I've always wanted to write a time travel fanfiction so here you go with my favourite witch of them all. This will be a two chapter fic, with the second being written (it does need editing) so it should be posted within two weeks
At first it had been disorienting waking up in the pink room, a far cry from Cloud tower though over the weeks, Darcy had grown used to it, as much as possible. Of course, she still missed the calming darkness of her past room, but she had not yet found a way to travel time (except than one accidental spell that made her travel back in time and apparently enrol as a fairy in Alfea). While her powers still worked like she was used to, she posed as the Fairy of Illusions right now (in the beginning it made her wonder, if she and Mirta had swapped places).
Research had shown her, the Trix currently operated as a duo. There was no use on dwelling about her sisters, they had forgotten about her (Darcy had encountered them once, the heartbreak she felt when they did not recognize her, made her stay away from the Winx and the Trix).
All in all, her life was thoroughly upside down. Somehow her absence in the Trix had led to Icy and Stormy not discovering Bloom's heritage (then again, the Day of the Royals was still some months away) and the dragon flame was not a priority to Darcy, getting home, getting back to her time was. She wanted her sisters back, the ones that knew her. Not the rip off of this timeline. If there was one thing clear to her, it was that she really had travelled in time, other theories like getting caught in an illusionary world had long been discarded.
Darcy was getting tired of pretending to be a fairy, pretending to have weak magical powers, being insecure just to hide the fact she used witch powers regularly and avoiding having to transform (truth be told, Darcy might just be a little scared if she even had a fairy form or how she'd look, already seeing bright or even pastel colours). She got bad mark after bad mark, except she knew she could do better, but she dared not to, spend her time in the library looking for spells, researching but today, she had read all books in Alfea.
Somehow, she had known, she wouldn't find anything in Alfea, there were not a lot of dangerous books, those were in Cloud Tower. Her not being a student anymore, slightly complicated her plans but only slightly. And thus, one rainy autumn afternoon, she found herself trekking through the secret tunnels to her former home.
Soon she arrived at the familiar halls of her former school, passing by the cells she had once imprisoned Griffin in. Yet she did not stay long, memories tickling in the back of her mind, threatening to remind her of her sisters, and she nearly ran to escape the feeling of loneliness. She just had to find a book, reverse her own spell and she'd have them back. Thankfully her musings came to a stop, when she arrived at the library. Her search here was easier, already familiar to where the books were (and which she should discard) and harder, because she knew she had to avoid Griffin's detection magic.
Three times should have been the charm, except it wasn't. Humiliation rang through her, when Griffin, Griffin had caught her. She nearly bit her lips bloody, until Griffin told her she'd call Headmistress Faragonda. That caused the former witch to laugh. As if she'd stop coming to the library, not that she'd said it aloud. Griffin scrutinized Darcy, making her feel like a first-year student again. It felt like Homecoming.
"You were looking for something, weren't you?" Griffin asked and Darcy smirked. "Couldn't find anything helpful" An evasive answer not something that would tell Griffin what she'd been looking for. "There was nothing useful in Alfea either, but you had hope here was something. It was witch magic" There was not a lot that could surprise Darcy and truthfully, she should have seen this coming. Hesitating, she nodded.
"Ask your question then and I might spar you, you've not stolen anything from my students" Griffin leaned back, her gaze on Darcy. 'Stolen' rang through Darcy's head, true the Winx had been caught but... she laughed. "Icy stole the Ring of Solaria, the Winx stole it back" she stressed the last word. Maybe she should have kept it to herself but well, it was too funny. At the time she had not realized.
Griffin crooked her eyebrows. "How do you know?" With no way out, Darcy resorted to the truth, not that Griffin would believe her. "In another timeline I was Icy and Stormy's sister. We stole the ring wanting the dragon flame" Take that Griffin, Darcy wondered what she would do with it, not flinching as Griffin eyed her. "You want to travel back to your timeline then" Darcy froze. She should not have said it and her reaction made Griffin see that she was right. There went her secret.
"So witch magic made you travel back in time, separated you from your sisters and now you are stranded. How did this happen?" A curious Griffin looked at her. Darcy studied her in return. "Why do you want to know?" she demanded. "If you are half the witches your sisters are, you'd be a waste at Alfea. I want you as my student" If she was half the witch? She was better than her sisters. Besides, what did she have to lose?
Darcy told her, how she and her sisters were fighting the Ancestral Witches, how they wanted to possess the Trix and how Darcy cast a spell in order to not be possessed by Lyssliss. Working together was fine but not possession. Headmistress Griffin smirked. "You are going to hate the solution" Darcy stared at her, daring Griffin to elaborate. "Seems like I can't have you as my student after all, Faragonda is lucky. If I am right, being a fairy is the best way to guard yourself against Lyssliss possession magic. The magic of a fairy to counter a witch's magic."
Darcy feels like a bus hit her, all her magic been drained, and her brain is not working anymore. "You can't mean it" Her voice is only a whisper. "I do mean it, you'll have to complete your fairy studies. If you are lucky, you won't need Enchantix and one year Alfea will be enough" With these words, Griffin send Darcy on her way.
Thankfully, acquiring Enchantix was not required, as Darcy found out, when she first transformed and was immediately transported back to her timeline. "What the hell happened to you?" Icy and Stormy stared at her, mouths gaping open at the pastel purple wings and Darcy's legs felt exposed in her (equally horrifying) pastel purple minidress. Who would have thought, Griffin was right after all, Darcy thought, blasting the ancestral witches away. "Saving us from possession" Darcy answered her sisters.
"Urks, fairy magic feels so yuck" Darcy shuddered. Worse, her witch magic felt so repressed, even detransforming would not help. Her sisters didn't help either, laughing at her. "Darcy... Is...A... Fairy" Stormy pressed out while laughing. "Haha, yes, funny" Darcy crossed her arms, waiting for the laughter to die down. "Now that we are all calm, can we maybe, I don't know, try to find a way to help me?" Forget being stuck in another timeline, being a fairy in a minidress was worse. At least her midriff wasn't bare. She shuddered at the thought of wearing glorified underwear.
"What? Don't like the colours?" Icy mocked. Darcy sighed, clearly she'd not get any help anytime soon. Landing on the ground she immediately detransformed, seeking a quiet corner to contemplate a new plan.