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Azimuth was a beautiful realm, all crisp air and round mountains. The sun was setting over the idyllic countryside. Autumn leaves fell from the trees and onto the peaceful path winding through the forest down to the sparkling lake. It was like a scene out of a postcard.

Or it would have been if Marissa wasn't currently running for her life.

"You were supposed to be guarding the door!"

"I never agreed to that!"

Marissa wanted to roll her eyes at her "teammates," but all of her focus was on the levitation spell holding up the boulder she was desperately trying to get down the side of this mountain. Delta and Ace somehow managed to keep their own boulders up while still bickering a mile later, and Marissa thought to herself, 'I'm not sure Ms. F chose the right girls to be her champions.'

"Can you both shut up?" Marissa hissed, breaking her perfect princess façade beneath the weight of the boulder she was levitating. She shifted her hands to accommodate the weight of it.

Delta stopped arguing with Ace long enough to fire back, "That's rich coming from you. You screamed, like, the entire time."

"Can we just be grateful that we got away from the coven with all our limbs still attached?" Sylvie said.

"No thanks to you," Ace muttered beneath her breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

They started again, this time with Sylvie joining the argument, and Marissa wanted to drop her boulder on her own head. She couldn't even begin to fathom how they could argue and maintain their levitation spells, but to each their own.

Up ahead, Piper was walking with her back to the five of them, her own boulder bobbing a foot off the ground. Jane was at the back, struggling with her own levitation spell.

"If the witches haven't found us yet with all your bickering, they will soon," Marissa warned, casting a cautious glance down the path.

"Of all the relics," Jane grumbled beneath the strain.

"I mean, they can tell the future," Piper said.

"Yeah, but they're so heavy," Ace whined.

Just then, Marissa's foot caught on a root. The next few minutes were pure chaos. Her boulder hit the path with a thud. Piper whipped around, dropping her own boulder. Delta skidded to a stop, causing a pile up for Ace and Sylvie. All three dropped their boulders.

"Are you guys okay?"

Jane released her levitation spell to check on them. Suddenly, darkness.

A black dome sprouted up from the boulders, ensconcing the six fairies in darkness.

"Uh, what is-"

White pin-pricks of light like stars appeared in the blackness of the dome. They swirled and coalesced into a scene of… six fairies.

"Is that the Winx Club?"

Ace's question was answered a second later when they saw the fairies' faces. It was the six of them, soot streaked on their faces and hatred in their eyes. Marissa's blood ran cold at the sight. They looked like witches. Then, fire everywhere. Twelve robed figures rose from the fire, holding hands in a ring around the dome. Their chants filled the air until the foreign words blended together to form one word, over and over and over again.

"Obsidian, obsidian, obsidian."

Fear pricked at her heart and a familiar panic set in.

Each of the robed figures shot a blast of light up the side of the dome to meet at the apex. Marissa craned her neck to see the explosion. In the ashes was left… some kind of big flaming bird thing.

Suddenly, the dome was gone and they could hear the sound of footsteps coming down the path, probably the witches they had been running from.

"Le-let's go," Jane said, re-activating her levitation spell.

"Bu-"

"Now, Acacia!"

They were hustling down the path again, trying to ignore the vision the stones had shown them of their club going up in flames.

A blast flew past Marissa's ear.

"Someone, open a portal!" Jane shouted.

Marissa argued, "Faragonda said to open it in the clearing."

"Does it look like we have that kind of time?"

Then the ground was out from under her and she and her boulder were free-falling. They hit the bushes outside the administration building of Alfea with a thud. Delta tried to close her portal before the witches got in, but it faltered. The gnarled hand of a member of the Circle of the Garden reached towards them from beyond the portal before it slammed shut.

"Nice job, Delta."

"That wasn't me."

The girls looked at the tech fairy before they caught sight of their headmistress on the front steps, hands still raised in the air. Her face was pursed in disapproval that sent a hot spike of shame through Marissa, chasing away all the cold chills left behind by the vision.

Taking the cue, the girls levitated their boulders and nervously followed as the headmistress led them on the slowest walk ever down a hallway on the first floor.

The hallway ended in a flat wall at the base of one of the towers. Out of the floor-length windows, Marissa could see the fairies enjoying their Saturday in the courtyard.

"Here we are."

Marissa wondered if the Headmistress had gone senile in her old age. She tapped her cane once, twice, three times on the red carpet that lined the halls. Of course, a door appeared in the wall, because nothing can be what it is when magic is involved. Marissa fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"Quickly, girls," the headmistress said before stepping down into the circular room.

The girls hurried into the room, looking up in awe at the shelves full of magical curios that seemed to extend all the way up to what must have been the Magic Archive above. Making use of her thick glasses, Marissa realized that she could see through the floor of the archive at the fairies exploring the bookshelves. The door hastily disappeared behind them.

Faragonda feebly said, "This is the Alfea Underfloors."

"Why's it called the-"

Marissa's sentence was cut off by her own scream as the floor fell away beneath her. Wind rushed in her ears as she watched the glass ceiling get further and further away and more and more shelves rush up to fill the space.

When she looked down at her feet, she saw the floor still firmly beneath them, moving them down like an elevator platform. Then they stopped.

"Woah…"

Now she could barely see the pinpoint that was the Magic Archive above their heads. Looking around her, she saw a hallway filled to the brim with portraits and pedestals boasting important artifacts. It curved just like the above-ground hallway. As if they hadn't just plummeted fifty feet below floor level, Faragonda started walking and talking again.

"Here in the Magic Underfloors, the headmasters and headmistresses of Alfea have collected relics from around the Magic Dimension that should never be seen by the light of day," she explained as she shuffled down the hall. "The last fairies to visit the Underfloors, other than myself, were your mothers over twenty years ago. They understood the importance of protecting the Magic Dimension from the corruptive magic of witches."

"If witchcraft is so bad, then why do you want us to learn it?" Marissa asked, staring fearfully at the items all around her. She could feel the dark magic coming off of them in waves. Up ahead was a golden door, padlocked and inscribed with rooms that made the Androsian princess feel queasy.

"To destroy it."

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Wanna see art of the characters? Leave a review and I'll PM you about it. Or just leave a review anyway. :)

Love, Ru