“Are we flying again today? I wanna learn other superpowers…” Hina grows impatient and begins floating upside down, having wanted to move on to the legendary ser eyes since yesterday.

  Cosmo chuckles. “Yes, but you won’t have to worry about that for much longer, little star.”

  “Why not?” She tilts her head in confusion.

  “Today is the st day of your wind magic lessons with me. You’ve grown wonderfully, so I’ll leave you with a parting gift of sorts.” He hops over to her. “I gift to you one of my recent creations; mana pearls. They’re candy with fruity fvors, and I think you’ll quite like what comes after.”

  “Are you leaving?” Hina doesn’t think saying goodbye is very super, so she pouts with her cheeks puffed up.

  “Not forever, my star pupil. Only for a little while, Marsha will need some space in order to teach you some of her magic.” He pats her on the head, which melts her concerns away like ice cream left out on the counter in the summer.

  “Do you promise you’ll come back and py?”

  “I swear on my mana that I’ll come back and py.” Cosmo glows light blue for a moment, fading away moments ter as quickly as it came.

  “Woah, you can glow?”

  “If I choose to, yes. This is a surprisingly difficult spell to learn, so perhaps once you’ve mastered other elements we can revisit me teaching you?”

  “Fiiiiine.” She considers trying to do it anyways by herself.

  “Very good. Now, why don’t we start with trying to harness the power of the natural elements? Put on the mana pearls I gave you, and then afterwards we can begin.”

  Hina starts to protest that they’re just regur degur pearls, but they suddenly morph into two beautiful bracelets, one decorated with iridescent shells and the other with brilliant aquamarine cut into cute little star shapes. She puts one on either wrist, and almost immediately feels a massive difference in everything around her. Mana pulsed through the veins of everything she id her eyes on, even the rocks and dirt. The air she breathed felt as refreshing as an ice cold drink of water after a hike, filling her with a vigor no child has likely ever experienced. In this moment, she truly felt as though she could do anything she put her mind to. She wonders if this is what becoming truly super feels like.

  “I feel super now… I can see everything!” She points at a spot not too far in front of her Cosmo was waddling towards to sit. “Momo, how are you over there and also over here? Do you have a twin? Did you clone yourself and accidentally make an evil brother?” Hina grins at the thought of kicking bad guy butt.

  Cosmo suddenly stops in his tracks, not knowing how to react to the information he just got. “I’m sorry, did you just say there were two of me? Can you expin what you mean, little star?” His look of awe borders on one of concern.

  She kicks at a pebble next to her foot. “Am I gonna be in trouble?”

  “No, no, never! What reason would I have to punish you for seeing something interesting? I simply wanted to understand what you saw, that’s all. It could mean that you’re extra super, so can you help me by chatting with me about the second ‘me’ that you saw?”

  “Okay!” She takes a calming breath and begins the yappening. "So you were sitting down, and you had your arms like this," She puts her arms at her sides and tilts her hands backwards a bit to resemble his folded wings. "and you were like, suuuuper rexed and stuff!" Hina closes her eyes and imagines herself as a bird that's straight chillin on a rock.

  Cosmo is taken aback, but happy more than anything. “Hina, this is amazing! Teaching you this st spell shouldn’t be quite as difficult as I initially expected.”

  “What is it?” She scoots closer, barely able to contain her curiosity.

  “The original spell that became the definition of wind magic itself; Tornado! Not many spells get to be Named, but ones powerful or influential enough are granted one by the Universe itself, and are etched into its archive for all of eternity.”

  Hina stares at him like he just said the craziest thing she’s ever heard in her life. “Wha?”

  Cosmo berates himself silently. “My apologies, the expnation was far too wordy. To keep things simple, I’ll expin it this way; spells that are Named are special ones and tend to be very powerful. You can call a spell anything you’d like, but us naming something and the Universe Naming something is the difference between choosing a name for yourself and a nickname being used once or twice.”

  “Oooh.” She only half gets it, but she’s too shy to ask him to expin it again. “So I can be Storm?”

  He cocks his head to the side like his less talkative non-magical counterparts tend to. “Is this Storm you speak of like Supergirl?”

  “Sorta. She’s a different kind of cool though, since she can go sparky with her fingers and tornado people in the face!” Hina starts running around in circles, firing air bullets off at unsuspecting leaves that are falling from the trees surrounding them. “Pew, pew, pew, pew!”

  “I see… Well, now’s a better time than any. I’ll show you the most powerful form of Tornado I can currently cast. Perhaps it can be a goal for you to work towards while you train?” Cosmo’s tan feathers shifted to midnight bck, stars arranging into spiral patterns that decorate his entire body. He spoke words the little Witch had never heard before, and sort of seemed like Storm to her in the moment. Wind converged into a single point far above them, forming a monstrously rge vortex. It rips tent mana from its surroundings as it gains speed, and it almost shudders in anticipation of his command.

  “Storm Cauldron, go forth and obliterate even the skies!” Cosmo groans under the strain being put on his mana circuits.

  At the flick of a wing, the massive ball of wind speeds off to a spot a few kilometers north, detonating a few moments ter and obliterating everything within a kilometer of it instantly. The bst wave knocks both of them off of their feet, nearly carrying Hina away as they both fought with all of their might to not be taken by the raging winds. A ringing sound fills their ears soon after, which soon goes away but was painful nonetheless.

  Cosmo pants while taking rge gulps of tea from his thermos, trying to act like he wasn't genuinely terrified for his and Hina's lives just moments ago. “Interesting, right?”

  Marsha taps down on the ground nearby, angrily hopping towards Cosmo with slightly ignited tufs of fur that signify her annoyance. “Are you trying to turn this child into a weapon of mass destruction? Why the heck are you showing her magic than can level mountain ranges, Cos? Isn’t she like five years old? There’s no way she has enemies she needs to carpet bomb off the face of the pnet this young!”

  “I’m six and a half, you butt!” Hina sticks her tongue out at Marsha, who somehow managed to get behind them and plop down on a nice stone before either noticed.

  “Have you come to watch her final training?” Cosmo dusts his feathers off and preens a bit, double checking that his feathers are tan again before continuing. “I was actually wondering when you would come back, there were some things I wished to discuss with you while she tried firing off–” He’s interrupted by Hina mumbling to herself while her eyes glow light blue.

  Marsha takes a few cautionary steps back. “Hey Cos? Did you ever teach her how to draw on tent mana?”

  His heart drops to his stomach. “Oh fiddlesticks.”

  “Shouldn’t we be running? Like now?” Wind begins to converge above them, miraculously gathering the mana with it as the little Witch continued to chant in ancient mage tongue even she doesn't fully understand. “Let me guess, you never taught her the tongue either and she's just winging it?” She huffs as they walk, then stride, then fly away at increasingly greater speeds.

  “Let’s just hope she doesn’t level the forest trying to py. I know it will all come back perfectly fine, but I’m worried about that much destruction being caused in such a short amount of time. What if it forces her awake? If she can’t handle the sudden influx of mana, it might cripple her for life!” Cosmo suddenly stops in his tracks. “I’m going back.”

  Marsha stares at him dumbfounded. “Babes, she’s already manifested a vortex big enough to cssify it as a new version of the spell! Do you seriously think that you can reverse that? Don’t be stupid, she’ll be fine Cos! This is a dream, not the real world.”

  “Well I–” He’s cut off by the deafeningly loud sound of Hina’s Tornado spell being set off, the surrounding twenty kilometers now no more.

  Hina jolts awake in her bed drenched in sweat and kind of chilly from the breeze in her room. Papers flit around like butterflies, spinning a bit before nding on the floor in weirdly neat stacks. Viridian orbs hover near the ceiling, giving off a ghastly glow that almost makes them look like gss. They seem like the mana bubbles she's used to seeing in her dreams, but are more robust in shape and mysterious in nature. Her mother stands sck-jawed in her bedroom doorway, her hair sticking out in various directions from the tent static elecricity in the air. Hina wonders how the heck the air got so sparky when she never learned how to do it.

  "Sugar plum? Did you have an accident? What happened in here?" Dorothy inches closer, smelling strongly of mana Hina has never experienced before. Her eyes glow a dim blue, clouding over like a rainy day as she gets closer to the bed.

  "Mommy, I'm scared! Why is my room so windy?" Hina has a few ideas about why, but doesn't want to spill her secret just yet.

  Dorothy snaps her jaw shut, wincing in pain from ccking her teeth together a bit too hard. "Have you been having strange dreams tely?"

  Hina nods, shrinking into a ball because she feels like she's in trouble. "Is this bad? am I bad?" Tears well up in her eyes, the fear of not being what she really wants to be creeping up on her like the sun over the morning horizon.

  "No sweetie, this is wonderful! You've done nothing wrong, not even close. There's so many things I wanted to show you, and its great that I don't have to wait any longer!" Her mom prances around on pockets of air, happier than she's ever seen her before.

  "You're super too?" Hina wonders if she was born into a super family, which only excites the wind in her room once more.

  Dorothy giggles. "Sugar plum, everybody learns magic! It's just that you're a very special girl because most kids don't sense magic until they're about eight, and take until they're about thirteen to master an element enough to use it while awake. What you've done is amazing, not bad!" She picks up Hina with some wind and brings her in for a big hug, spinning in a circle while squealing joyfully at her daughter's achievement.

  Her mom's kindness bleeds into her growing fear, pushing it back until it's no more. "Do I get a party?"

  "Of course you get a party, sweetie! Not tonight, but this weekend when we have lots and lots of time. Why don't you ask your friends if they'd like to come over? I'm sure they'd love to celebrate with you!"

  Hina pauses for a moment. Isn't being super supposed to be a well-kept secret that only a few people know the truth about? What about the bad guys who might try to attack her in daily life? Actually, where are the bad guys?

  "Won't the bad guys try to get us if I say who I am?"

  Dorothy pets her daughter's hair with the delicacy of a master patissier. "There are no bad guys here, my dear. You're so very safe here, and I'm even willing to pinkie promise you on this!" She hooks her pinkie around the scared little Witch in her arms' pinkie. "See? No bad guys will get you, me, or anyone else. I promise"

  Hina wipes her nose on her mom's shirt after they link pinkies. "Can we fly to school?"

  "Sure, honey. I just need to change my shirt, so I'm going to put you down now. Ready?"

  "I'm ready, momma!"

  ***

  "Did you really fly to school on air with your mom?" Onyx sms his hands on the table in excitement. "That's so cool! How'd you do it? Were you born on another pnet or something? Oh my gosh, am I friends with an alien? Awesome!" Hina chuckles at how absorbed in his own little world he is. Being an alien is probably super cool anyways, so she decides to let him believe what he wants to for now.

  "Aliens look different, rock butt! She got superpowers and is gonna start kicking bad guy butt!" Olivia does some air jabs that actually seem pretty impressive. She looks to Hina like she could take down an adult, a force of nature waiting to be unleashed.

  "No, there aren't any bad guys, my mommy said so earlier. I'm actually magical, and a funny bird guy in my dreams showed me how to fly and stuff! Oh, and there was a bunny who could shoot fire, and bubbles that feel nice when you hold them that apparently help you do magic? It's pretty cool!" Hina beams, over the moon that she can finally tell her most precious friends about her magical secret.

  "Woah, so you can cast fireballs and stuff like Ryu? That's so cool! Can you show us?" Onyx looks like he might explode if nothing magical happens in the next five seconds, but Hina feels guilty because she can't cast Fireball yet.

  "That's a Hadouken, not a fireball ya goof! He can't shoot fireballs, he just punches and kicks stuff!" Olivia look smugly upon her rocky little friend, but is in for a rude awakening.

  "Um, there is a fireball move he has. It's the Shakunetsu Hadouken, so either way…" Hiro hides behind Penelope, but everyone can totally see the silly smirk spreading across his face from totally owning Olivia like that.

  "Wha— Penny, is that true?" Olivia seeks sanctuary in her friends eyes, but instead is hit with a warm yet piercing gaze that forces her to recognize the cold hard truth of reality; she is wrong sometimes.

  "Heh." Penelope's eyes flush with joy topped off by a bit of smugness, the great success of her eborate prank elevating her mood to new heights.

  "But you said that the one we pyed is the only one!" Olivia seems like she might cry, though Hina suspects it would take quite a bit more effort to bring a girl like her to tears.

  The evil mastermind shrugs indifferently. "My mommy doesn't have the other ones at our house. I didn't say because you would have wanted to py stuff we don't have, and I didn't want that."

  "Isn't lying bad, though?" Mia tilts her head like a dog might. "Also, why didn't you say so sooner? My daddy has a few of them, so I coulda asked him or something before coming to school."

  "I thought you had two mommies, though. Did one transform or something?" Olivia is entirely distracted from the conversation, which makes the light anxiety in Hina's tummy settle down again. She doesn't like it when people she loves fight.

  "I actually have this many," Mia holds up three tiny toddler fingers, keeping her pinky down with her thumb like a pro. "but one asked me to call her daddy. She never said anything about transformation, so probably not?"

  Onyx's happy expression falters for a microsecond. "What's a transformation? Is that like when Power Rangers get into the Zord?"

  "No, it's when you go from being a boy or girl to something else. My mommy told me that I don't have to be a girl if I don't want to, but I like being one so I won't change." Penelope scoots over and grabs hold of Onyx's hand and squeezes, almost as if she could sense the disturbance in his mood.

  "Thinking about leaving team boy and joining us in being cool?" Olivia walks around to pat his head, which he gdly accepts.

  "I dunno yet. Maybe? I feel like I'm cool now, so I dunno." Onyx stares off at something, but when Hina turns to see what he's found, all she sees is the counting and letters posters up on the wall in their usual spot.

  "That's okay! We can just figure it out ter or something, right guys?" Mia stands up and pumps a fist in the air like a cartoon character in a meaningful moment. Everyone follows suit, and the bump fists as a show of true friendship.

  Penelope hits a dramatic model-like pose "Yeah!"

  "You know it!" Olivia winks and shoots finger guns at her friends.

  "Sure!" Hina hits the iconic post-transformation pose of Sailor Mercury, which makes her feel cooler than a brick of ice.

  Hiro gives an enthusiastic thumbs up, then hits quite possibly the best Sentai Blue pose the world has ever seen.

  Ms. Mudi cps once and pats her thighs twice as the little crew falls over the table and each other ughing at the silly posing, and she repeats the action once before cupping her hands around her mouth to gather the attention of the css. "We're gonna head on out to the pyground, so make sure you get into line so me can make sure all of our friends are present!"

  Presents! Hina scrambles to get her friends attention before they all go out to py. "I have a birthday party this weekend. Wanna come?" They all nod yes enthusiastically, but are very clearly still primarily focused on getting into line before all the good spots fill up. My first one with friends! I wonder what games we should py…

  "Last one to get in line is a rotten egg!" Onyx seems to have shaken off whatever gloom had momentarily presented itself and is back to his normal self, which is further proven by all the chuckling he's doing while dodging Olivia's attempts to slow him down.

  "Hey, no fair! Wait up!" Mia practically leaps over the table to try and get up, Hina and Hiro following suit hot on her trail.