Chapter 2: Ch2: Helpful

Chapter 2 – Helpful

==That Evening==

We stopped on the side of the road to a town called Magnolia to rest for the night as the sun started going down. I could've probably kept going, my floating card was able to carry me and Lucy all day without tiring me at all. Natsu and Happy were getting tired though, and apparently Natsu gets motion sick whenever he's on any sort of vehicle. Not wanting to deal with possible fire barf, Lucy and I agreed that it was probably best to rest there.

Natsu gathered up some firewood and we set up camp just inside the tree line to the side of the road in a peaceful little dip in the ground. We quickly realized that I was the only one without anything to sleep on, so I wound up just snoozing on my card when we finally got to sleep. First though came a very important revelation.

"Sooo…" Lucy started, "I feel kind of bad having to ask but…" she looked at me, "What is your name? You never told me."

I tilted my head in confusion, "Eh? I didn't? Oh…" I blinked and then smiled, "My bad, the name's Jerry. Jerry Granger. Since we're doing introductions, let me make sure I've got your names right. Lucy?" Lucy nodded, "That's me!" "Natsu?" "Yeah?" "And Happy." "Aye sir!"

I smiled, "Ah good, I remembered them all." There was a short stretch of quiet and then I realized that I had no idea if I had any money. I pulled out my wallet, unzipped it and pulled out one of the bills inside as I realized it was the wrong color. I frowned and showed it to Lucy, "Hey Lucy, is this what money looks like here?"

Lucy's eyebrows rose, "Yeah, that's a pretty big bill. Dooo you have more of those in there?" I turned it around and looked at the number 10000 in the corners of the bill, "Yeah I sure hope it's a big bill!" Then I frowned, "How big of a bill? Like, what could I get for this?"

"You could feed two Natsu's lunch for that," Happy supplied. I looked at the little cat with a raised eyebrow. Natsu ate a lot.

I glanced at Lucy and she nodded, "In other words you could feed ten normal people a fairly decent lunch with that."

"Sooo…ten cheap burgers?" I asked as I eyed the bill slightly dubiously, that wasn't that much at all…

"No, more like twenty cheap burgers, fries and drinks for everybody," Lucy corrected me. I flicked an eyebrow up, that was a little more like it.

I rocked slightly from side to side as I thought about it and tried to come up with another good measure of value to compare with, "Sooo…about how much would a month's rent on an apartment be?"

"About ten of those for a really good apartment although you could probably get a place for about five. It might not be a nice place, but you'd have somewhere to sleep." Lucy declared after a moment. I quickly crunched some numbers in my head and decided a jewel was approximately equal to a cent, meaning 100 jewels was a dollar.

I smiled, "Well then! Let's find out how generous my mysterious benefactor is!"

I pulled out the impressively thick stack of jewel notes and quickly started counting them on the dry clean surface of my card. There was a lot, I could tell that at a glance. It wasn't until I got through the first ten 10000 notes and got into the stack of 50000 and 100000 notes behind them that I realized how much. My eyes got very wide very quickly as the money hoarding genes I had inherited from my mother's side of the family kicked in full force. It took me almost two minutes to count it all, add it up in my head and then double check it all to make sure I had counted that right, because when my hands move that fast, sometimes even I have trouble keeping up.

I immediately scooped it back into my wallet, zipped up said wallet, and stuffed it in my front pocket where it would be much harder to get at as I crossed my arms with a mildly stunned expression, "Nope, nope! I have no money at all."

"Bullshit!" Lucy exclaimed immediately, "I just watched you count all that like Ebeneezer Scrooge! How much have you got in there?!"

"Enough that you're going to have to come over here very very close if you want me to tell you because I'm not saying it above a whisper," I replied bluntly. Lucy immediately slid over to me and brushed her hair back off her ear as she lent it to me. I blinked at her eagerness and then, "Hold out your hand, I'll write it."

I took her offered hand gently and quickly spelled it out on her palm with my finger tip. I could tell from the way that Lucy's jaw hit the ground that yes indeed, that really was a freaking huge number. Even given the multiplier, that was still equal to over half a million cash in my pocket. Lucy leaned away from me a little bit to look me over and frowned, "Okay, my family is absurdly wealthy, and even for me, that is a lot of money. How the hell did you get all that?!"

I gave her a flat look, "Got yanked here from a different dimension remember? Apparently somebody up there likes me. A lot." I looked up at the sky and waved, "THANK YOU!" I turned my gaze back to my new friends, "So, should we tell each other about ourselves or what?" I smiled apologetically, "Sorry, I'm not very good at making friends."

"Eh, yeah that seems like a good place to start," Natsu mused, "I'm Natsu, I've been a Fairy Tail Wizard since I was a little kid. I'm a fire dragon slayer and this is Happy. I hatched him with a friend when I was a kid."

"I'm Happy and I'm a cat!" Happy declared, "I really like fish and Natsu even though he's super mean sometimes and a total dummy." Natsu shot him a glare, "What?!" Happy just giggled, "Loopy! Your turn!"

"It's Lucy," Lucy growled, "I'm Lucy Heartfilia, a celestial spirit mage. I've wanted to join Fairy Tail since I was a little kid and be a great wizard like my mother."

That got Natsu and Happy's attention (and mine as well). "So your mom was a wizard?" Natsu asked, "What guild was she in?"

Lucy blushed slightly, "Oh, she wasn't in a guild, but she did have three of the gold Zodiac keys, and everyone I've met including my spirits has told me that she was a really good wizard."

"So, you got the keys from your mom?" Natsu asked.

Lucy's face fell slightly, "Yeah, they're all I have left of her."

All three of us stiffened and then Natsu said quietly, "Oh, um, sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up like that." There was a brief pause and then he lit a small flame in his hand, "If it makes you feel any better, I learned my magic from my dad too. Until I find him it's all I've got left from him."

Lucy looked up, "Your dad was a fire wizard?" Natsu laughed slightly, "Nah, he was a fire dragon." Mine and Lucy's eyes bugged out slightly as Natsu explained, "I don't know who my blood family are, but it doesn't really matter to me. Igneel raised me until I was ten and then one day, he just…disappeared." Natsu's face fell and just as we were about to say something to try to comfort him he perked back up, "But it's okay because that's when I found Fairy Tail! Now the whole guild is my family!"

I didn't know why, but that brought a smile to my face.

I snorted slightly with a small smile, "Well, I'd toss in my sad past too since we're telling, but the truth is, I don't have one. I grew up in a perfectly normal house, parents, grandparents, cousins I'd see from time to time and friends. Grew up, moved out…" I shrugged, "woke up in Hargeon this morning without a clue how I got there and a little card saying I had been yanked into a different dimension."

"Different dimension?" Natsu asked skeptically.

I nodded, "Yeah. Where I'm from, we don't have magic. Magic itself is the stuff of myth and legend. We use science and electricity for everything instead. Now I'm here, with a deck of magic cards, a beautiful girl, a talking cat and the son of a fire dragon. If my family could see me now, I think they'd be cheerin' for me." I looked up at the sky with a smile, "My mom and grandparents would be worried but excited for me…and my dad would be jumpin' up and down trying to get me to hurry up and ask Lucy out. The others would be thinking it, but dad would be the most vocal about it by a mile because he'd be the least worried about me being able to handle this new world thing."

I glanced over at Lucy and saw that she looked faintly weirded out so I smiled, "Don't worry, he got like that about every girl I got close to. They all did." I laughed lightly, "They set me up on so many blind dates, I think they were more desperate for me to have a girlfriend than I could've ever been! I didn't really care anything about it. I never met a girl who just really pushed all the right buttons, except for Julie who was one of my two best friends and didn't count, so they never worked out, but I guess my folks were trying to care enough to compensate."

"Sooo…" Lucy asked, "would you ask me out if your dad were jumping up and down about it?"

"Not yet," I replied, "I hardly know you. I'm a pretty cautious guy ya know?" Lucy pouted slightly at that so I added, "but, if I had to make a choice right now to take a chance or never get the opportunity again, I'd probably take a chance on you. From what I've seen of you, you are my type."

"Oh?" Lucy asked coyly with a sly little grin (clearly fishing for compliments, I thought, well, I'd hate to disappoint), "And what type is that?"

"Beautiful," I replied simply, "Also, you're not a pushover, you do seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and you like adventures right?" I finished with a small smile. Lucy blushed and I looked away, "Honestly if you can forgive my occasionally terrible jokes, terrible mess, terrible social skills, and the fact that I'd be a total amateur since I've never been on a date, then you're already leaps and bounds ahead everyone else. I've been on a lot of blind dates, but those don't count since they were basically just me being awkwardly thrown at whatever poor girl my family had their sights set on that month and trying to be polite before breaking it off at the end of the evening. I know how to be polite and make sure a girl has a good time, but romance? Baffling stuff that is."

Lucy took a moment to consider that, "Okay, terrible jokes, everyone makes a few every once in a while. Given that I haven't heard you crack one yet, it's pretty obvious that you don't do it that often. Social skills, you've been doing fine thus far. Never had a date? Join the club. You and Natsu are just about the first people I've ever met who were my age, and yes, that does mean I've never had a date. Terrible mess…" she thought about it for a moment, "How terrible of a mess?"

"I casually make painfully true jokes about living in a trash can," I replied bluntly, then I smiled, "buuut given that fire magic is an option now," I smiled, "I'll probably wind up just burning whatever trash I generate as soon as I can learn some fire magic. I'm a pretty quick study at most things, so it probably won't take long."

Lucy frowned, "Why didn't you just burn it before if it was such a problem?"

I shrugged, "No fire place, and building a fire pit outside probably wouldn't have gone over well in the middle of town. You're right though, I should try to find a place with a fireplace that I can use as an incinerator. In the meantime, hey Natsu how do I…wow that was quick."

Natsu and Happy were both completely sacked out and already snoring. "Well, he did have one heck of a fight earlier," Lucy pointed out. Then she smiled, "You know, I could give you some pointers on magic if you want, since you're new and all."

I blinked and then smiled, "I'm all ears."

Lucy lit up, "Okay, so my magic teachers always told me to meditate to gather more magic power. For those who have natural caster type magics it should come to you pretty easily once you start meditating and then once you know what it is, you can start training it. I don't think I have a natural caster magic, if I do then it never really showed itself." She paused, "Of course, I was never really looking for one either…"

I nudged her gently with a grin, "Try looking! You never know, maybe you've got some incredibly badass magic just waiting for you to unlock it! Come on, you try and I'll try!"

Lucy smiled and curled her legs so that she was sitting cross legged and took a deep breath. I laid back and began to recall all the advice on meditation I'd ever heard. Quiet the storm of your mind, echoed the voice of a master monk from a tv show I'd once enjoyed. So clear my mind I did. I closed my eyes and did my level best to think of absolutely nothing.

That had never worked for me. I always dropped into a lethal focus when that happened. If I did it while in the ring, I started to see my opponent's little tells before their strikes. If I did it while working, time seemed to either blaze by or slow to a crawl. The only way I had ever been able to "quiet the storm of my mind" was to drown it all out with one single purpose that was always intertwined with something physical or convert it into relatively coherent thoughts. These were my thoughts as I attempted to meditate.

My eyes cracked open and then opened fully as I threw a deadpan glare to the night sky. Then they slid sideways to the beautiful young woman next to me. I laid very still and prayed that she wouldn't open her eyes and notice where mine were. Something to distract myself and drown the noise of my mind? I grinned with a slightly wicked smirk, Hello miss distraction, how do you do?

I started to study her. Her hair was slightly frizzy from the warm night air, not enough to be unflattering but just enough to sort of float and make a little halo around her. Her face was very nicely sculpted, not too round, not too angular…just a nice pleasant shape, and her profile from this angle sent the more primal parts of my brain into overdrive. I felt myself start to drool as I took in the curves of her body, a perfect hourglass that I could feel every fiber of my being screaming at me to wrap in my arms. There wasn't a single bit of her that was unpleasant to my eye, no extra fat anywhere except for her chest that I wanted very badly to play with. Even her exceptionally shapely posterior I noticed, was pure sinew and sexiness. GodDAMMIT I wanna bury my face in that!

Then she let out a little pant that set my blood and face blazing with heat. Her eyes opened ever so slightly and she let out a moan. Not a moan of pain, oh no, with that little shudder that went with it? There was no mistaking that for anything but the same feelings her beauty had just inspired in me. She glanced over her shoulder at me and her eyes widened from scorching my very soul at 'bedroom' to setting alarm bells ringing with her mild 'holy crap!' expression as she exclaimed, "Jerry, you're glowing!"

I blinked and the spell was broken. Gone was the raging fire in my veins, and apparently in hers as well because she gasped and flinched like the warm night air had slapped her in the face like a cold towel. I blushed as I realized that whatever she had been feeling had been a direct result of my intense focus on her. I raised my hands and saw that I was indeed glowing. It was fading now, but a faint white glow like a little light bulb was emanating from every inch of exposed flesh and out of my sleeves as well.

I exhaled and willed my breath to glow in a faint little miasma, "Whoa…"

Then I blushed, "Erm…did…my magic just ah…affect you?" I didn't have to ask, there was no doubt in my mind that she had been feeling some definitely pleasurable effects from my attention being focused on her, and the only explanation I knew for that was magic. Could've been hers, but I seriously doubted it given that it seemed to have stopped when I blinked, not when she noticed me glowing. It merited testing at a later date.

Lucy blushed glowing neon red, "Um…maybe…"

I rolled onto my knees and bowed in apology (I don't know it just felt right!), "I am so sorry! I had no idea it was going to do that! I just needed something to focus on and you're super beautiful and drew my eye so I thought why not and apparently I was focused enough for my magic to work and I'm really really sorry…" I paused in my babbling and looked up, "Unless you liked it in which case I'll be happy to try again."

Lucy blushed even brighter, "Um…no, I, think we should get to know each other a little better first. It looks like you've got some kind of light magic, why don't you try using that?"

I sat up and blinked, "Oh, right…mmm…" I held my hands together and willed a little ball of light into existence between my hands. I held it up and blinked at the little ball of glowing magic. I tossed it from one hand to the other like a cat with a ball of yarn, "It's squishy."

I flipped it up balanced on the tip of my finger and tilted my head as I observed it. I willed it to rise and after it did I willed it to flick around in conjunction with my gaze. It replied happily. I smiled and started making shapes. A block, a ball, a pyramid and a splat shape… I smiled at it as a thought occurred to me and willed it back to my fingertip as I made a little finger gun. I grinned and closed one eye, "Bang."

To my immense shock, the harmless little light ball became a friggin' laser beam that exploded in a five meter wide fireball with a sound like cannon fire on contact when it hit the tree I'd been playfully aiming at on the other side of the clearing. I am not the least bit ashamed to admit that I jumped when it hit. I stared in slack jawed shock for almost a full minute before looking at my little finger gun and grinning, "Awesome."

"That is insane!" Lucy exclaimed, "How did you turn that harmless cute little blob of light into a giant explosion?!"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "That wasn't giant. A giant explosion would've knocked down the entire forest and charred everyone but Natsu into crispy barbeque. Granted that was a decent little kaboom, but nowhere near giant."

"What kind of explosions are you used to?!" Lucy asked in a slightly terrified voice.

"None," I replied, "I tend to avoid them and I didn't work in an industry where they were common. However, I am familiar with the amounts of devastation produced by my world's weapons. It was relevant to my writing, so I researched it."

Lucy blinked and immediately shifted gears from terror to interest, "You write?"

I nodded, "It's my hobby. Do you?" Lucy blushed slightly, "Um, a little…I've always loved books and I really admire the people who can write like that and I want to be able to write that well myself."

I smiled, "Much the same for me. What do you write?"

I'm not sure how long we talked, but I do know that when morning rolled around and I woke up with Lucy's head on my chest, moving from that spot was the last thing I wanted to do. Unfortunately, Natsu's a surprisingly early riser.

He called us weird, I called him jealous. He didn't get it. I sighed as it went completely over his head and gently rubbed Lucy's back, "Lucy, time to wake up."

Lucy stirred and then tilted her head to look up at me still clearly half asleep. The sight made my heart skip…three beats? At least three. Then her mind caught up to where she was. Her eyes went wide, her face went red, and she went springing away from me faster than I would've thought possible, babbling in embarrassment. I could only laugh as she tried to stammer out some sort of denial about something. I wasn't quite sure what she was on about, she was talking much too fast and looking much too cute for me to make it out. Also, it was always funny to watch someone flustered.

AN: Hey everybody, Ghost here. I hope you're enjoying the story thus far, for those wondering next week will see our arrival at Fairy Tail. Sorry if you were hoping to see it this week, but I felt some character and world building needed to be done before we could get there.

I'm also pleased to announce that this story will actually have a consistent release schedule unlike so many of my other stories. I'm going to post a new chapter every Friday, except the weeks of holidays which fall on Thursday. Those weeks I'll post special chapters on Thursday instead.

As always, reviews, thoughts, comments and questions are all welcome!

Happy Friday everybody! Ghost out.