xp_logs | Reed and Amanda - backdated to March 3

Science meets magic and is less than impressed. Magic meets Science and there is a lot of eye-rolling.

"Not bad, you lot. Lots of floating pencils and a minimum of "Wingardium Leviosa" jokes." The voice coming from one of the empty rooms on the first floor that served as class rooms/offices was female, British and amused. "Which I appreciate, by the way. Now, if you want to levitate something heavier, the basic concept's the same - draw on the energy inside you, frame it with the spell, and then focus on the thing you're lifting. Of course, the bigger the object, the more energy and focus you'll need to use."

Then there was the chiming of the hour from the grandfather clock in the hall, and a clatter of pencils falling onto desks, before the voice spoke up again. "All right, that's it for this session. Keep up with the practicing during the week and next time we'll work on basic protection wards, yeah?"

The murmur of young voices in assent was succeeded by several of the high-school aged residents, plus a couple of older girls, one with pink hair and wings, leaving the room, nearly knocking over the young man who had been paused outside the room, listening to the lesson going on within.

Reed moved out of the way, ignoring Pixie and focusing more on the front of the room. He'd only managed to catch the last few minutes of the lecture, but he felt that he'd missed either a) the entire point or b) the pivotal point. Basically, everything the blonde woman said made no sense to him, and this would bother him for far longer than it needed to. "So what you're saying," he said, as if he was in the middle of a discussion, "is that all this is accomplished with 'magic'?" Without realizing it, he scoffed and shook his head. "Look within, and you can do whatever you need? That's hardly scientific."

Amanda looked up from where she was putting her books away in her bag, eyebrows raised. "Excuse me?" she asked, taken aback by not only the sudden words, but by Reed's sudden appearance as well.

"Your talk. Magic. It doesn't exist."

'Oh, great, one of those.' Amanda shrugged. "Sorry to burst your bubble there, Doctor Spock, but considering I've been practicing it since I was a little kid, I should know. Magic's as real as the nose on your face."

He gave her a look that said he was only entertaining her delusions to understand what the heck she was talking about. "Mutations can occur pre-adolescence. It's rare, but it happens. Connecting yourself to an electromagnetic field and using that kinetic energy to make things levitate isn't outside the realm of possibility."

"Oh, that certainly isn't. We have someone living here who does pretty much that. Lorna Dane, green hair, daughter of Magneto. And then there's the telekinetics as well, plenty of those." Amanda grinned. "But it's not just about floating pencils. That was just today's class. Magic's a lot more flexible." She snapped her fingers, summoning George the werelight and with a flick of her fingers, sent the small neon-tinted ball to bob around Reed's head. "Lesson one, summoning light."

He sighed and crossed his arms. "Bending the photospectrum to cause visual hallucinations isn't magic."

She snorted and bounced the werelight off his forehead with a crackle of static electricity. "Hallucination, right. Lesson two, shielding." She clapped her hands together and brought up her shielding spell. "Try and touch me. Since you'll probably tell me it's another fake."

"Psychosomatic reaction. I expected it, and therefore I felt it," he responded. He refused to touch her though. "Which will be the same with the shielding. I'll expect it and it'll either confirm or reject my bias, neither of which will serve me any purpose."

That got him an eyeroll. "Seriously, how do you do the science thing when you're so bloody limited in your thinking?" she asked, dropping the shield. "By rights, mutation shouldn't result in super powers, and yet here we are. Why is the idea of magic such a stretch on that?"

"Science deals in improbability," Reed pointed out, stopping short of rolling his eyes. "Not impossibility. Magic, by it's very definition, is the pursuit of impossible things that don't adhere to any principles of science. And how are you so sure that what you do doesn't have any tenet in the physical world? After all, it was only a few weeks ago that gravitational waves were considered purely theoretical, and yet they exist and have affected many things."

"You really need to get out and talk to people more." Amanda realised it was like talking to Forge all over again, except he hadn't been so stubborn. Then again, they'd been teens and she'd been wearing only one of Manuel's dress shirts. Maybe that had helped put the point across. "I call it magic because that's what it's been called for thousands of years. I've learned from a bunch of different people, all with different theories and thoughts about what they do, but the common denominator was that it was magic. My students are the same - different sources of power, different backgrounds, different theories about what it is they do... and they can all do the same spells, even with their differences." She shrugged. "And yeah, maybe one day some egghead will decide it is actually some sort of science, be it specialised reality warping or messing with dimensions or whatever. But until that day, I'm sticking with my impossible talent."

This was clearly a lost cause, Reed thought, but he still tried again. "It is science," he repeated himself. "Whether it's been discovered or not, it's science. Mount Everest was still the tallest mountain, regardless of discovery."

"Mount Everest didn't need to be discovered - it was already there. Magic doesn't need to be explained by rules - it's always been there and it does what it needs to do. Simple as." There was a beeping from her jacket pocket and she pulled out her phone. "And as much as I'd love to stay and go 'round in circles with you, I've got to get back to work. Nice talking to you, whoever you are."

"Dr. Reed Richards," he responded, frowning at her obvious dismissal. "And for the second, science is everywhere too. Some of it, we will never see in our lifetime, but it's there."

"Amanda Sefton. Local witch." She grinned. "Or possible figment of your imagination, since magic doesn't exist and all."