Axle had always wanted to be normal. Well, 'always' meaning ever since that night his mother left and never came back. The night he discovered his powers was also the night he saw her last. From then on it was just Axle and his father.
"Focus Axle!" He heard his father yell as another blob of glowing energy was hurled towards him. Axle braced himself and thought of strong, durable barriers and focused his magic to form a round, glowing, copper-colored shield. The blast of energy connected with the shield he made. Axle stumbled a bit at the great force but he pushed back against it. Eventually the strength of the attack fizzled out and the energy ball shrank into nothing. Axle dropped the shield he was holding up, which immediately disintegrated, and gasped for air. The only reason he managed to block the attack was because of his dad's warning and the adrenaline rush he got as soon as he saw the incoming danger.
He thought that was it, but Axle's father wasn't finished yet. He then threw a flurry of multiple energy-filled attacks. Axle gave a surprised yelp and tried to throw up his shield again. In an instant he materialized a shield. The onslaught of powerful magic attacks pushed Axle back across the backyard. With each hit, Axle's shield was quickly shredded because he just conjured it up in a panic.
When the last of the energy balls hit Axle and his now very much destroyed shield, he was thrown back by its force and landed on his back, the air in him forced out. His father walked over to him wearing a disappointed expression. "What was that? You could have easily defended that one." He held his hand to help his son up. Axle sighed as he was hoisted up, "Sorry dad. Just had a lot on my mind. I couldn't focus hard enough to make my shield last." Crossing his arms, Axle's father said, "It's too early in the morning to have such a distracted mind. What were you thinking of?" With some hesitation, he asked, "Is it about mom again?"
Bingo.
That's Axle's father for you. He always was so accurate at guessing other people's thoughts and feelings. Axle, too stunned at hearing mention of his mother, sat slowly on the steps to the entrance of their house from the backyard. He buried his head in his hands and sighed again. His father joined him on the stairs. "Hey, I miss her a lot too. But we can't let our past stop us from living right now, today." Axle responded, "I know I know. I just can't stop thinking about it. If I'd waited longer. If I only showed you then maybe... maybe she'd still be living with us."
His father placed a hand on his back, "Well, even if you delayed the news of your magic, I think your mother still would have done what she did." "Do you hate her for it?" Axle asked unexpectedly. His dad gave him a sort of hurt look, "No of course not. I could never really hate your mom. But I felt very hurt when she vanished and left just a note to tell me. I won't blame her for her decision. After all, if people got word of the existence and use of magic by people like us, we'd be in danger of being hunted or even killed. I'm guessing she wouldn't be able to bear seeing both of us get taken away or just wind up dead somewhere and on the news, so she just left so she wouldn't have to go through it."
Axle asked, "But isn't that so selfish of her?" His father just laughed "Yes I suppose it is quite selfish. But I know that it was also done out of intense fear and love for us. I'm sure that once she realizes her mistake she'll come back to us. I know we'll be whole again someday. But for now..." Axle looked on as his father aimed the palm of his hand at him and everything blurred in then out. When Axle's vision was clear, he saw that he was teleported into the bathroom along with his bath towel and clothes which appeared there in a small puff of silvery smoke.
"Get ready for school!" He heard his father yell to him from the backyard, finishing his sentence. Axle laughed, his mood already lightening and his thoughts clearing as he showered and did his morning routine. When he came down the stairs, he could smell his father cooking him some breakfast. He entered the kitchen to find his dad using magic to make bowls and other kitchen things work and move around on the table. "Daaaad" Axle said with a noticeable laugh, "I thought you said no magic in the kitchen! A knife could accidentally fly across the room." His dad just waved his hand dismissively which caused a couple of the bowls on the table to slide themselves across and off the table. Axle moved towards the two falling bowls quickly and thought of soft fluffy pillows that would help catch the bowls. Right before they hit the ground, the two bowls landed on the glowing pillows Axle made. He went over to it and snatched them from ground level and placed them firmly on the table again. His dad just gave him an unapologetic smile, "There are times when rules can be bent, changed, or even removed completely! It all depends on how we as people adapt to a higher level of sophistication and unity."
Axle sat on a chair by the table as he watched his dad set a serving of pancakes on a plate in front of him. "Plus," His dad added, "It's faster to make pancakes when the mixer is broken and you need an extra pair of hands for stirring." Axle was about to say that he could have helped but he was interrupted, "Nope. You need to save your energy for school young man. I've seen how school can suck everything out of you." He sat down beside Axle and had a plate of pancakes for himself too, then they started eating. After breakfast, Axle went upstairs to grab his backpack and waited for his dad in the car. He wasn't allowed to walk to school yet, since he had magic. Although to Axle, having magic should've been an even more reason for his father to allow him to walk to school since he would be able to protect himself from anyone who might want to hurt him. After a few minutes he saw his dad walk out the door of their house and lock it behind them. He watched as he climbed in the car and started it.
It was a partly cloudy day that looked like it would turn into a rainy one as time passed. They drove by the quiet scenes of the city. They were usually just right on time when heading to school, but Axle had woken up earlier and insisted that he and his dad started their morning training much earlier than scheduled. It was a short drive to his school, (another reason for Axle to think it was just fine to commute to it). They rode in silence the whole way. Only when Axle was about to get out of the car, did his father speak to him.
"I'll pick you up as soon as school hours are over, alright? I have something big to take care of at work so I need to be there at around... right now actually" Axle nodded, "Okay dad. Good luck at work." His father smiled at him, "I should be saying good luck to you at school. See you later then, do your best!" With that, Axle got out of the car and watched as it drove out of his sight. He sighed. Another day at school. He thought to himself, getting slightly bored at his daily routine. Despite having magic and using it practically everyday, it soon became old news to him and he was hardly that amazed by it anymore. Axle made his way past the school entrance and into the winding hallways of Silver Scholar Academy. Contrary to his school's name, it wasn't exactly a school full of scholars, it just had high standards and their attendees are almost all straight A students. Axle was one of those straight A students. He wasn't the smartest, but he always managed to get great records on his report cards.
Axle walked slowly passed many classrooms, humming softly to himself a song he couldn't get out of his head. Once he reached his classroom, he went inside. He didn't stay there for long though. He looked at his watch as he placed his bag down beside his seat. It read six thirty. Class started at seven, which gave Axle a lot of time to just roam about the school, passing by other students that came in early. He went back out to the entrance of the school to watch a few cars arrive and drop off their kids. Eventually, he got bored and went back inside, observing that the clouds had turned to a darker shade of grey. Axle then went to his favorite part of the school: the playground and garden area at the back of the school building. He liked the place for two reasons. The first was that he liked the smell of nature. It calmed him most days when he got stressed out over school work. And the second was that no one else in the entire school felt comfortable staying there, so he got to practice using his magic there sometimes.
It happened that Axle heard a rumor about the place being haunted and stalked by a ghost. So, like any other troublesome sixth-grader, Axle decided to intensify and pass on the rumor to other students in his class. Eventually the rumor became so scary that it creeped out even the teachers. Of course, Axle didn't mean to make it sound so horrible, but it gave him a quiet place to be in when he just wanted to be alone. Unfortunately, he couldn't have that kind of quiet that easily today. When he exited the school building through the back, he saw a small group of students gathered a short distance from the garden and playground area. Oh great, people. Axle thought to his slightly introverted self. He observed the group of boys while hidden from their view. They were all kids from his grade, kids that Axle knew but didn't like interacting with. He watched as the boys goofed around and tried pushing each other closer to the rumored haunted area of the school.
This gave Axle an idea. A little childish, but would be quite the prank, if you asked him. He confidently approached the group of boys and called to them, "Morning guys." The group, not realizing Axle was behind them, jumped as they heard his voice. One of them, his name was Joey if Axle remembered correctly, greeted back, "Hey Axle. Morning" The rest of the boys greeted him as well. "What're you guys doing here?" Axle asked innocently, although he already knew that they were probably daring each other to sit on one of the benches in the garden area. "We're just seeing who was gonna be the one to sit over there the longest." Joey pointed at a washed out bench made of cement right at the entrance of the garden that was surrounded by trees. Unable to contain himself from pranking the boys, Axle walked over to the bench and sat on it, "You mean this bench?" He saw the group gasping and gawking at him like he'd gone insane.
He heard them all cheer and laugh and call to him in scared voices to get away from the bench, but he just sat there and pretended to admire the nature around him, which wasn't actually pretending since Axle did love the trees and bushes with flowers around him. Then in a subtle hand movement, Axle conjured up a pair of big dark claws which grabbed him and dragged him into the thick foliage and trees. He landed on his feet and watched through some bushes as the group of boys screamed like girls and fled to the school building. Axle laughed uncontrollably as they vanished into the school. "That'll teach you to mess with my space!" He called, though no one was around to hear it. When his laughter died down and he was sure no one else would come out into the back of the school, he emerged from the bushes and sat on a bench much deeper into the garden. He played around with his magic and thought he ought to actually try practicing his important magic.
Every person who has magic abilities always have one specialty that they can do. Their own exclusive 'Magic Type' according to what Axle was taught. Axle's father had Teleportation Magic. Although every other magic user could do that, Axle's father could perform it with ease and in an instant, which was why he easily put Axle in the bathroom that morning. Axle's magic type was different. He was an Illusionist. Axle could make up almost anything he could think of and it would appear, either as a solid object or something that you could walk through. Besides that, Axle was taught by his father other basic magic skills which could be done by all magic users.
He thought of his favorite animal and an azure dolphin slowly materialized and started 'swimming' in the air and flipping it's fins around him. Axle laughed and was satisfied that he was getting the hang of instantaneously making illusions like he was supposed to as an Illusionist Mage. He checked his watch and was startled that he had five minutes before class started. Axle sprinted out of the garden area and ran all the way to the back doors of the school building. He dodged past late coming students and stopped abruptly at one of the doors to his classroom. He took a few seconds to breath in deep and entered his classroom.
Almost all of his classmates were already there, waiting on their teacher. Axle made his way to his seat, which was in the middle row on the left side of the classroom. He heaved a sigh as he sat on his chair, thankful that his classroom was air conditioned this year. Right before the bell rang to signal the start of class, their teacher Mr. Eric Layn, entered the room. He was a short and broad shouldered man who spoke with an accent. Axle was quite fond of this teacher, he rarely had teachers who actually cared for their students' wellbeing. As soon as the bell rang, Mr. Layn addressed the class in a friendly voice, "Good morning class! Are you ready for another week of school? No? That's alright, you can always come to me for anything you need help with." He scanned the room and, Axle wasn't sure but, his gaze stopped on him for just a little too longer than usual and he said with a clap of his hands, "Let's begin the day."