“Nora. Nora, wake up.”
Something was shaking at Nora, rudely interrupting her awesome dream about applying to become a chair.
Opening her eyes & rubbing them, she could kind of see now: it was Sorrel awakening her.
“What do you want?” she yawned, stretching her arms.
“There’s kids in our living room.”
“Huh..? What are you-”
As she sat up in bed, Nora remembered what had happened the day before. She had let Spring & Storm stay at her apartment for the night. Nora guessed she had completely forgotten to tell Sorrel before she went to bed.
“Oh! You mean Spring & Storm?” Nora asked, shoving the blanket off of her. “I offered to let them stay the night here before we got their parents back together. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”
“I thought you were a magical hero, not a marriage counselor.”
“It's a long story.”
“I’ve got time. Not like either of us have a job anyway.”
Hopping out of bed, Nora made her way to the kitchen as Sorrel followed. She made breakfast (pancakes!) while explaining yesterday’s events to them.
“So.. they’re like, gods or something?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“& they want you to.. get their parents back together?”
“Pretty much.”
“I hope you’re gettin’ paid for this. Rent’s due soon, yea?”
“Yea, but Cherry’s mom usually handles our rent for us.”
“That’s.. nice of her.”
“Yup. Not sure how much longer that’ll last, though.” Nora chuckled, flipping the last of the pancakes onto the plate. “Do you know if Spring & Storm are awake yet?”
“When I walked in, they were fast asleep on the couch. Probably still are.”
“Alright. You think you could carry a few of these plates for me?”
“Sure.”
Nora & Sorrel each grabbed 2 plates each as they walked over to the couch, where Spring & Storm were. She had given them pillows & blankets to sleep with, along with some old clothes Nora had lying around for pajamas. She didn’t want them sleeping in jeans, after all. Spring was still asleep, but Nora could see Storm was waking up a bit.
“Hey, Storm.”
“..g’mornin.”
“I made breakfast,” Nora smiled, sitting the two plates of pancakes on the coffee table. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh, um.. thanks.”
Storm sat up & took one of the plates off of the coffee table. She grabbed the fork & cut off a small bite out of the pancake, eating it.
“Mm.. this is good.”
“Thank you! I’m glad you like them so much!”
Taking another bite out of her pancakes, Storm took a glance at her sister, who was still sleeping soundly.
“Classic Spring. She always sleeps in at the Castle.”
“I tend to sleep in a lot as well,” Nora chuckled, taking one of the plates from Sorrel’s hands & sitting down in the recliner. “I’ve missed a lot of classes this semester because of it.”
Sorrel, not wanting to attract the attention of Spring & Storm, went to go eat their pancakes in a separate room.
“Anyways..” Nora hummed. “We’re supposed to get your parents together again today, yea?”
“Yup.” Storm nodded. “We’ll have to go up into space to do it. I suppose you haven’t been there yet, yea?”
“Yea, no. We’ve never been to space. I’m not even sure how we’re supposed to get there.”
“Well, you have the book. I’m sure there’s definitely something in there about it. I haven’t read most of it myself, but.. y’know.”
“You haven’t read the book?”
“No. Only Fate & Betty were allowed to read it before sending it down to Earth.”
“Ah.. I see. Well, Kalani has the book, so I’ll have to text him about bringing it over here.”
Setting her pancakes aside, Nora took out her phone & sent a text to the group chat.
Nora: yo can u all meet up at my apartment
Nora: bring the book while ur at it kalani
“There we go!” Nora grinned. “It’s only 8 AM, they should be waking up soon anyway.”
The moment the words fell out of Nora’s mouth, she spotted Spring waking up.
“Good morning!” she yawned, stretching her arms out.
“Yo.”
“Good morning, Spring! I’ve made breakfast if you’re hungry.”
“Ooh,” Spring said, sitting up. “Those look good.”
“They are.”
The next 5 to 10 minutes consisted of the girls eating their breakfast & waiting for the others to show up. As Nora finished her pancakes, there was a knock at her door. She got up & answered it, & lo & behold: it was the rest of the group.
“G’mornin, y’all!” Nora smiled as her friends entered her apartment.
“Good morning!”
“Yea, good morning. Do we have to do this at 8 in the morning?”
“Hey, nobody said we were leaving right now.”
“..fair.”
As everyone got settled in, Kalani set the book down on the coffee table.
“One magical book, as per your request, madam.” Kalani said, winking at Nora.
“It’s an absolute pleasure,” Nora said, opening the book up. “Now let’s see.. what page are we supposed to go to?”
“I dunno. Just flip around until you find something relevant.”
“Alrighty.”
Nora flipped through some of the pages until she landed on a page titled “Flight”.
“This seems on-topic, I think.” Juniper hummed.
“Yea, let’s see what this says..” Nora said, leaning in to read what was written. “‘As heroes, you will need a way to get around quickly without hassle. This is why we have granted you with the power of flight.’”
“Ok, first of all, that’s sick as hell. Second of all, since when was flight considered not a hassle?”
“Flying would definitely help us get to class faster..”
“‘In order to fly, you will need to enter Hero Mode-’ Of course. ‘-& simply lift yourself up into the air.’”
“Sounds easy enough. Let’s try it.”
Pulling on their necklaces, the group transformed into Hero Mode.
“This’ll be fun to watch.” Storm chuckled.
“Alrighty!” Leslie grinned. “It says we just have to lift ourselves off of the ground, right?”
“Yup. That’s what it says.”
“So we’re supposed to jump?”
“Maybe? Are we allowed to jump in here?”
“I don’t think anyone lives below me. I’m sure it’s fine.”
Kalani jumped up. She landed right back onto the ground.
“It didn’t work.”
“Maybe I should have kept that pull-up bar my Dad gave me when I was 9. That would be pretty helpful right about now.”
“Have you tried double-jumping?”
“Double-jumping isn’t real.”
“Yea, you’d be the one to know double-jumping isn’t real, wouldn’t you, Cherry?”
“Oh, whatever. It wasn’t that bad.”
“You literally tried to double-jump onto the school roof & ended up banging your face against the wall.”
“So? It could have ended worse.”
“How do you even attempt a double-jump in the first place?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not whatever Cherry did, that’s for sure.”
“Remember that one video of those dudes fighting & there was the one guy who jumped & hung there in the air for a solid 2 seconds?”
“How could I forget? That was fucking cool.”
“What if we tried to do that?”
“But how?”
“Maybe we just have to think about it! Like with the weapons!”
“Surely that’s not gonna-”
Leslie hopped up into the air. As a surprise to everyone (including Spring & Storm), it managed to stay in the air.
“Woah! I’m doing it!”
“Well. I stand corrected.”
“Nice job!” Spring grinned.
“Thank you!”
Leslie floated down to the ground, landing with a little trip in their step, but mostly calm. “Maybe we shouldn’t be flying in the apartment, though. Might be safer to try it outside.”
“Well, thankfully, outside is where we need to go next. So let’s do it.”