Series of Logs: Emily meets the mansion
Mar. 25th, 2024 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsEmily and Kathy meet Sooraya at the Community Centre for some tests
Emily hadn’t had many thoughts till now on just how different America might be from her own country but seeing the sheer variety of different, and out-and-proud-about-it mutants entering and exiting what must be the Community Centre was slightly shocking
“I think we’re here, Mum.”
She reached out for Kathy's hand, needing reassurance as they were jostled by people walking by.
"It looks like it." Kathy's grip on her daughter's hand might have been a little bit tight, but Emily wasn't the only one a little overwhelmed. She'd thought living in Melbourne had rubbed off the country bumpkin-ness, but the sheer number of people in New York City was so much more than she'd ever seen in Australia. And the remnants of damage being repaired... Parts of District X had looked like those images of war zones she'd seen on the news. "Well, we can't stand out here like bumps on a log. Let's go in and find this Sooraya person who is doing your evaluation."
“Do we have to?”
Emily’s voice was plaintive, as she followed her mother forward toward the entrance. She couldn’t think of anything worse than someone judging her on something she not only didn’t want but had freaked out her friends entirely. She’d tried to think about it as just another part of who she was, just a quirk like some people had green eyes and some brown but that was fine when all she did was change colours and shapes.
“Can’t we just go somewhere?”
"Sooraya's waiting for us, so it would be rude if we didn't at least meet them." Kathy had a horror of being rude. "How about this? We meet them and talk a little about your power problems, and if you're still feeling uncomfortable after that, we can leave and try again another day. Deal?"
“With soothing gelato if it all goes wrong?”
Emily gave her mother a cheeky grin but she pulled on Kathy's hand to get them moving toward the entrance and whoever this Sooraya person was.
"Deal, Ems." Kathy let herself be pulled forward into the entrance lobby of the building.
***
"You must be Emily and Kathy." Sooraya stepped forward as soon as she caught the unfamiliar faces and Australian accents. "It's lovely to meet you. I'm Sooraya Qadir. I hope you were able to find the Centre without too much trouble?"
Emily nodded and then looked at her Mum for direction. It wasn't that she was scared, it was just that her Mum had always been good at this sort of thing, and she was better at other things.
"It was okay," she finally volunteered, just so she'd said something rather than give the poor lady the silent treatment. "Um, you're meant to evaluate me?"
"Yes, I'm Kathy and this is Emily," Kathy spoke before Sooraya could answer the question. "It's nice to meet you too. Forgive us if we're a bit scattered" - she meant Emily, but added herself to take out the sting - "it's been a very confusing few days for us."
"I heard a little bit about that." Sooraya nodded. "How about we grab some coffee or tea and we can head to my office? You can talk and maybe even make things a little less confusing. You want tea or coffee, Emily?"
“Oh! Um, tea, please. Milk, no sugar?”
Emily seemed to brighten immediately at the mention of something so familiar to her. You didn’t often get a group of Australians together without mentioning either a cup of tea or a coffee as part of the social contract.
"We can manage that. How about you, Kathy? Coffee or tea?" Sooraya guided them over to a kitchenette, quickly flipping on the electric kettle. "We should have some milk around here, I think." Pulling open the fridge, she pulled out a small carton. "There we go."
"Milk for me as well, please." Like Emily, Kathy was warming to the idea of tea. And to Sooraya, who was polite and friendly. Once tea had been made and they were in Sooraya's office, she opened with: "Emily's a bit nervous about the evaluation, Sooraya. Can you run us through what the process is?"
"I'd like to talk a little first. Mostly to know more about your powers and how you've been using them, Emily." Sooraya explained. "And afterwards we'll go to a safe place if we need to and I'm going to ask you to show me your powers. I might ask you to try a few things, depending how it goes. Does that sound okay to you?"
Emily looked at her mother briefly and then bit her lower lip before returning to Sooraya.
“I used to be able to change colours, so um, you know, when I was all sad I’d be all grey and black and white, so sometimes my eyes would go all black too. But that kinda changed recently and um, now I sort of light on fire?”
"I want to stay with the first thing for a bit. Your appearance changed colors? Like your hair, skin.." Sooraya clarified, narrowing her eyes a little. "Only colors or did you also change other things about yourself?"
Emily fidgeted for a moment, tried to get more comfortable on the chair she’d been given and wished idly she’d brought her fidget spinner with her. It made conversations like this a lot easier. Instead, she spent a moment pushing the cuticles of each nail back and worrying at the flesh of her lower lip before she answered.
“I could, um, I could change the shapes sometimes. So, I could make my nose and eyes different, or I could do a cool double chin and ah, sometimes I could stretch my height a little. It was like wearing lifts, you know? The um, the stuff they put in shoes but it was my bones.”
She glanced at her mother and grimaced softly in guilt as she went on, unsure of how much she should share.
“When I was a littley, so maybe like thirteen or fourteen when it all started I’d, um, try and prank Mum and Dad to see if they’d recognise me.”
Kathy smiled at the memory. "She'd fool me, but her father always knew it was her and not one of her cousins." She chuckled a little. "And there was also how she'd change to look like characters in her favourite books. Early on after she manifested, I would never know who would be coming for breakfast."
Emily smiled, thinking of how frustrated she’d been that she could never fool her Dad. But then he’d always known wherever she was, especially if she’d been up to mischief.
“Later on Dad taught me how to control it, make it not happen around normal people so the authorities couldn’t take me away. They, um, they do that where we’re from, you know?”
"I've heard some hard stories about the situation in Australia." Sooraya acknowledged as she took down some notes. "But it sounds to me like your powers are more than just 'changing colors'. You mentioned your father showed you some ways to control it. What did he teach you?"
Emily looked at Kathy, unsure how to answer that fully without giving away family secrets that weren’t hers to share.
“Um, well, mostly meditation? Like CBT, you know?”
Kathy nodded to Emily. "Something like that, yes. Basically learning to control her powers by controlling her emotions - the changes are very much tied into her emotional state. Emily's father has trained in being able to calm his mind and not let outside influences impact him and he tried to teach Emily the same.
"There we identified another very important aspect of your powers and how you've been dealing with it so far." Sooraya smiled at the girl reassuringly. "You do okay so far with this, Emily? Because while I've a few questions about your training, I think it's more important we talk about what suddenly changed with your powers and you showing me some things."
***
“I wasn’t lying,”
Emily looked up at Sooraya, her hands gripped in front of her so tightly the knuckles were white. Fear flashed briefly at the idea that if she couldn’t do this they might think she and her parents lied about her being a mutant, or needing help.
Didn’t refugees get deported if the country they went to didn’t want them?
Emily’s eyes stung and she looked downward, trying hard to get her emotions under control. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
She concentrated again, trying to reach for the change but it felt like it was just out of reach, unwilling or perhaps unable to answer her need.
"I know you weren't lying." Sooraya pushed off from the wall, walking over to Emily and wrapping her hands around the girls "It's okay. Sometimes when we're still learning to control our abilities they don't cooperate, like not doing something we want them to. Especially when we're nervous. Now, I want you to close your eyes for a minute and take a deep breath.... Hold it for a few seconds and let it flow out... slowly."
Emily had stiffened slightly when Sooraya touched her, unused to a stranger being that close but she tried to relax at the light touch on her hands, mostly succeeding with a slightly awkward smile.
She gently disentangled her hands after what she felt was an appropriate amount of time to not offend the older woman and then took the breath she’d been asked to take.
“I don’t usually close my eyes for this,” she finally responded, another slightly awkward smile briefly showing as she continued to try and breathe at a meditative pace. “Um, normally we do this to stop me using my powers.”
"I know." Sooraya took a step back, carefully observing the girl. "But you were holding yourself so tight, almost like you were struggling not to drop anything. Just let go a bit... Now, I want you to try and feel what made you tense up so much. Think you can do that?"
Emily nodded and closed her eyes like she’d been asked, and tried to think of why this was suddenly so hard to do.
“People were scared of me,” she finally said with a touch of sadness. “I don’t want to scare anyone.”
"Of course not." Sooraya immediately sympathized. "It's one of the reasons why we are out here, just the two of us and your mom." She gestured at the small empty courtyard that surrounded them. "No one else will come here while we are working."
Kathy was watching anxiously, conflicted herself. On the one hand, this was why they'd moved across the world, so that Emily could learn about her powers safely, but on the other, the habit of secrecy was hard to break. "Think about how you felt at Scout camp?" she suggested, hesitantly. "What was going on?"
Emily, eyes still closed thought back to that day, to the frustration she’d felt at not being able to make a simple fire at the time. She’d been so concentrated on it that she’d just…pushed somehow.
She opened her eyes and shook her head.
“I was frustrated, and um. It felt different. There was this push, and then people were screaming. Do I have to?”
"Show us your abilities? It would help us a lot to figure out how to help you. But we're not gonna push if you choose not to." Sooraya quietly explained, narrowing her eyes a little as thoughts flitted through her head at top speed. "Emily, would it help a little if I asked someone to help us... to show that it's really okay to use your powers here and that you won't scare or hurt anyone?"
Emily’s head came up and she nodded, seeming confident in something for the first time through this particular meeting.
“Would that be possible?”
Someone else to be in the spotlight while she managed to get herself under control would be wonderful.
"Why don't you wait here with your mom while I go find someone?"
Sooraya employs the help of Madin to show Emily that using her powers is nothing to be frightened of.
Madin had taken their conversation with Terry and Alani to heart and had decided to at least give the community centre a go. Yeah, it was probably fucked under the surface but it wasn't like they were a good judge of these things. Haven and the Brotherhood proved that and hey, this wasn't a murder cult.
They were in the Youth Projects room. At this time of day, it was empty except for Madin and a couple of teenagers of indeterminate age who were playing video games on an old PS3 someone had donated while Madin sulked in a chair drinking a cup of instant coffee. Some things didn't change, no matter where you were and that included institutional coffee.
They turned their head to greet Sooraya when she entered. "Hi."
"Oh hey, Madin." Sooraya greeted Madin absentmindedly as she scanned the room before her gaze fell upon them again and her eyes narrowed in thought. "Madin, I was wondering if you could maybe help me out with something. But I'd rather explain in the hallway if that's okay?" She would not violate Emily's privacy in any form, especially in front of teens she might run into again later.
"Yeah, sure thing." Madin stood and followed her outside. "What's going on?"
"So I have a young woman from Australia I am currently working with on her abilities for the first time. We are in the courtyard, but she is pretty nervous about scaring or hurting anyone. I was thinking you might be able to show it's safe to show her powers there." Sooraya explained as quickly as possible.
"Yeah nah, I can do that." It was something to do. Madin picked up their bag and waved to the teens. "Catch you later."
In the courtyard, they stopped and grinned. "You didn't tell me it was Emily. Me and Alani met her at the airport the other week. Hey, how's it going?"
“Oh, um, hi,”
Emily eyed them and then Sooraya, wondering just what it was that Madin could do that Sooraya thought them showing her would help.
“It’s going ok, I think?"
"Great. Sooraya said that I needed to come give you a demonstration that you can go all out with your powers out here and it would be fine?"
“Oh, ah, I guess that makes sense. Are you, um. Do you have a dangerous power?”
Emily tried a smile on for size but couldn’t quite get it to stick through the much bigger desire to move closer to her Mum and possibly hide behind her, just a little.
But she stayed where she was. This was meant to be for her benefit after all. It would be rude to hide from someone who was trying to help.
“Um, that is, ah. Thank you?”
Madin wanted to roll their eyes but didn't. They consciously gentled their voice and nodded. "Yeah. Bio plasma." They held out a hand and arcs of energy shot out from their fingertips, purple light filling the courtyard from both the flickering plasma and also the jagged glowing bands on each arm. "Don't touch them." The energy was dialed down but they were still a lot.
"Check this out." Madin broke a stick off the dead (winter dormant?) shrub in the centre of the courtyard and held it up with their other hand, before slicing it into several smaller pieces that fell to the ground, charred and smouldering. Madin stamped out the one most on fire.
"Seriously, though. There's nothing out here you can damage. Go nuts."
Emily’s eyes had widened in a brief indication of both awe and a tiny smidge of fear before she carefully covered it with a bland look of politeness. She couldn’t help the brief step she took, however, before making herself stand still.
“How do you control it so well?”
"Practice." Madin kept quiet about the rest. "Lots of practice. So, show us what you've got."
Emily looked down at her hands again and then looked over at her mother with something akin to an apology before she closed her eyes and tried to ‘push’ as she had back at the camp. It was unnoticeable at first, a small trick of the light but eventually her hair began to move as if by its violation and small sparks of flame began to lick at the ends.
She gasped and opened her eyes, the minute flames blinking out of existence as if they’d never been.
Madin grinned. "That's so cool. Tiny as, but cool." Given the way her mother looked when powers were on display, she'd probably never cut loose. "Go on, do it again. But bigger. Go as hard as you can. There's literally nothing out here you can damage." Well, except the people but Madin was pretty sure Sooraya could something something sand somehow and prevent that. "Go hard. Burn the ugly dead tree, even."
Emily swallowed and licked her lips as she looked at the tree. She gripped her hands together again but nodded after a minute. She’d need to dig deeper, go deeper if she was going to make a larger impact. She’d never done that before though, always trained to maintain control rather than let it go.
It was like opening your eyes when you’d had them shut all your life. It felt more like a release than deliberate as she pulled from that place inside her. It was almost like…joy.
Her hair went from its normal red to the colour of the sun and tentacles of fire lashed outwards to cover the entirety of the small courtyard, engulfing everything in its path while somehow failing to affect anything at all.
The tree stood as it always had, and the world moved on apace as Emily gasped in a deep breath and looked around herself in awe.
It had all happened too quickly for Madin to flinch away. They were unharmed, though, which was... yeah, that was good. They picked up one of the pieces of the branch they'd chopped up earlier and broke off a small twig, the length and width of a knitting needle. Carefully, they reached out and poked Emily's hair with it. The twig didn't burn. "Sooraya, check this out!"
Narrowing her eyes, Sooraya quickly joined Madin, staring at the small branch. "It isn't catching fire... the flame is not affecting it at all. That is different." She shifted her gaze towards Emily, her eyes immediately narrowing again as she caught sight of fiery red skin of her face. "You did a great job here, Emily." She quickly praised the girl. "That has given me a lot of information. But how are you feeling right now?"
“Warm.”
Emily’s astonished gaze moved from the white-hot glow of her hair, so much more of it now than there’d been at any other time in her life to the older woman. She hissed softly as a strand brushed her hand when she reached up to touch a tendril, leaving behind a red welt of sunburn on her fingers.
“Um, really warm.”
"Alright..." Sooraya nodded carefully. "Emily, I need you to be honest about this... is something hurting or sore right now?"
Honestly, it felt the opposite of pain. Like a muscle that had been cramped and enclosed until now when it could finally stretch out. At the same time, she could feel a tightness against her skin, like when you spent all day out on the farm only to realise you completely forgot the sunblock and now you were in for a world of aloe vera and cold showers till you started peeling. Not to mention the lectures you were in for about cancer from your Mum.
“Kinda not sore, just sunburnt?”
It took everything Madin had not to poke her face. Instead, they snapped a photo. "Here, look."
Emily gasped as she saw not just the obvious beginning of what could be a nasty sunburn but the glowing yellow-red of her hair as it moved around her in undulating waves.
She immediately clamped down on the power she’d only just released. It didn’t want to go, it didn’t want to return to the dark loneliness of wherever it went when she wasn’t using it.
“I, I…Mum! Help.”
Emily’s voice was panicked and she dropped to her knees as she tried to make it go away.
Kathy had been quiet, watching things with private concern but showing nothing but support for her daughter. This was their new normal and she'd have to get used to mutants using their powers openly if they were going to help Emily. But as the girl called for her, she was out of her seat and kneeling beside her in a second. "It's okay, I'm here," she murmured, rubbing Emily's back gently. "Deep breaths, love. In and out, just like Dad showed you."
Sooraya held back, watching how Emily's mother calmed her daughter down and the fiery hair slowly died down. Whatever method they had found, it seemed to work reasonably well to lock down Emily's ability. As soon as the flames died down though, she knelt down next to Kathy. "So I think I've seen enough and I have a suggestion. Remember the mansion Madin mentioned... I'd like to take you there and have some of my friends do some further work with your powers, Emily. Because how they developed and how they are behaving now is kinda unusual..."
Narrowing her eyes at the deepening sunburn, she added: "And since using your powers like this seems to cause physical consequences, I'd like one of the doctors there to take a look at you as well. Just as a precaution. So what do you think about that?"
Kathy bit her lip, then nodded. "If you think it's best," she said at last, still rubbing Emily's back soothingly. "You're the experts, after all."
Sooraya takes Emily and Kathy to the mansion to see to Emily's sunburn and to do further testing in a safer environment. Rogue and Garrison do the honors, and Emily finds a new outlet she hadn't known she could use.
Emily looked about curiously at the sitting room Sooraya had led them to. The purple lady, Clarice she’d said to call her, had just finished slathering her in aloe and she did feel a bit better.
She’d left quickly after that, saying something about letting the others know they were here.
Whatever that was about, Emily was content currently to listen to Sooraya and her mother talking, happy to not have to make small talk when she could instead be spending time gazing at the room.
She’d never seen so many antiques in one place before, and not just to be looked at but used like normal people used furniture. They weren’t even covered in plastic to keep people’s arses from damaging the fabric.
"Now, in a moment two of my friends will do some further work with Emily." Sooaraya explained to Kathy. "We have a place here where she can safely let go as much as she needs to and hopefully we'll gain some more insights into her powers. But while they are working, why don't I show you around for a bit?"
Kathy looked over to her daughter. "Will you be all right if I'm not there? I can stay if you need me."
Normally Emily would have clung to her mother in such a situation but as a sixteen year old she’d become much more aware of appearances than she might have otherwise been.
“I’ll be fine, Mum.”
"Well, if you say so..." Kathy was reluctant, but there wasn't much she could do now Emily had spoken. She gave Sooraya a tight smile. "Of course, that would be lovely."
It took more than a few minutes for Rogue and Garrison to get to Emily but in Rogue's defense, she had no concept of time when she was drawing or fighting. In this case, it was fighting, as she'd wanted to be at least semi-warmed up for when she met up with Emily. Clad in bright green yoga leggings, a long sleeved shirt, and gloves, she smiled as she reached up to tame her curly hair. "Darn thing always got a mind of its own," she said by way of hello. A quick pull into a scrunchie, and she put her hands on her hips, assessing Emily. "well aren't you a li'l one. What you think, Kane? We gon' chew her up and spit her out, or is that only if she says please?"
"You're scaring the youth, Beulah." Kane said, although instead of sounding quippy, he just sounded a bit tired. "I can confirm that, despite how it looks, the safety processes have been extensively tested, Mrs Bright. Emily will be in less danger than she would be taking the bus to the library." He confirmed and passed over a package. "We have some workout clothes that you can change into. They'll provide additional protection."
"Emily, Kathy, meet Rogue and Garrison Kane. Don't worry, they don't bite." Sooraya quickly introduced them. "You ready for this, Emily?" She double checked, just to make sure the girl was okay with this.
“G’day,” Emily said, juggling the package of clothing so she could hold out her hand to be shaken. Her face had flushed slightly pink at the older woman’s words but she smiled brightly in an attempt to make a somewhat good impression. “Um, is there a place I can change?”
"Absolutely, why don't you follow us?" Rogue gestured with a nod of her head to the door. "We have a great set up, and we can let your mama chat with Sooraya here for a little while." She smiled and waited for Emily to pass through the door before following her, chatting away about nothing really in particular. It was one of those moments where she was saying nothing important, and rambling away to try to set Emily at ease until they reached the Danger Room.
"Now. This here is a safe place where we can work out together, and try to get a handle on what's going on. We don't gotta do nothing you don't wanna do or don't feel comfortable or safe doing, okay?"
"Also, as you can see, we like putting big Xs on things." Kane said. "I'll go get and get the room warmed up while you both change." He touched a button and the DR door slid open, revealing a large darkened area beyond. "Change rooms are over there." He motioned for Emily's sake, assuming Marie hadn't forgotten the way in the last 24 hours.
***
“Are you like Madonna?”
Emily stood in the middle of a large grey looking room, having quickly changed into what seemed like logo’d gym gear but she could tell it was made from different fibres then cotton and was certainly heavier. Rogue had led her back out and now they were apparently waiting for something because the man she’d met had been gone for a while.
“Um, I mean, Rogue is a great name and all, it’s just not a non-Madonna sort of name.”
Rogue laughed very hard. "The word you're looking for is mononym, and yeah, it's just the name I chose for myself long ago and still use all the time. If you stick around, you may wanna give yourself a cool nickname too, who knows." A ping came from her watch and she glanced down. "Oh, Gar's ready, so why don't we step out and see what he's got set up for us." It would be a surprise to both of them because she hadn't even had a chance to ask Garrison what they were planning on doing today. Actually, if she'd asked, he would have made up some crazy scenario and she'd have had to determine if it was real or not.
She gave a wave to the control room to let him know he could start and crossed her fingers it wouldn't be ridiculous.
"There is a much longer and more detailed explanation of this in the future, but right now, you're in the Danger Room. In shorthand, it can generate an artificial environment that you can safely interact with using your powers without concern about hurting yourself or others." Kane was in the control room, fingers dancing over the interface. "We'll start with something simple."
The grey walls disappeared and in seconds, they were standing on scrub land, with a massive red sandstone monolith towering over them, framed against an impossibly blue sky: Uluru.
Emily’s eyes widened in shock as she looked around with something akin to awe. She’d never seen a virtual reality as complex as this. She bent down and scooped a handful of red dirt into her hand, allowing it to trickle out between her fingers.
She wanted to touch everything, and ask a million questions. Like, how much electricity did this set up use, and what kind of video cards they were using for the graphics. Heck, what kind of engine were they using because this was insane. It’d put to shame all those farms crypto bros used for mining by far
“Mate….How? And um, what do you want me to do? Do I just, ah, walk around?”
"Pretty much! You can do whatever you want here, and it has no effect on the real world or in this space. " Rogue effortlessly picked up a random boulder, and threw it further than would appear possible when knowing the dimensions of the room.
"So if you just... let go, we can see what you can really do and I won't be hurt at all. I can also absorb ya if you want but I'd rather see it organically. "
Emily frowned, unsure if she should ‘let go’ but Sooraya had brought her here for a reason and her Mum and Dad had moved an entire hemisphere just to keep her safe. She could be brave, if just for a moment.
“Um, maybe stand a little way away?”
She stood, letting the last of the red dirt trickle through her fingers to the ground before she closed her eyes and ‘focused’
It was that place, not quite her stomach, and not quite her heart but somewhere in between, somewhere an intricate part of her but at the very same time, somewhere so far away it was like trying to touch a star. She could almost reach it, if she just stretched her fingers far enough.
"That's something." Kane said to himself, as he prodded the simulation a bit. As the wind picked up around her, he pushed the pressure a bit.
Emily could feel the room pushing against her, wind battering at her legs and arms. She wasn’t sure why they were doing that but she pushed deeper, trying to find that spark that had answered her just a few hours earlier.
It came, not with a whimper but the roar of a released cork, surging up from what felt like her stomach and slamming outward through her limbs, stretching toes and toenails into rock like claws that ripped through shoes and buried themselves deep into the floor to keep her rooted even as her fingers and hands hardened and became sharp, weighing down her arms so she bent slightly even as the rest of her body, still slathered in burn cream, seemed to ripple before settling back down.
Emily blinked her eyes open and looked down at her hands and feet now buried into the ground as the wind pushed at her.
“Um. I’m sorry about the shoes?”
Rogue waved a hand. "Don't sweat it." She kicked off her own shoes, and took off her socks as well. "See? Barefoot is just fine too. Now let's go, kiddo."
**
Up in the control booth, Garrison's phone was buzzing as a new text came through:
Oi, Gar - schedule says you're testing a newbie in the DR. No-one told me there was a new magic user coming.
Hey, I just got the heads up a little while ago. Just doing some basic stuff for now. Not really sure what the kid's specific deal is.
I'll be right there.
True enough, not two minutes had passed before there was a knock on the control room door. Amanda, when she was admitted, looked like she'd been running, or at least speed-walking. "Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but something pinged the wards. Not a threat, but a magical signature I didn't know. I checked the visitor's log and saw there was a kid and her mother here for eval." She spoke rapidly, eyes on the young red-head below in the room proper. "Can you ask her to do whatever it was she just did again?"
"We can try." Kane said, checking the feedback from the sensors. He once again hit the woman with a heavy wind gust, forcing her to push against it or be bowled over.
Emily’s grasp on whatever it was she was channeling was not strong and the renewed pressure of the wind had her panicked as she felt her grip loosen on the ground below.
She reached harder but it slipped through her fingers, the red encasing her fingers and feet bleeding away as her hair flashed into fire, seemingly reaching for what had worked till this point. She staggered and was blown back into Rogue as her claws disappeared.
Emily looked down and screamed as she saw a bright red rash and fingers seemingly twice the size they were meant to be where only sunburn had been before.
Rogue looked curiously at Emily, holding her gently. The impact hadn't budged her at all, but she was definitely more concerned about the rash. "Well that don't look good. Does it hurt?" She frowned and looked up to the control room. "We might need to get Jeannie in here, Gar. See if we can get a handle on this. I think we gotta stop for now until it's checked out."
"DR medical sensors aren't picking up an injury." Kane looked over at Amanda. "You better get down there." He toggled the comms back on. "Just sent a message to the medlab. Give Amanda a second to check the kid out while they pull a medical bag together."
The door banged slightly as Amanda practically bolted from the control room; only seconds later she was coming through the main door and heading to Emily. "Looks like an allergic reaction," she said as she looked over the girl; she'd spent enough time acting as the field medic for X-Force to know what she was looking at. "Emily, is it? Hi, 'm Amanda. Um, this is going to sound weird, but how long have you been doing magic?"
Emily had tried to relax back into Rogue’s hold and was currently shivering slightly as she looked from her fingers to the adults in the room.
“M-magic?”
"Yeah. I'm asking because that's what I do and when you were using your powers, I could feel some sort of magical energy coming off you." Amanda didn't want to interrogate the kid, especially not in this state... She glanced at Rogue. "Did Rogue explain her powers to you, Emily? There's a quick way we can figure this out without you having to do anything more."
“I don’t,” Emily looked back at Rogue with an uncertain glance. She hadn’t asked what she could do but if it would make all this go away faster, she was willing. “I didn’t ask but I guess if it’ll make things faster?”
"It can, but it'll definitely tire you out, sugar. Especially right now, so if you're fine with it, what I'll do is jus' touch you a little on your arm, and absorb your powers. I will do my best not to get your memories too, but sometimes, I can't. If what you got is powers based, I'll be able to use your powers, but if what Amanda says is right, well, I ain't no magic user, so I can't really do much wit hthat. I'll just have a whole lot energy that I'll have to burn out later on." She chuckled a bit. "if you're good to go..."
She looked around the room, and saw everyone nodding, so she stripped a glove and smiled down at Emily, still being braced by her. "Shouldn't feel more than a slight tug..."
And then the answer was obvious, very quickly. Rogue's hands started to itch, but not to the extent of Emily's. She could feel the power and the connection, but having absolutely no grasp on the intricacies of magic, there was nothing she could do. She snatched her hand away quickly and made a fce. "Yup, she's all yours Amanda.... this one is full of magic and I don't know how to handle that."
"Thanks, mate. All right, let's get you some medical advice, Emily, and then we'll have a nice long chat."
Emily hadn’t had many thoughts till now on just how different America might be from her own country but seeing the sheer variety of different, and out-and-proud-about-it mutants entering and exiting what must be the Community Centre was slightly shocking
“I think we’re here, Mum.”
She reached out for Kathy's hand, needing reassurance as they were jostled by people walking by.
"It looks like it." Kathy's grip on her daughter's hand might have been a little bit tight, but Emily wasn't the only one a little overwhelmed. She'd thought living in Melbourne had rubbed off the country bumpkin-ness, but the sheer number of people in New York City was so much more than she'd ever seen in Australia. And the remnants of damage being repaired... Parts of District X had looked like those images of war zones she'd seen on the news. "Well, we can't stand out here like bumps on a log. Let's go in and find this Sooraya person who is doing your evaluation."
“Do we have to?”
Emily’s voice was plaintive, as she followed her mother forward toward the entrance. She couldn’t think of anything worse than someone judging her on something she not only didn’t want but had freaked out her friends entirely. She’d tried to think about it as just another part of who she was, just a quirk like some people had green eyes and some brown but that was fine when all she did was change colours and shapes.
“Can’t we just go somewhere?”
"Sooraya's waiting for us, so it would be rude if we didn't at least meet them." Kathy had a horror of being rude. "How about this? We meet them and talk a little about your power problems, and if you're still feeling uncomfortable after that, we can leave and try again another day. Deal?"
“With soothing gelato if it all goes wrong?”
Emily gave her mother a cheeky grin but she pulled on Kathy's hand to get them moving toward the entrance and whoever this Sooraya person was.
"Deal, Ems." Kathy let herself be pulled forward into the entrance lobby of the building.
***
"You must be Emily and Kathy." Sooraya stepped forward as soon as she caught the unfamiliar faces and Australian accents. "It's lovely to meet you. I'm Sooraya Qadir. I hope you were able to find the Centre without too much trouble?"
Emily nodded and then looked at her Mum for direction. It wasn't that she was scared, it was just that her Mum had always been good at this sort of thing, and she was better at other things.
"It was okay," she finally volunteered, just so she'd said something rather than give the poor lady the silent treatment. "Um, you're meant to evaluate me?"
"Yes, I'm Kathy and this is Emily," Kathy spoke before Sooraya could answer the question. "It's nice to meet you too. Forgive us if we're a bit scattered" - she meant Emily, but added herself to take out the sting - "it's been a very confusing few days for us."
"I heard a little bit about that." Sooraya nodded. "How about we grab some coffee or tea and we can head to my office? You can talk and maybe even make things a little less confusing. You want tea or coffee, Emily?"
“Oh! Um, tea, please. Milk, no sugar?”
Emily seemed to brighten immediately at the mention of something so familiar to her. You didn’t often get a group of Australians together without mentioning either a cup of tea or a coffee as part of the social contract.
"We can manage that. How about you, Kathy? Coffee or tea?" Sooraya guided them over to a kitchenette, quickly flipping on the electric kettle. "We should have some milk around here, I think." Pulling open the fridge, she pulled out a small carton. "There we go."
"Milk for me as well, please." Like Emily, Kathy was warming to the idea of tea. And to Sooraya, who was polite and friendly. Once tea had been made and they were in Sooraya's office, she opened with: "Emily's a bit nervous about the evaluation, Sooraya. Can you run us through what the process is?"
"I'd like to talk a little first. Mostly to know more about your powers and how you've been using them, Emily." Sooraya explained. "And afterwards we'll go to a safe place if we need to and I'm going to ask you to show me your powers. I might ask you to try a few things, depending how it goes. Does that sound okay to you?"
Emily looked at her mother briefly and then bit her lower lip before returning to Sooraya.
“I used to be able to change colours, so um, you know, when I was all sad I’d be all grey and black and white, so sometimes my eyes would go all black too. But that kinda changed recently and um, now I sort of light on fire?”
"I want to stay with the first thing for a bit. Your appearance changed colors? Like your hair, skin.." Sooraya clarified, narrowing her eyes a little. "Only colors or did you also change other things about yourself?"
Emily fidgeted for a moment, tried to get more comfortable on the chair she’d been given and wished idly she’d brought her fidget spinner with her. It made conversations like this a lot easier. Instead, she spent a moment pushing the cuticles of each nail back and worrying at the flesh of her lower lip before she answered.
“I could, um, I could change the shapes sometimes. So, I could make my nose and eyes different, or I could do a cool double chin and ah, sometimes I could stretch my height a little. It was like wearing lifts, you know? The um, the stuff they put in shoes but it was my bones.”
She glanced at her mother and grimaced softly in guilt as she went on, unsure of how much she should share.
“When I was a littley, so maybe like thirteen or fourteen when it all started I’d, um, try and prank Mum and Dad to see if they’d recognise me.”
Kathy smiled at the memory. "She'd fool me, but her father always knew it was her and not one of her cousins." She chuckled a little. "And there was also how she'd change to look like characters in her favourite books. Early on after she manifested, I would never know who would be coming for breakfast."
Emily smiled, thinking of how frustrated she’d been that she could never fool her Dad. But then he’d always known wherever she was, especially if she’d been up to mischief.
“Later on Dad taught me how to control it, make it not happen around normal people so the authorities couldn’t take me away. They, um, they do that where we’re from, you know?”
"I've heard some hard stories about the situation in Australia." Sooraya acknowledged as she took down some notes. "But it sounds to me like your powers are more than just 'changing colors'. You mentioned your father showed you some ways to control it. What did he teach you?"
Emily looked at Kathy, unsure how to answer that fully without giving away family secrets that weren’t hers to share.
“Um, well, mostly meditation? Like CBT, you know?”
Kathy nodded to Emily. "Something like that, yes. Basically learning to control her powers by controlling her emotions - the changes are very much tied into her emotional state. Emily's father has trained in being able to calm his mind and not let outside influences impact him and he tried to teach Emily the same.
"There we identified another very important aspect of your powers and how you've been dealing with it so far." Sooraya smiled at the girl reassuringly. "You do okay so far with this, Emily? Because while I've a few questions about your training, I think it's more important we talk about what suddenly changed with your powers and you showing me some things."
***
“I wasn’t lying,”
Emily looked up at Sooraya, her hands gripped in front of her so tightly the knuckles were white. Fear flashed briefly at the idea that if she couldn’t do this they might think she and her parents lied about her being a mutant, or needing help.
Didn’t refugees get deported if the country they went to didn’t want them?
Emily’s eyes stung and she looked downward, trying hard to get her emotions under control. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
She concentrated again, trying to reach for the change but it felt like it was just out of reach, unwilling or perhaps unable to answer her need.
"I know you weren't lying." Sooraya pushed off from the wall, walking over to Emily and wrapping her hands around the girls "It's okay. Sometimes when we're still learning to control our abilities they don't cooperate, like not doing something we want them to. Especially when we're nervous. Now, I want you to close your eyes for a minute and take a deep breath.... Hold it for a few seconds and let it flow out... slowly."
Emily had stiffened slightly when Sooraya touched her, unused to a stranger being that close but she tried to relax at the light touch on her hands, mostly succeeding with a slightly awkward smile.
She gently disentangled her hands after what she felt was an appropriate amount of time to not offend the older woman and then took the breath she’d been asked to take.
“I don’t usually close my eyes for this,” she finally responded, another slightly awkward smile briefly showing as she continued to try and breathe at a meditative pace. “Um, normally we do this to stop me using my powers.”
"I know." Sooraya took a step back, carefully observing the girl. "But you were holding yourself so tight, almost like you were struggling not to drop anything. Just let go a bit... Now, I want you to try and feel what made you tense up so much. Think you can do that?"
Emily nodded and closed her eyes like she’d been asked, and tried to think of why this was suddenly so hard to do.
“People were scared of me,” she finally said with a touch of sadness. “I don’t want to scare anyone.”
"Of course not." Sooraya immediately sympathized. "It's one of the reasons why we are out here, just the two of us and your mom." She gestured at the small empty courtyard that surrounded them. "No one else will come here while we are working."
Kathy was watching anxiously, conflicted herself. On the one hand, this was why they'd moved across the world, so that Emily could learn about her powers safely, but on the other, the habit of secrecy was hard to break. "Think about how you felt at Scout camp?" she suggested, hesitantly. "What was going on?"
Emily, eyes still closed thought back to that day, to the frustration she’d felt at not being able to make a simple fire at the time. She’d been so concentrated on it that she’d just…pushed somehow.
She opened her eyes and shook her head.
“I was frustrated, and um. It felt different. There was this push, and then people were screaming. Do I have to?”
"Show us your abilities? It would help us a lot to figure out how to help you. But we're not gonna push if you choose not to." Sooraya quietly explained, narrowing her eyes a little as thoughts flitted through her head at top speed. "Emily, would it help a little if I asked someone to help us... to show that it's really okay to use your powers here and that you won't scare or hurt anyone?"
Emily’s head came up and she nodded, seeming confident in something for the first time through this particular meeting.
“Would that be possible?”
Someone else to be in the spotlight while she managed to get herself under control would be wonderful.
"Why don't you wait here with your mom while I go find someone?"
Sooraya employs the help of Madin to show Emily that using her powers is nothing to be frightened of.
Madin had taken their conversation with Terry and Alani to heart and had decided to at least give the community centre a go. Yeah, it was probably fucked under the surface but it wasn't like they were a good judge of these things. Haven and the Brotherhood proved that and hey, this wasn't a murder cult.
They were in the Youth Projects room. At this time of day, it was empty except for Madin and a couple of teenagers of indeterminate age who were playing video games on an old PS3 someone had donated while Madin sulked in a chair drinking a cup of instant coffee. Some things didn't change, no matter where you were and that included institutional coffee.
They turned their head to greet Sooraya when she entered. "Hi."
"Oh hey, Madin." Sooraya greeted Madin absentmindedly as she scanned the room before her gaze fell upon them again and her eyes narrowed in thought. "Madin, I was wondering if you could maybe help me out with something. But I'd rather explain in the hallway if that's okay?" She would not violate Emily's privacy in any form, especially in front of teens she might run into again later.
"Yeah, sure thing." Madin stood and followed her outside. "What's going on?"
"So I have a young woman from Australia I am currently working with on her abilities for the first time. We are in the courtyard, but she is pretty nervous about scaring or hurting anyone. I was thinking you might be able to show it's safe to show her powers there." Sooraya explained as quickly as possible.
"Yeah nah, I can do that." It was something to do. Madin picked up their bag and waved to the teens. "Catch you later."
In the courtyard, they stopped and grinned. "You didn't tell me it was Emily. Me and Alani met her at the airport the other week. Hey, how's it going?"
“Oh, um, hi,”
Emily eyed them and then Sooraya, wondering just what it was that Madin could do that Sooraya thought them showing her would help.
“It’s going ok, I think?"
"Great. Sooraya said that I needed to come give you a demonstration that you can go all out with your powers out here and it would be fine?"
“Oh, ah, I guess that makes sense. Are you, um. Do you have a dangerous power?”
Emily tried a smile on for size but couldn’t quite get it to stick through the much bigger desire to move closer to her Mum and possibly hide behind her, just a little.
But she stayed where she was. This was meant to be for her benefit after all. It would be rude to hide from someone who was trying to help.
“Um, that is, ah. Thank you?”
Madin wanted to roll their eyes but didn't. They consciously gentled their voice and nodded. "Yeah. Bio plasma." They held out a hand and arcs of energy shot out from their fingertips, purple light filling the courtyard from both the flickering plasma and also the jagged glowing bands on each arm. "Don't touch them." The energy was dialed down but they were still a lot.
"Check this out." Madin broke a stick off the dead (winter dormant?) shrub in the centre of the courtyard and held it up with their other hand, before slicing it into several smaller pieces that fell to the ground, charred and smouldering. Madin stamped out the one most on fire.
"Seriously, though. There's nothing out here you can damage. Go nuts."
Emily’s eyes had widened in a brief indication of both awe and a tiny smidge of fear before she carefully covered it with a bland look of politeness. She couldn’t help the brief step she took, however, before making herself stand still.
“How do you control it so well?”
"Practice." Madin kept quiet about the rest. "Lots of practice. So, show us what you've got."
Emily looked down at her hands again and then looked over at her mother with something akin to an apology before she closed her eyes and tried to ‘push’ as she had back at the camp. It was unnoticeable at first, a small trick of the light but eventually her hair began to move as if by its violation and small sparks of flame began to lick at the ends.
She gasped and opened her eyes, the minute flames blinking out of existence as if they’d never been.
Madin grinned. "That's so cool. Tiny as, but cool." Given the way her mother looked when powers were on display, she'd probably never cut loose. "Go on, do it again. But bigger. Go as hard as you can. There's literally nothing out here you can damage." Well, except the people but Madin was pretty sure Sooraya could something something sand somehow and prevent that. "Go hard. Burn the ugly dead tree, even."
Emily swallowed and licked her lips as she looked at the tree. She gripped her hands together again but nodded after a minute. She’d need to dig deeper, go deeper if she was going to make a larger impact. She’d never done that before though, always trained to maintain control rather than let it go.
It was like opening your eyes when you’d had them shut all your life. It felt more like a release than deliberate as she pulled from that place inside her. It was almost like…joy.
Her hair went from its normal red to the colour of the sun and tentacles of fire lashed outwards to cover the entirety of the small courtyard, engulfing everything in its path while somehow failing to affect anything at all.
The tree stood as it always had, and the world moved on apace as Emily gasped in a deep breath and looked around herself in awe.
It had all happened too quickly for Madin to flinch away. They were unharmed, though, which was... yeah, that was good. They picked up one of the pieces of the branch they'd chopped up earlier and broke off a small twig, the length and width of a knitting needle. Carefully, they reached out and poked Emily's hair with it. The twig didn't burn. "Sooraya, check this out!"
Narrowing her eyes, Sooraya quickly joined Madin, staring at the small branch. "It isn't catching fire... the flame is not affecting it at all. That is different." She shifted her gaze towards Emily, her eyes immediately narrowing again as she caught sight of fiery red skin of her face. "You did a great job here, Emily." She quickly praised the girl. "That has given me a lot of information. But how are you feeling right now?"
“Warm.”
Emily’s astonished gaze moved from the white-hot glow of her hair, so much more of it now than there’d been at any other time in her life to the older woman. She hissed softly as a strand brushed her hand when she reached up to touch a tendril, leaving behind a red welt of sunburn on her fingers.
“Um, really warm.”
"Alright..." Sooraya nodded carefully. "Emily, I need you to be honest about this... is something hurting or sore right now?"
Honestly, it felt the opposite of pain. Like a muscle that had been cramped and enclosed until now when it could finally stretch out. At the same time, she could feel a tightness against her skin, like when you spent all day out on the farm only to realise you completely forgot the sunblock and now you were in for a world of aloe vera and cold showers till you started peeling. Not to mention the lectures you were in for about cancer from your Mum.
“Kinda not sore, just sunburnt?”
It took everything Madin had not to poke her face. Instead, they snapped a photo. "Here, look."
Emily gasped as she saw not just the obvious beginning of what could be a nasty sunburn but the glowing yellow-red of her hair as it moved around her in undulating waves.
She immediately clamped down on the power she’d only just released. It didn’t want to go, it didn’t want to return to the dark loneliness of wherever it went when she wasn’t using it.
“I, I…Mum! Help.”
Emily’s voice was panicked and she dropped to her knees as she tried to make it go away.
Kathy had been quiet, watching things with private concern but showing nothing but support for her daughter. This was their new normal and she'd have to get used to mutants using their powers openly if they were going to help Emily. But as the girl called for her, she was out of her seat and kneeling beside her in a second. "It's okay, I'm here," she murmured, rubbing Emily's back gently. "Deep breaths, love. In and out, just like Dad showed you."
Sooraya held back, watching how Emily's mother calmed her daughter down and the fiery hair slowly died down. Whatever method they had found, it seemed to work reasonably well to lock down Emily's ability. As soon as the flames died down though, she knelt down next to Kathy. "So I think I've seen enough and I have a suggestion. Remember the mansion Madin mentioned... I'd like to take you there and have some of my friends do some further work with your powers, Emily. Because how they developed and how they are behaving now is kinda unusual..."
Narrowing her eyes at the deepening sunburn, she added: "And since using your powers like this seems to cause physical consequences, I'd like one of the doctors there to take a look at you as well. Just as a precaution. So what do you think about that?"
Kathy bit her lip, then nodded. "If you think it's best," she said at last, still rubbing Emily's back soothingly. "You're the experts, after all."
Sooraya takes Emily and Kathy to the mansion to see to Emily's sunburn and to do further testing in a safer environment. Rogue and Garrison do the honors, and Emily finds a new outlet she hadn't known she could use.
Emily looked about curiously at the sitting room Sooraya had led them to. The purple lady, Clarice she’d said to call her, had just finished slathering her in aloe and she did feel a bit better.
She’d left quickly after that, saying something about letting the others know they were here.
Whatever that was about, Emily was content currently to listen to Sooraya and her mother talking, happy to not have to make small talk when she could instead be spending time gazing at the room.
She’d never seen so many antiques in one place before, and not just to be looked at but used like normal people used furniture. They weren’t even covered in plastic to keep people’s arses from damaging the fabric.
"Now, in a moment two of my friends will do some further work with Emily." Sooaraya explained to Kathy. "We have a place here where she can safely let go as much as she needs to and hopefully we'll gain some more insights into her powers. But while they are working, why don't I show you around for a bit?"
Kathy looked over to her daughter. "Will you be all right if I'm not there? I can stay if you need me."
Normally Emily would have clung to her mother in such a situation but as a sixteen year old she’d become much more aware of appearances than she might have otherwise been.
“I’ll be fine, Mum.”
"Well, if you say so..." Kathy was reluctant, but there wasn't much she could do now Emily had spoken. She gave Sooraya a tight smile. "Of course, that would be lovely."
It took more than a few minutes for Rogue and Garrison to get to Emily but in Rogue's defense, she had no concept of time when she was drawing or fighting. In this case, it was fighting, as she'd wanted to be at least semi-warmed up for when she met up with Emily. Clad in bright green yoga leggings, a long sleeved shirt, and gloves, she smiled as she reached up to tame her curly hair. "Darn thing always got a mind of its own," she said by way of hello. A quick pull into a scrunchie, and she put her hands on her hips, assessing Emily. "well aren't you a li'l one. What you think, Kane? We gon' chew her up and spit her out, or is that only if she says please?"
"You're scaring the youth, Beulah." Kane said, although instead of sounding quippy, he just sounded a bit tired. "I can confirm that, despite how it looks, the safety processes have been extensively tested, Mrs Bright. Emily will be in less danger than she would be taking the bus to the library." He confirmed and passed over a package. "We have some workout clothes that you can change into. They'll provide additional protection."
"Emily, Kathy, meet Rogue and Garrison Kane. Don't worry, they don't bite." Sooraya quickly introduced them. "You ready for this, Emily?" She double checked, just to make sure the girl was okay with this.
“G’day,” Emily said, juggling the package of clothing so she could hold out her hand to be shaken. Her face had flushed slightly pink at the older woman’s words but she smiled brightly in an attempt to make a somewhat good impression. “Um, is there a place I can change?”
"Absolutely, why don't you follow us?" Rogue gestured with a nod of her head to the door. "We have a great set up, and we can let your mama chat with Sooraya here for a little while." She smiled and waited for Emily to pass through the door before following her, chatting away about nothing really in particular. It was one of those moments where she was saying nothing important, and rambling away to try to set Emily at ease until they reached the Danger Room.
"Now. This here is a safe place where we can work out together, and try to get a handle on what's going on. We don't gotta do nothing you don't wanna do or don't feel comfortable or safe doing, okay?"
"Also, as you can see, we like putting big Xs on things." Kane said. "I'll go get and get the room warmed up while you both change." He touched a button and the DR door slid open, revealing a large darkened area beyond. "Change rooms are over there." He motioned for Emily's sake, assuming Marie hadn't forgotten the way in the last 24 hours.
***
“Are you like Madonna?”
Emily stood in the middle of a large grey looking room, having quickly changed into what seemed like logo’d gym gear but she could tell it was made from different fibres then cotton and was certainly heavier. Rogue had led her back out and now they were apparently waiting for something because the man she’d met had been gone for a while.
“Um, I mean, Rogue is a great name and all, it’s just not a non-Madonna sort of name.”
Rogue laughed very hard. "The word you're looking for is mononym, and yeah, it's just the name I chose for myself long ago and still use all the time. If you stick around, you may wanna give yourself a cool nickname too, who knows." A ping came from her watch and she glanced down. "Oh, Gar's ready, so why don't we step out and see what he's got set up for us." It would be a surprise to both of them because she hadn't even had a chance to ask Garrison what they were planning on doing today. Actually, if she'd asked, he would have made up some crazy scenario and she'd have had to determine if it was real or not.
She gave a wave to the control room to let him know he could start and crossed her fingers it wouldn't be ridiculous.
"There is a much longer and more detailed explanation of this in the future, but right now, you're in the Danger Room. In shorthand, it can generate an artificial environment that you can safely interact with using your powers without concern about hurting yourself or others." Kane was in the control room, fingers dancing over the interface. "We'll start with something simple."
The grey walls disappeared and in seconds, they were standing on scrub land, with a massive red sandstone monolith towering over them, framed against an impossibly blue sky: Uluru.
Emily’s eyes widened in shock as she looked around with something akin to awe. She’d never seen a virtual reality as complex as this. She bent down and scooped a handful of red dirt into her hand, allowing it to trickle out between her fingers.
She wanted to touch everything, and ask a million questions. Like, how much electricity did this set up use, and what kind of video cards they were using for the graphics. Heck, what kind of engine were they using because this was insane. It’d put to shame all those farms crypto bros used for mining by far
“Mate….How? And um, what do you want me to do? Do I just, ah, walk around?”
"Pretty much! You can do whatever you want here, and it has no effect on the real world or in this space. " Rogue effortlessly picked up a random boulder, and threw it further than would appear possible when knowing the dimensions of the room.
"So if you just... let go, we can see what you can really do and I won't be hurt at all. I can also absorb ya if you want but I'd rather see it organically. "
Emily frowned, unsure if she should ‘let go’ but Sooraya had brought her here for a reason and her Mum and Dad had moved an entire hemisphere just to keep her safe. She could be brave, if just for a moment.
“Um, maybe stand a little way away?”
She stood, letting the last of the red dirt trickle through her fingers to the ground before she closed her eyes and ‘focused’
It was that place, not quite her stomach, and not quite her heart but somewhere in between, somewhere an intricate part of her but at the very same time, somewhere so far away it was like trying to touch a star. She could almost reach it, if she just stretched her fingers far enough.
"That's something." Kane said to himself, as he prodded the simulation a bit. As the wind picked up around her, he pushed the pressure a bit.
Emily could feel the room pushing against her, wind battering at her legs and arms. She wasn’t sure why they were doing that but she pushed deeper, trying to find that spark that had answered her just a few hours earlier.
It came, not with a whimper but the roar of a released cork, surging up from what felt like her stomach and slamming outward through her limbs, stretching toes and toenails into rock like claws that ripped through shoes and buried themselves deep into the floor to keep her rooted even as her fingers and hands hardened and became sharp, weighing down her arms so she bent slightly even as the rest of her body, still slathered in burn cream, seemed to ripple before settling back down.
Emily blinked her eyes open and looked down at her hands and feet now buried into the ground as the wind pushed at her.
“Um. I’m sorry about the shoes?”
Rogue waved a hand. "Don't sweat it." She kicked off her own shoes, and took off her socks as well. "See? Barefoot is just fine too. Now let's go, kiddo."
**
Up in the control booth, Garrison's phone was buzzing as a new text came through:
Oi, Gar - schedule says you're testing a newbie in the DR. No-one told me there was a new magic user coming.
Hey, I just got the heads up a little while ago. Just doing some basic stuff for now. Not really sure what the kid's specific deal is.
I'll be right there.
True enough, not two minutes had passed before there was a knock on the control room door. Amanda, when she was admitted, looked like she'd been running, or at least speed-walking. "Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but something pinged the wards. Not a threat, but a magical signature I didn't know. I checked the visitor's log and saw there was a kid and her mother here for eval." She spoke rapidly, eyes on the young red-head below in the room proper. "Can you ask her to do whatever it was she just did again?"
"We can try." Kane said, checking the feedback from the sensors. He once again hit the woman with a heavy wind gust, forcing her to push against it or be bowled over.
Emily’s grasp on whatever it was she was channeling was not strong and the renewed pressure of the wind had her panicked as she felt her grip loosen on the ground below.
She reached harder but it slipped through her fingers, the red encasing her fingers and feet bleeding away as her hair flashed into fire, seemingly reaching for what had worked till this point. She staggered and was blown back into Rogue as her claws disappeared.
Emily looked down and screamed as she saw a bright red rash and fingers seemingly twice the size they were meant to be where only sunburn had been before.
Rogue looked curiously at Emily, holding her gently. The impact hadn't budged her at all, but she was definitely more concerned about the rash. "Well that don't look good. Does it hurt?" She frowned and looked up to the control room. "We might need to get Jeannie in here, Gar. See if we can get a handle on this. I think we gotta stop for now until it's checked out."
"DR medical sensors aren't picking up an injury." Kane looked over at Amanda. "You better get down there." He toggled the comms back on. "Just sent a message to the medlab. Give Amanda a second to check the kid out while they pull a medical bag together."
The door banged slightly as Amanda practically bolted from the control room; only seconds later she was coming through the main door and heading to Emily. "Looks like an allergic reaction," she said as she looked over the girl; she'd spent enough time acting as the field medic for X-Force to know what she was looking at. "Emily, is it? Hi, 'm Amanda. Um, this is going to sound weird, but how long have you been doing magic?"
Emily had tried to relax back into Rogue’s hold and was currently shivering slightly as she looked from her fingers to the adults in the room.
“M-magic?”
"Yeah. I'm asking because that's what I do and when you were using your powers, I could feel some sort of magical energy coming off you." Amanda didn't want to interrogate the kid, especially not in this state... She glanced at Rogue. "Did Rogue explain her powers to you, Emily? There's a quick way we can figure this out without you having to do anything more."
“I don’t,” Emily looked back at Rogue with an uncertain glance. She hadn’t asked what she could do but if it would make all this go away faster, she was willing. “I didn’t ask but I guess if it’ll make things faster?”
"It can, but it'll definitely tire you out, sugar. Especially right now, so if you're fine with it, what I'll do is jus' touch you a little on your arm, and absorb your powers. I will do my best not to get your memories too, but sometimes, I can't. If what you got is powers based, I'll be able to use your powers, but if what Amanda says is right, well, I ain't no magic user, so I can't really do much wit hthat. I'll just have a whole lot energy that I'll have to burn out later on." She chuckled a bit. "if you're good to go..."
She looked around the room, and saw everyone nodding, so she stripped a glove and smiled down at Emily, still being braced by her. "Shouldn't feel more than a slight tug..."
And then the answer was obvious, very quickly. Rogue's hands started to itch, but not to the extent of Emily's. She could feel the power and the connection, but having absolutely no grasp on the intricacies of magic, there was nothing she could do. She snatched her hand away quickly and made a fce. "Yup, she's all yours Amanda.... this one is full of magic and I don't know how to handle that."
"Thanks, mate. All right, let's get you some medical advice, Emily, and then we'll have a nice long chat."
