Her Story

"Let me try and explain it again. But honestly, it's just basic electrostatic forces. You know, physics?" Emmaline had spent a good part of the last hour trying to explain how her magic operated. She was starting to pick up that Laxus was more of the brawns, not brains type. "You know about atoms right?"

"Like hell I do," he retorted defensively. "They're like the little living dots that make up living things. You know, photosynthesis and shit."

"Eh, I think you're thinking of cells. In plants." She wasn't sure if breaking it down to the most basic level was helping or hurting his conceptualization.

"Obviously," he scoffed. "I was just making sure that little head of yours wasn't mixing things up." He seemed extremely disgruntled by his apparent mistake. Deep lines of concentration crossed his face as he tried to sort out which particle was which.

"Insulting my head isn't going to help anything." Emmaline could tell he was getting frustrated and probably wanted to drop the subject soon. "Well, do you know how your magic works?"

"Yeah, I flex my muscles and things go boom," he sneered. To prove his point, he raised a fist crackling with electric energy. Despite his bandage-wrapped appearance, he produced a considerable amount of magic energy just by flexing. Actually, the older lightning mage was quite interested in this science behind his magic. These obscure concepts were just so annoying though! Couldn't she just explain it simply?

She had started by explaining the natural phenomenon of thunderstorms and their origin. "You see, water molecules in the air collide and lose electrons. This creates a potential difference which results in an electric field."

"Yeah, don't care," he rudely interjected.

So she tried to go right into relating it to him. "Electrons travel when there is a potential difference. So when you summon lightning, your magic makes you positively charged to attract the electrons in the surrounding area. Then to expel the stored charged, your magic makes your body negatively charged. Like-charges repel so the force of like-charge repulsion propels your energy towards your target. So basically, you flip the sign electrical charge around in significant amounts."

"No I don't." He actually had no clue but he just wanted to be difficult. Everything that she had said went in one ear and out the other. "I asked about your magic. Not mine."

"Fine. I guess you don't care about electrostatic forces," she pouted.

"Finally." Laxus threw his good arm into the air. "You're really slow to pick things up." He enjoyed the agitated face she made when he teased her. It gave him a twisted sense of satisfaction like grabbing a rodent's tail and watching it squirm. And it was his only conceivable source of self-entertainment that he could think of. The forest scenery had been unrelenting. Since the lame ambush attempt, the woods rested undisturbed by anything even remotely interesting.

"Damn, it's hot out," he grunted and stopped suddenly to shed his coat. The sun had done a fine job of warming the earth that day and the overhanging greenery blanketed the heat and moisture to the forest floor. Lost in thought, Emmaline wandered past him not noticing that he had paused to shed some layers. As she strolled by, Laxus grabbed her by the bag and hoisted her in the air.

"Man, how do you travel so light? Ever needs at least one bag stuffed to the brim every time we leave the city. It feels like there's nothing in here." He set her back down but held her still so he could fill her backpack with his long, fur-lined coat. Satisfied when the top was finally shut, he patted her on the head and continued one his way. "Way to make yourself useful."

Apparently the additional luggage went unnoticed by her as she played with some intricate webs of electricity around her fingers. Still focused on her magic, she didn't consciously account for the extra weight on her back and began to tip backwards. Laxus noticed and lunged for the tiny girl before she ended up on the ground. He sighed and slipped her out of the bulky backpack.

"I'm just trying to explain how we're different. I'm more of an electrostatics wizard, which includes lightning magic." The entire one-way exchange went over her head.

"Yeah, but really shitty lightning magic," he jeered at her as he clipped her bag on the back of his own. Okay, maybe he took it too far that time. The girl went silent beside him and her bright smile had been replaced with a shadow cast across her face.

"I'm just telling it like it is," he muttered. That didn't help. He heard a small sniffle and began to panic. What kind of jerk makes a little girl cry? The kind of jerk that forces his friends to fight each other just so he could prove his own worth. At this rate, would he ever atone for his rebellious behavior? Maybe, he thought, he could begin now.

Normally at this point, Laxus would say 'toughen up' and quit wasting his time with this weakling. Well, normally he'd avoid this sort of situation all together.

"Just because you don't have a strong offense doesn't mean you suck as a wizard. I saw what your killer defense. You pulled some pretty neat tricks out of your ass back there. And that lightning speed is really something to reckon with." The whole point of this conversation had been to find out about that magic anyways. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he even cared that much but it's not like he had anything better to do while they walked.

She erupted into a fit of giggles. God, this kid was weird. He really had to bite back his tongue to keep from saying it out loud.

"You really liked it?" she asked, red rimmed eyes shining bright as ever. "Wow, this has to be, like, the greatest day of my life. I can't believe Laxus Dreyar likes my magic! If he's the coolest wizard in the coolest guild, what does that make me? I don't even care! I'm just so happy!" The girl was getting all giddy over a back-handed compliment.

"I want to be strong like you, one day," she finished.

"Of course you do," he smirked. He wasn't going to complain about girls fawning over him. Well, singular girl. Generally, he tended to scare people off or push them away with his prickly character. Male or female. Was it even possible that someone could admire him of all people? He glanced at the girl still basking in his comment. Apparently so.

"Your magic?" Time to bring her back down to earth.

"Oh yeah," she remembered the whole reason for the conversation. "I use electrostatic forces to manipulate anything that can hold a remote electric charge (ahem, basically everything) and particle densities to see things with a sort of sixth sense. Hey, where'd my stuff go?"

Jeez, getting a straight answer from this kid was like pulling teeth. That's all he needed to know!

-o0o-

Dear Mom and Dad,

I have the chilling suspicion that I wasted 10+ of my life learning trivial information every day in school.

I mean, do I really need to know how to read a Punnett square or how to take the inverse of a mathematical matrix or Socrates' opinion on epistemology? And, do I even need to know what electricity is to wield it?

I know a Thunder Man, possibly (probably), the best at his craft. Yet, he barely knows the difference between a proton and a neutron. If he even knows what those are at all.

So where does that put all of those hours of my life?

Hope all is going well with you ad that you don't come to any disturbing conclusions like I have.

Love,

Emmaline

P.S. - I loved every minute I was learning in school

A/N: I don't own Fairy Tail! Hope you're liking the story so far!