Sorry this is a bit later than normal; I wasn't feeling amazing yesterday, so I wrote the last bit of this just now. I hope you like it! Early warning, I am thinking I'll probably go on hiatus when arc one is finished. Not for too long, just to let me focus on some other fics.
This is bad…this is bad…this is bad… Roxy covered her mouth, trying to stifle the sounds of her breathing. Two pairs of feet stopped just in front of the desk. Oh, come on! What is this, a movie?! Why'd they have to stop there?!
'Lord Prime, staying here is madness…'
'Zeron, you are an advisor. I chose you to advise me. As such, I appreciate your input on the situation. But I have applied my immense skills of reasoning, and I have determined that your course of action is flawed. We must stay here. What if someone should chose to break in while we evacuated? Do you know the kind of information we have here?'
'Well, true…but the droids!'
'We control the droids. Androsi superstition will not dictate my actions. This is not the result of an oversized fish prodding some rocks; this is simply a glitch. And we will not fix it from the hills. I was not chosen to lead this planet because I am a thrall to primitive nonsense.'
Roxy shrank back further, trying not to make a single sound. She knew she should have made Aidan do this! He'd have an idea! As it was, her only plan was to stay silent and hope.
'We will surely come back online soon, Lord Prime…'
'Indeed we shall. Because I will be getting us back online.'
Roxy tried to control her breathing as Kryos sat down at the desk, his feet mere millimetres from her leg. If she moved, she'd be discovered. And arrested. Dammit, why did I agree to do this?! What's wrong with me?! Am I insane?!
She couldn't just sit here. Kryos wasn't leaving until this place came back online, and once it was online, she'd be caught for sure. Aidan had said some stuff about the security while they were on the ship…but nothing about how to evade it, just a million bad things that'd get her caught.
Okay, plan. She needed a plan. Hands shaking, she ran her fingers through the ends of her hair. Naomi had shown her this spell a million times. She'd got it right at least six of those million times. She was getting seen, no way around it, but if the scanners were down, all that would see her were eyes. And eyes could be deceived…
She rubbed her eyes, as though trying to massage the glamour into them. Physical movement helped some people, and she needed all the help she could get her frozen hands on.
Shoving herself as far back as possible, she managed to turn her coat inside out, showing the purple lining. Good. So she only had to glamour her trousers and boots.
All the spells were starting to make her dizzy, but she had to summon the magic for one final use of magic. Getting into position to sprint, she flicked her finger, knocking over a large filing cabinet across the room. As Kryos and Zeron exclaimed with surprise, Roxy kicked Kryos's chair back, bolting out and hurtling towards the exit as fast as her legs would carry her.
'Stop! Cease your escape!'
Roxy opted not to stop her escape, running faster and faster. Her heart sank as the lights started to flicker their way back to stability. The Pillar…it must be fixed. Which meant things were coming back online. Aidan had said the in-depth magic scanners and other advanced systems would need a hard reboot to come back online, but that didn't mean that the doors were waiting around.
'Override: Prime voiceprint!' The doors whooshed shut, and Roxy's heels skidded on the floor. No time for panic! Just find another exit!
'Droids! Stop her!' The droids seemed at a bit of a loss as to what to do, glitching in and out of functionality, but blasting a teenage girl was much the same as blasting a wall, so they drunkenly flew after her as Roxy gritted her teeth to keep up the glamour all over her. If she kept it up, Kryos's would be looking for a girl with tan skin, blue eyes and short green hair. If she dropped it, then Kryos would be looking for her. Which…would be bad. No, that would be terrible. Her dad had rolled with it every time he'd been told she'd smuggled a lemur out of the zoo, but he probably wouldn't take this so well. Unless she just got thrown in Zenith jail and he didn't find out.
She could hear Kryos hurrying along behind her, yet not running. Apparently Zenithians didn't run, they just…followed the robots. If Kryos caught up, she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep the illusion up properly.
'Way out…' she muttered through heaving breaths. 'Need a way out!'
As though answering her prayers in a very questionable fashion, she skidded around a corner to see a huge window towering before her. On one side, a potentially lethal drop. On the other, definite arrest. Well, time to throw a table through a window.
Kryos made it in just as Roxy followed the recently-chucked table through the snowstorm of glass, falling out into the snowstorm of snow that covered the whole planet. Riven had jumped out of Cloud Tower once, according to his bragging, and he was just fine. Well, no, but his personality had nothing to do with the experience of jumping out of a window. She was gonna be fine. Unfortunately, her vocal cords found her argument unconvincing, and she screamed as she fell, the frozen air stinging her lungs. Okay, not now! She reached out, grabbing the pincer of one of the droids trying to grab her, her weight yanking it down, but dramatically slowing her fall. She grabbed onto another, then another, each sudden addition of her weight bringing her closer to the ground. She should use her wings, but she couldn't glamour her fairy form. Well, not easily.
'Soft landing, please!' She swung back and forth on her droid, trying to get out of Kryos's eyeline. She managed to get around The Spire, but…well, there was still the issue of the ground being very hard and unyielding. She really hoped Naomi was doing well on her assignment, because right now, she couldn't help but think that Naomi's magic would be far more suited to this predicament. Zenith didn't even have any animals! What was Roxy meant to do?!
'Hold on!' She glanced down, raising an eyebrow at the hopping head of black hair under her. 'Hang on! Literally! I got you! Give me a minute!' Aidan began shoving the snow at the side of the road into a big pile, until it was large enough to act as a decent landing pad.
'Okay! Go limp, roll, and trust me!'
Roxy had done a lot of stupid stuff in her life. No, seriously. Not something to get into right now. Whatever. But letting go of a haywire droid twenty metres above a metal street based on the word of someone she'd personally seen eat the wrapper for a Kit-Kat because he was distracted…well, that had to score top-five, right?
'Oh, what the hell? If I die, tell people it was way cooler than this!' She let go, swinging off towards the snow pile. Her body hit powder, and she rolled, gasping from the impact as she was scooped up by arms that were…actually more muscular than they looked. She made a mental note to congratulate Naomi.
'Are you okay? Any broken bones? Can you move all your fingers. What about your toes?'
'Yes, no, and yes, just run! Kryos is behind me! And the droids are gonna get scanning capabilities any time! They might already, I don't know these things!'
'They're not back online yet; we'll know when they get scanning back online.'
'How?'
'We'll both die.'
Roxy almost ran into a building as she whipped around to stare at Aidan.
He shrugged, ducking through weirdly clean back alleys. 'There's a reason Zenith has the lowest physical crime rates in the dimension.'
'What, people just get…killed by droids?'
'Depends on the severity of the situation and if they listen to the 'surrender or be terminated' order.' This was…the most disturbing planet in the dimension. With that revelation, she understood Nebula's refusal to allow the armies of others to march onto her planet. Roxy wouldn't let these droids, this regime, near her dad to save a million oceans.
'Coat!' Aidan gasped out as Roxy's disguise fell away. 'Nice job on the glamours, really amazing, but your coat!'
'Right!' Her coat was still inside out, and that wouldn't do. She couldn't be recognisable. Slipping the drive out of her pocket, she gasped with cold as she whipped her coat off, flipping it back the right way and slipping it on just as they slowed down to calmly walk to the landing pad where their ship was waiting. They strolled as causally as two students completing a mission, which, technically, they were. Except no authority had given them this mission, and it was in violation of several laws. Roxy repeated the mantra that the Winx screwed with the law all the time over and over, hoping that her sort-of-Winx status would help her get away with this through the strange mechanics of the universe.
'Roxy! Aidan!' Brandon waved them over to join the group trooping back onto the ship. 'Man, what happened to you, Roxy?'
Roxy glanced down at herself, grimacing as she noticed that she was pretty bruised from hitting the snow, as well as covered in aforementioned snow.
'…Droids?' Not a lie, the droids had forced her to jump.
Brandon would probably have investigated further, were it not for the fact that Kyral had chipped a nail and was dramatically fainting into his arms.
'Whoa! Okay, Kyral, yep, all good, on your feet, you're fine, up we go, good girl.' Brandon quickly chivvied her onto the ship, the girl pouting at having been so quickly shaken off the guy voted 'hottest at Red Fountain' two years in a row by the poll in Nova's paper.
'Okay, everyone on board!'
Roxy hurried on just as some droids began creeping into her field of vision, the electric crackling speaking of their malfunctions starting to fade as they sparked back to coherence. She wanted to yell for Brandon to punch it, but that would be suspicious as hell. So she just settled in her seat, casually checked her phone, generally acted like a normal Alfea fairy. To her surprise, her phone glitched its way back to life, displaying her screensaver of her and her dad at the bar when she was nine. God, she missed being nine. Life was simpler.
She scrolled through her contacts, opting to call her dad first. She didn't know whether Earth was affected by the Pillars, but she needed him to know she was okay. He'd hooked himself up to nine Magic Dimension news feeds, and when they all went down, he'd have been so worried.
'Dad?'
'Butterfly? Oh, thank god. Morgana! Morgana, she's okay! Roxy, honey, your mom and I have been trying to reach you all night! She even tried psychic communication. I know you said you weren't comfortable with that, but all the news feeds crackled out of existence, and you wouldn't pick up, and I'd tried you fifty times…'
'Dad…Dad! Dad, it's okay. I'm okay.' I'm smuggling top-secret government data, but I'm okay. 'Is everything okay on Earth?'
'Kinda. A bunch of tech crashed, but not too badly.' Huh.
Roxy looked to Aidan, and he shrugged. 'Earth was detached from the Magic Dimension for a pretty long time thanks to the wizards. As they connect back to magic, they'll become more affected by these things.' Ah. Well, dammit. That sucked.
'Dad, the Pillar of Control went down. All the tech in the dimension went haywire.' Roxy breathed a sigh of relief as the ship took off, gliding into the safe abyss of space. 'I got dispatched to Zenith with Aidan - you know Aidan?'
'Hi!' Aidan waved at the phone, and Roxy switched to face view, letting her dad see him. 'I'm Aidan! You know that, but I'm still waving! …I don't know why.'
Roxy turned the phone back to her, rolling her eyes fondly. 'I got dispatched to Zenith with the crazy waver, Brandon, and a bunch of others to help deal with haywire droids.' And steal data. 'Naomi got sent to deal with a dragon, and the Winx are in the Infinite Ocean trying to…well, I'm not sure. They need to get the Pillar fixed, but I don't really know how their Sirenix works. I think…I think they have to use their vital essence? Or, like, Tecna does? Stella had to use her vital essence to fix the Pillar of Light, so…yeah.'
'Roxy?' Morgana ran into the phone's view, exhaling with relief. 'Oh, thank the gods…you're alright!'
'A pillar went down,' Roxy's dad relayed. 'The Winx are doing a thing, and Aidan waves.'
'What?'
'Hi!' Aidan waved again. 'I'm Aidan! The waving guy!' He shot a helpless glance to Roxy. 'I don't know why I'm doing this; make me stop.'
Roxy gently pushed him out of shot, and he facepalmed, muttering, 'Smooth, Aidan. What happens when you meet Naomi's parents? You gonna wave at them? Seriously, dude…'
The words made Roxy wince, reminding her that Aidan was never going to meet Naomi's family. Not now, Roxy…
'I'm okay, Mom. Heading back to Alfea now. Is everything okay with the other fairies?'
Morgana grimaced. 'Nebula made the announcement that she finally understood technology right before her phone glitched and just started playing an endless loop of Greenday. She tried to banish it to hell.' Some days, Roxy quietly questioned her mom's choice to give Nebula the throne. The Fairy of Peace sure had a temper…
The ship landed at Alfea, and Roxy sprinted off, closely followed by Aidan.
Naomi was leaning against the gates, changed into real clothes and looking far more at ease. The headphones had been permanently shed now, and she had regained her catlike air of quiet superiority.
'Naomi!' Aidan sprinted over to her, stopping short just before he could scoop her up into his arms. 'Hey! Are you okay? Roxy said all this was nails on a chalkboard for you.'
Naomi nodded, rubbing her eyes tiredly. 'Yeah…it was all a bit much, but I'm good now.' She glanced around, looking conspiratorially to her friends. '…Did you get it?'
Roxy patted her pocket, and Naomi's eyes lit up.
'Still gonna have to decrypt it,' Aidan admitted quietly, 'but we can get a look later. You guys come round to my room, and we'll bust this thing open.'
'Sounds like a date.'
Aidan turned bright pink at Naomi's words, shuffling his feet as awkwardly as he nodded. 'Yes!'
'Aw…a date, with you, Naomi, me, and Manuel. What are you into here, Aidan?' Roxy smirked, and Aidan almost fell down.
Roxy linked arms with Naomi, walking into Alfea.
'We'll be there at four!' Naomi called over.
As Aidan attempted to remember which way was up, Roxy giggled. 'Oh, he's so in love with you! Marry him.'
Naomi rolled her eyes, detaching herself from Roxy. 'Yeah, whatever, Princess. We haven't even kissed. Think we should get that out of the way before marriage.'
Roxy glanced back at where Aidan was getting on a shuttle back to his school. 'He's still here. He'd hear us if we yelled.'
'Yell, and I'll test out what the incantation I memorised from Ogron's triple-padlocked spellbook does.'
'You sound curious. I'll yell.' Roxy turned and opened her mouth, and Naomi practically tackled her.
'No!'
'Relax! I'm kidding! I'm kidding!' Roxy ducked out from under Naomi's teasing grip, jogging back to their dorm. 'You're so cute when you're shy.'
'I'm not shy!' Naomi chased Roxy back into their room, whacking her with a pillow. 'Would a shy girl do this?'
'I don't know. I'm shy sometimes, so let's test the theory!' Naomi was promptly hit with Roxy's biggest cushion.
'Oh, you little-!' Roxy didn't find out what that insult had been set to turn into, shrieking with laughter as every cushion on her bed was whipped into the air with her new levitation spell, flying towards Naomi. Oh, magic made pillow fights a universe better!
Once every cushion in the room had been turned into a projectile and eventually ended up on the floor, the room drenched in a joyous aura of childish magic, Roxy tackled Naomi onto the bed, giggling madly.
'Did the great Naomi Hunter just lose a pillow fight?' she teased, and Naomi rolled her eyes.
'Nobody called the end of the fight, Princess.'
Roxy gasped as Naomi's blanket snapped into the form of a throw pillow, biffing her in the face before transforming back into a crocheted little net that both girls got tangled in.
'Dammit…' Roxy gasped through her laughter, rolling off Naomi and almost onto the floor. 'We had a dimensional crisis this morning…what are we doing?'
'Being kids…' Naomi replied breathlessly, smoothing her hair. 'Think we're supposed to do that a bit more.'
Roxy nodded in agreement, picking herself up and shaking her head at the mess they'd managed to make. 'Damn, this is gonna take a year to clean up.'
Naomi clapped her hands, and everything picked itself back up and headed back to its own places like something out of a Disney movie.
'Wow, a year sure goes fast.'
Roxy raised an eyebrow. 'I thought Grizelda said it was better not to use magic for everything? Over-reliance and stuff?'
Naomi shifted awkwardly. 'I…inherited a lot of stuff from Ogron. Manipulation, tactical skills, a thirst for knowledge…an utter inability to perform mediocre tasks with hands instead of spells was on that list. Anagan tried to curb the habit, but…well, let's just say I'm at a bit of a loss without my magic.' She paused. 'Unless I'm in a fight. Then I just scratch and bite.'
'Oof. Reason three hundred I'm glad we just had to fight the wizards and not you in Gardenia.'
Both girls glanced to the door to see Stella leaning in the entryway.
'Hey, girls.'
'Hey.' Naomi raised an eyebrow. 'What's with the visit?'
Stella shrugged. 'Well, I thought Roxy might want an update on what was going on, since it's hella certain to come up at the next summit. Plus I got the feeling you'd be curious too.'
Roxy quickly took a seat, getting the feeling she was about to slapped in the face with a 'we've done something to potentially destabilise the universe' situation.
'We stopped Tritannus getting the seal of the Pillar of Control.' So far, so good. 'But we can't put it back.' There it was. 'Because then he'll steal it again, and he'll fix his chair and become supreme king fish man boy.'
Naomi snorted. 'That should be his official title, Sunshine.'
'I know, right? He wasn't very open to suggestions, though. Unless punching someone in the face is an Androsi way of saying 'Damn, what a cool title, can I use it?''
'Nah, punching someone in the face just means you don't like them,' Naomi replied, and Stella scoffed.
'Well, that's impossible. I'm way too lovable.'
'Wait wait wait…' Roxy rubbed her temples. 'So…we just…have an all-powerful seal lying around?'
Stella nodded awkwardly. 'Yeah…it's not great. Worse because now we gotta decide what to do with it.'
'I'm gonna go out on a limb here - and stop me if this is just too batshit crazy to even think about - but…how about keeping it away from the fish psycho?' Naomi deadpanned, stretching out on her bed and ruining her entire clean up spell as she rumpled the covers like a cat.
'Ooh, good thinking!' Stella chirped sarcastically. 'We never thought of that.' She facepalmed. 'Dammit! I gotta go tell the girls! We were about to airmail it to him!'
Naomi sniggered, while Roxy tried to think.
'So…what do we do?'
'We go back to the summit,' Stella replied. 'It's been set for a few days' time. It'd be sooner, but most planets need more time to recover properly. Until then, the seal is going to Altaduna. The planet has no oceans, and barely any bodies of water. Tritannus can't even move around there, and Icy's powers would barely function. It's the best place to keep it safe until we decide what we do with it permanently. We need all the seals back, and soon. Our Sirenix spells are sticky tape. They're just a temporary fix. Not a solution.'
'We need Tritannus,' Roxy mused aloud. 'And, well, the Trix, ideally.'
Stella snorted. 'Yeah, good luck. They've been coming back since freshman year. What is it about them that keeps getting them broken out of jail? Why does everyone wanna work with them?'
'You ever figure it out, let me know,' Naomi remarked. 'I'll let my family know.'
'You're being sarcastic, but if they ever give the supervillain thing another shot, I will personally advocate for them to be our new arch-enemies,' Stella groaned. 'Do you have any idea how much less annoying they are than the Trix?'
Naomi snickered. 'I'll let them know. Ogron would be so flattered.'
As Stella and Naomi giggled, Roxy had to look away. The universe kept prodding her, reminding her that she still hadn't told Naomi. What was she waiting for? Her deathbed? Ooh, now there was an idea…you couldn't be mad at a dying person…that was just science. Or empathy. Or whatever. But Naomi would figure it out way before Roxy's deathbed, so that idea was gonna have to go to the back of the idea queue. Damn. That would have fixed the problem.
'Roxy? Roxy? Roxanne Wilde?'
Roxy started as Stella snapped her fingers in her face. 'Gah! What?'
'You spaced out, honey.' Stella hopped up onto Roxy's bed next to her. 'You all good?'
Roxy nodded tiredly, not looking at Naomi. 'Mhm. All good.' When did I become such a liar?
'Welcome! Come in, come in!' Roxy and Naomi were pulled inside Aidan's room with an enthusiastic tug, the boy himself grinning with mad excitement.
'Whoa…' Naomi raised an eyebrow at the room. All the blinds were down, and Aidan had set up what appeared to be a movie-style hacker station. 'You've been busy…what's with the blinds?'
'If I'm gonna be a major criminal hacking conspiracies, I gotta embrace the aesthetic!' He held out a bag of Doritos. 'Hacker fuel?'
'Those are Doritos.'
'You want one or not?'
Naomi took the bag, flopping down on Aidan's bed. 'Want. Mm, cheese.'
'Best flavour.' The two high-fived over sharing Dorito preferences, and Roxy giggled. Cutest. Couple. Ever. Just as soon as they got together, of course.
There was a knock on the door, and Aidan hopped over some of the gadget detritus on the floor to open the door a crack and yank Manuel through.
'Dude! Where was the secret knock?'
'What secret knock?'
'This one!' Aidan performed what was really more of a drum solo than a knock, and Manuel rolled his eyes.
'I didn't do it. Because we don't need a secret knock?'
Aidan looked affronted. 'It makes all this seem more cloak and dagger. And Naomi remembered the secret knock.'
Manuel pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Look, man, you said you had something. Something other than a secret knock and spy delusions.'
Aidan looked a tad disappointed to have his hacker vibe ruined, but he shook it off, sliding into his desk chair. His fingers flew over the keyboard like Aisha through an obstacle course, entering about twenty passwords and clicking through several fake sites to finally reach a tiny little file labelled 'Dad's birthday present'. The file oddly enough required a password to see a 'birthday present', and once the file was open, Aidan was either getting his dad a bunch of pictures of a killer robot, or this was totally not about birthday presents.
Manuel let out a slow whistle at all the security. '…Dude.'
'You can never be too careful,' Aidan offered, clicking through the photos. 'Zenith has the best hackers in the dimension. If they find out that data got stolen, then I need as much encryption as I can get.'
'I agree.' Naomi leaned over the back of Aidan's chair, the specialist's cheeks heating up at how close she was, while her attention was solely focused on the screen in front of her. That was definitely Endgame…the sleek shell, the green slit, those hands…those hands that had closed around her…the fingers that had left long, red bruises up and down her arms…
'Naomi?' Roxy put a hand on her shoulder, and Naomi started, her claws sharpening on fearful instinct.
'Naomi, it's just me. Are you…okay?'
Naomi nodded slightly, biting her lip with the teeth that were instinctively sharpening to allow her to rip her aggressor to shreds. Her anatomy didn't know how useless it truly was. It just wanted to help. Sweet, but pointless.
'You don't have to look at this if you don't-'
Naomi shook her head, cutting Aidan off. 'No. No, I'm fine. I want to see this. I need to know.' If this data held answers, she needed them. Not second-hand from Roxy or Aidan, but right here, right now.
Aidan didn't seem convinced, but he wasn't arguing. 'Okay…' He clicked through the files, selecting one labelled 'Suck it, Zenith, I hacked you real good!'. 'I found the data that…someone…told me pertained to Endgame, but it was all encrypted. However, I got some pictures… Kryos has a lot of pictures of Endgame.'
'Why?' Roxy frowned at the screen. 'If he knows about this thing, why couldn't we find anything?'
Manuel shrugged. 'Military project gone wrong? Wouldn't be the first time a government's made something that got appropriated by unsavoury elements.'
'No way would Kryos want that getting out,' Roxy muttered. 'The realms seriously don't trust each other. Think I figured this place was like a big fairytale, with heroes and villains and dragons and junk, but sitting in the summit for five minutes…this is no friendship circle.'
'I'm pretty on board with the experiment gone wrong theory,' Aidan chipped in. 'These pictures are pretty detailed. They look like test runs.'
'Test runs for what?' Naomi wasn't loving this theory. Not because of its content, but because it was just…a theory. Not a concrete answer. Not an address for whose door she needed to kick down. Just an idea. And besides, if they were right, then Kryos didn't have Endgame anymore, so why should they care?
'Covert military ops?' Aidan suggested. 'He seems equipped. The shadow forums have always thought Zenith was trying to get a more efficient robot for this kind of thing, but the conspiracy theories, when they had any shred of evidence, always showed that it wasn't going well.'
'Why not?' Roxy asked curiously. 'Zenith has so many robots already.'
'Yeah, but they're all programmed to follow instructions. Even ai stuff has parameters. In combat, it can't adapt quickly enough. It needs a guide, a controller, but that means signals, and signals kill any shot at a totally covert mission.'
'Look, this is a great theory and all, but what do we actually have here?' Naomi demanded, swiping through the photos. 'These are all just pictures in random, remote locations. There's no information on who made this thing, or where we can find them, or even-' She flicked again, and her eyes widened. Endgame was on a table, his chest open to reveal wiring and twisted metal, set against the backdrop of a clean, clinical grey and green laboratory. It all looked like any old lab from a sci-fi movie. She'd seen sci-fi movies. She'd been fine. So why were her hands trembling? Why was she backing up? And why was Aidan talking in such a weird, muffled voice?
'Naomi? Naomi, are you okay?'
'Is she hearing us?'
'Whoa! Naomi!' She felt strong arms under her, stopping her hitting the ground as her legs gave out under her.
'Naomi! Naomi, talk to me! What's wrong?'
'You think it was the picture?'
'Unless she got freaked out by the weird chocolate bar on your desk, yeah, pretty damn sure.'
'Naomi?'
Everyone was trying to get her response, but Naomi couldn't find words. Her chest was so tight…why couldn't she breathe? Lights flashed before her eyes, stark and painful, and she whined, turning her head away. A low, scared whine echoed alongside her. So familiar…so afraid…
Fascinating…try increasing the power.
As the voice echoed through her mind, Naomi convulsed, her body changing shape into the wolf form she usually felt so comfortable in.
'Whoa! Naomi, chill!'
She couldn't chill. She let out a yelp of fear, before passing out in Manuel's arms.
'…The freaking hell was that?!' Manuel demanded, staring down at the unconscious wolf in his arms. 'She just…flipped!'
'Is she okay?' Aidan asked, nervously checking Naomi's pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the strong, steady beating of her heart. She was okay. Well, okay-ish.
He glanced back up at his desk, frowning at the image on the screen. It wasn't that unusual…it was the first picture that was actually inside, but, other than that…just a lab, really. Not one he recognised, but still. There were hundreds of labs on Zenith, millions across the dimension. Why would Naomi panic over this one? Maybe it wasn't the lab. Maybe it was Endgame? Seeing inside him? But Naomi was pretty damn determined to see Endgame's insides for herself, so that seemed…unlikely.
'Okay, Naomi.' Manuel scooped Naomi up, raising an eyebrow as she groaned, turning human again in his arms. 'Let's get you a little more comfortable.' He laid her down on Aidan's bed, adjusting the pillow to keep Naomi from developing a neck ache. Fantastic. So she was unconscious and freaking out, but at least she wouldn't get a crick.
'Shouldn't we take her to the nurse?' Aidan asked, twisting his hands nervously.
'And say what, 'Oh, she just collapsed when we were looking at pictures we stole from The Spire with an illegal virus?' Manuel demanded. 'No way.'
Roxy settled down next to her, gently stroking her hair in an attempt to reassure her through whatever was going on. After a minute, she spoke up. '…Am I the only one that thought that felt like some kinda…I dunno, ptsd thing?'
Manuel nodded slowly, leaning back against the wall. 'Something triggered her. I'm willing to bet it's that lab.'
'But…why?' Aidan asked, his mind flooded with confusion. 'It's just a lab.'
'Lots of things look like 'just a thing' to most people ' Manuel rebuffed. 'They can still be triggers, though. My mom has them, after some uh…some stuff went down…at work. Royal guard stuff, it's not important.'
'He's right, Aidan. I freak out a bit in the dark,' Roxy offered up, grimacing. 'Kinda takes me back to…the Black Gate.' Wow, was Aidan the only one in this group without a connection to some kind of deep trauma? He felt profoundly lucky for a moment, before remembering when he'd been blasted off his bike and had to fight a killer robot, and he got the horrible feeling he might start catching up pretty damn soon.
'Aidan, can you run the image?' Manuel asked, striding over to take up his spot standing over the computers. 'Maybe we can find out where it is.'
Aidan shook his head. 'No, this data is highly classified. If it pops up in a search engine, any search engine, we're done for.'
'Great…' Roxy muttered into her hands. 'We're all criminals. Fantastic.'
Ignoring her, Manuel rubbed his chin, deep in thought. 'Where would she even know any of this from? Rox, where is she even from? I tried researching it, but there's nothing on her in any database beyond her enrolment at Alfea, and an Alaskan driver's license that was less helpful than I'd hoped.'
Roxy raised an eyebrow. 'Naomi has a driver's license? Huh. Also, Manuel…when you need to know stuff about people…just ask. Don't research them, it makes you seem creepy.'
'Alright, fine, I'm asking: where is Naomi from?'
Aidan kinda wanted to know that himself. He liked Naomi, a lot, but he hadn't asked her any really personal stuff yet. She offered these things up on her own, and he waited patiently for them to appear, like beautiful little puzzle pieces for the jigsaw of his crush. But now he really needed a corner piece for everything else to make sense, so he was gonna have to look for it, rather than wait for the gods of puzzles to bestow it upon him.
Roxy tapped her foot awkwardly for a moment, before sighing and admitting, 'She doesn't know.'
'…Say what now?' Manuel looked utterly thrown. 'How can she not know?'
'The wizards found her on Zenith.'
'Okay, well, she's probably Zenithian then.'
Manuel's seemingly sensible sentence was cut off by Aidan and that old friend of all Zenithians: random knowledge. 'Shapeshifters don't come from Zenith. The magic is incompatible with theirs. So she's not Zenithian.'
'Huh. Random.' Manuel paced back and forth, keeping his back ramrod-straight like a war commander. 'So she doesn't know how she got on Zenith? The wizards didn't look into that at all?'
Roxy shrugged helplessly. 'She said she never needed to know. They offered, but she said no. If they investigated, she didn't ask what they found.'
'Fantastic…' Manuel paused, tapping his fingers against his arm, deep in thought. 'Say, if the wizards might know something…'
'We are not staging a jailbreak, Manuel,' Roxy said immediately, her voice firm and deadpan. 'I know Naomi wants to see her family again, and I want that now too, but let's not start piling on the crime, okay?'
'What about her place?'
'What about my place?'
Everyone's gaze whipped to Naomi as she sat up slowly, rubbing her head. 'Ow… The f*#k happened?'
'You saw a picture and passed out,' Manuel relayed bluntly.
Roxy shot him a glare, before flicking her head back to Naomi. 'Great bedside manner, Manuel!'
'What? She saw a picture and passed out! You want me to hold her hand? Think that's Aidan's job, Wilde.'
Aidan turned a shade of pink that he hadn't previously known a human could achieve, fidgeting awkwardly as he stumbled over to Naomi, trying to play off what Manuel had just said in a way that nobody was really listening to.
'Naomi, are you okay?' Roxy asked, worriedly checking her for a fever.
'I…I don't know.' Naomi pulled her knees up to her chest. 'Why'd I do that? I was fine, then I saw that picture…saw the background…'
'Told you it was the lab,' Manuel muttered victoriously, and Aidan rolled his eyes.
'God…' Naomi covered her face with her hands, and Roxy quickly folded her into her arms. 'I…I was so scared. I don't know why, I just…I heard a voice…I don't even remember what it said…everything hurt…I was hurting…' She glanced up, her golden eyes shimmering slightly. 'And then I woke up to Manuel asking about my place.' As she realised she was close to crying, Naomi brushed irritably at her eyes, slouching back as though that played off everything that had just happened. 'So, why are we talkin' about my place?'
Aidan frowned, sitting down next to Naomi, fidgeting awkwardly with his old stuffed techquirrel. 'Naomi, I don't think you can just play this off. We should talk-'
'We'll talk later. Manuel?'
Aidan shot Manuel a 'she blatantly needs to talk, don't you dare enable this' look, but Manuel, being the look-illiterate doofus he was, just nodded curtly.
'Well, we were discussing where you might have seen that location before. I was informed that you don't in fact know your own origins, and my suggestion that we break into Omega to ask your family was deemed illegal by certain elements.'
'It is illegal,' Roxy said through gritted teeth. 'Can people stop making me complicit in these things?'
'We're not even doing a thing,' Manuel argued, pouting slightly. 'Thanks to you.'
'I'm sorry I don't wanna go to jail…'
'Anyway, I was about to suggest that we could check your house. Maybe there would be something there. Perhaps your family researched more than they told you, and it might be there.'
Naomi bit her lip. 'I dunno… You really think they wouldn't tell me if they knew?'
'If you asked not to know, or they thought it might be traumatising, yeah. My moms keep stuff from me, if they think it'll do more harm than good.'
'…Huh. …Can't Aidan just run the picture?'
'No, because this data is highly classified. If it pops up in a search engine, any search engine, we're done for.'
Aidan was a tad miffed at Manuel copy and pasting his explanation when he'd asked the exact same question five minutes ago, but he had a blatantly in denial shapeshifter pretending she wasn't trembling on his bed. Priorities.
'I don't get it…' Naomi muttered, picking at her nail polish. 'Wasn't the whole point of Roxy committing a felony to find a location for Endgame? We're just gonna go check my house?'
'Yes! Because if this…wherever this is…has something to do with why you were on Zenith, then maybe your family has something on it, and unknowingly, something on Endgame.' He spun to Roxy, his plan already obviously being sticky-noted and highlighted in his mind. 'Roxy! Is the house under lockdown?'
'…What? Why would it be on lockdown?'
Manuel huffed slightly with irritation at his uneducated team. 'It's the home of dangerous criminals, Wilde. Nebula might have an embargo on anyone going in.'
'Oh!' Roxy shook her head. 'Nah. Nebula cleared out some dark magic texts of Ogron's, but, other than that…' She shrugged. 'It's really just a house. …Although…'
Manuel facepalmed. 'Why does there have to be an although?'
'Well…I don't think Nebula would exactly call us an uber to get there.'
'That's all? We just gotta lie to Queen Nebula? Easy.'
Roxy opened her mouth to say that it was in fact, not so easy, but Naomi cut in before she could. 'He's right. We just say I need some cold-weather clothes from home. What's she gonna say, 'No, the wizards might have hidden a doomsday device in a parka?'
'Why don't we just explain this whole thing to her?' Aidan asked, twisting his plushie's ears in a nervous habit he'd developed when he was four. 'I know we broke the law, but so has Nebula. Don't you think she'd understand?'
Naomi's eyes flashed, and she got to her feet, stalking towards the door. 'I'm not telling the Sparkle Brigade about this, and I'm sure as hell not telling the poster girl for wizard vengeance. I told Roxy, and…well, I didn't tell you, you found out through tackling and chaos.'
'It's just…' Aidan sighed, running a hand through his hair. He didn't believe in changing people, but…boy oh boy could Naomi use a reduction in stubbornness. 'She could help. The Winx could help.'
'We already committed a felony, Aidan.' Naomi grabbed her bag from by the door, sighing tiredly as she turned the handle. 'We're kinda in over our heads in terms of the law. We'll borrow a ship and head to Earth. Maybe we'll find something, maybe we won't, but Nebula is not finding out about this. Thanks for all your help, Aidan. Manuel.'
Roxy gave both guys a quick, harried wave as she hurried after Naomi, and Aidan waved back, as was apparently his style in all interactions, before letting out a dramatic groan and slumping onto his desk. Why?!
'Dude…' Manuel let out a slow whistle, watching the door crash shut after Naomi's terse exit. 'Not to judge love 'n all, but…you sure?'
Aidan lifted his head, resting his chin on his hand as he watched the head of icy pink hair stalk across the lawns through the window. 'Am I sure I have feelings for a crazy, stubborn, lunatic being hunted by an evil robot? Yeah. Pretty damn certain.'
