Disclaimer: I don't own Winx Club. These interpretations of the characters are mine though and the plot, that's mine and Tara and Callum, also mine.

A.N. Wow, guys, seriously the support for this has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Part Two

"Riven?" Nova echoed, eyes narrowing on Stella. "What can he do?"

Musa focused on the rhythmic ringing in her ear as the call tried to connect and not on the buzzing under her skin or the frantic throbbing of her pulse against her throat. She'd just keep it professional, explain the issue and ask for his aid. He did say he wanted to be friends before he left. That's what friends did. Helped each other in times of need. After all, what was the point of an ex-boyfriend with his job if he couldn't be useful?

"Give me a second." Riven's rough voice washed over her like a balm and she shivered, hating her reaction to him, before the phone muted to fuzz punctuated by thuds and sharp voices.

Sucking in a breath, she pushed away from the table and walked, fisting her hand to control the fine trembling coursing through her body. It wasn't excitement or nerves, just apprehension. They hadn't talked in a while; she hadn't permitted herself to think about him. Part of her blamed him for walking away, for taking the easy option, for leaving her behind. Petty perhaps, but it saved her some heartache from knowing she wasn't enough for him.

More static sounds and she looked away from her friends and their curious looks. She didn't want to dissect her relationship with Riven in front of them. This was to help Galatea. Nothing more. A crackle of sound followed by chanting came through the phone and she realised he was looking for somewhere quiet to take the call too. Typical Riven, he always craved his privacy.

"Musa? Hey. How are you?"

She frowned. He sounded genuinely happy to hear from her, which sucked. Had he been waiting all this time for her to chase after him? Did he feel like he'd won because she'd finally contacted him? Swallowing the bitterness, she forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand. "I need your help."

A pause and she could almost hear his disappointment. "Sure."

"Princess Galatea of Mel—"

"I know who Galatea is, Musa." There was a bite to his words as if she'd insulted him but that hadn't been her intent; she just wanted to explain who Galatea was, so that he'd understand the severity of the situation.

"She's missing."

"What? How?"

She lay out everything Nova had told her: the stop off before a Solarian concert, the laser guns, the screaming girls and the text message culminating in the image Tecna had found from the New Eden camera. As she did, she calmed and approached her friends again. This was safe, this was business and she could discuss that with Riven. After all, he was one of the most focused people she knew.

After she finished, Riven remained silent but she knew he was digesting everything she'd told him, picking apart the information and twisting it to find a way to fight it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Stella exit the cafe with a tray of drinks in a variety of mugs and glasses which she set on the table, pushing a steaming mug of tea into Nova's hands, brushing off Nova's initial rejection.

Smiling at her friend's motherly antics - something Stella rarely got to indulge in when Flora or Bloom were around - Musa sat down and took a quick sip, wetting her parched throat.

"Why was she on Eden?" Riven finally demanded, and she could almost see him pacing in a tight agitated circle, shoving his free hand over his hair.

She closed her eyes against the image. "I have no idea."

"Oh," Nova said, looking up from her barely touched tea, "she said something about an engine component malfunctioning and they had to land and Eden was the closest planet."

Riven sighed. "Musa, I don't like this. You need permission from the High Lord himself to enter Eden airspace, never mind entering the city itself."

It didn't take any magical powers to know where his sceptical mind had jumped, but the royal advisors and the King himself strictly vetted all employees of the Melodian crown. They wouldn't make a mistake like that, not to mention the fact that it looked like Galatea had ventured off on her own. Still… "Then you understand why we can't go to anyone else about this. Melody isn't a military power, it has absolutely no resources in this area and if they go to another planet in the Sovereign alliance, there's no guarantee that they'll get help. Not all of the planets are pleased with Melody's involvement in the war against Tritannus. Even if they did help, it would more than likely cause a political backlash that I don't think any planet is willing to risk for one princess of a fairly minor planet." After all, Melody could just vote in a new princess, it wasn't like the line was hereditary like Solaria's or Eraklyon's.

Tecna nudged her and showed Musa her datapad. On screen a video played; it was grainy and a bit fuzzed out at the edges, but Musa could clearly see Galatea sitting on a bench beside another girl with curled hair. A man, holding an archaic pulse rifle, walked past her along the narrow aisle. He would reach the edge of her seat only to teleport back again as the video looped. Tecna fiddled with the image, it zoomed out. They were on a bus; rusted and dented with paint flaking off the sides where someone had once tried to decorate it with words. Someone had parked it at a service station where the camera was based — obviously overlooked due to the abandoned state of the business; empty spots where the fuel pumps once sat and dust everywhere.

"I'm trying to track it but the technology there is almost non-existent."

"Riven, Tecna's going to send you a few things—" even as she said the words, Tecna was already calling up a message "— but it's worse than we previously feared. Galatea's caught and there's nothing the Winx can do; if we go in there and we're captured too, we'll make for a bigger reward." Or worse.

"This isn't something your friends can win over with the power of friendship," Riven muttered scathingly. He went silent, and she knew he was watching the video when a hissed curse whispered out. "Right, I'll bring this to my supervisors. I'll phone you in the next hour when I have something. Don't do anything stupid."

If they were still an item, Musa would have laughed and teased him to have more faith in her and her friends, but they weren't together anymore and so the smile faded from her lips, the words turned to ashes on her tongue.

He hung up and she quietly put the phone in her pocket.

"So how can Riven help when Stella's dad can't?"

Musa tried to answer but she couldn't. She needed space; some time to just process that conversation. She pressed a hand against the knots in her stomach and tried to ignore the ragged yearning tearing a hole through her chest. She missed him. She missed him so damn much.

Her eyes burned as she fiddled with her phone, frantically trying to calm down enough to answer Nova's question. She could feel Nova watching her, the way Tecna carefully kept her gaze averted, and then Stella stood up, slapping her hands against the table.

"Because Riven's an Elite, the best of the best," Stella declared, holding up a finger. "That means he can go where we can't and they're not tied to any jurisdiction or loyal to any one planet, so they can help everyone, including those girls with Galatea. Honestly, Nova, and you call yourself a warrior fairy. If I were kidnapped, that's who I'd want looking for me. Plus, have you seen their uniforms? —" she paused to fan herself, rolling over Nova's protest that she knew what the Elites were, just not that Riven was one "— So hot, though if they asked me to design them, I wouldn't use nearly as much fabric."

As Nova wrinkled her nose and Tecna tried to point out the purpose of the extra fabric - it was armour after all - Musa sank down in her seat, took a sip of her drink and tried to find her inner calm.

In a quiet corridor chilled to a comfortable temperature, Riven sat on a damn uncomfortable chair. Opposite him, the small red light continued to blink, announcing that the Director and other superior officers were in session and could not be disturbed. Riven shifted and forced his foot to still. There was no point fidgeting. That wouldn't hurry them up, or help them reach a decision faster. It frustrated him to be outside when he wanted to plead his case but he was just a trainee, he couldn't sway them and his chances were better outside, rather than trying to force his way onto the mission. Still, he had given them the information; his sources brought it to their attention. If it weren't for him, they wouldn't even know that Galatea was kidnapped on Eden. If they gathered up a team and left him behind… he didn't know what he'd do. Quitting wasn't an option. He'd given up too much to be here. He needed to achieve this dream to justify everything else in his life.

Tapping at the gauntlet built into his armour, he pulled up the video Tecna had sent him. He had to admit she did good work given the limited technology she had to work with. Eden wasn't known for being tech heavy. Hell, it was probably more in the dark ages than Pyros or Domino pre-curse. On the holo-screen Galatea sat on a bench looking poised and unharmed but Riven's eyes locked on the man passing by her, gait easy, pulse rifle held loosely but with a readiness that spoke of a familiarity with the job.

Dammit Galatea was in so much trouble. Eden operated slave and skin trades, god knows what they would sell her for. She could end up a fifth wife to a man four times her age or as someone's evening meal. He hadn't mentioned it to Musa, didn't want to frighten the girls but this was the kind of danger they had never faced before, and it wasn't the kind of danger they could fly into, blasting their powers. It would take a lot of skill.

Of course, Musa figured most of that out herself, that was why she contacted him. Even though that was a bucket of cold water over the flickering kernel of hope in his stomach, he couldn't quite shake that feeling of pleasure that he was finally useful to her in a way the other boys weren't. The Specialists would be pointless on this expedition. They were trained in a lot of things but stealth extraction and wet work were not part of that skill set. Noble heroes didn't get their hands dirty.

The door slid open and Riven stood up straight, heels slapping together. "Sir?"

Captain Rogers froze, an expression of surprise on his face before it melted into neutrality and something hard clogged up Riven's throat, his stomach dropping to his knees. They'd rejected the plan. He didn't even have to hear his superior's words to know it. He'd failed Musa.

He swallowed hard and clenched his fists behind his back. "What did they say, sir?"

Rogers rubbed the back of his neck, then sighed with a defeated shrug. "Riven, they don't have enough details, we don't even know that the Princess of Melody is even missing. That could be a lookalike. Once Melody posts an APB or reaches out to us, we can do some reconnaissance of our own —"

"She'll be dead by then, or well on her way to it. You know what Eden's like. They're not going to go to the trouble of finding out who she is, they'll sell her as a whore or dinner. Maybe both."

"Riven."

"No, what kind of shit is this? We're supposed to be the ones who say fuck the rules and go save the world anyway."

"It's not as easy as that. There's a lot of things at stake here. We already have two squadrons out on missions and this could be a fool's errand. Eden is dangerous. One wrong move and we're down 15 men."

"And it's okay to let those girls die?"

Rogers pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, of course not but you aren't thinking straight, Riven. You're letting your personal feelings interfere here. Those girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that's a hard thing to accept but you have to see the bigger picture here. If we had something on the High Lord of Eden, we could do some groundwork to infiltrate the planet and take him down, but at the moment this is just a futile mission. The decision's been made. Go back to your squad."

"And if it was the Princess of Solaria? The Prince of Eraklyon?"

Rogers cleared his throat, averted his gaze and Riven laughed bitterly. Of course. If it were someone important they'd rush to the rescue. They were no better than the heroes or the Knights.

Making a sound of disgust, Riven turned on his heel and made blindly for the front entrance, ignoring Rogers halfhearted call to talk to him.

Fuck that shit.

What was the point of being an Elite if you were bogged down in the same shit that fucked everything else up? They weren't supposed to care about politics or who was more important. And as for waiting for Melody to get in touch? What if the Melodians were the ones who put Galatea in danger in the first place? After all, no one landed on Eden for 'repairs'. They crashed and burned first.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. How would he tell Musa? He couldn't, he realised. He doubted she'd be surprised. Just another failure for Riven, but he knew she'd go after Galatea on her own. She and her friends were just that idiotic. He had been their last bastion of hope and he'd failed them.

Raking his hands through his hair he stepped out onto the front steps and breathed in deep before slowly releasing it. The sky was a startling violet hue — one that had taken him a while to get used to — and the sun beamed down on the men and women in black and grey uniforms running the obstacle courses or performing drills.

"What's wrong with Hero-boy?"

Riven clenched his teeth and swallowed back a snarl. Just great. He did not need a run in with Tara right now. He slid a look across at the girl sitting on the wall bordering the steps, her coal eyes assessing as she tugged on one of the blue strands that streaked her dark hair.

Across from her, propped against the railing stood green haired Callum, a babyfaced sharp-shooter from Callisto. Strange, since Riven knew the two of them weren't exactly friendly. Callum was the kind of boy who always followed the rules and feared punishment, mostly suffering from high parental expectations, while Tara just seemed to have a huge chip on her shoulder. Riven tolerated them both. After six years living with Sky, Callum was a cakewalk and Tara just reminded Riven of how he used to be and why he'd changed.

"What are you two doing?"

"Tara's in trouble again," Callum said, in a tone that verged on a whine.

Tara leaned back, folding her arms so that her leather synth jacket creaked faintly. "Whatever, I'm just waiting for them to chuck me out of here, so don't worry your pretty little head Callum, I'll not have you put on kitchen duty again."

Callum bristled. Riven considered leaving but he was curious. Tara was a good trooper, one of the best and even Riven had to admit that he'd had a few moments where she'd knocked him on his ass the first few weeks of training.

"What happened?"

"A senior trooper made a pass at me, I turned him down. Politely." The word was full of attitude; she clearly felt she'd been too polite. "I even gave him the old adage, it's not him, it's me. I just fancy girls, alright? Not too keen on your dangly bits, you know? They're shrivelled and a wee bit…" She shuddered, wriggling her fingers and Riven found himself wondering what dicks she'd seen that wriggled like that. "Long story short, he kept pushing it, felt I should know what I'm giving up, if you get my drift. So I broke his fingers and cast a little spell on his dangly bits so they're not so much dangling anymore as knotted into a nice bow. Might've over done it on that if I'm being honest, but at least he won't be trying that again."

"She's a witch," Callum said pointedly, all but pouting at the news. "She never told anyone."

Riven hissed in a breath. Not good.

Tara jerked a shoulder. "Big deal. I didn't want to join the magic squad, so I didn't mention it on my application form. I'm not a very good witch. I can muster up a few spells, but my main trick is my stealth mode and it's much more useful on the field. I don't want to be protected by my squad, I want to be able to hold my own. But, see, they're pissed that I fooled them. They want to keep everyone in their nice little sections and I messed that up."

"But there's a reason they keep us separated. What if you used your magic on us in the field?"

Riven muffled a growl. He didn't have time for these petty squabbles and point scoring. Galatea was out there and Musa was only hours away from chasing after her. He needed to figure out something, anything that could save them both. Musa was the priority though. Maybe Stella could convince her father to do something involving stealth. Could he control Eden's sun? Perhaps hold their planet hostage? No planet could survive without sunlight.

"What if the enemy uses magic on you Callum? You gonna tell them that they can't? You're trained to sense magic being used on you, to defend yourself from it. The only reason that spell worked on that asshole was because he was too eager to turn me with his junk. He let his guard down. By rights, he should be kicked out. Put a pretty girl in front of him and he'll forget all his training. He's a security risk and instead of standing up and acknowledging that, they're gonna paint me as a bad guy just because I fudged my application a bit. So what? Everyone does."

Riven shook his head with a snarl. "This training is almost a 90% fail rate and you all but handed them a reason to kick you out." Though right now, Riven didn't even see the point of staying on, competing to be the best when realistically, they were no better than mercenaries or the Knight Collective. They still followed where the political pedigree led.

Tara's face closed down, then she nodded a quick jerk of her head. "Yeah. Fine. But I stood my ground. I have nothing to feel ashamed about." She eyed him sullenly, tilting her head. "So why are you pissed off, Hero-boy?"

"I got some intel that Princess Galatea has been kidnapped on Eden and they refuse to rescue her."

"A princess? But… they have to." Callum shoved his hands into his pockets, then quickly took them out and stood up straight. "We're obliged to."

Tara snorted. "Oh cut the crap, if there's no money, prestige or power in it, the upper echelons aren't going to give two fucks. We might joke about the Heroes and their glory hogging, but we're not much better. We're mercenaries and we want the chaching before we bring the rain. And Princess Galatea's about as minor royalty as you can get. Too bad though, she was kind of cute and now she's kinda dead."

Callum shot her a scathing look before turning to Riven. "How did you even get the intel? Maybe it's bad and that's why they won't do it."

"I got the info from the Guardian Fairy of Melody and it was backed up by the Guardian Fairy of Zenith," Riven said, daring Callum to dispute that.

Callum wrinkled his nose. "Fairies are prone to melodrama. Maybe they just got their info mixed up."

"Oh joy, more magic bashing. You're such a charmer, Callum."

"It's legit information. She's on that planet and no one's going to rescue her." Except Musa would attempt to and end up in the same damn boat. He rubbed a hand over his suddenly dry mouth. He couldn't stand the idea of a world without Musa. Even now he could be content that she was out there, that despite their break up, she was happy.

"What about her home planet, surely they…"

Tara stood up and stretched, rolling her neck to the side so that it cracked loudly. "Whatever, I'm not sitting around here waiting for them to kick me out. How about we go on an adventure of our own? You're so hell bent on saving this Galatea chick, so let's go."

Callum leapt forward, eyes wide. "What? You're mad! We can't save her on our own. We're only three men."

"I was going to say, two boys and two boobs but I'm beginning to think you're just one giant boob yourself, Callum. And so what? I'm pretty much a stealth machine and I have a bit of—" she wiggled her fingers, cocked a hip as she smiled slowly "— magic."

"That's still a damn sight less than a fully trained squadron going into Eden."

"You don't have to come," Tara said, stepping up into Callum's space. "You can stay here and count down the hours until you get booted as well, because you're not cut out for this. You should have gone to Hero school but you're not posh enough and you're not good enough for a scholarship like Riven here. You're too rigid, Callum; you're a bleeding puppy. Someone tells you to run in a straight line, you'll jump to it but if there's a wall in front of you, you won't have the sense to climb over it or run around it, you'll stand there and look for someone to tell you what to do about it."

Callum's ears went red as colour sparked high on his cheeks. Riven scowled, but something fluttered like hope in his stomach. If what Tara was suggesting was going to happen, it needed to happen now. There was no time to debate the merits of it. It was a suicide mission for sure, but at least it would keep Musa safe and maybe they'd save Galatea, if they were lucky.

TBC

A.N. Again I'll reiterate that I'm just writing this story for myself (and other Musa/Riven fans who want some interaction) so my Riven is kind of a compilation of all the Rivens I've written in stories before. So yeah he'll want to help out – he's not a bad guy and he's not selfish, after all, he was a hero for six years. That's bound to have drilled some compassion for the race of mankind into him.

Anyway, let me know if you want more? What do you guys think of Tara and Callum? Frankly Riven's really got his work cut out for him if he expects to get through this mission alive.