The high school that Juvia attended was a sprawling two-story pile of brick that looked less like a place of learning than a fortress designed to protect the teachers from the horde of laughing, chattering teenagers flowing into it. Juvia had often felt dwarfed by all the bustle and clamor. And to top it off, she was once again subjected to the cold stares of the haughy cheerleader types. Their leader was Minerva Orland, a popular girl with an attitude of silk over steel, and Juvia could sense it. From the very moment they met, Juvia could feel an aura of pride and pain, and that was never a good combination so Juvia tried her best to avoid her. Key word being tried.

"Morning Juvia." Minerva said with her usual smile of scorn. "Got lost in the hall again?"

"Um...No. I know exactly where I'm going." Juvia said while desperately seeking a quick escape from the cheerleader's gaze. "Please excuse me"

"What's your hurry?" Minerva said blocking her path.

"I just don't want to be late for class. So again, if you'll please excuse me-"

"You know I really don't understand why you still come to school everyday. You know that no one here likes you. Not even the teachers."

"Minerva please, leave me alone."

"But I'm trying to help you." She said in a false sweet tone. "I mean coming back to a place where no one, absolutely no one, wants to be around you is a very bad idea. I mean you're just setting yourself up for more pain than you have to deal with. You should do yourself a favor and just stop coming here."

"Why don't you screw off Minerva?" Gray said hurrying to Juvia's defense.

"Well, well, if it isn't the little freak's gypsy guard dog." Minerva mocked. "And how is your family of tramps and thieves?"

"You know Minerva, psychologists say that people like you harrass others because you literally have nothing going for you in life, and judging by your grades I think that theory applies here."

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"Well if the high-heeled shoe fits, wear it."

Minerva snapped her fingers and two large jocks, obviously on steroids, approached Gray from behind. The young man went stiff when he felt them breathing down his neck.

"Hey dog boy, about a little drink from the toilet?" Minerva suggested.

"Oh no!" Gray said panicked.

The jocks hoisted Gray up by his arms and carried him into the boys's room.

"Guys, wait, wait. Time out! Come on, come on, guys. This is so 1980s!" Juvia heard Gray plead.

She tried to go in there in help him but she was once again blocked by Minerva.

"Sorry no girls allowed."

"Minerva why do you always have to be so mean to me and Gray?" Juvia asked. "We've never done anything to you. In fact we try to stay away from you but you insist on tormenting us. Why?"

"Because you're freaks." She said simply. "And freaks don't belong in society. Why do you think the lot of them end up in the circus? Because that's the only place that will accept them. So why don't you and your lap dog go away from here and join a circus where you belong."

Juvia didn't trust herself to speak, so she keptquiet. But she could feel the anger boiling up inside her. Sheknew it was wrong to feel a rage like this, but she wasfinding it very hard not to do so. Especially when people like Minerva turned her wrath on to Gray, the only friend in the world that she had.

"Stop! Please!"

She could hear Gray begging the bullies and she could see through the cracked door that he was fighting to keep his head from getting dunked inside the toilet. The anger inside her went on boiling and boiling. She felt herself getting angrier and angrier and angrier. So unbearably angry that something was bound to explode inside her very soon. And now, quite slowly, there began to creep over Juvia a most extraordinary and peculiar feeling. A sense of power was brewing inside of hers, a feeling of great strength was settling itself deep within.

Suddenly something did explode, but not in her. The toilet exploded and it's water sprayed all over the jocks and Minerva. Yet not a drop of it touched her, Gray, or anyone else. Just the three bullies. The two jocks just fell to the floor squirming but Minerva let out a yell that must have rattled every window-pane in the building. Flaling around like mad and trying to escape the water but it almost seemed like it was following her.

Evenutally Juvia's rage was forgotten and replaced with shock and that's when the toilet ceased spouting fluid. All eyes were on Minerva and the jocks who were soaked to the bone, whispers were made about what could have possibly caused the incident. Bad plumbing? A broken pipe? Too much water pressure?

Juvia on the other hand, had the strangest feeling that she caused it. Of course she was certain that wasn't true but that feeling was so strong that she slowly backed away from the spectacle as if she thought she would get in trouble.

"That was weird." She thought.

She continued on to class and tried to act like nothing happened. At lunch, she and Gray sat together alone as they normally did and began to discuss the subjects of their previous classes.

"Ms. Ernest thinks I'm just being lazy." Gray told her. "But I'm not. I just get really confused with the words and the numbers. Uncle Gildarts has taken me to doctors and they all swear I'm not dyslexic but I know there's something wrong with me because I-"

Juvia tried to pay attention to him but for some reason she was finding herself constantly distracted by everyone in the cafeteria. She could been see colors around people, as though they were illuminated from within, just like fireflies. The shade of green from one girl feeling jealous of her more popular friend. The yellow of a student who's absolutely terrified of taking his upcoming test next period. The pink of one girl desperately trying to gain the attention of the boy she liked.

"Juvia are you listening to me?" Gray asked her.

"Oh sorry." She said turning to face him. "I guess I spaced out for a minute."

She looked at him with those blue eyes of hers and he almost choked on his sandwich. Her eyes would always give him the most strange emotions, ones that he had never known before. Looking into her eyes made him feel like he was in a pool of blue light, drowning, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. His uncle had warned him about eyes that could do such things.

"Your mother had eyes like that." Gildarts had told him once. "That's how she lured your father into our camp. But be careful with women who possess such eyes, they can either lead you to salvation or drag you straight to Hell."

Gray's uncle and his mother had been born and bred gypsies. Traveling from place to place, performing in the streets or selling natural remedies, performing an occasional con job here and there. It was an interesting lifestyle and their sweethearts didn't mind marrying into it. But once his uncle and mother had decided to have children, they thought it best to settle down and live a more conventional life. However there were some aspects of the culture that his family didn't discard. One of which was there belief in the supernatural. Now not all gypsies believed in the supernatural, a lot of them so just used the idea for scams and parlor tricks. But the maternal side of Gray's family believed in it as much as they believed in God.

His uncle had a trunk chalk full of defenses against supernatural forces. Wooden stakes, garlic, holy water, wolves-bane, crosses, bloodstones, white oak, even an exorcist manual. As if that wasn't enough, he would always relay these bits of advice to him and his cousin Cana.

"Beware the effects of full moon, pray before you go out at night, believing is seeing, never fall for enchanting eyes unless they belong to a tender heart."

As expected Gray didn't believe in any of it and no one could really blame him, but he kept his true opinions on the matter to himself because despite his unorthodox beliefs and behavior, Gildarts was a good man who loved and cared for him deeply. He had been raising Gray ever since that tragic winter night when Gray's parents and Gildarts's wife were killed in a car accident. Apart from Cana, he was the only family Gray had left in the whole world and he be forever grateful to his uncle for taking him in.

"Are you alright Gray?" Juvia asked blinking her eyes.

"Yeah I'm fine." He said after swallowing his food.

The rest of the school day continued on as usual. Juvia and Gray finished up their remaining classes, gathered up all their homework and study guides, rode the bus til it stopped at the sign that read MAGNOLIA STREET, and got off to walk home the rest of the way. When they turned on the corner of their street they saw two women on the sidewalk and weeping. One woman had brown hair with little streaks of grey and the other was not much more than a girl, and recently they had been coming to this exact spot and weeping almost everyday.

"Why do you suppose they do that?" Gray wondered out loud.

Juvia looked at them very closely and it almost instantly knew what these two women were feeling and why. They had been traumatized and were in deep mourning, because the older woman's son, the younger girl's brother had a terrible drug addiction and they had been trying so hard to get him to break said addiction. Only for him to ignore their efforts and one day drop dead on the exact sidewalk from an overdose, right in front of them. Their hearts were completely broken and they couldn't help but wonder if they were to blame for his demise. If there was anything they could have done differently that would have saved him from his awful fate.

"They're weeping for him." Juvia answered.

"Huh?" Gray said.

"There was a boy who couldn't fight his addiction and it led him to die on the sidewalk as he was coming to greet his mother and sister. Now it'll be a very long time before they can walk down that sidewalk without crying."

"Um...How did you know that? Do you know them by any chance?"

"No. We've never met."

"Did somebody tell you what happened to them?"

"No. Not that I can recall."

"Then how do you know all that?"

Juvia couldn't answer because she didn't know why. She just looked at them, watched them cry, and suddenly she knew what was going on in their hearts at the moment. But how did she do that? How could she do that?

"I don't know." She said. "It just popped into my head."

"How does something like that just pop into your head?"

"I don't know." She replied looking more confused. "I really don't know."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine. I just need to get home and unwind a bit. It's been a very long day."

"You want me to walk you home?"

"No that's not necessary. I'll be alright. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Bye Juvia and Happy Birthday."

"Thank you."

Hurried on up to the house as quick as she could, unaware that she was in for the biggest birthday surprise of her entire life.