Leona sat at the kit table, her firag the floral pattern oablecloth while Goonie sipped her tea and Quinn fidgeted with the strap of her bag.

  "I just think..." Leona's voice wavered, and she clutched the edge of her chair as if it might anchor her. "It would be easier to finish school at home. Until—" She hesitated, gng at Quinn, who gave her a subtle nod of encement. "Until I look more like... me."

  "Sweetheart," Goonie begaone warm but firm, "you might be uimating your friends. Give them a ce to show who they really are before you decide they'll all let you down."

  Leona opened her mouth tue but found herself biting her lip instead. She wao protest, to say she knew better, but the certainty in Goonie's eyes made her pause.

  Quinn leaned forward, her grin equal parts teasing and reassuring. "Yeah, and hey, if they turn out to be jerks, their houses or something."

  "Quinn," Goonie chastised, though her lips twitched in amusement.

  "I'm just saying!" Quinn shrugged, but her gaze settled on Leona with surprising siy. "You're tougher than you think. You ha."

  Leona looked down at her hands, her nails nervously tapping against the wood. The truth was, she didn’t want to be some fgbearer for trans kids everywhere. What she wanted was quieter—normalcy. To walk down the halls at school and be seen as just anirl. Not "brave" or "different." Just Leona.

  But even as the thought settled in her chest, she heard herself sigh. "Okay," she murmured, her voice barely audible. Then louder, with a small, relut smile: "Okay. I'll try."

  Goonie reached across the table, her hand warm and grounding as it rested on Leona's. "That’s all we’re asking. Just give it a shot."

  Leona didn’t regret giving it a shot—at least, irely. Going back to her old school would help fe her ce, although she was exposing herself to more heartache. The halls of her old school felt heavier than she remembered, the gazes of her cssmates stig to her like burrs. She kept her head down, her books clutched to her chest, and tried to ighe whispers that trailed behind her.

  Her friends greeted her warmly enough, but their kindness carried an edge of awkwardness. They still ughed at the same jokes, teased her about her favorite superheroes, and passed notes during css. Yet, the offhand ents stung more now—the ones about her voice, her clothes, her height, although Leona wasn’t much taller thaallest girls in her css. And the questions—always the questions.

  "So, like, are you gonna ge everything?" one of them had asked during lunch, their tone more curious than cruel.

  Leona had forced a ugh, her fork stirring the uen food oray. "I guess that depends on what you mean by 'everything.'"

  The answer had been enough to steer the versation elsewhere, but the unease lingered.

  Despite the pain and awkwardness, Leona charged on each day at school, determio adapt. She faced the challenges of fitting in with her old cssmates, the ones who still remembered her as someone else, someone different. Their curious stares, the hushed whispers just inside earshot—it art of the grind. She weathered it, her mi on more important things.

  Some awful things were said right to her face, sharp and biting. The words stung, but Leona didn’t flinch. She had learo mask the hurt with a quiet resolve, keeping her high evehe insults were aimed at her like arrows. "Freak," they’d mutter, or "What’s with the e?" They thought they could break her, but their words had little power over her anymore. She’d taken worse hits from her own thoughts than anything they could throw at her. Still, the isotion hurt. The occasional smirk, the sideways ghey reminded her every day that, in their eyes, she was an outsider.

  One day, the cafeteria buzzed with the usual lunchtime chaos—chairs scraping, trays cttering, voices rising and falling in a jumble of versations. Leona sat at her usual table, the same group of friends she'd been with sihird grade surrounding her. On the surface, everything seemed fine, normal even.

  "Hey, Leo—uh, Leona," a blonde girl, Jackelene by the name said, fumbling over her name. "Do you, like, have to sit down to pee now?"

  The words were casual, tossed out between bites of a sandwich as though they were asking about the weather.

  Leona froze, her face burning. She managed a weak ugh, trying to py it off. "Why would you even care?"

  Her friend shrugged, pletely missing the tightness in Leona's smile. "Just curious."

  Another chimed in, elbowing her lightly. "Yeah, I mean, you're still basically the same, right? Just with, like... different clothes?"

  The knot in Leona’s chest tightened, and she stared at the untouched apple oray. They didn’t mean to hurt her, she khat. Their voices weren’t cruel, just oblivious. But their words cut all the same, eae a remihat they didn’t see her the way she desperately wao be seen.

  "Sure," she muttered, her voice barely audible. She focused on peeling the bel off her water bottle, wishing the versation would move on.

  Later, in the quiet of her room, Leona sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at her phone. Messages from her friends pinged oer another—memes, jokes, random chatter. None of it felt right anymore.

  "You’re being silly," she whispered to herself, but the words rang hollow.

  The day, she hesitated in front of the mirror, adjusting her hairband and tugging at the hem of her sweater. No matter how much she tried to shake off yesterday’s ents, they g to her.

  By the time she sat down for dihe decision had solidified in her mind.

  "I think... I think I want to ge schools," Leona said, her voice steady despite the lump ihroat.

  Goonie looked up from her pte, her expression calm but searg. "Are you sure?"

  Leona nodded, her gaze dropping to her hands. "Yeah. They’re not bad people, but... they don’t really get it. And I don’t think they ever will."

  Quinn reached across the table, giving Leona’s arm a squeeze. "You deserve better than that," she said simply.

  "I just want a fresh start," Leona admitted. "Somewhere I just be me."

  Goonie smiled, a mix of pride and uanding softening her features. "Then that’s what we’ll do."

  After Leona’s fession of how bad it felt to go to school with her old cssmate, Goonie had been adamant: a fresh start was exactly what Leona needed.

  So, with nothing but her determination and ay notebook, they enrolled her in a new school. It was a ste, no lingering es from the past to plicate things. As Leona stepped through the doors on her first day, she realized just how much she his. She wasn’t just starting over with her education; she was starting over with herself, too.

  Her transition had already settled into its own rhythm. Most of the risk of it being exposed had passed. In this new pce, she didn’t have to fear awkward questions or stares. Everyone khe school had made special arras for her—things like private ging areas fym css, just in case—but aside from those, there was nothing to make her stand out. No one seemed suspicious, no one cared. Leona was just audent, blending in without much fanfare.

  When she’d first walked through the school’s halls, she half-expected it to feel different, like a neter in her life would hit her like a wave. But instead, it felt almost… ordinary. And maybe that was the point.

  By lunch, Leona had already made a few es. It wasn’t hard—she just had to find her people. Her love for superheroes had always been a good versation starter, but at her old school, it felt like her is had to be tucked away, like a secret. Here, it wasn’t so out of pce. She met a couple of kids in the cafeteria, heads buried in their ics, and they didn’t flinch whearted talking about Mistral’s test fial ar ics or real events or her theories on Vanguard’s powers and about how old he might actually be.

  “So, you think the Midnight Avenger will ever beat Omega?” one of the girls asked, eyes bright with the kind of excitement Leona hadn’t realized she missed.

  Leona grinned, excited to finally get into it. “Omega’s too powerful. I think the only way to beat him would be to—” she paused, searg for the right words, “–outsmart him. You know, make him think he’s already won. The Midnight Avenger’s got the stealth and brains for it.”

  The girl nodded vigorously. “Exactly! He’s all about the mind games.”

  As the versation grew louder, a couple of other kids joined in, eagerly sing favorite heroes, arguing over which vilin had the best in story, aing the most ridiculous plot twists.

  Leona couldn’t help but feel a little thrill. She was talking to people who uood her, who didn’t see her as a thing to be figured out. No one cared about the transition, or the ges she’d gohrough, not that they khey cared mostly about the test superhero gossip. It was simple. Normal. Exactly what Leona had craved. Though it was sad to leave her old friends behind, but since she hadn’t ected especially well with any of them, it was easier thahought it would be to start over with a ste.

  Leona k was early days, but she couldn’t help feeling a little lighter. A new school, new friends, and the ohing she’d always carried with her—her love for superheroes—was her ticket into a group of kids who didn’t care about her past. They just cared about what she thought of the test meta-gifted drama.

  It was, after all, something Leona was starting to realize she wanted most: to be seen for what she loved, not for what others thought they knew about her.

  The stant news cycle of the meta-gifted—their powers, their fights, their test sdals—had bee background noise, like the hum of a fan on a hot summer day. It was everywhere, impossible to avoid. Just another part of life, like the weather. People talked about it, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that made her sit up and pay attention anymore.

  If she’d tried, though, she might have found a new versation. The other kids weren’t satisfied with the usual chatter about capes and powers. They wanted something different, something deeper. And that’s where Leona slid in—talking about Mistral’s test twist, debating Vanguard’s new leadership, or hashing out whether or not the Midnight Avenger would ever get the reition he deserved.

  “So you’re telling me,” one of her new friends said, her eyes narrowing in mock disbelief, “that you think Mistral could take out Omega?”

  Leona leaned forward, her voice dropping with the seriousness of the versation. “She’s not about brute force. She’d use the enviro. In a city like San Isidro? She could trap him—he’d never see it ing.”

  Another kid from the group grinned. “With snow powers, really? Phaw! You’re just saying that ‘cause you think she’s cool.”

  Leona’s grin was easy, the bad-forth light and fortable.

  "Okay, but what about Vanguard’s unbroken win records? There’s just something about him that screams rigged… or faked. How someohat strong?” Another pointed out, shrugging.

  The versation tinued for hours, as they bouheories bad forth. Her new friends, all from the same outcast fringe, seemed to feed off each other’s enthusiasm like an unspoken agreement—these people, these heroes were more than just eai or mere chat fodder; they were something real and special to them. Even fial heroes got their due. In a world where superheroes and vilied, it was sometimes hard to distinguish betweey and fantasy.

  But even whenever she wasn’t immersed in ics, Leona found herself spending more time away from the pages and ss. It arkour that had started to take up most of her energy. It wasn’t just running that she was ied in though. Parkour had caught her attention: it was everything else—climbing walls, leaping from railings, darting through alleyways. The movement was free, uricted, and pletely exhirating. In a city like San Isidro, it seemed like a particurly useful skill, and if she lear, it might bring her closer to her heroic idols like Mistral and the Midnight Avenger. Now Vanguard? Nothing could possibly bring a normal human within miles of who and what Vanguard represented.

  She had tried her hand at other sports before, like Quinn did, and unlike Quinn, they never held her i long enough. It wasn’t that she wasn’t some kind of a genius that didn’t want to focus ohing too long, but rather Leona was kind of average at most things. Running, however, was one of the very few things, aside from geeking out and puters she articurly good at.

  But running on a track felt too fio her. The school’s team asked her if she’d like to pete but Leona decided to turn down their kind proposition, because it wasn’t her thing to pete with others, running around in circles as she called it. Hurdles felt like a repetitive challenge she could do in her sleep, but parkour—the very thought of doing parkour aing good at it made the world feel wide open.

  Quinn had introduced her to a few people who were into parkour, and at first, Leona wasn’t sure what to think. It involved running, something she already had downpat, but parkour was different. It was like running through a video game, but real, and in 3D.

  "Think of it like you're using the enviro," Quinn had expined, grinning as she poio a low wall. "You don’t just run around it; you run through it. You make the city yround."

  Leona wasn’t vi first, but the more she thought about it, the more it intrigued her. San Isidro, with its patchwork of old buildings and narrow alleys, was the perfect pce to try it out. There was always something new, always some er or rooftop to jump to, a new route to take. The city was like an endless obstacle course.

  She started small. Short jumps between benches, little hops over curbs, climbing a low wall here and there. At first, it felt awkward, like she was overthinking every move. Her feet never seemed to nd quite right, and her hands felt unsure on the surfaces she tried to grip. But the more she practiced, the more natural it started to feel.

  Still, there were moments when the nerves crept up. She’d stand at the edge of a low wall, staring at the gap in front of her. The jump didn’t look too hard—just a few feet—but her heart thudded in her chest.

  "Just go for it, Leona," Quinn had said, watg from a few steps back. "You’ve got this."

  Leona took a deep breath, then pushed herself forward. Her legs carried her over the gap, her arms reag instinctively for the ledge as she nded. She wobbled but stayed upright.

  “Whoa,” she gasped, a mix of excitement and disbelief flooding through her. “I actually did it.”

  Quinn cpped, her face lit up with a wide grin. "Told you. Now, try the one."

  Leona stood there for a moment, catg her breath. The jump had been small in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like a victory. The world around her had shifted a little bit. Each jump, each leap, was something new. And with every new challenge, Leona was starting to feel more fident—not just in parkour, but in herself. Some time ter when she’d graduated from Quinn’s Baby Steps in Parkour for Her Awesome Little Sister course, she arranged for Leona to meet some old acquaintahat would take her the rest of the way. They walked her through the basid tested her basic skills before finally takio a pce to test her ce.