Chapter 7- Hope and Disbelief
Timmy watched Tecna as she held her head in her hands. She sat on the step with her PDA in her lap. Tears fell down on her keyboard. The Winx girls all stood around with looks of defeat and despair. The guys were trying desperately to comfort them and give them hope, but with no avail. Sky just leaned against the wall stoically, his eyes staring blankly out the window. No one had any idea how to help Bloom. No one understood what had happened to Bloom, for that matter.
The guys had arrived a couple of hours after the girls had. They'd been on a mission when they received the call from Sky, so they had to hurry with the mission and rush to Sparks. Hearing what happened over the phone made it seem unbelievable. But coming to Sparks and finding the girls practically in mourning made it entirely believable.
Timmy sat next to Tecna and glanced at the PDA screen. The charts still flashed and bar graphs bobbed as they measured the different frequencies of matter. Watching the bar graphs, Timmy recognized numbers. They were indeed similar to numbers taken at black holes. It was only missing the intense gravity readings. Otherwise the apparent bending of the light and the odd time fluctuations followed the pattern perfectly.
"You're certain it has nothing to do with magic whatsoever?" Riven asked in a slightly irritated voice.
"Tecna's rarely wrong Riven. If magic was used, we might've sensed it." Layla crossed her arms and stared Riven down. "Hell, we even tried using our Tracix. We got shit." Timmy could sense her troubled hostility.
"Cool it Lay." Musa placed a hand on Layla's shoulder. " We got this."
"Do we really?" Stella asked quietly. Everyone gazed at her in surprise. She'd been completely silent since the guys had shown up. "We never really had anything. Bloom had it all. Without her we're nothing." Stella closed her eyes and looked away from the group.
"No." Musa said sternly. "We might be missing Bloom, but that doesn't mean we're worthless. We're not nothing. Bloom was not the Winx Club. Us plus Bloom was the Winx Club." Musa grabbed Stella's hands. "We can do anything. We'll figure this out."
Timmy had to smile. Musa had a lot of confidence to spare. Hopefully it would be enough to spur all the girls. He turned his attention back to Tecna. "Well, you've figured the time aspect of that space had been tampered with. That doesn't mean anything now. But if you run it through the web and pull up resources related to time tamper, you may find something."
Tecna sniffed and wiped at her tears. She looked up at Timmy, her large teal eyes tinted red. "I did. Not a single solid piece relating to time tamper. It's never been done. The closest thing we came to was black holes. And well…" Tecna gave a sigh and glanced toward the light flicker, "…obviously there is no black hole involved here." She hugged herself. "I've never felt so useless and unknowing in my life."
"No one's perfect. There's a first for everything." Riven yawned. Layla smacked him in the arm and he yelped. "What?"
"You're being useless." Layla grumbled.
"Quit it." Flora pleaded. "I hate it when everyone fights."
"Did you check Oritel's collection of books?" Timmy tried, hoping to break up the tension. "He's got some pretty rare books. Maybe there was something in there?"
Stella shook her head. "Oritel had gone through the books. This is unprecedented."
Timmy fell quiet and thought. The event had never happened before. "And there was never a theory about it?"
"No." Tecna mumbled.
"These are unheard of forces then." Timmy said, vexed by the situation. He stared at the hard floor. He could understand what Tecna was going through. He glanced up and saw Sky with clenched jaw and blank stare. Both Tecna and Sky were suffering from the effects of not knowing. His gaze turned to Layla and Riven throwing each other glares. Even they were being affected by the tension.
Timmy sighed and stood up. "I can't take all your hostility and despair. I need a minute outside." Nobody moved as he walked away.
Timmy stepped outside, his eyes adjusting to the dark of night. The cool air made him shiver. The grounds were void of any life. He was alone.
"Sometimes people need to think alone." Timmy said to himself.
"Do you want me to leave then?"
Timmy turned and saw Musa standing in the doorway, her pale skin luminescent in the moonlight. "Hi." Timmy said. "You were right in there."
Musa nodded. "Somebody had to be. Everybody else was wrong, giving up so easily." She strode over and stared out over the grounds. "I couldn't take the hostility and the despair either."
"You don't have to leave." Timmy said, answering her question. "I can't think with people moping and staring one another down."
Musa nodded again and looked to the skies. "One can't give up hope in times where hope is needed." She tilted her head. "That makes me think about the story of Pandora."
Timmy glanced at her surprise. "The myth?"
She looked at him. "Some people believe those 'myths' to be true. That's why I always refer to them as stories." Musa returned her gaze to the skyline. "She was given a box she was told to never open. Curiosity got the best of her and she opened it. Turned out she released evil and sickness. She struggled to close the box. When she did, one thing was still in the box."
"Hope." Timmy said. "Hope is the one thing all humanity has been able to retain after all time."
"Yep." Musa agreed. "That's why I like to look at the moon and stars. They're lights in the dark giving hope to countless generations before me and many generations after me. At least that's what I believe…"
Timmy's mind snapped. "Believe."
"Yeah." Musa said quietly.
"No." Timmy said quietly.
"What?" Musa looked at him in surprise.
"Not believe. Unbelieve." Timmy turned and hurried back into the palace, Musa on his heels. He rushed up the steps to where everyone stood where he left them. "Unbelieve."
Everyone glanced at him like he was mad. "What?" Stella asked.
"I said the forces were unheard of. I think I was wrong." Timmy looked at everyone. Their attentions were locked on him now. "The forces are probably heard of, just not believed in. The force at work is probably one we know of, but we don't think of it as a real force." Timmy walked over and knelt next to Tecna on the step. "Cross reference time disturbance with mythological information."
"Timmy…that's…mad." Tecna said slowly.
"What else to we have? I figured it was time to resort to the absurd…no the unbelievable. We weren't getting anything from solid facts or theories." Timmy gave Tecna a wry smile.
Tecna just gazed at him a moment more, slightly dazed by his outburst. Then she nodded. "Right." She focused on her PDA and typed away furiously.
"You know this will work?" Helia asked Timmy.
Timmy looked Helia in the eyes. "I don't know anything at this point. We don't know anything at this point. All we can do is hope. Hope is all we have at this point." He glanced at Musa and Musa just nodded.
"Well?" Stella leaned down on Tecna's other side. "Are we getting anything?"
Tecna narrowed her eyes. "Actually…yes. My computer took me to websites containing bits of ancient lore." She clicked a couple times. "There are a number of myths pertaining to the aspect of time. One such myth was that of Kronos. He was a titan often associated with time. Then there was the god Khonsu, a god of the moon. There are a number of myths…"
"There's a god out to get Bloom?" Stella put a hand on her head. "How will we take on a god?"
"I doubt a god or a titan is seriously after Bloom." Brandon reassured Stella.
Tecna pulled up another webpage. "No…but a servant of his might. Has anyone ever heard of the Eternal Fairies?"
"The what?" Sky had snapped out of his blankness and joined the group.
"Apparently they're fairies gifted with powers of divine proportion. The one I specifically came across…" Tecna looked up, "…was Eilian. She was a fairy gifted with powers of time in order to protect the flow of time."
"Yeah and?" Roxy looked at Tecna. "What has all that got to do with Bloom's disappearance?"
"She's capable of working with time. Perhaps she removed Bloom from the flow of time?" Tecna suggested.
"But…she's mythological isn't she?" Helia pointed out. "How do you hunt up a myth?"
"You don't hunt up a myth. You look for clues." Musa stated. "So we look for this Eilian chick and we make her talk."
"Where do we find these clues?" Roxy asked.
Timmy glanced over Tecna's shoulder at the computer screen. "There are a number of cults claiming to have scrolls in association with Eilian's realm. Perhaps that's where we should start."
"It's a start." Tecna smiled and kissed Timmy. "More than we had in the first place."
Author's Note- Yay Timmy! Timmy and Tecna teamwork all the way! Hope you like this one.