacked, we're very concerned that you're going to get yourself in danger if you leave the palace alone and without an escort like you've done before. We don't want you to be potentially hurt like the other girls were — it was luck that you were fine last time, but we don't know if you'll have the same luck if someone comes after you like they did last time," the king explained patiently.

Naida cringed, lowering her head slightly as her transformation dissolved in a flurry of bubbles in various sizes, leaving her in her still sopping wet outfit, which her father hurriedly moved to cast a spell to rectify, blasting her with a torrent of hot air that evaporated the water that soaked her clothes and hair as well as dried her bedsheets before they got entirely wet. "How much trouble am I going to be in?" she asked resignedly, hoping that even if she was grounded further, she wouldn't be denied the ability to use her devices — she had to tell the other girls about her meeting with Hydrus.

The Fairy of Waves pursed her lips together in thought. "Well... it's not every day that you transform for the first time, so..." the woman sighed, pushing a stray curl out of her face when it got loose from the tight bun it was usually in for courtly proceedings, "... your grounding is waived, Nai. You're still not to leave the place without telling us though, alright? And I'm reinstating a curfew time for you — ten each night, you have to be in your room. I will have guards patrolling the hallways. I know that you're still going to try and sneak out, but I'll make sure that the guards are at least a little more competent than the ones that guarded my doors when I was younger."

Naida's father almost snorted in amusement at the statement. "Either way, Nai," he continued gently, "you're not in any sort of trouble for what you've done so far, but we really do want you to be safe," King Nabu stressed gently, reaching his other hand out to ruffle her mess of brown curls inherited from her mother. "We're just worried that you'll be in too much danger if you're out there unprotected. And speaking of that, we have something that we think you also deserve to know," he said, glancing over at his wife, who nodded, moving to sit closer to Naida, who sat up straight to pay her full attention.

"I just came out of a conference with the rest of the Winx Club," the Androsi queen explained patiently, folding her hands in her lap as she looked over at her oldest daughter. "Bloom contacted this woman, Selina, and we've managed to determine so far that Selina knows part of what's going on, even though none of us has the full picture just yet. We're working with Selina to ensure that all of this doesn't happen again and we catch whoever's responsible for this and give them the punishment they deserve. Right now, we might not have any answers yet, but we're getting close, Nai, I can feel it. So please, for our sake, don't go out again before this is all resolved.

Seeing Naida's expression, her father immediately followed up, saying, "It's only going to be for a few more weeks, Nai. Trust us, we're going to have all of this taken care of as soon as we can. All we need from you and the rest of the girls is your patience and cooperation to stay put, right here where it's safe until we can ensure that you're not going to be in danger. We just need your word to us that you're going to stay put, Nai. Please, listen to us just this once. We can allow you to do whatever you want, provided it's here in the castle."

Naida quickly weighed her options, biting down on her lower lip as she contemplated the pros and cons of trying to barter with her parents for more freedom. She knew, though, that she was pushing it as she was, and however reluctantly, the dark-skinned new fairy nodded reluctantly. "You have my word," she relented, stealthily crossing her index and middle fingers behind her back. It was a childish move of her, but she knew that if she gave her word so earnestly, it would make her feel too bad to sneak out when she had to later. "I won't sneak out of the castle again, and um," she said, fumbling over her words.

Her mother beamed and pulled her into a tight hug. "Don't worry, Nai. Rocksand isn't in any trouble at all." At the astonished look the Fairy of Oceans gave her, the woman just chuckled warmly. "What, you don't think a mother knows when her children are trying to purposely draw their attention away from something? I could tell that she was hiding something, Nai. Rocksand told us everything once we asked." Gently, the woman patted Naida's curly hair. "She's on house arrest too, though. If you're a target, I can most certainly assume that she will be too." Her voice had turned grim.

"Right." Naida's voice was weak now — she hadn't actually thought about that when she was sneaking out. If she was being targetted as the daughter of one of the Winx Club, then her younger sister would also be a glaring target. And if the attacker was focused on them in their capacity as the princesses of Andros, her sister would be next in line if anything happened to her — the next target for sure. She made an inward promise to herself to be more careful when she inevitably did sneak out — she wouldn't let anyone get their hands on her younger sister.

"You'd better hurry and enjoy what's left of the day, Nai," her father was saying as he stood up from the bed, adjusting his royal purple coat with a grimace. "We've got a lot of work to do, Nai. I'm sorry we can't stay for longer to talk, but your mother and I still have a ton of paperwork on the side we need to finish," he said apologetically. "I hope you understand that." A small but reassuring smile pulled at his lips as he reached over, gently patting the top of Naida's head in a familiar, warm gesture. "We'll see you at dinner, Nai?"

The Fairy of Oceans nodded. "I'll see you two at dinner," she echoed her father's words, offering him a bright smile and a beam as her mother gently kissed the crown of her head. "I'll make sure to enjoy the rest of the day — the weather looks like it's about to rain, so I'd better stay in any way." Waving at her parents as they exited her room, closing the door gently behind them as they went, Naida immediately made a straight beeline for her phone, locked in her desk drawer. Pulling out the device, she set up the conference call, placing her phone on the bed as the holograph screens projected up.

Tiara was the first to appear on the screen when she accepted the call, the brunette girl looking rather harried and dishevelled. The next to accept the call was Maho, and the silver-haired Solarian appeared alongside Mae, both appearing rather eager to speak as the look in their eyes showed. Following them was Harmony, then Lilliana, and finally Raven, each of the last three looking cautious and the latter two with their earphones plugged in. Once everyone was on the call, three people moved to speak at the same time — Tiara, Naida and Maho — and immediately, they stopped, looking awkwardly at each other in silence.

"One at a time," Raven interjected sharply before anyone could say anything further, the younger girl shooting the lot of them a critical look through her sharp blue gaze. "Seniority first. Maho, whatever you have to say, spit it our first," she instructed firmly, her voice steadfast and making it very clear that she wasn't going to tolerate it if the group started speaking at the same time again, causing another grand mess and chaos. "After that, Naida, you're up and make it snappy. Tiara, once she's done, you take over, and for the love of the Dragon, think out what you want to say, all of you, so we don't waste our time listening to you stumble over your words."

"This can't wait," Tiara jumped in hastily as she waved her phone, plugging the cable into her device. "I found out why and who's after us, girls, this literally can't wait if we want to know what to do after this." She immediately resumed her frantic typing on her computer, and a file upload dialogue box popped up as the Fairy of Weather uploaded a video to the group chat. "I swear that none of you is going to believe this. It's so surreal, I swear! I was just sneaking out of the palace to go and buy something when they came straight up and everything was spilt. I'm not kidding, girls!"

Maho leaned into the screen, staring at the loading dialogue box. "That's exactly what Mae and I were going to say, though," the silver-haired princess remarked, removing her sunglasses from the top of her head entirely and placing them on the table out of sight. "Mae just gave me an answer she found and we just finished putting everything else together when you called us." She shook her head. "Nonetheless, in that case, Tiara, I think you should go first. If what you're saying is true, Mae and I can confirm our suspicions. Now, unless you've also solved the case, Naida...?"

The Fairy of Oceans nodded. "I'll wait until the end," she offered to the group. "Compared to everything else the girls have said, my information isn't all that important, though I was told to make sure all of you hear it. Tiara, you can take the floor first once your video is done uploading — why's your connection so slow if you can stream a live video chat with all six of us, by the way?" she asked, noticing that the video was taking an awfully long time to upload. Her pulse was racing — just a little more than when the girl believed that she was almost going to drown in the oceans of Andros.

"The dang file's too big!" Tiara groaned, the brunette girl moving her fingers across the keyboard at astonishing speeds as she typed furiously away, her gaze concentrated on another screen beside the one she was using at the moment. "Give me a few more seconds — here, this should do it." With a few more keys entered in, the video finally uploaded completely and a pop-up notification showed up on Naida's end, asking for permission to play the video as per the girl's usual settings. The video began playing once permission was given, and despite some rustling and dimmed visuals, the video was quite clear, showing two women and their voices quite well.

"No. Way." Harmony gaped as she listened to the video, her navy eyes wide in surprise. "There's no way that we really lucked out like that and she really is responsible for all this, is she? That's too convenient. I can't believe that's really what happened," she protested, though she seemed to still be very interested in the video, replaying it several times on her device as the petite girl pursed her lips tightly together. She frowned again, brow knitting tightly together as she leaned into the screen. "Wait, but... let's say it's real... is she really just doing this because she's a psycho and in love with your dad?" she asked incredulously, pointing a finger at the screen, though it was obvious she was pointing at Raven.

"He's not my father!" Raven retorted sharply. "My father died in a fire four years ago." The mood immediately turned sombre; no one wanted to say anything over it when they saw the way the strawberry blonde was turning away to hide her face, Naida even managing to catch her visible eye glaze over with unshed tears. "Don't pity me!" she snarled angrily. "Mae, talk. You had something to say, didn't you?"

As if spurred on by the girl's angry snap, the Fairy of Forests obliged. "I talked with the trees around the forests," she explained as Maho switched the camera focus to the rosewood-haired girl. "They communicated with their brethren across the dimensions and one group of trees in a park on Whisperia relayed a message back to me, saying that this girl, Barbara Kyle, was talking to three girls, Irene, Suzanne and Deborah Burnthorn, and she said that someone was blackmailing her, saying that her mother did something bad in the past and now they're threatening to expose it to the world. It lines up perfectly with the video."

Lilliana frowned — the girl had been the only one who hadn't said anything up until now. "So that Jessica wasn't lying... she really is the person behind all of our troubles? But she looks like a nice person, even if she's a bit dark. I don't want to stereotype her, nor do I want to do anything like that for all Whisperians, but it sounds like they're all jumping to violence to solve their problems," she said softly. "Alright, so... what do we do now?"

"Well... if we've managed to figure it out by now, shouldn't we hand this over to our parents?" Tiara asked, the brunette glancing up at the rest of the girls through the holographic screen display Harmony was using. "I mean, they've been looking for information for our sake so that they could take care of this and make sure we're safe, so shouldn't we just help them finish this before it gets out of hand?" The girl grimaced. "I don't know about you girls, but mum was so mad at me for dashing into the heat of things that she really scared me. And after learning that someone who's big in the political world has a hand in this, I'm not sure I want to keep going deeper into this."

Harmony bristled a little as she heard her best friend speak about it, her temper starting to flare up as she slammed both of her hands, palms down, on the table she was sitting at, pushing her chair back a little as she stood up to glare down at the camera. "No way am I backing down from this now!" she declared angrily. "I might not have wanted a large hand in this from the start, but now I'm incensed. How dare she drag us six into this because she's in love with someone who's already married? That woman's a psychopath and needs to be stopped."

Maho turned her gaze away, looking thoughtful and rather pensive. "This could get us into the middle of an interdimensional political scandal, Harmony. To be truthful, none of us has the required tact to handle a matter as delicate as this without causing a full-blown scandal and trouble for us and our families, but..." The silver-haired girl tossed her hair over her shoulder and huffed. "Nevertheless, my pride agrees with you, Harmony. Rationally speaking, we should hand this over to our parents and let them take care of this, but I've invested too much of my own time into this. I want to see it through. Who's with us?"

Lilliana cringed. "A-are you sure about this? It sounds like it's going to be a big risk to our safety, and after what happened when the three witches attacked us in Magix, it seems like we might get seriously hurt there. I got lucky with a broken arm and most of us escaped unhurt, but if we're going into a direct confrontation, there's a chance we're going to get more hurt... My mother would kill me if she learnt that I went ahead with this plan." She worried her lower lip, looking down from the camera as her hair fell over her eyes.

There was a brief moment of silence before someone else spoke, a chair skidding back on marble flooring as Raven stood up, leaning over to brace her palms on the surface of her desk. Her blue gaze was fiery, almost alight with the fire Harmony had heard was passed down along the bloodline of Domino to her. "I'm in," she growled angrily. "I'm with you, Harmony. I thought this would be bigger than a simple psychopath wanting a married man's affections — thought it would give us the answers to the stupid Dragons too — but this has gotten to me. I'm all for taking her down personally."

Naida was also silent, but she nodded in the end. "I don't like it either, but I guess it's worth a shot too," she said, her voice determined. "And that actually leads me to something. I found Hydrus today, girls — earned my Magic Winx too — and he told me something very important." She fell silent as the other girls all listened with bated breath, including Mae, who was listening with a fascinated look in her eyes. "There is upcoming darkness in this future, and only when all the Great Dragons are in sync with their wielders can it be beaten back forever."

"Upcoming darkness in the future," Tiara breathed silently, her eyes wide in thinly veiled horror and surprise. "I don't know about this, girls. It sounds really dangerous all of a sudden. I— I know I said I wanted for us to be like the Winx Club, but I'm wondering how our mothers did what they did at such a young age," she admitted, wincing. "Facing danger like that has a great possibility of death along with it and to have it all on our shoulders... our mothers really were brave to do what they did at sixteen. I'm not sure I'm able to do it."

Harmony exhaled slowly, looking at the girls with a grim look on her face. "That just leaves me and Lilliana before we can get to the Great Dragon," she said with a nod of the head. "We'll figure out a way. Tia, you're not alone in this, I swear. I'm scared about this too, but I don't want for all of this to be swept under a political rug and for this to all be forgotten between us. "We need to see this through to the end. We need to go and talk to Barbara Kyle and get her side of the story. I know she's tried to kill us, maybe twice, if those witches were her doing, but if she's being manipulated too, maybe we can get her help. I'm not saying we forgive her for what she did — I'm going to be looking over my shoulder and guarding my back — but it's worth a shot."

"The enemy of my enemy is my ally," Maho agreed with a nod. "The Dragon knows that I won't be trusting that girl any time soon, but her mother is the Captain of the Whisperian Royal Guard. She's in the perfect position to do something for us so that we can confront Princess Jessica Whisperia and defeat her once and for all. All agreed that we should contact Barbara Kyle?"

Lilliana exhaled slowly. "Oh, I have a bad feeling about this, but if we have no other choice, then we do it," she said softly, her voice somewhat timid. "But we need to be careful. My dreams have been dark recently, and I don't think I want to know what's going to happen. I... I'm in," she said with a heavy sigh, a resigned look on her face. "And Harmony and I still need to look for our Dragons."

Naida nodded. "I'm in," she said determinedly. "I'm going to take her down so that she doesn't get the bright idea to start coming after my baby sis."

"Count me in too," Tiara said with a nod of the head. "As long as my bestie's with me, I'm ready!"

Raven growled but nodded as well. "I'm in. Let's find Barbara Kyle and get her answers. Then, we storm the castle."

Mae clapped her hands together, looking absolutely star-struck. "I've just witnessed the formation of the Winx Club Junior," she gushed with a laugh, only for Maho to frown. "What, don't you like that?"

"Not being called the Winx Club Junior," the silver-haired girl retorted. "I'm my own person — I idolise my mother, but I don't want, nor do I need, to be known as a second-rate clone of her." She shook her head. "If we really want that... we need another name."

"Magix."

"Come again, Lils?" Mae asked, curious at the non-sequitur.

Lilliana looked up at the girls again. "If we're the hosts of the Six Great Dragons of Magix, we represent the interests of Magix," she said softly. "Then, we're the Magix Club."

Harmony played with the name in her mind. "Magix, huh? The Magix Club. It has a nice ring to it, actually... Yeah! We're the Magix!" she agreed with a nod of her head, her pigtails bobbing as she moved. "Watch out, princess, the Magix is coming!"

Questions for the chapter:

1) This isn't really pertinent to the content, but if you had a chance to name the girls yourself, what club name would you have chosen for them?

2) Again, a carryover from the previous chapter, who is this great darkness that's going to descend on the girls in the future? It might not even be in this installment, because I have a full tetralogy planned for the girls, or even a pentalogy (is that a word?) is I can manage it.

3) Who's going to be next to achieve their transformation? (Hint: You can find a pattern in Maho's introductory chapter)

Read, review and provide constructive criticism.