Chapter 17

"Very horrible things"

Musa, Flora, Tecna and Stella entered their apartment after a whole Saturday of shopping. Tons of bags were hanging from their arms and in Stella's case some were even hanging from between her teeth. Surprisingly Bloom hadn't gone to the mall with them. This morning she had told them that she wanted to go and take a walk, she needed some fresh air. However, four hours later, she was nowhere in sight. She couldn't have spent all day walking. The girls were worried, and knowing that their friend was a real trouble magnet didn't help at all.

"She might be on a date with Brandon." Stella tried staying optimistic. But it didn't work.

"Maybe, but I'll feel better after checking up on her." Flora said, the others nodded in agreement.

They ran down the stairs and out of Alfea's main gate. Musa was the first to speak up.

"So how are we going to do this?" She asked her already transformed friend.

"I'll go first." Flora said. She raised her hands in the air and concentrated all her power on the grass beneath their feet.

"It will show us which direction Bloom took." Suddenly a gold arrow appeared on the floor, it was pointing at the forest right in front of them.

"And now it's my turn!" Tecna replied while opening her small wrist-computer and used it to scan the area for any human living form. It took only a few seconds for it to beep in response. "Found her!" And just like that they took off.

Meanwhile, Bloom and Mirta were sitting on the grass, the latter explaining to the fairy how she had been tricked by the Trix. "You see Bloom? Those girls tricked you. What you saw in that book was just a big fat lie! You are not the reincarnation of one of the ancestral witches!" She explained hoping that the girl would believe her.

"I'm confused, then who am I? Why do I have these powers?" but before Mirta could answer, they were interrupted by a third very familiar voice.

"You want to know why you possess these strange powers. Well you won't have to worry about it for long because they will soon be ours!" It was none other than Icy, flanked by her two sisters, the three of them were levitating in the air chuckling at the oldest sister's joke.

"Oh look, she has company. You and Mirta make such a cute couple." Darcy added.

"Yeah, a couple of losers." Stormy loudly said and then broke into peals of laughter. And she was quickly joined by the other two.

Icy was the first one to recover from her hilarity. She sent a spell in the young girls' direction. A few seconds later they were both imprisoned in ice. However before the witches could do anything else, Icy was zapped by a yellow laser.

"Leave them alone!" Stella shouted in a demanding voice. She quickly melted the ice surrounding her friend. But before she could finish her task, Stormy trapped the four Winx between two tornadoes, and in a few minutes they would be crushed.

Not if Mirta could stop it. While Bloom transformed she created an enormous illusion of a loud roaring monster just behind the three witches. The sudden sound startled and broke Stormy's concentration hence breaking the tornado spell.

"That's it, I've had enough of you Mirta!" Icy yelled in frustration. She pointed her finger at the short haired girl. "You are just a bothersome little…"Mirta's shirt's design suddenly inspired her "PUMPKIN!". A spell shot from the tip of the witch's finger and completely surrounded poor Mirta, she suddenly shrieked and her skin and clothes turned into the color orange. When the spell was finally gone what was left was a sad looking pumpkin.

"NO!" Bloom yelled when she saw her new friend's new form. The Trix's laughter angered her. She slowly started to feel hot and recognized the sensation immediately. A sudden burst of power shot out from her. It's power was enough to knock everybody out of the air, including the witches that were sent flying through the trees unconscious. The fairies fortunately all recovered quickly from the shock.

"What an amazing burst of power!" Musa complimented her red haired friend. While her friends continued on talking about Bloom's true powers and what had happened to her today, Flora walked up to the pumpkin laying on the floor. She checked on her vitals and on the spell used but couldn't recognize it. She turned to Bloom.

"Who is this little girl?" She asked her.

"That's Mirta, she helped me!" The fire fairy explained.

"There's nothing we can do for her here, I sense very dark magic at work!" Flora told them. "Then let's go back to the school and we might find a way to break the spell there." Musa suggested.

And that's how they all ended up in their apartment, all staring at Mirta the pumpkin trying to think of ways to erase Icy's spell. A few of the girls, mainly Musa and Bloom, tired from today's fight chose to go to bed and promised they would help tomorrow. Flora went to turn the lights off in her and Bloom's room. She chose to continue her research and her reading in the main room to not disturb Bloom. She quickly changed into her nightgown.

"Good night Bloom. After all that happened today you need some rest." She told her sleeping friend and closed the door. She went to sit on one of the sofas and opened one of her spell books. Tecna was researching on her laptop and Stella was putting on some red nail Polish on her toes. Flora was too deep into her reading to even think about admonishing her.

A half hour later, someone knocked at their door. Stella, seeing that her two friends were too focused to notice, she took it upon herself to answer the door. Trying very hard not to ruin her recently done pedicure. She was surprised to meet Professor Darkell on the other side of the door.

"Why hello Professor, what can I do for you sir?" She greeted him politely.

"Are the others awake too?" He asked her. She noticed that he wasn't wearing his usual polite (and in her opinion, very hot) smile. Now he just had a serious frown on.

"Only me, Flora and Tecna, sir."

"Can I come in?" he asked, already knowing that she couldn't really say no. He was a teacher after all. She opened the door and told him to follow her.

"Hey girls, look who came to visit us!" Her words got the attention of the two fairies. Their eyes widened in surprise when they saw their history teacher standing behind their blond friend. "Professor! What are you doing here?" Tecna asked curiously.

"An hour ago I felt a powerful burst of power. I suppose It was Bloom?" he sat on one of the free chairs.

"Yes professor, this afternoon we ran in with the Trix of cloud tower." Flora replied, closing her book and walking to the kitchen. She took out four cups. She filled one with some hot chocolate for Stella. Two of them she filled with tea, for her and Tecna. The last one she wasn't sure. For the last few weeks, she had been going to his office quite a lot. She discovered it was a great place to study. She also remembered always seeing him with a cup of coffee. But that was during the day, and right now it was eight thirty pm. Darkell noticed her little moment of hesitation. So he decided to help her.

"The usual Flora please." And that's what she gave him. She handed the girls their hot beverage and sat on the sofa with her own. She felt her friends' stares on her. And she knew that it was because of Darkell's choice words. She hadn't told anyone about her many visits to his office.

"So tell me what happened." He said in his professional voice. Stella was one that talked the most, the girls would once or twice add some details that she had forgotten. When they were finished Darkell had already drunk half of his coffee.

"So where is this pumpkin girl?" He inquired while twirling his spoon in his fingers. Stella stood up and went to get it from Bloom's room. She came back and placed it on the living room's table. Darkell lifted his right hand just above the pumpkin and muttered a few Latin words. A sort of red vapor started to surround the poor plant. The professor closed his eyes in concentration trying to recognize the black magic that was used. As he opened his eyes, the weird fog immediately dissipated into nothing.

"Well this is a problem, the magic that was used is pretty old. Miss Griffin even took it out from the witches' school program a few years ago." He said mostly to himself.

"How do you know that…" Stella tried to ask but she was completely ignored by the man. "This is a sort of magic that can only be used for small damages like turning someone into a frog or a pumpkin, it is not the type meant for world domination or the destruction of a planet."

"Why is it a problem if it can only perform small spells?" Tecna asked him confused.

"Well you see this magic is meant to be almost impossible to break."

"That's not possible. Mr. Palladium told us that every curse is a counter curse." Flora said in disbelief.

"True, but some counter curses are harder to find than others." He explained calmly to her. "For that, we will need some books from the forbidden area of the library. Unfortunately I can't access that area without Faragonda detecting my presence. So I'll need to send some of you there with my magic, while the rest and I will be looking through the books we already have." Flora really wanted to ask him why he wasn't allowed to go. It reminded her of the time he told her that Mrs. Faragonda had taken most of his powers. But she knew now wasn't the time, not when they had company. But that company quickly disappeared. Stella volunteered herself and Tecna to go and get the books. She probably had a second motif. They left, Stella using her powers as a flash light in the corridors. The door was closed behind them, leaving Flora and Professor Darkell in an awkward silence. They each sat and opened one of Flora's spell books. However Flora wasn't able to concentrate on the words. Her eyes stayed stuck on the same line for a whole five minutes, before she finally gave up and put down her book. Her reading partner, noticing her lack of focus, did the same, he placed his book on his lap and waited for her to tell him what was bothering her.

"How come you can't go to the Library? " she blurted out without thinking.

"I don't follow." He did not understand what had made the girl ask this question.

"I mean, Faragonda forbids you to touch dark spell books, I remember you telling us that she took away most of your powers. And don't deny it, I can sense your aura is amazingly strong and very dark which is quite unusual for an Alfea teacher. Actually now that I think about it, I've never seen you leave the school to go see your family or your friends. Unless you are sent by the principal or saving us from the Trix, I don't understand…" While she was ranting away, she didn't notice her teacher moving to sit right next to her, waiting patiently for her to cool down. When she was finally out of breath, he squeezed her shoulder asking her to turn and look at him.

"Calm down, breath." He gently rubbed her shoulder with his thumb.

"Do you really want to know?" She looked at him with a serious glint in her eyes. Her face was just a few inches away from his.

"Yes please." He leaned in closer to her, they were now just a whisper away from each other. Staring into each other's eyes. His fingers slowly and hesitantly moved from her shoulder to the soft skin of her cheek.

"There are some things I can't tell you because they are classified and are not allowed to be known by the public. What I can tell you is that I have been sent here as a professor as a punishment by the fairy council. They took away most of my freedom, and the majority of my powers because of what I did in the past." His fingers traced gently the length of her face.

"What did you do?" She half whispered trying to encourage him to keep talking by leaning her face deeper in his pale palm.

"Very horrible things." He said but at the same time he said those words he realized the position they were in jumped up abruptly and took a few steps away from her. He tried to make it like he was just going to pick up his book lying on the sofa.

Flora somewhat understood his action, the girls could come back any time and she really didn't need Stella to make stupid assumptions, but that didn't mean she didn't feel suddenly cold without his presence next to her. She also kind of felt disappointed by his indifference. But those feelings would have to go away sooner than later. There was no way a relationship could possibly work, he was her teacher.

Furthermore she had quickly noticed his dislike for every form of light magic, especially fairies. And let's not forget that this was Darkell, he had all the students at his beck and call if he wanted to have a relationship he could choose any girl in this building. He could never be interested in someone like her.

Right in the middle of her inner monologue the apartment's door was slammed open.

"We're back! And got everything you asked for!" Stella announced handing them the five books she was holding. Tecna did the same thing with her ten. After a few words of good night the girls went to bed, leaving the other two to their research.

Everything went back to silence, Dimitri read line by line scanning for any useful information. Minutes and hours went by, when he finally took a break to rest his red tired eyes he suddenly noticed the sound of deep breathing from the other couch. His caramel haired student was deeply sleeping, half of her face resting on the page she was reading before falling asleep. He smiled in amusement at the cute picture. He got up and went to get the blanket that was laying on the floor under the table. He laid it comfortably over her. As soon as she was surrounded by its warmth an unconscious smile formed on her lips. After making sure she was comfortable enough he went back to his seat and opened his book. This was going to be a long night.

What he didn't know was that a small pumpkin had seen everything and was smiling at the two.