Chapter 25

Poppy rolled over on her bed and glared up at the identical Fairies staring down at her with wide grins on their faces, she covered her face with both hands and convinced herself that she was a nice Fairy so she wouldn't tie them up with vines just so that she could get some extra minutes of sleep.

"Why do I have to be the one to get everyone up for training?" She whined, tousling her scattered light blue hair.

"Because you're the Team Captain!" They both exclaimed, throwing their hands up flamboyantly.

Poppy let out a groan as she watched the Caretakers fly out of her room, if this was going to become routine it meant that she needed a very quick and effective way to wake her fellow Teammates up each morning.

She rolled back on her face as she tried to figure out a way to get everyone up each morning without having to go to their rooms and wake them up individually, she frowned again and sat up, eyeing her closed door.

It hit her then and she smiled widely and got up, throwing her covers off her body.

She made her way quickly and quietly to Eden's room, her pet would be the perfect alarm clock because nothing short of an extravagant measure would get Aster out of bed.

Xavier.

She thought as she sneaked into Eden's room.

"W-What are you doing?" Eden's sleepy voice made her pause as she reached out both hands to pick the baby plant up.

Xavier at full size was almost as big as a house not counting his vines so his trunk was that wide which meant she had to revert his growth so that he could be kept inside the house.

"Um, checking on Xavier?" She said quickly, hoping that Eden's sleep-addled brain would let her off the hook.

"Oh, okay." Eden mumbled and rolled around, promptly falling asleep.

Poppy couldn't believe her good luck and quickly slipped out of the sleeping Fairy's room, the sleeping plant firmly held in both hands.

Eden's powers were controlling and manipulation of any part of any plant, while Poppy could make them grow, revert and she also had a semblance of control over them, not as good as Eden was though but it would do.

She also had the ability to grow a part, like now as she placed Xavier at the open door of her room, Xavier was a tiny plant at the moment, sitting in a tiny pot and she would leave him in there, all she needed was five of his vines anyway.

Squatting in front of the plant, she concentrated, growing was one thing, controlling was another, especially when it was needed to be as specific as possible.

Soon, five of Xavier's vines grew out and went straight for the other Heroes' doors, the vines were still slender enough to easily wrap around the doorknobs and twist it but when they pushed open the door they increased in size.

There was a moment of silence and then identical sounds of screaming floated out, she just walked to the front of the hallway and stood arms akimbo as she watched Xavier drag her Teammates out.

"Alright people!" She belted out, pacing the short span of the hallway, hands behind her back. "Training starts in exactly five minutes, you better be ready by then or I'm dragging you out half-naked!"

Grumbles started up at this but they all picked themselves from the ground and trudged back to their room.

But Eden didn't get up. "You sneaked into my room but you didn't think to warn me huh?" The Forest Fairy glared up at her from her prone position on the ground. "And how dare you use Xavier for this, I can't believe…" She couldn't get all her words out because Poppy had already made Xavier drag her back into her room.

"Well, that was fun." She muttered to herself, clapping her wings. "Don't you think?" She asked Xavier, whose vines were slowly retreating and reducing back to the size of the rest of its body.

She also made the reverted vines carry the potted plant inside Eden's room and winced at the sound of something hitting the door as well as the muffled sounds of Eden's complaints.

"She's not going to be happy when she finds out that it's going to be a daily thing, that's for sure." She mumbled to herself going to dress up.

"Welcome Trainees!" Lichen and Lotus greeted them when they arrived at the Training grounds, they wore identical leather pants, shin-high boots, turtleneck tweedle clothes, and similar black trench coats over it.

The only difference in their appearance was the different colors of their short bobs which matched the color of their tweed tops.

"We'll be your Trainers for today!!" They announced vigorously. "So please be good to us!"

The Heroes just stood at attention, watching the hyperactive Fairies talk simultaneously in that way that was eerily creepy.

"Please be at ease." They continued and Poppy started looking around seriously for the Captain, there was no way he kept these adorable ladies in charge of the training.

"Um, where's the Captain?" She asked nervously, sure that she wouldn't like their answer.

She was right!

They threw her a wide smile, their eyes turning into slits. "He's at a meeting! So he won't be around for the duration of today's training."

"Yesterday was an introduction so we will like to introduce you to your timetable. "For the first week, training will be twice daily and in the second week we will train you three times a day!" They continued cheerfully like they were announcing the best news in the world.

"This morning we will test your wing capacities and at dusk, we will test your Hero abilities!" They floated above the ground and grinned again. "Tomorrow the main training begins!"

Then they slowly settled on the ground, there was an open space in front of the grounds, at the far corner, buildings lined up in a semicircle and the track went behind the buildings.

Their expressions changed from adorable to hard and scary, the Heroes flinched.

"Your wings are a vital part of you and are also a part of you." Lichen started to say, pacing in front of a still Lotus, who stood at ease. For the first time, she spoke alone.

"I say that because most Fairies think of their wings as accessories and not a part of their bodies." She paused to pin each of them a glare that was worthy of the Captain's intensity.

Poppy gulped, wondering what kind of world they had stepped into.

"The best way to test your wing strength is to have you fly while winds are blowing." She stated bluntly.

"Where are we going to find a windy spot?" Li asked, curious.

Lichen scoffed and glanced at him over her shoulder. "Find? We have a Wind Fairy here, we don't need to find."

The six Heroes blinked, shellshocked.

"Wind Fairy??!!" Eden exclaimed, being the first to recover. "That's impossible." She scoffed.

Lichen smiled deprecatingly. "Of course it is." She agreed. "For Casted Fairies."

The sighs of relief that were about to leave the Heroes caught in their throat.

"Casted??" Orchid repeated, frowning.

"That's a story for another day." Lichen cut her off. "Just remember this, the world is bigger than you think."

"Lotus?" She called her sister, stepping back.

The pink-haired Fairy stepped forward, legs planted apart. She turned her back to them and threw them a look over her shoulder.

"Remember, the wind is not your enemy, we're creatures created for flight so bonding with the wind is a necessity." Were the simple words of succinct advice the delicate Fairy gave to them.

Turns out that it didn't prepare them enough for what was coming and in Eden's opinion, nothing could have.

Lotus started to move her wings, the first flap felt like a block of air slammed into the Heroes and it instantly threw them up in the air and had them scrambling around for a surface to hold on to.

"Brace yourselves!" Poppy yelled to her Teammates as the next movement of Lotus's wings hit even harder than the first, then she went all out.

The Heroes were tossed up and down in the air like rag dolls, contrary to Poppy's advice, it was impossible to hold on to anything while the wind force that felt like a tornado whipped them around.

They kept on being thrown up into the air and slammed into things, luckily the open space limited the things to just the ground but it was still disastrous.

Aster was the first to fly easily through the wind storm, as a matter of fact, immediately after the storm had started he'd already gotten the hang of it.

He wasn't sure what to do after this, his Teammates were still getting thrown around but that was beyond his care, but he got tired of flying in the wind storm, it was getting boring and he wanted to sit, preferably somewhere comfortable enough to fall asleep.

His precious sleep kept on getting interrupted. "Tch, bothersome." He muttered to himself, looking at the Fairy who was singlehandedly creating the wind storm with just her wings.

It hit him just then so he did the only reasonable thing to do, he flew straight for Lotus. The wind power around her was almost five times as strong as the one the Heroes were caught in but Aster effortlessly pierced through, by spearing himself and twisting around to increase his pressure.

As he did this, it allowed him into Lotus's personal space and he grabbed the tiny Fairy by the tips of her sturdy wings, holding her off the ground.

"W-What?..." Lotus mumbled, looking up to see why her wings stopped moving.

The rest of the Fairies hit the ground with loud thuds and audible groans of pain.

Lichen just stared open-mouthed at Aster who just carefully placed Lotus on the ground, then flew to the nearest building to curl up on a rice sack and promptly fall asleep.

She smiled at this, yes. This bunch of Heroes would do just fine.