i wanna be known for my hits, not just my misses

In the list of things I ever thought I would be writing a story for, this fandom doesn't even ranked in the top twenty. Yet, here I am.

I watched this show a lot as a kid, and one thing that I never enjoyed in hindsight was the fact that Diaspro was the one blamed for Sky cheating on Bloom - or cheating on Diaspro with Bloom.

So, here's a story with a more girls-are-better-off-being-friends-with-girls story. Also, Bloom is probably more mature and has a better control on her temper than canon!Bloom, but that's because I haven't written this with a target audience of girls aged six and older, so.

Sneaking into Red Fountain was definitely going to blow up in their faces.

Bloom did genuinely want to be there, at the Day of the Royals, but they'd all had enough trouble over the semester, and if they got caught, they'd all probably get suspended for the rest of the semester, and the next, and the next. But . . . this was probably going to be her only chance to see Brandon in competition this semester, and she really wanted to see how he'd do.

Bloom could feel the nervousness coming off the other girls in waves – Flora's reserved apprehension, Tecna's strained composure, Musa's brittle excitement, Stella's nerves bubbling underneath her confidence – that she seriously considered just suggesting that they all turn around and head back to Alfea before everyone's nerves got the best of them and got them all caught. None of them knew how to act in their situation, and hiding under bleacher seats was going to get them caught, no matter what Stella said.

Sprinting away from security without the others was not something Bloom had planned on doing the on the Day of the Royals, but it's what she was doing. She took a quick glance behind her – the security guy wasn't following her anymore – and turned the corner.

Before Bloom could stop, she'd run into a tall, exquisitely dressed blonde girl, knocking both of them to the ground. The blonde gave a yelp, and the contents of her purse spilled out onto the floor.

"Ow!"

Bloom scrambled to help her up, saying, "I'm so sorry! I didn't even see you-"

Her eyes flicked over the contents of the purse on the ground, among them, a cellphone with a holographic image splayed in the air – it was a photograph of a boy, with long blond hair and a chiselled jaw and blue eyes, and was . . . Brandon? What was this girl doing with a picture of Brandon on her phone?

The blonde was standing up and straightening her dress, huffing out, "God, you didn't see me? Are you blind?"

Bloom's mind was staggering, but she could hear her mouth still moving, rambling out apologies, seeming to calm the blonde while also gathering the fallen knick-knacks, saving the cellphone for last.

"Who's that?" Bloom asked loudly, pointing at the hologram.

The blonde looked a mixture of bewildered and disgusted, perhaps at Bloom's tactlessness. "You don't know? That is Prince Sky of Eraklyon, my future husband."

Bloom could feel her stomach plummet to somewhere underneath her feet, but her mouth kept running anyway.

"I – I didn't know that's who he was. I had just seen him at the Red Fountain-Alfea celebrations for stuff. I'm new to the whole realm of Magix thing, I don't know much about the royalty of other realms."

The blonde frowned. "Have you been living under a rock? How could you not know that stuff?"

"Because I was basically living under a rock." Bloom needed to leave the girl's presence; her rich perfume was cloying her nose, and Bloom's head was spinning in confusion.

(Brandon? Sky? Stella had told Bloom that Brandon was a handsome blond, Prince Sky the handsome brunet, but this lady was saying that the handsome blond was Prince Sky, making the handsome brunet . . . who?)

"I really am sorry for running into you. I hope I haven't ruined any of your things."

The blonde was mollified. "You didn't."

"Okay then, I'll let you enjoy the Day of the Royals. Uh, I'm Bloom, if you needed a name."

"I didn't need your name, but mine is Lady Diaspro. I'm sure I will enjoy today. You should as well."

The blonde whipped around and marched after the other elaborately dressed people she was following before Bloom had run into her, leaving Bloom behind with her confusion.

Amazingly, Bloom managed to find her friends again without running into security again, and eventually they all crept out of Red Fountain before the end of the festivities, Bloom managing to convince Stella to meet 'Sky's' parents another day. She just wanted to be back at her dorm in Alfea, to think about the information she'd had thrown at her by Lady Diaspro.

Bloom didn't want to believe it, but she had no reason to disbelieve Lady Diaspro. Bloom had been introduced to Brandon, told his name was Brandon, but a girl from his home planet possessed a picture of him, and she called him Prince Sky. Now that Bloom was thinking about it, she couldn't help but remember that the King and Queen of Eraklyon shared a much stronger physical appearance with the boy Bloom called Brandon than the boy she and her friends called Sky.

"Hey Tecna?"

The pink-haired girl paused her video game and turned in her chair to face Bloom standing in the doorway.

"Yes Bloom? Is everything alright?" Bloom weighed her words in her head, nervous about the way she could phrase her sentence.

"I was wondering if you had a laptop or a . . . a thing I could borrow. I need to look up something for my Magic Civics class, and normally I'd use the library, but it'd just be really quick and I didn't want to bother-"

Tecna cut off Bloom's rambling with a wave of her hand. "Of course you can borrow something of mine, Bloom. It's no problem."

She handed Bloom a tablet with a detachable keypad.

"Thanks Tec. I'll get this back to you before I go to bed."

Bloom walked out of Tecna and Musa's room with the tablet, Tecna's dismissive wave following her out.

Flora was in the school greenhouse, Bloom knew. She had their room to herself for at least another hour or so.

Closing the door to their room, Bloom sat cross-legged on her bed. Kiko was asleep on her pillow, and Bloom could feel her mouth twitch into a small smile that the sight. She opened the tablet up to the Magix equivalent of the internet, the name of which she couldn't remember ever actually being told, and in the search bar, she typed 'Crown Prince of Eraklyon pictures'.

The screen became flooded with pictures of Brandon, his handsome face filling the thumbnails of each image. In some, she could see Sky and Timmy. Nerves churned in Bloom's gut. She didn't want to believe that Brandon had lied to her, was still lying to her. But . . . it made sense. He hadn't wanted her at the Day of the Royals, and she was his girlfriend! It would make sense if the reason he didn't want her there was because he was actually not a squire that could date any normal girl, but if her was instead the Crown Prince of Eraklyon, and therefore engaged to the beautiful blonde that Bloom had walked into. Obviously, he would not be allowed to date some silly girl from Earth.

Bloom tightened her mouth into a small, thin line. She opened up another tab of screen. She could remember looking up pictures of celebrities on Earth, how the internet web searches were not always accurate – at least not the pictures. Other people did exist.

She searched 'Eraklyon Prince Sky'.

Without really reading the line, she tapped the first link on the screen.

A webpage designed in a way suspiciously similar to IMBD on Earth filled her screen. A picture of someone that was undeniably Brandon was added to the text. The picture was a few years old, taken when he was still a pre-teen, but it was Brandon . . . or Sky, Bloom supposed. She couldn't keep calling him the wrong name, could she. You weren't supposed to be rude to Princes.

Bloom could feel a scowl forming on her face. She read the page.

'The eldest and only son King Erendor and Queen Samara of Eraklyon, Prince Sky is the principle heir to one of the wealthiest planets in Magix. Betrothed to Lady Diaspro of the Eraklyon province of Isis since infancy, Prince Sky is the latest link in the great chain of Eraklyon rulers.

Upon graduating into higher education at the age of fourteen, it was announced by the King Erendor that the place of his son's higher education would remain under tight wraps, for his son believed that it would be difficult to pursue the best education possible if the location of Prince Sky's school were public knowledge, and therefore capable of putting the Prince into any form of danger.'

There was a mask of rage over Bloom's face by the time she finished reading the rather short page of information. Difficult to pursue the best education possible?! More like harder to trick stupidly trusting fairies into believing that he could have a serious relationship with them!

Bloom couldn't remember the last time she was this angry with someone that wasn't the Trix. Who wasn't trying to hurt Bloom or her friends. She wanted to scream, to rage. She wanted to hurl Tecna's tablet against the wall, to fly straight to Red Fountain and punch BrandonSkyBrandon in the face and set his clothes on fire!

She could feel the heat of her fire magic boiling in her gut, a sure sign they were about to manifest physically. Immediately, she tightened her hands until she could feel her fingernails stabbing into her palms. She was not going to destroy her and Flora's room just because BrandonSky was a lying piece of garbage. She was not going to burn Flora's plants, Flora's pride and joy, just because Bloom – and Stella, obviously, because there was no way in hell that Stella would lie to Bloom like that – wanted to break something with her rage.

Bloom closed both tabs on the tablet, and walked out of her dorm room. None of the girls noticed, or if they did, they did not comment.

Obviously, this isn't finished, and neither is any next chapter. I shall cross that hurdle when the motivation strikes me. Oddly, motivation only ever strikes me when I'm driving a car on a hours-long road trip, or in class when I should be paying attention.