Delta thought silence was underrated. Ever since they had been dropped on this godforsaken planet four hours ago, she had not gotten a single reprieve from her teammates' incessant chatter. To add insult to injury, they all had to share one room on the Hawk, which was absolutely getting on her nerves and it was only the first night.

As she walked out of the ship and onto the beach they had landed on, the Zenithian admired the bright stars of the Pyrosian sky. Delta never saw stars back home, not through all the storm clouds. She thought of calling her brother and telling him about it, but a quick check of the Digidex revealed that it was four in the morning at Cable Academy. She walked to the waters' edge.

"Come here often?"

Delta nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Mica! Don't scare me like that!"

He laughed and joined her at the waterline.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Delta asked.

"Didn't want to."

Delta sank into the wet sand and patted the space behind her. He sat beside her and unloaded with a deep sigh.

"Remember that witch we fought at Cloud Tower?"

"The sad one?"

"Yeah, the sad one."

"What about her?"

Mica sighed and dropped his head back to stare at the stars, flinching every once in a while when a dragon flew overhead.

"She made me… see things. Things that made me cry."

"Is that why you guys-"

"Yeah, that's why we were crying when you got back," Mica said hastily. He inhaled deeply and the shaky exhale wracked his body like an earthquake. "I don't like sleeping much anymore."

'What-" Delta began, but she stopped to lick her lips, thinking of how to be sensitive for once in her life. "What did she make you see?"

"My sisters."

"Want to talk about it?" she asked, not knowing if she should hold his hand or pat his back or what. She settled for dropping her hands in her lap.

"Not really," came his small reply, but he kept talking anyway. "I've never been this far from home."

"We're literally in the same planetary system as Isis right now."

"I don't mean right at this moment," he clarified before pulling his knees to his chest. "Just in general. Starting college has been scary. I'm not used to doing anything without my sisters."

"I get what you mean. My little brother is, like, my best friend."

"It just sucks to be out here without them."

"Yeah."

They were quiet for a while before Mica asked, "What about you? Why are you up so late?"

"Marissa snores."

He chuckled and looked out over the water.

"You aren't much of a people-person, are you?"

"On the contrary," Delta argued, "I'm quite the people-person. It's just THESE people."

"Yikes. These people?" Mica said with another laugh. "Ouch."

"Not you," she clarified. "I don't know you."

"Touché."

"They're just a little insufferable," Delta explained. "I mean, Jane says she doesn't want to, like, be the leader, but then she acts all bossy like she knows everything, which isn't even accurate. I'm the one who knows everything."

Mica looked at her in confusion before she waved it off with an, "Another time."

"It's just… Marissa is such a worrywart, Ace is a total space case, Sylvie is the world's biggest dork, and Piper thinks she's way cooler than she actually is, which led to that disaster on the last mission."

"And you're a major brat."

Delta stared at him in shock.

"Oh, sorry. I thought we were listing what makes each of you so annoying."

"Shut up," she laughed, knocking him in the shoulder.

He tugged one of her braids, so she shoved him with another laugh. He shoved her back and she fell into the water, which soaked her pajamas all the way through. He jumped to his feet with an apology ready on his lips.

"This is silk!" she whined before setting him with a fierce look. "You're going down, Princey!"

With a growl, she charged him and wrapped her arms around his middle, tackling him into the surf. He went down with a gigantic splash that left them both laughing in the sand as the waves lapped at their pajama-clothed bodies.

"What's going on?"

Mica and Delta tilted their heads back to see Orlando's upside-down figure stalking up to them in his Red Fountain uniform. His brow was furrowed and his bedhead was worse than ever.

"Uh…"

"It doesn't matter," he said gruffly. "Just go get dressed."

Mica and Delta scrambled to their feet to follow Orlando. As they walked into the ship, Delta thought about what Mica had said. Mica looked over his shoulder at her with a smile and then stopped short, staring at her with his mouth agape.

"What? What is it?" she asked, straightening her braids. "Is there seaweed in my hair?"

"Delta," Mica began with an awestruck face, "you got your Charmix!"

Looking down, there was, sure enough, a wire diamond with a green gem striking it through the middle sitting above her left breast.

"Oh, looks like I did," she said with a small smile.

He clapped her on the shoulder before heading back into the bunkroom where the heroes were tripping into their boots and the fairies were fluttering on tired wings. Coda was awkwardly putting on his old uniform as his sister glared daggers at him. Will was pacing the command deck.

"Why are you two soaking wet?" Piper asked with a sour look on her face.

"Uh… couldn't sleep," Mica replied bashfully before following the music fairy to the front of the ship with a slew of explanations she never asked for.

Delta smiled at the lovestruck boy, but then her eyes caught on Sylvie, who had crawled onto the top bunk to comfort a peeved Orlando. Orlando didn't answer her prying questions, but he didn't push her away either. With an internal groan, Delta realized what she would have to do.

"Hey, Syl, uh… go transform. I got this."

Delta regretted saying it the second she did. Sylvie looked at her brother, who made no movement, but he must have telepathically given Sylvie the go-ahead, because next thing Delta knew, the moon fairy was using her lanky limbs to climb down the ladder and to pat Delta on the back before walking away.

Delta cursed under her breath before asking, "Is everything okay?"

He didn't answer a long time as he sharpened his phantoblade on a holostrop provided by Red Fountain. She was so focused on his hands as the ran his sword over the light strip that she jumped in surprise when he finally spoke.

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" Orlando deflected as he climbed off the top bunk.

"You just, like, looked upset or whatever," Delta said lamely as he started to walk away. She caught up with his long stride as he made his way to the garage.

"Yeah, that's probably because Jane is missing."

"Wait, what? Jane is missing?"

Delta's mind was wiped of all concern for Orlando as she hastily transformed and ran over to mount a levabike.

"Come on. Let's jet."

He walked over and slid her to the back of the bike with an amused smirk. As he was looking her in the eye, she was stuck by how gold his eyes were- like his mother's eyes… like his mother's crown.

"We don't even know where to go," Orlando said, but he obeyed and straddled the seat in front of her.

"Trust me, I do."

Her hands were on the Digidex in an instant, searching for the girl she never thought she'd want to find. And where she found her was definitely a surprise.

"Are you sure this is the place, Del?" Sylvie asked once she took off her helmet. She stared up at the gaping maw of the cave that jutted out of the side of the mountain that stood tall amidst the Pyrosian jungle. Massive dragons flew in the sky and blocked out the sun in big swaths while tiny ones flitted from rock to rock by their feet. A rumbling came from the mouth of the cave that shook them even more deeply than Lee's voice. "Maybe your settings were on dragon instead of dragon fairy."

"This is def the place," Delta said. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't dreading going into the metaphorical (or literal) belly of the beast.

The boys took out their weapons. The team got their first look at Coda's phantobow that he'd luckily kept from his year at Red Fountain. Delta couldn't help but scrutinize him as he unsheathed his magenta phantoblade. With the click of a button, it split into two dual swords. Nearby, Ace fawned over him in his hero uniform while Piper tried her best to ignore him. A voice that might have been her conscience urged Delta to go over and ask the music fairy if she was okay, but that voice was quickly shut down.

"Let's go find Jane," Will said as he all but ran into the cave.

Delta rose up on her wings and flew after him, but the farther they went into the cavern, the deeper it went underground. Delta was struggling to stay airborne. A quick glance at her dorm mates told her that she wasn't the only one feeling the effects of the underground.

"We'll have to go on foot from here," Marissa insisted as she fluttered to the ground. The rumbling was getting louder, followed by intermittent quakes that shook the cave walls. A chill began to set into her bones.

Delta jogged up to walk in step with Mica.

"It's insane that these missions keep getting us stuck in caves," Delta joked, but when she looked up, she saw that Mica's ruby eyes were fixed ahead and he was wringing his fingers until his skin was red. Delta reached out and intertwined her fingers with his to stop his worrying. "Hey. We're totally going to find her."

He gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand more tightly as they ventured further into the cave. Orlando roughly shoved passed them, knocking Delta in the shoulder on his march to the front of the group.

"Great Dragon, what's his problem?"

"I think I know," Mica said, looking wistfully over his shoulder to where Lee and Piper were laughing up a storm at the back of the group as they distracted each other with jokes. This time, she squeezed his hand and reflected on how much Mica reminded her of her little brother.

There was another rumble - louder than all the rest - and then a quake before the whole floor caved in and the team tumbled to the cavern below.

"Okay, so that blast might have been too rough," a familiar voice said.

"You think?"

"Shut up, Nash."

Delta couldn't believe her ears, but she also couldn't see through all the dust.

"Jane, is that you?"

"Delta?"

The dust cleared to reveal the team sitting on a pile of rubble in the middle of a cavern in front of an old woman, a young wizard, and…

"Jane!"

Mica stumbled off the rock heap to catapult himself into Jane's arms. Surprisingly, Will followed suit, shoving Mica aside in his haste to get to Jane.

"Oh, uh, hey, guys," she said. She was scraped and bloodied and parts of her were covered in ash. Will held her at arm's length and gave her a once over before charging at the wizard with his sword raised.

"Woah, woah, woah!"

Everyone jumped to do something, though they didn't know what. Before they could, the old woman raised one of her gnarled hands in the air and Will was being forced to take a seat on the ground by the woman's swirling turquoise and orange magic.

"Okay, what is going on?" Coda said. It was the first thing he had said all night, barring the cursory introduction he gave before they boarded the Hawk. As much as she did not like the whiny popstar-wannabe, she found herself agreeing with his general confusion.

"Yeah, Jane, what is going on?"

"It's a long story."

She explained the events of her night from her getting out of bed to being kidnapped. Her kidnapper was the old woman's pupil, a lightning wizard named Nash. Delta sized him up and decided he was cute enough for Jane with his dark curls, but he would never do for Delta because he was significantly shorter than her. Apparently, Jane and Maia, who had never condoned the kidnapping, agreed that Jane would study under the old witch to earn her Charmix. In the end, it turned out to not be such a long story.

"A witch?" Marissa asked, shaking in her boots. She scurried off the rock pile to whisper something in Jane's ear.

"She helped my mom earn her Enchantix, so… yes, I do trust her."

Marissa did not look appeased, but she didn't add anything else. The witch noticed the silence and took the opportunity to say, "All is well, then? Very good. Sparring positions, children."

Jane and Nash hesitantly took up their sparring positions again, squaring off from either end of the cavern. Nash kept glancing nervously at Will, who was glaring daggers at the tanned boy. It gave Jane the opportunity to get a lot of hits in, or maybe she was that good.

"What are you waiting for, children? Pair up," Maia instructed.

"Us too?"

"Yes, you too."

The team paired off, magicians with magicians and fighters with fighters. Maia turned out to actually be a pretty good teacher. Under only a few hours of her tutelage, they learned new things about their powers and abilities that they might have never discovered at Alfea and Red Fountain. Around dawn, the girls de-transformed back into their pajamas and Nash guided them out of the cave while they all chattered excitedly about their new abilities. Ace had even earned her Charmix from acknowledging her innate and learned skills. Delta was actually very proud of her, strangely.

At the cave opening, they parted ways with Nash.

"Hey, Princess?"

Jane ran back over to Nash where they had a conversation that included a lot of awkward neck scratching and Jane digging her boot into the ground. It actually kind of hurt Delta to watch, so she thanked the Great Dragon when he said something that made Jane whip around in fury and stomp away.

When they got back to the ship, they all simultaneously decided to spend the day sleeping on the beach, save for Piper who went straight to her bunk to brood.

Laying on the beach in her strappy black bathing suit, Delta allowed herself a breath of relief for the first time since she started at Alfea. Sylvie and Jane were playing chicken in the waves on Orlando and Mica's shoulders, backlit by the rising sun. Lee was teaching an increasingly frustrated Will how to spearfish on a distant sandbar. Meanwhile, Coda and Ace were being sickeningly cute as he played a song for her on his ukelele.

"What was that?"

"What?"

Marissa propped herself up on her elbows and looked over at the pale fairy before saying, "That sigh. What was that sigh about?"

"Oh my Dragon, nothing. Do you have to be such a helicopter all the time?"

"Do you have to be such a-" Marissa cut herself off before collapsing back in the sand. "Never mind."

There was that nagging voice in the back of her head. Or was it her heart? Wherever it was, it was telling her to answer Marissa's question.

"It's just nice to feel like I'm out of Faragonda's grasp for once," Delta said, staring up at the clear blue skies and the dragons flying overhead. Her nails were scratching over the stubble on her legs, making her wish she had brought a razor.

"You know… we are on a mission for her," Marissa said.

With a sharp laugh, Delta said, "Yeah. Can you imagine the look on her face if she saw us slacking off right now? All twisted and wrinkly…"

"She isn't that bad," Marissa said. "You make her out to be some sort of evil tyrant."

"Isn't she though?"

"Barely," answered Marissa with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh, yeah? You think it's normal for a headmistress to send her students to their deaths-"

"It isn't to the death."

"-to their DEATHS, for what? A paranoid delusion?"

"She isn't paranoid," Marissa argued, which made Delta loudly scoff. "She isn't. She's smart. If there's some darkness creeping into the Magic Dimension, it's best for all of its tools of destruction to be safely out of the hands of witches."

Delta was quiet. With a huff, Marissa stood and dove into the water.