Winx Club - Eternal Spark

Prologue 3: Or how to blame global crisis on six teenagers

Valtor was alive, and Mrs Faragonda was the first person to get the news. The Winx returned from their trip to the Omega dimension at dusk, both completely worn out and demoralized.

Mrs Faragonda had been waiting for them at the school gate the whole time, eager to know the outcome of the battle, certain they would be victorious as she had taught Bloom how to get into Valtor's spirit. She knew Bloom had the power to do it.

However, her hopes for victory didn't last long; in fact, they were dashed as soon as her eyes met the distraught expressions on the girls' faces. The Winx didn't need to say much, one look at Bloom was enough for her to know that Valtor had been left unharmed and, more importantly, free.

The headmistress did the best she could to hide her disappointment, telling the girls some uninspired gibberish about how powerful an enemy Valtor was and how they shouldn't feel guilty. Whilst she said that with the fakest smile she was able to pull off, she didn't fool any of the Winx. They were all painfully aware that she didn't believe a word of it and blamed them, even if she didn't mean to. Mrs Farafonda eventually let the girls go back to their dormitory to rest, aware of the uneasy tension that had built up between them, and insisted on seeing them to the door to prove that she wasn't angry with them.

On the way to their dorm, the old woman couldn't help but notice something weird. Something was off about Bloom. Somehow, the red head looked faulty...more than she should have. Way more than her friends. She was also very noticeably avoiding her gaze. Her shifty eyes made the headmistress think back on everything the girls had told her. Now that she had time to think back on it, she was struggling to understand how it was possible that Bloom had failed to kill their enemy when she had come into direct contact with Valtor's soul, the very source of his power, the place where he was the most vulnerable. One single blast of fire in that place should have been enough to extinguish him for good. Hell, a flick would have done the trick.

She kept all her doubts to herself but couldn't help staring intensely at Bloom as she wished them goodnight.

As soon as the Winx were in their dorm, the headmistress hurried to the castle of Magix in the middle of the night, intending to inform the Governor of Magix about what had occurred. She had done her best to keep the higher authorities out of their conflict with Valtor, but it was now obvious to her that Valtor posed too much of a threat for six teenagers to contend with alone, regardless of how powerful they were. Something was clearly preventing Bloom from defeating the wizard, and until she found out what it was, someone else was going to have to protect the people from his attacks.

The day after meeting the headmistress of Alfea, the Governor of Magix, with the approval of Mrs Faragonda, called a summit meeting between the most influential rulers of the Magical Dimension, hoping they would collaborate to finally put an end to the "Valtor problem" that had been going on for way too long.

Soon enough, meetings between the crowned heads of the magical dimension began occurring daily, in which they discussed what they would do to find Valtor. Erendor, the King of Eraklyon, quickly assumed leadership of these meetings, being the ruler of the most prosperous kingdom of the magical dimension since the fall of Domino, but also the loudest king in the assembly. Eventually, they agreed on several measures, including the creation of an intergalactic police force and the establishment of means to enhance intergalactic communication, so that information could travel more easily between the numerous kingdoms and planets.

However, there was still one thorny issue that the rulers couldn't seem to agree on. The question was whether to inform the public that Valtor was alive or not. At the time, the public believed that Valtor had been crushed to death after his attack on Magix, after he summoned the four elements to wreak havoc on the capital. Only the rulers of the Magical Dimension, the headmasters of the schools of Magix, and, of course, the Winx and the Specialists knew that Valtor was not dead. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, he was dead, already ancient history.