As Will competes in a swimming competition, tension arise between her and Matt with an old friend of Matt's from summer camp being her competitor. Meanwhile, Nerissa has her heart set on another Heart.
The episode contains the following tropes:
- All Webbed Up: Cornelia wraps Halinor with the algae from the pool.
- All Your Powers Combined: With Nerissa's control over the former Guardians broken, the sorceress elects to absorb the women into the Seal, thereby gaining access to all the Guardians' powers.
- An Aesop: A victory at any cost isn't a victory at all.
- Bittersweet Ending: The girls are able to break the former Guardians out of Nerissa's spell...only for her to absorb them into the Seal and gain their powers. Despite this, breaking the spell is what pulls Nerissa away, making her narrowly miss out of claiming the Heart of Aridia. While Phobos doesn't manage to snag the Seal, as Will notes, this is the first time they've had Nerissa running scared. From them.
- Breath Weapon: The first thing Nerissa does after absorbing the former Guardians into the Seal is to breathe a torrent of fire.
- Deal with the Devil: Unable to take the Seal of Nerissa by force, W.I.T.C.H. employ the aid of Phobos: as a member of Meridian's royal bloodline, he's the only person able to take the Heart of Meridian, and by extension the Seal, without Nerissa's permission. Knowing the risk this presents, Will promises Phobos his freedom on the condition he swear by Kandrakar to return the power of the Hearts of Meridian and Zamballah to Elyon and Kadma respectively. This becomes important later...
- Enemy Mine: Phobos is forced to join forces with the good guys against Nerissa out of self-preservation.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Well dormouse, as Mr. Huggles for some reason refused to sleep with Matt and went with Phobos. It was later revealed that was because the two were glamouring as each other.
- Evil Is Petty: While posing as student "Phillip" at Sheffield Institute, Phobos does things like handing Taranee the wrong beakers in chem lab so that the mixture will blow up in her face. And staying at Matt's house, he hogs the bed and makes Matt sleep on the floor.
- Glamour: After a close call attack by the former Guardians, Phobos, believing the girls incapable and incompetent, glamours Caleb, Blunk and Matt as himself and himself as Matt in an almost successful attempt to take the Seal.
- Graceful Loser: After her "loss" to Will, Mandy congratulates Will saying she won fair and square. Even when Mandy does win to Will she downplays her success and says she just got lucky.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Will gets jealous when seeing Matt talking to his old friend Mandy, and this is what pushes her to cheat in her swimming race by using her quintessence to win in their first race.
- Idea Bulb: Will, with her powers makes a nearby sign's bulbs to flash when realizing they can't take the Seal of Nerissa because of the Heart of Meridian which Elyon was tricked to giving to Nerissa willingly. And thus needed the help from another living heir of the Meridian throne.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Hay Lin to her grandmother's altemere, both physically and emotionally tries to remember her that she and her friends are Guardians, a force of good, it doesn't work in Yan Lin, but it does make Cassidy to briefly remember her team are Guardians, though it goes unnoticed. Later, at the fight in the pool, Cassidy remembers she used to swim there in her high school years, and Irma uses her powers to influence minds to free her and the other Guardians for good.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Nerissa apparently gave Cassidy some will to be able to talk to her. However, it also enables the latter to slowly break free from Nerissa's control.
- Out-of-Character Alert: What makes it really obvious to the viewer that Phobos and Matt have switched places is that "Matt" makes a disparaging comment to Will to the effect that second place is the first loser and "Phobos" tells her she did great and not to listen to him, although strangely the Guardians don't catch on. Also, the time that "Phobos" seemingly acts affectionate towards Cornelia (which disgusts her) is actually Caleb.
- Pungeon Master: During her seduction of the Heart, Nerissa and the Heart of Aridia partake in a few puns throughout the episode.
- Red Alert: The Seal of Nerissa is able to alert her when its spells are broken by others. This was allowing her to know the Guardians freed Phobos from his prison (As Elyon locked him back in "J is for Jewel" while wearing the Heart of Meridian's necklace.) and also that they managed to free the rest of C.H.Y.K.N from her mind control as well.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Guardians are not exactly thrilled with the idea of working with Phobos, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
- Troll: At one point, Phobos and Matt are glamoured as each other as part of a secret plan to mislead Nerissa. Phobos takes the opportunity to mess with Will (who's unaware of the switch) by kissing Mandy on the hand, making Will to spark with jealousy.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Phobos is the only one who catches Will use her powers to win the race and compliments her on her underhanded tactic. This very clearly upsets her and the guilt sets in quickly.
