Heading back to her room, Jade closes her door and opens the note. She looks down to read the following:

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Hong,

Recently Jade has hung out with our daughter Molie, and has been a great friend to her. She even helped her find her way out of the woods when Molie was lost not too long ago. Nothing is particularly wrong but we wanted to mention that Jade brought a real sword to our house, and we didn’t know entirely if you were aware or gave her permission. She didn’t cause any real damage but we just wanted to make sure you knew just in case you didn’t trust her with blades yet.

Sincerely Mr. and Ms. Wickham

Jade decides that the note was not as big of a deal as she’d feared and throws it away into the bin since she didn’t want to give away her identity. After spending the entire day at Molie’s combined with yesterday’s exploits it only just hit her how lonely she was. For most of the summer she had been by herself with her parents off at work early and only coming back late at night. Jade knows she can handle it but it’s just a little sadder than it was before. She cleans herself up and changes into her pajamas, then sullenly rests her head on her pillow before closing her eyes into a dreamless sleep. Jade also will berate herself in the morning as she forgot to transform back before going to bed.

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Jade and Molie are in the Wickhams’ Backyard training Molie’s arms. Loud cracks echo, of wood splitting and trees hitting the ground. “How are you so good at that!?” Jade cries. “I don’t know what you mean I just swung my arm and it cut it.” Jade looks at Molie with deep envy. It’s only they’re first day of training and already Molie has successfully managed to not only cut the tree in one blow, which took Jade weeks even with her superhuman strength, but manages to do so cleanly and with little issue. Already Molie has managed to fell 15 trees since they started and has yet to even have her arm get stuck or even bounce once! “It took me forever to get that good at cutting with my sword and you just get to swing your arm and it automatically slices and dices with no issue,” Jade is at this point outright complaining. “I think it's these tiny points on the edge of my claw, they catch on things really easily and saw right through it, I don’t even have to aim that well.” The claw not only possess wicked sharp edges but lining those edges are countless serrations ready to catch and tear anything that even makes contact allowing an easy and seamless cut through flesh and apparently wood. 

A whistle of a blade swinging is heard and Jade watches closely to see it again in action. As the claw makes contact with the trunk the serrations dig in allowing entry, it slides with incredible force sawing and gouging and finally comes out the other side. Jade notices that the sawing force and serrations of the claw leaves the remaining wood jagged and splintered. Jade is now frowning with jealousy, “I’ll show you I can do that as well and even better!” She pulls her rapier out of her scabbard and immediately executes a two handed spinning cut to the nearest tree, cutting it in twain with a single smooth motion. “Wow! That was so cool! Let me try!” Molie attempts to do the same spinning motion stepping forward and pivoting as her arm stretches to make the cut, however she feels an incredible amount of force exerted on her legs as she realizes the weight and force of her arms are too much and suddenly she’s sent flying off her feet. The arms flail out and catch her smoothly preventing a painful crash. Jade runs up to check on her and sees that Molie’s eyes are closed tight shut. “Molie open your eyes, you're fine!” Molie eyes snap open and she looks around to see that her arms caught her and she’s currently just hanging in the air, “Oh! They even seem to be able to automatically catch me when I fall!” Jade’s jealous streak continues to boil as the immediate ease and capabilities of Molie’s arms seem so unfair. However Jade’s anger lowers down a little as she thinks to herself and out loud, “Yeah those arms are really cool. You’re gonna make a great magical girl!” “Super Hero!” Molie attempts to correct. They both smile at each other.

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While walking through the forest alone looking for monsters, Jade hears a bird-like screech coming at her. Looking at the source she finds a washing machine sized bird covered in dark scales with a myriad of sharp silver feathers, with long legs, flying straight at her. She quickly sidesteps the monster’s divebomb and electrifies her sword in preparation.

Attaining battle focus, she slashes at the wing of the beast with a loud clang. The scales are quite tough and prevent her from cutting through the skin but electricity surges through the creature’s flesh, tasing it. She grips the rapier reverse handed aiming the tip downwards and stabs the paralyzed bird in the chest, proving much more successful when the blade slips through the scales and into the unprotected insides of the bird. Large pops and cracks sound through the air as electricity sings and the smell of burnt flesh floods the surroundings. After a bit more uncontrolled flailing the bird’s nervous system fails bringing it to a stop and Jade lets out a breath she did not realize she was holding. “Huh, that was easier than usual. I think I’m getting the hang of this!” She lets out a great wide smile. From any distance an outsider could see, the corpse of a massive bird lies at the feet of a creepily armed and smiling child.

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Jade and Molie are sitting at a table staring at a large jigsaw puzzle that Molie’s parents bought after coming back from the toy store. The finished product is a line up of superheroes from Molie’s favorite show, the Requiters, all posed in battle ready-stances. Jade puts down the next piece and Molie speaks up, “You know Magpie Girl uses a sword similar to yours but whenever I see her use it, she only holds it with one hand and mainly stabs with it.” Jade looks up from the puzzle, “Really? I looked up how to use a sword and even spent the past month training with it. So far using two hands is better than one because I get more power and control and it’s easier to hit things when I cut instead of stab. So maybe your Magpie Girl is wielding it wrong!” Jade explains with full confidence. Molie does not take this lying down however, and proceeds to look up the wiki for Magpie Girl on her computer on her desk, “What are you looking at?” Jade says. Molie replies, “Look at this.” Jade takes a closer look and finds that the name of her sword is what is known as a rapier, and multiple images of people wielding it with one hand. Molie continues to scroll through and Jade’s face grows red realizing that for at least a month, since she has received her powers, that her grip of her primary weapon was completely wrong and that there is a large base of information she could have been utilizing to get better with it instead of simply swinging it like an idiot. “Oh my god. I need to fix this!” Jade drags Molie out to the backyard, “But the puzzle!”

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A month and a half has passed since Jade first went to Molie’s house with the two developing their friendship and abilities. Jade was exploring even deeper than normal into the forest trail now more confident than ever. The brush grows thicker the further she moves off the path, forcing her to draw her blade and slice through branches and tall grass in order to make any progress. It is at a certain point after traversing nearly to the point of discomfort, “Wow i’m really far I should probably head back”, that her super sense fires off sharply. The buzz at the back of her head compels her into a direction. Compared to usual instead of a feeling of the living and breathing energy/electricity that surrounds a person, it’s a constant powerful field that nearly forces her attention towards it. It’s when she travels towards the feeling that she finds what appears to be the source, an incredibly dark and foreboding cave.

Heading inside, she finds herself surrounded by walls of rough and jagged stone with a strong odor of sulfur in the air. Her footsteps echo throughout the cave and the light from the entrance grows dimmer until she enters near darkness. The cave connects into a smaller pitch black tunnel that now makes the super sense’s sensation almost palpable. She pulls her phone out and uses the flashlight widget to watch her step and finds a bend in the tunnel, she takes a breath for courage and goes around hoping it doesn’t expand into some crazy large cave complex to get lost in. 

The tunnel came to a dead end but she felt something behind the wall in front of her. The sensation draws to the wall and has now reached the finest focus she has ever felt. Instead of creating a headache it releases a pleasant thrum, almost familiar. She presses herself close to the wall and could just barely make out with her enhanced senses and flashlight, a small slit in the wall which is the center of the sensation. 

Intrigued and also overcome with a strange sense of deja vu, she decides to jam her sword into the slit, pushing with all her might and carrying the sword between the rocks. She fiddles around, moving the sword left and right hoping to make contact with something in the slit. Eventually, she surges electricity through the blade and hears a loud pop as if something was zapped but nothing really seems to happen. 

Giving up, she relents the current and pulls her sword out. The moment the sword comes loose the sound of grinding stone echoes loudly causing Jade to jump a foot back in surprise. The wall slides away revealing a well lit stone staircase, the light being an intense fluorescent blue. Jade makes her way down and finds, in contrast to the cave, metal walls, and carved surfaces. The ceiling is lined by an artful cornice, covered with metallic sculptures jutting out. She makes it to the end of the case and finds a metal door without a handle. She steps in front and it slides upwards automatically and her jaw drops at the sight she sees.