"Relax Bloom." Flora said gently as the redhead paced the room quickly. "I know it's been four days."

Rhythma nodded, with the pixie Galactica sleeping peacefully on her shoulder. "They'll wake up soon, I'm sure of it."

Four days had passed since the two mysterious girls had dropped unconscious at Alfea's gates. Rhythma had been shocked at their conditions, but Galactica had firmly stated that the two were just exhausted, just before passing out herself. Although she refused to actually say what had exhausted them to the point of passing out for such a long period of time, Rhythma felt sad and incomplete after meeting her bonded pixie that was too weak to bond, and hoped she would wake up soon.

In those four days, however, the headache Rhythma had begun to have had grown more and more painful, until she felt like her head was going to blow.

Stella stood up from where she had been laying down on her own bed. "Alright," she said with annoyance. "If we're going to stay up with her all night, let's talk about important stuff." Her eyes sparkled. "Do you think she's got a boyfriend?"

Rhythma chuckled at the typical Stella conversation starter. Musa snorted as well. "Wouldn't you rather talk about Brandon's girlfriend?"

This remark caught the blonde off-guard, as her eyes grew wide and then her face transformed into one of jealousy. "And just who is Brandon's girlfriend?"

"You are, Stella." Tecna replied.

"Remember?" Flava added.

Stella stomped toward Musa and glared at her, but the music fairy gave a goofy smile in response. All ten girls burst out laughing after a moment, even Rhythma herself giving a slight chuckle. She never actually laughed anymore due to the horrible past she had endured.

Tecna suddenly broke the light mood when she held up her phone. "The sun will be up in exactly twelve minutes." She announced.

"Oh no!" Statica - always so calm - now exclaimed.

"None of us has slept a wink!" Flora fretted. "How will we stay awake tomorrow?"

Tecna corrected curtly, "You mean today."

Humora snorted. "Who cares? Let's just sleep in."

"It's the first week of school," Stella added. "Classes are optional."

Lula snorted. "No way."

"Yeah, Stella." Musa yawned sarcastically. "Great way to start the year."

Stella giggled. "Alright, Alright."

"Bedtime ladies!" Humora clapped as she spoke. "Enough talk about boys!"

Rhythma faintly giggled again at her friend's statement, but stood up regardless of her jitters and walked toward her room, following Lula. "Goodnight, Winx." She called to her eight other friends.

She climbed into her own bed and lay for a while, listening to Lula breathe. Her head hurt so bad, and it was almost the same feeling she had when she still lived with the Trix.

Then, as though her unpleasant memories of the last few years had triggered a chain reaction, darkness slammed over her vision and her world faded to black.

The last thing she felt before her mind shredded itself to pieces was pain in every ounce of her body.

Upon opening her eyes, Rhythma was aware that the pain she thought had been splitting her skull open had now resided to a dull ache toward her spinal cord. She was also aware that she was no longer in her bed at Alfea.

It was broad daylight where she was, and upon inspecting her surroundings, the young fairy found she was in a beautiful meadow, surrounded by people who looked to be in a somewhat peaceful aura.

Looking forward, Rhythma found that the air around her held a calming effect indeed.

"This is the third time we've walked straight to the horizon to end up back where we started!" A hauntingly familiar voice growled from behind the fairy. Rhythma whirled around, dread in her chest, to face the three witches she thought - she HOPED - she would never see again.

The Trix.

Was this where they had been imprisoned? If so, it was a wonderful choice. Rhythma smiled warmly to herself as she thought of how miserable this beautiful place made the three evil girls.

Stormy growled angrily at the world around her and flopped to lush ground, crossing her arms. "This is totally useless!" She cried. "We'll never get out of here."

Icy turned toward where Rhythma was standing, growling, and the fairy froze, thinking for a moment that the witch could see her before remembering that one of her powers allowed her to transport her consciousness to wherever the Trix currently were. She breathed a sigh of relief once Icy dropped her eyes to the ground and scoffed at Stormy. "If only our magic worked here, we'd be out so fast!"

Darcy sighed and dropped to the ground to lay and look at the sky. "I'm beat!"

Icy kept growling angrily as a speaker nearby came on.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, children and seniors!" The voice came from a metal object clinging to a tree near Rhythma and the Trix. "And now, here is Brother Titirus from the Light Rock weather station."

Rhythma listened as a newer voice spoke through the speakers she could now see practically everywhere.

"The forecast for tomorrow is clear skies with a soft breeze from the northwest." The monotone voice of Brother Titirus emitted from the speaker nearest to the Trix. "With temperatures hovering around seventy degrees Fahrenheit. This same scenario can be expected for the next several years."

Rhythma burst out laughing at the looks of anger, frustration and misery that overcame the Trix's faces.

"Thank you very much, Brother Titirus!" The original speaker returned to his post and let his enthusiastic voice ring across the beautiful meadow. "And now, back to our music program!"

The tune that followed was indeed very catchy - at least Rhythma thought so. She hummed along with the melody her father - adopted - had sung to her when she was younger. The young fairy leaned against a tree and watched the disgusted faces of her former tormentors.

A man walked by on a unicorn and bowed to the Trix, who met his regal expression with their own bored ones. This action caused Rhythma to frown - why weren't they acting like everyone else here? Surely Light Rock was a place where criminals came to be rehabilitated?

Perhaps it wasn't as easy as others made it seem. Sure, this place was peaceful - to fairies. But for witches, it was as hideous as a place could get.

As the man trotted away, Stormy suddenly stood up and snarled, snapping at the pure misery she was in. "That's it!" Her voice was very loud - like thunder - in the peaceful field. "I'm going to obliterate that loud speaker!"

However, her voice did little to stir the quiet peace of the other prisoners, who paid little to no mind to her.

The speaker came on, causing Rhythma to jump as it spoke to Stormy, sensing her irritation.

"Stormy. Don't you see? It is vital that you should not only stop performing evil acts, but also that you should banish evil thoughts."

The storm witch scoffed and sat down again, while a miserable Icy stared in confusion at the speaker.

"Remember," the voice continued. "No nasty thoughts, no evil deeds."

"But Mr Dixit," Darcy complained as she turned to face the speaker. "You taught us to hate violence!" She slammed her hand down onto the grass and plucked a few stems from the ground.

"We never improperly!" Stormy muttered loud enough for Rhythma to hear and let out a snort.

The voice chuckled. "No, Darcy. Listen!"

Rhythma looked at Icy, who seemed on the verge of snapping. The ice witch let out a growl. "I hate all that simpering!"

She was so focused on Icy that the young fairy was actually startled when Mr. Dixit spoke louder. "Stormy, do you see what I'm getting at?"

The storm witch rolled her eyes and leaned against the tree. "Yep." She stated in a bored tone. "I'll disconnect you then. Is disconnect more positive than obliterate?!" She stood and turned to the speaker.

"That's good, Stormy!" Mr Dixit praised. "You're making progress. Do as you wish. Anything is possible here! Now the news."

Stormy growled and ripped the speaker from the tree, a blast of electricity following. To Rhythma's surprise, the voice did not waver in the slightest as Stormy ripped it from its perch.

"Welcome to Hope Conquerors All!" Mr. Dixit announced. "Light Rock's Hourly News segment. Our top story . . . ."

"Oh come on," Stormy grumbled as she walked back to Icy and sat down, staring at the speaker in her hand. "There must be an off switch."

The speaker continued talking.

"Where is it?!" Stormy snarled and hurled the device as far as she could - which, to Rhythma's surprise, wasn't very far. "Shut up!" The witch raised her voice as the speaker continued to babble on and on about dolphins.

"Stormy. Weren't you listening?" Mr. Dixit spoke sternly. "Anything is possible here!"

The storm witch wasn't listening. With a grunt unlike the other sounds she had been making to express her displeasure, Stormy ran forward and kicked the speaker as far as she could.

Darcy turned to face the rage-filled witch. "Unbelievable. I still hear it."

"WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?!" Stormy screamed as Rhythma noticed several more speakers hidden in bushes.

Losing interest in the two frustrated witches, Rhythma made her way over to Icy, who hadn't moved from her position on the grass. As the other two screamed in the distance, Icy raised her head and suddenly locked eyes with Rhythma.

The young fairy stepped back in horror, and the witch smirked. Rhythma tried to dodge away, but she was too close and Icy was too fast. In a single swift movement, she captured the fairy's arm and held her so they were nose to nose.

"I swear, when I get out of here, I will be meaner than ever." She growled, smirking at the horrified face of Rhythma before releasing her

Then the world fell into shadow once again.

"Now I know what you're thinking." Professor Wizgiz said as the class turned to the next page in their textbooks. "Wouldn't it be nice if all the things in the universe were good?"

Rhythma sighed as her teacher spoke those words, but nodded nonetheless. Perhaps then I wouldn't have suffered so much in the last few years.

"Well, that's not the case." Wizgiz said sternly. "Furthermore, that's not possible . . ."

The young fairy tilted her head to the side, distracted.

". . . because in the universe, there is no light without darkness . . ."

Unfortunately.

". . . When a form of energy is created, it produces an opposite force - equally strong. Observe . . ."

He held out his hand, but there was nothing there. Rhythma glanced at Statica - the only member of the Winx besides Bloom and Stella that she shared this class with - and gave her a mystified stare.

"What do you see?"

One student with reddish-brown hair stared at him blankly. "Professor, you're showing us nothing."

The whole class - Rhythma and Statica excluded - burst into giggles.

Wizgiz merely smiled mysteriously at her words and snapped, causing the lights to go out and Rhythma to let out a squeak.

"See?" Wizgiz opened his hand and allowed for a green sphere of light appear in his outstretched Palm. "What I did was, I captured some of the light that was in this room. But," he looked around at his students. "It only shows its power in the darkness - it's polar opposite."

The lights came back on, and Wizgiz began to pace the room.

"As I mentioned at the beginning of this Introductory Class, the existence of good energy results in the creation of an equal amount of evil energy . . ."

Rhythma wrote down what he was saying.

". . . normally, these forces are balanced, but sometimes, balancing needs a little bit of help . . ."

He gestured to the strange black-and-white symbol he had drawn on the board.

". . . a dynamic energy between the dominant force, and the recessive one."

The young fairy drew the symbol in her notebook, noting to herself how it looked strangely similar to the symbol her foster father had shown her two years before her capture.

"BLOOM!"

The sudden change in voice from Professor Wizgiz caused Rhythma to yelp and fall out of her seat, hitting her head on the table beside her. The teacher paced toward the sleepy redhead.

"I am well aware that this is a review." Wizgiz informed Bloom curtly. "But you will need to know this for your new classes."

"Yes, I'm sorry." Bloom apologized nervously. Rhythma stood up and carefully sat back down at her desk, rubbing her head tenderly and groaning.

Wizgiz rolled his eyes at Bloom. "Can you tell me what is missing from my diagram?" Then he turned to Rhythma. "Deeply sorry, my dear. I didn't mean to startle you."

"I think," Bloom mumbled. "Stella's got earings that look like that."

Rhythma and Wizgiz both shot dirty looks at the redhead as the class began to laugh and Stella gave a prideful smile.

Wizgiz walked forward, silencing the class. "Rhythma. You learned this before your ordeal. Care to explain what is missing?"

"Happy to," Rhythma stood up at her desk and spoke lowly. "In theory, there is a third and even greater energy, which manifests itself in special situations." She responded.

Wizgiz gave a nod in praise and the continued the explanation. Rhythma watched Bloom groan in exhaustion.

"She's nuts!" Musa was saying as Rhythma, Stella, Bloom and Statica entered the room after class. "She used the palm of her hands to tell what day this is!"

Bloom smiled slightly. "Yup. And she got it right, too."

Stella chuckled. "Makes sense. Wrinkles show the unstoppable flow of time." She winked. "Except for me, of course."

"Which one woke up?" Statica asked, walking forward to examine both girls closely.

Floor and Flava stepped aside to reveal the one with longer hair.

Stella sighed and stared down at her. "I wonder what her name is."

"We don't know yet." Flora said.

"Neither of them has woken up yet." Flava added.

"Are they okay?" Bloom asked as Rhythma went to check on the other one.

Rhythma shook her head as she sat down on the edge of the other girl's bed. "They don't look too good." She observed with a dejected tone.

"Don't worry, ladies." Nurse Ofelia entered the room and smiled warmly. "Your friend is just a little pale around the gills."

Suddenly, Flora let out a gasp. "Look, she's waking up again."

The girl sat up and groaned. "Where am I?"

Musa smiled. "You're safe at Alfea school."

"You had a dream." Flora informed her. "You were looking for Piff and Carmen."

The girl gasped. "You know Piff and Carmen? Where are they? Tell me, are they alright? Please tell me!" Her voice shook with desperation.

Flora made a weak attempt to calm the girl down by placing a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, everything will be alright."

As the girl laid down, Rhythma suddenly put the pieces of the puzzle together. "Piff is your bonded pixie, isn't she?"

The girl gave a weak groan.

"And Carmen must be the other girl, am I correct?"

Bloom brightened. "Fairies and Pixies can bond like sisters, right? Piff was the first thing on your mind as soon as you woke up."

"And here she is." Statica beckoned to the girl and gestured to the three sleeping Pixies on a pillow. One was Galactica, who was still in a coma. The other two were also asleep, but they were sleeping in a way that was natural.

"Piff!" The girl cried in joy.

Rhythma smiled slightly. "And Carmen is over here." She pointed to the girl that was still sleeping on her bed.

The girl smiled warmly at Carmen, but suddenly, her stomach growled and she made a groaning noise under her breath.

"Lunch time, here we are!" Stella said excitedly, bring a huge sandwich toward the mysterious girl.

"Don't shout, Stella!" Rhythma growled, putting a hand on her head. She looked over at Piff, who had woken up and started to cry at the loud voices.

Stella, now nervous, began to stutter. "No. No. Don't cry, oh please!"

"Uh, Stella," Bloom grumbled with a frown. "You're losing control of your sandwich."

Stella gasped and flung the sandwich away, and it unfortunately landed all over the mysterious girl.

Musa chuckled. "Hey, welcome to Alfea."

"So this is your school, am I correct?" The girl was eating her sandwich as she spoke. Rhythma stood next to the sleeping Pixies and held Galactica tightly in her arms.

"Yes. I'm Musa." The fairy of music gestured to herself as she spoke.

"And I'm Flora."

"My name is Bloom,"

"I'm Stella!"

"Name's Statica."

"Flava's my name, and cooking's my game."

Rhythma smiled. "I'm Rhythma."

The girl looked down at the ground, as though contemplating whether or not to say her own identity before looking up. "My name is Aisha. And I couldn't save the pixies."

"The Pixies?"

Musa blinked in confusion. "How many are there?"

"Uh," Aisha put one hand on the side of her head. "A village full."

Bloom slid in beside her. "A village? And you live with them?"

"Well not exactly." Aisha admitted. "I'm a friend."

Musa came up on her other side. "A friend? And?"

Rhythma looked over at Carmen, who was stirring, and walked to her side. She picked up the black-haired pixie that was sleeping and sat down on the edge of the girl's bed.

Carmen opened her eyes instantly and sat up, her eyes wide as she took in Rhythma's startled face.

"Hello there." The young fairy told the newcomer slowly. "Are you feeling alright?"

Carmen gave her a strange look - of confusion and nervousness - before nodding slowly.

"She can't hear you." Aisha called over to Rhythma. When the fairy gave her a confused glance, the newcomer added, "She's deaf."

Rhythma gasped. "Oh my!"

"I can still speak, though," Carmen murmured. "And understand what you say by reading lips."

The young fairy gave a slight nod and stood up. "Here is your pixie." She said softly. "Rena, Pixie of Shadows."

Aisha made an impressed noise. "How did you know that?"

Rhythma shrugged. "I'm a fairy of Pixies."

Flora sighed and looked at Aisha. "Do you mind talking about what happened now?"

"It all started a little while back . . ." Aisha began. "My family and the pixies have always been close. Every year we'd go to their village to visit them."

Rhythma wondered why she had never heard anything about these two girls from Ninfea.

"But this time the village was empty. The Pixies were all out in the woods for a Nature Ceremony, and only Lockette and Glim made it back with news that the others had been kidnapped by terrible shadow creatures!"

So that's what the animal trying to catch Jeroba and her friends was!

"The Pixies tried to protect themselves using magic, but it didn't work."

Rhythma winced.

"And so by following the trail of tar the monsters had left behind, we discovered where the pixies had been taken."

"Where?" Rhythma asked.

Aisha bit her lip. "The trail led us through dark tunnels until we came upon a huge underground castle."

An underground castle? Rhythma's eyes widened.

". . . And then we met something with superhuman powers. The master of all the evil creatures we had encountered."

Bloom gasped. "And? What did it look like?"

"It was a huge bird." Aisha explained. "A sort of Phoenix. Monstrous and evil-looking. And then, it transformed itself. We saw it turn into something like a man."

Rhythma tried to imagine the scene in front of her.

". . . an armored knight with ultra-sharp claws."

Flora gasped. "Oh no! Did he hurt you?"

Aisha nodded and shared a look with Carmen. "He caught us in no time. Then he drained all of our strength away."

Suddenly, Carmen spoke in her gentle, quiet tone. "He took Lockette and Glim and threw them into magic cells with all the other pixies from the village."

Rhythma gasped in horror. No wonder her strength had failed over the summer. The source of her magic was being held prisoner!

"Are the pixies still alive?" Statica asked.

Aisha whimpered. "The Pixies . . . there are only a few of them left. We were able to free them, but then . . . we tried to bring them with us but we couldn't!"

"We should never have left them!" Carmen cried.

Rhythma embraced Carmen gently, letting her cry in her arms. "We'll help you, girls. We'll free the pixies together."

Musa nodded as Aisha pulled away. "You can count on us." She promised.

Rhythma was back in the meadow - though this time she made sure she was hidden from sight as she examined the Trix.

Icy was rocking slowly on a hammock nearby, her eyes closed and her face as peaceful as it could get without looking disgusted. Stormy was under the flowering tree, growling whenever a blossom landed in her puffy purple hair. Nearby, Darcy lay on a stack of hay, ignoring the others completely.

"In the shadow of the beech trees, quiet cradles me through the morning breeze." Icy mumbled half-heartedly as she opened her eyes to watch Stormy.

"A petal has come off. It's floating in the air." Stormy growled.

Rhythma had to admit, their attempt at poetry was actually pretty good.

"Girls, if we don't show some enthusiasm, they'll never let us out on good behavior." Darcy informed them sternly.

Icy had closed her eyes again. "No way. That's beneath my dignity."

Rhythma chuckled at the miserable state the three witches currently occupied. But that chuckle was cut short when - in a matter of seconds - the entire meadow was enveloped in a dark red color. The young fairy stepped back, but it was too late.

"What's happening?" Icy demanded harshly, standing up from her hammock and walking in line with her sisters.

Stormy smirked. "I don't know, but I like it."

"Yes!" Icy laughed out loud as the familiar evil aura wrapped around Rhythma. "Something wicked is in the air."

Rhythma watched with horror as a dark portal opened up a few feet ahead of the Trix, and a man-like figure made its way from within the hole in space. It wore a knight's armor, but this metal suit was dark red - just like Aisha had described to her.

Her mouth dried as he made his way toward the three witches. She knew who this was.

The creature who had kidnapped the pixies.

The Phoenix.

"Oh my." Icy said, impressed.

Darcy gasped in astonishment. "Who are you?" Icy stepped forward as though to challenge him, but the stranger merely lifted his arms.

"No questions asked. You are now serving the forces of evil."

A wicked grin made its way to Icy's face. "Am I ever pleased to hear that." She and her sisters walked forward and into the newer portal created by the Phoenix.

Before he departed, however, he looked up, and his gazed locked with Rhythma's. The young fairy did not know why, but she felt that with that single look, her life was now on the line.

She stepped back.

And like a firework, darkness conquered her consciousness.