My shifts at work are finally slowing down after Christmas so I have time to focus on my editing – yuk – but also yay because it means I'm getting closer to the episodes where they're in the Resort Realm which I had heaps of fun writing. And then after that we finally get to confront Lord Darkar. It's kinda annoying that the main villain doesn't make an appearance until the very last chapter. Think about it, no one besides Layla and the pixies have Lord Darkar in the series so far. The rest are left fearing a shadow.
But I guess will all have to wait till Chapter Twenty-Six for Lord Darkar's special guest appearance.
And speaking of special guest appearances, one of my old favourites is coming back for this chapter. Yay!
Chapter Seventeen – Exchange Students
"We've got a problem," Sky announced, entering the juniors common room. Brandon was watching Fuel TV while Helia sat not far away with all his attention focused on the notebook he was writing in. Timmy and Riven were both sitting at one of the tables finishing off their homework. Or to put it more correctly, Riven was stealing Timmy's answers.
"What do you mean?" Brandon asked, hitting the mute button.
"Ms. Faragonda wants the girls to prepare for the up coming battle with Lord Darkar since he'll inevitably come after Bloom, and she says that part of preparing for battle is by knowing your enemy."
"Knowing your enemy," Timmy repeated before nodding in agreement. "That makes sense, but how are they going to do that?"
"By sending the Winx Club to Cloud Tower on exchange," Sky said gravely. Silence filled the room as the prince's news sunk in and once again it was Riven who found his voice first.
"What?! You've gotta be kidding me!" Riven exclaimed in pure outrage. "They'll be eaten alive in that place! What is that old bat thinking?! She's completely senile! Honestly, sending them to Cloud Tower?! We may as well line them up against the wall and shoot them now! It'll be quicker and – "
"You've made your point," Helia interrupted calmly. Riven shot his roommate a filthy look but he did stop ranting.
"Er, so what are we going to do about the girls," Timmy asked, once again shocked as he had been over the last few months that Riven actually listen to Helia.
"Maybe we can ask Saladin to send us on exchange too so we can look after them," Brandon thought out loud. He and Stella may be going through a rough patch, but he couldn't let her be thrown to the wolves like that. Plus, the others member of the Winx Club were his friends too. He wasn't going to let them suffer just because Stella was a spoiled brat.
"Dude, how are we going to go on exchange to an all girls school?" Sky asked, sinking into one of the arm chairs.
"Then we'll go as body guards."
"I don't think Ms. Faragonda or Saladin would allow that to happen," Timmy said. "I assume that Miss Griffin agreed to take the girls in as a good will gesture, and sending body guards along just might insult her sense of hospitality."
"So what does that mean? We can't do anything to help them because of politics?" Sky groaned. He hated politics and he was born into a position where he had to deal with them.
"Well, do we really have to do anything?" Helia questioned in his soft voice. "Those girls are more then capable of taking care of themselves and who's to say that the witches will be a problem? When the girls from Cloud Tower were invited to Red Fountain for the unveiling of the new campus and the concert we had a little while ago, they all seemed civil enough."
"Yeah, that's because they were on our turf, but when you enter their territory it's a whole different ball game," Riven explained. Out of the five of them, Riven had the most experience when it came to dealing with witches so they all listened to what he had to say on the matter.
"So you reckon that the girls are going to be targeted if they go to Cloud Tower?" Sky asked.
"Oh gods yes," Riven answered without hesitation. "Since the Trix are no long there they'll be spared any major form of abuse. I can't think of anyone else who might be a major threat, but at the same time you've got an entire student body who are not going to miss an opportunity to mess with a bunch of uppity pixies without stepping out their door."
"So, they're doomed then," Timmy concluded sadly.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Oh come on you guys. They're sending them to a high school, not a war zone," Sky reminded everyone. "Sure, they're going to live with a bunch of girls that naturally despise fairies, but even if they are witches they're still only high school girls, so there's got to be a way we can sway them."
Everyone was silent for a moment while they tried to find an answer to this impossible riddle and then Riven's violet eyes sparked with the light of an idea. "I think you might be onto something, Blondie. What day is it?"
Try as he may, Brandon could see no connection between what Sky had said and what day of the week it was. "What?"
"It's Sunday," Helia answered. Riven smirked wickedly before he wordlessly got up and left the common room. The other boys all looked at each other cluelessly before getting up and following him.
"What are you up too?" Sky asked as soon as they caught up to Riven in the junior dorm hallway.
"You said we needed to find a way to convince the Cloud Tower witches to leave the Jinx Club alone," Riven recapped. "So, basically what we need is an inside man."
Brandon turned the thought over and then nodded. "Alright, but what does that have to do with that day it is?"
"Because I have the unfortunate displeasure of knowing my friends habits too well," Riven answered, reaching to dorm room he was looking. "Lex!" the burgundy haired specialist shouted, banging his fist on the door. When he failed to get a response, Riven dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of metal wire and proceeded to pick the lock in record time. Opening the door, Riven sauntered into the room casually as if he had been invited, but when his friends saw what was happening inside the room, they all flushed in embarrassment. Riven, however, remained completely unfazed on the surface. "Dominique, I've got a proposition for you."
Without any traces of embarrassment, the witch sat up on the hips of the Red Fountain boy she was straddling and looked over her shoulder to regard the group of boys that had suddenly appeared in the doorway. The make-out session had thankfully not proceeded too far when Riven had barged in, so the witch's tight fitting dark top had not been removed, but the boys couldn't tell if the same could be said about her pants due to the fact that the witch normally wore shorts that could easily be mistaken for underwear. Her violet hair and dyed burgundy fringe was slightly dishevelled, but her sea grey eyes were completely calm as she looked at each of the boys in turn.
Lex, however, was far from impressed.
"Riven!" the little student spat from his place under his girlfriend. "What the hell? Piss off! This isn't a – "
"Oh shut up Lex," Riven interrupted. "I just wonna ask Dom something."
"Hmm, would I have a threesome with Lex and Riven?" Dominique asked herself in such a way that it was hard to tell whether she was being sarcastic or not. The witch slide off her boyfriend and sat on the edge of the bed to ponder the proposition she assumed Riven was going to offer her. "Well I don't see why not. The numbers are definitely in my favour. But what I don't understand is why you brought an audience. This isn't a spectator sport, Riv."
Riven gave her an amused grin while silently trying to still the waves of nausea that churned through him. A threesome with another guy? That's not how it worked. But he needed something out of this witch so he knew he had to flatter her. "As tempting as that may be it's not the reason I'm here."
"Oh, that's right. You're still stuck on Handle Bars," Dominique sighed. "Pity."
"Handle Bars?" Timmy repeated.
"Musa," Riven explained quickly. "The Cloud Tower witches have nicknames for virtually every fairy at Alfea."
Sky's eyes widened in shock. "They renamed an entire student body? That's horrible."
"Oh don't worry, we've renamed most of Red Fountain too," Dominique told him, thinking that he had been insulted that he had been left out. The witch then grinned wickedly at Riven. "Isn't that right, Shocky?"
"Screw you, woman," Riven spat. He knew that he was supposed to be asking a favour of this witch, but he really hated that name.
"Shocky?" Timmy repeated.
"Yeah," Dominique said as if it was obvious. "Because his hair looks like he's been an electric shock patient."
Sky instantly burst into howls of laughter.
"I will kill you, man!" Riven threatened the prince who only laughed harder.
"You really have nicknames for everyone at Alfea and Red Fountain?" Brandon asked, amazed at the unity at Cloud Tower. Something on that scale took a lot of effort and he was impressed with the harmony that seemed to exist between the witches.
"Pretty much, Bang Boy," Dominique answered with a sly wink. "Poet Man," she said, pointing at Helia and then she moved her finger onto Timmy. "Charlie Horse."
"Charlie Horse?" Timmy repeated.
"Yeah, I can't remember where that one came from either," Dominique confessed before moving onto Sky. "And of course Goldilocks."
"Oh, that's original," Sky pouted, somewhat disappointed by the amount of effort that went into picking his nickname.
"It's not just because of you hair, Blondie," Dominique assured him with a wicked little smile. "But also because you're not sure which porridge you want to stir."
"Which porridge I want to stir? What?"
Dominique chucked maliciously before glancing at Riven. "He is so a virgin, huh?"
"Leave him alone," Riven said, trying not to grin too widely while Sky flushed deep crimson.
"And they call me Sexy Lexy," Lex said proudly.
"No we don't. We call you Marbles," Dominique said firmly.
"Marbles?" Timmy repeated.
"What are you a parrot?" Dominique asked. "Seriously, I don't think you've said something that hasn't already been said the entire time you've been here."
"Why Marbles?" Brandon had to ask. He couldn't think of anything that might connect Lex to the little glass balls. Maybe it was ironic, since Lex usually acted like he didn't have any marbles to begin with.
"Because he's small and pocket sized," Dominique said fondly.
"And cause he's as sharp as one," Riven muttered.
A puzzled expression which was normally saved for lab class when they have to solve an equation crossed Lex's face. "But marbles are round. They don't have any edges so they're not sharp at all."
"Oh how very foolish of me," Riven said with a completely straight face. "Thank you for pointing out my error."
"Anytime," Lex grinned.
Dominique let out a frustrated sigh. "You're lucky you're so cute."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Now, why are you here?" Dominique asked, getting the conversation back on track. With the calm, composed way she was talking to them, the boys got the feeling that they were talking to a business woman, not a teenage girl who was possibly minus her pants.
"Tomorrow Cloud Towers getting a group of exchange students," Riven informed her, and her eyebrows shot upwards.
"Really? Who?"
"The Jinx Club and that witch, Mirta."
Dominique's jaw dropped. "A-A-Are you serious? They're sending a bunch of fairies to CT with nothing more than that damned turncoat to back them up?" Dominique asked, her expression one of pure shock.
"Yup."
"Oh my darkness. This is the best news I've ever heard," Dominique breathed heavily. Leaping to his feet, she seized the front of Riven's shirt so that she could look him directly in the eye. "Is Bindo Blonde going?"
Bindo Blonde was a brand of light beer that had a rather sexist ad campaign which consisted of the slogan 'Nothing goes down like a Bindo Blonde' coupled with attractive blonde haired women in suggestive positions (1). Everyone could only assume that that nickname must belong to Stella. Riven nodded. "Yup. All of 'em are going so that they can understand dark magic better."
"Oh my god!" Dominique squealed, so excited that she couldn't help but kiss Riven on the cheek before pushing him away and started to pace at a speed that was slightly faster than a normal person should be able to move. In all the times the boys had know Dominique, they had only seen the cool, calm and callous side of the witch, but when she got excited, her mind and her tongue started to move as fast as her feet could and it wasn't long before she was talking so fast that the boys could barely follow what she was saying. "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! This is like the best thing that has happened to Cloud Tower! It's like all our birthdays come at once! This even bests the alignment of the Triad! Pixies coming to Cloud Tower? This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel! I've gotta get back to Cloud Tower and tell everyone! Where are my pants? You know what, never mind. No one's going to be able to tell anyway. Okay, okay, okay. There is so much planning that needs to be done. Are they coming for the whole week or just Monday to Friday? You know what, don't answer that. As if we'd want them to stay for the weekend. Okay, so they're showing up tomorrow so let's work this out. They'll probably arrive at about eight thirty so they can have a few minutes with Miss Griffin before they go to class and they leave straight away at three on Friday if they have any sense. So from eight thirty am on Monday to three pm on Friday is one hundred and two hours and thirty minutes, which is six thousand one hundred and fifty minutes or three hundred and sixty-nine thousand seconds and we can't waste a single one (2)!"
"Whoa," Brandon gasped when Dominique finally had to stop talking so she could breathe. Even Stella didn't talk that fast.
"How did she work out how many minutes and seconds the exchange was going to take so quickly?" Timmy asked in awe.
"She's always been good at that type of maths," Lex shrugged from his place on his bed while his girlfriend continued to ignore him. "You should see how fast she can do those questions about 'if a train leaves point A at this time and is travelling this fast for this amount of distance, what time will it arrive at point B'. It's freaky."
"Lexy! I'll call you later. Oh and any dates we were supposed to have this week are cancelled," Dominique told him swiftly, gathering her powers and getting ready to teleport herself back to Cloud Tower so she could tell all her friends about this wonderful event which was about to take place. "See ya."
"Hold up Speedy, I ain't done with you yet," Riven stopped her.
"Speedy?" Dominique repeated, an obvious level of disgust in her voice. Witches were the ones who came up with horrible, degrading nicknames for others. They weren't supposed to receive similar nicknames themselves.
"Yeah," Riven grinned, no intimidated in the slightest. "You never heard my proposition."
Dominique glared at the Red Fountain student with an expression on her face that was somewhere between irritation and suspicion. Her sea grey eyes occasionally flicked to the faces of the other boys in his squad and when she started to put the pieces together, her expression changed to one of horror. "Oh no."
"Oh yes," Riven smirked. "We need someone on the inside to keep an eye on those pixies and try and sway the other witches to leave them alone."
"No! No! No! No! No! No! No! You can't do this to me!" Dominique shouted, looking like a child who had just been told that her birthday had been cancelled. "This is a once in a life time opportunity for me! I'm going to be a senior next year! I'm graduating soon! There is no way another fairy is going to want to go on exchange to Cloud Tower for years! I cannot pass this up!"
"Okay, fine. Don't worry about it," Riven said, suddenly switching his game up. "We were just trying to think of a witch who was influential enough to possibly sway student policy at a school like Cloud Tower, but if you don't want to do it, that's fine. We'll find someone else. You don't happen to have Calleigh's number on you, now do you?"
"Calleigh?" Dominique repeated in an insulted tone.
"Yeah, I always like that witch and if anyone can influence an entire student body, it would be her."
Moving quicker than human eye could follow, Dominique suddenly charged Riven and body slammed him against the wall with strength that didn't seem natural in a body so slight. The rows of books that lined the selves above Jared's desk crashed to the floor and papers flew into the air that had been churned up by her movements. Dominique's fingers dug into the front of Riven's shirt like claws and her lips were pulled back in a feral snarl. Slowly, the witch levitated herself upwards until her face was just above the taller boy's, glaring down at him and surrounding her body was a wicked, burgundy glow.
"Calleigh?" she said again, her voice dripping in venom. "You think Calleigh is influential enough to protect those uppity pixies? That self-centred, calculating, promiscuous, little brat? You have got to be kidding me?!"
"Nice to know the witches of Cloud Tower think so highly of their classmates," Brandon muttered to Sky, who was still staring at the witch in shock.
"Well Calleigh is a bit of a skank," Lex informed them before flinching violently as a hex blasted the sheets next to him. Scrambling out of the danger zone, Lex stared up in horror at his girlfriend, who was still pointing her finger at the spot where the hex had hit.
"That's one of my best friends you're taking about," Dominique reminded him, earning several baffled looks from the other boys in the room who weren't used to dealing with witches. She had just said all those horrible things about her friend and yet the second someone else tried to trash her Dominique was instantly defensive. Well, that's a witch for you (3). "Next time, I won't miss."
"Okay," Lex nodded.
"Now," Dominique growled, returning her attention back to the boy she had pinned up against the wall. "You've already appealed to my sense of pride, but that's not going to be enough to get me to change from offensive to defensive when these fairies arrive on my door step, so what's your next move?"
"Well, naturally no one ever does anything without getting something in return," Riven told her.
"And what do I get exactly?" Dominique almost purred, dropping her face closer to Riven's.
"You get the five of us in your debt and you get to cash in on that whenever you want," Riven told her.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Huh. Intriguing," Dominique admitted, releasing her tight grip on his shirt. Levitating herself backwards, the witch floated across the room until she was sitting on Jared's chest of draws so she could ponder Riven's proposition. "You're clever, hero, I'll give you that."
"So, you're interested?" Riven asked, trying not to look too hopeful otherwise he knew Dominique would turn his offer down just to annoy him.
"Perhaps. I like you, Shocky, but I think I'd like you even more if you owed me a favour," Dominique informed him, her eyes still narrowed in thought. "Alright, I'm in. I'll convince the rest of the witches at Cloud Tower that we shouldn't even acknowledge the presence of those twerps in our school by attacking them, but in return, you guys owe me big."
"Sure thing" Sky grinned. He might not be able to go to Alfea to protect Bloom himself, but at least there was something he could do to help make her exchange at little easier.
His smile faded, however, when Dominique quickly added, "And there's a few terms that you have to agree with if you want my help."
"Naturally," Riven sighed. He was expecting this. "Okay. Let's hear 'em."
"Firstly, if any word of this deal gets out, it'll make me look like your lackey and no decent witch ever lets herself become someone's little minion, it doesn't make a difference if the person they're taking orders from is someone high school boy or the Shadow Phoenix himself. So this stays between us, and if anyone from Red Fountain, or Cloud Tower or Alfea so much as suggests that this agreement was arranged, I get to castrate you. And don't think that's just a figure of speech. Last year we had to do a paper on the Snake Queen of Issaime, and I focused on the duties of the eunuchs that serve her so I have a basic idea of how the procedure occurs," Dominique informed them with a wicked smile.
"Oh god," Brandon flinched, his hands held protectively in front of his crotch.
"So, did I make my point clear?" Dominique asked, delighted in the way the boys were recoiling from her threat.
"Yes. No one will know," Riven assured her. "Is that all?"
"No. I want one of you to get in my pants."
"Wow. You witches really don't beat around the bush, do you?" Brandon asked in shock. One second she's was threatening to castrate them and the next she was sexually propositioning them? Witches were weird.
"I mean literally, not sexually, you idiot," Dominique growled with a roll of her eyes. Snapping her fingers, a pair of jeans magically appeared with a loud crack, folded in the air next to her. "I brought these jeans last month with I came to the shocking realisation that I own nothing that covers my legs. All I own are mini skirts and hot pants and not that I don't look great in them, but I need a bit of variety in my wardrobe. Of course, as soon as I brought them I realised exactly why I don't like buying jeans; they're only comfortable once they've been worn in. So, now, one of you boys has to do it for me."
"You're kidding, right?" Riven asked.
"No. I'm not."
"But none of us will be able to fit in something your size," Helia pointed out.
"That's sweet of you to say, but actually my legs are more muscular than that of an average girl so they'll still fit. Granted, they might be a bit short, but it's not like any of you have any fashion sense anyway. I mean, Poet Boy over here is wearing hemp. The best thing you guys could do would be to dress up in girls clothes. It can't be any worse than the clothes you're already wearing," Dominique told them, pulling out a crystal that she wore on a chain about her neck. The boys watched in dread as the crystal started to spin as Dominique willed it to direct her to the person who would best fit her jeans, and to Sky's utter dismay, it pointed at him. "Well, look at that. My hips are the same size as Goldilocks."
"Oh no! I'm not wearing girls jeans!" Sky refused.
"Do you want to help you're little girlfriend or not?" Dominique asked him, and when all his did was glare back at her, she knew she had won. With a cool flick of her wrist, Dominique sent the jeans flying towards the prince who angrily snatched them out of the air. "Then drag up. It's not gonna be that bad. I mean sure, they probably are going to be a bit tight in certain places, but now that you got some spray on pants all we need to do is get you a dark top, grease you're hair down until it covers most of your face and put some eyeliner on you and you can be a part of that new fashion trend (4)."
"I hate you."
"Oh, you're so sweet."
"So, is that it?" Riven asked her. "Are you in? Can we go now?"
"Well, that all depends on you, Shocky."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm going to ask you a question, and your answer better be right or else all deals are off," Dominique warned him. "Who has better legs; me or Handle Bars?"
"What?"
"Who has better legs; me or that pixie you're hooked on?"
"Are you serious?"
"Deadly," Dominique assured him, her sea grey eyes severe. "I know you're a leg man and I for one am very proud of mine, and I'm curious to know who you think has better legs. So come on, who is it? Me or Musa? And don't forget, you got a lot riding on this."
"Er . . ." Riven stammered, glancing at his friends as if they had any idea of what the right answer might be. It was a trick question, that was for sure. Dominique had said she had wanted an honest answer, but she was also a witch who would want him to say what she wanted to hear. Finally, Riven was forced to just bite the bullet and say the answer he hoped was the right one. "Musa."
With her expression unreadable, Dominique hopped off the dresser and walked calmly over until she stood directly in front of Riven. He tensed as she neared him, but he didn't dare step back from her advance.
"Good answer. I'm in," Dominique told him, but even before a look of relief could spread across anyone's faces, Dominique slammed her hands against Riven chest as if she was going to give him a hard shove and with a loud crack, she teleported him away. Sky, Brandon, Timmy and Helia all stared in shock at the space that Riven had occupied a moment ago and they all tensed when Dominique lifted her cold, sea grey eyes to regard the four of them. "Now get out or you'll all be receiving the same treatment."
Riven didn't get back from wherever Dominique had teleported him by dinner and he still wasn't back when everyone turned in for the night, nor was he at breakfast the next day. In fact, it was mid morning when he finally showed up again, marching into their classroom, interrupting Javelin's lecture and causing the rest of his class to stare at him in bewilderment. He was still wearing the civilian clothes he had been wearing when Dominique teleported him, but now they were damp and covered in mud. His hair was messed up and caked with flicks of mud and there were a few scratches on his bare arms.
"Riven, what are you doing?" Javelin asked calmly.
"This'll just take a second," Riven assured him in a flat tone of voice that indicated that he had had a tough night. Grabbing the newspaper Javelin had been reading when his class had entered off the teachers desk, Riven rolled it up and them promptly slammed it down on Helia's head.
"Hey! What the hell?" Helia snapped, rubbing his head where Riven had hit him.
"I hate nature and I'm taking it out on you, hippy," Riven informed his friend with a snarl. No one had any idea what he was going on about, save for one person.
"You end up in the Black Mud Swamp in the middle of those meat-eating plants, huh?" Lex asked him cheerfully.
"Uh-huh," Riven answered with a yawn. He didn't get any sleep last night.
"Yeah, she's done that to me before too," Lex told him. "Another good one she does is she teleports you to the bottom of Lake Crysalous and she buries your feet partly in the ground so you have to dig yourself out before you drown. It's really cool."
"You should probably see a counsellor about that," Helia suggested.
"Huh?"
"Riven, go get yourself cleaned up," Javelin ordered. "You're dripping muddy water all over my floor."
"I'm going," Riven said, heading for the door and Javelin resumed his lesson as if nothing had happened.
"It's a good thing Dominique's on our side," Brandon muttered to Sky as Javelin talked. "If this is the way she treats her friends, I'd hate to be her enemy."
(1) There actually is an ad like that in Australia – or at least there was until censors pulled it off the air. It was for a beer called Bondi Blonde and all I did for this fic was switch the O and the I in Bondi around, but that was their actual slogan. Hilarious
(2) I'm no math-wiz, but me and my calculator are fairly certain that all that hours, minutes and numbers thing is right, provided of course that the Realm of Magix has twenty-four hours in its day
(3) It's not just a witch thing, more a teenage girl thing. My ex didn't get it but it makes perfect sense to me how I could be friends with someone I couldn't stand and bitched constantly about
(4) I so don't like the spray on jeans that was going around. I think they look awful on guys. Girls jeans are meant to be worn by girls, no exceptions
TBC.