Chapter 5: Mission to Tides

Even though Layla's room was away from my own, I knew Layla didn't get any sleep that night. She was to worried, to anxious. She just wanted to throw Baltor out of her realm so things could be happy again, and me and the girls were willing to do whatever it took to help her do just that.

The next morning, before classes started, we all gathered in Bloom and Flora's room. If we were going to go to Tides, we'd have to have a plan.

"Alright," Bloom said, "we know we're going to Tides. The question is, how do we convince Ms. F to let us go?"

"Maybe it's better if we don't ask," Musa suggested, "because if she says no, what then?"

I couldn't help but agree. "Musa's right, if we were to directly defy our headmistress, we'd be suspended, or even worse, expelled. But if we don't ask her…"

Stella finished my thought. "Than we're just going to help a good friend in an emergency situation, and who could find fault with that?" She finished by walking over to the nearest closet.

"Now," she said, "the first step daw-lings is for me to call the school nurse." She put on a hat. What I wanted to know is how she thought anybody could possibly believe that. If I'd ever tried that at home, my parents would've figured it out in a few seconds flat.

Musa asked, "And tell her what, Stella? That we're all going on an emergency ski vacation?"

What made it even more funny was that she dawned a scarf. "No…" She put her hand to her ear as to fake a phone. "Good morning nurse…" Fake sneeze. "This is Stella and I have a terrible co-" Sneeze. "Fever and I won't be in class for-" Sneeze. (They even kept getting more high pitched.) "A few days and-"

Bloom didn't seem to want to let her finish. "Oh, come on." Stella seemed surprise and faked another sneeze. "I don't know how things work on Solaria, Stella, but no one on Earth would fall for that kind of excuse."

"It's all in the delivery," the fairy of the sun and moon insisted. She took the hat off and walked around. "And since I'm an expert at this, I suggest that I stay here and cover for the rest of you." I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd had that in mind all morning.

Musa didn't like the sound of that. "Hold on. Are you trying to bail out on going to Tides with us?"

"I'm not bailing, I'm just really worried about what's happening on Solaria, and need to stay here to monitor the situation." She finished walking toward Chatta, who was hovering in the air, and silent, which was odd for the pixie of chatter.

"Have you forgotten what happened with my father?" Stella asked us. She must've been reliving her Princess' ball. "When he ordered his guards to arrest me? To not recognize your own daughter no matter what she looks like, you have to be under some kind of powerful spell. There's no other explanation for it."

Her next few words went about Countess Cassandra and Chimera. She even remarked that Chimera had to go to Beta because she couldn't get into Alfea. Possibly, for she seemed to much like a witch, even though she was a fairy.

"Hey," Layla said, touching her shoulder. "I completely understand, Stella. Your world is under siege too." She turned to the rest of us. "Stella needs your support just as much as I do."

"You're right, Layla," Musa agreed as the two of us went over to the hug them. And then the others joined us.

After that was decided, there was still one more problem. "How," Flora asked, "are we going to get there?"

Luckily, I knew just the way. After making a quick trip to my room, I returned with a new invention that me and Timmy had been working on.

I held it up for everyone to see. "Timmy and I just finished this. And if it works properly, it'll make small, inter-dimensional passages through which we can travel." At this point, the device was in the air by itself.

"If it works?"

"Well, it is new." To my happiness, it did just what it was supposed, and with the help of modern magical technology, a portal appeared right in front of us.

"Okay, here I go." Not hesitating one bit, I walked through the portal and instantly found myself falling through a sort of tunnel of techno energy. The other girls followed and we were all wondering how long it would take until this ride was over, especially me. I'd never liked roller coaster or slides or anything of the nature.

Finally, we found ourselves plopped right on our feet in the great palace of Tides. We landed in front of Layla's parents as they sat on their thrones.

Layla's parents seemed so happy to see her. They stood and walked over to her as she did the same thing.

"Mom, Dad, are you guys okay?"

"Yes dear," her mother said.

"Fine," her father added.

"I can't wait to tell Timmy that our invention worked!" I said, but was caught off guard when that same device hit me on the head. I caught it and felt irritated for a moment. Why did things like this always happen to me?

"The kingdom is in trouble," Layla's father told her.

"I know, that's why I came back and brought my friends with me. They want to help us fight Baltor. They want to help save Tides."

"Your majesties," we all said, bowing.

"Thank you, but you should not have come here," the king told us. He seemed quite serious.

His wife agreed. "Baltor is the most dangerous enemy we have ever faced."

"We can not ask outsiders to take such a risk for us."

"My friends are not outsiders." Layla disagreed.

"If that is truly the case, then the choice is theirs to make, but they should know that since Baltor escaped, he has turned over half of our mermaids into sea-monsters and he has taken their power as his own. And now our army can't find him. We think he will emerge soon from the Omega portal and launch a major attack on Tides."

The queen tried to convince Layla. "We know you're strong, but I fear for your safety Layla."

"We'll watch out for her your majesty," Bloom assured them. "I promise."

After that, we exited the palace and went out into the realm. Layla had described that he world was turning into an unpleasant place, but this was just awful. I could only imagine what it must've felt like for her to see her planet looking this way.

When we went out onto the great body of water, Layla said, "The sea used to be pristine. And now take a look at it; it's like it's a wasteland."

Bloom got down and felt it. "The water is stagnant, as if it were a lifeless sea."

Out of nowhere, a creature shot out of the water and startled us. It seemed scary and evil.

"That's one of the mermaids Baltor turned into a monster," the fluid fairy told us.

I looked out into the sea and tons of mermaids were just as the one we'd seen before. Whoever Baltor was, he was incredibly evil, no doubt about it.

Using her powers over morphix(water molecules), Layla created a pair of binoculars. "The sea is so full of them. There are to many to count."

"What we need to do is get a sense of what Baltor's power is really like," I suggested, "then maybe we can figure out his weakness."

"How?" Bloom asked me.

"Let's start by trying to break that mermaid's spell"-I pointed at the one I was talking about- "if we succeed, we'll know how strong his magic is and we can also reduce his mermaid army."

Layla had an idea just how we could do that. "I know, let's use the goodness restoration spell we learned from Palladium last year."

"Alright girls," Bloom said, "let's go save some mermaids!"

And as always, we instantly transformed ourselves into our fairy forms. After that, we flew into the air and above the mermaid that we planned to help save.

"Alright," Layla commanded, "now summon your strongest positive memory."

Doing so, we all aimed our powers in a convergence way and hummed as we did so. We didn't know why, we just found ourselves humming. The spell instantly trapped the mermaid, and it looked like we'd succeeded.

Bloom went over to the mermaid as well as Layla. "Don't be afraid!"

"We want to help you!" Layla added.

"Just trust us!"

But, sadly, this showed that Baltor was incredibly powerful for the mermaid instantly broke out and sent the two other girls flying.

After that, Layla suggested that we try the idea again and we did just that. When it seemed like our positive energy worked, the mermaid revoked back to its evil state.

This Baltor guy is more powerful than I thought…

And then, the mermaid came toward me and slashed its tail at me, knocking me down into the water. Trust me, when a sea it stagnant, it's not pleasant to be going swimming. Plus, there's that saying that water and technology don't mix, and that counts for technology fairies.

I sat there for a moment, and when I was awake again, I was being helped up by Flora and Layla. "That's one tough mermaid," I said.

Musa didn't seem afraid. When I was back up, she sent an attack at it. It was so powerful, you could hear the beat. "If she thinks she's so bad, I'll just play her my baddest tune!" Her sonic waves seemed to powerful, so the mermaid disappeared under the water. "Hey, where're you going mermaid? That was just the opening verse!"

Flora laughed. "I guess you two have different taste in music."

Continuing our adventure in Tides, we flew off threw the land and even got caught in a tough draft of wind. And to make matters worse, a huge, and by huge, I mean huge wave was in front of us, so we had to fly backwards, trying to avoid getting caught in it. Sadly, even when we'd reached land, we still got soaked and landed on our backs on the ground.

Layla was the first to stand. "My father was right. Tides is to dangerous."

"Hey," Bloom said, "if anything, that wave was kind of refreshing."

Layla didn't share the Dragon Fire fairy's attitude. "I know you guys would never complain, but I'm putting you at to much risk. If we don't close the Omega portal soon, Baltor's going to release the other prisoners who are kept there, and I don't even want to imagine how nasty that could get. We have to find Baltor's hideout and we have to find it right away."

"Every time you mention Baltor's name I have these visions, weird visions of Sparx. And what's even weirder is that I see things I couldn't have seen when I was just a baby. And then everything just starts racing through my head until it all goes to black." Just seeing the distressed look on Bloom's face told me that she was really freaked out by all this.

"Okay girls," Musa said, "if we're going to stop Baltor, we should get going before he stops us."

"Good idea," Layla agreed, taking off into the air, as did we all.

As we flew, Bloom seemed quite determined. "The spell that's on the mermaids is strong, but it can't be irreversible."

I had an idea on how we could do it. "It's possible that when we hit Baltor, it could release his grip on them long enough for them to break free."

Musa seemed to like the sound of that. "Then I say, let's go hit him hard!"

But, just when we were about to follow through with our plan, guess who decided to show up? Our old enemies: Icy, Darcy, and Stormy. I heard that they'd been sentenced to the Omega Dimension after the thing with Darkar, so it made sense that they'd been working with Baltor.

"Only problem is that you have to get through us!" Stormy declared.

"You three are supposed to be locked in the Omega Dimension!" Bloom gasped.

"Yah," Darcy said, "but it was so boring that we decided it would be much more fun to trash Layla's realm."

"And to destroy you!" Icy added. Immediately after, she began to fire attacks at us, but missed every time.

Darcy seemed to treat this like a game as she tried to hit Musa. "The first one to knock a fairy out of the sky wins!" But, Musa dodged quickly.

"Then I win!" Stormy said excitedly as she sent Flora flying downward.

Bloom chased after her, but it seemed that Icy didn't want her to save the nature fairy, resulting in Bloom's wings getting frozen.

"I'm coming Bloom!" Layla assured her, but Darcy tried to get. Layla blocked that attack while Bloom fixed her wings.

Just before Flora was about to hit the water, Musa and I saved her and held her up. "What?" She asked. "What is happening?"

While Flora recovered, Bloom and Icy got into a heated battle. It reminded me a lot of the huge battle during freshman year at Alfea, only this time, both had grown much more powerful.

"You'd think you'd understand the balance of power by now Icy!" Bloom sent an attack of fire right at the witch, knocking her down. "Whenever you face us, you lose!"

To keep herself from drowning in the water, Icy created a patch of ice to land safely on, and glared at us.

When Darcy and Stormy's backs were turned, Layla cuffed them with some more of her morphix. "You've caused enough damage to Tides! You're going back to Omega!"

It was amusing as the two witches thought they could easily break it by pulling apart. Instead, they ended up getting completely tied up together.

"Group five!" Bloom suggested, as we all grabbed hands.

"With the witches out of the way, there's nothing between us and Baltor."

"Then let's go get him!" Bloom seemed very determined again.

Sadly, Icy had another trick up her sleeve. While we were talking, she sent a block of ice at Bloom.

The rest of us chased after her. Can she just lose gracefully? She is the most horrible witch I've known in my entire life.

To pay those the ice witch back, we hit her with some of our strongest attacks, having no idea where Bloom was. All we were focused on was taking Icy out.

Flora actually seemed angry, which she rarely ever was. "You hit Bloom in the back and that's low Icy!"

"And fighting four against one? What do you call that?"

"Hey! You're the aggressor here!" I yelled as once again, I was the one who ended up getting hit.

"That's right!" Musa agreed. "You're an escaped convict witch, and we're sending you back to prison!"

We continued to hit her with all we had, and she clearly had grown strong. It seemed that Baltor had shared some of his power with her. To finish her off, Musa suggested we use convergence.

Getting in a circle, we focused our powers as well as we could. And when we did hit her, she got sent right into the water.

We sighed of relief. "Let's go find Bloom and make sure she's okay." Flora suggested. I worried that she was underwater.

"Over there!" Layla pointed toward some type of stone building and there was Bloom all right. The only problem? She was with Baltor.

Our instincts kicked in and we found ourselves flying probably around ten miles per hour to get our friend back to safety. We hit Baltor, but nothing we did seemed to faze him at all.

If that didn't even touch him, how are we going to save Tides? I wondered. He'd only been here for a few weeks or so and the whole realm was in bondage. I could only imagine how bad it could end up in a month. I cringed at that thought.

From the distance, I saw Bloom attack Baltor herself, and yet somehow, he grabbed her fire and turned it to ashes.

"Tides is my realm Baltor!" Layla told him. "And you're done here."

It frightened me when I saw him conjure up a great deal of power. It was so strong that it was creating large waves in the water, which we tried to avoid.

"Darkness, descend upon you and take away your sight!" I heard Baltor shout.

After a blinding light shone, Layla said, "I can't see anything!"

We all went to her side. "We're here for you Layla!"

"I can't see anything, Bloom. I'm blind."

At that moment, I felt nothing at all but absolute rage toward Baltor. When I get the chance, I'm going to stop him, and maybe rip him to shreds myself for hurting one of my friends.

Pretty sad ending to an episode, but at least something good happens in the next one. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.