A mysterious prediction

Between the chaos that had possessed the main hall of the Factory, Zarina was trying to keep her cool. They were prepared for accidents like this, but this one had escaped out of their hands. The storm dust that Glimmer had asked for had merged with the water dust that they had stored, creating a tornado that had made everything else go flying.

Luckily, they had been able to close the storage room and the library before all the books and pixie dusts merged with the hurricane too, but the powders in the main hall had been enough to transform the room into a zoo. A lot of different plants had grown here and there because of the pink dusts that some alchemists had been experimenting with, and the snow powder that Glowen had been producing to use in the snow machines had frozen all the other machines.

Zarina looked at her fellows trying to stop the wind that blew roughly in the centre of the hall. She still had stuck in her head the image of Lonny taking Ria in his arms and carrying her outside. She had always known that Ria was somehow different to all the other fairies, everyone sensed it one way or another, but she had never believed the crazy theories that most fairies told about her. And yet, she couldn't deny what her eyes had seen, that intense purple light that had emanated from her friend's right eye.

The other problem that kept her mind from finding a solution to the craziness of the situation was, like it couldn't be otherwise, James. She had noticed his disappearance a few seconds after the black haired pair had exited the Factory. "What an idiot." she thought. Now that their game had finally started to get interesting, he had to go and try to escape again. Was he really that stupid? But she was already fed up with it, she wasn't going to let him ruin her plans anymore. And for that she had to find him before anyone else noticed he was missing.

She opened one of the compartments of her belt and took a handful of light yellow pixie dust, and she sprinkled it all around the room. As the dust came in contact with the tornado and the ice of the machines, they slowly disappeared, and the plants stopped growing. It was the same dust that she had used when she had had to turn back the alchemists she had transformed into water fairies, its power was to cancel any other pixie dust less powerful. Since it was a level 3 powder, it was useless against the pixie dusts that Lonny and Ria were researching on, but it was perfect for this occasion.

"Mina!" shouted the head alchemist as all the fairies started to come out of their hideouts and clean the mess. "Can you handle this on your own?" Her friend seemed curious about the question, but then she looked around and when she noticed the pirate was nowhere to be seen, she nodded.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of those two." she replied, pointing at Glowen and Burrell, who were helping clean. "You can go." Zarina glared at the blonde sparrow man as to warn him of doing any more stupidities, and then she flew out the Factory to search for the pirate.

…

[Earlier that day…]

Once the dark blue pixie dust discovered, Lonny explained to James that they had to find a way to produce it with the pixie dust machines on the hall. Actually, the sparrow man had told him all sort of other things to do after they discovered a new pixie dust, but this was the only one he had heard, since he hadn't been listening to him at all. From the moment he had entered the Factory, all he had paid attention to had been Zarina.

The past afternoon had been such a great advance in their game, that he couldn't help feeling excited. After the lunch with the garden fairies they had returned to work, as they had promised to Mina, but Claude had been forced to go work with the snow machines at the tinkers settlement, leaving him free way to talk to Zarina. That morning too, the fairy seemed to enjoy his company more than usual and, at some point, he had started to forget about their bets and tricks and had started to enjoy himself too.

"I never thought you would be so happy with your new job." said Zarina. She was working on the machine beside them.

"Why? Did I ever seem bored when you taught it to me in the ship?" he teased.

"Oh no, you seemed pretty interested actually." she replied with sarcasm, and then she flew to talk to her helpers.

"Hey, hey! Earth calling to James. Are you listening?" exclaimed Lonny, moving his hand in front of the pirate's face. James woke up from his thoughts as he looked away from Zarina.

"Yes! You were saying something about the water boiling and then we throw the pixie dust in this hole and…" He stopped because he noticed the two alchemists laughing amusedly at his troubled face. "Less mocking, you hear me?" he said with his most intimidating look.

"Yes sir!" replied Lonny still with mockery while Ria put the pixie dust on the machine. A bit to the right above them, Zarina smiled at the scene.

It took them a few tries to get the machine to produce such dark powder as they had obtained the day before. The dust-producing machines had a complicated way of operating, as good Tinkerbell's inventions they were. Since not every pixie dust was made the same way, all this machines had systems that recreated the different processes. To make a powder that needed to be boiled, for example, it had a special compartment where you could put the water, the plants or other ingredients, and it mixed everything on its own. You could even choose when to throw the different things into the boiling pot. It was truly useful.

"James, put that bowl under the machine." said Lonny. When the pirate had done it, he pulled a lever and turned the other one to the right and then to the left. They heard the rumble of the water boiling and the dusts getting mixed, and in a few seconds an almost black pixie dust with shades of blue came out from the bottom and landed on James's bowl. The pirate took it and stared at his new achievement with admiration. So much power in his hands…

"It's still not perfect." Ria stood in front of him and looked closer to the powder. There were four or five specks of normal pixie dust that hadn't changed.

"That's weird." said Lonny, writing something on his small notebook. But James wasn't willing to give up that easily, he had been the one to measure the amounts, and he was sure he had done it right.

"It's nothing, they must have fallen in the bowl by accident, it must be a defect in the machine."

"Maybe you should tell that to Burrell, then." replied Zarina, standing beside him to see his failure up close. "She was the one to check the machines this morning." James looked to the machines below them and saw the tinker -for a few days now she had been even more strict than usual, and today she seemed even angrier.

"No need for that." he quickly answered. There was no way he would criticise Burrell right now. "I'll just take out this few specks…" And as he said this he lightly blew over the dust, without realising that he was blowing in Ria's direction. The fairy, who had been too distracted with the new dust to see it coming, was not in time to dodge, and the dark blue powder hit her face.

"Ria! Are you alright?" asked Lonny, flying to her side. The alchemist nodded, swiping her face to get rid of the powder.

"James, what did you do?" exclaimed Zarina.

"I… I didn't do it on purpose, I swear! And besides, she always tells the truth, so I don't see the difference…" But as he was saying that, Ria suddenly covered her right eye with her hands and a painful expression crossed her face.

"Hey, what's wrong?" asked her black haired friend.

"Don't worry, it's nothing… I just see something…" And then an intense purple light flashed out of her hands, blinding them all. The beam gave James a fright, and he accidentally dropped the bowl with the dust. Zarina tried to catch it but she missed, and the truth powder landed on Burrell's head. All the alchemists looked at the accident and, at the other side of the room, Glowen saw what had happened. "This is my opportunity." he thought. Meanwhile, Lonny had taken Ria in his arms -she was still covering the right side of her face.

"Take me to the Queen." said the fairy.

"Wait!" exclaimed Zarina. "Want me to come too? Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"She'll be fine." answered Lonny, already flying away. "You should worry about them right now." he added, looking at Burrell and Glowen. Zarina looked at them and she immediately understood what Lonny meant.

"Come on princess, tell me what you truly think of me." was saying Glowen, clearly trying to get advantage of the truth dust. Burrell stared at him with such a hateful glare that made him back a bit. Mina and Glimmer, who had been working with the fairy a few minutes before, took her by the shoulders to try calming her down.

"Don't listen to him." said Mina. But it was already too late, the dark blue powder was making its effects.

"Do you want to know what I truly think of you?" exclaimed the tinker, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I think you are a coward for using alchemy to come and ask me. Want to know more? I think you are the worst person in all Pixie Hollow! And I wish I had never fallen in love with you!" and as she said this, she took a handful of the storm dust that Glimmer had on her bag, and threw it to the sparrow man. Glowed grabbed something to defend himself, with so bad luck that he grabbed a bowl with water dust. The clash of the two powders sounded like thunder, and in just a second a tornado had raised up in the middle of the room. The alchemists ran to close the other doors to keep it inside, but they were too late to move the pink dust that they had been using, and the wind dropped it into some decorative small plants that started to grow all over the hall.

James looked at all this from behind Zarina, who hadn't still reacted. He knew he was going to get in trouble when she did realise that he was at fault for almost all that disaster and, besides, he wanted to know what had happened to Ria -he had the feeling that it was something pretty interesting. So he used everyone's confusion to take some normal pixie dust and, before the doors had been closed, he sneaked out of the building.

Flying to the Pixie Dust Tree without being noticed by the fairies proved to be very difficult, specially since he hadn't had much practice in flying since the race with Zarina. And the other problem came when he arrived at it -he had heard Ria asking Lonny to bring her to the Queen, but he had no idea of Clarion's whereabouts. He entered through one of the windows of the Main Hall, and he decided to follow the voices of the guards across one of the tunnels. It was the correct choice.

Lonny hadn't taken much time explaining himself to the guard fairies and had headed straight to the Queen, so all of them had followed him to try to stop him. Right now they were all standing in front of a door, blocking his path.

"I have to see the Queen." he repeated, but the others insisted that Clarion had other business at the moment. And then, the door opened and a scouter came out of the room. Myka looked at them all with superiority before stepping aside.

"You can enter now." she said. Once Lonny and Ria had gone in, she glared at all the guards, clearly stating that they were out of place, and then she entered the room and closed the door shut. James waited until the other pixies had gone away, still protesting at Myka's attitude, and then he went to one of the windows of the room, hiding behind it just enough to look inside without being noticed. The Queen was talking to the two alchemists while Myka observed it all from a corner.

"What happened?" said Clarion as Lonny left his friend on the ground. But just as Ria's feet touched the floor, the light coming out from her eye became even stronger and she had to uncover it. A purple flash ten times stronger than the one which had surprised James at the Factory filled the room, catching all of the people in it with its spell. The pirate got caught too when the flash crossed the window, and suddenly he wasn't seeing the room anymore. Before him, the seashore of Neverland appeared, as if someone had been showing him a film. He could see the same view he had seen from Zarina's house, but there was something different. Down near the Cannibal Bay, he saw his ship moored about fifty meters into the sea. His crew was back? And then he heard Ria's voice in his head: "Three are the attacks that we've successfully repelled so far, my Queen. But if another attack were to happen, have in mind that Pixie Hollow would fall. Only the red fairy would be able to save us if that occurred."

The sea in front of him disappeared, and he slowly recovered his sight. Ria had fallen to the floor and was now standing up with difficulties, while the others rubbed their eyes. James straightened a bit to see if he could hear what they were saying, but then someone came flying to him.

"James!" exclaimed Zarina, who had just arrived. "What the hell are you doing he…" She couldn't finish the sentence because the pirate had dragged her to the floor beside him so that they weren't discovered.

"Shhh! They'll see us." he said. Zarina looked at her friends inside the room but she stayed down.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I don't know." answered James, thinking that it was best to play innocent. "There was a flash of purple light just a few seconds ago and for a moment they seemed to be in some trance, until Ria said something and they all woke up."

"What did she say?" asked the head alchemist.

"No idea… something about a red fairy." replied James. They both stayed silent and listened to Clarion, who was talking.

"Ria, what's the meaning of what we saw?" she asked. But the fairy didn't seem to know it herself.

"It was an accident my Queen." said Lonny. "We were working on a new powder that makes people tell the truth and just the truth. Ria was hit by some of it and then her eye started shining like this. It had never happened before."

"Maybe this dust potentiated my eyesight." pointed she.

"You shouldn't be hearing this." whispered Zarina to the pirate from behind the window.

"Look who's talking." replied he. "They are your friends, aren't they? Why don't you go ask them what's going on instead of hiding here with me?" he teased.

"I prefer to watch from here." said Zarina, trying to feign normality.

"So you admit you don't believe they would tell you anything, do you?" stated James, making the fairy stare at him angrily.

"Well, they have the right to have their secrets. It's no big deal, everyone knows that they love to be secretive."

"I told you there was something weird about them!" exclaimed the pirate, and Zarina stuck out her tongue at him with mockery. It was then that they finally realised that they were standing really close to each other. Really, really close to each other. And suddenly all their actions from the past two days became even more obvious. How he had recognised he was jealous, and how she had shown him that she was free… it was too much, and they both blushed and looked away, trying to regain their calm to think of a phrase to attack with. But James was faster.

"So, you were looking for me?" he asked, trying to sound irritating although he sounded quite cute for a pirate.

"Of course I was!" exclaimed Zarina, and then she covered her mouth and looked into the room to make sure no one had heard her. "You ran away from the Factory." she whispered in a recriminatory tone.

"I just wanted to know more about that black haired pair. And besides, no one told me I couldn't go out when I wanted."

"Well excuse me, I'll be more explicit next time. You are NOT allowed to roam around the Hollow on your own."

"Thanks for the advise." he replied, smiling happily. And then the door of the Queen's chamber opened, and a guard came out carrying Ria, with Lonny following him. James and Zarina hid deeper into the tunnel not to be discovered, and they waited for the three pixies to go away.

"Lonny, I'm fine." said Ria, trying to break free from the guard.

"Nonsense." exclaimed the sparrow man. "We are bringing you to the hospital and that's that." Zarina watched as they flew away, and then she came out of the tunnel.

"We should get going too, Claude will be worried…" But as she said this something stopped her. James was grabbing her hand.

"Who cares about Claude?" he said, jealousy shining in his eyes. "Let's go have fun somewhere else." Zarina's heart accelerated. She knew it was a bad idea, but her heart told her it was time to have some fun.

"And what do we do?" she asked. "Don't ask!" exclaimed a voice in her head, but she just ignored it. James smiled devilishly.

"You still owe me a race." he said, showing her the bit of pixie dust he still had in his pocket. Zarina smiled at the idea, and then she pulled him from his hand to get closer. She leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his ear.

"You are gonna lose." she whispered, and then she flew away so fast that all he saw was the wind she raised. James stood right there without moving for a few seconds, until he finally reacted and, sprinkling the pixie dust over his shoulders, he flew after the fairy.