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!"
Indeed, the robots were only a few meters away from them. One of the robots, the one closest to them, stopped and raised its sword, ready to blast his weapon at the group of friends.
Bloom did the first thing she could think of. Instead of using magic, she pulled off her cloak and threw it at the robot, blinding it for a moment. It seemed puzzled, turning its metal head from side to side in confusion, making squeaky noises. They would have laughed if they hadn't been in such dire straits.
"Winx, Enchantix!" Bloom shouted.
The six fairies transformed, then leapt into the air just in time to escape the robot knights' attacks. Thankfully the fortress had a high ceiling. Stella joined them and they stood in a circle, back-to-back, to better observe the myriads of robots that continued to spring from the walls.
"Maybe we're safe here," Flora said, observing the robots as they continued to search for them on the ground. "Perhaps they can only fight on the gro..."
A sword flew in her direction, knocking the words out of her mouth. It had missed her by an inch.
"...You were saying?" Stella asked, raising an eyebrow.
Bloom's eyes darted between the swords flying in the air and the place where the corridor had disappeared a few minutes earlier. There had to be a way into the fortress, they just had to find it.
"Let's split up," The red-haired fairy announced, turning to her friends. "Musa and Tecna, you try to find the way into the fortress. Stella, you protect them from the robots, and while you're doing that, we'll try to slow them down!"
No one questioned her orders - they didn't have the time to do so anyway. The girls split up, each going their own way to eliminate as many robots as possible.
Aisha was the first to enter the fray. Landing on the ground, she used her powers to create a Morphix sword and shield. She dashed towards the robots, using her sword to slash through them and her shield to fend off their relentless attacks. For the first time in her life, she was grateful to her father for forcing her to learn sword fighting as a child. The fairy of waves proved to be terrifyingly effective, striking down more than twenty robots in just a few minutes without breaking a sweat.
Flora watched her friend in awe before deciding to attack as well. After a moment's reflection, wondering how she should proceed, she landed on the ground and pressed her hands against the stone tiles. The ground, which was already shaking because of the army of robots, began to shake even more. Suddenly, cracks opened in the stone, causing the machines to lose their balance and fall one by one with a deafening crash. Thick vines soon emerged from the cracks, wrapping around the robots, and crushing them like rubbish.
Back in the air, Musa and Tecna were desperately searching for the route to follow on Tecna's map, but nothing was showing. There was simply no way to get deeper into the fortress from here... and yet, they were in the lobby, which had to be the entrance to the rest of the castle. Tecna scanned the room repeatedly, but to no avail. The only exits shown on her map were the windows and the front door which led to the outside. Musa was starting to get restless beside her.
"Come on, Tecna, dammit! There has to be a door, a secret passage, I don't know, something!"
Tecna looked up from her map, offended. "I'm doing what I can! If you have a better idea, I'm all ears!"
Musa was about to reply when a sword grazed her wings, making her completely forget what she was about to say. Her gaze fell on Stella, who had been tasked with protecting them. Despite her powerful attacks, the blonde fairy was having a hard time holding back the onslaught of robots coming at them. There were far too many of them for her to handle alone, not to mention the fact that she had been greatly weakened by the teleportation spell from earlier. The Sun and Moon Fairy was sweating profusely, completely overwhelmed by what was happening. It wouldn't be long before she ran out of power.
Musa and Tecna exchanged knowing glances: they had to find the passage. They had to find it now.
The sense of urgency eventually gave Musa an idea. After she briefly explained her plan to Tecna, she grabbed her hand and the two fairies moved to the centre of the room. Still in mid-air, Musa focused, then sent waves of magic throughout the room. Bouncing off the walls, the magical ripples returned to her, and she sent the data to Tecna, who materialized it on her map. They waited for several seconds, gazing anxiously at the map in the hope that something would happen.
At the same moment, Bloom was flying through the air, catching her breath after launching yet another attack. Beneath her feet lay the melted remains of over a hundred robots. They had proved rather easy to defeat. She looked at the walls, from which more and more robots were emerging.
They kept coming.
For every robot defeated, at least two more appeared. Her eyes fell on Aisha and Flora, who were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Aisha had lost the upper hand and was fending off sword blows instead of attacking, and Flora seemed to be in agony, injured by the robots that were cutting off her vines. And then there was Stella, who looked on the brink of collapse.
Bloom's mind was in a frenzy. She was still full of energy, the blazing fire in her fists was proof of that. She could have easily blown up the room, taking out all the robots at once, but she couldn't do that while her friends were still here. As she pictured the dreadful scene in her mind, a painful burning sensation gripped her, and she nearly fell to the floor. She clutched her ribs in pain. It was as if an invisible knife had stabbed her from the inside. The strange pain eventually subsided, but she remained still, stricken, wondering just what had happened. The sound of clashing swords finally jolted her from her stupor. The battle was still raging. Whatever it was that had just happened would have to wait.
She looked at the windows through which they had entered. She didn't like the idea of having to give up so close to their goal, but she couldn't afford to put her friends in any more danger. Completely dejected, she flew in the direction of Musa and Tecna, ready to tell them that they should retreat. To her surprise, before she could say anything, Musa grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to look at Tecna's magic map.
"We found it!" Musa exclaimed; her voice full of optimism as she pointed to the front door.
Bloom looked at the door in bewilderment. She was not sure if Musa had hit her head... but she was sure that door led outside. Seeing her confusion, Musa continued.
"Trust me, Bloom! My magic waves have detected an anomaly near the door!"
Bloom hadn't quite understood yet, but she decided to trust her. The three fairies made their way to the front door of the fortress and looked at it skeptically.
"There must be some kind of mechanism," Tecna said as she looked at the door. "Something that would reveal a secret passage that we aren't able to see yet. We've just got to find it. Look for any odd detail."
"Can't we just blow up the door and see what happens?" Musa suggested. "Maybe that'll open a passage."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Tecna sighed.
Bloom stared blankly at the door. To be frank, she didn't have any idea what she was even looking for. It was a castle door, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary.
As she scanned every detail of the door, Tecna suddenly noticed an odd detail on the stone wall right next to it. There was a gap between two blocks of stone, the edges of which seemed surprisingly smooth and regular, too smooth to be a construction error. Cold air from the outside was flowing through it. She immediately shared her discovery with Bloom and Musa.
"That's strange," Tecna muttered.
"Some old-fashioned air conditioning, maybe?" Bloom suggested.
Before they had time to discuss it further, a metallic sound forced them to turn around. For some strange reason, all the robots were now heading towards them, ready to attack.
Aisha, Flora and Stella were no longer able to hold back the onslaught and had stopped fighting. They joined them, desperate and exhausted, barely able to stand on their feet. Unfortunately, their reunion was short-lived, as one of the robots swung its sword in their direction. They dodged the attack just in time, and the sword lodged in the wooden part of the door just behind them.
At the sight of the sword embedded in the door, Musa's eyes lit up.
She'd just had a crazy thought.
The fairy of music started pulling at the sword with all her might, under the concerned gaze of her friends, until she managed to dislodge it. She went to the crack in the wall, staring nervously at the odd-shaped sword in her hand... and slid it in. It slid in without resistance, as if it had been made to fit there, and the sword began to emit a blinding light.
The ground beneath their feet began to shake even more than before. Just in front of the door, a hidden trapdoor appeared, revealing stairs leading downwards.
They had finally found it.
The girls hurried down the stairs, except for Bloom, who turned to face the robots. Stella poked her head through the trapdoor, a worried look on her face.
"Bloom, hurry up!"
"They might follow us if we don't do anything," she replied. "I'll try to slow them down a little."
Stella reluctantly made her way down the stairs, as crimson flames were already beginning to spread around Bloom's body. Soon, her entire body was aflame, so much so that any robot unfortunate enough to approach her melted away. Finally, she positioned herself in the centre of the room and released the energy she'd been accumulating, creating an explosion which swept away all the robots and shook the castle to its core.
She held her breath for a moment, a little shaken. It was as if her body was crying out for something more. She could already feel the fire rising in her veins. With a jerk of her head, she forced her way out of the trance. Now was not the time for her powers to go wild.
She hurried into the trapdoor, praying that nothing awaited them once they got down.