Flora knelt cautiously by Roxy's side, brushing her candy pink hair out of her face. Gently placing a hand on Roxy's forehead, she closed her eyes. 

She began to concentrate her energy into that hand, focusing on transferring some of her magic energy into Roxy. 

Nerves tied knots in her stomach and she exhaled shakily- she had never attempted this spell before.

 "If Bloom were here, her dragon flame would heal you much better." Flora whispered aloud.

Still, she continued to focus, beads of sweat forming on her forehead as she felt her energy drain out of her. 

It was working. 

All sounds around her blurred into white noise and for a single moment, she felt completely aligned with Roxy's energy. 

At that exact point, Flora snapped her hand back, gasping as if a spark had jolted up her arm.

Simultaneously, Roxy sat bolt upright.

"Ow!" Roxy exclaimed. 

Her heart raced and her breathing was panicked and irregular. She looked at her surroundings- the car park, and then to the strange girl who was staring concernedly back at her.

"What did you do to me? Who are you? What happened?" Roxy demanded, each question becoming more frantic than the last, fear painted across her face. 

There was something about this girl with pink glittering wings that felt familiar. 

She looked up into her emerald green eyes and, as if a lightbulb had gone off in her mind, it clicked. 

"You're the girl I was serving at the bar..." she said trying to remember how long ago that had been, "with your three friends, I remember." 

She stated decidedly, noticing that her eyes seemed duller than she remembered, paying the least amount of attention to the fact that this girl looked exactly like someone straight out of a fairy tale. 

The winged girl stayed silent for a moment, as if she was too weak to offer an answer.

Roxy racked her brain, her fingers intertwining nervously, trying to remember how she'd ended up lying on the ground in the car park when her last clear memory was leaving the bar to top up on strawberries, but nothing came to mind. 

Instead, Roxy noticed a slight stinging sensation fading from her forehead. Confused she reached up and placed her hand on the sore spot right in the centre.

Without warning, her eyes shot wide open and she was plunged underwater, her vision becoming blurry and her hearing distorted. 

Roxy opened her mouth but no sound came out. 

She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. 

Panic rose in her throat, her heart beating faster. 

But suddenly the horrid sensation faded and she found herself stood in the courtyard of a grand pink and blue castle. 

Girls clutched books to their chests as they milled around, chatting, laughing in the afternoon sun. 

Then the image changed to three girls- the same ones, she realised, from the bar- smiling at her. The redhead stepped up and put a hand firmly on her shoulder.

"Nice to meet you, Flora, I'm Bloom." She grinned. 

Flora? Roxy thought to herself trying to make sense of these visions. 

But before she could think of an explanation the image changed again. 

This time she could see the green treetops moving below her as if she was soaring through the air. Normally she would be terrified of heights, however here, she felt completely at ease.

Roxy didn't believe in mystical creatures (most of all fairies), so why did these visions seemed so real, as if they were happening? Or as if they had happened...

Realisation clicked in Roxy's mind: these weren't visions... they were memories. 

The green-eyed girl's memories. Flora's memories. 

The image froze on Bloom's smiling face and Roxy took a moment to think. 

Why was all this happening to her? And so suddenly? 

A few seconds ago, she would have refused to believe that fairies existed, and yet here she was, with an ironic disbelief that she was, in fact, convinced what she was seeing was real.

Then, as if it was satisfied with her conclusion, the image faded and Roxy found herself once again on the ground, Flora looking worriedly at her. Distant calls of her name slowly became louder and more focused and as sound came back to her.

"Roxy?" she finally heard Flora say clearly.

"Yes?" she answered blankly.

"Are you alright?" Flora breathed a sigh of relief after thinking the spell had gone horribly wrong and she had sent Roxy into paralysis.

"Yes." Roxy couldn't seem to manage more than one word answers, her brain flooded with information.

"What happened? You were staring into space for five minutes and I couldn't seem to wake you." Flora asked tentatively, not wanting to cause Roxy to freak out again. Yet she remained perfectly calm.

"You're a fairy, aren't you?" Roxy asked simply, not making eye contact. Flora paused for a moment, taken aback by the suddenness of the question.

"Uh... yes, yes I am," she waited for a response, perhaps a declaration of insanity, but none came, so she continued, "my name is Flora."

"I know." Roxy said, still almost alarmingly at ease. Once again, Flora did a double take. 

She didn't remember ever telling Roxy her name, and yet she knew it?

"Um..." Flora paused momentarily, stunned by Roxy's unusual behaviour, before remembering the severity of the situation, "I don't mean to be blunt, but we have to go. You're in danger." 

Roxy looked around dreamily, largely unaffected by this statement, before noticing something behind Flora. 

She squinted in the dim light provided by the streetlamps to make out four figures in the distance. 

The one that caught her eye however, was a tall man with a shock of fire-red hair and eyes that were cold as ice. 

Suddenly her stomach twisted into knots and a whimper escaped her lips as recognition and fear flooded through her.

"Those men," her eyes were wide with terror as she pointed a quivering finger at the wizards in the distance, "they attacked me. I was lifted into the air-" she faltered, "it was like a thousand shards of glass were ripping me apart..." she trailed off as a sob rose in her throat.

Flora instinctively wrapped her arms around her, hugging her tightly but looked down at the ground, ashamed. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered as Roxy gulped air in small, uneven breaths. 

"I couldn't reach you in time. But I promise we will take care of them. You won't ever see those evil wizards again." She vowed, her words slow and laced with venom. 

Roxy looked up, stunned. 

Wizards? 

She supposed it made sense. If fairies, why not wizards too? 

She almost laughed aloud at how ludicrous the whole situation was, while tugging subconsciously at her hair. 

This morning she had woken up with a normal life, and now... She just wanted to go home. 

She felt herself begin to calm down and closed her eyes, exhaling slowly through her mouth. Carefully extricating herself from Flora's comforting arms, Roxy looked her straight in the eyes.

"Okay. Let's go." She said, nodding as if still trying to convince herself.

Flora rose to her feet, still a bit weak from expending so much energy when healing Roxy and still confused about her abruptly changing behaviour but pushed past all the questions she had, focusing on her main goal: getting Roxy to safety. 

By now, the sun's halo had completely vanished beneath the horizon and the only sources of light were some flickering streetlamps and neon signs that lit up the carpark. 

She turned to help Roxy up, whose legs felt like jelly and led her towards the safety of the well-lit streets of Gardenia. 

She felt a pang of guilt leaving her friends behind to fight the wizards and turned around to check on them one more time, a lurking sense of paranoia in the pit of her stomach.

She saw Musa, standing frozen in front of the blond and wondered for a moment why neither were attacking each other but her train of thought was severed when she saw four men in navy uniforms emerged from around the corner of the silhouetted bar behind them, running towards the fight, with swords and shields raised. 

She locked eyes with one of them; slightly leaner than the others, his dark hair tied into a low ponytail and although he was wearing a serious and determined look, his eyes were soft and gentle as he looked back at Flora. 

The flickering of the lamps became more frequent and aggressive causing unease to build in the pit of her stomach, but even so, seeing Helia almost brought a smile to her lips. 

Almost.

The sky turned a deep purple and a thunderous crash reverberated around the car park as a huge wave of grainy blue-black magic erupted from Musa's chest spanning out in all directions. 

Dirt and sand whipped up from the ground, swirling violently, the tall dark palm trees swayed vigorously and cars flipped onto their side, their steel roofs screeching horribly against the ground.

In that moment, Flora's instincts took over and she flung herself onto Roxy, shielding her from the brunt of the blast. 

They tumbled to the ground. Roxy's hands flew to her ears, trying to block out the deafening roar of the wind. She screwed her eyes shut, keeping out the sand that stung her face. 

She could feel Flora curled protectively around her body, breathing heavily, arms cradling her head. Her hair flew out in front of her, swirling around wildly until eventually, the wind died down and she removed her hands cautiously from her ears, opening her eyes.

At first, everything was pitch black but her eyes slowly found the dull orange flash of a nearby car's hazard lights and a few streetlamps in the distance, their bulbs flickering irregularly, until they too went out completely. 

The sudden contrast from deafening chaos to this eerie stillness unnerved Roxy and she shivered. 

The air was still thick with swirling dust, so she couldn't make out shapes more than a few meters away from her and she suddenly felt very alone.

"Roxy?" Flora coughed dryly behind her and she jumped, startled by the soft voice piercing the silence.

"I'm alright." She reassured shakily rolling onto her front to face the voice, the gravelly floor crunching beneath her. "Are you okay? You saved me."

Flora was lying on her side- she had collapsed, her leg bent awkwardly under her. She winced as she tried to manoeuvre herself in order to take the pressure off her throbbing leg and slowly crawled into a sitting position.

"I think I've damaged my leg." She replied through gritted teeth, desperately hoping it wasn't broken.

"What happened to your wings?" Roxy questioned. 

Flora looked down at her clothes and sighed.

"That can happen sometimes if a fairy expends or receives a large, powerful dose of magic..." 

She seemed to mull over this for a few moments, before gasping aloud. 

"Shit. I need to find Musa!"

She began to hurriedly push herself up from the ground but winced when she put even the slightest pressure on her leg. She groaned, rubbing her knee tenderly but bit her tongue before she could let out any more signs of the pain she was in. 

This was in vain however, as Roxy was already on her feet and draping Flora's arm over her shoulder.

"I'm coming with you. Lean on me." 

Reluctantly Flora gave in and a huge weight lifted off her leg. She looked at Roxy for a moment, appreciating how brave she had been despite everything that had happened to her. 

It's no surprise she's a fairy, Flora thought and managed a weak smile which Roxy reciprocated.

"Thank you, Roxy." Flora said sincerely and she limped into the haze of dust and sand with the last fairy on Earth.

~

One moment, Bloom was facing off Ogron, and the next, the left side of her face was embedded into the fine, dusty ground. She blinked rapidly, trying to expel the grainy sand particles from her eyes. 

It was only mere moments later that she noticed the distant pain in her side and her hand moved to the spot where adrenaline had numbed the wound. 

She tapped the sore area lightly with her fingertips, feeling the scab from a burn already starting to form and shakily stood up.

Everything was pitch black. 

The streetlamps and neon signs were dark; no longer illuminating the car park. 

She tentatively reached to the back of her head, her hand drawn to a numbness in the top right. Upon impact with her scalp, she flinched at the feel of hot sticky liquid and brought her hand out in front of her, inspecting her bloody fingertips with blurry vision. She grimaced at the sight, hoping the cut wasn't as bad as the state of her hand made it look and stood up slowly, her head swimming slightly. 

She squinted; to her right, she heard a small, croaky voice calling through the dust.

"Hello?" Bloom called back breathlessly and looked around into the darkness, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Musa?" Flora's voice called. 

With her dying strength, Bloom summoned a ball of fire just large enough to illuminate herself.

"Oh Bloom!"

The scraping of feet dragging through gravel grew nearer until two silhouettes loomed into view. 

Bloom stood up, her knees beginning to tremble as the adrenaline quickly wore off and the pain in her side began to become more prominent, slowly pulsing with heat. 

Though her vision was blurry and her head swam, she could still make out Flora's face, but the other girl... she couldn't make out.

Flora looked worriedly at Bloom, whose light was quickly dimming, but couldn't seem to focus on her. 

She blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the black spots that were now appearing in her line of sight.

"Bloom, your head." 

Bloom couldn't utter a response. 

Flora limped away from Roxy and brought her fingers to the gash in Bloom's scalp. Hot blood trickled down her arm as she tried to apply pressure to the wound, and she sucked in breaths through gritted teeth as her leg became agonisingly heavy. 

Bloom's head swam more violently and she stumbled forward carelessly, grabbing onto Flora's free arm for balance. 

However her damaged leg couldn't take the weight and her knees buckled.

"Flora!" Roxy called worriedly, rushing over to them. 

Flora sat helplessly on the ground, cradling her friend's bleeding head, applying as much pressure to the wound as her lack of strength would allow, too concerned with Bloom's injury to worry about her own. 

Eventually, Bloom's fire went out, and they were engulfed in darkness.

"Bloom?" Flora croaked. 

No response. 

"Bloom?" She questioned again, more urgently this time, having felt the warm blood running down Bloom's back.

"Flora what should I do? What should I do, Flora?" Roxy asked hurriedly, knelt by her side.

"I- I don't know." Her voice wobbled, as she stuttered out the words, her eyes filling with tears. 

She tried to blink them back, only causing them to overflow and roll down her cheeks but she let them stay, too exhausted to care. She felt heavy, desperately trying to cling on to whatever strength she could muster. 

She had to stay with Bloom. Make sure she was safe. 

But resignation tugged at her and she could feel her eyes unwilling begin to close. 

No. 

They snapped open again. 

She still needed to find Musa too.

"Flora?" a distant voice- deep and warm; one she would recognise anywhere - brought her back to a hazy consciousness. 

Relief flooded through her as she heard the rapid approach of footsteps behind her. 

She tried to call out to him, but a tight knot in her throat prevented any sound escaping and she ended up choking on her unspoken words. 

Suddenly, she felt strong muscular arms wrap around her and she collapsed back into them, shaking slightly. 

"It's okay, Flora. I'm here. You're safe now." The man said to her softly and Flora nodded slowly, giving in to exhaustion.