Schools Duel
Daphne, Bloom, Musa, Flora, and Aisha are discussing what they could trade Rumpelstiltskin for the Legendarium Key - he's the greediest dwarf in all of history, and has a massive collection of items, so they apparently can't simply trade anything for the Key. Bloom's got an idea of what they could trade for the Key, but Daphne suggests they go to the Alfea underfloors to look for something. Bloom says "I'll go get Stella. If she's not with us, then she's…" everyone else finishes "In her clothing boutique."
She teleports there, just in time for Grizelda to walk out…with Peacock feathers coming from the back of her dress. She quietly snaps a picture of Grizelda, sends it to Stella, and texts 'am I going crazy, or does Grizelda have peacock feathers on?'
Roxy comes up and quietly asks "Bloom, am I seeing things? Or does Grizelda have peacock feathers on her dress?"
"Then it's not just me…good." "What the heck happened?!"
"Roxy, for the first time in a while…I have no idea what I'm walking in on or missed." They share a look and Bloom teleports them up to Stella's room.
Stella's leaning against a wall, dresses floating around her, and looking like the world might be ending. "Bloom, Roxy, you'll never believe what just happened!"
Roxy says "You'll never believe what we just saw then! Grizelda! With peacock feathers!"
"She likes my boutique…" Stella slides down the wall to the floor, having a distant look on her face.
"I thought she didn't like anything!"
Bloom says "Neither did we, Roxy. You have no idea how many times we got in trouble for going off to save a planet or some such thing."
"Seriously? Because all the teachers keep telling us to look at you six as role models, 'work hard and you might be as great as the Winx' and all that."
Bloom and Stella share a look, and then start cracking up. Bloom wipes her eyes, and says "They say that after the fact. After all the hard work and fighting is done. But, when we went to Andros to first confront Valtor? It was in the middle of classes, and we left without asking permission because we were sure the answer would've been no."
Roxy says nothing for a minute, then bursts out laughing until she cries and her sides hurt.
Daphne leads the Winx to the Alfea Underfloor, revealing another wall that's actually a lot more than a wall - how many secrets does Alfea have?! The place is full of stuff, and Bloom says "Don't touch anything, whatever you do, girls. Something tells me this stuff was hidden away for a reason." As demonstrated when Chatta picks up a Speed Stone. Bloom catches her, but then they go flying as well, pulled by the uncontrollable stone - Aisha makes a Morphix Cushion that catches them, and the Speed Stone drops back into the case it was originally in.
Bloom suddenly senses magic being used outside the school - negative magic, and far too much of it far too close to the school to be the Wizards. Oh, not this again… "Girls, keep looking. I've got to check on something outside."
She teleports out, and finds students in a panic everywhere - and lightning attacks being shot from apparently thin air. Bloom can sense them though, the Witches that are attacking. She uses a spell so that she can see the heat they're emitting, like seeing through her powers, and transforms. "Yeah, see, they might not be able to see you…"
All the witches freeze, and one whispers "She's bluffing, she can't see us…"
"But I can. It's how fire magic works, ladies." To prove her point, she grabs a wrist in each hand and smashes their owners together, dazing them enough that they drop to the ground hard.
"Oh shoot, she can see us."
Bloom smirks and says "And I can hear you, you know."
"Fly!"
The Specialists show up to Bloom apparently chasing nothing, but blocking attacks that come out of nowhere. Brandon asks "Invisible witches?"
"Yeah! What was your first hint?"
She suddenly gets hit with a lightning blast, and Sky catches her. "Well, hey. Bloom, can we maybe talk later? After all this is over?"
"Yeah, what about?"
Sky bites his lip, then says "Later. And I promise its good."
"Okay, later."
Techna flies out at that exact moment, having gotten the Spectrographic Localizer to work, and uses it to reveal the Witches and Cloudtower Castle floating there. The Witches run off, or fly off, as Bloom had flown up at that moment and the rest of the Winx flew out to see what the noise was all about.
Ten minutes later, as everyone's thanking the Winx and the Specialists, the Trix teleport in. Icy says "We, the Trix, come to you in peace. We've got a proposal."
Bloom deadpans "You three wouldn't know 'peace' if a textbook on the concept jammed itself into each of your heads. Just say what you want already, then get out of here."
Icy rolls her eyes, and says "Guerrilla Warfare wouldn't be convenient for anyone, so we propose a duel. Alfea's strongest fairy against our strongest witch."
Bloom rolls her eyes, and calls up "Yeah, now spit out the rules so we know how you're going to cheat. You three don't play by any rules, after all. Or is it 'anything goes' for this fight?"
Stormy's face turns bright red, and she yells "Alright, you cocky fairy! Game on, anything goes!"
Bloom's triumphant smirk says she was aiming for that response, and Darcy mutters "Stormy, what did you just say she could do?"
Bloom puts two fingers to her lips, and lets out a piercing whistle - Ember flies out of a fireball a moment later, landing at her feet and looking like she couldn't do any more harm that nipping at a person's fingers playfully. Darcy laughs, and asks "What, your tiny little dragon is gonna tag along?" She wishes it were possible to stuff words back in one's mouth when Ember grows twenty times her original size and has a wingspan of a good fifty feet at least and teeth that look razor-sharp and the length of a full-grown adult's forearm.
Bloom teleports onto Ember's back, saying "Anything goes, remember? So, you and me, Icy?"
Icy is incredibly grateful she's not the one fighting Bloom, because Bloom's hand is straying dangerously near her sword-hip - Selina is. The green-haired witch's expression turns to shock when she flies out and sees Bloom riding Ember, and asks "What?"
"Didn't you hear, Selina? Anything goes in this fight. And the winner decides the losing team's fate. Hope you know how to sword fight."
Selina desperately thinks I need to split these two apart if I'm going to do this right.
Just in time, Bloom looks down in horror when they hear an earthshattering cracking noise from the Alfea Courtyard - and the statues of Alfea's Champions rise from the ground and start moving. They were the three strongest fairies in Alfea's history, and considered themselves so strong that they refused Pixie Bonding - and Selina brought them to life and set them attacking the students!
Bloom glares at Selina, and says "You know, I'm not even surprised anymore. Anyone that works with the Trix always has some underhanded scheme up their sleeve. Ember, take care of them!" Ember flies down, and proceeds to take the Champions' full attention on herself - mainly by tossing Reza of the Flame around like a ragdoll.
Selina glances down, and mutters "That wasn't nearly as effective as it should have been." At least Bloom and Ember are split apart. Now I have a chance to send Bloom over the edge without getting eaten. "You know, Bloom. I've read every story in the Legendarium's pages. Stories from every planet in the Magical Dimension…and from Earth."
"Yeah, I noticed. The mummies in Alexandria, Set, the Chinese dragons, you've got to be running out of pages by now."
Selina dodges a sword swing, but gets hit with the resulting wave of fire released from the blade. "Not quite. I have yet to get into Norse mythology. And I saw the most interesting story about the God of Mischief. Loki, I believe his name was." She knows she's hit the right button when Bloom's face turns to shock - and then turns to fury.
"No! I won't let you hurt him!"
Selina has to fly backwards as fast as she can to avoid Bloom's furious sword swings - she got Bloom mad, but how to get her to the point of getting close enough that she can get some of her Dragon Fire? Selina smirks, remembering what Darcy said about Bloom and her issues about family and loss - the girl doesn't take losing people close to her well, as seen when Icy froze her birth parents and threatened to break them, and when she discovered they'd frozen Daphne.
The problem with using that particular weakness against Bloom? It'll send her into overdrive, or just get her so angry she'll go further than usual and seriously hurt them. Selina's hoping goad Bloom into doing exactly that, though. Just not with her sword.
"Wouldn't you like to hear the story, Bloom? How the Norse God of Mischief felt so alone, so unwanted by his family, that he went off on his own. With only his magic and his knife to protect himself with, he went and-"
Bloom teleports in front of her, growling out "Finish that sentence, and I'll make sure you regret it for the rest of your short life." She punches Selina in the face, giving the girl a bloody nose.
The Witch mockingly says "What, no fancy knifework? And here I thought the sister of the God of Mischief, a being who's known for being a master with knives, would know how to use one."
Bloom's eyes flash orange with fury, and Selina knows she's just managed to tip Bloom to exactly where she wants her - this is going to hurt, but the Earth saying 'no pain no gain' is very literal right now. "You want to see some knifework? Here!" She teleports over and draws her knife, faster than Selina can blink, and buries it in her stomach.
Bingo.
Selina gasps, making it look like she's trying to pull the knife out when she's really keeping it still - nothing gets past Bloom for very long, according to the Trix. She just needs a few moments to absorb some of the Dragon Fire stored in the knife.
Bloom yanks her knife out of Selina's stomach after a moment, but the look on the Witch's face is that of someone who's just gotten exactly what she wants - what just happened?
"You win, Bloom. Bye, now." Selina teleports away, leaving Bloom with a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looks down just in time to see Aisha returning to Alfea - she left? For where? - with…with the Pixies! Brilliant, Aisha!
The history lessons they had on the Alfea Champions said that they were so powerful they refused the Pixie Bonding, so having all the students bond with Pixies should give them enough power to break Selina's hold on them! They bond, and the Trix stare in horror as the resulting wave of magic makes the three Champions of Alfea turn docile again and go back to their pedestals.
"What? How is this possible? Ah!" Icy violently flinches when Bloom's knife whizzes past her head and buries itself halfway into the ground - and they all turn around to see Bloom floating there with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face.
"Selina forfeit, which means I win by default. And unless you three want to be Ember's new chew toys, leave. Now. Return the magics you stole, and never even think of attempting anything like any of this ever again."
Darcy's expression turns horrified, and she nervously asks "Chew…toys?"
Bloom snaps her fingers, and a stuffed animal of some kind appears - it's impossible to tell what it used to be though, as all the stuffing was removed, the limbs are torn off, and the head has been torn up thoroughly. You can barely even tell it was blue, it's so destroyed. Emer shrinks down, jumps at the toy, and proceeds to shake it around too fast to track - the fact that stuffing flies everywhere is enough to convince everyone of the rough treatment though.
The Trix teleport away at that. Everyone highly doubts that they'll actually give back any of the magics they stole though.
AN: Alright, next chapter is up! Yes, Selina did push Bloom into losing her cool for a minute - she got what she wanted, and she's smart enough to hide her true intentions from the Trix so she's smart enough to know which buttons to press on Bloom to make her lose it. Can anybody guess what Sky wanted to talk to Bloom about? Find out in a few chapters! Reviews are appreciated - for all my stories, not just this one - and more chapters are coming soon! I've got two tests coming up though, so please be patient! Enjoy!