I don't own Winx Club or any of the characters, sadly. Enjoy.

Warning: Mentions of abuse and torture

Dark scars

Chapter 3: Confrontation and breaking point

(Shadowhaunt)

It took the Winx about 20 minutes to reach the heart of Shadowhaunt were they got to meet Darkar's servant Kerbog in his gigantic monster form. To their surprise Faragonda appeared right next to them in an apparition of light along with Griffin and Codatorta.

"We will handle this beast, you girls go on and save Bloom"

Faragonda sent them on their way while attacking Kerbog with her magic. When both headmistresses realized that magic seemed to be inefficient they decided to buff up Codatorta, allowing him to slay the beast. Unfortunately his ego was boosted along with his muscles.

Ahead of them the Winx and Specialists ran into the throne room, only to be greeted by a quickly destabilizing portal to the Realix dimension. Immediately the pixies flew towards the portal, grabbing its edges and stabilizing it, although only temporarily.

"Quickly, go through! We won't be able to hold the portal open forever!"

Concorda hurriedly urged the fairies and heroes to step through the portal. Nodding at the pixies Stella was the first to run into the portal, swiftly followed by the others hot on her heels.

What greeted them was entirely unexpected. They did expect Darkar and Bloom in there, for sure, but not in the way they were seeing in front of them.

In their imaginations they painted the worst pictures for their friend:

Tied up in chains, coerced into helping him summoning the ultimate power or even transformed back into her dark form.

But what greeted them was the sight of a relaxed and completely unharmed Bloom in her normal fairy transformation, embraced by Darkar's metallic arms while hers were raised to the sky, chanting the magical words for the power to descend.

All of them were shocked, especially Sky. Appalled and kind of jealous he immediately starts shouting at the pair standing on top of the pyramid.

"What the hell is happening? Bloom, why are you in the arms of this bastard? What did he do to you? He is forcing you, isn't he?!"

Darkar laughed as Bloom completely ignored the words of her former boyfriend.

"What are you talking about you pathetic boy? I didn't force her to do anything. I only made her drop the charade that has been going on for a few years now. As for why I would be embracing her … isn't it perfectly normal for a husband to embrace his wife?"

Darkar was having the time of his life, the expressions of those below him were just so hilarious! Now he was really pleased with himself for healing all those torture wounds from his 'wife'. He even left a different spell on her body as a gift when the real Bloom finally woke up from her 'dream'. Gloating, he kept on spinning the tale he had thought out before.

"Yes, you heard correctly. Bloom was never on your side, everything was a setup leading to this point. Sure, staging everything she did until now was an elaborate and taxing ruse, but so very worth it. After all, you never once suspected Bloom to be on my side."

"That is not true, it's impossible! Bloom only came to Alfea because we met by chance on earth while I was fighting that ogre! Besides, if she wasn't our friend why would she defeat the army of decay last year? Or stop you from getting the codex pieces in this one?"

Stella butted in while launching a flare attack at Darkar, careful to avoid Bloom. Darkar simply swatted the attack away before leaving Bloom and starting his assault on the team.

"Oh, but it is very much the truth. Tell me, just how high is the chance for a fairy to appear on a magicless planet, an heiress to a destroyed planet to be specific."

All of them looked a bit shaken when they thought about those chances. But before any permanent doubts could settle down in their head Flora spoke up.

"Even if those chances are incredibly tiny, the chance is there. It doesn't matter what you say, you won't be able to sway our opinion about our friend."

"Is that so? Then why don't you let me finish my explanation? First the fact that that sun fairy over there was attacked by an ogre who was a subordinate of those Trix that serve me. Second, she helped defeat an army that was made by her giving up her dragon flame in the first place. The end result was a severely weakened Alfea and her being celebrated as a hero. This helped her in getting prime information about the codex pieces.

And when the time came for her to 'stop' the Trix from getting the pieces all she had to do was to slip up in her duties, resulting in the pieces coming to me.

Finally when she got possessed by that shadow virus she had the perfect alibi to hand me Alfea's piece of the codex out in the open and you didn't even think of it as weird or strange"

Darkar said laughing while he continued dodging the magic blasts and sword strikes. The Winx would be lying if they said they didn't start to get suspicious of Bloom. Wanting clarification from the person in question they turned their questions to Bloom. Musa was the first to speak up.

"Bloom, why arent'cha saying anything? Is that skeletal prick speaking the truth?"

Bloom, who was completely focused on summoning the ultimate power snapped her head to Musa, snarling, when she heard her words.

"You will not speak down on my lord, you will address him with his full title or I will rip your throat desecrating my master out myself."

She hissed at Musa, her expression twisted into a scary grimace. Everybody was shocked as they looked at Bloom snapping and threatening Musa with bloody murder for not calling their enemy by his full name. Confused, Layla spoke up to Bloom while firing another round of morphix towards Darkar.

"Bloom, what's going on? Why are you taking his side? Aren't you our friend?"

She already had her theories when she thought about what the Trix had said about their friend, but she blew the words off, thinking that they were just some provocation. However when she looked at how obedient Bloom was to Darkar, along with his rather logical arguments there was little she could think of to lessen her suspicions. And Bloom reaction only heightened them.

"Friend? What friend? All I did was use you to gain an impeccable alibi. I mean you fairies are just so naïve, willing to believe almost everything without even thinking about how unrealistic the things I sometimes said were. You bunch were just too easy.

And Sky", she turned her head towards her 'boyfriend', "How does it feel to get cheated on by the wife of the probably evilest person in the world? You would know, after all you did the very same thing with Diaspro and me. How's it sitting with your princely pride?"

She laughed at the twisted expression of anger and hate she could see in his face. Distracted by laughing at the pathetic prince she missed Lockette sneaking up on her to kiss her cheek.

Stunned she turned around to look at her bonded pixie looking at her with a hopeful gaze.

"Aww Lockette, you are so sweet! To think that you would even risk sneaking up on me to give me a spell-breaking kiss…", the expression of everyone but Darkar lit up in a hopeful light, overlooking the dark phoenix almost toppling over while keeping himself from laughing out loud. Since the entire 'soul' of Bloom was replaced there was no spell to be broken.

"Too bad I am not under any spell right now!"

Bloom yelled while backhanding her pixie into Flora who carefully caught the little thing. Techna had been keeping a watchful eye on Bloom until she spoke out now.

"Girls, I don't think she is lying. Her pulse was steady the whole time and her facial expression also don't indicate any form of falsehood. I think it is safe to say that she was truly … using us."

Everybody but the dark pair looked sad as the news sunk in. But it didn't take long for the sadness to turn into hate and betrayal, making the group almost feral for revenge. Especially Stella and Sky, the best friends to Bloom with their big royal pride were unable to take it.

"You goddamn bitch!"

Sky yelled as he shot towards Bloom, his sword drawn and ready to slash down into his former girlfriend. The inhibitions to go launch high-powered attacks out of fear to hit Bloom were gone to the entire team. Best to beat her down first to take her in for questioning later after the fight.

Only one person kept holding back on their former friend. Flora.

The nature fairy felt like something was off about her friend. Something didn't seem right, and not in the "I joined the dark side" sense. It was like Techna said, there was no indication to her lying, but she also showed no indication for anything but agreeing with Darkar!

There was no regret over her actions or even the slightest hint of her reliving any memories they had together. Plus she knew that her friend really sucked at lying so there was no way in hell that she was acting the entire time. And the Bloom in front of her… Her expression was not blank or stoic to block out emotion, it just seemed so… empty. As if she was some sort of puppet…

Her eyes shot open wide as realization hit her. This must have been a puppet! She read about the description of a spell of puppetry when she was researching some parasites that controlled their hosts to their deaths (Yes, some really do so). But as she looked around her at the frenzied mass that was her friends she knew that they wouldn't believe her right now. The spell was not well-known and would be too convenient of an excuse to them right now.

They didn't even listen to her when she tried to catch their attention.

She turned to her only hope and reached out to grab Helia's hand, to tell him about what she had figured out. But he quickly slapped it away as he used his threaded glove to attack Bloom. Flora could see that he was just as angry as the other, not even listening to her.

A feeling of hurt pounded into her chest. She couldn't believe that even he wouldn't even listen to her. Especially him. And her other friends as well… did they even really know Bloom at all? Why weren't they suspicious about this whole thing too?

Flora took a deep breath. At least this opened her eyes to those around her. To what kind of people they really were. But the most pressing matter right now, friends or no friends, was definitely getting rid of Darkar.

"Come on guy's, let's do a charmix convergence spell together!"

Flora yelled at all of them while signalling the guys to play the distraction. The guys nodded and headed off while the girls gathered all of their magic power together.

Sky, Riven and Brandon were keeping him at bay whereas Helia was restraining him in his movement. After a few tense moments the shot was charged and they attacked, hitting the target dead centre.

They watched in amazement and satisfaction as Darkar disintegrated into dust particles that scattered themselves over the entire Realix realm. With Darkar dealt with the attention of the entire team was directed at Bloom, who was now standing on top of the altar with a blank expression, now that Darkar's spell vanished along with him.

"I knew it!", Flora thought, happy and elated by the fact that her friend was actually still there.

But the smile froze on her face when she saw that no one else on the team had realized it in their hurt from the betrayal they had suffered. Sky was now standing above Bloom, his sword over him and ready to end Bloom's life.

Panicked, Flora thought of ways to stop him as he brought down his sword.

"Now, to finally dispose of this traitorous bitch in front of me", he said with a voice full of loathing towards the girl in front of him.

(Inside Bloom's mind)

It was dark around her and everything hurt. Sure, the wounds healed, but the pain seemed to linger forever inside of her. Well, almost all of them heal. Only the phoenix brand Darkar inscribed into her flesh seemed to stay behind every time a session finished.

She was still inside the same cell, chained to the same shackles. The only difference was her lack of strength to keep herself standing. Bloom was hanging slack in her chains, the newest metal collar on her neck almost strangling her while cutting into her body.

She didn't know how much time had passed since she was first imprisoned, weeks, months, even years. The pain and torture made her lose all her sense of time. In truth it had been about three hours in the real world right now, which meant that she had been hanging in the same restrains for six months. Her eyes were empty and lost their glow, only the slightest spark of defiance remained in them.

You could see how much the physical and mental torture took from her. Every time after she was done being tortured by one or more of her loved ones she could just scatntily catch her breath before the next one came.

Bloom could feel her will and sanity slip away. The only reason she was barely able to maintain this state was the belief that everything happening to her was only a lie. That all of the 'people' coming in to torture her were only part of Darkar's sick joke since they would never do this to her… would they? Even that last thought of defiance was starting to slip away.

She was just done with the latest 'lesson' when the next person came in. Sky. Normally she would be more than happy to see him but now he was the last person she wanted to see. As always he started off with insulting her, laughing beating her as he did before finally having his way with her. The entire time Bloom was too weak to protest, simply letting it wash over her and it would be over before she realized.

Suddenly everything turned bright. Bloom instinctively knew what that meant. Her friends defeated Darker and freed her. This nightmare was finally over!

Stunned over the sudden turn of events she simply stood in place for a few seconds before she saw Sky walk towards her. However just before she could say anything she looked on as he stared at her with unmistakable hate while he raised his sword.

Panicked, she glanced around to her other friends, hoping to see some sort of reason for this, but all they did was look at her about to die with what seemed like discomfort and disbelief. They watched with widened eyes as the prince stretched out his hand holding the sword, trying and probably failing to stop him in time.

But how could this situation even happen? Did they betray her?

Why? Weren't they her friends?

She felt sick. Was everything she experienced inside her mind real?

Then she heard his words.

"Now to finally dispose of the traitorous bitch in front of me", he said as he motioned his sword downward, straight to her neck.

So it was real. Everything was real. All the insults, the accusations, their actions were… real?

No way, right?

That is impossible, right?

Her thoughts were racing as she looked at the sword coming down to her neck and suddenly time seemed to slow down.

"Yes, everything was real", were the words she mumbled milliseconds before she blacked out.

She was broken.

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