Things were just not going well for him. His whole body ached from the amount of power it had used in the last half hour. He felt exhausted and short of breath. He knew he would not be able to last much longer. But the man or dare he say monster he was facing did not seem to be having the same struggles. Not a scratch or bruise littered the sorcerer's pale body. Even every hair strand on his head remained perfectly in place. Just like the man's sadistic smirk.
Because of the exhaustion, Dimitri made more mistakes, his reflexes when dodging were slower. Incanting took a lot of magic from the user. However since this was a full on fight he did not have the time to actually make the incantation powerful enough or irreversible to make sufficient damage on the enemy wizard. He was being toyed with. And Dimitri hated that feeling. He flew as high as possible so that he could avoid Valtor's latest spell directed to his feet. Was the man trying to disintegrate his toes?
But as he stopped in mid air a few feet above the ground, trying to collect the last of his magic energy to do one last big spell against his attacker, he saw a glimpse of the man's triumphant smile. the spell had not been aimed at him directly. Stupid. as a last desperate effort he tried to fly further away from the ground and escape whatever damage Valtor had originally intended? But it was too late. Dimitri felt a powerful force encasing his body. While his body went rigid and cold, the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the back of the man's red trench coat as he flew away. He failed. He failed to protect her. Dimitri thought before the world went dark.
"What do you mean he went after Valtor and has not come back ?" Flora could not stop the worry from showing in her voice as she interrogated the students and teachers that had been fighting in the courtyard while they had been facing off the Trix in the archives. After everything had calmed down? The girls, especially Flora, had noticed the absence of the history teacher. And had quickly started a small search throughout the school for him. The last time the man had disappeared he had ended up under the mind control of one dark lord. She really hoped this had not happened again or worse. It did not take long to piece together the information they were getting from different school staff and understand that the young teacher had gone to face off Vlator in the magical forest. Alone. And now one had seen him since. Flora tried to keep her panic in and invisible to others. her hands were trembling. She could feel small tears at the edge of her eyelids. Just waiting to slide down in waves as soon as she let her emotion get to her. But no. She needed to stay calm for Dimitri. He might need her help.
She felt fingers close comfortingly around her right hand and another hand rested on her left shoulder. Musa and Layla were both standing next to her trying to give her the quiet support she desperately needed at the moment.
"You heard them, he's in the magical forest, we'll all go look for him. I'm sure we'll find him quickly with tecna's technology and your nature speak. So don't worry." Layla calmly and softly rubbed her tensed shoulder while Musa slowly led her towards the entrance gate facing the forest. The other girls walked as a group around them preparing themselves to transform again. She was really grateful to have kind and supportive friends like them.
However, all the supportive and comforting words in the world could not have prepared her for the sight of Dima trapped inside the trunk of an old tree, after soaring the skies above the forest for half an hour. They could still distinguish the lines of his shocked and perhaps even scared expression under the tree bark. As soon as they were close enough, she landed on the ground and ran the small distance left between herself and the trapped young man.
"Dima!" She placed her hands on what looked like to be the chest of the mage. She placed her ear against what seemed to be the chest of the young man under a layer of wood in a desperate attempt to hear his pulse or perhaps at least the tree's whispers. as she was still trying to call his name and ask the tree what had happened, the other girls, their pixies and their headmistress all landed around her. they all had the same sad and shocked expressions. Faragonda could not believe the horrible fate, one of her professors, had fallen victim to.
"I can't hear Dimitri. No it's more like, I can't distinguish him from the tree. It's like their life forces are mixed or bonded together" Flora whispered in disbelief more for herself than for the people around her. "What happened to him? What did Valtor do to him?" she could hear her voice tremble, but she could not do anything about it. All she could try to do was to stop the possible panic attack from overpowering her. She needed to stay calm and clear headed. Panicking would not help the man she cared about. Perhaps, he was in pain. Therefore, they needed to act as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, her headmistress's next words helped distract her from all of these dark and anxious thoughts.
"Valtor probably trapped him in a time spell. He used the spell on a seed laying underneath Professor Darkell and thus trapped the mage in this tree's future form. Time spells are tricky and powerful and often irreversible for other magic users. "
Those last words grabbed the attention of the girls around her. Tecna was the one to speak their thoughts out loud.
"You said it was irreversible for magic users. Is it reversible by other means, then?" Faragonda smiled proudly at the young lady's intelligence.
"Yes, while spells and curses from a magic user directly cannot reverse time. There are artefacts and natural magical sources that can do it. At least there were many of them in the past, they were the cause of many wars and a lot of them were destroyed. To my knowledge there is one specific place left that has the magical power to reverse time on nature's children. Flora, actually, you might have heard of it since it's located on your home planet."
"The Black Willow." Flora suddenly realized what Faragonda was talking about.
"What's the black willow?" Stella asked confused.
Flora tried remembering the details of the famous tale, the elders had taught the young children in her village years ago.
"On my planet, for centuries there used to be a beautiful place where two very old and powerful willows grew and lived together. However, a few hundred years ago the elders told us that one of the two trees was destroyed by a magical wildfire. The survivor tree was left alone and miserable. He started crying. Until this day he is still crying. His tears since they were caused by sad past memories are said to be able to reverse time on living beings for a short amount of time."
She recounted as clearly as she could what she had heard as a young child. from the nod of approval of Faragonda, she had explained things well enough.
"That's great, we can go and get a bit of this willow's tears and pour it on the professor's tree.It'll reverse the aging of the tree long enough for him to get free!" Bloom summarized. Flora couldn't help but smile at her friend's enthusiasm. Maybe there was still hope.
They started planning their trip to Flora's home planet, Lymphea. Faragonda and pixies would stay here and keep an eye on the school and Dimitri while the girls would let Flora guide them to Willow's tears. Flora felt like she could finally breathe a bit more easily knowing that now they had a concrete plan to follow.
An hour later, the fairies had finally left for their destination with the help of Stella's ring. Faragonda had decided to quickly go check on the school and see how the staff was coping after the attack. Thus, the pixies were left in charge of keeping an eye and taking care of the poor trapped Professor. However, as soon as the headmistress was gone, Chatta thought it was time to finally give a good scolding to the professor. It did not even come to her mind that the man might not be able to hear her.
"Hey, Spike head. Stop getting yourself in these messes. You keep making my fairy worry! i do not like seeing my Flora sad especially because of a idiotic spike head like you." She ranted while flying around him. Perhaps if she shouted near his ears he would hear her better. "Hey are you listening, Spike head? Flora is one her way to save you. And by saving you she's putting herself in danger. So stop being a damsel in distress, and start pulling your weight around here. Flora shouldn't have to always come to her boyfriend's rescue."
"BOYFRIEND?!" All her small friends repeated in surprise.
Shoot, Flora was going to be so mad. She had done such a good job until now keeping everything a secret. She was a blabber mouth, but a loyal blabbermouth. But it seems that, even with all the best intentions in the world, she still could not keep a secret secret. But she still blamed Spike head for all of this.