Author's Note: This chapter is first in a series of a sideplot. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Eight: Before Alfea: Morgan

Morgan Nebula Day was fourteen years old, five feet tall, freckled, had hair in a little pink ponytail, and couldn't lift more than two bags at a time when her family went grocery shopping. And even that was a little much for her.

When the men came at her, ready to attack, they never stood a chance.

Within five seconds, she mentally called to Chelsa and Brandhilie, who then began to run towards her. With luck, they wouldn't run into trouble on the way. The pair was rather large, and could seem pretty scary if you didn't know them, and/or if you tried to attack Morgan.

Then, she put out her hands and channeled as much energy as she could towards the men, hoping it would burn. Badly.

Morgan was magica, a humanoid species with the power to channel energy into other things- depending on whether they chose the path of a fairy, witch, or specialist. They all had base abilities too, such as telepathic waves and energy balls. Morgan wasn't the most powerful magica ever, after two generations of human-magica marriages the blood was diluted. The power of mind and body had weakened into the power of animals, and then further so into power of only the wild, untamable beasts.

Two of which were coming right at the men. Morgan smiled, and dimples formed. For all the world she looked like a fifth-grader watching SpongeBob SquarePants, not a high school freshman who had just set two wild wolves on a group of potential kidnappers.

Chelsa, the girl, and Brandhilie, the boy, made quick work of three of the group. But Morgan called them off when they got to the fourth and last (though he had already sustained some heavy damages, he had escaped most of the serious, but not fatal, injuries that knocked out the rest of the gang). "Okay, dude, what's your damage?"

"Several bites to the arm, I think my leg is broken, my head hurts and…"

"No," she said, crossing her small arms across her even smaller chest. "Why were you and your thugs after me? Was I just some lucky target? Or do you have a reason?"

"You will be the Lupa," he moaned.

Morgan blinked. Right family, wrong girl. Though she was descended from old magica royalty… the last in her family line being her grandmother, until she abdicated…. It wasn't her that would inherit the Lupa mantle, the Guardian Fairy title. It was her older sister Andrea who had that honor. "You don't know what you're talking about," she said flatly before sending an energy ball into his face, knocking him unconscious.

She walked a few blocks over to her friend Snake's house. Snake's real name was Isabelle, the "s" like a "hiss," not a "z." That was exactly how she had introduced herself to Morgan, and how she had earned the fierce nickname. Snake was tall (actually, average height, but to Morgan everyone seemed tall), with hair in eternal brunette cornrows that made her ghostly skin seem fierce, vampiric. She was sweet, but stubborn, she was two years older. Morgan couldn't get Snake out of her head.

Chelsa and Brandhilie were still following, silent paws treading the pavement. Though Snake had met the two before, and was not scared of them, Morgan let the two go anyway. They sent back an emotion of love- Morgan could make animals talk, but it was not and would never be their best language, not compared to pure emotion. And then they left, leaving her alone once more.

She found 244 Peters Street- Snake's address- and rang the doorbell. Snake answered. "Hey, girly!" she said, giving Morgan a hug. "I'm glad you could come."

"I'm glad I didn't get kidnapped on the way here," Morgan said.

Snake raised an eyebrow. "Why? What happened?"

"Oh, you know. Four losers. Said I was going to be the Lupa, that's why they wanted me. I'm not even going to Alfea, I'm going to Cloud Tower like you suggested. And that's not for almost two more years."

"Weird. I take it you kicked their asses?"

"Yeah, with a little help from the wolves."

"I'm glad you're okay," Snake said. "Don't let it bug you. As you said, they're losers. And you can ruin them without messing up so much as one hair. They don't know what they're talking about."

"I can't not think about it. Did they just confuse me and Andrea?" She scoffed. "Hard to do. Andie looks her age."

"I was in her class before she graduated early, remember? She looks older than her age, like eighteen or nineteen. And nothing like you. Not nearly as gorgeous. Very mundane."

Morgan laughed. "I'm the one who's more human than magica? And you think Andie is mundane?"

"Sure, she has more magic. But yeah. Black hair, blue eyes, she's pretty but not incredible. You've got the exotic features that I'd die for." Snake looked deep into Morgan's amber eyes. "You're so special, Mor. Never, ever forget that."

And then Snake leaned in close and kissed Morgan, and the magica realized that this was what she had wanted all along.

Two girls sat in their Alfea dorm, hours after they and their two friends had arrived back at the school.

"We broke up later, nine months later after Grace arrived for the summer. Snake wasn't the first person I had felt that way about, that was Grace. I had never acted on it though. I didn't really understand what it meant. But I did then, and I couldn't go on with Snake. She was going to college in a year anyway. It had to happen sometimes," Morgan said.

Story bit her lip. "How did you end up becoming the Lupa in training?"

"Andrea decide to attend Cloud Tower. And I decided to go to Alfea because that's where Grace was going, indisputably."

"Are you happy here so far?"

Morgan pondered. "I don't know," she said at last.