Appetite for Destruction

Chapter 3

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

The girls jolt up from their sleeping spots to look at a shaky and hyperventilating Musa: she looked like she just saw death itself. Aisha immediately goes to her side to hold her and ask what's wrong. Musa catches her breath as she looks at Aisha. "I...it's just a nightmare. Just a nightmare...why aren't any of you concerned?"
The girls look at her confused; they were very worried, Aisha was literally hugging her.
"Sorry," Musa corrects herself, "I just can't hear your...se...secret songs...wait..."
She tries summoning a small spark but nothing happens. Musa starts to panic as she opens and closes her palm.
"Oh no! Musa what happened?!" Aisha gasps.
"I...what if it was real?..." Musa mumbles.
"What was real?!"
"My dream. The details are fuzzy but I think I remember..."

The Winx sit next to Musa as she starts narrating:
"In my dream I was with my mother. I still miss her and wanted to talk to her. But she looked weird. Her face was missing. And then I saw this...figure standing in the distance...darkness clouded his face and he had glowing red eyes and sharp fangs. Before I could do anything he charged. I tried running away but he bite me hard. And that's how the nightmare ended."
"Oh no, I'm so sorry you went through that," Flora breathes. "Where did he bite you?"
"Around my trapezius..." Musa's words hang at the tip of her lips as she traces the back of her neck, her fingers finding a hole-like shape dug in her back. Aisha looks and the bites and gasps, her face turning pale. "Are those..."
"Vampire bite marks," Bloom gasps. "Oh no..."
"Bloom, does that mean...Dracula is..." Stella stutters. Bloom bites her lip. "Dracula can't go in people's dreams...Can he?"
"Well you know how incorrect Earth was about fairies." Tecna states.

The girls all feel a sickening feeling in their stomach. There was an incident a few years ago where a monster gave them nightmares, but they were just dreams. And now, it's like the dream world and the real world became one for a fleeting moment. Musa isn't sure what to do about losing her powers and hugs her knees to her chest.

"Well hey maybe uh you just slept wrong and got pierced!" Stella chuckles, "N-No way we have a vampire at the loft. Uhm, ok I'm going to bed now bye!" She cacoons herself in the blanket as she pretends to snore. The girls look at the chrysalis before glancing at each other. Tecna thinks about the situation, making a hypothesis for what happened in her mind. "Ok, here's the plan," she starts, "Kiko, you've accidentally drank all my hot chocolate so you're taking guard duty. It must be some external force doing this as evident by the bite marks. If it happens again, wake me up, and I'll get the others." Kiko nods and salutes to her. The Winx get back in their sleeping positions as Kiko marches around each of their spots like a toy soldier.

The room fell silent again and the fairy lights dim more. Kiko felt his eyes get heavy and his vision a bit fuzzy, but he spots in the darkness two glowing red eyes and shoots up awake. The shadow looms over Aisha and decides to target her. Kiko waddles over to grab the shadow by its tail and stop it but it aims to bite his arm, missing by a hair, and enters a portal to the dream world. Kiko was too late. He panics and scrambles around for a solution as he sweats bullets from his fur. He remembers to wake up Tecna and hops over to her, jumping on her to wake her up. After a few hops, Tecna peels her eyes open and looks to Kiko pointing at Aisha through a blurry gaze.

* * *

Aisha was walking with Nabu through a field of lilies and roses. She was in her nightdress and they stopped my a cliff with a beautiful sunset. Nabu looks at her smiling before getting on his knees. "Aisha, my beautiful mermaid, for the past year, spending these moments with you means a lot to me, and for that reason, I want us to be even closer. So I ask, will you..."
He pulls out a seashell shaped box, but before he can open it a sinister laugh floods their moment. The two panic and look over to a figure on a dark horse.
"Gantlos?!" Aisha gasps. He gets off of the steed and walks over to the pair. "Heh, that's right princess. Now I'm wondering how long you'll remember that once you wake up."

"Stay away from her!" Nabu snaps, shielding Aisha from the blonde wizard. Gantlos and grabs him by his collar as he keeps walking forward.
"You're a mere figment of her imagination, like hell you matter," he snarls. His claws let go of Nabu shirt, the man screaming as Aisha looms over the ledge in terror as she sees her hubby shrink the closer he gets to the ground. She gets back up and into a fighting stance. "The hell is wrong with you?!", she snaps at the wizard.
"Oh don't worry princess, he wasn't real, remember?" Gantlos chuckles.
"Well if I'm in a dream I will still kick your ass!", she huffs. Aisha, now aware of this being a dream, transforms into her Beleivix form and starts blasting Morphix bubbles at Gantlos. He quickly dodges and for one of them stops it in time, making the pink orb evaporate before her eyes.
"Wh-what?! But you're—"
"Also a figment of your imagination? Hah, no, that's where you're wrong."

They were flying now, Aisha looms to a place she can go and tries to move but it isn't working. He seizes her wrist and shoulder, bringing her closer. "Your friend's magic tasted good. But it's not enough you see. I'll go after all your friends, I'm famished."
Before Aisha can say anything, she feels his fangs suddenly dig into her neck. Aisha tries screaming but can't. She keeps repeating in her head "wake up! Wake up!" Hoping that would work before it's too late...

* * *

"Aisha! Aisha!" Tecna snaps as she rocks her back and forth. Aisha suddenly wakes up and gasps for air. Everyone else is awake and Tecna stops shaking her. "Aisha, are you okay?! I was calling out to you for five minutes, and I know you're a sensitive sleeper."
"It's Gantlos!", Aisha breathes, "It's his fault Musa got her powers taken! Agh I should have known those wizards tricked us!"
"Do your powers work?", Musa asks, wiping the sweat off of Aisha's forehead. Aisha's eyes widen, she wasn't sure if she succeeded or not. With a shaky arm extended, she tries summoning some Morphix. Unfortunately, Gantlos won.
"N-No...No!" Aisha cries.
"Don't worry, we will find a way to get it back!" Bloom huffs. "Wait, so did he bite you?"
Aisha nods, signaling to the holes in her neck.
"Fang marks again...", Bloom nods, "but...I thought vampires...oh no...

Is Gantlos a vampire? The answer was obvious but terror still seeped into her skin.