Thunder

The second S-Class mage of Fairy Tail, Laxus Dreyar, was sitting on the second floor of the Guild and looking through the window. He hadn't been happy with how his grandfather was accepting every orphan with Magical Power and turning the Guild into an orphanage. But he had to admit that some of them had a lot of potential, however.

Mira and Erza were prodigies in their own right. The speed at which they've been improving was simply outstanding. Both of them were bound to become S-Class mages in the future.

Gray and Natsu were also monstrously talented. The more they fought, the more they grew. They had the desire to improve, and they will become strong in the future. That much was certain.

Bickslow, Evergreen, and Freed, the three mages that formed the Thunder God Tribe under him, have also been progressing nicely with his help. Give them a few more years, and they would be S-Class material.

But that wasn't enough. Fairy Tail's older generation won't be there forever, and the rest of the younger generation weren't that special, except for the two he was currently watching. A brown-haired boy sparring with his summon, and a brown-haired girl practicing her Card Magic.

Out of all the younger members, he knew Cana the longest. She was in the Guild since she was 6 years old. Initially, she put a lot of work in, and even though her Card Magic wasn't one of the strongest, she was making good progress. When more kids started joining Fairy Tail, she slowed down her training, in favor of playing with the other kids. He had tried changing that by belittling her skill, hoping she would do her best to prove him wrong, but he wasn't successful. Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh with his words since someone else succeeded where he failed.

Laxus was impressed with what Cana was doing. She was trying to implement elemental Magic in her cards. Showing him why Card Magic was considered an all-around Magic. She was quite successful as well. So far, he had seen her imbue them with wind, making them faster and sharper, and with fire, turning them into small compact fireballs. Now, she was working on imbuing them with earth, but it seemed she was struggling at the moment.

The S-Class mage then focused on Gerald. Initially, he had dismissed the brown-haired boy. There was nothing special about him. Gerald didn't have monstrous Magical Power. He didn't have a strong natural Magic. He thought he only had his summons going for him, but he was wrong. Gerald had the drive to improve, and that was seen in his hungry eyes. The same eyes that stared at Laxus every time he looked in the mirror.

Contrarily to what many of the Guild members believed, he didn't hate weak people. That would be hypocritical coming from him. What he hated was those didn't have a drive. People that could achieve so much as long as they put in the hard work to get there, but were content with what they had.

When Laxus was young, he was weak. He was born with an immense amount of Magical Power, but his body was frail and sickly. A situation unexplainable and nigh impossible, but it had happened. He had trouble breathing and moving, but that hadn't stopped him from reading Magic books and trying to do something about it.

When his father had offered him a solution at the risk of his life, he took it without hesitation. Laxus was willing to put his life on the line at the chance to get better. He was fixed, and since then, he had never stopped trying to improve himself and grow stronger. Not a single day had gone by where he didn't train either physically or magically.

That's why he hated those that have the chance of doing what he couldn't when he was young. Those that sat around in the Guild, laughing about, and went on jobs only when they needed to. They could be doing so much more with the gift of Magic at their disposal, yet they were happy with what they got.

Gerald was different, and Laxus had watched him improve. Every day, he would run one more lap around the lake, do a few more push-ups, swing his sword a dozen more times, and with more skill to boot. His Magic Power had been growing, his physical strength had been increasing, and he had even managed to get someone else to train with him. Laxus had misjudged him, and he was willing to admit that. He stood up and left the Guild. It was time to meet the brown-haired boy.

Gerald dismissed Celtic Warrior after their spar and stretched his muscles. For the past month, he had ordered his summons to push him as hard as possible. Celtic Guardian had done just that. His physical training lasted until he was on the verge of collapsing. The elf warrior didn't hold back anymore and was at the point where he was going all out in their spars.

Like Gerald had guessed, when summoned, Celtic Guardian gave him a boost in learning how to use a sword. But that lasted until he reached the level of the elf warrior. The boost didn't work after that point. So, he had also started learning how to use a saber from Alligator's Sword.

Gerald's Magic had progressed as well. He had managed to create a 2m³ pocket dimension. He planned to make it about 5m³ before moving onto learning another Magic. Requip wasn't the only Magic he trained, though, and his skill with Archive had increased. His flat-screens were more durable and usable as a shield. His telepathy had improved to the point where he can have conversations with someone who wasn't his summon. The distance was also pretty great. He was able to connect with Cana when he was in his apartment while she was in Fairy Hills, the Fairy Tail female-only dormitory. The two would usually have a small talk before falling asleep.

"What do you want?" Cana hissed out as she saw the S-Class mage coming over. Laxus wasn't someone she liked the slightest.

Gerald turned to see a tall and jacked man with spiked blond hair. Grey eyes with a lightning bolt scar going over his right one and magical headphones around his neck. A dark blue shirt was sticking closely to his body, and baggy black pants finished his outfit. Gerald had to admit, the man in front of him was a physical specimen. Add in the massive amount of Magical Power that he was able to feel saturating the surrounding, well, it safe to say Laxus looked intimidating without even trying.

"Laxus Dreyar." The blond introduced himself.

"Gerald Nore."

Gerald observed Laxus carefully as he did the same in return. The blond was someone that was going to go against the Guild in the future and try to take over the position of Master by force. He was a future enemy, but at the current time, he was still a fellow Guild member.

Laxus pointed at Cana. "Can you do the same with someone else?"

"What do you mean?" Cana beat him to it and asked with a voice laced with venom.

"Can you do the same with others? Can you motivate them to improve themselves? Or is she a singular case?" Gerald was a bit taken back by that. That wasn't what he expected from Laxus.

"What's in it for you? What do you want?" Cana hissed out. Laxus called almost everyone in the Guild a weakling, belittled them, and looked down on them. The only good thing going for him was that he was the second S-Class mage of Fairy Tail.

"I want Dark Guilds to shudder in fear when they hear our name. I want Fairy Tail to be known as the strongest Guild in all of Earth Land. I want all of our mages to walk with pride, confidence, and the strength to back it up. When I become Guild Master, I want to be surrounded by mages as strong or even stronger than me!"

Laxus was many things, but his love for Fairy Tail was only matched by Makarov. He had tried getting the members motivated in his own way, but that had failed. He was willing to give someone else one chance to succeed where he couldn't. If that also fails, he was going to start working on changing things more forcefully.

"So, answer me, Gerald Nore. Can you do that? Can you motivate others and make them want to improve themselves."

Cana was about to lash out, tell Laxus that he had never tried to motivate the rest, but Gerald spoke up."That's not something I can promise, but I can certainly try."

That hadn't crossed his mind. Gerald had been fixated on his own strength and how to survive the future. Helping the other members increase their strength sounded like a nice idea. "However, I will first need to become someone they would listen to. I would first have to prove myself to them. When I'm strong enough, I will try to help the others to improve."

Laxus nodded in acknowledgment. "From tomorrow, I will be helping you two out. You've hit a bottleneck, and you need someone overwhelmingly strong to push you. You need an obstacle you won't be able to overcome. I will become that obstacle." He threw them a yellow Lacrima, the size of a fist. "That's a Communications Lacrima linked to mine. Contact me before you start your training."

Laxus turned around and started walking away. "Don't disappoint my trust."

"You are not seriously thinking of taking his offer?" Cana asked.

"Why not?" Gerald questioned back. His training had been getting repetitive, and he needed a change. Also getting to fight an S-Class mage, sounded like a good idea since Laxus was right. They needed someone overwhelmingly strong to push them further.

This also gave him the chance to prevent a future event from happening. Laxus was a monster, that much he was able to discern from his presence alone. If Gerald could stop him from going rogue and make sure he doesn't get excommunicated from Fairy Tail, that would be a great boon for the Guild. It took the strongest members to take him on, and yet, he still had a spell that had the potential to wipe out the entire town of Magnolia.

"Because he is Laxus!" Cana replied as if that wasn't the most obvious thing.

"So, you don't like him?" He didn't like Laxus as well, but he didn't like the one that attacked the Guild in the future. Not the current one. And he had to admit, Laxus loved the guild, that much was clear from his words.

"Of course, I don't like Laxus!"

"Then... don't you want to beat him up?" Gerald asked with a grin. "We will get to fight him numerous times. We will lose a lot, but we will learn his weaknesses, and one day, we will beat him! Don't you want that? Don't you want to beat him and call him weak?"

"I... do," Cana admitted. "But does that mean that we won't be studying with Mr. Grouchy and blondie anymore?"

Dark Magician and Fay weren't teaching only Gerald. They were also helping Cana and Levy by his request. The bluenette had already learned Archive and planned on spending most of her time reading, but they had managed to rope her in learning magic with them.

Before she agreed, Levy had to be beaten by both Cana and Fay in a game that was like a mixture of all strategic board games from Earth in one. The brunette was one thing, she had lost multiple times to her before, but the blond was a whole different story, considering Fay had never even played the game before. In the end, Levy was forced to learn with them after losing to both.

Fay was fun to be around and got along well with the girls, but Dark sighed a hundred times when they didn't understand his explanations. Hence, he was called Mr. Grouchy by the girls. But they had to admit, he was a good teacher, and they had improved a lot with his and Fay's help.

Thanks to them, Cana had managed to imbue her cards with elemental Magic and was working on other uses for her cards. One of them was a card that acted like a Communication Lacrima, or as Gerald called it, a mobile phone. Another was capturing and traping living beings in her cards. Their two teachers were able to help with that, but they couldn't assist Cana with forcing the trapped one to fight for her and listen to her commands. Or more like, they didn't want to. Teaching them Black Magic was not something they were willing to do.

Levy, on the other hand, was mostly working on her Script Magic. Cana's Card Magic was an all-around one, but Levy's was one of the most versatile ones out there. As long as someone had enough Magical Power and was intelligent enough, they would be able to create anything. Levy fitted the latter to a T, but not the former. Her Magic Power wasn't anything special, so Dark and Fay were working on that with her.

"Don't worry about that," Gerald told her. "Laxus won't be teaching us Magic, he will be helping us with our battle experience and how to fight other mages. That won't stop us from having our regular lessons with my summons."

"You know he will just use this as an opportunity to gloat and call us weak. That's what he does."

"Do you think you are weak, Cana?"

The brunette looked down without replying, but that in itself was an answer. Gerald walked up to her and brought her for a one-arm hug.

"You are not weak, Cana. I think you are very strong, but if you believe otherwise, know that being weak isn't bad. It just means that you have room to grow. And that's what we've been doing for the past two months. We've been growing, improving every day. If we continue like this, at some point, even Laxus won't be able to call us weak."

"So, let's learn from him. Let's see what he has to teach. Let's absorb everything he has to offer, and when he has nothing else to show us, we will prove to him how strong we are."

The next day came, and the two contacted Laxus. They didn't have to wait long before the blond arrived.

"Go all out, or I'm going to crush you."

Laxus didn't give them any time to prepare. Lightning crackled around his body. Without even a magic circle appearing, he thrust his hand, and a lightning bolt shot out towards them. Gerald didn't hesitate and stepped in front of Cana as he created one of his flat-screens.

The blond S-Class mage raised an eyebrow at that. He recognized that Magic since, in the entire Guild, he was one of the four people that had read all the Magic Books in their archive.

Laxus smirked and tilted his head sideways as he avoided a card imbued with the wind element. Deciding to test out how strong the flat-screen is, he wrapped himself in lightning and stepped forward.

To Cana and Gerald, it appeared that Laxus suddenly disappeared from his spot before teleporting in front of then. Lightning covered his fist, and he punched the flat-screen, shattering it into pieces. His hand didn't stop, however, and continued on, hitting Gerald, and sending him flying.

"I told you to go all out, so get your summons out," Laxus said with a calm voice while dodging Cana's attempts at hitting him. "You are a Card Mage, use your specialty. Fight me at a distance and don't engage me in close combat." With a kick, he sent her tumbling away.

'Master, let me at 'em!'

With a flash of light, a sword materialized in Gerald's hand while he held a card in his other. "Dark Magician Girl!"

The moment, Fay appeared, she was already casting a spell. A blue magic circle formed under Laxus, and he was momentarily stunned by how fast it was created.

"Ice Magic: Ice Block!" Ice covered his body and froze him in place. Meanwhile, Cana had recovered and had her cards in her hands.

"Blaze Royal Flush!" Five fireballs flew out of Cana's hands and hit the frozen mage, causing steam to shroud him.

'Don't stay idle, this is far from over,' Gerald told Cana through their mental link while positioning himself between her and Laxus.

Fay was already preparing another spell, when the steam dispersed, revealing the unharmed S-Class mage. Laxus cracked his neck. "I guess I should get a bit more serious."

The crackling of lightning was what they heard when Laxus disappeared from his spot. In the blink of an eye, he arrived in front of Fay with his fist cocked back. Before his punch landed, Laxus saw the blond summon smirk with her wand pointed at him. "Darkness Magic: Dark Devastation!"

Laxus was blasted away from the spell, but he recovered mid-air and landed on his feet. His shirt was in tatters, but there was not a single wound on his body.

'That summon is... a lot more special than I believed.' Laxus thought. He looked at them with a grin. 'I can't let them push me around, can I?' He stopped holding back and fully released his Magic Power for the world to see.

Fay was already preparing another spell while making sure not to drain her Master dry. Gerald's legs were bent, prepared to anticipate Laxus' next move. He held his sword in his right hand while his left held his flat-screen like a shield. Cana had here cards in her hands, already imbued with her Magic Power, and ready to throw them at a moment's notice.

However, none of them were prepared for Laxus' Magic Power. Even when he held it at bay, his Magic Power pressured those around him. But when he released it, they felt weak in the knees. Fay was the only one that didn't buckle under the pressure, and she had only one thing going through her mind. 'What a monster.'

"Warm up's over." Those were the last words they heard before they were beaten to a pulp.