Wind Beneath My Wings: Alexa's Story

"Heart Holders, convergence! Fire Storm!"

I pressed my hand into Ildri's and together we raised it up, channeling our power towards Gunner, who blew backwards, overwhelmed by the combination of fire and wind. Behind him, Evanne opened a void portal, which he flew into. She sealed it behind him. "Woo-hoo!" Adaline called. "We did it!"

"Or did you?"

Turning, we saw Gunner smiling in a creepy and evil way that almost made me shiver. Behind him were Trudric and Nyklus. "What the hell?" Ildri exclaimed. "Didn't Evanne just send you to Never-Neverland?"

"Merely an image of him."

Again, we turned, just in time to see Killian's smirk. Beside him was Rider. We were surrounded.

"Gather up, everyone!" Adaline said. "Let's rock these creeps!"

"We've been trying to do that very thing for an hour," Evanne said. "It's bordering on hopeless and illogical."

I sighed. "We can't give up, Evanne. Everyone, focus your powers!"

The Heart Holders touched their fingers together, gathering strength. However, we weren't the only ones doing it. The Black Circle Apprentices also formed their own circle, with power that took the place of the air around us. It was impossible to breathe in anything but magic with the two circles, but luckily we could survive without breathing. It was one of the benefits that came with being a magical girl.

Suddenly, I felt myself being ripped from our circle, drawn to the other. The wind, my own power, started to betray me, carrying me into the circle. "Alexa!" I heard Adaline cry as I was thrown into the Black Circle. I beat my wings, attempting with all my strength to get out, but it was like running into the ceiling of a dome. I let my human senses relax and make way for my magical senses, and suddenly I could see a dark purple barrier that rippled and waved. It should have been weak, but when I blasted it, the barrier did not falter. My air beam shot back at me, and I crumpled to the bottom of the dome. With great effort, I stood up, seeing the Black Circle Apprentices outside the barrier, forming a circle around me. Farther away, I saw the Heart Holders racing towards me, but they got smaller and smaller, as if they were moving away.

"No!" I whispered. "This totally, completely cannot be happening to me!"

That was the last thing I said before the blue sky around me vanished, and I found myself in a dark room, still surrounded by a purple force-field, though without anyone else in site- not even the fairy traitor Rider.

Alone in the dark, I began trying to make my way out. I punched the barrier, but it felt like punching a brick wall. My knuckles began to bleed, and my fingers hurt like crazy, though I didn't think anything was broken. With my other hand, I tried to blast the force field with a magic beam again, but as it did last time, it only reflected back onto me, hitting me in the side of the head and knocking me unconscious.

When I woke up, Rider was there, smiling warmly. The expression looked out of place in the purple prison bubble I was trapped inside. As she was outside, her dark brown hair was tinted purple, and her normally lightly tanned skin currently looked like the hide of Barney the Dinosaur. "Feeling any better?" she asked.

I narrowed my eyebrows and glared at her. "Why do you care?"

"Because you're a guest here at the Black Circle Health Clinic," she said, motioning around.

For the first time, I noticed that the room was a little lighter. Sterile white beds were on one side of the room, and next to me was another force field prison with another girl inside, sleeping or unconscious. "Looks like a mad science lab to me. Or like The School in the Maximum Ride books."

"You have those in Australia?"

"We're far from third world, Rider."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I don't really know much about the land down under. Anyway, we're not here to make you uncomfortable. We're just going to pull your wings off. Oh, and of course, you'll have to stay here until your friends come to rescue you. We can't let you be the only lucky healthy one, right?"

"Is this some sort of sick joke?" I said. "You're going to kill my magical form, then use me as bait so you can do it to my friends, and while you're doing it you're going to play the part of the compassionate nurse?"

"I am the compassionate nurse, as best as I can be. Killian's already made me promise not to feed you. Do you want him to make me promise that I won't even be nice to you? Or that I'll hurt you? Alexa, I want to save you, really. But we've already talked about how you're just as much use to us beat up, bruised, and broken as you are whole and healthy- maybe more. If you were hurt, your friends might be motivated to come quicker. I'm trying to be nice. We aren't the bad guys, after all."

"You launched an attack in Thessaloniki, Greece that almost killed a man. The only thing that stopped a whole lot of death was the emergence of two magical girls."

"I told them that Thessaloniki was stupid. It made them look much more aggressive than they are. I refused to even participate."

"Why didn't you stop them?"

"Because Killian might love me, but he has to put his beliefs first." She said it in the voice of someone repeating a fact that they hated, but knew was the unavoidable truth. "He told me that he has to be the one to save this world. He's going to revolutionize it. Someday, we'll be remembered through history together, but for now I have to step back and let him work."

Okay, so it was really stupid. Rider was my major enemy. I mean, the Heart Holders came to the United States specifically to stop her and the Apprentices. But her voice was so sad, and it seemed like she was having some major guy issues. "Are you guys…"

"We're dating, if you can call it that. It isn't exactly romantic, saving the world." She let out a short laugh. "Sometimes, I'm not even sure what I'm doing. But I know we can work anything out. That's what love is… right?"

I shrugged. I had no clue what to say. I could either break Rider's heart by telling her the truth, or I could let her go on believing in her evil mastermind boyfriend. Both seemed really, really cruel. I almost could feel my own heart breaking. Rider seemed nice, and that was confusing. Weren't nice and good the same things? I felt instinctively that if we had been on the same side, she would have been my friend, probably would have been one of the Heart Holders. With a reluctant smile, I changed the topic. "So, when you aren't hanging out with Killian or ripping the wings off of fairies, what do you like to do?"

We must have talked for an hour, maybe two, when the alarm started ringing. Rider jumped up. "Stay there," she said, as if I could go anywhere else. "That's a security breach. Someone's inside."

She ran out of the lab-like room, and I listened. Within minutes, I heard the fluttering of wings- many wings- and, in the opposite direction, shouting. I was almost prepared when the door to the lab was kicked in, although I still felt my heart speed up. "We're here to rescue you!" shouted a loud voice with an American accent. It belonged to a girl with blonde hair (tinted purple by the prison field) in the same style as Ildri's was, although this girl's hair was lighter. She stormed into the room, and I could see a petite brunette who looked about twelve behind her.

The blonde came up to my bubble. "You're Karina Dupree?" she asked. "Your description is wrong. It said you'd have green eyes, not violet."

"They're blue, they just look purple due to the magic field. And my name isn't Karina. I'm Alexa Verlac."

"Well, then where's Karina? We were sent here specifically to rescue her, and the rest of my friends can't hold off the Wizards much longer, even if there's only three of them and three of us."

I pointed to the bubble next to me, and the blonde girl smiled. "Thanks. In return for your help, I'll rescue you too."

"You'd do that anyway, Avalon," the brunette said. She then smiled at me. "This is Avalon, and I'm Mia. We're fairies."

"I'm Alexa. I'm a fairy too, though I prefer to be known as a magical girl."

Mia's eyes lit up. "I love you! Oh my goodness, that is awesome! Do you have, like a magical girl team?"

"Yeah, I'm part of the Heart Holders. There's four of us."

"And you have catch phrases and everything?"

I struck a pose as best I could inside the cramped purple bubble. "Mine is the heart that blows away sorrow! Heart Holder of air, my name is Alexa!"

I thought Mia looked about to faint from excitement. "This is so awesome," she said.

"Whatever, it's all a bunch of stupid show. It didn't keep this Alexa girl from getting captured." I looked at Avalon, who was holding what seemed to be a giant white hula hoop. She passed it over the purple bubble surrounding the other girl, and the prison disintegrated before everyone's eyes. "Mia, magical girls aren't real, besides us of course. They're just fairy tales."

"That doesn't even make sense. You just said that besides fairies, there are no magical girls. Alexa is a fairy; therefore, she can be a magical girl."

"I said besides us," Avalon said as she started using the white hula hoop on my bubble. "Us fairy finders have experience in fighting baddies with magic. This girl is just playing at it."

"What did you say?"

I didn't even have to look for the source of this voice. "Ildri!" I exclaimed. "You came!"

"Yeah, we all did, but I left Evanne and Adaline fighting Rider and Killian, so we have to hurry. Who're these people, by the way? More baddies?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Avalon cut in. "We're the real heroes around here, actually. I'm Avalon MacAdams, and this is Mia Brice. We're from the Institute of Magic in Gardenia, California. You know… the big leagues. So why don't you take your friends and run and let us do the ass-kicking?"

"Avalon, you're being mean," Mia said.

"Mia, you're being stupid."

I looked at Ildri, whose face was turning as red as her transformation outfit. "Flame Lick!" she cried, shooting a blast of fire straight at Avalon.

It hit Avalon in the back, knocking her forward just as the prison disintegrated. She landed right on top of me. "Oh, it is on," she hissed, and wordlessly fired a beam of strange energy at Ildri, who dodged it flawlessly and threw a couple fireballs of her own. Avalon was already prepared, having created a shield that looked like a giant gear.

Ildri didn't give Avalon a chance to put down the shield and attack before she flew at Avalon, aiming punches and kicks that were made much more powerful by the fact that she had set her own hands on fire. Avalon dodged and deflected, but finally gave up with defense and summoned a magical wire that entangled my best friend and tied her up.

I watched Ildri clench her fists. "Oh dear," I murmured.

Mia looked at me, confused. "What?"

My power started draining, and I only tried halfheartedly to resist. "All the Heart Holders have a charm on them. We can all draw power from each other while we possess this charm, like convergence, but only one person has to cast the spell. I'm Ildri's favorite to draw from, since air feeds fire."

With a cry and a big explosion, Ildri broke free from Avalon's wire bindings. The explosion knocked all the rest of us down. "How's that for amateur?" Ildri cried.

Avalon stood up, energy seeping from her fingers. "You little…"

"Stop!"

I suppose by this point, I should have been used to people appearing at the door dramatically. I looked up and saw a woman, older than me, glaring at Avalon. "What are you doing? Why are you fighting? We all have to get out now… we're going to end up being overwhelmed. Where's Karina?"

Avalon pointed to the unconscious girl on the floor. "Then who are the other two?" the woman asked.

"I'm Alexa," I said. "And the violent one is Ildri. We're two of the Heart Holders, a magical girl team."

"There are other teams. That makes sense," said the woman. "My name is Lysis. I'm the leader of the domestic team from the Institute of Magic."

"You're a team that cooks?" Ildri asked, refraining from shooting the fireball in her hand.

"Domestic as in not international, actually."

"Borrrr-ing," Ildri whispered.

"I agree," Mia said from next to her.

Lysis turned to Avalon. "We all need to get going. Why would you fight another fairy? We need all the help we can get."

"She started it!"

"I know you, Avalon… did she really?"

"I really did," Ildri admitted. "Sorry, only not really. She's a jerk."

"Yes, I know. Come on, Avalon, Mia. Let's get Roxy and Kaylee and go." With a snap of Lysis's fingers, Karina began to levitate and follow Lysis.

Avalon began to follow Lysis, but Mia didn't. "Are you coming?" Avalon asked.

"I… if it's okay with them, I want to join the Heart Holders," Mia said.

Lysis frowned, but Avalon was the one who really flipped out. "You can't do that! We need you! You're the only one who speaks Mandarin!"

"Nobody actually needs to! When have we run into a Chinese fairy?"

"Evanne's family is Chinese," Ildri noted. "But she's one of us."

"Well… well… you need us, though! You can't even transform! You can't even protect yourself! You can't even change your hair color!"

"Did you guys try to teach her?" I asked.

Lysis shook her head. "We believe in letting girls come into it when they're ready. Not forcing it."

"But she's exhibited magic. There's a difference between forcing it and unlocking it. I couldn't transform at first, either. I still have trouble. Maybe we can help her with that."

Lysis considered for a second, and then nodded. "We'll have to keep in contact. Mia is our responsibility, but if you're willing to help with that, you can."

"I can't believe you're letting them do this!" Avalon said.

"If Mia wants to, we can't hold her back. Besides, Kristina's wanted to travel a little bit more. This way, we have a space in the car for her."

Avalon grumbled a little, then sighed and hugged Mia. "Don't be stupid," she said, then left with Lysis.

We left the room too, all three of us, Mia and I running down the hall, Ildri flying. Soon enough, we ran into Evanne and Adaline. They were standing around Rider, throwing energy at the shield she had up. It was ruthless and unfair- Killian was lying on the ground, knocked out. "Guys, let's go," I said sharply. "I'm here. We can leave."

"Why don't we just finish what we came to America for?" Evanne said.

"I can't right now. Come on guys, let's go."

Evanne and Adaline reluctantly stopped, and we headed outside.

I only glanced back once. Rider was crying.

Author's Note: Sorry this chapter was so long coming! I wrote it like three times, three different ways. But this is the final, and whew, it was intense. Two fight scenes, a character leaving the FoF team (for now, if not forever), and some major character and a little bit of plot development. Next chapter is lighter- it goes along with Akela Victoire's Nerine.

Also, submissions are officially CLOSED. Thanks for all the characters!

Akela Victoire has suggested that all authors write a quick backstory about their character before they found out they were a fairy. Is their interest in a compilation of that?