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Lorna stood outside, attempting her training alone. Even if her father wasn't around, which seemed to have been an ongoing thing, Lorna still drove out to Westchester to work on her powers. Yes, she trained at the Frost Institute, but there was something calming about the country and being outside in the open air without worry that someone in the city might see her. Much less that she might accidentally destroy something if she wasn't careful.
The lack of metal all around also did wonders for her concentration, far enough away from the house, she didn't have to worry about knocking out otherwise important things like structural supports or anything.
Crystal had reassured her that her father went off to handle things all the time, that he'd be back and not to worry. Even then, Lorna itched at the concept of 'not worrying'.
A sigh dragged from her lips as she swatted her hair back from her face, green hair tied up in a pony tail that still whipped back into her face with the wind. Sweatpants and a spring jacket completed her workout clothes, and Lorna balanced a multitude of metal objects in the air above her. She was clearly attempting to shove the metal parts together to form something, but what exactly wasn't clear (other than a rather nasty tangle of metal rebar and scraps).
*
The sky overhead is a deep grey, the sort of color sometimes seen in unfinished steel and cold sidewalks. The clouds overhead are large and fluffy, unlikely to spill their moisture or do more than provide a foreboding backdrop for the coming scene. Still, it is peaceful, save for the whisper of the wind… And an imposing figure slowly approaching.
Erik arrives today in all of his finery, cape fluttering behind him, helmet tucked into the crook of his arm like a symbol of his authority. He says nothing as he approaches from behind Lorna and then slowly lowers to alight upon the grass. The silence continues while he watches as she works, trying to decipher the puzzle of what she is doing. Rather than simply focus on upon her work Erik is following the fluctuations of the magnetic fields within.
Finally the man speaks in his soft, resonant voice, utterly familiar even after more than a month apart. "Lorna, what are you making here?" There is no criticism. Curiosity, really. Even so there is not a lot of warmth to his voice. The man approaches slowly. Long, purposeful strides. He is still a few meters off at this juncture, boots digging into the turf beneath his feet.
*
Lorna, for her part, still struggled with the finer aspects of control. Concentration being a major issue for the younger magnokinetic. Usually, she had the ability to pick up on the natural magnetism that was her father, however this time, she missed it entirely. Even as he considered her own clumsy attempts at manipulating metal, she plowed on.
Yet as her father addressed her, she turned, losing control of the scrap metal ball. It dropped abruptly to the ground, falling with a loud thump into the grass and leaving a faint impact behind.
A smile burst out on her lips as she spotted her father and promptly spun on her heels. "Tata!" She made to throw her arms around him, for a tight embrace. Her disposition sunnier than the overcast clouds above.
After a moment or two she'd lean back, a flush crossing her cheeks as she glanced back over her shoulder and back. "I don't.. uhm, to be honest I was just frustrated and trying to train and it just didn't work. So I kinda just crushed it and yeah.." She bit her lower lip.
"Where have you been?"
*
"Coreczka," Erik responds to the greeting. He hesitates a half second before returning the embrace strongly, arms around Lorna's slender shoulders. Erik lifts her from the ground for a second before allowing her to alight upon the grass once more. "We can discuss what I was doing while we work. This is- clumsy. You need to focus more on the small changes. Small changes become large ones. You're taking the entire beam at once and-"
As Erik speaks the rebar tangle is already untangling itself, beams being reformed and set to right in the manner that corresponds with how he thinks this mess originally looked. Metal moves like liquid when it is pulled apart at a molecular level and then reformed. "We'll try again. Focus on making something small. I've been in Poland, Lorna. Seeking justice against the people who wronged us most. There is not a lot to say… It was a successful trip, truthfully."
The metal is now in he grass once more, inert. Erik releases Lorna and takes a step back, folding his hands behind himself. He waits.
*
Lorna's smile wanes only as her father starts to lecture her on her training, as per usual. A roll of her eyes and a huff of a breath follow as she watched him detangle the metallic mess she had made. While she bit back the urge to complain, she was also watching closely how he manipulated the rebar and scrap metal sheets back into their proper sizes and shapes.
As Erik spoke of Poland, however, her brows furrowed and her smile dropped completely. "Wait, what? But why? Why now? I mean, I get the why.. I guess. But I just don't understand why you were gone for a month and you took your armor and everything too and .." She trailed off, brows furrowed, as her gaze fell to the metal and her father's waiting look.
Another huff, as she pouted slightly. "I can't do that, tata. It's too hard. I can't .. I can't do things like that yet."
*
"And that is precisely why I want you to try, Lorna. I don't expect you to master it today… But you will master it. You have the potential to be as great as I am. We just need to harness your strengths." Erik takes a deep breath now, looking down to study Lorna's with his inscrutable blue-eyed gaze. His expression is severe, as always, but not disapproving. Simply… stoic.
"Now? Because I had a lead and needed to follow it before the rats went back to ground. And yes, I took my armor and all of my things. As I said, Lorna. Train while we talk. I will help guide you." Not physically, obviously. Eric still hasn't moved other than to speak.
"I found a nascent facility deep in the mountains of Poland near the Rysy on the edge of Slovakia. A group of men sought to revive the Third Reich with their research. I made sure that would no longer be a problem." For a second Erik's expression darkens and his brows furrow faintly. "It doesn't matter any longer, Lorna. Let us focus on what is in front of us today and you can tell me about what has happened while I've been gone."
*
A grumble followed as Lorna stretched out her arms and leveled her hands in the direction of the metal chunks. She'd gotten better with her powers, that much was obvious as she lifted up the scraps into the air. The metal flattened, and screeched as she tried to mimic her father's manipulation and in the end, tore up steel and iron pieces. A frustrated sound escaped her as she darted a glance toward her father and back, metal pieces wobbling in the air.
"See? I told you." She mumbled, heat crossing her cheeks as he asked after what had happened in her life.
Metal twisted and crumbled as it was bent beyond the capabilities of metal itself. Her distraction and emotions tangling up the iron rebar just as badly as it had been before, "Nothing much happened. Hung out with Tommy and Billy some."
*
"Training is not about what you can do now. If you could already do this then we wouldn't be focusing on it. It is about what you will be able to do. Try this, corka." Erik reaches out to take Lorna's left hand into his own, gently. "We're going to do this together. I want you to mimic my motions. Instead of twisting try… Pushing. Gently. Nudges. You can move every molecule if you focus. You don't need to tear at the entire beam at once."
Erik starts with small manipulations, enough so that anyone other than himself or Lorna would probably be unable to tell he is making a change. "Again." He takes a long, deep breath. "Slowly."
*
An argument rose on her lips as he tried to soothe her fragile ego on her abilities, but it died as he took up her hand in his own. A sigh followed as Lorna relented to trying again. Her frazzled emotions settling enough that her focus grew steadier as her father's magnetic manipulations followed a path that she could sense. It was hard, and she struggled to understand everything he did, but for the most part she was able to follow.
A crease in her brow followed, her other hand lifting to mimic her father's manipulations, as she slowed her breathing.
Still it quickly became obvious that the young woman's control was simply not on the same level as of yet to mimic him completely, not yet at least. This time the metal didn't screech and rupture, but neither did it separate on the molecular level that her father was able to work with.
She broke off her manipulation after she realized what was going to happen with her failed attempt, letting her hand fall back to her side with a grumble. She averted her gaze, kicking at the softened ground below her boot. "It's like I can only partly see what you're doing because if I blink I miss something and I can't get it. Like.. like I know what you're doing but I can't get the little parts to get the same results. It's like math or something." She wrinkled her nose.
*
"It is exactly like math, in fact," Erik responds wryly, gently squeezing Lorna's hand as they finish. "I've spent years studying how molecules bond and when they break. How they are twisted… Or split apart. It would do you a lot of good to do the same." He shakes his head then and finally offers the barest hint of a smile. "You're improving tremendously. It took me a decade to get as far as you have in the last year."
Finally Erik releases Lorna's hand and nods slowly. "You should try closing your eyes. You don't need to see what is going on… Just feel it. And I have a few books you should read, I think." He steps away from her now and moves toward fallen pieces of metal. The helmet floats along behind him. "Though, I did wonder. What aren't you telling me about the last month or so?"
*
"Yeah, well, it is only my freshman year. And I kinda sorta have missed like half the Spring Semester." She mumbled as he released her hand, her nose wrinkling as she swept her hands over the metal bits and piled them up nice and neatly on the ground. No excuse to leave her training metals a scattered mess on the ground after all.
Still, she made to trail after her father, stepping carefully over the damp and thawing grass that had grown in fresh and green as her hair in the past few weeks. The fact that her hair wasn't it's dyed brown again was new (ish). Lorna having only let the dye run out on it before when the city had been under attack. Yet now it seemed she had chosen it of her own volition.
As he spoke about what she hadn't said, running around the city with Raven for a brief stint, getting kidnapped by Mojo, likely having her image scattered over the universe on television.. almost being killed multiple times. Julian trying take her on dates and blowing up a club.. She winced, her cheeks heating.
"It's nothing. I mean, it's handled. And taken care of. Everything is fine. I'm fine. I spent some time with Wanda, and Pietro and Tommy and Billy. Pietro found a bomb and replaced everything that would've caused damage with glitter. So it rained down on Doctor Strange and Wanda's home with glitter." She bit her lower lip, her green eyes held low.
*
"Enough excuses. You haven't learned yet so I will teach you." Erik frowns then, crossing his arms as he turns to survey the wreckage. "You can at least put the beams back to the state they started in instead of leaving them strewn across the yard like rubble."
Erik is staring intensely at the pieces of metal, which twitch and shudder in response to his will. He is like a stalking panther, coiled and ready to strike, his will narrowly restrained. "Everything is taken care of. So something did happen. Including… A bomb." his tone is deceptively soft, even calm.
"Lorna." There's a bit of threat entering into the man's voice. It is not, however, directed at her. It is a threat more rightly directed at anyone and everyone who might have intended his family harm while he was away. "Do you know who planted that explosive device?"
*
Lorna bit her lower lip, a wince and rise of her shoulders following as Erik frowned her way and eyed the metal wreckage. But she mutedly moved to put everything back in order as best as she was able, even as the metal twitched and shuddered under her father's gaze. A shrug followed as her father questioned her and she waved her hands over the metal, focusing rather intently on it rather than her father.
"I dunno, Pietro found it. He said he found it in a cafe, and made sure nothing happened." She chewed her lower lip, her cheeks heating as she kept her gaze low. Wanda had warned her repeatedly not to inform their father about what happened with Mojo or Julian. Boys and inter-dimensional slugs. Go figure.
She rubbed the back of her neck, sneaking a glance his way briefly. "I mean, it was fine. Pietro is like ten times faster than a bomb anyways. Everyone is fine."
*
"It isn't enough to disable a bomb, Lorna. You can't let someone have that level of power over you." As Lorna sneaks a glance at Erik and he takes the moment to capture her green-eyed gaze. The man turns toward her and takes a deep breath. That scowl has deepened slightly, his severe features lending themselves well to a dark countenance.
"If you aren't going to answer me I will go find answers on my own," Erik announces then. He is already beginning to lift from the ground as he does. "I can tell that more happened the last few weeks than Pietro messing around with a bomb he found in some cafe. I presume it wasn't' the Friends of Humanity this time, because you would tell me. Did Raven try something foolish?" The metal Erik made Lorna so carefully straighten out is levitating, undamaged, as if it intends to follow him to his next destination.
*
A wince and Lorna crosses her arms, her expression pinched in distress. "Tata, please. I-I'm sorry. I just, it.. I'm sorry. Please don't," Her voice rose in pitch equal to Erik's lifting off the ground. A hitch followed as she pushed her hair back, "Can we go inside? Please, tata? Please?"
A sniffle followed as she blinked back a prickling of tears that threatened to build in her eyes and she turned her gaze low to the ground, kicking at the grass.
"It wasn't Raven. I haven't seen her again. I haven't been going to Mutant Town at all lately, stuff.. a lot of stuff happened." She mumbled, her cheeks turning hot and she rubbed at her eyes with a fist.
*
Erik takes a deep breath. The ground ceases to shudder and the groan of metal being lifted from the ground ends at once. It all settles very gently into the grass and then he is taking a deep breath. Erik closes his eyes for a second.
"Very well. Let's go inside," he whispers in a voice that is at once calm and yet still edged in iron and restrained violence. He is still facing away from Lorna for the moment, silently standing in front of her. "This is important, Lorna. You can't keep secrets from me. I can't keep you safe- any of us safe- if I don't know what is going on. Please. For now, let's go in and you can tell me why you're so upset. Why you feel the need to lie. It's alright, corka. I promise."
Then Erik turns and offers Lorna his right hand as a peace offering. He watches intently and, once again… Waits.
*
Lorna seemed to relax as her father levitated back to the ground, her expression pinched as she squirmed under his gaze. She had kept a multitude of secrets from him, not out of any particular desire to do so, but mostly as time had never permitted her to tell him. So his words about telling him what had occurred? It stuck home and guilt colored those green eyes of hers as she batted away tears.
Still, as he turned and offered her his hand, she hurried over. Both of her hands clamping tightly onto his arm as she pressed close against his side. "I'm sorry, tata." She mumbled.
To be Continued..