After their victory-defeat, the Winx and Izuku quickly returned to Alfea after learning that the fight they had was just a distraction to attack the academy while they were busy with them.
When they arrived, they were horrified to see part of the school destroyed. Fortunately, no students had been harmed, but the one they were most concerned about was Headmistress Faragonda, so, wasting no time, they rushed quickly to her office.
When they arrived, they found the office in ruins, with some parts burnt and others frozen. Griselda was treating Headmistress Faragonda who looked like she had just come out of a fight, which she did.
"Headmistress Faragonda, what happened?!" asked Bloom, very concerned for the headmistress.
"It seems that while you were out, the two who attacked the academy earlier came back and entered the office. The headmistress tried to stop them, but they were too strong." said Griselda.
"And what's worse, they took the book." said Faragonda.
"We were sorry we couldn't do anything, but Alvarez suddenly appeared and we were confronted by another one of his henchmen. By the time we realized what he was planning, it was too late." said Bloom.
"Now that you have the book, it should be easy for you to find that tree." said Tecna.
"I'm afraid so." said Faragonda.
"Isn't there some way to stop them?" asked Musa.
"Wait. Don't you remember the book said that only the worthy could reach the tree?" asked Layla.
"That's true. I highly doubt those guys are worthy of reaching it." said Stella.
"Which means we have time to stop them." said Flora.
"But even so, we don't know exactly where they've gone." said Izuku.
"I think there's a solution to that." said Faragonda drawing the attention of the others.
"Really? Which one?" asked Bloom.
"It's a possibility, but maybe, in some library book there might be something about the mystic tree. Like its location, for example." said Faragonda.
"It's worth a try." said Tecna.
"Okay, girls. Let's not waste time." said Bloom.
Meanwhile, in Alvarez's lair, the villain was once again seated on his throne, with the wasp woman at his side. Both awaiting his 'visit'.
That visit came in the form of his two lackeys, who had returned from their mission.
"Well?" asked Alvarez directly.
"We did it, sir. Thanks to your strategy, we managed to obtain the book without much resistance." said the ice knight handing the book to his leader.
"The only resistance we got was from that old headmistress, but she didn't prove to be as strong as they said. It was boring to defeat her." said the lava rhino.
"Let's say that was your punishment for your earlier failure." said the wasp woman.
"That's what I told him." commented the ice knight.
Alvarez decided to ignore them and focus on the book he wanted so badly. He opened it and began to flip through its pages, looking for the information he needed, which he seemed to have found as a smile formed on his face.
"Well. How interesting." Alvarez said, drawing the attention of his lackeys.
"Something wrong, sir?" asked the ice knight.
"It seems we need one more thing to obtain the power of the mystic tree." said Alvarez.
"You want us to go get that thing? I'd be happy to smash a few things to get rid of my frustration." said the lava rhino slamming his fist into his palm.
"No. This time it will be different." said Alvarez before handing the book to the ice knight. "I want you to go to the location the book points to. The rest of you, come with me."
"Is this thing important enough for the three of us to go?" asked the wasp woman.
"Let's just say it's something I wasn't expecting," said Alvarez.
Later, at the Alfea Academy, the Winx, along with Griselda and Headmistress Faragonda, were in the academy library, going through every book in the place, looking for something that could lead them to the mystic tree before Alvarez and his lackeys got to it first.
"Nothing. There's nothing about the mystic tree in this book." said Tecna closing a book she was poring over and setting it down on a pile of books she had already gone through earlier.
"Any clues, girls?" asked Bloom, looking away from her book to look at the rest.
"Nothing here." said Musa.
"Not this way either." said Layla.
"At this rate we're going to be hours!" shouted Stella complaining.
"I think there's a proverb that says 'dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry'." said Headmistress Faragonda with a smile.
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Stella.
"It means that the answer isn't going to come because you say so." said Griselda.
Stella, with a groan of frustration, went back to the work of checking books, much to her annoyance.
After Flora checked out another book, she looked around the library, only to notice something.
"Hey, where's Izuku? I thought he was with us." said Flora noticing the green-haired boy's absence.
"He said he wanted to train a little bit more and went to the forest." said Headmistress Faragonda.
"Oh, I see." said Flora with a tone of concern, which the fire fairy noticed.
"If you're so worried, go with him." said Bloom, to the surprise of the nature fairy.
"Are you sure?" asked Flora.
"When has Bloom ever joked?" asked Musa.
"But what about the mystical tree? There's still a lot of research to be done." Flora commented.
"We'll take care of it." said Tecna.
"Yes. You go with the young man." said Stella with a wink.
"We'll take care of it." Layla said.
A grateful smile formed on the nature fairy's face.
"Thanks girls." started Flora before leaving the place. "I'll be back later."
As the Winx smiled, a look of confusion formed on the face of the headmistress and her assistant.
"Eh... Can anyone tell me what that was all about?" asked Griselda.
"Nothing." said the rest of the Winx in unison.
"It's probably just young people's stuff." said Headmistress Faragonda with a shrug of her shoulders.
Just as they had said, Izuku was in the forest. What was he doing there? He was punching and kicking a tree like it was a punching bag. The reason for this was that, even though he didn't show it at first, he was frustrated and disappointed with himself for not seeing Alvarez's trap or preventing them from taking the book.
Yes, there was a chance of victory if they found something about the mystical tree in some book in the library, but even so, that feeling wouldn't go away. So, after looking through a few books, he decided to go outside to exercise a bit so he could be prepared in case he was confronted by Alvarez or any of his lackeys.
After another punch to the tree, Izuku stood still, deep in thought.
"Damn it. If only I'd seen this coming earlier..." began Izuku thinking in his mind.
"Izuku?" a familiar voice startled him and he turned around to see Flora.
"Flora? What are you doing here?" asked Izuku.
"I noticed you were gone and came to see what you were doing." said Flora as she walked up to him.
"Oh, well... you see... I was... training a bit." said Izuku pointing his thumb at the crushed tree behind him.
Even though he was smiling at her, Flora was able to see that there was something else behind that smile.
"Izuku, you know that if something is bothering you, you can tell me." said Flora.
Izuku was hesitating whether to talk to her or not, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw in them an aura of pure trust and a lot of concern. She was like a mother or an older sister who wanted to take care of her family.
Letting out a sigh, Izuku decided to talk to her. "It's just... I feel a little guilty about earlier. If I had known what Alvarez was planning at the time, maybe I would have..." began Izuku before a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Stop right there. It's not your fault. Alvarez fooled all of us. And believe me when I tell you that anyone, including me and my friends, would feel the same way. Don't let something like that stop you from being who you really are. You're a lot stronger than you think you are and I'm not just saying that because of your Quirk." said Flora.
Izuku couldn't help but smile at the nature fairy's words. "Thank you, Flora. I feel better now." said Izuku.
"You're welcome." replied Flora. "Now let's go back to the others."
"Oh, you're leaving already?" asked a voice that startled the two, who looked up to see the wasp woman flying away. "The party's only just begun."
"You again!" exclaimed Flora surprised to see the wasp woman.
"Hello again. It seems things have improved between you since our last meeting." said the wasp woman.
"Why have you come?" asked Izuku.
"That, my dear, is none of your business, but don't worry, we'll be sure to entertain you sufficiently." said the wasp woman.
At the mention of 'we', Izuku and Flora became a little nervous about who or what was coming with her.
Heavy footsteps sounded from where they stood and Izuku was shocked to see the lava rhinoceros emerge from the trees.
"Well, well, well. We meet again, brat. This time, I'll make sure you pay for what you did to me." said the lava rhino before charging towards him with a battle cry.
Suddenly, before he could get close enough, a bolt of magic beam struck him, knocking him back. The lava rhino shook his head from the pain caused by the attack and looked up to see Flora in her Belivix form standing in front of Izuku.
"Don't forget about me!" exclaimed Flora.
"That would be for me to say." said the wasp woman, launching a barrage of stingers at the nature fairy, who took flight to dodge them.
"Ha. Looks like your nanny is busy. What are you going to do now, boy?" asked the lava rhinoceros.
A serious face formed on Izuku's face as he activated his Quirk.
"I'll do whatever it takes to defeat you." said Izuku.
"We'll see about that." said the lava rhino before charging at him again.
Since he knew the trick of his enemy's body, Izuku already had a plan of attack against someone like him. The first thing he did was to dodge the lava rhino's lunge and then moved a little away.
With a horizontal kick, Izuku sent a wave of wind straight towards him, who managed to raise his arms in time to block the attack. When the attack hit, a curtain of smoke billowed out. By the time it dissipated, to Izuku's surprise, there didn't seem to be much damage to his arms, other than a few small cracks.
"Do you like it? The boss decided to increase my stamina after hearing about your mysterious strength." said the lava rhino.
"Damn. I wasn't counting on that." thought Izuku remembering that he was in a world of magic and spells.
"Now that it's clear that I'm not the same as before, let's get this over with." said the lava rhino before rushing towards the green-haired boy with his fist drawn back.
"I'll have to increase the power a bit." thought Izuku remembering his little training, increasing the power of his Quirk a bit, but not enough to hurt him.
With all his might, Izuku quickly lunged towards him and the moment the two of them got close enough, the lava rhino threw his fist forward, but before it touched Izuku, the green-haired boy managed to duck in time and slide under his arm.
"Detroit Smash!" shouted Izuku throwing his fist towards the lava rhino's chest.
Luckily, he stopped the fist just short of the chest so as not to take damage from his lava body. That made a powerful blast of wind powerful enough to blow the lava rhino half a distance away from him.
"Ugh. Oh, come on. Where the hell do you get all that strength?" asked the lava rhino pissed off at being knocked down yet again.
"You'll have to find out for yourself." said Izuku.
"Fine by me." said the lava rhino before lunging at the green-haired boy again.
While the two were having their fight on the ground, another fight was taking place in the air.
The wasp woman launched another barrage of stingers towards Flora who moved to the side to dodge it.
"Summer Thunder!" shouted Flora launching a magical beam towards her, but she nimbly dodged it.
"That's a pity. You're still too slow." said the wasp woman before launching a cluster of stingers at her.
"Spring Ring!" shouted Flora summoning a shield with which she defended herself, but that left her open for the wasp woman to quickly get behind her and kick her.
"Is that all you have?" asked the wasp woman.
"I have a few tricks up my sleeve," said Flora.
The wasp woman was about to attack when she felt something on her legs. Looking down, she saw that roots had wrapped around her legs, preventing her from going any further.
Before she could comment, the roots pulled her down and slammed her hard into the ground, forming a small crater.
The wasp woman let out a groan of pain as she struggled to get up, but stopped when Flora landed in front of her with a hand outstretched towards her in which she was charging magic to cast another magic beam.
"You're finished, give up!" said Flora.
"Oh, you are so wrong, my dear." said the wasp woman with a smile.
Flora was confused by the enemy's words.
"She's right." said a familiar voice that sent shivers down Flora's spine, who turned her head to look at the person who had just spoken.
Meanwhile, Izuku and the lava rhino continued their battle of strength. The lava rhino would try to hit Izuku with his fists or his body, but the green-haired boy was fast enough to dodge them all and when he found the right moment, Izuku hit him with blasts and waves of wind, as it was the only way to fight him without touching him.
Izuku had thrown another blast of wind at him with his fingers, but the rhino was able to dodge it in time. Izuku was about to attack again when...
"Aahh!" a very familiar female scream caught his attention while worrying him greatly.
Turning quickly his eyes widened at the sight of Flora bound with ropes of dark magic courtesy of Alvarez.
"Alvarez!" exclaimed Izuku.
"I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner, but I was just waiting for the right time to act." said Alvarez.
"What do you want from her?" asked Izuku getting angry as well as worried.
"To my surprise, it turns out I need this girl to fulfill my purpose. Now, if you don't mind, I think it's time for us to leave." said Alvarez.
"What? Now? I had him where I wanted him!" exclaimed the lava rhino angrily as he rejoined his boss.
"Sure he did." said the wasp woman sarcastically getting up from the ground and standing with her boss and partner.
"Izuku, help!" shouted Flora as she struggled to free herself, but her cries for help were silenced as a magical gag covered her mouth.
"Sorry for the mistreatment, but we prefer a silent journey." said the wasp woman.
With his staff, Alvarez summoned a portal through which they began to pass. That scene brought back bad memories to Izuku, memories of when the villains attacked them, took his friend Katsuki and he wasn't able to stop it.
"No. No. Not again!" shouted Izuku running with all his might with the intention of catching up.
Unfortunately, just as his fingers were mere inches from the portal, it closed, causing Izuku to fall forward and roll to a stop on the ground. When he came to a stop, the compression caught up with him, and he fell to his hands and knees as he gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Damn! Damn!" shouted Izuku as tears fell from his face to the ground.
"Izuku!" a familiar voice snapped Izuku out of his state to look off into the distance and see the rest of the Winx come running towards him.
"We heard a fight from the academy. What happened?" asked Tecna.
"And where's Flora?" asked Stella noticing her friend's absence.
At the question, Izuku returned his gaze to the ground as he clenched his fists.
"She's been taken away." began Izuku causing the rest of the Winx to gasp in horror. "They took her away and I couldn't do anything." said Izuku before pounding the ground in frustration.
"Izuku. Don't worry. We'll work it out." said Bloom putting her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to calm him down.
"I'm sure you did what you could." said Layla.
"But what would they want from Flora?" asked Musa.
"I don't know." said Izuku wiping tears from his face before standing up to show a straight face. "But we'll save her."
"Now you're talking." said Stella.
"We'd better let the headmistress know. She may have found something about the mystical tree that can help us." said Bloom.
Without hesitation, the six quickly ran back to Alfea in the hope that they had found something that could help them find Alvarez and Flora.
On their way, Izuku couldn't help but be very worried about Flora, the person who was the kindest to him since he came to this world. The one who acted like a big sister to him. He wasn't going to let Alvarez do whatever he had planned to do with her. Whatever it took, he was going to save her.