A/N: So, we're on to the pageant…and I'm gonna tweak how it runs a bit because only having a swimsuit and talent portion sounded weird. So it'll run pretty much like any Miss (insert country/province/state name here) pageant, with a swimwear, talent, interview, and formalwear portion.

The Ripple Effect

8. Beauty Queens of Cool

Before the Jinx Club knew it, the hysteria of the dance faded and preparations for the Miss Magix pageant hit their dorms with the force of a typhoon. No one could definitively tie the crystal array found in the ballroom to Mirta's visit the day before (though Griselda certainly tried), and the girls were congratulated by most of the school. However, they didn't have time to focus on their achievement once Stella and Lucy got wind of the annual realm-wide beauty pageant and decided to compete. Mirta couldn't say she particularly liked beauty pageants, but if entering this one made Lucy happy, she'd put up with the airheaded contestants. Lucy's flawed perception of herself, on the other hand…

"But I need you to cast this spell for me!" Lucy pleaded with the Solarian blonde as they trooped in from their shared herbology class. "I-I'll go to the Trix if you won't!"

"Oh, stop being melodramatic! It's not your thing." While she believed her friend might just do it, Stella wasn't at all convinced. "First of all, despite our beautiful prank together, I don't trust the Trix any farther than Kiko can throw them. They'd cancel any glamour we use on you at the last minute and you'd be disqualified. If you can't see reason, we'll get Artu to sit on you until the pageant is over."

"But I can't do this without it!" The desperation rolling off her long-time friend nearly knocked Mirta off her feet. The last time Lucy begged for something with this intensity was the chance to go to Cloud Tower to further her education.

"Darling, there's more than one way to weave an illusion and I've used almost all of them," Stella said. "Now, you have an advantage I didn't in that you're tall and lean—we just need to emphasize that the right way. I can make you stunning without resorting to such petty tricks."

"You don't know anything about it!" The green-haired teen shouted. "You've never been ugly a day in your life!"

"And you've obviously never seen any pictures of me before Alfea." The blonde countered. "If it weren't for a last-minute growth spurt and the best corrective vision and dental procedures daddy dearest's money could buy, I'd still be hideous. Now, step over here and let me do something about that makeup you're not wearing before we visit a hairdresser. Between the two, you'll be gorgeous by the time the pageant starts."

Lucy still radiated wariness, but trudged over to Stella and her magical vanity mirror to face whatever the Solarian had in store for her. Mirta sighed and rubbed her temples. All of this negativity was giving her a headache.

Lucy wouldn't have believed it if Bloom hadn't taken pictures to prove otherwise. She'd never been attractive. Ever. Even before the growth spurts stretched out every asset she had past aesthetic tolerance, the long hooked nose and small slanted eyes gave her a face only her mother and Mirta seemed to enjoy looking at. The only reason other witches at CT didn't tease her about it was, as Stella once put it, "Bloom's ability to set things on fire". Witches feared and respected the redhead's prowess, even if they hated her for it.

But she'd learned since joining this circle that the biggest threat wasn't the redhead pyromaniac, but the smiling blonde who pretended not to know answers to questions in class. Most of the school thought of the princess as an airhead, but she knew better. Under the clueless façade lay a cunning mastermind who reveled in stirring the cauldron—the bigger the cauldron the better the reaction.

After a quick lesson in moisturizer and how to apply an all-natural skin-tinting cream (guaranteed to darken two shades in a week, according to the bottle), Stella dragged her off for a trip to the most bizarre salon she'd ever stepped foot in. For starters, it was on Corsair, a moon of Magix that a respectable princess shouldn't have been caught near let alone on. Stella'd apparently heard of the place from Darcy and decided to look into it. Then there was the salon itself, tucked away in a bustling corner of the capital city. The inside looked modern enough, but who in Shadowhaunt named their business 'Salon de Minion'?

A damn good stylist, that's who. Sam had a way with hair, including her own mane. She'd half expected the dark-haired mage to start chopping bits off left, right, and center, but the stylist simply shook xir head, trimmed a couple inches off the bottom, and pulled out a bottle of hair potion. "Your hair wants to be free," xe told her. "I'm just here to make it look its best while it does its thing."

Between Sam's hair sorcery and Stella's make-up magic, Lucy barely recognized herself. And neither would the pageant judges. A subtle smirk crossed her new face. Perhaps there'd be a witch for Miss Magix after all….if she could master her nerves.

"Oh, stop pacing! You've got this!" Stella waved. The two of them were backstage in the prep area, along with thirteen other girls. "You've probably got me beat for talent, anyway."

"But formal-wear?"

"Absolutely. Miss Magix is a lady above all else. When in public, she speaks lightly and cautiously and dresses in an appropriate manner." To her it sounded like Stella regurgitated the blurb on the pageant's website, but she supposed it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. "Ladies wear formal gowns. Now stop staring at yourself in the mirror! I didn't come all this way to end up late for the show!"

Seeing as their group was the fashion-forward contingent of Cloud Tower, only three more witches showed up to watch the show. She recognized two as third-years and the last as that bitch Atara of Isis. Their nobility considered pageants beneath their standard to enter, but not to watch. Or something like that. She kinda tuned Stella out when she started droning on about that stuff. But she didn't need to know that stuff to revel in the looks on Atara's face when Lucy took the stage. From narrow-eyed vague recognition to wide-eyed shock to seething envy—she'd have been worried about the last part if she hadn't noticed Bloom and Roxy studying their classmate's reactions. If Atara lacked the higher brain function to realize an attack here would land her in trouble, the other girls would deal with it.

She smiled at the polite applause bestowed by the audience (including the Alfea headmistress; odd, that), keeping pace behind Stella. Seeing so many people made her nervous, and for a brief instant she considered bowing out…but Mirta braved the emotionally-charged theater to see her and she was damn well gonna give the little empath a show.

"Oh, Dragon." Mirta whispered, all other words failing her. Of course she saw Lucy's beauty—the kind that came from inside—but it'd never quite translated to physical attractiveness using standard 'witchy' beauty treatments. And Stella'd kept Lucy sequestered under a glamour since the salon trip so no-one would know their endgame, so Mirta hadn't actually seen the results before now.

"Remind me to send Darcy a thank-you note for recommending that salon." Bloom smiled. "She looks like a supermodel."

She nodded, unable to shift her gaze from her friend and coven-mate. Just changing the hair worked wonders for the slender witch. Aside from adding a decent conditioner and styling it, the salon folks did both nothing and everything to improve matters. Side-swept bangs held in place with a pale yellow clip, the rest of her hair pulled into an elegant braided bun so it'd be out of her way for the talent portion of the evening—little things that changed the whole face. She didn't know how Stella managed to darken the girl's skin two shades in under a week, but the results gave her friend a healthier glow and softened her somewhat-harsh nose and lips. While she couldn't say she cared for the pink monokini and sarong combo all the girls were wearing, it at least didn't make Lucy look too gangly.

"Heads up; our favorite antagonist just recognized her." Roxy hissed. She winced at the sudden spike of jealousy flaring off to their right side. Yes, Atara had definitely noticed.

"Yeah, but I don't know what she can do about it," Bloom scoffed. "In case you haven't noticed, she doesn't do subtle."

True, the Isisian possessed all the subtlety of a rampaging dragon in a china shoppe, but it still didn't do to discount her. "Let's keep an eye on her, just in case."

The talent portion of the show passed without major incident but little things popped out of the woodwork to ruin some of the other acts. None of their crew caused them, but she was positive she'd seen the after burn of a stumbling jinx after Contestant #2's trip-and-fall in her gymnastics routine. And something looked wrong with the juggler's routine, though she couldn't pinpoint precisely what. She didn't think that the magic pigeon show (which went wrong in under a minute) counted as a real 'talent', but whatever.

She didn't mind stirring cauldrons, but her brand of potioneering typically acted to enhance her own capabilities in a contest, not ruin her competition. Yes, it might feel good in the moment, but it lead to horrendous amounts of bad karma which lead to bad skin. She really did not want a repeat of the zit wars from secondary school. So when she first noticed someone placing minor jinxes and hexes on her and the other contestants, Stella set out to locate the coward and make him pay. She knew what a stumbling jinx felt like, but more importantly, she'd learned how to step around one without losing composure. Her tutors back on Solaria might've been a touch paranoid, but the paranoia kept her alive and kicking ass, so who was she to argue with such quality results?

"Why not hex you and the swimsuit model along with the rest of us?" She whispered to her coven-mate as the green-haired girl walked back into the prep area.

"I think they tried." Lucy wrinkled her nose. "It felt like someone cast a standard reversal spell on me toward the end. For the model…well, it was her first time on land and her 'talent' was walking around in a skimpy string bikini. They probably felt like they didn't need to do anything to knock her down in standings."

"So they thought you were under a glamour charm? Interesting," she said. "I'm personally betting on Atara again; Contestant #3—whose name is Bailey, by the way—said that there was a contestant from Isis attending. She's in Magix working on her teacher's certificate or something, since she's old enough to have graduated already but still young enough to be eligible for this pageant."

"And since Atara's from that realm, it'd make sense she'd want her friend to win," Lucy said.

"I mean, it could be someone else using the same set of motives, but she's the most likely out of the audience to do it." Stella sighed. "We'll just have to keep our guard up."

"About what?" Roxy asked as their three missing dorm-mates walked up. "And congrats on the talent show; you two rocked it."

"I know. Shame about the unfortunate luck everyone else is having tonight." She said just loud enough to be overheard by any spies. "I'd say someone's got major insecurity issues. I mean, we're all gorgeous here, so why cheat to win?"

"We have no definitive proof of that," Bloom countered. "No one's been caught casting spells."

"Look, I'm sure you three will come up with something brilliant, but we don't have time to chat." Lucy glanced over her shoulder, presumably to keep track of the event organizer and her vivid pink blazer. Seriously, who decided that neon was the in shade this year for business-wear? Nobody with style, that's for sure. "We'll ask the higher-ups about tightening security, but be prepared with your shield charms just in case."

"And for Dragon's sake, get them caught, not yourselves!"

The interview portion of the evening met with bouts of sudden acute laryngitis, hiccoughs, and fainting, with more than one girl crying in the bathroom afterward. Magic pulsed in the air, and for once her alarming sensitivity to the stuff came in handy.

"Whoever's casting this is closer to the stage than our classmate and neutral-aligned," She told the other three girls. "Some of these spells are fairy-class."

"Could it be a first-year fairy?" Roxy asked. "I remember someone telling me that alignment could be changed within so many months of unlocking the base transformation…"

"No, whoever this is has too broad a repertoire for that." She shook her head. "Third year level, minimum."

"Is there any way to trace the spells back to their caster?" Bloom frowned.

"Some shields or reflective wards can, but it only works on spells actively cast at the shield," she said.

Bloom put on her 'plotting' face. "Could you and Roxy cast one around the stage?"

"I think so, but what's the point? The show's almost done." Only six contestants remained in the running, with Stella and Lucy being crowd favorites. "The next part is the evening gowns and coronation."

"But if they want to take out the competition, a set of tripwire and stumbling jinxes scattered around the stage would seriously mess up most girls walking in stilt-heels. Stella'd be fine since she lives in them, but you get the point."

Unfortunately, she did. In graphic imagery, nonetheless. She shivered. "Let's catch our sneak before they really hurt someone."

Television news crews and tabloid photographers crowded the stage to get a better view at the remaining contestants, allowing their contingent plenty of time to set up the Tracer Shield spell. It was, in application, an odd mix of color-changing charms and a reflection shield that fed on the link between the castor and their magical attacks. If they'd cast it right, she'd be able to see the results from her spot on the stage.

Less than a couple breaths after she and Lucy walked out, the stage area in front of them flashed a brilliant fuchsia and Bloom body-tackled some chick in the front row with hands glowing the same color. Two ambitious photographers captured the moment on film; she knew it'd make the evening news once this all wrapped up. That in itself wasn't much cause for reaction. Saboteurs came along with the beauty queen package, loathe though she was to admit it. That said, most accomplices knew when to keep their mouths shut.

"Charis, you clod, you were supposed to let me handle this round!" Contestant #10—the only Magix native in the contest—fumed.

"So it wasn't Tamar of Isis? Drat." She made a show of snapping her fingers while the rest of the people on stage gawked at the scene (now with added security guards!). "And while we're on the topic, how is it that event organizers can't be bothered to put up a decent Tracer Shield—or any shield, for that matter—around the stage? Isn't it your job to keep us safe for the contest?" Oh, she was so gonna sue somebody tomorrow…

"I think you allowed it, didn't you Madam Sace?" Lucy asked in saccharine tones. That woman in the hideously unflattering pink blazer squirmed. "What better way to boost the viewer ratings than with a couple accidents? A few animal acts gone wrong, some poor dears succumbing to nerves in the heat of the moment—all ways to drum up viewers for next year, if you'd been a touch more subtle about it."

"You rigged it?" One of the Alfea contestants shouted. She didn't recognize the girl on sight, but judging by her face and build she was probably a true freshman and not one who offered a memorable reaction during the dance prank. "Oh, I am going to sue you people for all you're worth!" Many others vocalized their support.

"Madam Sace, I'm appalled by your behavior!" The MC drew himself up taller. "This contest is backed by decades of tradition and excellence! To sully it with such petty behavior…"

"You fool! Can't you see I did this for the contest? For future contests?" The woman screeched. "Our viewership was at an all-time low last year. This was the perfect way to revive interest, with a Magix native as the rightful winner, no less! It was brilliant!"

"And let me guess, you'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for us meddling kids?" Roxy smirked as Bloom bit the bottom of her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Stella didn't understand the reference, meaning it was probably one of the Earth-things she hadn't come across yet and let it lie.

"Ooh, enough!" the beleaguered MC shouted. "Security, please deal with my former colleague until the police arrive. Now, contestants, we have two options going forward: re-do the entire pageant on a different night, or crown the new Miss Magix from the remaining contestants on their feet."

The contestant afflicted by Madam Sace's spells shared a hushed conversation before turning to the announcer. "Sir, if it's all the same to you, we'd rather just put this behind us. If the winner is who we think it might be…well, she's earned it in spite of all that's happened," Bailey said as the other girls nodded.

"Very well." The announcer nodded even as Madam Sace fumed and strained against the bonds the security team placed on her. "Ahem. The winner and this year's Miss Magix is…"

"Should I be impressed or offended that a pair of mages caused more trouble at the damn beauty contest than a full circle of witches?" Stormy frowned at the newspaper Darcy was reading.

"Both." Icy answered, skimming the front page teaser. "Do they say who actually won?" She knew the one Jinx Club princess planned to enter, but not if she'd done any good. Event judges rarely gave prizes like this to witches, even if they were classically beautiful.

Darcy lowered the paper a bit, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "A witch."

"So the blonde bimbo did it?" Stormy asked. Darcy chuckled.

"Wrong witch. She barely made the top five."

"Then who else could have…holy fucking Shadowhaunt, who is that?" the youngest Trix exclaimed and jabbed her breakfast fork at the entrance to the dining hall. Her sisters followed her line of sight. Darcy, who'd already seen the picture in the paper, merely shrugged and went back to reading, but Icy stared for a moment before her brain booted up again.

"I think that's mousy Mirta's friend."

"How did she get so pretty? That's not a glamour, is it?"

"No, Stormy, it's not a glamour." This time Darcy smiled. "The glamour is what everyone else has seen for the past three days. Stella dragged her out for a day at the salon and brought that back to us."

"She entered the contest," Icy said.

"She won the contest." A wide grin split Darcy's face. She so loved a good misdirection prank. "You're looking at the new Miss Magix."

"Whoa." Stormy blinked. "You think maybe they could do something with that fire chick's mop of hair?"

"You're hardly one to talk about other people's hair; you barely even comb yours out when you get out of the shower, let alone use proper conditioner," Icy accused. "Besides, the wild look suits her." More than she'd care to admit.

"Funny how you'd care about something like that," Darcy commented. "Isn't Darko treating you well?"

"Darko was a means to an end, nothing more." The ice witch sniffed. The smarmy boy had been far too fake for her taste. She'd needed his political and monetary connections last year to acquire some…restricted spell-crafting and ritual components, but now? She had the tentative alliance with Princess Stella for that and no further interest in Darko.

"Indeed." The look Darcy leveled her with filled Icy with unease. "Well, as I wanted some extra revision time before that quiz in Advanced Divination, I'll leave you two to your conversation."

Icy couldn't explain why she felt like she'd been dunked in boiling water, or missed a fatal accident by the slimmest margin possible, but she knew it was all Darcy's fault. And possibly Bloom's as well.