I feel like from this point on the story will get somewhat more intricate – this chapter sets up for the next few…

Grounded

Musa and Karen had been at odds since their little argument the other day and since then neither of them seemed to want to apologize. It was probably because they were both too full of pride. But, Musa tried to not let it affect her as she walked out of her morning dance practice with bag in hand.

"Musa, over here," yelled a familiar voice. Musa turned to see all of her friends walking in the direction of Ms. Faragonda's office.

"What's up guys?" Musa asked after she caught up to the group.

"We are going to confront Ms. Faragonda," Stella said confidently, although the other

girls did not share in the confidence that Stella had.

"Confront?" Musa asked.

"We figure she can't keep a hold on our powers forever so asking for them back couldn't hurt," Stella explained.

"Actually Stella, this venture only has a 22 percent chance of success and it has a 48 percent chance of actually worsening the situation," Techna warned.

"Oh pish posh," Stella excused with a wave her hand. "I'm sure we can get our powers back, she loves me and I'm sure my puppy dog eyes will bail us outta this one,"

"So I'm guessing the puppy dog eyes didn't work when you blew up potions lab last year," Musa pointed out.

"Hey what's the harm in trying," Bloom agreed with Stella. "As long as we don't make this situation any worse, we'll be good," The girls were then silenced as when they got in front of Faragonda's door and knocked slightly hoping that she wasn't in.

"Come in," Said Ms. Faragonda as all the girls walked in and lined up in front of her desks. Musa's hopes in getting her powers back fell when she saw Griselda standing in the office as well. This would have been a lot easier if it were just Ms. Faragonda in her office.

"So umm we were wondering," Stella began but suddenly lost her train of thought when Ms. Griselda gave her a hard look.

"We came in here so we could maybe," Bloom began hoping to have more luck in asking for this favor, but also came up blank.

"Umm, Griselda," Flora began after Bloom and Stella chickened out. "We were just wondering when we might get out powers back,"

"Your little field trip to Cloud Tower was unacceptable not to mention dangerous," She said sternly and from there Musa pretty much knew she would not be getting her powers back any time soon. "You were lucky you weren't turned into jumping beans and sent to the interrealm circus. You won't be getting your powers back anytime soon, but that's only the beginning of your punishment."

A loud clamor came from the shocked fairies when they learned that being completely useless all day was just the beginning of their punishment. "What's the rest of it!" Flora exclaimed verbalizing what everyone was thinking.

"You may not leave campus for the next two days,

"Ugh, we have to veg out all weekend, not exactly a punishment Ms. G," Stella said with a bit of sarcasm that Griselda was obviously not happy with.

"Stella!" Techna scolded knowing that the princess was pushing it and would now probably get them even more work to do.

Then with an unusual smile on her face, Griselda summoned some magic and a few cleaning implements appeared. Musa looked at them and figured out what task awaited them this weekend. "There will be no vegging out, you will clean this entire school from basement to belfry, using these cleaning implements," Griselda finished then walked over and handed a broom to Stella. "Here you are Miss Stella, you're new best friend,"

Musa looked over to Techna who was just told that she would not have a manual for this job and felt so bad when she saw Techna's face. Normally Musa would think that someone upset by not having a huge manual to read was weird, but Techna loved organization and knowing what she was doing, and by the look on her face, it looked like she had lost all hope. "Don't worry Techna, it's not that complicated," Musa assured. Sure she herself had never cleaned more than her room on occasion, but how hard could this possibly be?

"Yeah the only manual we'll need is manual labor," Flora joked although nobody really caught on to it.

"Leave no paperweight undusted, now get to work," Ms. Griselda said sternly when she saw the girls beginning to talk and joke amongst themselves. The girls became rigid and stopped talking suddenly at the command. They all silently grabbed the cleaning utensils and went on their way to cleaning the entire school.

Musa, Bloom and Stella took the first lecture hall while Flora and Techna decided to clean the main entrance. Cleaning, a task Musa thought was going to be a snap, was becoming a very tiring task. The school was huge, consisting of 5 lab rooms, 11 lecture halls and a bunch more classrooms, and cleaning all of them was a daunting task even with five girls. She had only finished one half of the seats in the lecture hall and already she felt like she needed a nap, not to mention he back was killing her from all the difficult angles she had to bend into to clean all the surfaces in the room.

Not to mention Stella had decided to sit this one out and look at herself in the mirror. "How about a little help Stella," Musa said as she wiped the sweat off her forehead. This plus the huge workout she just got at dance was beginning to really wear her out and with that her patience was also wearing thin and Stella had a knack at pushing her sometimes.

"Yeah," Bloom agreed. "This is sorta your fault,"

"My fault?" Stella asked sweetly as she closed her compact mirror and shoved it in her bag.

"If you hadn't opened your big yap trap –," Musa began.

"You both laughed," Stella pointed out as she searched through her bag and pulled out a nail file and began work on filing down any imperfections on her nails.

"Come on Stel, just grab a scrub brush," Musa demanded getting a little sick of Stella's antics especially since now she had to deal with not only Stella but and entire school that needed cleaning.

"Uh blisters are my enemy,"

"Wear gloves!"

"Ugh gloves with a tank top!"

"Oh that's a really good point, I hadn't even thought of that," Bloom said sarcastically as she began to pour soap into a bucket of water.

"Thank you Bloom," Stella said not picking up on Bloom's sarcasm. "Look getting dirty is simply not in makeup, sorry,"

"You're not the only princess here you know Stella," Musa reminded. She too was a princess and she managed to step off her royal pedestal and clean to help out the rest of the girls, why couldn't Stella?

"Maybe, but on Solaria, royalty and suds don't – ," Stella began before getting cut off by a huge wave of water coming at her from Bloom's pale. In a second the princess was soaked in soapy water from head to toe.

"What were you saying Stella," Bloom said as Stella stood a bit shell shocked that Bloom had actually just poured water all over her, while Musa stood cracking up with laughter at the sight of Stella dripping wet. "Oh there's some for you too Musa," Bloom warned

"What? No!" Musa said looking up and seeing nothing but water in her view and a millisecond later feeling it all over her face. The cold water hit her face and it did serve to wake her up a bit and as soon as she wiped the water out of her eyes, she picked up her pale and looked at Bloom. "You're still dry,"

"Yeah Bloom and that's hardly fair," Stella said grabbing what was meant to her pale of water and at the same time the two princesses drenched Bloom with soapy water. From that point on all cleaning had seized and it was officially play time in the lecture hall. Musa, who was winning the water fight, managed to slip away from the scene for a second and grab the hose that they were using to fill up their pale and bring it into the school. Sure it was against the rules, but so was making a mess when you were supposed to be cleaning and really, what was Griselda going to do to further their punishment, it was already pretty bad.

After an hour of making a huge mess, Musa lay on the table while Stella and Bloom were sitting on the floor nearby, she closed her eyes for a second, she was tired and the thought of having to go back to work was hardly appealing. Musa then let her thoughts drift around when they stopped and she began thinking about Daniel. She hadn't seen him since she had gone home and ever since she discovered she had a crush on Riven, him coming to visit was out of the question. But, she still wanted to see him, maybe seeing him would be enough to make her forget about Riven, but a part of her didn't want to. She liked the feeling she got when he was around, not to mention she wouldn't mind the company, having friends was nice but having a boyfriend around close by would have been even nicer. I just miss him, that's all She said to herself. It had been a few days since she saw Riven last but she can still remember the amazing feeling she got when she put her arms around his muscular body. Then there was Daniel who was a lot more then a rush of lustful feelings, he was so much more and there was so much history between them. She had two options, either take a break from Daniel and risk losing him to see where her feelings for Riven go or stay with Daniel, a guy she knew she could trust and she loved being with, and just try to get over whatever it was keeping her attached to Riven. She knew what she was going to do, but she still couldn't decide if that was what she really wanted.

"What happened in here!" Techna exclaimed pulling Musa from her thoughts.

"Are you guys okay?" Flora asked surveying the damage and wondering what happened in there. Stella and Bloom sat up, still pretty wet and giggled.

"Bloom showed us a great earth sport, a water fight, and I won!" Stella said proudly before Musa jumped in and corrected her.

"Please you did not win," Musa said as she sat up on the table and looked at the hose she brought into the room. "I did,"

"It's not funny," Flora scolded.

"What if Griselda sees this!" Techna asked and immediately turned around when she heard Griselda's voice behind here.

"Indeed what if," Griselda said standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, obviously unhappy with what she saw. "I came to let you know that Charmed Life will be playing at Magix Stadium tomorrow night and all of Alfea will be there. Do you know this group?"

"I have all their CD's," Stella said excitedly thinking that they were all invited to go to the concert.

"Good thing, because since you have so much cleaning left, you will not be attending the show. Perhaps one of your classmates can bring you back a T-shirt," Griselda said with a smile, it was obvious that she was kind of happy to see the girls finally taking the punishment seriously.

Musa had met the guys of Charmed Life, since she was the princess of the Harmonic Nebula many artists tried to get invited to the palace to meet with her family since it was considered an honor and those who didn't get an invitation, would usually get booked as the entertainment for one of their parties. Charmed Life consisted of what was probably some of the most annoying people she had ever met. Brad, the lead singer was a total ass. He was practically in love with himself and yet he hit on everyone. Charmed Life was one of the biggest boy bands in the Magical Dimension and they performed at the twins' birthday the year before. Musa, who was never a fan of boy bands, was actually looking forward to the band, but they were pretty bad. They lip synced and all of them looked overly tan with the IQ of pencil.

And yet she would rather go to their concert instead of cleaning the school.

The rest of the day dragged on as the girls actually began cleaning the school. It was a pretty boring task and tiring more than anything. Suddenly Musa had a lot more respect for all the maids that scurried around her castle everyday cleaning and making sure that the everything in the castle ran smoothly.

"It's just us," Bloom said sadly the next day as the girls watched the rest of the girls leave the Alfea campus.

"That group is totally bunk but anything beats cleaning duty," Musa pointed out.

"Hey I love that group!" Stella said defensively defending the boy band.

"That are total asses," Musa pointed out. "The only relatively nice one was Justin,"

"Justin is so hot!" Stella exclaimed thinking about the blond boy bander.

"He is," Musa said in agreement, but her image of him was severely blemished when she saw him and Penelope Yuki making out in the coat room of the twins' party. Penelope was a nice girl, but she was loose, to say put it lightly. "But they are not as cool in person as you would think, all the magazines make them look nice and sweet, but they are conceited and annoying beyond belief, but their music isn't all bad,"

"You've met them," Flora questioned.

"Yeah, they were the entertainment for my friend's party," Musa stated. "Honestly, I liked them a little till that point, so maybe we're not missing too much." Musa said trying to change her attitude about this whole thing. If they were going to be stuck her, complaining probably wouldn't help and she could just look on the bright side.

"Those guys do seem rather fake," Techna said looking over the CD cover Stella insisted on showing the girls that she had signed by the group. Unfortunately, her memorabilia was upstaged by Musa's story since she had actually met them and partied with them.

"Speaking of guys," Stella said with a smile forming. "Let's call the boys,"

"Right, I'm sure they'd just flip at the prospect of helping us clean the entire school," Flora said with sarcasm as she mopped the floor aimlessly.

"Well we'll just say we need some heroics and bravery," Bloom suggested. It was so obvious why Stella and Bloom wanted the guys over, but Musa didn't mind the prospect of seeing Riven again either. If she was going to ride out this crush, then why not see him and she figured the more she saw him, the more she would see him as a friend rather than anything else. In any case, Musa wanted to see Riven just as bad as her friends wanted to see Brandon and Sky.

"Yes, and we know they can't resist a call from damsels in distress," Stella said dramatically.

"Quick, cell them before they leave for the show," Musa said excitedly not realizing how excited she sounded. She still needed to keep up a façade until this whole Riven thing blew over. "This school is going to take forever to clean and we need all the help we can get," she reasoned but by the looks on everyone's face, they weren't buying it.

After Stella called, Musa was in the auditorium picking up some stuff she left when she saw she was getting a call from her boyfriend. She picked up with a lot less fear this time, she was actually a lot more calm about the situation. Musa had reasoned with herself that she was not going to let a crush ruin what she had at home and if she just waited out her feelings for Riven, eventually she could go back to the way things were with Daniel. "Hello,"

"How's punishment," Daniel joked. Musa had called him the morning before and explained what happened with Griselda and Faragonda after the whole incident with the witches. Daniel was pretty upset with Musa that she had agreed to go to Cloud Tower, but Musa knew it was only because he was worried about her.

"We're stuck at school alone," Musa said trying not to sound happy since she knew that Riven was coming.

"If I remember correctly, we had a lot of fun sneaking into Devon after hours," Daniel said recalling the time when there was a party at the Devon Prep pool after-hours. It was he and Nate that started the party, but Musa and everyone else in their crowd were there in a matter of minutes.

"This is a little different," Musa said also recalling the night and blushing. It was good night. "We're in school and we get to clean,"

"I thought you guys were going to that concert tonight," Daniel said swearing he heard Musa talking about how excited she was a bout a concert that they were all going to.

"Yeah, but we're on punishment and that means no concert," Musa explained. "And we have to clean,"

"They're making you clean," Daniel asked with a disgusted tone. His girlfriend was way to good to be cleaning. The whole idea of her having to do such remedial work was unsettling to him. "Are they even allowed to do that?"

"Aww it's okay baby, I don't really mind,"

"So what do you have to clean?"

"The entire school,"

"What!" Daniel said in surprise. He had been to Alfea a couple time and even though it wasn't the biggest school in the world it was still a lot to clean. "It's just the five of you cleaning?"

"Pretty much, don't worry about it. I'm sure a little cleaning won't kill me," Musa assured. "We can all take a wing and someone can take the main entrance,"

"That sucks," Daniel said still upset that Musa had to clean. When Musa thought about it, his attitude towards being royal was very similar to Stella's, although Daniel never threw fits and temper tantrums when he didn't get his way.

"It does but I guess I can – ," Musa began but was cut off by an excited Stella running into the room.

"THE BOYS ARE HERE!" Stella squealed in a sing song tone and then walked outside to greet the guys and especially Prince Sky.

"Wow this is sounding a lot like the time we had a party in Devon after hours," Daniel pointed out calmly. "I thought it was only you five,"

"It was," Musa explained trying to keep the guilt out of her voice. "Umm, I guess Stella invited some of our friends from Red Fountain," Musa said only giving Daniel half the truth and not telling him about how excited she was about seeing Riven.

"Oh,"

"Look Stella and Bloom have huge crushes on these two guys and so Stella invited them over with some of their friends," Musa explained and realized that she was not only keeping some of the truth from him, but making it sound worse. "We're all friends now, they're cool, I mean you'd like them,"

"Cool, have fun," Daniel said trying to cover anxiety he had about this. "You'll have some help cleaning,"

"Yeah," Musa said not really sure what to say. She had told him a million times that nothing was going on, but for some reason she felt like she needed to explain herself. Daniel had a way of making her feel guilty, probably because she could sense the suspicion in his voice and he could probably sense the nervous tone in hers. "They're just friends, like me hanging out with Nate and Brian,"

"Yeah, have fun and don't work too hard," Daniel insisted. "I'll talk to you later baby,"

"Okay, bye," Musa said and hung up the phone knowing that things were going to be weird between her and Daniel again. But for now, she was more concerned about seeing the guys, more importantly, Riven.

Musa walked outside as the guys pulled up. "You guys didn't waste anytime now did you," Stella said as they all stopped.

"So what kind of heroics and bravery do you girls need," Sky asked coolly when he took off his helmet and looked straight at Stella.

"Follow us," Bloom said with a sly look on her face that was meant for Brandon. The guys did as they were told and followed the girls into the main entrance of Alfea. Musa, who was walking at the head of the pack, glanced back and noticed Riven was staring at her. Feeling her face heat up as she blushed, Musa turned back around and tried to gain some composure as she walked toward the cleaning supplies.

"Here are the steps," Musa said as she picked up a mop gracefully throwing a sly and sexy smile to Riven oh so subtly. "Soap up, scrub and rinse," Musa said as she wiped the floor with the mop and did a few flirty twirls as well, then looking over to the boys in the entrance of the room. "See it's not too hard,"

"We skipped a concert for this?" Riven said with his arms crossed. Musa looked up and saw him with that same scowl on his face and wondered why it was so hard for him to lighten up, she continued to clean, but managed to lock eyes with him and it seemed like she wasn't the only one that liked it.

"Oh come on. It'll be a blast." Bloom insisted as she picked up some brooms and threw them over to the guys. "Now take your weapons boys,"

Even though none of the guys seemed to happy with their task, they all cooperated and began cleaning. Expect of coarse Riven who simply stood against the wall with his arms folded. Everyone

"Hip mop," Musa said to Techna as she twirled around a mop over her head.

"Lame," Riven said quietly and luckily nobody hear him because a comment like that would surely earn him a pale of water in his face.

Cleaning was a lot quicker with 8 people helping, since Riven didn't lift a finger the entire time and in no time the cleaning was done. "So boys since you were so helpful," Stella began sweetly. "You guys have the option of going back to the concert or you guys can stay here and have some fun with us,"

It was obvious that the guys wanted to stay, but of coarse they all tried to play it cool so Sky gave a smile and followed Stella back to their common room. "The cleaning is finito," Musa said as she walked over to her stack of CD's that were in the common room and looked at them. When she decided on what to play, she did the 'bend and snap' (1) that Leslie showed her when she picked up the CD's she wanted knowing that Riven was behind her and she was wearing a skirt so she knew he probably looked. "It's time to get the party started and DJ Musa's at the tables. Let's see,"

Musa had changed into different clothes after cleaning since she was pretty wet after all the mopping. She was just going to wear another pair of jeans and some random top, but then she saw a skirt in her closet and remembered it was quite the head turner when she was out with Daniel one night. She didn't like playing mind games with guys, but there was something about the initial flirting that she just loved and with Riven the little cat and mouse game was cute, besides, it wans't going anywhere so what was wrong with some harmless fun? "Tunes for the east wing, west wing, north wing and south wing!" Musa said as she walked behind some turn tables and skillfully flicked some CD's into different players that would be playing the music throughout the school.

Everyone started dancing and at first looked like a dance when kids were in 6th grade when all the guys were on one side of the room while the boys on the other. Finally, Sky began dancing with Stella while Brandon worked up the nerve to talk to Bloom. Luckily for Musa, she didn't have to worry about that stuff since she was busy behind the turn tables mixing the music, and she did seem to have a talent for it.

"Musa come on and dance!" Stella said to Musa who looked up from her CD's to see Stella dancing with Sky. "If anyone should be dancing it's you," Stella said, Musa did want to dance, she loved to do it. But, she was safe behind the turn tables, she wanted to dance with Riven, but she knew that wouldn't exactly fly with Daniel.

But then again there was no denying that she wanted to catch Riven's attention. Musa nodded and did a quick little spin and a couple more cute moves that required her to move her hips in front of Riven and from the quick glance she took from after she finished and walked back to her place at the turn tables, it looked like he was intrigued.

Musa then looked around the room to see that Flora was alone as well so she called her over and the two worked the turn tables together until Musa decided to take a break. Even though she knew she couldn't really let her feelings for Riven go anywhere, she was kinda upset that he hadn't asked her to dance. And then of coarse she still felt the guilt for liking someone else, why couldn't she just get over Riven already! Musa walked away from the turn tables and sat out on the ledge of the balcony.

Musa sat on the balcony and looked down knowing full well that she could fall from the balcony, not that she was going to, she had impeccable balance. She could have called Daniel since her mind went to him when they talked, the only time she felt something for Riven was when he was around or when she thought about him…which was happening even more often, but still maybe talking to Daniel more would help her.

Musa got lost in her thoughts about Riven and Daniel, another thing that was becoming more and more prevalent. When she heard the door to the balcony door open and she got startled. Musa felt herself fall forward, although her body was still on the railing she was ready to fall off and she held tighter onto the rails until she couldn't anymore and just before she let go she felt someone grab her before she could fall.

Riven had come out on the balcony to get some air, but he came across Musa sitting on her own and of coarse the second he got out there she was ready to fall off the railing. Luckily he had lightning fast reflexes and he managed to both of his hands on her hips and pull her back.

Musa fell back and felt Riven pull her back onto the balcony. He had such strong arms, Musa thought when she realized what was happening. "Thanks," Musa said nervously when she was safety back on the balcony she looked up at him and noticed he had yet to get his hands off her hips, not that she was complaining.

"Yeah," Riven said unable to really say anything else when he was looking into those beautiful azure eyes.

The two stood looking at each other for a second before Musa snapped out of the trance. "Um, I should go back in, thanks again," Musa said and quickly walked into the room, leaving Riven alone on the balcony in a state of awe. She knew that she was getting way to close to Riven, even though nothing really happened between them, Musa's attraction was beginning to feel like more and she was not about to do anything to hurt Daniel.

Musa passed time at the party hanging out with everyone and getting to know the other guys. They actually had some really interesting stories to tell about past missions they were on. The group was listening to Brandon and Timmy tell them about a mission they went on last year when the guys accidentally wondered into a pack of frost giants and accidentally angered the leader of the pack and then got attacked.

Half way through the story, however, they all heard rumbling and felt it too.

"What's that?" Bloom asked as everyone tumbled a bit from the shock that rolled the floor. And caused Stella to drop her drink all over Prince Sky.

"Maybe a dragon got lose?" Flora trying to offer some constructive help, but the only dragons in the area were in the animal preserve or under tight lock and key over at Red Fountain so it would be highly unlikely for them to get loose.

"Let's check outside," Stella said as she walked over to the balcony followed by the others. They all moved to the balcony and Musa observed the scene. The entire campus seemed as quiet as Ms. Faragonda left it when they went to the concert. "It must have been some kind of mini quake. Oh well, no biggy."

Stella's hypothesis was proven incorrect when they witnesses a desk flying through a history classroom window from the west wing of the school. And judging from the distance it got, it was thrown with incredible force.

"Over there! Let's go!" Sky commanded to his friends and they all suddenly became ready for action. Riven then whistled loudly and summoned their bikes, that were activated by the shrill sound. Then, as if they did this all the time, the boys jumped from the balcony and onto the bike and rode over to the other end of the school. When Musa saw the stunt, she was more confused by the action then impressed. Why jump on your bike to get across the quad? If anything they were putting their bikes in danger of getting hit from whatever was throwing the desk.

"Come on!" Bloom yelled to the girls as they ran down from their rooms and met the guys who were standing in front of the mess, proving to Musa that the guys could have just as easily walked down instead of riding there on their bikes.

"Half the wall is gone," Brandon said as he surveyed the extensive damage.

"See anything?" Musa asked as she looked at the damage. It was obvious that a very big something or someone cause this and she wasn't too sure if she wanted to see who it was. Not to mention that they had spent so much time cleaning that particular part of the school, she was not about to go on a hunt for whatever did this and then clean up after it.

"This damage was caused by some kind of creature." Timmy said observing the damaged and seeing fur, besides it was not like a single person could cause this.

"Hmm… a very big creature." Techna pointed out, even though it was pretty clear that the creature wasn't small.

"Really? Tell us something we don't know." Riven spat out sarcastically not realizing that Musa was using every snide comment against him to hopefully get over him, even though that plan had been horribly ineffective so far.

Techna turned and looked at him with a challenging look in her eye. "It's three meters tall and weighs close to a ton. Its fur is bristly, not soft. It walks upright, has honed in addition to multiple clawed limbs and it give off a foul musky odor."

Musa and Stella could not help but laugh a little by this, Musa did like this guy, but it was funny to see him being put in his place. Musa, however, was a lot more discrete with her appraisal of the situation while Stella was a lot more vocal about it when she burst out laughing at Riven. "She told you!"

Just as Riven was about to tear her a new one, he was stopped by another rumble that came from deeper in the school.

"It's that way!" Brandon said when they heard the noise.

"Come on guys. Phantoblades out," Sky commanded once again.

"Wait, we're coming too," Bloom insisted.

"Okay," Brandon agreed, but was swiftly cut off by Riven.

"No way. You girls just go find some place to hide, you'll probably get in the way," Riven ordered looking at the girls and stopping when he looked at Musa. She had an obvious look of offence in her eyes, but at the same time she looked interested like there was something about him that made Musa overlook the constant snipes. Finally, Musa looked away and immediately Riven turned to the rest of the guys and followed them as they walked though the rubble and into the dark school.

"Whatever," Musa said with attitude she could kind of tell that his constant snipes at her were some way of flirting, but why couldn't he be like a normal guy and flirt normally? This whole bad boy thing was getting old, fast. "Come on let's go,"

The girls had decided to follow Musa since she had the best directional sense since they could depend on her hearing. For a while there was a bit of rumbling and then the school fell quiet. Even Musa was having trouble picking up some sound waves from the area, but she didn't let up.

"It sure did get quiet all of a sudden," Flora commented in the same scared tone she used when they were in that old house outside of Magix looking for Stella.

"Maybe it went away," Bloom answered optimistically.

"I don't think so, I can still feel something unsettling,"

"It could be all the sandwiches you scarfed down," Stella said attempting to lighten the mood.

"Shh," Musa said as her eyes narrowed and she focused more intently. "Do you hear that?" Musa asked ash she put her hand to her ear attempting to amplify the sound waves coming to her ears. (2)

"I don't hear a thing," Stella whispered to Techna

"If you had sonar ears like Musa does, you would," Techna stated in a hushed tone.

Just then Musa, who was looking slightly toward the side to accommodate her hand on her ear, hit something in front of her and when she looked up and realized what she hit, she kinda wished she was paying more attention to her surroundings visually. "Uhhh guys," Musa said nervously looking at the monster in all it's hugeness (3) and so fierce looking that she stood frozen. "I think I just bumped the butt of out party crasher,"

The rest of the girls looked up and had the same expression on their faces that were very similar to the face that Musa had. The minotaur, as Techna identified it was huge and it was covered in blue fur and exactly how Techna predicted earlier. The beast let out a loud roar and after Stella challenged it, forgetting she didn't have her powers, the girls made a run for it.

No matter how fast the girls were the minotaur seemed to be catching up to them quickly, but they didn't stop running since it was run or get trampled. As if running that fast wasn't hard, but with every step the beast took, the entire room began to shake vigorously, making it even harder for the girls to keep their balance and with one misstep, Musa fell to the ground. Luckily, the minotaur wasn't looking at Musa, but he was particularly anger at the digital fair for some reason and began to get ready to charge.

"Incoming!" Musa yelled as some of the dust cleared and she saw the minotaur get ready to charge.

The beast, that had honed in on Techna, charged at her with his horns and all the girls could do was watch in horror. Luckily, Techna did a quick jump and dodged the attack and the minotaur managed to run right into the wall and get it's horns stuck in the wall.

Stella, being so blithely oblivious to the dangers in the room, walked up to the beast and cringed when she smelled the horrible odor it was giving off. Stella then took out some perfume and sprayed it. "Here you go," She said looking as if she believed that this would calm the savage beast.

"Yeah Stella, make him angry!" Musa yelled when she noticed how unhappy the minotaur looked as she prepared to run again.

"Time to run again," Bloom said as she began to run and all the other girls followed suit. Unfortunately, Musa began to lag behind and she looked back to see that the minotaur was gaining on her.

"Musa jump!" Flora advised urgently. Musa nodded and quickly did a double jump up a wall and looked almost spider like in her fluid movements. That type of quick movement took some skill and a lot of strength in the legs. Finally, Musa had managed to keep herself pinned up against the ceiling. "You're going down," Musa said as she dropped from the ceiling head first with her hand together in front of her. She powerfully rammed into it's head and sent it falling forward while she did a graceful flip and landed perfectly on her feet. When she looked back at the height she dropped from and what she had just, she was pretty proud of herself.

"Now this is my kind of party. Looks like we got here just in time," Riven said with a smirk that made Musa melt. He continued his stride toward the monster, but as he passed Musa, she couldn't stop herself from looking at the guy who seemed to be plaguing her dreams, and as he went past his eyes met hers, for probably the millionth time that night, but she couldn't help it and from what she could tell, he couldn't either.

"Good job Musa," Brandon congratulated as he walked by making Musa feel even more proud of her accomplishment.

"Hey! You with the pony tail!" Riven shouted causing Musa to start looking back at him, not that she minded, it was fun to look at that amazingly toned body. "If you want a real challenge, come over here."

The minotaur, now surrounded and obviously agitated began to charge at Riven and for a couple seconds he managed to dodge the monster swiftly, but it was becoming more than he could handle.

"Need a hand there, bro?" Brandon said as he ran into aid his friends. Musa and the rest of the girls wanted to help, but they couldn't really do much since their powers were gone and the last thing they wanted was to be an additional burden on the guys.

"Don't think you're getting all the fun Riven," Sky said jumping into the fight. From where Musa was standing, it looked more like they were trying to impress their respective crush.

"Yeah! Save some for us!" Brandon added.

"I can handle the – huh?" Riven said before stopping.

Riven ran straight into a fist and fell straight back and out the window, breaking thought the glass, and into another room. Musa's heart fell straight into her stomach and she suddenly got into a panic. Musa ran to the broken window and saw that Riven was unconscious. She would have gone to him, but she heard more clamor inside and decided to tend to Riven a bit later, fighting ever urge she had to go to him.

Musa looked back a second later to see all the guys lying on the floor defeated and the girls, who were without their powers were left to fend for themselves. When all seemed lost, Stella walked over to the group and in a cheerful manner carrying brooms and pales. "Yoohoo! Did anyone call for housekeeping, look at what I've got,"

"Excellent idea Stella!" Bloom said excitedly as she walked over to the pales and the rest of the girls followed. At first, Musa was not quite sure where they were going with this, but then after Bloom started banging on a pale, she got it.

They were going to make noise to distract the minotaur and then cleverly make it slip on the soap hat Stella was carrying in her other hand. "Hey bull snot!" Bloom called out.

"Wanna dance?" Stella mocked.

The minotaur began to follow them as they ran down the hallway and just as they had expected, they made him slip on the soap and it was enough to knock him out. "Nice job," Musa congratulated her friends as the looked at the defeated beast that had been destroying their school.

"Let's go see if the guys are okay," Stella said walking back down the hall when she was sure that the minotaur was knocked out.

"Hey Musa, why don't you check on Riven?" Flora said with a coy smile as they walked back down the hall. Instead of trying to make it seem like she didn't care about him, Musa figured she would let Flora have this one since the only thing on her mind was if he was okay.

Musa walked to Riven and checked first to see if there was any evident bleeding, there wasn't. She then checked to see if he was breathing and thankfully he was as well. "Riven," Musa asked tapping him gently to see if he would come to.

Riven opened his eyes to see Musa's worried face looking at him. When Musa saw Riven's eyes open she let out a sigh of relief and looked to see if his pupils were the same size. She had figured out after a party that went out of control that to check if someone has dilated pupils that were not uniform in size, that was a sign of having a concussion. (4) "Hey do you feel dizzy," Musa asked as Riven sat up.

"No, I'm fine," Riven answered in an attached tone, but nearly fell back. The fall he had taken was big; she didn't expect him to walk away from it without a scratch. Noticing the look of worry on her face, Riven couldn't help but put down his bravado and thank Musa. "Thanks,"

"I guess we can call it even," Musa said as she offered her hand and helped him up and they walked back to join the rest of the group.

"Where'd this thing come from?" Flora asked as she and the rest of the group surrounded the fallen beast.

"The creature preserve?" Riven asked figuring it was the only place that a minotaur would be, its not like they were common in this area.

"Except that the creature persevere doesn't have any minotaurs," Bloom said leading them back to square one.

"Look!" Stella pointed.

"A duck," Musa said as if she had just solved the entire mystery while she watched the small purple duck crawl out from under the minotaur and cry 'mommy'.

"We all know who's being stalked by a duck; Icy," Bloom deduced.

"That must mean the senior witches are here," Techna pointed out.

"Yeah, they must be trying to get the Ring of Solaria again, but I know just the way to trap them," Bloom said knowing that they were going to eventually come back for revenge.

Bloom led them all to Faragonda's office and began to explain her reasoning. "When they can't find the ring, they're bound to go to Faragonda's office to use the All Seeing Crystal Ball of Alfea."

"If they haven't already," Flora added ominously.

"Doesn't look like they have," Brandon said as they entered the head mistress's office. It was neat and clean, but you could expect nothing less from Ms. Faragonda. They all seriously doubted that the witches would have snuck around the room and searched carefully keeping everything in it's correct place.

"They will, and when they do we'll ambush them." Bloom said determined to take these witches down.

"I think they're coming now," Riven warned and they all became very alert.

"Oh, I don't know," the Flora said nervously.

"It'll be fine," Musa assured Flora, even though she wasn't so sure herself.

"Everyone hide!" Bloom whispered urgently.

"That means the Dragon Fire is in this room, but I don't see a thing. Guess we'll just have to trash the place and do a thorough search cause I'm not – " Icy began but was then cut off.

"You're not trashing anything!" Bloom ordered jumping up to face the witches. "Hit the lights Riven!"

"You are so surrounded," Stella bragged with a smug look.

"What are you doing here?" Icy asked taken aback by the sudden ambush.

"No, what are you doing here?" Bloom questioned.

"What are all of you doing here?" Asked a new, yet very familiar voice and from the midst of the chaos, Ms. Faragonda stepped into the center of the room and gave all the girls a hard look. Oh crap Musa thought as she looked around the room and tried to see the perspective Faragonda had and walking in on 4 heroes, 5 fairies and three witches in an office ready to duke it out was not too easy to explain. "Don't bother hiding Bloom. I see everything."

"I wasn't hiding," Bloom lied nervously as she got back on the floor after attempting to jump behind Faragonda's desk. "I was looking for something."

"Yes well, I'm waiting," Ms. Faragonda said firmly then used her powers to stop the witches, who were going to walk out of the office disobediently, in their tracks. "You three will get to leave as soon as we straighten this whole mess out,"

"Okay well we were cleaning and we were so tired," Stella said getting ready to confess, but then Musa, who predicted she would, decided to help cover for them.

"Yeah, so we took a break and went upstairs," Musa began. "But we heard something down here and when we cam back down we saw the minotaur,"

"Exactly and then we called the boys so they could help us," Flora added.

"Since we didn't have our powers," Stella emphasized finally.

"Yeah and after we dealt with the minotaur, we saw the witches going to your office so we headed them off and well you know what happened since then," Musa finished, pretty proud of both herself and her friends at being able to twist the situation a bit so that they didn't get into trouble, if anything they should have gotten rewarded.

"Is that so?" Ms. Faragonda asked to the group, everyone nodded in agreement, except for the witches who simply rolled their eyes and cursed the situation under their breath. "Alright then, girls please escort the boys out and I will deal with our other guests.

Just as Musa predicted, the next day they had gotten their powers back and all was good with the world. Of course there was the argument with Karen that hadn't blown over yet and the feelings that didn't seem to want to go away. But Musa took it as a challenge, how hard could it be to get over some guy that wasn't all that nice to you in the first place?

Without giving it another thought, Musa pulled out her phone and gave her boyfriend a call.

1. Courtesy of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde

2. Sounds waves get amplified when traveling through enclosed spaces

3. Realized how dirty that sounded when I read it over, but decided to keep it anyway. If you don't get it, you have a cleaner mind than I do.

4. Very true, when a person has a concussion, there pupils tend to be different sizes because the pupillary dilator muscles are not getting proper signals from the brain.

So next is the day of the rose. An episode where Musa is off on her own so I can basically let my imagination run wild – fun fun!

xoxo
princessm