Chapter 2- The Phoenix Con
Angie frantically dug through her small, colorful closet trying to find just the right outfit for such a big day. It was still nearly impossible to believe, but she had been invited to a Winx Club convention in Las Vegas! Even more impossibly so, her parents let her chip in her money for the drive to the big exciting city.
She finally threw on her favorite band T-shirt and jeans, and, considering the outlook for the weather, a warm hoodie. She looked out her full length window at the deep gray clouds gliding across the very dim sunlight. She wished the weather would match her mood right now!
Several hours later, the sun was beginning to touch the horizon as Angie, Joseph and her parents stepped out of their car in the big city of Nevada. "Oi, this place is so cool! I can't wait to check into the motel." She thrust her suitcase out of the trunk and dumped it on the gravely parking lot, the little rocks crunching under the weight.
"Well, let's get going then." her Dad smiled enthusiastically as he pulled the family bag out of the trunk. Despite the fact that her parents - or brother weren't exactly hard-core Winx fans like herself, Angie figured they would enjoy the short vacation.
Up the stairs and into the small, but cozy motel the family of four finally arrived. Their luggage, varying greatly in size lined the sandy-tan walls, and their over-night bags were strewn across the violet-and-green bed covers and couch. "Looks like we've made ourselves at home already." Angie's mother sighed, eying the disarray of luggage.
Angie trotted up to her distressed Mom and gave her a big hug. "Thank you for taking us here, you guys. I still can't believe you'd agree to something as crazy as this! And don't worry Mom; we'll get things tidied up soon enough."
Her Dad looked up at her with a somewhat uncomfortable expression creasing across his face. "Well, we had business to take care of here anyway - so don't worry about it."
Angie cocked her head slightly in confusion. She caught her mother's urgent "Shush!" look as she tilted her view. Glancing down at the alarm clock on the bedside table, she jumped slightly. "Wow it's late! I suppose I'd better get to bed so I can make it tomorrow morning!"
"Good idea!" Dad commented plopping down with a relieved sigh. "You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow." and strangely enough, she could have sworn she heard his silent whisper. "A little bigger than you think."
The next morning, Angie had her jeans and leather jacket on in a flash as her family sleepily followed suit. To help bring some fresh air in the room, she opened one of the tall windows and looked out at the dark sky. It was 8:00 AM - but the sun was shrouded by thick black clouds, and the thin air was cold and bitter. Outside, she could see the ground damp by the rainstorm that night, and the trees dripping silently from the last drops sitting on the green leaves. It certainly was a gloomy day for those who wished to be outside, but the thought of the convention raised her spirits and made her day look brighter. "Rain's always nice anyway." She reminded herself.
It wasn't long before the family was in the car and on their way to the big event, and Angie couldn't me more excited... or nervous. Who knew who might be there? She had several Winx-fan friends online - so the possibilities were endless. She looked out the window to see a big tan building with red trim and large black double doors quickly come into view. However, what told her this was the place was the long line of girls, boys, teens and adults that had gathered in front of the doors, some holding a Winx doll or two, others with Winx T-shirts on - and still more with signs they had made by hand with slogans such as 'Go Winx', 'Number 1 Fan below' and things like that. Aside from that, a huge snow-white banner was pinned atop the doors, reading "Nickelodeon Convention". This was definitely the place!
She looked through the crowd for anyone she recognized as her Dad pulled up into the parking lot and unlocked the doors. As she spotted Ella, her Dad said, "well, this is your stop! You have some friends here, right? We're going to drop you off and run some errands if that's alright."
She squeaked her thanks and darted out of the car to meet her friend. There stood a girl with long auburn hair, wearing a purple tank top and jeans. How she could withstand the cold without sleeves was beyond her. She dashed up to her friend, who had her back turned and tapped her on the shoulder. Ella whirled around and jumped in surprise. "Ellaa!" Angie greeted warmly as she gave her friend a hug.
"Angiiee!" Ella laughed, wearing a bright smile. "It's great to finally meet you in person!" She added.
"You too!" Angie replied, looking around through the elated crowd again. "Seen Alexis around yet?"
"Not yet, though she should be here soon. Five minutes 'till the doors open."
As if on cue, off in the distance of the parking lot, a girl with long, sunny blonde hair stepped out of a mini-van - her bright blue eyes wide as they scanned the crowd, clearly looking for the two girls. "Over here, Lexi!" Angie shouted, ignoring the stares of the little kids around her as she and Ella waved their arms to get her attention. Alexis' eyes darted to where they were standing, and she quickly ran to meet them.
"Hey... You... Guys." She panted, with her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. Before the girls could respond, the large black doors began to creak open, and two people holding the doors open came into view, framing the massive room ahead. Long tables covered in clean white cloth lined the sides of the room, leaving even-spaced gaps for small glass doors, clearly used for conferences. People swarmed the tables, excitedly chatting as they looked at the displays cluttered along the tables. Beautiful dolls covered in glass cases, fun books, games and little TVs with sneak-peeks being viewed littered the nearest tables. Large cardboard cutouts of Nickelodeon characters (Bloom and Stella included!) lined the walls, and even more stood propped up at the corners of tables.
Children dashed here and there, pulling on their parents sleeves to get pictures of this and that. One kid tried to climb on a SpongeBob cutout, but was quickly shooed away by a manager. Angie looked to her side to see Ella and Alexis looking just as enthralled as herself as their eyes darted around the room. At that moment, she wished she could have more than just two eyes!
The group of girls paced over to the large Winx-table and gaped at the awesome new plans for merchandise and snapped pictures of the beautiful dolls with their cell-phones - all of which had at least on random person walking through the picture. Who knew there could be so many Winx-fans!
A girl about their age stood next to the group and smiled warmly at them. "Glad to see other Winx-fans around my age! What are your names?"
Ella stepped forward. "I'm Ella, this is Alexis - and the girl right over there looking through that coloring book is Angie. Pleasure to meet you." At the sound of her name, Angie trudged forward through the crowd and stood next to Ella.
The girl hesitated for a minute before asking. "You wouldn't happen to be the owners of Winx 4 Life would you? I'm a Winx-blogger too and am a big fan of the site!"
It was then that Angie's head starting pounding. The room around her began to feel like a blur, and the sounds seemed to blend together like someone watching too many television programs at once. She barely made out her friend saying, "Well thanks! Glad you like it... Angie?" as she collapsed to the floor. Her friends kneeled next to her and didn't seem to notice the crowd splitting apart and making a dash for the door. Someone speaking into the megaphone began to alert the people inside to evacuate the building, but to Angie, it sounded less than a blur. One sound seemed to filter through the bustle, a constant throbbing, pounding sound coming from somewhere near them.
She finally looked up to see a red glimmer forming behind her friends with sparks sparsely erupting from the sides. The little gleam of red began to form into a long oval shape, and those left in the building quickly dashed out. Ella and Alexis tried to pull Angie to her feet, but she felt like someone had hit her in the head and given her sleep-medications, making her unable to stay steady. She took in shaky breaths as her friends tried to get her to snap out of it, and the red light in front of her bulged so that three dark forms seemed to appear behind it.
As three people stepped out of what appeared to be a portal, Angie's vision cleared and she quickly stood up. "Angie?" Ella asked, looking rather alarmed. "You should sit back down, you don't look too good."
Alexis helped her back down to the floor and murmured, "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost!"
"Look behind you!" Angie shouted as the three forms came into full view. They were three guys, that looked but a year or two older than herself - but something was very strange about them. (Other than the fact that they had just stepped out of a flaming portal that is!) They were dressed in old-fashioned armour, one carrying a sword that almost looked like it was on fire, another, a bow that looked oddly like it had been fashioned from vines, and the last with what looked like a rather swirly looking stick. What was most odd was their pointed ears.
Angie shot up again and stepped ahead of her friends. "Okay, if this is some kind of 'cool publicity stunt' I don't think it worked, since you scared out the whole crowd!" she glared at who appeared to be the leader, since he stood in front, with the sword. "And the fact that you totally just destroyed the Winx-table is notcool." She looked remorsefully at the crushed table that had held the portal-thing.
"I think that's the least of your worries, Animal-Charmer. We've come for you and your friends' powers." He had a rather proud air to his voice, which matched his dark eyes that seemed to flare up when he got annoyed.
"Very funny." Angie said flatly. "My powers of what? Knocking stuff over? Tripping over things? Go ahead."
"Don't try and play stupid, girl. We know what you possess."
Angie looked to her friends. "Uhmm, you wouldn't happen to know any valuable objects we've got laying around that they might want do you?"
"Not that I'm aware of!" Ella laughed. "Unless they wanted my wooden sword I've got at home..."
The elf-dude looked more annoyed than ever. "These are real, for your information! And I suggest you give us what we want before we destroy you with them!"
Angie then noticed the one on the left cock an arrow, and the one on the right raise his stick like he was going to sic a tree on them or something.
The fiery guy approached Angie with his sword drawn while the other two did the same for her friends. "Whoa whoa, wait. No need to be uncivilized! Can't you just tell us what exactly you want?"
He stopped suddenly and looked as if he had just come to a realization. He chuckled. "No way. You don't know, do you?" He looked to his friends. "In that case, this has become a very easy project." The guy with the stick suddenly lashed it through the air, and with it came a huge wave of freezing water that splashed against the friends. Angie gasped, taking shallow shaky breaths. She didn't do well in cold, and it must have been worse for her friends who weren't even wearing jackets! The three guys laughed, as if they were just playing a game right now. As he was distracted, Angie angrily walked up to the fire-dude, and with all her strength, punched him in the gut. He doubled over. Clearly his fabric-ey armour was not armourey enough!
"How d-" he started his face rather red.
"Well, you weren't being specific as to what you wanted, but you seemed like you were asking for a punch in the gut." Angie replied calmly. "Is that what you were wanting? My Tae Kwon Do powers? Can we leave now?"
Ella and Alexis stood smiling at her side. "Nice one, Angie! NO one gets my hair wet!" Alexis said.
"Ya know, most jerks let you know who they are, then attack! Who are you?" demanded Ella as she crossed her arms. Angie and Alexis stood next to her expectantly.
The guys with the bow stepped forward and looked towards his friend. "She IS right. That wasn't much of an entrance." He hesitated for a bit. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter if you know who we are. My name is Adam, and I have control over earth-powers, while this is Aden, with power over fire and lastly, Arvin, the water former. Together, we are the Fellowship of the Phoenix." he looked towards Aden as if to reassure he had said it right.
Instead of confirming he stepped forward again. "It doesn't really matter as long as we get you three to our leader so that our mission will be complete and our lines as Kings restored." With that, Angie found herself pinned against the wall behind her with a sword at her throat. She glanced over to see that her friends were in the same danger as she was. Anger and confusion seemed to surge through her, as she hoped she wouldn't die here. Not here, not now - what would her parents think? And she had to save her friends too! She looked down to see herself glowing and suddenly Aden was thrust across the room and collapsed against the tables on the other end. She looked over at her friends to see that they had different clothes on and what appeared to be... wings, sprouting from their backs. They too had gotten back at the 'Fellowship of the Phoenix'. She looked down to see that her outfit had changed too - to an indigo corset and mini-skirt, with black combat-boots to match. She looked behind her to see that she too had small, dainty wings fluttering behind her. Her first thought was, "Oh great, I AM dead. Where am I?" But she glanced around to see she was indeed in the same room as before, with her friend shooting strange things from their hands at Arvin and Adam. They looked to be enjoying themselves.
As she stood there, wondering what exactly had just happened, she felt a strong hand close around her arm and that warm blade against her neck again. "Stop fighting now, or she dies!" Aden shouted from behind her. She didn't dare move or speak, for fear of her throat moving just a centimeter.
Ella and Alexis stopped immediately, looking very stunned. "If you cooperate, we'll take you to our leader without harm - if not..." he pressed the blade against Angie to emphasize what he meant.
It was then that they heard a high cheerful girl's voice yell, "Over here girls! It's them!"