Verboten
Chapter 19
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Disclaimer: I do not own the Winx Club. I do, however, own this intriguing plot. Congratulations if you have gotten to Chapter 19! Even I didn't expect to get up to here!
Fore Note: Bloom almost accidentally killed Roxy. You can get anymore guiltier than that.
Shout Outs: Darev: An uplifting kick in the ass. I took his review into consideration after a couple of days and realised that that was the crappiest ending to a chapter that I ever wrote. I added some more. I intended to make it like a surprise of sorts but this just adds to drama and saves me time in the long run.
The Winx Club had left after Bloom had fled in minutes. Stella gave him a hateful look which he readily ignored. He had more pressing matters to deal with. The blond king turned to his father who put on a stern face.
"No wonder my mother loves you," Sky said sarcastically.
"You take after her more than you do after me, Sky," Erendor replied.
"Gee, thanks." Sky intently at the White Circle encased in its bubble-shaped prison.
The translucent grey sphere itself hovered lazily over the table. All this trouble just because Bloom had given the thing to Roxy, who probably had not a single clue what to do with it. Gods, it looked so harmless and innocent. It looked like a rather plain silver white circlet with four coin-like adornments of the same metal at cardinal points. It was freaking piece of jewellery to Sky's male mind.
All this freaking trouble for a little piece of metal! The insanity of it all. It was moments like this when he just wanted to scream his frustration to universe and challenge it to do something.
Fuck. For a piece of jewellery. The nerve!
"You said you wanted something, Dad?"
The rotund man sighed, as if tired of repeating himself. "The seal?"
"I sold it."
"How very like your mother, Sky."
"It was a fake, Dad."
"But just as valuable."
"Why do you put so much value in a worthless piece of gold?" the son asked and with one glance at his father, he resigned. "I'll go get it, Father," Sky surrendered and loped out of the warehouse to retrieve the ring from the pawn shop. And as always, a dozen spies trailed after him. He needed the fresh air after what had happened.
It was two hours later before the King of Eraklyon retrieved the ring from the pawn shop. It had been simple and nothing exciting had happened. He walked in and paid for it and then left.
He walked down the boardwalk while looking at the ring. It was a simple gold ring with a ruby inlaid. The crest of the royal family was carved into it and the family motto was inscribed on the inside. However, it did not have the same feel as the real seal. Sky was familiar with it. He had no way of explaining it but he knew it was just that.
First, he needed to deal with his father and get him off the planet. Entering the warehouse, Sky dropped the ring in his father's hand and nodded. They spoke briefly about his mother and then Erendor left for Eraklyon by portal.
Now, Bloom. He really needed to straighten some things with her before it got any worst.
-
Two days later
The warehouse was indeed not a hospital. It did not remotely look like one nor was it ever going to become one. The medical inspection room, MIR, was only that, a medical inspection room. It was not meant to hold someone in critical condition at optimal state with oxygen tanks, life-support systems and monitors for everything. However, the warehouse was equipped with all these essentials and Chandra was thankful for small favours and thinking in advance.
Of course, they had expected that they could not go to an Earth hospital and not have questions asked about how they got their injuries and that was why Chandra and Artos, whose only function more practical medicine than spying and socialising with Earthlings, were there at all. However, they were not the only Eraklyonites capable of practising medicine. Almost everyone around them could practise first aid to a certain level but it was never a good idea to self-diagnose one's self if such a situation arrived.
The MIR was a simple long room fitted with four gurneys with curtain dividers like any hospital. It was walled off and tastefully painted a calming blue as well as having its own ceiling to give the sense of security. There were also shelves upon shelves of locked cases of medicine and other supplies.
With all of that said and done, being the doctor to go to was not boring when squires with clumsy blond girlfriends arrived to Artos with cut hands that needed stitches or when a robbery goes awry and one of the victims were shot. Being a doctor had its moral merits but also it had its dark side.
A doctor's greatest fear and enemy was the nearly irreversible state of being dead and the inexplicable coma.
Death, Artos could live with. There was the customary guilt trip but he learned to live with it.
Comas, he could not.
Comas gave a false sense of death, a false sense of security with the body, breathing, lying there on the bed doing nothing except exhaling carbon dioxide and occasionally mumbling.
What was the worst was when a body was in a bloody coma that just hovered above freaking death. Occasionally tempting the line by going flatline and forcing Artos to plug the defibrillator just to go back its normal heart rate before the machine could even charge.
She was suffering from a major case of magic overdose and the symptoms were horrible. Roxy had hovered over the line and placed a toe over it three times in the last two days since the incident with the White Circle. She had never woken up once each time and this scared the crap out of Artos many times. She just could not seem to make up her mind.
How typical of a woman to be so moody, even in a coma. There were times when he swore she was laughing at him.
At this point, he almost dared her to get it over with and die. It would make everyone's lives easier. No joke, either. If Roxy died today, the goal of Black Circle would be nearly unattainable unless there was another Earth fairy in the galaxy. This would ward off any potential dangers that would have come in the future like greedy megalomaniacs who wanted Roxy for 'historical value.' They would not have to watch her every moment of the day.
In short, they could all go home.
That was not case and it was better not to be tempted anymore by those thoughts. They only brought on darker thoughts.
There was a boring part of the job that Artos did really see as boring or a job but as free time ever since he discovered the science fiction section in a bookstore. He was always on standby and so he had to be prepared but he had taken to reading Earth books to pass the time.
He had started reading Clive Cussler simply because he was bored and interested in what Earthlings called science fiction. Currently, he was supposed to be watching Roxy who occupied a bed. The girl had not gone home since the incident and Artos or Chandra did not plan on sending the girl home without being conscious and passing a battery of tests.
First, she needed to wake up.
-
Where was Roxy? How was she? Was she eating right? Was she going to bed at the right time? Was she safe? What was she doing right now? These questions circled Klaus's head several times an hour, each tumbling over each other trying to find an answer.
Klaus flexed his hand angrily like he wanted to hit something and leaned back on his bed. He was simply too old for all of this. First, Roxy is surrounded by a group of never-before-seen girls and makes friends with them faster than the blink of an eye. Then, Roxy comes home to him looking all dizzy and disoriented, accompanied by those new friends of hers from a road trip. Those girls were bad news as soon as he saw them.
What worried him the most was that his daughter had not visited him in days. Sure, managing the bar was hard work but it was not too much to visit him, was it?
He also had to worry about those boys. His new waiters were obviously a lot more than Greek exchange students considering the night of the robbery but he wanted to believe deep inside that they were good men. After all, they had thrown themselves in the line of fire to keep the bar from being robbed.
Klaus closed his eyes tightly as he tried to push the image of Riven and Nabu beating the robbers or how Sky threw that knife. They were obviously a lot more than one was led to believe. Definitely a lot more but could he trust them? What were obviously very powerful men doing working at his bar? Why did they all hover protectively over Roxy? It was not evident but each boy made their business to get to know Roxy.
There was also that Asta girl who seemed to know Sky and Brandon well enough to casually talk to them during work. She was surely part of something big with the way she kicked the robbers or bravely bashed them with the chair. The girl should be in freaking high school still if he judged her age right. She barely looked fifteen yet but she knew something. As did the boys and those strange girls.
He had been confined to the hospital for a little over a week now and was allowed to prowl the hallways but that little piece of freedom did not satisfy him or his questions. He had a shattered collar bone and his arm was in a sling. They said that he would be in a sling for at least three months including many visits to the hospital. He did not even want to think about the insurance. After all, he had to support Roxy.
And that was what scared him.
The insurance.
There was no doubt that he could not do much work with an arm in a sling and he had to pay for their living expenses. He owned a well-off bar and he could still manage it but it still terrified him. What was a man his age doing getting shot?
No doubt the insurance would drill him insistently about the events.
He just did not want to think about it.
He felt so helpless and incapable.
He had to take one thing at a time.
Klaus roared his frustration out and began asking the same questions again: Where was Roxy? How was she? Was she eating right? Was she going to bed at the right time? Was she safe? What was she doing right now?
God in Heaven, he prayed, have mercy on Roxy. Don't let her slip away from me.
-
It was like any other ordinary business day at the Love&Pet shop. As ordinary as it could be. There was an abnormally high amount of hormones flying and every girl was high-strung for various reasons. This often resulted with a lot of verbal spats over the stupidest of things.
Layla had the afternoon off and planned to take advantage of it by spending it with Nabu and to get away Stella. The Solarian princess was only just tolerable on some days.
"Bye, guys!" Layla waved and stepped out of the door. "I'm off to see Nabu."
"Nabu, Nabu, Nabu! Ugh!" Stella whined. "Always Nabu!"
"Be quiet, Stella. I don't want to hear it," Tecna said brusquely.
Stella grumbled darkly.
"Take it up with Brandon if you have a problem with Mitzi," Tecna supplied detached. "If not, concentrate on thinking of places to find Bloom."
Bloom had not been seen since the 'incident.'
No one outright talked about it but it floated in the air like a heavy guillotining miasma. Complete and utter stupidity. How had they not seen it coming? Where was the sense in giving Roxy a magical object even when she had no experience whatsoever with magic? How had they overstepped the simple precaution to see what the ring was made of? To see what it could do?
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
How had they not seen it?
Bloom had not been seen for almost two days now and the girls were seriously worried. She had run out crying from the warehouse and the bastard ex-king Erendor was the one who finally unhinged everything. Bloom's quivering omission had proven more than anything that the Winx were a liability to these militarists. The Winx were not needed nor were they appreciated. They had only made the situation clearly worst and Sky was the first one to vent his rage out with Erendor behind him as he yelled at Stella.
Briefly, Tecna hoped that Sky would settle down and try to make it up with Bloom but that could only come after they had located Bloom. (She refused to think 'if they found her…') Tecna had a green magically generated-projection in front of her showing a map of Gardenia. There were several red dots on it that pinpointed locations that Bloom was not at. There was one at Mike and Vanessa's, at the flower shop, at Roxy's home, at the boy's loft and several other places that Vanessa had pointed out ("When I get my hands on that bastard!" Mike had said).
Oh, what she would do if she could go back to pixie village and get Lockette?!
No doubt the pixie of portals could find her bonded fairy just as fast as Tecna could calculate the escape velocity of a baseball on Earth.
But no, they could not bring the pixies here because that would only endanger them and they would cause unimaginable trouble whenever their backs were turned.
Tecna bit her lip nervously as she tried to get into the mind of Bloom. Where would she go? It had to be some place of significance unless Bloom took a wildcard and left the city entirely. But to where? Where would she go?
Great, now she needed a map of Italy and had to call Vanessa again.
All around her, the rest of the girls worked with the pets. Kiko nibbled nervously on a pen at Tecna's desk and tried to comprehend the map. The little rabbit had taken to idly doing nothing and crying at the lack of Bloom. Ginger the green sheep tried to comfort him but she felt the lack of Bloom as well.
All the activity came to a stop as the door opened. Asta, girlish-looking as ever with loose knee-length black hair and short shorts and a t-shirt, strode in and closed the glass door behind her. She had a stormy face on that meant trouble.
"What do you want?" Stella said acidly. It seemed like Stella's hormones spiked every time Asta was in the vicinity, Tecna noted.
Asta shrugged her off and turned the OPEN card on the glass door around to CLOSED.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Stella shrieked and dropped a hairdryer on a table.
"I am here to help you," the witch said in a bossy tone. "I don't know what the hell you've been doing for the last two days but I am here to help end your search faster. I didn't think it takes that long to find a princess! You are getting off-planet as soon as you find Bloom and after that, you can go home to your kingdoms or to that fairy school of yours."
"Who are you to order us?!" Musa said indignantly, standing up from her work. All the girls did the same and took a defensive stance.
Asta looked at the music fairy incredulously. "Sky wants you off-planet. I don't care what you say or what you do but you are getting off this backwater planet as soon as Bloom is found."
"But why?!" Tecna asked, almost yelling. "What did we do? We didn't mean for Roxy to get hurt."
"What, do I need to explain this to you? We don't care what your intentions were. You compromised Roxy's wellbeing, both physically and possibly mentally!" Asta said in superior tone like she was chastising a child. "You are getting off this planet by the end of the week whether you like it or not," Asta said with a tone of finality. "Sky is going to buy your shop tomorrow. You can bring your pets with you to Magix and try to sell them there. This shop is closed."
Latter Note: It's occurred to me that the White Circle has to be something. I mean, it's so impractical to carry a giant hoop unless you shrunk it down to a finger ring but the problem was that it was found as a hoop at Batson's farm. So, Sky (meaning I) thought it was a silver circlet (circlet: a circular decoration, especially a decorative band worn on the head; e.g. a lightweight tiara or crown). It seemed in all measures very possible and just as majestic for a piece of jewellery from Nebula's time.
As for the entire concept that this trouble was from a piece of jewellery, I think that that was an affront/insult/attack to his masculinity. Personally, I think it's hilarious. He's a freaking guy. What do you expect from him?! Guys are dense sometimes.
The (Sky's) ring/royal seal. That was a part of the show and nothing important actually happened with the ring except that he had pawned it off for money and had to retrieve it. In my story, there are two rings: the real one and fake one. In the show, there is only one. I have this sinking suspicion that the ring will be important in the latter half of the show. I have an alternate purpose to it in my story.
MIR. Yes, there is such a thing. This is the military equivalent of the nurse's office except they do have beds, quarantine rooms, medication, etc. However, they are not equipped like a hospital. We have hospitals for that.
Something important to reflect on is Klaus's many dilemmas. He is a single parent (as far as episode thirteen, at least) raising one daughter who seems to be mixing herself in the wrong crowd (the Winx Club). Everyone might not see the girls as we do. We know for a fact that they are not evil but Klaus does not. All he sees is a group of mixed girls taking his Roxy away from him to only come back in new strange clothes, disoriented and exhausted, maybe even drunk or drugged. How does a father react to that? He simply sends the girls away believing that he is doing it in the best of Roxy's interests. Most parents are like that.
(Comments here have been removed to my forum. I tend to go crazy with these things.)
Lastly, Bloom has this really nasty habit of running away when the truth becomes too unbearable. She has done this so many times in the show; it makes me wonder if she is a capable queen. When 'Brandon' first revealed that he was in fact Sky, Bloom ran to her parents. In season two, Bloom and the gang went back home again to take a break from school. In season three, Bloom goes home after Sky, under a spell, proclaims love to Diaspro and reinstates his engagement.
Like geesh, I think almost killing someone qualifies as her seasonal 'run home to mommy and daddy.'