chapter ten

the empty spaces

four years ago

Now relatively safe, warm, and no longer starving, Tecna promptly began reviewing her options: escape the planet herself, or signal for rescue.

It had already been determined that portals would not work. Teleportation magic was difficult and sometimes dangerous in general, especially for long distances or between planets, with rare and super-powerful exceptions such as the Scepter of Solaria. But this was a prison planet and she had just healed the only containment breech, and so she wasn't surprised that portals were impossible here.

Building any kind of craft to fly herself off the planet was entirely out of the question, too. While she knew that approximately four Magix guard crafts had crashed somewhere on the surface of the planet during its operation, she had no idea what was left of them, where they were, or if there was even enough salvageable to get them in the air. The first one had been lost almost twenty years ago—the tech there would be irreconcilable with that of the last one which had been lost three years ago. And she had never done such a project before, and probably couldn't even if she had the correct parts amidst the wreckage. Timmy had always been more interested in ship engineering than she was.

She tried not to think about that and instead pressed on—those two options discounted, the only possible route of escape from the Omega Dimension that remained was to send out a signal that could identify her location and hope it was picked up on.

The interplanetary wide computer network colloquially referred to as the MagixWeb consisted of a series of interconnected transceiver network nodes across each planet, or at least all the sufficiently modernized and civilized ones. Crafts also had their own ship-based transmitters for maintaining coverage while in transit. It was Zenith which had made great strides in improving the transmission network between planets in the last decade; they had invented transmitters which could be maintained by the planet's inherent magical energy and thus could send stronger signals more quickly over great distances without as much error.

Omega, which was on the outer edge of the Magical Dimension to begin with, did not have transceiver nodes anywhere on the planet. This was by design. The place was a naturally occurring dead zone due to the dark energy which had made it the perfect choice for a prison planet and only increased since. Being so excluded from the interplanetary network meant that there was no way to send a signal that could be received anywhere—definitely not another planet, but probably not even another place in the Omega Dimension. This was a notoriously glitchy place, which Tecna could only blame again on negative energy. Even using her own devices, her handheld displays had occasionally been warped in the past few days.

She was interrupted by her strategizing by her own frustration. Why did a place like this even exist? Why hadn't Magix done something about it years ago instead of deciding that it would be best to collect all of their worst prisoners there? Magic wasn't clean and decisive like a laser beam. It left a residue behind, and it fed off itself. This place was a time bomb.

But that wasn't going to help her right now. She had to stay focused on the current task.

She powered up her holographic display again. It cast a pale blue light all around the dimness of her cave.

For just one second the effect was no different than it was when she used it in her room at Alfea, and there was a rush of splintered, false recognition that made the breath stop in her lungs. She controlled her reaction and began to prototype based on her conclusions.

It was possible that fairy dust would be able to counteract some of the inherent glitching that would disrupt her signal—it worked against dark magic, after all. The problem still remained that there was no way to route the data to its destination as it was. There were many different ways to amplify a signal, including Elemita crystals, which she knew for a fact could be found in the Omega Dimension—they thrived in the freezing cold. They weren't the best or most efficient for the task, but she doubted she could find anything better here, and the right spell would at least improve what she already had to work with. Of course, that would likely not account for the distance, which—

The hologram flickered and Tecna wondered for a moment if it was a glitch, but then realized this was the 15% battery life warning. Even Zenin tech needed to be recharged eventually. Unfortunately, she was several planets away from its charging pad. Fortunately, she was the fairy of technology, and so that was one thing that wasn't a problem regardless of where she was.

The slight dimming of the blankly grey sky told her night had fallen. She supposed it was time for sleep anyway, now that she was as safe as she could be under the circumstances. Waving her hand through the display to clear it, Tecna took a breath and lay back on the ground of her hideout. The warming spell prevented her from feeling the coldness of her skin on the thick layer of ice that covered the ground. It felt as though she was laying on glass—not very comfortable, but she would have to deal with that later.

She pressed her handheld device to her chest with both hands. She could faintly feel her heartbeat on the other side. She concentrated for a while, and as she did, the ache of tiredness faded into her limbs; a mild headache began to creep up the back of her skull.

It was ten minutes before she opened her eyes again and saw with satisfaction that her handheld was now 100% charged, despite the exhaustion she could feel behind her eyes. She had always been able to power technology with her own energy, and could draw from it, too—usually it didn't make her so tired, but she supposed she was already running low on energy after everything that had happened today. At least the sheet of ice didn't seem so uncomfortable anymore. She dimmed the lighting spell.

Her last thoughts before she fell asleep were the sort she had been trying to avoid all day. This was her second night here, so certainly the girls would have made it back to school by now. She wondered what they had told the teachers. She wondered what they had told Timmy. He had known they were going, all the guys had. He would immediately know something was wrong when she wasn't with them...

She could see very clearly the image of him standing in the courtyard alongside the other Specialists, gaze shifting from the entry ramp to the faces of the girls. She loved the expression he got on his face when he was thinking. It was one he probably didn't even know he made.

This was a temporary situation, she told herself. The situation was serious, but she would resolve it with efficiency and logic. She would be here for a week, possibly two, and then she would go home, and this would all fade away because it had not been important. Soon enough it would be as though she had never been here at all. She would be fine.

But as she lay in the dark she was very aware of the fact that she had never been so alone.

Melody Universal News

Tecna of Zenith Traced to Omega

by Lian of Melody

A week after her initial disappearance, those seeking Tecna of Zenith have received a break in the search: she has been traced to the Omega Dimension.

Some would say that brings her no closer to being found. "We don't even know if she's still alive," a source from the Interdimensional Security Union admitted, adding that the situation is a lot less optimistic than the ISU has presented it as. The ISU board is the owner and operator of the Omega Dimension prison planet, and is being assisted in its search by all of its member planets, including Zenith, the home planet of the missing fairy. "All we know is that she can be traced there. Obviously that's not very exact. Omega is huge, and almost impossible to navigate, making a rescue mission very difficult. Not to mention the incredibly severe conditions—providing Tecna of Zenith even survived the vortex into Omega, her chances of survival on the surface of the planet grow slimmer with every minute that passes."

The loss of one of the top Alfea students is a bitter event in an otherwise joyful time, as the wizard Valtor was found dead in Cloudtower School for Witches two days ago. After escaping from the Omega Dimension several months ago, he was linked to a number of attacks and crimes throughout the Magical Dimension, believed to be working in tandem with the Ancestral-descended Trix Coven, also escaped from the top-security prison. While nothing official has been released yet, the Alfea students called the 'Winx Club' are said to be involved in his demise and the capture of all three members of the Trix Coven. The group of Alfea fairies achieved recognition after their heroic actions in the Battle of Magix two years ago, and continued to feature prominently in the fight against Valtor.

a/n: okay see why this took me months to write? as you can see I'm really really bad at making up fake science, probably because you need some real science as a jumping off point. i had to stay up til 4 in the morning on wikipedia reading about how computers work. sorry to all actual smart people who know real science, but this is a winx club fan fiction, and i did make a small effort.

ALSO! please know that the news articles listed in the Tecna flashback chapters don't necessarily correspond with Tecna's situation. she's been on Omega for 2 days and this news article is set after she's been in there a week. The next flashback chapter will probably have a news article from like three years later, but she'll still have only been in there for a few days. it's not like the news articles are what's going on in the outside world while she's missing, they're completely different and not chronologically connected at all. i kind of just really like writing fake news articles. just don't want anyone to get confused!

anyway let me know what you think. i am trying to get a lot of progress done on this story during this corona summer—i have all the chapters planned out. there are 70. if i keep going at the rate i am i might die before this gets finished. ps take the poll on my page about whether or not you think Tecna is alive in the present day chapters—or review and say. i really want to know what you guys think!