Winx Club - Eternal Spark

Chapter 7: Trap

One by one, the Winx jumped down into the fortress hall, praying that they would not break a leg in the process. Luckily for them, the fall turned out to be shorter than they had imagined, as the windows were surprisingly close to the ground. They rose to their feet, scanning their surroundings for the least suspicious move, but the room was so dark that it was difficult to see. After a few seconds of hesitation, realizing that they were in no immediate danger, they relaxed slightly.

Stella materialized a ball of light and sent it floating above their heads, illuminating the entire hall. The girls discovered a room that was empty of furniture and covered in dust, as if no one had set foot in it for many years. A passageway on the opposite wall immediately drew their attention. They looked at each other, somewhat puzzled at what to do next.

"What do we do?" Musa asked, taking off her hood. "Should we continue?"

"Let me have a look around first," Tecna interjected. "It's too quiet, I don't like it." She conjured up a magical map of the castle in the palm of her hand as she cast a suspicious glance around the room.

"And you wanted to hear what, exactly? Birds chirping?" Stella scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"She's got a point," Flora remarked with a chuckle.

Tecna let out an annoyed groan. She continued to tap away at her map, angrily muttering to herself.

"I don't know..." Musa said, rubbing her chin. "This place gives me the creeps..."

"Yeah, me too," Aisha agreed, narrowing her eyes. "Personally, I think we've managed to get in a little too easily... what fortress worthy of the name would leave its windows open and accessible to anyone? That much is already suspicious."

Stella whined audibly, bored with their paranoia. She made her way to the passageway, eager to prove to her friends that they were getting all worked up for nothing. She made it to the front of the corridor without a hitch and turned back to the girls with a satisfied look on her face, while they all looked at her in utter disbelief.

"See? Nothing happened. Come on now, I don't want to stay here all day," she said.

She turned her back on them and walked towards the corridor.

At the same moment, Tecna looked up from her map in horror.

"Stella, don't go any further!" She shouted, surprising everyone.

Stella spun round, panicked.

Suddenly, there was a muffled creaking, followed by metallic noises coming from all directions. The ground began to shake beneath their feet, as if an earthquake had struck.

But it was no earthquake.

In front of their very eyes, robots clad in heavy steel armor began emerging from the walls. There were hundreds of them, marching in unison like an army, wielding sharp swords. Stella looked back at the corridor, hoping they could get through it without having to fight them... but it was gone. Where it had been two seconds earlier was now the wall. She put her hands on it, trying to work out if it was an illusion, perplexed. Unfortunately for her, the wall was as real as the army of robots closing in on her. The illusion had been the passageway all along.

"Tecna!" Stella yelled so that she could be heard over the cacophonous noise of the robots. "You're the fairy of Technology, for Sun's sake! Aren't you supposed to know when an army of killer robots is waiting for us!"

"I told you to wait!" Tecna snapped back. "But, as usual, you wanted to show off, and you walked right into a trap! If you had just..."

"Enough already!" Aisha interrupted them. "We'll decide who's to blame later, right now we have more pressing problems!"