Chapter 24
Roxy's Pov
We waited too long. The day the planned attack on the Impostor was to happen, she took all of the magic from the students and imprisoned us deep within the school.
About an hour ago, she revealed herself as Rimordia the Great Deceiver, whatever that means. Despite the situation, it was pretty funny seeing the look of anger on her face when she realized none of us has ever heard of her before. It ceased being funny when I realized that Daphne was missing. I remember seeing her not long before Rimordia's take over, but I can't find her anywhere now. I guess all I can do is wait and hope the witches and heroes are able to break through the barrier she put up.
Thoren's Pov
I paced in Saladin's office for about the thousandth time. I was beginning to leave scuff marks on his floor. I was pacing so much, but Saladin didn't say anything about it. Headmistress Griffon was annoyed by it, but she kept quiet. Everyone in the room seemed annoyed, but if anyone said anything, I would probably deck them. Hell, I could kill someone right now and no one would blame me since my WIFE is MISSING!
Griffon used one of her spying spells to locate all of the students and teachers that are now being held captive by the impostor, and we counted all of them but Daphne. No one knows where she could be and I am dying from worry.
"What now?" I hear Sky ask Saladin and Griffon.
"I'm not sure. Before we do anything though, we need to find a way to get the students and teachers of Alfea out of her grasp, then we can deal with her head on." Saladin sighed.
"I propose we form a portal to the room where the hostages are being kept and take them all out and-" Suddenly, the door to Saladin's office burst open, cutting off Griffon, but it was a great interruption.
"Daphne!" I ran to the door and wrapped her in my arms. "Are you okay?" I whispered in her ear.
She simply buried her head in my chest and nodded her head slowly. The room was silent for a moment, and then Griffon moved towards us.
"Daphne, what happened?" She asked.
Daphne moved to look at Griffon, but she was leaning on me heavily. "The impostor, Rimordia is her name, stole all of the students magic and sent me here to give you a list of demands." She held up a piece of paper.
Saladin took it and read it over. He sighed deeply and looked over all of us. "She wants us to surrender all of our magic to her in exchange for all of the students and teachers. She also wants us to surrender all of our weapons to her and surrender unconditionally to her. Also, she wants us to send Daphne back with our answer."
I instinctively pulled Daphne closer to me, as if I could keep her from going back there. She was already exhausted, and from what I could tell, she must have walked from Alfea all the way to Red Fountain.
"I have to go back…" she whispered to me.
"No you don't, we can send someone else." I looked into her sad, brown eyes, and knew there was something else to it.
"If I don't go back, she is going to hurt Roxy." She stammered.
Bloom's Pov
It has been two days since I returned to the pack. The girls and I are beginning to figure out how to control our powers in our new forms. It's been slow, but we are working it out quite well. Flora can place her paw on the ground and plants will grow around her. Stella can make her fur shine brightly. Aisha can form some morphix bubbles and is working on a long staff she can bite down on. Musa can make small sound blasts. And Tecna can zap things with small bolts of electricity. I can set myself on fire and form small dragons.
The brothers and the pups know about our powers and love to watch us practice, but they are very wary about us when we test our skills. It is very tiring using our powers in this form, so we often sleep afterwards. When we figured out how tired it made us, we began to practice in shifts, so the pack is still in fighting shape.
"Another long day of work behind us." Stella huffed as she lied down beside me.
"mumph" I mumbled, half asleep, I must have worked too hard.
"I get the point. See you tomorrow." Her voice faded in the background.
I opened my eyes, but couldn't see anything. A thick fog surrounded me, blocking my vision. I stood up slowly and squinted my eyes. I was in a small cave, and there seemed to be a tunnel in front of me. I took a step forward and noticed that something was off. I looked down and nearly had a heart attack. There was no bottom of the cave. I was standing on water.
"Don't be afraid." A voice called to me.
I whipped around only to hit my head on the ceiling."
"Careful. It is pretty cramped in the mirror." A beautiful, silver wolf chuckled.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am the wolf in the mirror. Most call me Lupus though." She smiled softly.
"Why am I here?"
"Because I wanted you to be." I was beginning to get annoyed with her simple answers.
"That's not good enough." I snarled. "Why have you taken me from my pack?"
"Because I am curious." Her response made me stop.
"What are you curious about?" I asked.
"About what you will do after I show you this…" My vision faded into a battle field. I recognized the specialist uniforms and several witches battling monsters at Alfea. I looked around and realized that I didn't see any fairies. Not even the teachers.
"What the?! What is going on?" I yelped as a shadowy monster fell right in front of me.
"The impostor has made her move. She siphoned all of the magic from the fairies and summoned an army of shadows. Cloud Tower and Red Fountain have teamed up to save the fairies that have been imprisoned at Alfea. Now what are you going to do?" Lupus' voice asked.
"I am going to gather the others and stop her!" I snarled, a new sense of urgency was coursing through my body.
"But what about them?" Suddenly, the scenery changed and I was looking down on Nook, Dust, and the three pups sleeping peacefully in the den. "They know nothing of your world. Is it right to abandon them for humans?"
"They are my friends! How could I not help them?" I growled.
"But they are humans. It has become obvious that you and your friends will not turn back for a long time. You may never turn back by this point. Is it worth going through that pain? Knowing what you know now?" It felt like she was mocking me.
"Yes. My sister teaches at Alfea. My friends are at Alfea. My boyfriend is fighting at Alfea. I don't care if we aren't the same anymore. That will not change anything!" I raised my head.
"So you would abandon the pack?" The look she gave me made me want to bite her.
"No. I will ask Shade and Snow if they will help us. They will understand!"
"Fine. Go to your human friends. I hope you all come back. I didn't." She scoffed.
"Wait, What?" I was about to ask her, but I jolted awake before I could.
I looked around to see all of my pack sleeping around me. Faragonda was standing watch tonight.
My pack. Stella, Aisha, Flora, Musa, Tecna, Faragonda, Nook, Dust, Amber, Ice, and Night. How could I leave any of them? But I have to… I have to save Alfea. We all will want to go, but will shade watch over for them?
"Something wrong, Bloom?" Flora mumbled, still half asleep.
"Yes. Wake the girls and get Faragonda. Leave the youngsters to sleep. They don't need to hear this."
Once the others were up, I took them outside and told them everything that happened. All of them agreed that we needed to leave as soon as possible. Everyone agreed that Flora and I should go to the pack immediately so we could leave in the morning.
Flora's Pov
Bloom and I raced to Shade's camp as fast as we could. When we reached the border, Bloom howled for Shade to meet her as soon as he could, so he was waiting for us at the base of the camp.
"What on earth could you possibly want at this time of night?!" He snarled.
"We need your help." Bloom began "Some old friends of ours are in serious danger and we need to get to them immediately, but the cubs have nothing to do with it. Neither do the boys. I can't drag them into a fight that isn't theirs and will get them killed."
I was surprised at Bloom's bluntness, but it seemed to hit the alpha hard. "When will they arrive?"
"The rest of my pack will be here soon. My beta and I ran ahead to ask for your help."
"One question though… what would you have done if I said no?" Shade gave us a suspicious look.
"It was our only choice. If you had said no, we would have left without them and the older boys would look after the cubs." I answered him.
"Two young adults looking after three pups all under the age of one? Would that have been wise?" Snow, who had come up behind Shade and settled down next to her mate, asked.
"No, but there would have been no other choice." Bloom sighed. "Thank you for accepting to take care of them, also, before I forget, I wish to talk to you about something, Shade."
Bloom and Shade moved to a quiet part of the camp alone and spoke quietly for a while.
The others got here shortly after, and we said our goodbyes. Nook and Dust were a little hurt that we didn't trust them, but they both agreed that the three would be a little too much to handle. The pups though, weren't so understanding. They threw an absolute fit and made it even harder to leave. We had no idea when we would be back, or if we would be back at all. We may be seeing them for the last time.
We left Shade's pack and headed towards the mountains. Once we crossed the mountain border, Faragonda opened a portal to Magix. When we came out on the other side, we could hear the conflict at Alfea even from where we were.
"Okay girls, we have been out of the picture for too long. This might as well be a final battle, so be ready for the worst." Bloom began. "Now, let's go save Alfea!"
Bloom threw her head back and howled as she was surrounded by fire. One by one, the rest of us followed her lead, each of us being surrounded by our own individual magic aura.
When we concluded the howl, Bloom lowered her head "Now, let's do this." And she surged forwards, toward Alfea.