Author's Note (read this please!): everyone. All right, so we're back with the next story in the Quest for Power Series! This is the big one, the most important story in the entire saga, because in this story, you'll find out the plot behind all the villains trying to steal the girls' powers. This first chapter is just sort of a recap of the series so far in case you haven't read the other four stories. However, if you are reading this and have not read the others, READ THEM! They're not that long and you'll follow the chain of event much more smoothly. And trust me when I say that you won't understand anything that happens in the rest of the series if you do not read this. This story is also going to begin prepping you for the story that's number eight in this series. But you'll have to wait until we get to that chapter.

This chapter is going to reference back to some events that happened in the previous four stories, so if I got a detail wrong or something, just tell me and I'll see if I can fix it (writers aren't perfect you know!). See if you recognize one or two things that have so far been mentioned in passing. Happy reading!

Chapter 1: Plans for Saturday

Monday morning found the girls of the Winx Club exhausted from all their adventures. The last few weeks had been taxing for all of them. Almost immediately after they'd returned to school from summer vacation, they'd been catapulted into another adventure. The witches, along with a girl called Guinevere who had been under a curse at the time, had kidnapped Flora and taken her back to Lynphea. But with the help of the girls, Flora had managed to gain the full power of her realm, break the curse on Guinevere, her cousin, and had freed Guinevere's realm of Rampara from total and complete darkness that had reigned there ever since the birth of Queen Earshra.

Directly afterwards, they'd had to go to Zenith to rescue Tecna from a dark wizard called Paritho, where it was revealed that she was the true princess of her realm and that she was the key to unlocking its power. He then took her back to his realm of Angelicas, preparing to marry her, but the group found a fairy called Nirvana, the real princess of Angelicas, who was able to help them defeat Paritho.

Most recently, the witches had tricked Musa into believing Riven didn't love her so that she would be easy bait for a wizard called Rancor to turn her into a witch as well. Her friends had had to jump through hoops to defeat him, save Musa and keep her safe until her powers reached their peak. But he was eventually defeated as well, allowing the girls to spend the rest of the following day resting.

However, after two days of resting, they weren't even close to getting all their stamina back. These three missions had all occurred within a space of two and a half weeks, plus they had all their schoolwork to do. This Monday morning, all of them just wanted to stay in bed and not even leave their rooms for the rest of the week. They were almost late for breakfast, because they had slept so late.

"I don't know about you girls, but I think I'm in need of a spa day," said Bloom, as they walked down to breakfast.

"I hear that Bloom," said Stella. "I can book a spa for us on Saturday."

"That sounds wonderful," said Flora. "In the meantime, school will keep us busy."

"Flora, can you also use some of that aromamagictherapy stuff to relax us?" asked Layla.

"Anytime you need it," said Flora.

"Good, because Layla's not the only one who could do with something of it," said Tecna, as they started eating.

"Definitely," said Musa. "I'm so tired, I feel as though I could go back to bed and sleep until Friday."

"What would Riven say if you slept until Friday?" asked Nirvana.

"He'd probably start worrying about me again, like I'd been placed under another sleeping spell or if Rancor had come back and done something to me," said Musa. "Either that or he'd think it was nothing and I'd be fine until he sees me again."

"What do you mean by 'another sleeping spell?'" asked Guinevere.

"Oh that," said Bloom, remembering the rigmarole they'd had to go through before all this commotion about their realm's ultimate powers had begun. "At the end of last year, we were part of the boys' final exam. They had to go through this big obstacle course and then had to save us from a monster. We were placed under a sleeping spell while they did that. We were all nervous about it, but the teachers assured us we wouldn't be in any danger."

"I wonder if the boys are as tired as we are," said Stella.

"What with all the adventures we've been going on lately, them doing everything they can to help us, combined with their classes at Red Fountain, they're probably even more exhausted than we are," said Tecna.

"Maybe we should have lunch or something after the spa on Saturday," said Bloom.

"That sounds like a good idea," said Flora. "I'd love to spend some quality time with Helia after what's been happening."

"So are you going to tell us what happened on Lynphea?" asked Stella suddenly.

"What do you mean?" asked Flora, exchanging a nervous glance with Guinevere.

"I mean what happened while Brandon, Sky and Riven were off spying on the witches?" asked Stella. "What did the queen take you and Guinevere up to see? I know Helia followed you, so if you don't tell me, I can and will pump the information out of him."

"You know you really shouldn't be asking us that," said Guinevere angrily.

"Yeah, Mom told you that room was a family secret," said Flora.

"But I hate secrets!" said Stella angrily. "Brandon's not allowed to have them, you shouldn't be either!"

"That's different," said Musa. "There shouldn't be secrets between boyfriend and girlfriend. But Flora and Guinevere are cousins, they can tell each other anything that has to do with their family. They're probably no secrets between them."

"Right," said Flora, though Guinevere looked a little nervous. There was one secret she hadn't told any of the others, not even Flora and that was about her missing sister, Elbereath. When the spell over Rampara was broken, she looked all over for her sister, but soon realized that she was nowhere in the realm. This worried her, because unlike Guinevere, who had been born a fairy then cursed into a witch, Elbereath herself had been born a witch and even though she knew there was a fairy deep down inside, Guinevere wasn't sure if the curse's influence over her sister had diminished or not, nor would she know until she found her.

Shortly before leaving Rampara, she'd requested that she be kept informed of the search for her sister, while grumbling that she should be helping as well. But her parents had made her go on to Alfea and said not to worry. She had been receiving notes from the Royal Guard of Rampara every few days that all said the same thing, there was no news of Elbereath whatsoever. She had started casting tracking spells in her off time, but so far those hadn't turned up anything either.

Fortunately, none of the girls noticed her moment of distraction and she tried hard to concentrate on the conversation as Tecna said, "besides, Flora and Guinevere are duty-bound to keep the secret of wherever they went that day. We shouldn't even be talking about it, Stella.

"Looks like I'll just have to ask Helia," said Stella.

"No you won't!" said Bloom. "You know Helia won't tell you, and we won't let you ask him."

"Yeah Stella, lay off," said Musa.

"But something happened!" said Stella. "Something happened while you three were up there. Don't think I didn't notice. You and Helia weren't looking at each other when you came back downstairs and when you did look at each other, it was furtively and you quickly looked away. Then after everything had settled down, you both were looking as though your birthdays had come early. Tell me what happened."

"No!" said Flora sharply.

Luckily for her, the bell rang and Stella didn't have time to ask more questions. Flora and Guinevere thought back to the Room of Time in the palace of Lynphea, a room that held all sorts of trinkets that would allow the viewer to see different things in time. The room's greatest treasure was the Pool of Infinity, which showed past, present and definite future. Each girl had seen how her individual realm was created and then had looked into the future and seen their coronations. Guinevere had met Andrew, the boy who would become King of Rampara, a few days ago. Flora and Helia had seen themselves being crowned King and Queen of Lynphea as well. At first, both had been embarrassed to admit it, but they were glad they were destined for true love.

"The first chance I get, I'm going to put a spell on Helia, so he won't tell Stella," she thought to herself. "I know he would never willingly tell her but if she casts a spell on him, he'll have no choice." She broke herself away from her thoughts as Palladium began lecturing and turned to face the front of the classroom.

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Over at Red Fountain, the boys were finishing up their breakfast and walking to their first class.

"I hope the next adventure isn't for a very long time," said Brandon, though he knew better than to get his hopes up.

"Me too," said Sky. "I think we ought to take the girls out to lunch on Saturday. You know, like a day to relax from what's been happening."

"Not just from the adventures, but from classes," said Riven. "This week's gonna be killer; we have tests in just about everything."

"I know," said Jason. "I just want to get out, get Layla and start dancing just to work off some school stress."

"Some quality time with the girls is just the thing we need," said Timmy. "But let's hope this time lunch will go better than the last time." He remembered the last time they'd taken the girls out for lunch, when Tecna had ran from the restaurant crying because of something Stella had said.

"Any chance I get to get to know Guinevere better is fine with me," said the newest member of the group, Andrew.

"Seeing Flora is enough to lift my mood any day," said Helia, a far off look in his eye.

"So what did happen on Lynphea, Helia?" asked Brandon slyly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Helia.

"When you disappeared after Flora and Guinevere," said Brandon. "You followed them up to that secret room and came back looking everywhere except right at Flora. I wanna know what happened."

"My gosh Brandon, you're starting to sound like Stella," said Helia.

"He's right," said Riven. "You've been spending too much time with her if you're starting to talk and think like her."

"Come on, like you're not starting to think like Musa," said Sky. Riven didn't answer that. Helia knew he'd have to be extra careful, with Brandon trying to worm the information out of him and he had a feeling Stella would be badgering him, Flora and Guinevere about it many times in the near future.

"If I tell anyone what happened, Flora will never forgive me. I'd better be on my guard from now on," he thought to himself.

After classes that day, Sky called Bloom and invited her and the rest of the girls to lunch with the boys on Saturday. They arranged to meet them at noon, after their spa day.

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As she laid in bed that night, Layla tried to will sleep to come to her, but it just evaded her that night. She knew she needed rest, with classes in the morning and the next adventure to come, but she was too wound up to sleep. Something had been bugging her for the last two days and she knew if she didn't tell someone, she'd explode. But when she looked at her clock and saw that it was after midnight, she knew she couldn't tell anyone yet. The girls would kill her if she woke one up to talk and she didn't think Jason would appreciate being woken up at this hour either.

She cast a small spell that would give light to her and her alone, so as not to wake up Guinevere and pulled a journal off the bookshelf next to her. She opened it to the first blank page and began to write.

There's something strange about this last mission we were on. I'm glad we got Musa back all right, but the villains we were fighting just disappeared on us. It doesn't surprise me that the witches vanished. Those three are like bad pennies, they always turn up. I have a feeling they'll be back within the next couple days.

But there's something else. I can't help but wonder what happened to Rancor after we defeated him. I mean, we didn't have to worry about Guinevere because the curse was broken and Paritho is locked up in the dungeons of Angelicas, but Rancor just faded away. I don't think he has enough strength left to challenge us at the moment, but someday, he's going to regain his energy and come after us again, this time for revenge. If someone else attacks us at the same time, we're done for. I'd feel better if I knew what happened to him, but for now, I'd better just hope that he isn't going to make an appearance.

She shut the journal and replaced it on her bookshelf before muttering a small spell to extinguish the light. She laid back in bed and closed her eyes, glad that she'd gotten that worry off her chest, even though she'd have felt better if she'd said it out loud.

What she didn't know was that despite the fact that she'd only lit her side of the room, Guinevere was still awake. Sleep wasn't coming to her so easily either. This wasn't the first time she'd seen Layla writing in that journal either. She'd seen her writing the night they broke the spell Rancor had put on Musa and on a few other occasions as well and it confused her to no end.

"What is she up to?" asked Guinevere. "She really doesn't strike me as the journal type, yet every few nights when she's sure I'm asleep, she gets that thing out and writes. There must be something on her mind, but if I'm allowed a secret, so is she. She'll tell us when she's ready, just as I'll tell the girls about Elbereath when I'm ready." She sighed and tried to fall asleep despite the worries over her sister that were clouding her brain.

Author's Note: All right, so that's the first chapter. I know, nothing very exciting but I had to have kind of a startup. I also needed a reason for the girls to go out to lunch with the guys. This way, I'm able to introduce a new guy character. Can any of you guess who that'll be?

Let me ask, did any of you recognize the journal from the last story? Remember it. It's going to show up again later in the story and it's going to be instrumental in the girls finding out the villain's master plan. As for Guinevere's sister, Elbereath, she's not going to actually make her debut until story #7, but Guinevere is going to mention her occasionally. Wait until you find out the role she plays in the story. Stay tuned!