That Saturday, Lianne makes sure to get all of her weekend homework and studying done by noon. She then explains the "scouting group" to her mom, gets permission to go and then 'maybe' stay out late 'hanging out at the library.' She packs her phone, a flashlight, a textbook, and bus fare, then heads to the community center.
The meeting is happening exactly where she said it'd be. Mallory's already there, along with three girls who look mostly around Lianne's age.
"Hi Lianne!" people chorus.
Mallory stands up. "It's great that you could make it, Lianne. Have a seat - I guess Kaylee decided not to come?"
She nods. "Why don't we all introduce ourselves? Just your name, and something about yourself. I'll start, then we can go clockwise. My name is Mallory Delvin, and I've been a magical girl for thirteen years. I'm a freelance journalist, and my goal in life is to do everything I can to get rid of witches."
The next girl waves. "Hi! I'm Taylor, I'm a potential, and an eighth grader over at Tomoe Middle School. I haven't decided what I want to wish on yet."
"I'm Sophie, an eleventh grader at Tomoe High. I've been a magical girl for a bit over two years. I want to work as a vet eventually."
"Hey, name's Alex. I've been a magical girl for a while, but I'm new here, too - I'm from about an hour away, decided to see what this thing was all about."
"I'm Lianne! I only just became a magical girl on Tuesday, while being attacked by a witch. It's been - yeah."
Sophie makes a sympathetic noise. "Yeah, that sounds rough. Most witches are fairly easy to take down, though, and you get used to the creepiness."
"I've started sketching them. Some of them are pretty, in a weird way. Like, surrealism or something."
She nods. "I can see that, yeah. So do we team up to hunt witches or something?"
"I think we should have a race at some point, but going as a team sounds fun, too. Like superheroes."
Privately, Lianne thinks a race sounds like a horrible idea. Being a superhero team is in line with what she wants, though, so she smiles at Alex.
"We should come up with superhero names, then. I'll be the unpowered one on the team for now. The super secret agent type."
"Gosh - I can be, um, Glimmer?" Since her motif is apparently suns or stars.
"I suppose that makes me the Director? And what are we naming our team?"
"We should totally go with one of those silly super sentai names, since we're magical girls and all - like, Magical Task Force Five? I'm bad at names, though."
"That can be the joke, or we can change the number as we grow."
Nobody else can come up with something that isn't already taken by a comic book, though they'd still like something else.
The joking winds down after a while, and Lianne brings up wishes, mentioning that her friend was thinking about wishing for the formula for a vaccine, like for malaria.
"That's a great idea! I'll need something I feel strongly enough about, but there's probably something like that I can do."