Issue 16: King Nobody

King Nobody is the sixteenth issue of the Winx Club Comic Series.

Synopsis
While sorting out the ancient books found in the Alfea Library for Miss Barbatea, Musa comes across a book filled with ancient sheet music. Confident that she can play the ancient melody, Musa sneaks the book back to her dorm, where she plays it on her flute and, to her surprise, she finds herself in a completely different world! Musa explores this mysterious place and comes across a tomb with a young man on top of it. The tomb belongs to a man named King Nobody who was cursed with being forced to take the shape of the person that the one nearest to him deeply desires. She has her run-in with the fabled King Nobody, who was forced into disguising himself as Riven and Musa runs away heartbroken. However, when she returns to Alfea, she tells the rest of the Winx of her story as she wishes to free him from his eternal curse. The Winx then decide to travel into King Nobody's prison realm to lift the curse, but it will end up being a much more dangerous task than they had originally thought.

Plot
Musa is helping Barbatea sort out the old books she had retrieved with the rest of the books in the library. Barbatea leaves Musa to do all the work after complaining about how much she hates dust. As she cleans, she finds a book filled with old sheet music. Musa begins to think that this ancient song could make a lovely melody and sees that the melody is written in memory of "King Nobody." Remembering that she has her flute in her bag, Musa decides to play the melody. As she plays, she feels like she is being teleported to a different place. As it turns out, she did end up in a completely different place from Alfea.

Musa explores this odd place and finds a tomb where a boy her age lies. She sees that the boy is actually a clay statue and notices that the clay is fresh, as if it had been molded right before she arrived. She wonders why the statue of the boy is wearing a mask and notices pictures carved into the tomb. The pictures show the story of the boy but it is written in a very ancient language. Even though Musa has never seen or read the language before, she finds that she can perfectly understand the written words. The story says:

"Once upon a time, there was a young king who would deceive and trick people. Despite being greedy and cruel, his face always appeared lovable and friendly... This is how the daughter of a palace official fell in love with him! In the beginning, the king pretended to be sweet and persuasive... but when he grew tired of her, he lowered his mask and exposed his indifference towards her and her sorrow caused her death. The young girl's father wanted revenge and offered everything he owned to a powerful wizard to put a powerful spell on the king... and, since then, he has been lying in this place, a prisoner of his own destiny. From here, no one can set him free!"

Musa says that it is a pity that love can often be the source of many people's sorrows and starts to think about her current relationship with Riven. Suddenly, Musa finds Riven behind her and wonders why and how he got there. Riven claims that he showed up because Musa was thinking about him and, when the two are about to kiss, Musa notices that the clay statue lying above the tomb is gone. She realizes the "Riven" she was about to kiss was actually King Nobody and cries at how he tricked her. King Nobody tells her that he did not mean to trick her and that, due to the curse place upon him, he is forced to take the shape of the person desired by those close to him. He tells her that now he is stuck tricking and deceiving people even when he does not want to and that he would like to make amends for all the trouble he has caused. He then explains that everyone calls him "King Nobody" because no one knows who he really is anymore but Musa does not want to hear much more of this and runs away. She trips while running and suddenly finds herself back in the Alfea Library. She wonders if she may have dozed off while playing the music but thinks that it was all too real for it to have been a dream. She also wonders if she should help King Nobody and decides to do so, but she will need some help.

Later, in their dorm, Musa tells the Winx about what happened. Initially, they find it hard to believe until Stella points out that some songs have the power to transport people. Flora feels sorry for King Nobody and wants to help lift his curse but Tecna and Bloom states that he should face his punishment. However, it should not last for forever and he should be forgiven at some point. Stella decides to help but Flora protests that the spell lasts forever. Tecna says a spell cannot last forever because there will always be a more powerful spell that can break it. They all agree to help Musa break King Nobody's curse, but Tecna reminds them that they will be dealing with black magic. Stella tells her not to worry because they will be doing all of this when everyone in Alfea falls asleep.

At night, the Winx sneak into the library to look for the book Musa found the sheet music in. They search all night and end up exhausted. Musa scrambles to put all the books they searched through back on their shelves before Barbatea arrives and the Winx decide to try again tomorrow since the have to attend class.

During class, the Winx girls can barely stay awake. Wizgiz slams a book on Stella's desk to wake her up and remarks on how they keep falling asleep during his class. Stella claims that they stayed up all night studying and asks Wizgiz to help them with a problem they cannot seem to solve. She asks about "Sleeping Beauty" and wonders if a kiss would be able to break a spell that forces someone to sleep eternally. Wizgiz tells her that that will not be enough and explains to her what she need to read in order to break the spell. Bloom quickly copies down what Wizgiz says to Stella in her notebook and gives the page to Musa.

Later that day, Musa returns from working in the library with the books about King Nobody. The Winx learn that the mask King Nobody is forced to wear is molded onto his face and that he does not have an actual face underneath it. The spell can be undone if a powerful potion is poured into crystal clear waters that King Nobody has to emerge from but there is a big problem: there is a terracotta guard monster that awakens every time King Nobody moves and it will attack him and anyone trying to free him if he tries to escape. Even though their lives will be put in danger if they try to help lift King Nobody's curse, the Winx come up with a plan and decide to execute their plan at night.

That night, the girls have just finished up the potion in the potionology lab and sneak into the library. Musa finds the book with the sheet music and plays the melody, warping her and her friends into King Nobody's prison realm. They rush up to his tomb, but find that he is nowhere to be seen. Tecna reminds them that it will be dangerous to look for him since the terracotta guardian should also be awake, but Musa claims that he could not have gotten far and proposes that they split up to look for him.

While looking for King Nobody, Tecna starts to wonder if Timmy would believe her if she told him about this adventure. She gets too caught up in her thoughts and almost falls down a cliff before grabbing onto an old root of a tree. Suddenly, Timmy appears and saves Tecna from falling. She asks how he got to King Nobody's prison realm and Timmy answers by claiming that he showed up because she was thinking about him. Timmy then starts to talk about how beautiful Tecna is and how his love for her is what makes him strong and decisive, compared to his usual shy and indecisive self. The two are about to kiss until Musa finds them together and wonders what they are doing; referring to "Timmy" as King Nobody. Tecna realizes that the "Timmy" she was with was King Nobody and gets upset. Musa scolds him for trying to trick Tecna but he claims that he simply came to help her. The rest of the Winx catch up and introduce themselves. King Nobody tells them that, with his kingdom being gone for centuries, he is the last of his people and the Winx assure him that they will break the curse. They explain how they will go about breaking the curse and Musa leads them to where she thinks crystal clear waters will lie; claiming that she saw a waterfall near some mountains nearby when she first arrived.

On their way to the mountains, they hear the howling of the terracotta guardian and pick up the pace. They find a river far below them but they cannot cure King Nobody's curse because the current is too fast. Tecna notices that the waterfall is close by and the group looks for calmer waters. However, the terracotta guardian's howling gets louder, meaning it is also close by, so the Winx decide to use their diversion plan in order to outsmart the guardian. Although they cannot use most of their magic because it is too weak in this realm. King Nobody goes with Bloom, Tecna and Musa, while Stella and Flora go create a dummy to distract the guardian. They use the little magic they can use to make the dummy stand up and hide. The terracotta guardian spots the dummy and attacks it, thinking that it is the real King Nobody.

Meanwhile, Bloom hears the guardian's howling and tries to work faster. Bloom starts to think about Sky and worries that she may be deluding herself into thinking that he reciprocates her feelings. Suddenly, Sky appears in front of her and says that he was able to make it into King Nobody's prison realm because he was also thinking about Bloom. Bloom gets upset, claiming that Sky only has eyes for Diaspro, but Sky tells her that he only ever thinks about Bloom whenever he lies awake at night. They hug until Bloom gets distracted by a noise; quickly realizing that "Sky" is actually King Nobody transformed. She gets upset, thinking that King Nobody wanted to trick her, but King Nobody claims that he just wanted to make her happy.

Meanwhile, Tecna and Musa are trying to make a King Nobody dummy but the clay the mountains are made out of his too dry. They are barely able to make the dummy look like King Nobody because the guardian is getting closer. Musa pushes Tecna into a hiding place as the guardian quickly destroys their dummy. Due to the guardian's pace, Musa and Tecna realize that it will catch up to Bloom and King Nobody too quickly.

Hearing the guardian's howl again, Bloom realizes that they will be caught soon. She notices the waterfall and, as the both of them are running for it, the terracotta guardian catches up. King Nobody barely dodges its attack and he, Bloom and the guardian end up on a crumbling cliff. King Nobody pushes Bloom onto safe ground as he falls into the waters below. The guardian, on the other hand, falls onto large stalagmites near the water and breaks. The rest of the Winx catch up and Bloom explains the situation. Stella hands Bloom the potion and she dumps it into the water, hoping that the spell works and that King Nobody has not drowned. The water starts to bubble up and King Nobody emerges from the water as a real man. The girls rush down to the shore to see that King Nobody is no longer a clay statue and they all celebrate on a completed mission.

The Winx suddenly find themselves back in the Alfea Library and talk about this adventure. Stella fawns over King Nobody's beauty until Bloom asks if she should be ashamed for falling for him since she already has Brandon. Stella says that she was actually thinking about what he said to them before they left his realm, which was that he always spoke the truth about the person he was disguised as. Stella laughs at how he could not have possibly known the truth but Musa, Bloom and Tecna all wonder if what he said while disguised as Riven, Sky and Timmy were the boys' true feelings.

Spells Used
None.

Debuts

 * King Nobody

Mistakes

 * On page 23, when the Winx warp to King Nobody's prison realm, a destroyed half of his tomb is completely black.
 * On page 29, as Musa points to the waterfalls, she wears white wrist sleeve.

Characters

 * Winx Club
 * Bloom
 * Stella
 * Flora
 * Musa
 * Tecna
 * Specialists (Under King Nobody's various disguises)
 * Sky
 * Riven
 * Timmy


 * Alfea Staff
 * Barbatea
 * Wizgiz
 * Royalty
 * King Nobody
 * Monsters
 * Terracotta Guardian