Now, I know that the W.I.T.C.H. and Orube acted a bit out of character in the last chapter, but there're reasons (Orube is still scarred by Cedric's death, while the W.I.T.C.H.... You'll see). Also, they come from a few months later than the last issue of the comic (W.I.T.C.H. #98 at the moment I'm writing. Every event in the comic happened before and during that issue is valid in here, later events not), so they're in the New Power version. I also know that in the flashback the Trix didn't said that they were from Earth, to cover my skipping that let's just say that Stella searched about that 'Caisteal' they mentioned and discovered that the word means 'castle' in Gaelic, an Earth language. And, before you ask, the 'French Kiss is a common Terran greeting among friends' thing is not in the comic, is just an homage to gwennafran on Deviantart.
by lord Martiya
Disclaimer: W.I.T.C.H. is copyright of Disney and Elisabetta Gnome and Winx Club is copyright of Iginio Straffi and the animation studio Rainbow S.p.A., and every other show mentioned in this is property of the respective owner. This fanfic will not generate money for me. As Italian grown up in Italy, I'll make Aisha remain Aisha and Domino remain Domino as in the original version instead of using the Layla and Sparks (this is Winx Club, not the souls of a bunch of Transformers!) bullshit from the 4Kids version of Winx Club. It's my normal practice, the only exception being Tales of Giovanni's Son and coming from the near-total incomprensibility coming from using the Japanese names of the Pokemon attacks (I had problem to understand it, even if I was the author). Flame on this will be used to burn the Three Ancient Witches as the witches they are.
CHAPTER 02: TERRAE MAGISTRI MAGI
"YOU AGAIN?!?!?!" Stella shouted seeing the newcomers.
"I don't remember to have ever met you." one of them replied. "I'm Joanna Perkins, Magistra Magi..."
"Stripped of her status for supporting Valtor, according to the net." Tecna stated. "The same for your companion Lily Evans. By the way, is it a coincidence that Evans is named after an Harry Potter character?"
"Yes, it is: her parents can't read." the third girl, Darcy, stated.
Joanna and Lily turned and, seeing Darcy, paled.
"Hi. It was a while we didn't see each other, wasn't it?" Darcy said, smiling.
Two seconds later Darcy disappeared and was replaced by a group of duplicates who surrounded and attacked the two girls with a wave of mental energy, slowly frying their brains and making Musa pale and hide behind Riven(1), ranting about backstabbing all the time and catching the attention of all the presents.
"Sorry, but I won't fry your brains today." Darcy said after interrupting the torture, leaving her victims trembling and harmless. "I'll do you worse, but not today. And in the meantime, you'll live with my sisters and me at Caisteal Trix! Do you like it?"
The two fainted.
"I suppose this means no..." Darcy stated. "And now... I should have expected this."
The presents discovered that the Black Ring Wizards escaped while they were all paying attention at Darcy. With that, Darcy teleported away with Joanna and Lily.
"Well, that was unexpected." Tecna stated.
"And my venting targets escaped." Will complained. And in fact the Black Ring Wizards were nowhere in sight. "Now, can we go in a calm place to talk?"
Nearby a two-meters tall guy had observed the scene with a binocular. And didn't look happy.
"Damiano..." he called his sleeping pal.
"What's up? Midnight yet?" he asked, suddendly awoke.
"Nope, it's a quarter past ten. And the Winx have just involved the Guardians and told about magic to a mundane."
"Couldn't they wait until midnight?"
"Tell that to the Black Ring..."
"When we're finished here we kill them."
"I'm in."
Later, at the Frutti Music Bar.
"Let me resume." Roxy's father said. "You twelve are in fact aliens, and on top of that you girls are fairies and three of you princesses of planetary kingdoms, and came to Earth to find the Last Fairy on Earth™ and unveil the magic to our non-magical population, and to do so you fairies opened a magical pet shop."
The Winx and their boyfriends nodded.
"Then you discovered that my daughter Roxy is the Last Fairy on Earth™, and four wizards want to capture her as they did with all the other fairies and take over the world, and your best weapon against them is a metal ring with a murderous spirit inside waiting for Roxy to possess her and going on a killing spree." Roxy's father continued.
"Actually I suspect there're other wizards in the Nigri Circuli Societas(2)." Tecna stated. "The four you met are the survivors of the Vampiric Massacre, but if they've half functioning brain they've training some replacement."
"Great... Now, you five are Earthers who were chose by this fortress, Kandrakar, to find troublemakers between the worlds and beat the crap out of them until they calm themselves, right?"
"Yes, sir." Will replied.
"You didn't intervened against the menaces these Fairies fought because you had bigger fishes to fry, right?"
"A magic stealing reincarnating overlord so evil that Kandrakar sealed away his entire world for centuries until we managed to catch him(3), Will's crazy predecessor who was trying to destroy the Fortress and nearly did the same to Cornelia's vegetal then-boyfriend and us in the process(3), a king who had scammed a banshee and wanted the Oracle dead because he wasn't permitted to heal his son(3), the CIA(3) the overlord again while possessing Kandrakar jailor's body(3), the overlord's last minion who wanted to steal our powers(3), a shadow monster who wanted to eat our powers and souls(3), a crazy nimph so powerful we needed a power-up and were still nearly killed before imprisoning her(3), a madman who wanted to kill all the magic users on Earth(3) and the sadistic version of the Queen of Hearths(3)." Irma explained, while everybody who didn't knew her well was wondering how she could speak for so long without pause.
"And the catgirl, Orube, is ally of yours who fell in love with one of your enemies who took a killing curse meant for her and she's just beginning to recover from that..."
Orube nodded.
"What a mess." was his meaningful comment.
"Wait for knowing the political situation." Icy said appearing on the door. "Barman, a scotch."
"Aren't you underage for that(4)?"
"Dunno, mother never cared of those things(4). And I don't want to drink it. Give me the scotch or I'll impale your daughter before anyone can stop me."
Roxy's dad gave her the whisky, and Icy pulled it in her mouth and then spat it for reasons obvious to anyone tried to drink a whisky in one sip(5).
"Thank you, I needed it." the witch said.
"What's happening?" Bloom asked.
"Darcy and Stormy will try and kill each other tomorrow, if I don't find something a distraction."
"Wait, weren't the three of you so united that you betrayed Valtor for having you fight against each other?" Stella asked.
"We are. It's just a fated situation. Darcy went to capture an old ex-friend of us in an Italian city, Cremona, but got distracted for some reason she's refusing to tell(6) and the friend surprised her. He was about to kill her when a local boy of our age kicked him in the balls. He was strong for a not-mage, but had no magic nor ki training and was about to be killed when Darcy... Well, she used the powered and advanced version of the spell we gave Mirta. It didn't remained much."
The Winx and their boyfriends trembled in fear.
"What the hell Darcy did to him?!?!?!" Flora asked, the first to recover.
"Delayed vaporization." Icy explained. "Now, Darcy decided she couldn't have a boy so magically weak being her saviour, so she forced him into training."
"AND YOU DID NOTHING?!?!?!" Riven exclaimed.
"He had talent and got excited after the survival training, Stormy and I could not stop her." Icy replied. Then, seeing the questioning looks, Icy explained: "According to Darcy and mother, a survival training is surviving a week in high mountain with temperature like this" and while saying this Icy proceeded to freeze the room until -50°C "with summer clothes and a Swiss Army knife. Riven can confirm."
"That man is crazy..." Riven stated.
"Probably. Still, he and Darcy fell in love with each other and are so cheesy that Stormy will laugh at them for that, and you can imagine Darcy's reaction and what will follow. Why are we so like the Norns from Ah! My Goddess!(7)?!?!?!"
"For the sake of whatever place you're hiding him, I'll give you the necessary data." Tecna declared. "You mentioned that the Solvi spell is a family spell, right?"
"So?"
"Mirta mastered it."
Icy smiled, paid for the whisky and then teleported away.
"What's happened about that family spell?" Hay Lin asked.
Brandon, the only one who could manage to laugh at that, told the story.
FLASHBACK
The Winx were in Alfea, waiting for their boyfriends to come and go to celebrate their first true victory on Valtor thanks to numerical superiority, Enchantix power and the Water Stars. And, true to his fame as most annoying enemy the Winx had ever faced (they still had to meet Duman, after all), Valtor appeared exactly as the Specialists and Nabu arrived. And immediatly pinched his nose as he found that the Trix had bet about his timing (Darcy won: Icy's money had been on catching Bloom in the toilet and Stormy's on falling on top of the Winx Club).
"Now that my girlfriends have finished" Valtor started, not noticing Icy and Darcy restraining Stormy from hexing him at the girlfriends comment "I'd like to exterminate you once for all, my dear Bloom."
Valtor approached Bloom with a fire spell ready. Then, he and Sky fell as Bloom kicked them in the crotch. Hard. Three times, on Valtor. That and the fact Sky had deviated his own fall on a stray rock so to being knocked out told Valtor that something was out. The next hint was Bloom's face.
"The sadistic grin I can get it, but what's with the slinted yellow eyes?" Valtor asked. "And why is everybody running?"
"You know, because of one of Darkar stunts, Bloom suffers the worst DID case ever." Bloom replied cheerly.
"Did?"
"Dissociative Identity Disorder. In common language, Bloom has a split personality. And I'm the split. They call me Dark Bloom. Nice to kick you."
Other kick. Harder. Then Dark Bloom placed her boot on Valtor's crotch.
"I suppose you'd like to know why I kicked Sky and I'm being so ferocious." she asked. "Well, the answer is: Sky's too much of an idiot, and you forced him to prove it. Seriously, why the hell Sky was with Diaspro without witnesses, and why the hell did he accept a drink from her?! He KNEW how obsessed she was, and is. And you had to give Diaspro something to prove I wasn't paranoid! OK, I had a field day with Bloom once your trick was exposed, but do you have any idea of how annoying my bodymate was before that?! 'Oh, Sky dumped me! Oh, Sky loves Diaspro! Oh, Sky had cheated on me all the time! Oh, at least I didn't listened you and seduced him!' And you had to do that just when I had finally convinced Bloom to get us laid!"
Dark Bloom concentrated in her leg the immense power from the Dragon's Flame and pressed hard. Valtor fainted, got revived from the pain and, finally, fainted for good. Then, as everybody was too busy sympathizing for the newest eunuch in Magix, Dark Bloom looked at Icy. And jumped.
"What th-HMMMPH!!!" Icy tried to mumble.
"What?!" Stormy screamed seeing what DB was doing.
"That-THAT'S RAPE!!! SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!!! WE'LL COMPENSE WITH ANYTHING!!!" Darcy cried.
SBONG!
"Ouch! Wh-"
SBONG!
SBONG!
SBONG!
"OK, where's my reward?" Mirta asked after throwing the crowbar she used to knock Dark Bloom out, reverting her to a normal and still KOed Bloom.
Darcy and Stormy looked at each other, then Darcy handed her a scroll.
"Here's one of our family spells. Should you accept this scroll, everybody else who will open it without being from our clan will be consumed by it." Darcy said.
"And these are needed to learn it without being solved in the process." Stormy added handing Mirta many physics books. "Valtor abandoned his attempt to convince us to hand the spell when he saw these. But they're so simple..."
Everybody understood why Valtor preferred to not try: only Tecna would find those simple. And in fact Musa could swear that Tecna read some of those before sleeping... But the fact Stormy was of the same mind shattered her image as uneducated brute.
"By the way, this has not happened, it was just a techno-ninja wannabee in love with Bloom that kicked Sky and knocked Bloom out in an attempt to 'break Sky's spell on her' before Mirta kicked him in the crotch and handed him to a vagant Darcy for 're-education', and if you differ from this version I'll unleash my most powerful lightning spell on Alfea after forcing the perpetrator's family to watch a Spongebob marathon. Bloom and Mirta know what Spongebob is, ask them why you don't want to watch. Capish?" Stormy added, starting to create her reputation as an EDUCATED brute. And all the presents nodded, and nodded even more when they saw Mirta crying in a corner in fetal position at the mere mention of Spongebob.
"Scary as usual..." Darcy said before snapping her fingers and materializing Knut. "Hello, Knut. Did you knew that you were NOT formally fired or whatever else, so not only you're still at our service but you just used the last of your paid vacation days? We were coming here to retrieve you when Valtor had to tag along..."
Knut winced.
"Come on, we're mostly sane again." Darcy exclaimed. "Now, stop crying and retrieve Valtor and Icy, tonight we have to play! Wow, she was loving it..."
In fact, Icy was daydreaming with a shit-eating grin.
END FLASHBACK
"Wow, we had only to deal with Cedric's pranks and my jokes..." Irma said.
"And I still have to understand why Darcy said they had to play..." Brandon wondered.
"You don't want to know." Stella declared before she could stop herself.
Everybody looked at her. Then Dark Bloom manifested.
"YOU-DO-NOT-WANT-TO-KNOW-OR-I'LL-GO-IN-A-PRANK-RAMPAGE." Dark Bloom threathened. "And before you ask, yes, Bloom and me know too but will shut up for your own good."
Most presents had the sense to shut up. Even Irma. Too bad that Hay Lin wasn't most people.
"Why? Is it too bad? Are they Musa's favorite band?" Hay Lin asked. And that was only the beginning. "Envoys of the Greys in mission to enslave Earth? Martians from the future hellbent to change history? Cartoon characters trapped into a fanfic wrote by a crazy death fanatic?"
Then, before she could go into the more outlandish theories, Dark Bloom reacted.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I'LL KILL YOU! THEN I'LL RESUSCITATE YOU TO KILL YOU AGAIN!!!" she cried after going into Believix.
"Resuscitate? You can resuscitate people?" Orube asked.
"Well, the expert is Bloom and did it accidentally, if there's still life energy we can do it(7)."
"Do work."
Orube produced an old, familiar book and placed it in Dark Bloom's hands.
"What's that, an Horcrux or what?" the Dark Fairy asked. Then, sensing the magical buildup from the Guardians transforming, she added: "I was joking..."
"Cedric's not the only one who died in that book." Irma replied.
Dark Bloom just retired, leaving the place to Bloom who decided to help.
"I'M FREE!!! AND ALIVE!!! AND... Well, gosh."
Those were the words of the man who vaguely looked alike Valtor that had emerged from the book before seeing Orube, who immediatly dragged him out. Then the head of the lookalike returned inside. Separated from the body. In the meantime, Orube remained outside to completely destroy the rest of the body.
"I start to understand why Dark Bloom insists on being in physical shape..." Bloom commented.
"He was a foe, wasn't him?" Stella asked, while the W.I.T.C.H. nodded. And readied to take on Cedric if he tried anything.
And, in fact, Cedric tried something, as he was REALLY pissed and immediatly placed his hands at Bloom's throat.
"I hope you had a very good reason to resuscitate me just before I finally found that book." he said while assuming his true snake-like form and placing Bloom between him and the others. "Because that book was VERY important."
"More important than me?" Orube asked from the window.
At that point, the W.I.T.C.H. got a surprise: as they had found out of their relationship only after Cedric's death (even if they suspected since Cedric French-kissed her declaring that it was a common Terran greeting between friends, and without Irma's input), they didn't expected the two were at the point Orube herself wanted to try the Sixty-Four Arts from the infamous book Vatsyayana Kamasutra. Nor that the book Cedric was about to acquire in the afterlife could be the updated version of the Kamasutra by the author Vatsyayana himself, with modern American English translation to boot (as ancient Sanskrit was NOT a language Orube could read. Even if Cedric was fluent). What CEDRIC (and all the other males save for Riven, Kiko and Roxy's dog) didn't expected was that ALL the girls were interested, to the point that Dark Bloom took over and proposed to kill him again and revive him after he got the book. But before she could act on the suggestion, the two spies appeared at the door. Given they were a relatively normal-looking young man that stand out only for being taller than two meters, having HUGE muscles and a magical staff and a tanned guy with red eyes and long hair wearing what looked the classical male uniform of a Japanese school, a trenchcoat round glasses, huge ring-like golden earrings and a Konohagakure no Sato forehead protector coming straight from some convention, it was almost impossible not noting them. Even without Stella, Cornelia and Hay Lin screaming in horror at the clothings of the tanned one.
"Good night." the tanned one said. "This is Daniele, and I am Damiano, and we have been sent by Virginia Magical Association to make the Winx Club a question: what the hell you think you're doing?"
"Reviving people?" Bloom replied after retaking over.
"Not that, it's about all the spreading of knowledge of magic to the Muggles."
"Muggles? Since when we're in a Harry Potter book?" Cedric replied.
"I like the term. Now, miss Peters, please respond."
"Well, we were searching for The Last Fairy on Earth™ and had to make some money so we opened the Love and Pets... Is that a problem?"
"You involved a mundane in this. If you did past midnight there would be no problem as we would have finished our job, but you did it before midnight. So I have to ask to leave this state and stand aside while we modify mr... How is he called?"
"Kurt Ombaiadiandiana." Daniele answered.
Silence fell.
"Seriously." Damiano demanded.
"It's his real last name(8)." Daniele replied, pointing at the very embarassed Roxy and her even more embarassed dad.
"Oh. My condolences. As I was saying, the Winx Club is now supposed to leave this planet while we cancel knowledge of magic from mr Kurt's mind. Before you ask, yes, even that your daughter is The Last Fairy on Earth™, and no, I'm not a mind reader, I just expected the question."
"WHAT?!" Kurt shout.
"That's what we're being paid for."
While Kurt and Damiano quarreled while trying to understand each other words (Damiano understood well English in its British variant but had problems with Kurt's American English, while Kurt had problems with Damiano's odd grammatical constructs), Irma noted that the tanned mage sometimes glanced at Will, and told about the apparent crush to her leader. Who acted.
"Damiano, please, is it really necessary to do this?" she asked, trying to reason with him with the added edge.
"OK, OK..." Damiano replied while turning and heading for the door. Then he suddendly stopped. "I don't know what mind control spell you used, but you're fair game, now."
Damiano made a jump, and before they could react the Winx, their boyfriends, the W.I.T.C.H., Orube, Cedric, Kurt, Roxy and her dog got pressed on the floor by an enormous force.
"We tried to reason with you. Now, thou shall pay." Damiano announced while producing a huge sword.
Footnotes
(1)Musa had this reaction because this is exactly the attack Darcy used on her in The Betrayal of Riven in the first of the two attempted slayings.
(2)Literally, Black Ring Society in Latin. Earth mages here mostly uses Latin terms and titles (like Magistra Magi, literally meaning Master of the Mage), and I put the Black Ring in the same theme.
(3)Explanation of the comic villains for whoever had only watched the W.I.T.C.H. cartoon. The overlord is Phobos: In the comic continuity, he was showed alive and adult over a century before the beginning of the series and was stated being the reason for creating the Veil in first place, yet he was also showed as a child fourteeen years before the series (and this plot hole is covered). The crazy one is Nerissa, and in the comic she had no relation with Caleb (who wasn't human but one of Phobos' , the only one to attain sentience and who rebelled) apart her using Caleb as a battery to fuel her own powers (not enough to prevent the Guardians from disintegrating her in the last battle). The king is Ari of Arkhanta, and was a peasant who captured a banshee in order to heal his son, and then scammed her into permanent service when she failed to heal the child and used her powers to become king of Arkhanta and wage war to Kandrakar. His son was healed by the Guardians when they gave him their own regenerating powers. What our Guardian identified as the CIA was an unidentified intelligence agency of the United States investigating on the Guardians' powers (they appeared even in the cartoon at the end of the second season) only to be stopped by the Oracle himself when they crossed the line (that time the Oracle had to state he was NOT God), setting the scene for the next story arc. The return of Phobos was possessing the body of Endarno, Kandrakar jailor, and taking over Kandrakar using the Oracle's intervention in the previous story arc as excuse, but after being discovered and forced to return in his real body Phobos was killed when his backup plan backfired and the Guardians disintegrated him. Phobos' last minion is not Cedric (in the Endarno arc Phobos betrayed him and Cedric replied in the same fashion, unwillingly enabling the Guardian's victory) but Jonathan Ludmoore, the man who created the Portals in the Veil over one century before the series and was imprisoned in a book when he tried to steal the power of the Elements. Ludmoore and Cedric allied against the Guardians, but in the end Cedric fell in love with Orube and sacrificed his life for hers, while Ludmoore was killed when MATT canceled his name from the book (bet that Cedric and Nerissa are mocking him in the afterlife for this). Will's mother remarried with prof. Collins at the end of this arc. The shadow monster is the Ragorlang, and did exactly what's said. The nimph is the Dark Mother, a being so ancient to even predate Kandrakar and apparently the First Evil that the Fortress was created to stop (Xing Jing and the other nymphs who created Kandrakar were showed battling her in a flashback). For battling her, Matt was unveiled as Kandrakar herald and the W.I.T.C.H. had an immense power up (now all of them can fly and every single one has the same level of raw power of all the team before the power-up). Will's half brother, William Collins, was born near the end of this arc. The madman is professor Takeda, a scientist whose daughter was in a magic-induced coma. He stopped his attempt after his daughter awoke from the coma. The sadistic queen, finally, is the White Queen, the tyrannical sovereign of an alternate dimension that Mariko, Takeda's daughter, was fighting as a spirit (hence the coma).
(4)Just to make you know, here Gardenia is in Virginia. This means that Icy, who here is 19, is effectively underage (in Virginia the minimum purchase age is 21). In her home country Icy would not be underage (minimum purchase age being 18). And Icy's mother just doesn't know about those laws, as she never cared and prefers tea.
(5)The sensation is something like a flame in mouth. I know for personal experience. And I'm 22.
(6)The reason is that Darcy was trying to understand how Cremona's women had so big tits. I SAW women going distracted because in our city an average and natural bust size is a lot bigger than everywhere else...
(7)A little spoiler on the fourth season: in the 24th episode, Il Giorno della Giustizia, Nabu first disintegrated Duman (and I mean that Duman had been completely destroyed at subatomic level) and then definitevely sealed the Black Ring portal, saving the Earth Fairies and killing himself in the process by magical exaustion, and Bloom had not been able to revive him. Given how he died, that's the only logical explanation.
(8)Well, Roxy and her father's last name has not been revealed, so I made this up to explain why nobody calls him with his last name.