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Several weeks ago in Limbo -
The Trix are a group of three witches who formerly attended Cloudtower school for witches. They have been mortal enemies of the Winx Club for years now, and are the ones who sent them into limbo. They are also sisters and descend from the Ancestral Witches, the most powerful and evil of all witches to have ever existed.
Icy is the eldest one of the Trix sisters. Icy, as one would expect with a name like Icy, has powers of ice and cold, and general freezing powers which starkly contrasts with Bloom's powers deriving from fire. She, as well as her sisters, wish to rule the universe. Icy's name describes both her literal powers and her personality: cold-hearted. She enjoys torturing fairies and despises Bloom and the Winx. She hasn't a nice bone in her body; while she does want to rule the universe, she is also mean just for the sake of being mean.
Darcy is the second Trix sister. Darcy's powers are more versatile than those of her sisters, able to perform various miscellaneous spells, such as self-replication. She, as well as her sisters, wish to rule the universe. Darcy is evil, but unlike Icy, she tends to be mean to get what she wants, and not just because she can. Darcy understands human emotion better than Icy and Stormy do, but generally uses her understanding to manipulate others: certainly not to help anyone. Darcy is also more prone than her sisters to getting a crush on a guy, though fortunately, she does not go absolutely nuts. But if a cute guy can be of use to Darcy and her sisters, she certainly would not mind.
Stormy the youngest of the sisters. She has powers over storms and weather, which should come as a surprise to no one. She, as well as her sisters, wish to rule the universe. Stormy is forever grumpy, very quick to anger, and overall less mature than her sisters. She would be completely lost without her sisters, though Stormy herself tends to believe herself to be the most important in the sisters' attempt to control the universe. Stormy also has a very bad temper, and when she gets angry, she is likely to set ablaze whatever happens to be around, living or nonliving.
They been floating in limbo when they spotted a portal appearing as something traveled through the dimension. They were too far away for them to get into the portal to escape, but they knew that if a portal open once it would happen again. When they spotted a portal opening with it staying open longer than the last one with what looks like a girl with 3 frog like creatures, they managed to reach it just in time to escape limbo.
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Paris -
In the food court of the Sparkle's Lab the newest group of heroes have are having lunch. They had just finished some testing and are now on lunch. The heroes and their kwami friends are refueling themselves as the testing they went through had drained the kwamis of their energy. And like the other kwamis they had their own favorite foods.
Chloe's kwami, Tusk the mammoth food is most fruits and vegetables. Who likes all the different kinds of plant food that the humans have created since she was sleeping.
Sabrina's kwami, Wing a swan likes fish dishes.
Ms. Mendeleiev's kwami, Fang a scimitar-toothed cat has taken a liking to can cat food.
Marc's kwami, Stag a giant deer likes any fruits or vegetables.
Aurore's kwami, Ram a woolly rhinoceros likes any fruits or vegetables
Mireille's kwami, Claw a unnamed ice age crab likes any kind of dish served to him.
Mr. Damocles's kwami, Hoot a Cretan owl likes meat dishes.
Unlike the other kwamis, the ice age kwamis aren't picky with their food. Having to survive in the harsh ice age where they had no idea when they would be able to eat, they had to eat whatever they could whenever they could. The kwamis of Ladybug are just very picky about what they ate. Which is what Chloe wrote on her blog about how much Tusk eats.
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Elsewhere -
"Wait you don't need to eat something sweet to recharge your energy?" Marinette asked looking at Tikki after reading Chloe's blog about what Tusk eats.
"Well...," Tikki said avoiding eye contact. (1)
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Shimmer Exports -
In her office Shimmer looks over the paperwork of all the business transactions with company. With the project nearing completion, she's pouring alot of money into it, which would have gotten alot of investors asking why she's doing it, if it wasn't for the fact that her company isn't a publicly traded company. Which allowed her to funnel money into her projects without anyone noticing the missing funds. From both her legitimate businesses ventures and her less than legal ventures.
She's been using the stolen loot taken from Sartana of The Dead who she killed, to fund the project. Using her friend's abilities they been cutting the overhead cost, Korra, Kuvira and the soldiers that came with her use their metal bending allowed to create all the special alloys the project needs. As well as gathering the tiny quantities of gold and precious metals that are flush down the drain ending up in the sewers, to be used in wiring and to fund the projects.
Shimmer has many plans and backup plans in place for just about anything that could happen. Thanks to the magical umbrella it had given her years to come up with intricately detailed plans, using all the information she had gathered and come up with plans within plans that no one could hope to be about to keep up with. She has trained with the most brilliant strategists and masterminds, one of her mentors went over her plans with her, who had mentored her after seeing what her true potential is. She had enjoyed being the mastermind that could run rings around Batman. She remember well his words to her.
'I had been playing the game on the detective's terms. Taking one step forward past each step he had taken to beat me. If I designed a crime with one degree of complexity, he would come back with two degrees of complexity in his means of defeating me. Beating him would require an exponential leap forward. And I spent a year in a room doing just that. I knew to win I would need to become the man I would become after twenty years of battling him, without him evolving in kind. The man who left that room wasn't the man who entered. He was The Designer.'
She followed his example locking herself in a book where she spent years inside and came up with a plan that will get her back to Equestria. Even having her past mentors look over it so that any unforeseen flaws that she had overlook, could be taken care of before hand. And won't Celestia be surprise when she brings all of her friends with her.
Speaking of which she looks up her emails to see that Hodaka Morishima has things setup at the main depot in Estonia. Hina and her little brother Nagi Amano have setup things in the Slovenia main depot. Looking down the list Shimmer sees emails from all the other European deports in the countries of Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Denmark, Lituania, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia.
The United Kingdom depot are the only ones still being setup by Alistair Wonderland and Bunny Blanc. Once that's done the entire Shimmer Exports main depots in every European country will be connected. Leaving only a few other things she has to handle before the plan could begin.
Of course she has to maintain her cover, and opening a portal would draw attention, the energy drain from the power grid isn't something that can just be hidden away. That's why she decided not to hide what's she's doing.
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Later -
Shimmer walk with Nadja Chamack and her cameraman, who came after Shimmer made a call to the news station about a project she's been working on. Which is the reason why Nadja and her cameraman are follow Shimmer through the many doors that need different level keycards to pass through. All heading to the main lab of Sparkle's Laboratory where the project is being worked on.
Shimmer stops at the door to the lab and face Nadja while her cameraman starts filming.
"The project I have been funding will change how transportation is handled. I had the idea for years but thanks to my newest employee Marc with his kwami, Stag who has the power to open portals to anywhere he wants. Sparkle has been doing research on magic for years now and with her study of how Stag's power to open portals work. Has allowed her to make some breakthroughs in her research," Shimmer said.
"She's working on portals?" Nadja asked.
"See for yourself," Shimmer said as she opens the door revealing the lab behind her.
In the center of the room is what looks like a stargate from the movies and tv show.
"You built a stargate?" Nadja asked.
"No it's not a stargate," Sparkle said who is standing near the gateway. "Well yes but only because what you really think of when you make a portal machine what kind of shape it is?"
"So it will open a portal to anywhere you want?" Nadja asked.
"No that would be silly, as I would need to use magic to do that. This is connected to another portal machine, it be like in some fictions that have portal networks," Sparkle explains.
"Once she has it working, it will solve tons of logistic problems. All the depots of my company all having a portal gate," Shimmer said.
"I haven't agreed to that name," Sparkle said.
"The portal machine thing," Shimmer said continuing. "Will allow transportation of goods from one country to another in record time. With no long wait time for ports to unload the ships of their cargo and for cargo that spoils, won't run the risk of said cargo rotting before they reach the buyer." (2)
"Is it safe?" Nadja asked.
"That's what the testing is for. Once the machine is working, I can test out the portal," Sparkle said.
"Once the machine is operational and pass all the safety tests, it will change the world like how cars change transportation. Of course there be much changes like how horses were phased out of being the main transportation and all the businesses that are connected to it. But that's how progress is, if it's not me doing it someone else will do it. For those in the transportation business, it will take awhile for this portal thing to work as well as other forms of transportation. Also the portal will only be for large shipments and not small ones. To offset the cost of powering the portal," Shimmer explains.
"Unlike Stage who uses magic the portal is connected to the power grid. So it won't be running on magic or other type of power like the superhero Doorman," Sparkle said.
"So how long will it take for it to work?" Nadja asked.
"Depends on how long the research will take and expect for power surges," Sparkle said.
"I'll be talking with the city government about that. If you have any questions, Sparkle will answer them," Shimmer said taking her leave. Leaving behind the prefect cover for the portal testing that she'll be doing to get back home.
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Author's Notes -
1 - I just figure that the kwamis are able to eat any kind of food but are just picky.
2 - The logistic problem of transporting goods from one place or another is the main reason why there are shortages of goods. As the goods simply can't be easily be transported to the place they're needed for one reason or another.
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