So, if you remember my "Serena" story, Serena is a teenage witch, featured in a prophecy. Her life should be pretty straight-forward: unite the covens of England, defeat some undefined evil, and become queen. And, unsurprisingly, along the way, Serena got to meet the fairies, or more specifically, one special fairy, Elida (who has had HER own story!)

This story will be a follow-on from those two stories, the story of how Serena, with help from a lot of others, will defeat the undefined evil threat.

I'm going to write this story a bit differently from other stories I've done: instead of being one long story, it will be slightly smaller bits of story, linked together with a much simpler descriptive narrative (which means the story might (a) actually get written; (b) and written before Easter!)

So, when we last saw Serena, she had met her final companion, Harper, and along with Sarah and Samantha, had managed to discover the huge set of weapons that had been made for them, and got them upgraded. And when we last saw Elida, she had managed to get herself and Sparkle out of their time-loop by inventing fairy teleportation, discovered that she was a very important fairy, discovered that she, Lilly and Tats were destined to take over running FI5, and she had managed to work out how to remove Sparkle's and Lilly's braces.

The new story will start several months on: Lilly, Tats and Elida have been running things at FI5 for about 6 months now.... and Sebby is doing part-time tooth fairy work, and she is thoroughly enjoying it, alongside her working on the history of the old fairy castle, as well as occasionally helping Elida, because she is a great researcher.

We'll catch up with Serena a bit later on.

Chapter 1

"Hi there, Michael!"

"Oh, hello, Elida! Nice to see you... not seen you much since... well, since Lilly and Tats moved out to their new offices." Michael knew Elida not as who she realy was - in other words, a powerful protector fairy, who helped to run FI5 - but more as a younger fairy who happened to be friends with Lilly and Tats, mainly as a result of her work on the 'Dark Fairy' case last year' He saw her as a cheerful fairy doing some sort of 'special training' with FI5.

"Yeah, actually, that raises a quick question: since Lilly and Tats have taken over from Sir Donald and Lady Charlotte, how's everyone feeling... how are you feeling about the way things are being run now?"

"I think most of us are fine with things. Yeah, there's been some changes, mostly for the good I think. One thing that helped was Lilly and Tats actually explaining what they were doing and why, made us feel we were still part of things."

"Oh, right, better than I had feared then. Hey, you in the middle of anything important right now?"

"No, nothing that won't take more than ten seconds to save...."

"Ok, in that case, can you do that, then I was hoping you would come with me, should only take ten minutes.

A minute later they had gone up a floor, and were walking along the corridor. "Umm, where we going, this is the managemant area..."

"That's right, we're popping in to see Lilly. Not a problem I hope?"

"No... just wondering what's going on, that's all."

"Don't worry, nothing bad. Here we are. Without knocking, Elida opened the door, and took Michael inside.

"Hey, Michael, nice to see you. Here, take a seat, Elida needs to have a word with you."

"Oh? I thought it would be you wanting a word. Go on then, Elida." said Michael as he sat down.

"Ok, so the reason for bringing you here to say what I'm about to say, is that if I had taken you somewhere else, you'd probably not have believed me. Having Lilly here should add some credibility. First of all, what you are about to hear is NOT for general consumption, please keep it confidential. And especially NOT for outside ears. When you hear what I'm about to say, I think you'll understand. You ok with that?"

"Yeah sure, pretty much SOP.."

"Ok, then let me dive in at the deep end. As far as you're concerned, FI5 is run by Lilly and Tats, yeah?"

"Well, yeah, everyone knows that..."

"Except it's not actually true, there's three of us, Lilly, Tats and me." Michael looked at Lilly.

"Oh, you can believe everything that Elida is telling you," confirmed Lilly

"Maybe I should have started by explaining exactly who - or what - I am. I am a 'Protector Fairy', which means two basic things: first of all, my job is to protect humans and fairies from any fairy who 'crosses the line between good and bad'. To do that, my magic abilities exceed those of every other fairy I know... well except for Zia that is, she's a 'protector' as well. The second thing is that it means I can't do any 'bad magic' myself. I've tried, and it just doesn't work."

"So, when you say 'bad, you mean fairies like Sebby. When she was 'the dark fairy' I mean."

"Yeah, that's right. Whilst it was Lilly and Tats who actually 'took down' Sebby, Zia was waiting outside, along with an FAS team, to take over if things hadn't gone right."

"You mean you're more powerful than Lilly?". Lilly was quite ok with Michael's familiarity, as they actually used to work together.

"Well, apart from the incident down the 'Golden Cup', we've never actually tested it, but as long as Lilly believes I am, then things will be ok!". Lilly and Elida both smiled. This was a conversation the two of them had had over drinks several times, but neither of them actually wanted to put things to the test, so Lilly agreed to accept that Elida was probably quite able to put her in her place, if need be.

"Ok, I can see why you need to keep this quiet, by why ARE you telling me?"

"I have a new job for you."

"A new job? You mean instead of what I'm doing?"

"No, it's going to be more an 'as and when' sort of job, so you'll keep doing some of what you're doing now - which will be good cover for you too. I need someone to do some digging for me, as well as act as my 'handler'." Michael had a confused look on his face. "First of all, I need to do my job as a Protector, so I'd like you to try and be aware as possible of any fairies 'overstepping the line', and let me know instantly. Then I can get there and sort things out."

"How you planning on doing that? I mean, by the time you've flown there, things will probably be all over. Unless you've somehow worked out how to teleport, that is..." Michael thought he was being clever, because - as far as he knew - noone could actually teleport. Of course we know different.

"I CAN actually teleport!" replied Elida.

Michael's jaw dropped. He looked over at Lilly. "She's kidding, right?"

"Nope. I told you, you can believe everything that Elida tells you. Takes 15 concurrent spells to teleport, so she tells me."

"So you can.... and do 15.... wow!" said Michael, very impressed.

"I'll give you a demo sometime. The only limitation, which I'm still working on, is I can't yet teleport within our magic-proteced buildings. So, yeah, once you tell me there's an issue, I can potentially be on site within seconds. And while I'm doing it, I'll need you as my 'voice in my ear', feeding me relevant information. Interested?"

"Yeah, sounds like it could be... I was about to say 'fun', but you know what I mean."

"Ok. So the other part of the job would be similar. I'm on the lookout for fairies - boys or girls - who are.... hmm, how do I describe this to you? Fairies who are very capable, but not in the traditional sense. So, I'm not looking simply for high achievers, who do well at school. No, they will go on and do well at university. I'm looking for the fairy that's maybe bored at school and disrupts classes, simply because they are bored: they are good at magic, and they already know what the teachers are trying to teach them. Fairies that maybe go out and annoy people and fairies, again because they're bored. Making sense?"

"Yeah, I think so. But how do I find them?"

"I hear you're pretty good at digging out information, so just get digging. Still interested in helping me?"

"Yeah, I think so! Sounds like it will be a bit of a challenge..."

"And do you like challenges?"

"Yes, I do..."

"Great. Ok, so I guess you'll need to work out any extra kit that you'll need. Maybe need to give you a 'quiet place' you can go to when you're 'on active duty'... actually, no reason you couldn't just use my office when you need to.."

"You have an office here?"

"Yeh, of course. I'll show you. I could do with a better earpiece, I'll have a word with Puck. Not sure if we should just use the phone, or use a dedicated radio system... leave that one with me, I know the dev team has some nice stuff, we used some of it when we were chasing the Dark Fairy.... "

"When do I start?"

"Is now soon enough? Come on, I'll show you my office."

Chapter 3

Over the next few weeks, Michael alerted Elida to another couple of incidents. One of them was quite minor, so Elida just looked on with a smile, although she did have a quiet word with the fairy afterwards, just to remind her that she shouldn't REALLY be doing stuff like that. But that she probably only did what a load of other fairies really wanted to do!


The second incident was a bit nastier, which led Elida to having stern words with the male fairy concerned. Unlike Annabelle, this boy's background was quite different, so he was not 'made an offer'.


As far as Annabelle goes, Elida had already had several 'training sessions' with her, and both of them had enjoyed their sessions: Elida had a chance to try out some of the new magic she had learnt, and Annabelle had really enjoyed the physical workout, plus picked up some new magic from Elida. At the third session, she brought Sebby along too.


"So, you asked me to look for 'strange things'.. I think I might have one for you." Michael had actually managed to catch Elida on an occasion when she was in her office at FI5.

"Go on..."

"Her name is Poppy, she's in the last year of school. From all reports, she's a pretty bright student, but she often has anger issues, and is prone to throwing tantrums in the class room. There's also some hints here of her being the target of some minor bullying. Think she fits your criteria?"

"Interesting! Maybe, maybe not, and I guess there's only one way to find out for sure. Do me a favour will you? Give the school a call, let the headmistress know I'm coming, and that I'll be wanting to see this Poppy. If they ask, give no details or hints, keep us sounding like the mysterious organisation that we're not!". Her last comment made Michael smile.


"Good afternoon, I'm Elida, I have an appointment with Mrs Lambchops, your headmistress" said Elida. She had just arrived at the school, and was talking to the receptionist.

"Of course. May I see your ID please?" Elida passed over her 'FI5 operative' ID, which suitably impressed the receptionist. After having it passed back to her, she clipped it to herself so everyone could see who she was - schools do like that sort of thing. "Let me just check she's free - I believe she is". She made a quick call. "Mrs Lambchops is expecting you, and can see you now... so down this corridor to the left, third door. It says 'Headmistress' on the door!"

"Thank you!" said Elida pleasantly.

Elida politely knocked on the door.... no need to needlessly wind up this Mrs Lampchops.

"Come in". Elida opened the door and went in... the room looked like a couple of other headmaster's / headmistress' offices Elida had seen: relatively bland, a couple of 'important pictures on the wall, that sort of thing. As she saw Elida, the headmistress was a bit surprised, she assumed that Elida would be not only older, but dressed more like an adult fairy, rather than one of her students.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Lambchops, I'm Elida, I work with FI5...".

"Yes, I was told to expect you, do take a seat. What can I do for you?"

"It's about one of your final year students, Poppy."

"Ah, yes, Poppy. A strange one is our Poppy... amazingly bright, annoyingly disruptive, and prone to emotional outbursts. Also seems to get picked on by some of the girls."

"Has she always been like that?"

"No, up till a couple of years ago, she was a model student, top of the class in both theoretical and practical magic. I get a bit of a feeling that part of her problem is that she's a bit TOO bright, and school is maybe 'holding her back'. That could explain the disruption, but we haven't really worked out what causes her upsets. So why is FI5 interested in her?"

Elida liked what she heard... this was indeed the sort of fairy she was looking for. Plus, the headmistress believed it was an FI5 thing, rather than Elida's own search.

"We've been keeping an eye open for non-conventionally bright fairies, fairies that are not the sort to want to go on to university. In fact, left alone, many of them could end up doing not so good things. We have certain 'openings' available for fairies like Poppy, assuming she is actually suitable."

"Really? I mean, that would be really good for her, I'm sure she can do better than she is now!"

"I was hoping I might be able to have a word with her," suggested Elida.

"Of course." The headmistress' eyes looked up at the clock. "If you can wait 5 minutes, it will be break time. While you wait, would you like to see her school record?"

"Oh, yes please, that would be very helpful. If you can bring it up on your screen, I'll take a copy. By 'take a copy' the headmistress assumed she'd take some pictures, but she inderestimated the tech that FI5 was working on. Puck had recently given her a tablet with an early copy of FairOS 57 (*see note below), and it had some very neat new features, one of which allowed Elida to cast a simple spell to copy the actual file from the headmistress' computer to her own tablet. Mere moments later, Elida was looking at Poppy's school record on her tablet... it was interesting reading, and Elida was getting good feelings about her.

"It's almost time, if we go now, we should catch them as they leave their classroom. I just checked, Poppy should be in room 7." The headmistress led them out of her room, and along the corridor. "You're welcome to use this room here on the left, to have a word with Poppy" she commented on the way.

The bell rang just as they got to room 7, so the headmistress opened the door, and went inside with Elida. The class teacher dismissed the girls, and Mrs Lambchops took that as a prompt to call out "Poppy, can we have a word, please?". Many heads turned, and assumed that, yet again, Poppy was in trouble!

As Poppy came over, she had a look of fear on her face, clearly wondering what she was in trouble for THIS time.

"Yes, Mrs Lambchops?" said a slightly dejected sounding girl. As Elida looked at her, she could see a lot of herself in her. She was a similar height, and had a similarly shaped body. She also had similar clothes to Elida, but that was more that Elida was dressed a bit like a student, meaning Poppy's attire was actually more 'normal' for her!

"Poppy, this is Elida, she's asked to have a word with you: I'll leave her to fill in all the details. Elida, you know where I am if you need me again, nice to meet you!"

Poppy's face brightened up when she realised that she wasn't actually being 'summoned' by Mrs Lambchops at all, but instead this 'Elida' wanted to talk to her. I mean, someone dressed like THAT can't be that bad, can they?

"Hello Poppy, I'm Elida, nice to meet you! Let's go have a chat, shall we?". Mrs Lambchops had already gone, so Elida led Poppy back to the room that Mrs Lambchops had pointed out. They both went inside, and before they even closed the door, Elida had looked around the bare and uninviting room, and said "Hmm, maybe not! Let's go and find somewhere nicer, away from the school, shall we? I assume you have a locker, so why don't you dump your school books off, grab your coat and phone and other bits..." Elida followed Poppy to where her locker was: as they walked, Elida was strongly reminded about HER days at school. Her main thought was along the lines of 'I'm glad I'm not at school any more!'

"So, where do you fancy going for a chat. I'd like us to be alone, so maybe on top of one of the tall buildings in town? Or out in a field in the country?" Elida wanted Poppy to be relaxed: she wasn't there to tell Poppy off in any way, she wanted to find out more about Poppy, see if she could be useful to the team back at FI5, whilst making life more interesting for Poppy at the same time.

"I wonder if anyone is playing tennis at the tennis courts at the sports centre? That's always a nice place to sit and relax!" suggested Poppy.

"Sounds good to me, lead the way!" On the way there, Elida spoke to Michael. "Hey, I think I'll be ok now, thanks for your help. I'll call if I need anything!". It didn't take long for the two of them to reach the tennis courts. The day was quite nice, so they went onto the roof of the adjacent pavilion. With a wave of her wand, Elida magicked up a pair of deckchairs and a table. With another wave there were a couple of long soft drinks on the table. "Take a seat!"

Having got away from school, and now seeing what Elida had just magicked up, Poppy was feeling pretty relaxed.

"So, what's this all about then? I mean, if it's a telling-off, then it looks like it could be the nicest telling off I've ever had!"

"Nothing like that at all. I guess I should tell you who I am: you know I'm Elida, but I work part-time for FI5. We've been keeping an eye out for fairies like you, that are apparently good at magic, but are having some sort of 'issue' with school. So I was sent here to talk to you. So, I'd just like to find out more about you. How good you REALLY are at magic. Why you play up in class, and why you seem to occasionally get bullied. Maybe I can start by letting you take a look at this...". Elida magicked up her tablet once more, and passed it to Poppy.

"My school record? Am I even supposed to be reading this?"

"Why not, it's all about you. Take your time, see what the teachers say about you...". Her school report was, well historically anyway, very complimentary about Poppy. In the last couple of years, it had become clear that, whilst her schoolwork remained good, her behaviour had gone downhill.

As Poppy read her school record, she sipped on her drink. "Ok," said Elida about 10 minutes later, when Poppy had finished reading: "The way I see it is that things were fine with you at school till what? 3 years ago? You were top of the class in theoretical magic, practical magic, innovative magic, and a few other subjects. Then things went downhill for some reason... and I'm guessing that's when the bullying started too? Clearly something happened, and I have a feeling much of it wasn't really your fault."

Poppy was silent.

"Look, Poppy, I'm not here to judge, I'm here to understand, and maybe even help you, make your life a bit more pleasant and interesting. So tell me your story..."

"Ok... so I'm Poppy, I turned 18 a couple of weeks ago. Mum's a general fairy, dad's a tech fairy. I have a younger brother and sister, they are both at school too. I seem to be the 'bright one' of us three. Even as a young fairy, I enjoyed doing magic, mum used to show me all sort of silly things, encouraged me, help me understand what magic I was allowed to do, and how to be careful not to do any stupid or bad magic, that might hurt someone. At school, I used to LOVE doing magic, I was really good at it, it kinda made sense to me, in the way that it didn't to most of the fairies. They needed to do loads of practice to get their magic right, I just seemed to be able to do it without even trying. That was until..."

"Until?"

"Until...." Poppy paused, clearly think how to explain it. "Until I discovered I sometimes just couldn't do magic."

"Ok, I can imagine that must have been quite frustrating. When did that start?"

"I'd started to get friendly with a different group of fairies at school. And of course, you know what teen fairies are like, we got up to silly things. And that's when I found that THEY could do certain magic, but I couldn't. I mean, I could do the magic normally, just not when we were messing around."

"Would 'messing around' maybe include doing magic for slightly.... 'naughty' reasons?".
Poppy went a bit pink: clearly she was embarrassed. "Look, I know it's very hard to admit that you've been using magic for things that aren't 100% good. It's like human kids, going off together and hiding behind their school bike shed, to share a cigarette at lunchtime. But I need to know, if I'm to help you."

"Yes... we were..."

"What sort of things?"

"Oh, burning the grass. Setting fire to daddy long legs. Tripping up human kids." Elida smiled. "What's so funny?"

"I remember fairies at my school doing that sort of thing too! Ok, let's try something... just do as I ask, and don't worry if you can't do it...". Elida magicked up a bit of paper, and made it flutter down in front of them. "Set fire to the paper for me" asked Elida.

"Easy peasy!" said Poppy, throwing a very simply fire spell at it, turning into ash.

"Ok, now set fire to this...". Elida magicked up a rather pretty butterfly. Poppy tried doing the same spell, and it didn't work. She tried it again, and again it didn't work.

"I told you, I cant! I can't do it!" shouted Poppy angrily.

"It's ok, calm down. I did say you might not be able to do it, I just wanted to see. Ok, let's park that for the moment, let's get a bit more positive for a moment: I'd like to see how good you are at more normal magic. Take some deep breaths, and relax!"

"Ok, so what do you want me to do?" asked Poppy after taking several deep breaths, and feeling better for it.

"Well, let's make it simple, but a bit of fun. Magic me up a paper sparrow, and make it fly..."

"Oh, that's easy!". Poppy thought a few seconds, working out what she would need to do, then created the paper bird. Another spell made it fly.

"Nicely done! Ok, keep it flying, and at the same time make another one -  make it out of red paper this time - and make it fly too. Mind you, I want it to fly separately from the first one."

Once again, Poppy magicked up a second bird, made of red paper, and made it fly too.

"How about a third one - and how about this one is made out of some sort of golden foil?"

It was clear to Elida that Poppy was really needing to concentrate, to keep the two existing paper birds flying, whilst making the third, then getting it to fly too.

"I'm impressed! Think you can do a fourth? Go on, give it a go!". Elida was wanting to see how much simultaneous magic Poppy could manage. Most young fairies could managed maybe 3 or 4 spells at most. Elida used to manage about 6 or 7, but of course, as a result of the 'Time Loop incident', could now manage well over the 15 she needed to teleport.

Poppy started to magic up the fourth bird, but lost concentration for a moment, and the 3 flying birds started to fall. "Ooops!" she shouted, and quickly took control of them again. It took her longer to make the 4th paper bird, as she was needing to also used magic to keep the other 3 birds flying. It would have been easy if she could make them all fly the same, but she realised what Elida was wanting. Without being asked, she started to make a 5th bird, but it needed more concentration and magic than she could manage, and the 4 birds fell down.

"Sorry..."

"No, don't be sorry, that was quite impressive. Most fairies would max out at 2 birds.. so how many spells were you using there? I'm guessing about 8 or 9..."

"Yeah, I think it was 8."

"That's well above average!"

"So, how many can you do?"

"Oh, 17 or so..."
 
"No way! Wow, that's cool!".

Elida was silent for a moment, thinking to herself. Poppy's abilities, and lack of abilities were worryingly familiar. Very familiar. But she couldn't be, could she? I mean, it's a 'once in a generation thing', isn't it? That's what Zia had said.

Poppy noticed that Elida was deep in thought. "What is it?" she asked.

"I actually have an idea what your 'problem' might be. I mean, I can't really believe it's possible, but..... well, there's only one way to find out..."

"What you on about?" asked Poppy.

"Poppy, I need you to stay here and wait for me, please. I just need to go and get something, I'll be maybe five minutes, ten at most. In the meantime, just relax, and watch the tennis, and have another drink...."

"Is everything ok?"

"Don't worry. This may seem a bit strange, but it's probably very ok! I'll be back shortly!". Elida flew up in the air, then ran her teleportation spell, suddenly disappearing from Poppy's view. Back at FI5 HQ, Elida dashed into the building, using her card to get through the security barrier. Up to her office. Then down into the Dark Archive. Where she had left her 'Protector's Book'.

It was a VERY special book. First of all, it could only be opened by a Protector Fairy - so Zia and Elida. Second, once opened, unless the Protector allowed it, the pages looked like they were covered in kiddies scribblings. But to a protector, it contained the shared knowledge of a very large number of Protector Fairies, written over quite a long period. Elida remembered the first time she saw it: Zia had made her search for the book, then open it. She also remembered how the book added her name to the list of Protectors as she watched.

So, if Poppy was indeed another Protector Fairy, then this book would prove it. But if she was, then why?

She took the book with her, left the FI5 building, then teleported back to where Poppy was waiting.

"Erm, what just happened? I mean one moment you were here, then you disappeared. Then now you're back again..."

"Yeah... teleportation spell, that's what I use the 17 spells to do!"

"Oh, wow! I never heard of anyone teleporting before."

"That's because I'm the only fairy that can do it. I'll explain later, first there's something much more important we need to do." Elida sat down, and pulled out the 'Protector's Book', and passed it to Poppy.

"What's this?"

"Open it and find out.".

Poppy opened the book without any special effort, revealing a very simple, yet also very ornate, front page to the right, but to the left was a long list of names. At the top, it simply said 'This book belongs to...'. At the bottom of the long list of names, it had Elida's name.

Elida put her hand onto the book. "Put your hand onto the book too....". As Poppy also touched the book, she saw new writing appear underneath Elida's name: 'it also belongs to Poppy'.

"What's going on?" asked Poppy. "Why did my name get added to the bottom of the list?"

"Because, as well as having belonged to Zia, and me, it now also belongs to you. It seems that you, like me, are a 'Protector Fairy'. Go on, have a look at the book..." Poppy turned the page, and was amazed at how beautiful it was.

"It contains things that a Protector needs to know about... see the different handwriting, that's because it has been added to by the different Protectors, over many hundreds of years." Poppy continued to turn the pages of the book, enthralled by it, but at the same time starting to wonder exactly what a 'Protector Fairy' is.

"So, you're probably wondering, the same as I was the first time I saw this book, what a 'Protector Fairy' is..." Elida slowly told Poppy all about why Protector Fairies existed. "You'll be very happy to hear that you're not the only one that can't do bad magic, I can't either. And as you've worked out, like you, I'm pretty good at doing magic. Hang on a moment, I just need to call Michael."

"Who's Michael?"

"Oh, he's my 'handler' back at FI5." Elida pulled out her phone, and called Michael.

"Hey, you still with Poppy?"

"Yes, that's actually why I'm calling. Can you call Poppy's school, tell them she won't be back till tomorrow at the earliest. I'm sure you can come up with something, maybe we've asked her back for an interview or something, which won't be far from the truth."

"Oh, what's going on then?"

"Need-to-know for the moment I'm afraid, but I suspect I'll need to explain it to you soon!"

"Ok, I'll call the school for you then!"

"Thanks Michael!". She turned back to Poppy, who was looking at the Protector's Book.

"Hey, I just found the teleporting spell, but it looks like it's not complete."

"That's because it's still a 'work in progress'."

"What? You mean YOU are writing it? So... you invented the magic to teleport?"

"Yup. Took about 3weeks of almost non-stop work. I'll tell you about THAT sometime too."

"Hey, shouldn't I be going back to school at some point?"

"Do you want to? What you got?"

"Umm, I think it's maths. We're looking at equations for motion and friction."

"Sounds absolutely riveting!" said Elida, very sarcastically. "To be honest, I think that sort of stuff is well beneath your abilities. No, I think you deserve to take the rest of today off school, we have far more important things to do. Hey, do you even want to go back to school?"

"Ummm..." said Poppy, rather shocked.

"Just think about it. In the meantime, I wonder if Zia is free."

"Who's Zia?"

"Another protector fairy. My predecessor, but she's retired now. Let me call her." Elida called Zia. "Zia, hi, Elida here <pause> Hey, are you free? <pause> Yeah, now. <pause> Well, there's someone I think you need to meet. <pause> Her name is Poppy, and I'll explain all when I get there. <pause> Oh, just give us a couple of minutes...<pause> Ok, see you soon!"

"Right, let's tidy up, and get going." Elida waved her hand, and the chairs, table, drinks and paper birds all disappeared. "Ok, hold on to the book, and take my hand. Oh, I suggest you take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds, the first time can be a disorientating."

"Uh?"

"Just take the deep breath!". As Poppy took her deep breath, Elida ran up the 18 spells: the normal 17 for teleporting, and the extra one to take a 'passenger'.

(in the original story, I said it took 15 spells to teleport: that was correct. But back then Elida was teleporting 'blind', so the extra 2 spells are for Elida to check where she's about to land.)


(* FairOS, the phone / tablet operating system developed by the fairies, is the basis of what we mere humans now know of as Android and Linux. This explains one of the reasons that fairies can hack into phones so easily... there's still a couple of back doors in there that the fairies included in the kernel, before making it available to Linus Torvalds and Andy Rubin)

Good story I wish something like that could of happened to me when I was at school would of been the perfect excuse to not go back

Hehe! Shame it's 100% just a story :-( And by the way, Kellie-Marie, fairies don't ACTUALLY exist, sorry..... 

I forgot to say earlier live the name  you gave the teacher Mrs Lambchops reminds me we used to call my boss something chops but it wasn't lamb  definatley ruder than that if you get my drift

Chapter 6


About three or four months have passed since our two Protectors were first in the Dark Archive together. Poppy has spent quite a bit of time down in the archive, talking to the books, as well as learning a whole load of new magic. Last week, after a LOT of practicing, she finally managed to put the requisite 17 spells together, and was able to teleport, which thrilled both her and Elida. So now, Poppy is finishing off the description of what to do to teleport in the 'Protectors Book', that Elida started, but hadn't quite got around to finishing.

Elida has also introduced her to Annabelle, and they've done a few 'sparring sessions' now with all three of them. She has also introduced Poppy to Sebby, and they too have got on well, helped by the fact that they are of similar age (give or take a century!) In fact, Poppy has been fitting in really well. Her next big step is in a couple of weeks, when she finally leaves school, and joins FI5 full-time.

"I think it's time you met Princess Rosemary!" said Elida. "Besides, I need to show you, and Sebby, the 'Royal Archive'. Hey, why don't I just ask the Queen if we can go have tea with her, so I can introduce you to them all?

"You can just call the Queen and ask to have tea with her?"

"Not quite. Officially I would need to go through channels, and it might take weeks. Unofficially, I can speak to Princess Rosemary, and I'm sure she can fix it. So, want to meet the Queen?"

"OMG! Yes, of course I do! So what's she like?"

"The Queen? Queen Tinkerbell is a lovely old lady, and whilst quite a traditionalist in many ways, she's not scared to use technology. Let me call Rosemary..."

Elida picked up her phone, and made the call... "Hello? Rosemary?"

"Elida? Lovely to hear from you! What can I do for you?"

"A couple of things actually. First of all, there's someone I need to introduce to you and the Queen, she's a new 'Protector Fairy', like me. And I would also like to show her, and Sebby, the Royal Archive. Any chance you can twist your mothers arm, get an invite for us all for afternoon tea, then we could pop down to the Archive afterwards."

"I'm sure she'd love to meet her - what's her name?"

"She's Poppy, and she's a little younger than me. Hey, why don't you ask your mum to invite Celeste along too?"

"Excellent idea! I'll let you know when it's arranged.

"Thanks, Rosemary!" and she ended the call.

"You just called Princess Rosemary, 'Rosemary'?"

"Yeah. She actually appreciates it, she said that she gets so fed up with being called 'your royal highness' and 'Princess Rosemary' all the time. I guess it's like Tats..."

"Yeah, but Tats ain't the next queen..."

"Fair comment."

"So, what do I need to know when meeting royalty then?" asked Poppy.

"Well, given who we are, I think it's a lot easier for us. I just try and be generally nice. We call the Queen 'Your Majesty', and Rosemary is 'Your Royal Highness', but I suspect she'll quickly tell you to just call her 'Rosemary'. Rosemary is the same sort of age as your mum and dad, and the Queen is getting her to take on various tasks, so she'll be coming down to the Royal Archive with us."

"And Celeste - I assume that's Princess Celeste?"

"Yup, next in line after her mum. She's our sort of age, I think you'll like her!"

----

Elida and Poppy had teleported to the front door of the palace. They had arranged that Sebby would meet them there.

"Hiya!" said Sebby. "So, we're off to have tea with my many times over great grand-niece?" she added with a bit of a smile. Poppy looked a bit confused, then worked it out.

"Ah, yes, of course! I keep forgetting that you were actually born so long ago!"

So let's remind ourselves: Princess Sebille - training as a tooth fairy about 100 years ago - was caught in the old, mostly destroyed, palace, presumed dead. However, other fairies had put her into a long sleep. When she woke up, she felt very angry with the world, which had destroyed the Palace, and thus became 'the Dark Fairy', doing nasty things to many human's teeth. It was all caused by being in the destroyed Palace: he (the palace, that is) was rather upset too. After removing Princess Sebille from the Palace (who subsequently had the truth explained, and also calmed down) she lost her darkness, and is now pretty much a normal fairy.

So yes, Sebby is theoretically about a hundred and twenty years old, but is actually only a little older than Poppy. Probably because of her age, she has managed to 'fit it' amazingly well with modern fairy society. as well as picking up modern technology really quickly.... and whilst she probably could have 'pulled rank' and just been a 'lazy royal' and done very little, she actually enjoyed working. She was a Tooth Fairy much of the time, but she did get one perk, and that was being allowed to have a bit of time to do research work. Partly that was to understand the history surrounding the old - and now destroyed - Palace, where she was found. But also, it let her help Elida and others, as it turns out she's a bit of a dab hand at finding stuff down in the Archive. Sebby now had her own small apartment in the Palace, and got on well with the staff too.

"Come on, Rosemary should be expecting us!" said Sebby. She took them up to the rather bigger apartment that Princess Rosemary and her family lived in, and rang the bell. The door opened moments later. "You guys ready for tea with Tinkers?" asked Sebby.

Poppy looked at Elida, and whispered "Tinkers?".

"Yes, Tinkers and I seem to have a bit of a strange relationship: theoretically I'm loads older than she is, but at the same time I'm not. When we first met, and bearing in mind that I was a Queen's daughter, we just agreed to just be totally informal with each other." explained Sebby.

The five of them walked to the Queen's apartment, where a PA was waiting for them. "You can go straight in, she's expecting you!"

"Good afternoon, grandma!" said Celeste, running over and hugging the Queen.

"Oh, hello dear, nice to see you. And you too, Sebby and Elida. And I'm guessing this must be Poppy... do come over and let me see you..."

"Your majesty!" said Poppy, making a simple curtsey.

"Good afternoon, your majesty!" said Elida. "I thought that, with Poppy also being a 'Protector', like me, you really ought to meet her."

"Oh, yes, indeed! Well, take a seat everyone, I'm sure the tea and cakes will be here soon." She turned to Poppy: "So, Poppy, how are you enjoying being a 'Protector'?". Elida had told her that, whilst she was actually talking to the Queen, to be her normal self, just be respectful like you would with any older fairy.

"It's definitely interesting! I'm still at school, so only really doing my Protector stuff a couple of days a week, but Elida had been helping me."

"Are you planning on leaving school soon?"

"Yes, the year ends in a few weeks time, then I'll be a full-time Protector!"

"What's been the best bit so far then?" asked the Queen.

"Oh, the books, they are amazing, and they seem to enjoy talking to me too.."

With the ice most definitely broken, and the tea and cakes arriving soon afterwards, they all had a great time talking with the Queen - and the Queen enjoyed having a nice group of people to spend some time with.

"So, Rosemary tells me you're going down to the Royal Archive again..." said the Queen.

"Yes, there's some interesting books there that I think Sebby will enjoy reading, plus I'd like Poppy to have a chat with the books: I'm still a bit stuck on understanding the magic dampening used in the official buildings."

"Ah, yes, I remember you explaining that last time. ..."

Chapter 8


Elida was in her FI5 office, reading a few official documents, Poppy was 'downstairs' in the Dark Archive.

"Ahem!" said a voice that Elida recognised as being Poppy. She looked up from what she was doing, and looked at Poppy, who had a MASSIVE smile on her face.

"Poppy, I thought you were down in the Archive?"

"I was..."

"But I didn't hear you come back up the stairs..."

"That's because I didn't use them..." replied Poppy, still with that massive smile on her face.

"What, you mean you just teleported up here?"

"Yup. I finally worked out the extra spells to get around the magic dampening spells in the building!"

"Poppy, that is amazing! Abso-bloomin-lutey amazing! You have just earned a bonus amount of extra respect from me! I will admit that I had been struggling with those books."

"It's not that hard, once you make sense of everything. It's actually only another three spells, one to let you do the 'probe ahead', the other two to get the magic dampening spells to 'back off' at each end."

"Oh, nice... tell you what, these documents can wait, I think you need to teach me what I need to do!"

For Poppy, this was a watershed day: it was the first time that she had worked out some fairy magic that Elida hadn't, and it massively boosted her confidence that she was indeed quite worthy of being a Protector. In fact, the effect for Elida was similar: this was the day she started to think more of Poppy as being her equal, rather than being 'the trainee'.

-----

"Hi Lilly!". Lilly looked up from what she was reading.

"Oh, hi Elida... Poppy..." replied Lilly. "When did you come in? Never heard you..."

"That's because we didn't!" replied Elida.

"Uh?"

"We teleported here from our office." Lilly stopped an thought for a few seconds. "Umm, I thought you couldn't teleport in the official buildings?"

"Well, we can now!"

"You finally worked it out?"

"No, I've been struggling for a while to work it out. Poppy worked it out!"

"Well, what can I say? Well done, Poppy! Nice one!"

"Yes, I was rather impressed myself! Which leads me on to something else..."

"Which is?"

"I'd like Poppy to officially be recognised as my deputy here at FI5. Several times now she's shown she's pretty much as able as me."

"I'm very happy with that. You told Tats yet?"

"No... half a moment...". Elida did a new style of probe, the sort than now let her see inside the magic-restricted building. "She's in her office, let's go see her now!"

Lilly started to walk to the door.

"No, not like that. Hold Poppy's hand...". Elida and Poppy both said the spell to probe then teleport to Tats' office. Tats was standing up, a cup of coffee on her hand, when the three of them arrived in her office, a matter of about 3 feet from her. Luckily she didn't have any coffee in her mouth, but she DID managed to drop her cup, which still had a bit of coffee in it!

"What the f***??!!" said Tats, who was very surprised. "Sh*t, you guys have worked out how to do it indoors, haven't you?"

Poppy smiled very proudly. "Poppy did!" said Elida.

"Well, well done Poppy! I know Elida's been struggling with it for a while!".

"Absolutely!" echoed Lilly. "So, Elida has suggested that Poppy should officially be her deputy... I think she's probably ready to do that, what do you think?"

"Yeah, I'm ok with that... Sounds like Poppy is fast becoming an important member of FI5!"

The next bit of the story is about Serena...


So, Serena has met her companions, and has got all her weapons etc, plus 4 extra members of the team she wasn't expecting.

And she's now discovered that it seems that the "Dark Threat" as defined by the prophecy will happen in 2 years time. From a magical 8th realm.

In the meantime, she needs to continue reuniting the covens, but beyond that, she now needs to prepare herself and her team to be able to fight the 'Dark Threat'... and I think they could do with some serious military-style training.

So, how would she go about doing that? I'm thinking in this story that witches are probably about 0.1% of the population (the city where I live is about 50,000, so a coven of around 50 would seem reasonable), so that would give about 200 witches in the British military. Would they actually USE their witching skills: knowing the military, if they had wind of witches (and they've had plenty of time to find out about them!) then I would almost ASSUME that there is a team of witches, like the SAS / Seals / Paratroop regiment in the military. Of course, their mere existence would be kept highly secret.

But THEY are the people that Serena would need to find, both to GET trained, but maybe to also get THEM better trained in magic to help 'fight the dark threat'. There is no doubt that traditional weapons would be of no use, magic MUST be used.

So how WOULD Serena find this team? She knows noone within the military. Should she start at the top? That could be quite difficult. So how?

That's what the next bit of the story is about.....