Chapter 31 "Unwilling pawn"

"Even though the school was attacked, It still looks great." Musa declared.

The Winx and their pixies were sitting on a bench in front of the boys' school, waiting for the big opening show to start. Stella was talking about her new dress. Digit and Tecna were playing a video game. Musa and Layla were talking about a singer's album that had just come out.

Flora didn't feel like joining in their conversation. Something was bothering her. Dimitri had been acting strangely since yesterday evening. He hasn't talked to her or even said hi. In fact she felt like he was completely ignoring her. And she had to admit that it really hurt. Especially after their little conversation about a future date.

Had he changed his mind already? Had it all been a joke and she had been an idiot to fall for it ? Her heart ached at the thought. She already knew she had started to have feelings for him. It was pretty hard not to with all the time she had spent with him. But she had decided to just ignore them, she was sure there was no hope of him liking her back. He didn't like fairies, he was older, handsome and a teacher! He was totally out of her league. And let's not even talk about the fact that he used to be a criminal and he was now paying his due at Alphea. That only meant his time at Alphea was against his will.

While she was processing everything in her mind, Chatta was flying around her talking nonstop.

" Today is not the time to think about plants or a certain grumpy teacher. Forget him. And go check out the boys! I'm sure you'll find the perfect one. Unlike Spike head, he'll be nice, polite and not at all scary. Look how about that blond one, he looks super strong. Maybe he's single? Oh that one's cool... " Flora just tried to ignore her pixie's constant rambling.

"Hey girls ready for the big surprise?" The boys came and led them to their seats.

"This is so exciting!" Stella whispered to her friends as Saladin came to stand in the middle of the stage and started aspeech about what the school was like before the Trix destroyed it.

"The time has come for us to restore this school's prestige by renewing the very foundation of our institution."

He finished his speech by pointing his staff at the ground. A weird unnatural earthquake suddenly took place around them, scaring most of the spectators.

"What is happening? Did something go wrong?" Bloom asked her friends in the middle of all the panic. But things quickly calmed down when people started noticing that they were not really in danger. They were only witnessing the amazing transformation of the school. The whole courtyard was now floating in midair. People were looking in awe at this brand new school.

Saladin continued on his speech with a grin on his lips.

"And now Ladies and Gentlemen, a parade for the new Red Fountain!"

But not everybody had been able to watch the great show. Three nasty witches in particular seemed lost in the school, having missed their targeted room, the headmaster's office, in the middle of all the moving walls and floors. A strange dark cloud suddenly appeared next to Icy's shoulder. In the middle of it an image of the Dark lord appeared.

" Have you found it yet?"

" No, we lost track of it because of the school's transformation... "

"FOOLS! How can a simple task like this give you trouble! Well no matter, a friend of mine will take care of creating a distraction so that you can go and get what's mine without any pesky fairies getting in your way. "

" A friend?" Darcy asked, confused.

"Well more like an unwilling pawn in my plan." He finished his sentence by laughing evilly.

From their first row seats, the Winx's were encouraging, applauding, supporting their Specialist friends in their many glorious duels and impressive dragon taming. The spectators were completely concentrated on the young knights' show. Dragons were flying in circles over their heads while teams of boys were making complicated hand signs on the ground. All for the audience's pleasure. But the latter quickly made place to fear when out of nowhere a threatening roar resonated throughout the stadium.

At the sound, the dragons in fear ignored their masters' orders and flew far away to hide in the neighboring woods. Weirdly the wild beastly noise seemed to be coming from four red runes that had just mysteriously appeared on the arena's floor. The power oozing out of them felt quite familiar to the girls. But before they could even place a face to the dangerous dark red aura, a huge dark creature took form in the center of the stadium. It's roars were now ten times louder. His face and hands were similar to ferocious lion heads. His body was covered in shiny purple scales. Everything about the beast spilled out " Black Magic".

The Winx had already transformed and were ready to fight. They quickly decided on an attack strategy. Some of the girls would attack from the sides while Flora volunteered herself for the position of attacking from the skies. But something unexpected stopped her in her tracks. A sight that completely left her frozen in shock. On one of the many walls of the school, Dimitri was standing with his hands in front of him, making complicated gestures similar to what the specialists used to control their dragons.

He seemed completely focused on the task. His eyes seemed to look straight in front of him without any emotions. Something was obviously wrong, and she wasn't the only one to notice.

" What is Professor Darkell doing up there? " Stella said while pointing in the man's direction.

As Flora was staring in confusion at her professor's emotionless face, she didn't notice the sudden movement of his wrist nor the weirdly similar movement of the monster's tail crashing violently into her stomach sending her flying through the air and seconds later landing painfully on the ground.

Her friends cried in shock.

" Flora!"

" Did you see that? That man is the one controlling the monster!" Prince Sky informed his team.

"But why would he do this? Especially hurt Flora?" Bloom asked out loud in disbelief. Something was definitely wrong with their teacher. Flora half unconscious on the ground was proof of that.

The man and his monster did not seem completely done with the flower fairy, the beast following his master's precise commands started advancing in the fallen fairy's direction.

"We need to stop him! He's going to completely crush her!" Layla yelled in panic.

The monster was taking his time hitting here and there some walls and buildings.

Tecna had already taken out her small magical computer.

"His weakness is located near his throat!" She yelled to the others.

Sky took charge from there. While Flora was still trying to make her world stop spinning, he told the girls to attack and distract their teacher while his team took care of ending the monster. The plan seemed to work well enough. The girls took turns sending energy balls at the man, even though they couldn't help weakening the power of their spells. Even if the man was acting weirdly violent he was still their history teacher. Unfortunately none of the spells actually touched him because he had created an enchanted forcefield around him.

However by doing that, he involuntarily put a stop to his hand movements directing the monster, leaving it confused and lost. The boys were able to meet up under its head, and finish him together. Seeing that his mission has been interrupted he decided to retreat, and disappeared in a flash of red to who knows where.

Flora just kept on staring lost in a daze, the tears were there but they just refused to fall. She was probably still in shock. Her friends helped her stand up and heal some of the bruises. However it was all done in silence. Flora didn't even have the strength to thank the girls. She just kept on looking at the spot where Dimitri was standing when he tried to kill her