By the Fairy Council and Fairy Lords, an event had never been spoken of.
All of Fairy World was at a lost. Never, in all the milleniums of mystical life and history, had something like this endured. Not to this sickly extent. Not by the anti-fairies, nor the pixies, who'd consider it a low for them as well. Even worse, the act had been rendered through mortal hands. Quite literally, ripping a fairy of their free will. And the full story of how it ended up as so wasn't yet learnt.
Doctor Rip Studwell flew open the double doors of the Fairy World ER as four nurses anxiously followed him with a gurney through the corridor. As they carried the unconscious victim, one of the nurses approached the doctor.
"Doctor, what do we do?"
Studwell was at a lost. "Stabilize her, and we'll need to sew up the wounds."
"But, the wings sir.."
Studwell removed his glasses to wipe sweat free from his brow. "There's too much blood, and it's out of our power right now." He looked to a group of medics. "Someone get Jorgen. Get the patient to my table immediately, do you hear? Now!"
The nurses and other medics rushed off with the gurney after Studwell. All the while, chaos ensured at the entryway of the Emergency Room.
"Please! Let me go with her!" A familiar voice yelled.
A medic looked towards where the call came from before whispering to a colleague. "Try to calm him down."
. . . Immortal life
. . To what extent, really?
To say that Wanda let her guard down easily would be a lie. Much to the dismay of both her husband and godchild's ongoing fun, she tended to worry in most situations. All of course for their own safety. It was very selfless of her, but not always received well. At least not recently from neither Cosmo nor Timmy.
She tried not to let it bother her. Someone needed to keep their heads levelled, after all. But, her attitude always differed depending on just how much she was pushing Timmy not to go through with a wish. It really depended on what he was asking. The constant assurance the pink fairy received from the two to just 'relax' on a daily sure enough changed to judgement as the wishes got stupider. But, it wasn't anything Wanda couldn't handle. Her and Cosmo hadn't lost Timmy like they had with past failed godchildren. And she was bound to keep it that way.
But as she once learned somewhere, you can only look out so much for those you love until you forget to protect yourself.
It was a rainy day in Dimmsdale that Friday afternoon. While the kids of Dimmsdale elementary were itching to get home for their weekend ahead, a specific fuchsia-hatted boy was just about as nervous as he always was.
"I don't know about this, guys." Timmy said, shutting his locker. He spoke to a familiar green pencil and pink pen that sat tightly in the side pocket of his backpack. It was just after last period, and Timmy spoke delicately to his fairies amongst the large crowd of kids occupying the hall. "It was a project on rare creatures. I'm just not so sure that the Australian Ghost Shark was good enough for an A."
"C'mon, sport." Wanda smiled, not breaking her glance as she stared up towards her godchild's distraught face. "You put a lot into this project, you're bound to do well."
"I know, but whatta 'bout Crocker?" Timmy muttered to his fairies, eyeing the familiar grey, sickly man who stood down the hallway. He wrote begrudgingly on a clipboard as he yelled at some passing children.
"Yeah, you should've done your project on him instead!" Cosmo grinned.
"That's not what I mean." Timmy mumbled, as Crocker passed by. The teacher momentarily shot the boy a glance, before the latter quickly lowered his head, hiding his face underneath his pink cap. Crocker paused, before continuing on his way.
"What do you mean?" Wanda whispered, as they watched him walk off.
"He'll no doubt look for any reason to fail me." Timmy peered around the corner at the man. "And I worked hard on this!"
Wanda stood silent as she observed the unusually calm teacher. In recent rediscovery that Denzil was in fact a past godchild of her and Cosmo's made it all the more uncomfortable to come to school with Timmy. At least that's how Wanda felt, she couldn't speak for her husband. But otherwise, any moment in the past when Crocker was around Timmy, he'd bombard the poor boy with broad accusations of him having fairy godparents.
Well, maybe they weren't so 'broad' considering he was right. But, Crocker was all in all still crazy.
"He seems pretty quiet." The pink pen observed. "Maybe that's your chance."
"Or, maybe he's planning something." Timmy pondered.
"Who cares!" Cosmo happily chimed in. He thrusted out his nickel and held it close to his pencil-formed chest. "As long as we have Philip here, you're sure to pass Timmy!"
"Since when is she lucky?" Wanda questioned doubtfully.
Cosmo clucked at his wife. "Uh, since forever. Haven't you noticed I've been less dumb?"
Wanda cocked a brow in disbelief.
"And haven't you noticed you've been less nag-" Cosmo shut his mouth when Wanda glared daggers, "..nothing."
"Guys, focus." Timmy urged, beginning to make his way to the school exit. "Can't I wish that all my projects were full-proof, or something?"
Wanda blinked. "Not that I know of, but-"
"You wish it, we dish it!" Cosmo cheered, with a raise of his wand. "Just say the word!"
"Wait, Timmy." Wanda said. "I know Crocker can be unfair, but don't you think that-"
"Ah! Nag attack!" Cosmo shoved Philip in front of him, edging himself away from Wanda. "Stay back, I have all the sentimental value in the world and I'm not afraid to use it!"
Wanda stared at her husband with disbelief. Seriously? Another nag comment over a small, stupid wish that wouldn't even matter later? Peering up, Timmy looked to be just as, if not more irritated with her than Cosmo was. Feeling appalled, she couldn't understand how this was news to them at all. Being a nag, or what she would consider being cautious, came out of their stupidity in the first place. Why was she being blamed? For goodness sake, Cosmo looked like he was taking cover from a bomb. Wanda scowled. If they wanted play it like that, well then, she wasn't gonna stop them. She's had enough of their antics, anyway.
"You know what?" Wanda spat. Cosmo and Timmy both cringed in anticipation of her anger. "Fine."
Timmy looked surprised. "Fine?"
Wanda frowned in disappointment at her godson. "Fine, Timmy. If you wanna make that wish, by all means. And if it goes right, you can say I told you so all you wanted. But, you can do it without me."
"Wanda-"
And she poofed out of there.
The pink fairy's vision suddenly upheld the inside of Timmy's dark locker. She hadn't been sure why that was her first place of instinct, but she was in no mood to question it. Giving a deep sigh, she sank to the bottom of the locker, before she eventually gave into gravity and sat on the cold metal with her head leaning back. Her thoughts stormed her mind as the white noise of kids passing by on their way home went through her. Honestly, it wasn't Timmy or Cosmo individually. It was when they were both against her that made her feel attacked. However, though Cosmo would occasionally take her side, when he didn't in many immature situation it really tugged at her heart strings. Not that she wasn't aware of Cosmo's antics, as that had been her life for just about ten thousand years, but sometimes it really did get the best of her. And unfortunately, since her husband was her husband, he couldn't understand the obvious unless Wanda told him. Thus, the emotional waves between them would endure.
Darn it, Cosmo. She thought. Why do you have to be so naive?
Wanda jumped at the sound of the final school bell ringing. The pace outside the locker suddenly picked up in unity, all the kids rushing off for the weekend. As the voices dimmed, it was all of a sudden silent amongst the hallway. The only thing Wanda could see was the light peering through the cracks of the locker door, glowing against her feet that pressed against the inner walls of the small space. She coughed when her breathing took in some dust. Timmy really oughta clean this thing. She grunted in aggravation over herself. There she goes with the nagging, again..
She took in a breath of silence when she all of a sudden heard footsteps. Good chance it was just a teacher doing some surveillance for any kids left behind. But when the footsteps stopped in front of Timmy's locker, Wanda's eyes widened.
The harsh knock on the metal door caused Wanda to jump again, nearly yelping.
"Wanda?" A familiar, squeaky voice asked.
Wanda relaxed. "Timmy, you're still here?"
There was a pause. "I was just looking for you." His voice lacked energy as he spoke.
The fairy arched a brow. "You okay, sport? You sound sad."
"Yeah." His monotone voice continued.
"Timmy, you really should get home. We've talked about this, remember?" Wanda winced and pinched the bridge of her nose, once again forgetting herself. She really was more demanding than she realized. Maybe Cosmo and Timmy had a point. "Sorry Timmy, I-"
"No, you're right." Wanda's head arched up in shock, continuing to listen to her godson through the door. "You're always right."
Wanda was in utter disbelief. "Well, I suppose.." she cleared her throat, "you're sure you're okay, sport?"
"Yeah." The boy responded.
"What about getting home?"
There was another pause. "I need to see you first."
"Timmy you don't sound yourself at all-"
"I am myself." She was cut off, but once again with the same mellow tone attached to the familiar voice. "I'm no one else but me."
Wanda was beginning to become tired of this charade of talking through a wall. She wasn't sure why he was acting all weird, but she remembered that Timmy always came to be a little awkward when apologizing. "Timmy, just open the door and ask me what you need, alright?"
As the lock clicked, Wanda stood up and brushed herself off to face her godchild. The light peered in as the door opened, eating up the darkness completely and momentarily blinding Wanda, who tried to capture the figure of her godchild with a hand held over her eyelids.
She screamed when she was suddenly engulfed into a mesh material.
As Wanda struggled to free her limbs, let alone poof out, that's when she knew it was time to panic. Any prevention for a fairy to use their magic in a situation was an immediate red alert, and Wanda couldn't be anymore in that situation. The material she was in shook abruptly, but not from her own struggle, from the culprit that had captured her. As she was engulfed deeper into the object, she suddenly fell into a hollow space inside it. Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach at the sudden realization of her surroundings.
Butterfly net.
There was cackling.
Crocker.
"N-no!" Wanda pounded her fists against the material. "No, let me go!"
Her cries could barely be heard by the insane laughter emitting from the teacher. Wanda was appalled as to how this switch in events occurred, as she was seemingly talking to her godchild no more than a minute ago. The monotone voice all of a sudden seemed to make the most sense, knowing it was just another one of Denzel's tricks.
And he just completely, and utterly fooled her.
She toppled around in the net as Crocker ran. At least that's what she thought he was doing. From all the movement and laughing he could be jumping for joy for all she knew. But as the light peering through the net began to fade, and newer, dirtier smells began to surround her, Wanda knew she was being ushered to the oh-so nightmare that was Crocker's Cave.
The cackling had dialled down, and there was a pause in the abrupt movement. The fairy listened momentarily with a pounding heart as Crocker focused his attention on something else. With the sound of a keypad being activated, a computer animated voice suddenly spoke.
"Welcome, Denzel."
That shook Wanda to her very core. Yes, it was easy to realize that Crocker had captured her, but it was as if the universe was really confirming it. No, no she could not let this wicked, evil, disturbed excuse for a human being take the best of her and her magic.
"Let me OUT!" Wanda hissed, hitting the walls of the net once again. "Let me out! Let me out you horrid, evil man!"
"Now, now little fairy." Crocker's voice made Wanda's blood run cold. "We haven't even started, yet."
Wanda wouldn't hesitate. As soon as this net cracked open, she would make a break for it. Poof away, turn into a fly, whatever. She wouldn't let herself be trapped into some ridiculous magic-proof contraption that Crocker built.
When the flaps disconnected, Wanda rocketed out. But, she wasn't free for very long. A small gasp uttered from her throat when two foreign objects tightly wrapped themselves around her wrists, and brought her slamming flat against a metal table. Her magic was of no aid against the light beams that circled her hands like cuffs, and her wand went tumbling off the table and across the concrete floor.
"Fairy Magic Lock, Activated."
Wanda whimpered in terror at the immune to her magic. Thinking of no other option, she began to shake violently against the table, desperately trying to break free of the magic-proof cuffs.
"I've done it!" The voice of Crocker brought Wanda back to attention. "They all thought I was crazy, but I've done it. I've captured a..Fairy Godparent!"
Wanda's teeth clenched as she continued to try and break free. When a shadow peered over her though, she unwillingly flicked her eyes to meet Crocker. He peered over her with wicked satisfaction.
"How does it feel? HA!" Crocker paused to laugh. "To let an immortal being like yourself fall into the grasp of a simple mortal like me?"
"I-"
"Well, not so simple for too long!" Crocker barely let Wanda say a word. "Soon all the world will know the name of Denzel Crocker! Man beyond mankind, human beyond the mortal race, tamer of all magical beings, and it will all start with the help of a little, pink fairy."
Wanda shook her wrists again, the hard surface of the table beginning to hurt her back. "You'll never take my magic." She spat. "I've got more power on my side than you realize. And I'm not just talking about my own."
"Ha! All your fairy friends, I presume?" Crocker teased. "Maybe a certain godchild?"
Wanda's breath stopped in anticipation.
"Don't think I don't realize that a fairy on earth means one, and one thing only." Crocker warned. "You're here in service of a child in need. But, no matter." The educator turned to occupy himself with a tool table as he continued to talk. Wanda sighed in relief.
Thank god he didn't know Timmy was her's. But, it brought on an obvious question. If Crocker didn't know she was Timmy's godparent, how did he use that...that strange voice that sounded practically like her godchild? She was absolutely frazzled. He really had outdone himself, this time. For once, science really did have the longer end of the stick over magic.
"How'd you find me..?" Wanda questioned, lifting her head from the table.
Crocker peered over his shoulder and back to his work. "That's none of your concern." He put simply. "I am but a man of genius. You may have magic on your side little fairy, but I've got my intelligence. And to answer you before, I'm not after your magic."
Wanda's anger didn't cease despite her confusion. "What?"
Crocker turned back around, hiding one hand behind his back. "That would be too easy." He spoke, smiling evilly. "Every plan I make I always rush into it. But not this time, fairy!" He jolted on the word. "I need to take things at a slower, more genius rate, that would require a different loophole to becoming the ultimate ruler. I need all magic, not just one fairy's, so I need a way to get to all of them.."
Wanda's eyes slashed with confusion. "You want me to poof you to Fairy World?"
"No!" Crocker yelled. "I don't need you doing anything for me, fairy! I need something from you."
"Well, I'm not giving you anything." Wanda narrowed her eyes.
Crocker cackled. "I didn't ask for your permission." He pulled out an unknown tool and held it in the air. Wanda swallowed, as her anger once again was replaced with fear at the sight of the weird contraption.
"I don't need regular magic.." Crocker's voice calmed, darkly. His change in tone was so unlikely, and it scared the living daylight out of Wanda. With the press of a button, a laser beam shot out of the too he held. "I need flight magic."
Wanda screeched when the light beams holding her wrists suddenly thrusted her into the air, hovering her above the table. Her arms were outstretched, and her breathing picked up it's pace at the sight of Crocker approaching her with the horrid tool. A bead of sweat made way down her face, though she couldn't quite put together his plans that was frightening her beyond recognition. Flight magic? How was he-
Oh.
God.
"No!" Wanda kicked her feet as she hung, helplessly. "Stay away from me!" When Crocker walked to the other side of Wanda and she could no longer see him, her breath hitched as she really began to scream. "Don't! Please don't! Y-you don't realize what you're doing! Please, no, please leave me alone! Crocker! D-Denzel! PLEASE, NO!"
Pain shot up and down her back at the sudden feeling of burning.
Wanda's throat strained with a blood curdling scream.
Crocker slowly but surely trailed the laser beam along the joints of Wanda's wings. As the laser burnt through the sockets, Wanda couldn't stop screaming. No longer from fear but from the burning suffering that was ripping her wings straight from her back.
The pain was excruciating. Wanda's screaming was bone chilling, and completely unmoving to Crocker, who was busy with his work. Extracting her wings from her like she was a berry bush. She was screaming, pleading for him to stop this torture. Tears blurred her vision as the burn and cut from the extraction made her feel like she was going to die. She could feel blood making its way down her yellow blouse from her pierced joints.
It was torment. Death-like torment. She cried, and cried, and pleaded for someone, anyone to help. But the cave was a good mile beneath the school, and no one could hear her screams. And what would they believe if they found a wingless fairy? Wanda's screams echoed, and in the midst of it, she found herself yelling for the one person she needed the most in the world.
"COSMO! HELP!" She bellowed, though it was hopeless. Her tears were like rivers as she cried from the pain. And surely enough, Crocker stopped once the extraction was complete. Wanda continued to cry in agony, and the teacher threw the tool over his shoulder as he grinned at the two, delicate wings he held in his hands. Running his fingers along them gently, he pulled away his hand to look at the glistening substance that occupied his fingers. Flight magic.
Wanda was left hanging in the cuffs, weeping. Two gory, bleeding gashes occupied the back of her yellow blouse, where her wings once were. At the sight of Crocker holding them, the fairy cried harder.
"Well!" Crocker exclaimed. "A much easier process than I had hoped, all thanks to you!" With the pressing of a remote, Wanda was lowered and de-cuffed back onto the examination table. When gravity took her, the horrid reality of the situation made it official that she could no longer float, and she took in an unruly gasp of air as she continued to cry.
"There's no more use for you, now." Crocker spoke, as though he was blind to her pain. He turned away with her wings in his greedy hands as he walked to another part of the lab. Wanda's tears had fallen silent and she reached out a hand in a desperate attempt to stop him. But, only pain welcomed her as she reached forward. She whimpered and lightheadedness began to take her with open arms. She coughed up more salty tears as she realized she was in trouble. Perching herself onto her knees on the table and grasping her own stomach, her teary eyes searched for her fallen wand. Spotting it on the ground, Wanda hiccuped a few breaths as she edged herself near the brink of the table, before letting herself fall.
She screamed when she hit the floor, the pain going nowhere, and she took a moment to cry again. Rolling over onto her stomach, the fairy begin to drag herself forward, trailing tears along the concrete. With an outstretch of her arm, she grasped her wand and rolled over onto her back. The interaction between the concrete and her gashes caused a stinging feeling, making Wanda wince and crunch up her eyes as more tears escaped. She weakly raised her wand in an attempt to poof out of there, but it came falling down when pain got the best of her again. She weeped with more tears as she raised her wand for a second try, successfully poofing herself home.
The helpless fairy found herself laying limply in the corner of Timmy's bedroom. Her tears stopped flowing though they still occupied her face, as her head went reeling. Tentatively touching her back, she winced. Wanda looked down at her palms to only see that her own blood now occupied them. Her entire torso was in fact smeared with the red substance.
Looking up, Cosmo and Timmy were off in the other corner with their backs turned, playing on Timmy's V-Cube. The boy perked up at the sound of the poof. "Hey, Wanda. You're back." He called over his shoulder.
Wanda let out a cough deep from within her chest, as no words came out.
Timmy got up from the bean bag, turning around. "Listen, about-" The child's face went pale at the sight of his godmother. His eyes were wide in frozen shock as he took in the fairy's state of condition. "Wanda.."
Cosmo paused the game, and floated up. "Well, it's about time!" He spoke chirpily. "We were starting to think-" the words got caught in Cosmo's throat, as he nearly gasped at the sight of his blood-drenched wife. Seeing her husband's terrified, piercing eyes directly on her, Wanda reached out a hand as she stumbled forward on her knees.
"Help...Cos.." she croaked, but could barely finish.
Before the blackness took Wanda, she remembered a green orb flying towards as he screamed her name.
To be continued...
Welp, I have no idea how long this story will be. Nor what kind of direction I'm going with it, but I've been dwelling on this idea since I started writing FoP. There's no Poof, just cuz I don't know how I'd be able to implement him. I also wish I was allowed to put more characters in the description, because I know who I want to include in this story, as well as an OC that I'm really excited about. Sooooo, if this is posted by now, I guess I'm deep in commitment. Updates won't be regular, but hopefully frequent. If you've read this far, I hope you'll come on this journey! (lol that was super tacky)
Stay tuned!
~McSgwizzle