Disclaimer: I don't own Winx.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is very unfortunate. Warning: Some really obscure and games related terminology ahead.

Bloom and Tecna Play Street Fighter

"Good game," Tecna said, as she set her controller down on the armrest of the couch. She smiled over at Bloom, who could only stare at the screen in a complete stupor. "Bloom?"

"I can't believe it!" Up on the screen, Bloom's armour-clad, spherical Meta Knight was applauding in the background, having been defeated by Tecna's masterful control of the pink and blue coat wearing Ice Climber duo, who were centre stage, hopping up and down triumphantly. Bloom let her controller drop to the floor in frustration, and hung her head in disappointment. "I just can't win..."

"Don't worry Bloom," Tecna said, secretly relishing her victory over the self-appointed leader of the Winx. She'd take her victories wherever she could get them. "I just excel at this sort of thing."

"But every game?!" Bloom gestured over to the pile of Wii games they had just slogged through. Mario Kart, Punch-Out, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort... Hell, Tecna had somehow even managed to win all of the arbitrary, friendship ruining games of Mario Party they'd gone through. Musa and Stella still hadn't spoken to either Bloom or Tecna since the four played it together.

Tecna shrugged. "Your skills are just better applied elsewhere. Maybe in something more competitive."

A spark was lit in Bloom's eyes. "You're right!" Bloom dashed up to the Wii console and extracted the Brawl disc that was inside. She carefully put the game into its case, and pulled out a different game from the small pile below the television. "Melee is way more competitive than Brawl!" Excitedly, Bloom put the Melee disc into the Wii and jumped back up to the couch where Tecna was sitting.

Tecna let out an exasperated sigh, and picked her controller back up. "Bloom, this isn't exactly what I meant." The screen proudly portraying the title of Super Smash Brothers Melee was up for less than a second before Bloom pressed the start button on her controller, rocketing through the game's menus until they were on the free for all character selection screen.

"Let me just fix the rules real quickly here..." Bloom opened up the options menu, and quickly scrolled through. "No items..." She turned the item drop option in the game off. "Fox only..." She changed the game from a two-minute melee mode to lives stock of five. "Final destination." She closed the options menu and quickly chose the fox named Fox McCloud as her character.

Tecna looked over her options for characters, and eventually chose the lovable Ice Climber duo, just as she had for Brawl. A cheeky grin formed on Bloom's face. Little did Tecna know, but the Ice Climbers were way stronger in Brawl than in Melee! Bloom quickly pressed the start button, and progressed the game to the stage select screen. There was no way she'd be losing this time!

"What stage should we-" Tecna began, but was cut off, when Bloom quickly chose the Final Destination map. A completely flat arena with nothing interesting whatsoever. The pink-haired fairy shot Bloom a weary look.

"It's the most balanced map!" The fight was about to begin. Bloom's expression quickly became serious. She tightly gripped her Gamecube controller, and tried to hide her inner excitement as well as she could. That summer she wasted learning how to wavedash was about to pay off! Even a gaming wiz like Tecna wouldn't be able to pull off such an advanced, and undocumented technique in her first match ever played. Not to mention, it was almost necessary to play the Ice Climbers well! Bloom was convinced. This game was hers.

The battle was off to a quick start. Bloom controlled Fox to start with his dashing teleport attack, led into his blue reflector, and wavedashed into a downward smash attack. The attack caught Tecna off her guard, but the technology fairy made careful note of the unnatural movement and how it was performed. Somehow, a diagonal air-dodge into the ground caused a character to slide, carrying their momentum from the dodge. However, because the movement wasn't the same as walking, it would allow the character to perform a smash attack while moving, when normally such an attack could only be performed while stationary. It would also be able to compensate for a character with weak traction and a slow dash... it would be perfect for the Ice Climbers. In the split second it took for Tecna to immediately understand the technique, the pink-haired fairy commanded the Ice Climbers to roll away from the aggressive Fox, and begin her own counterattack. With masterful timing and precision, Tecna made the Ice Climbers do a short hop, and air-dodged into the ground. A successful wavedash on her first try. In complete shock, Bloom found herself unable to respond to the move, and the Ice Climbers were able to mercilessly wail on Fox. It did not take long for Tecna's Ice Climbers to launch Bloom's Fox off of the stage. It also did not take long for history to repeat itself, and within five minutes, Bloom had managed to lose all of her lives, while Tecna still had two left over.

"That's it," Bloom said, as she dropped her controller to the floor once again. "I give up."

"Don't worry about it," Tecna said, attempting to console her obviously sore friend. "It's just a game."

"How?! How did you learn how to wavedash so quickly?!" Bloom's temperature was beginning to rise dangerously high.

"It seemed obvious," Tecna replied. "I saw you perform the move, and I was able to replicate it."

"It took me a whole summer to learn that!"

"I didn't know it was supposed to be difficult. I thought this was a game meant for players of all ages."

Bloom opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't find any words. She made her way back to the Wii, and ejected the disc. The red-head so wanted to snap it in half, but she maintained her control, and put it back into its case, as violently as she could without damaging it. She quietly made her way over to the window, and sprouted her wings.

"I'm just gonna go and cool off for a little bit," Bloom said.

"That's fine," Tecna replied. "If you ever want to challenge me again, I'll be happy to accept." Bloom nodded, and leapt out from the window and took flight.

Despite having saved the entire universe several times over, Bloom was still too young to legally drink alcohol in Gardenia. So instead, she went to find the next best thing, at the Fruitti Music Bar. She tried to drown her aggravation in as many fruit based beverages as she could, but couldn't shake off her anger. Her anger at losing.

If there was any one thing in the world she hated above all, it wouldn't be Darkar, Valtor, The Wizards of the Black Circle, or even the Trix. It would be losing. Losing meant admitting someone else was better than you. Losing was the opposite of winning. And winning wasn't just everything; it was the only thing! Bloom tried to shake the negative thoughts from her mind, but they kept coming back to haunt her. Klaus, the owner and manager of the bar, saw the uncharacteristic glumness on Bloom's face, and being a good host, he made his way over to her to try to help her.

"What's the matter?" Klaus asked warmly. "And don't try to tell me that it's nothing."

"It's nothing... important," Bloom replied, as she took another sip of her smoothie. "I just got a little frustrated with losing a few too many video games."

"I see."

"It's just that I always try so hard, and I can never win! I can't even get close."

"I understand." Klaus said. A small smile formed on his face. "I know how people can get real worked up on those games. Last time I played a game was back when arcade cabinets made a killing in here! In fact, I've still got the old Street Fighter cabinets and..."

Bloom perked up at the mention of the arcade classic. "Street Fighter?!" Klaus nodded. "Which ones do you have?"

"Well, I bought them when they were most popular, so I've got the original Street Fighter Two, Street Fighter Alpha, and... Super Street Fighter Two Turbo."

"Super Street Fighter Two Turbo?!" An evil smile took form on Bloom's face. That was her favourite Street Fighter game... for one very particular reason absent in any other installment of the franchise. "Do you still have it connected?"

"I sure do, but it's not out front anymore. It's in my office."

"Would you mind if a friend and I played it for a little bit?"

"Not at all!" Klaus said. "I'd be happy to let you use it."

"Thank you so much!" Bloom practically jumped for joy. "I'll be back soon!" She quickly ran out of the bar, and began to fly back to the apartment where the Winx were living to find Tecna.

It had taken Bloom all of five minutes to find Tecna and drag her down to the Fruitti Music Bar. In the Dragon-fairy's mind, the gears kept turning. Surely her moment of victory was nigh.

"I'm telling you Tecna, it's awesome! I used to play it all the time!" Bloom said, as she yanked Tecna by the wrist into Klaus's office.

"I believe you!" Tecna replied, having lost some of her patience towards the Dragon-fairy. At first glance, Klaus's office was rather simple, with just a desk, his computer, and a few pictures, but once someone entered the room, they could see the arcade cabinets that were hidden behind the wall, just next to the door frame. Tecna quickly glanced over each of them, Street Fighter II – The World Warrior, Street Fighter Alpha, and the last one, in the corner of the room, Super Street Fighter II Turbo. The machine was a rather simple. Above the screen, the title was displayed over a somewhat inaccurate map of earth. On the panel, there were two separate layouts for two different players, each consisting of a joystick, three buttons for punching, and three buttons for kicking. Between the two layouts was a one player button and a two player button. The background image was more detailed, and had a more accurate map of earth, with several blurbs about the characters in the game.

"It's in his office, so it should be a free play," Bloom said. With any luck, she wouldn't have to pay in order to have the honour of beating Tecna at a video game. At the bottom of the screen, her hopes were confirmed. The flashing words: 'free play.'

"So does this play similarly to the other games in the series?" Tecna asked, as she looked down at the arcade panel. Looking over the character portraits, she saw a picture of Blanka, a green-skinned giant of a man who was a character she was familiar with from the original version of Street Fighter II. She'd beaten Bloom at that too.

"Oh yeah," Bloom replied, as she pressed the two player start button. She was doing all she could to hold back her giggles. Tecna chose Blanka on the character select menu, while Bloom kept her cursor on the iconic main character of the series, named Ryu. After a few seconds, she moved her cursor over to a character named T. Hawk, who appeared to be the stereotypical image of a Native American. Bloom's cursor lingered there for a little while longer.

"Is anything wrong?" Tecna asked, wondering why Bloom was taking so long. She had seemed so excited to play the game, and usually in other games, she'd pick her characters at light speed.

"Uhh, it's nothing," Bloom said. "I'm, uh... just wondering what character I should play, that's all." Bloom's cursor moved over to the American army man with an extreme haircut named Guile. After waiting a few more seconds, it dropped down to the camouflage wearing Cammy, who represented England. "I wonder what I should do..." A few more seconds passed and Bloom moved her cursor back up to Ryu. The evil smile once again formed on her face, and she mashed the three punch buttons along with the start button all at the same time. Ryu's image was replaced with a black silhouette, and a character who had no name. Tecna looked over to Bloom in confusion, and saw that the red-headed girl was grinning back. On the top of the screen, the Brazil's stage was picked as the battleground, and a small icon of a plane flew up towards the Brazilian flag.

The fight had begun, between Tecna's Blanka, and Bloom's mystery character, whose portrait was entirely black. There was no name beneath his health bar at the top of the screen. In the game however, the character bloom had chosen was readily visible. He had dark skin, fiery red hair, and wore a black gi. As far as Street Fighter characters had gone, he was rather intimidating.

"Round One... Fight!" The game's announcer said, and the two fairies dove into action. Bloom started the fight aggressively, with her mystery character performing some sort of teleport attack, and then made a point-blank spinning uppercut known as a shoryuken to Tecna's Blanka. Having seen the attack, Tecna decided that an aerial approach would be best, to avoid the high mobility Bloom's character seemed to possess on the ground. Bloom couldn't help but giggle all the while. Tecna hadn't seen anything yet. Blanka jumped up in the air to approach Bloom's character, and Bloom retaliated by making her own character jump backwards, and then she followed through with a hadouken projectile attack aimed at a downward angle... while still in the air.

Tecna glanced over to Bloom with suspicion. Characters couldn't perform projectile attacks in the air, and somehow, Bloom's mystery man just did so. Also, it had seemed that his attacks did massive damage, much more than other characters in the game. Despite her valiant effort, Tecna's Blanka was knocked out by Bloom's character. In victory, the character crouched slightly and held one arm forward, as if charging his demonic energy. The technology fairy hunched over, and narrowed her eyes. She was determined to find some way to overcome this.

"Round two... Fight!"

Tecna started the bout by having Blanka do a forward rolling charge attack, while Bloom's character went straight into his whirling jump kick, known as the Tatsumaki Zankuu kyaku. While performing the attack, her character was invincible, and knocked Blanka away. Bloom's character teleported towards Blanka, and Tecna countered by having Blanka envelop himself with electrical energy. Bloom's character jumped away, and fired his aerial hadouken, throwing Blanka down. As soon as Bloom's character landed, he shot out a red version of the Hadouken, which Blanka took head on. The attack caused the green-skinned warrior to become covered in flames, and he fell to the corner of the screen. Before Blanka could fully recover, Bloom's character shot another red hadouken, which Blanka was barely able to block. However, just as the attack was blocked, another one was shot out in immediate succession. Tecna was stuck. All she could do was block endlessly, and be slowly beaten by the little damage she was slowly taking from the move. It was a slow, agonizing loss. Eventually, player one was declared the winner. Bloom's character turned his back to the screen, and a red kanji appeared on his back. A kanji symbolizing heaven. As the battle ended Bloom began to laugh wildly.

"I won! I won! I finally beat you!" Bloom turned to face Tecna, and poked the technology fairy lightly on the tip of her nose. "Akuma beats all!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Tecna said. "That was patently unfair!" Tecna wouldn't have minded losing if she had a fighting chance. But losing like that? That was a slap in the face.

"Don't be such a sore loser," Bloom said. "Maybe you'd be better at something less competitive." It took a great deal of Tecna's willpower to not strangle the fairy standing in front of her. Bloom began to skip her way outside of the room. "Remember Tecna, all is fair in love and Street Fighter!"

As soon as Domino's Princess left, Tecna opened her palmtop, and quickly connected to Earth's primitive internet. Doing a simple search, she asked the question: 'How do you counter Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo?' She opened the first link that came up. On the screen, was her answer:

'You don't. He's banned for a reason.'

"Author's" Notes:

Thank you for reading or skipping all the way to the end of this story! The disclaimer about similarities to real life people being unfortunate is true. Friends don't play against friends with Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo.

Sorry for all the gamer terminology, but I must admit, it's fun to use words like wavedash in a narrative context. I made them play on a Wii just so I'd be able to make a Mario Party reference, as well as Smash Brothers reference without too much hassle. That's pretty much all I got. I'm surprised this story got so long to be honest. Feel free to leave a review if you feel like it. :)