Winx Club: Dark Magic (Season 4)

IX: Discovered

Aiyana struggled against Keenan's grip. After a few failed attempts, she finally managed to escape his armbar, and was quick enough to scramble out and get him in a headlock. He resisted her grip by trying to pull her arms away from his throat, which proved unsuccessful. Aiyana tried rolling in order to force him to his back and claim a victory, but her opponent used the momentum against her and broke her grasp. While she regrouped, Keenan looped an arm around her waist and threw her off of him, and was on top of her with impressive speed. He straddled her hips on the mat and raised his hands in triumph. 

The class instructor applauded Keenan's win, and Aiyana groaned in audible frustration. Keenan relieved Aiyana of his weight and rose to his feet, offering a hand to help her up. She refused, batting it away and standing on her own, declining to make eye contact with her partner. 

Keenan laughed lightly. "Hey, don't be too upset: you knew you had no chance of beating me."

"Yeah, thanks for that reminder," Aiyana growled. She knew he was just teasing, but it stung to know that all her training amounted to was another defeat. Keenan was a good officer and in the mid-ranks in their shared jiu jitsu class, but he always won when the two of them sparred. Despite the fact that Aiyana put in far more hours rolling on the mats and was decidedly more intense in her training, there was no denying Keenan's biological superiority in strength -something Aiyana would never be able to out-train. It was positively infuriating.

Keenan eyed his partner with a small amount of concern, but resolved to shrug it off and leave Aiyana on her own, making for the showers.

Aiyana stayed another hour after Keenan left to work on her conditioning and improve on her techniques, but couldn't shake the devastating feeling of inevitable weakness. She was only human, so what did she expect? It wasn't as if she -a five foot four female at one hundred thirty pounds- could ever be as strong -much less stronger- as a twenty-four year old, tall, in-shape male like Keenan. She was never going to achieve it, so she was never going to be half the cop that he was in the field. Despite the music playing over the gym speakers, all Aiyana seemed to be able to hear was the deafening and resounding ringing of her own failures and shortcomings. 

By the time she finally finished her workout, showered, and left the gym, the sun had set. Though the sky was calm and clear and a beautiful mixture of blues and purples littered with bright stars, all it made Aiyana think of was the fact that she had to be awake at four the next morning to cover Officer Mendellson's patrol downtown. She sighed to herself and started her eight block walk home. 

She was beginning to think about how the mild weather might make tonight a great night for a run, regardless of the consequences to her sleep, when she noticed a group of colorfully dressed, attractive young women headed her way on the walk. She tried to ignore the stark difference between their well put together attire and neat hairstyles compared to her own dull post-gym clothes and hair which had been hastily tied into a sweaty ponytail. Aiyana silenced her self-critical observations and moved to the far right side to make room as the women approached, and caught some of their conversation as they came within earshot. 

"She has to be around here somewhere," the black-haired one reasoned.

"Ms. Faragonda said that the energy was concentrated in Islanor," the redhead in the group said. "She'll be here."

"Great encouragement, Bloom, but we've been searching for almost a week now," a blonde girl complained.

"That's right, Stella," a woman with a purple pixie cut nodded, her eyes fixed on the device in her hand. "We've covered approximately thirty-one percent of the population, so statistically we should find her within the next two weeks, though more likely within three to four days, if probability has anything to say about it."

"Okay, I think that's enough numbers for me, Tecna," a younger girl with long purple hair chuckled. "Let's just enjoy the city while we're here."

"I agree," a brown-haired woman smiled. "This place certainly has a lot to appreciate; we should learn to cherish it."

"Of course we should, Flora," a dark-skinned girl affirmed. "But even as we do that, we can't lose sight of our mission in the meantime."

"Uh, girls," the woman named Tecna interrupted, eyebrows furrowing while studying the information on the screen in her hand. 

"What is it?" Bloom asked.

"I'm detecting a strong presence of negative energy nearby," Tecna responded. 

Aiyana gave a casual smile as she passed the chatty girls. No sooner had she passed them than Bloom asked a question that caused the skin on Aiyana's neck to stand on end. 

"Is it the Wizards?"

Aiyana nearly tripped over her own feet at the last word. 

"No," Tecna said, "this has a different signature. We're really close. It's coming from right here!"

"Well," the blonde's voice carried, "shouldn't that mean we found her, then? I mean, this girl is the fairy of the Eternal Dark, right?"

Aiyana froze. Her legs refused to obey her mind's commands screaming at them to run. Her entire body locked up, and she didn't move a muscle even as she felt the eyes of all seven girls behind her slowly fix on her. They knew. Somehow, some way, they all knew. It had been three years since Aiyana's horrific encounter with the four Wizards, but these random seven girls whom she just so happened to pass by at nine o'clock on a Thursday night knew. 

"Hey," one of the girls called out to her.

Aiyana eventually regained control over her movements, and ever so slowly turned to meet the group of young women who were watching her extremely carefully. 

Bloom stepped forward, one eyebrow raised as she cautiously observed Aiyana. "It's you, isn't it?"