Winx Club: Dark Magic (Season 4)

XVI: No Turning Back

The sun sank below the horizon for the second time since the Wizards' last confrontation with the Fairy of the Eternal Dark. The three men found themselves gathered in an abandoned alley settled in a rather decrepit end of the city. 

Ogron stood with his arms folded over his chest, and looked to Gantlos expectantly. "Well?"

"She's ready," Gantlos stated definitively. 

"You're certain?" Ogron said, raising an eyebrow. 

Anagan groaned impatiently. "Does it matter either way? We've wasted enough time on this good-for-nothing planet. Let's just grab her and force her to help; it's not as though she could really fight us off, anyway."

Ogron turned to Anagan. "While I applaud your passion for the suffering of useless fairies, I might remind you how difficult it would be to successfully train a being gifted with such power that hasn't the faintest idea how to wield it. If we're fighting her the entire time we're trying to train her, she's likely to kill herself -or one of us- in the process with that kind of power."

Anagan grumbled something incoherent under his breath, but said nothing plausible to counter Ogron's point. 

"Now, you were saying?" Ogron addressed Gantlos once more. 

"I followed her all day," Gantlos explained. "She took a few solid hits from a brute this afternoon, and she was evidently agitated for the rest of the day. I'm thinking she's feeling the limitations of her mortal form. She's ready."

"She has one more day until the deadline," Ogron pointed out. 

"She doesn't need it," Gantlos insisted. "Besides, Anagan's right: we've wasted enough time here. The Winx are out there every day looking for us. One more day in this city could mean getting ourselves caught, and this time we don't even have the benefit of the four of us. We couldn't withstand a head-on fight in our state."

Ogron nodded in understanding. "Very well. Let's get our fairy."

~<->~<->~<->~

Aiyana supposed she should have been more surprised to find the three Wizards once again waiting in her living room later that evening, but her heart barely skipped a beat upon seeing them. What should have been terror was instead an expectation fulfilled. She realized she shouldn't have anticipated an interruption from them until the following night, when her three day limit would reach its end, but she felt she had endured enough change in the past thirty-six hours alone that this seemed almost overdue. 

Hair dripping wet from the shower and dressed in nothing more than a towel, Aiyana refused to let herself feel vulnerable or exposed. She was leaving that part of her behind, after all. She'd made her choice. 

"Let me get changed," she said simply to the three onlooking Wizards, turning on her heel and locking herself in her room. 

She should have been panicking at the prospect of what she was about to do. Her hands were supposed to be shaky and her breathing rapid. Her heart was meant to be pounding in her chest. None of that was the case. Rather, she felt... calm. At peace. There was a sort of freedom in her decision: a kind of liberation in finally setting her inner demons free. 

Two minutes later, she re-entered the living room, this time clothed and with a half-empty duffel bag slung over her shoulder. 

The redheaded Wizard revealed a sly, satisfied grin upon seeing her so willing to join with them all of a sudden. 

"What changed?" he asked curiously. 

Aiyana shrugged. "Maybe I've just had enough of this city."

"No," he shook his head, rejecting her answer. "The real reason."

Aiyana gritted her teeth. Something told her she was going to be butting heads with this particular Wizard more often than she'd like. Her gaze flitted from Gantlos to Anagan -both failing to hide their interest behind stoic expressions- and eventually back to the redhead. 

"You really want me to say that you were right, don't you?" Aiyana begrudgingly regarded. 

His smile only widened. 

"Fine," she seethed. "Yes, I'm tired of being inadequate and ineffective and defenseless. I recognize that I have great power, and I'm sick of holding it back." She paused. "How was that?"

He nodded once, his eyes shining. "Acceptable. Shall we?" 

Aiyana sighed, glancing once more over the three Wizards collectively. She was really doing this, wasn't she? She was really about to join up with a trio of magical beings to travel across dimensions and enter a world completely unknown and bizarre to her. She was really going to consider herself a part of a team that had been the source of her nightmares and trauma for years. 

"One more thing," she said. "If we're going to be some kind of inconvenient unit, I think it's only fair that I know each of your names. You all seem to know everything about me already, anyway."

The redhead seemed to agree. He motioned to Gantlos and introduced him as such, doing the same with Anagan. Aiyana didn't so much as nod in response. 

Lastly, he introduced himself: "... And I am Ogron, the leader of the Wizards of the Black Circle."

Ogron. Gantlos. Anagan. Duman. Heaven help her keep any names straight if everyone in this new world had such unorthodox and eccentric titles. 

"Thank you," Aiyana forced herself to say once Ogron had finished. 

He bowed his head slightly as an acknowledgement. Less than a moment later, he was creating some kind of black hole in the middle of her living room. The sound that emitted from it was both deafening and hollow, and the darkness from it seemed to envelope the entire room. 

Noticing her unfamiliarity, Gantlos whispered from just inches behind her, where he suddenly stood: "It's the Black Portal."

Aiyana tried steeling her nerves as Ogron finished creating the Portal and stepped aside, motioning with one hand for her to come forward. 

"Ladies first," he ushered smugly.

Aiyana denied him the satisfaction of even a hesitation. She took two confident steps forward and headed straight into the Portal without looking back, leaving her world behind.