"Normally we'd do this outside," The Leewit said, gesturing around the ruined apartment she'd chosen to practice in, "but until we get a good look around it's safer to do this indoors."
Harry nodded eager to learn and he could feel that Leewit was equally eager to teach him.
"Good, we'll start with something simple," she said. "Form a line and connect it to the can right there."
Harry gathered klatha, spinning a number of threads into a line and reached out for the can… and connected with the table. It was an old table, suffering burn marks from where one of the children who had stayed here had set a candle on it and fell asleep allowing the cable to burn to the base and almost start a fire.
"Wrong lesson, Harry," The Leewit said, but felt immensely pleased with what he'd done, sensing it through their link.
"What was that?" the young wizard asked, confused.
"That was you reading the history of an object," she explained. "It's a useful gift and lets you figure out all sorts of things but isn't what we're practicing right now."
Harry nodded and pulled back on the line, causing the table to screech against the floor as it was pulled towards him.
"And that's why we use small objects to start with," The Leewit said with a grin, "cause most people end up smacking themselves in the face with them at least once."
"Maybe I should start with a pillow," Harry suggested.
"All the ones I've seen are dirty and mold covered," she replied, "which is why I chose a can."
Harry nodded; he'd much rather smack himself in the face with an empty soda can than a pillow that had mushrooms growing on it.
"Alright, now you have to detach the line from the table, and throw it at the can, since it's a bit away from your body it's a bit harder to control until you get the hang of it," she explained.
Harry felt the line and the end came loose from the table with scarcely a thought. Aiming carefully, he flung the line at the can smacking it in the side and sending it flying across the room with a woosh.
"Good aim," The Leewit told him calling the can back with a gesture so he could try again. "Now, try it again, but this time think of your line made of something light, too light to knock the can over."
"Shouldn't you explain all this to me before I try it, so I don't break things?" he asked.
"But then learning to move things would be boring and you wouldn't discover you could do things like read an object's history," The Leewit told him. "Discovering new abilities and ways to do things is half the fun… the other half is breaking things!"
Harry couldn't help but laugh at the glee in her heart as she said that. Whatever else could be said about learning from the little blonde witch, boring would not be one of them.
"Has anyone ever tried two lines?" he asked eagerly.
The Leewit's eyes lit up. "I don't think they have."
5 minutes later
"Why the roof?" Harry asked, as the soot-stained pair stepped out onto what was once a rooftop garden, weathered and broken planters empty of plants spilling dirt onto the roof.
"Cause a fire up here is a lot easier to put out," The Leewit replied with a grin. "Also, we can get a better view of the area."
"Hadn't thought of that," Harry admitted, walking to the edge of the roof to see if there was anything interesting to look at from it.
"No people, couple of giant scorpions wandering about," The Leewit noted. "Looks safe enough to wander around as long as we keep an eye out."
"Also, a bunch of crows," Harry pointed out, gesturing to the rooftops.
"Them too," The Leewit agreed before turning back to Harry. "Now, let's blow some stuff up!"
0o0o0o0o0o
Justin leaned forward in his chair, eyes glued to the bank of monitors in front of him as he watched a pair of pre-teens demonstrate several psychic abilities that sometimes proved destructive, though whether that was accidental or the purpose of their exercise he was unsure.
He tapped a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him, wanting clear audio and a closer look at what was going on.
0o0o0o0o0o
"So, two separate threads on the same object is what causes them to explode," The Leewit said curiously.
"Only when you try to move it with both of them at once," Harry said. "If you aren't using both lines to do it, it just moves like normal."
The Leewit nodded and bit her lip before gesturing at a rusted watering can that exploded with a burst of flame and a deafening crack.
Harry laughed as the young witch grinned and looked around for another suitable target.
"I don't know why no one has thought of this before," The Leewit said, as she levitated a small plastic shovel off the edge of the roof before causing it to explode into a fireball three feet wide.
"They probably have," Harry said, "but since it's destructive they just haven't shared it with everyone."
"Adults can be so boring," she said, shaking her head. "Okay, back to practice! I want you to levitate some junk… and then blow it up!"
"As you command!" he said cheerfully, gesturing as he tossed a line at a broken flowerpot and missed, hitting a clump of dirt. "My aim needs work," he said, releasing it to try again.
"There's a trick to it," The Leewit said cheerfully.
"Which you aren't going to tell me," Harry said, trying and failing to pout as he sensed her amusement and couldn't help but smile.
"Let me rephrase that," she said, "there are a lot of tricks to it."
Harry tilted his head and looked at her, getting a glimpse of the shape of her thoughts. "And there will be even more when I come up with some?"
"Exactly," she agreed, "it's another reason not to tell you too much, cause then you wouldn't come up with new ways that only you know… well, and me of course."
Harry grinned and prepared to throw his line out again before pausing and thinking about what he was doing. Since they were experimenting why do everything the same way?
The Leewit watched while Harry created dozens of threads, but rather than spin them into a line he flung them in the direction of his target, and spun a line around the one that connected to the target.
"That's like what I do, but faster," she said, "of course it takes more power, but you have it to spare."
He grinned and flicked his hand… causing the target to lift up and shred itself into a dozen chunks, much to his shock.
"Not what we were going for, but handy for cooking," The Leewit decided, copying what he'd done and shredding a pot. "Man, you come up with some destructive techniques!"
"The threads weren't tight enough," he decided. "The threads were close together, but not really a line, so it was like pushing something through a cheese grater."
A couple of crows landed quietly on the rooftop entrance, staring at the pair.
"Okay, try again, but this time use a dirt clod," she suggested.
Harry nodded and sent a couple dozen threads where he wanted them before carefully spinning them into a line around the thread that had hit its target. He gestured and there was a crack as the dirt clod vanished. "What?"
The Leewit stared up at the sky, shading her eyes with a hand. "You may have reached orbit with that one. Try again but put less oomph into it."
"Glad I didn't try that indoors," Harry said wide eyed.
"It'd make a bit of a mess," The Leewit agreed cheerfully.
Harry nodded and tried again, this time flinging the dirt clod at something less than the speed of sound, if not by much.
"Try keeping the line connected like a tether," she suggested.
Harry nodded, and this time the object was flung up into the air only to snap back and pulverize itself against the roof.
"You're getting better at it," The Leewit said, trying to encourage him as she felt his disappointment. "Trust me, I broke a lot more stuff before even reaching the level of control you've got now."
"And breaking things is half the fun," he said with a grin, happy that she wasn't disappointed in him.
"Exactly," she agreed with a grin. "Make noise, break things, have fun!"
0o0o0o0o0o
Justin examined the two closely, neither was dressed the way he was used to seeing outsiders dressed and he couldn't place their accent, that was enough reason to have them brought in for interrogation even ignoring the psychic powers they were demonstrating.
"Something interesting topside?" Clayton asked as he entered the monitor-room, its many banks of monitors showing various scenes of the wasteland above.
Justin leaned back in his chair and stroked his mustache. "Spying on me?" the older gray-haired man asked suspiciously.
Clayton chuckled. "No, I'm just about to go to lunch and was going to ask you to join me so I could discuss the latest synth models I've been working on when I noticed how engrossed you are in the monitors."
Justin tilted his head and regarded the younger blond man for a moment before nodding, accepting his explanation. "I've got two young outsiders with strong psychic gifts, but their accent and manner of dress are strange."
Clayton leaned forward and watched as the two children caused several explosions and a fair amount of destruction. "Maybe we overlooked a vault?"
"Maybe," Justin said. "We can ask them once we've brought them in."
"I'd suggest a soft sell," Clayton said as they watched the two children compete to see who could create the largest explosion.
"Soft sell?" Justin asked with a frown.
"Send a couple of female synths to collect them because it's too dangerous up there," he explained.
"That could work," Justin said thoughtfully. "Of course the nearest molecular relay is miles away, so it'll take some time."
"Good, then you can have lunch with me and discuss my latest project!"
"Is this about the gorillas?" Justin asked warily.
"Only in part," Clayton promised. "I was considering incorporating gorilla physiology in a new model of courser."
Justin typed a few sentences and hit enter before getting up. "Alright, you've got my attention."
0o0o0o0o0o0o
Harry turned around, looking for something else to 'practice' with and paused as he saw a pair of crows staring at him with completely black eyes.
Feeling Harry's surprise, The Leewit turned and saw what he was looking at. She easily tagged both birds with a line of klatha and was surprised to find that they were as much machine as bird.
"Shouldn't they have flown off?" Harry asked. "I mean, most birds fly away when there's a loud noise or explosion."
"Not these ones," The Leewit replied, sending him what she could sense about them, "they look like they've been trained."
"So, there's probably actual people around somewhere," Harry said, catching on that she didn't want him to say anything about the birds being half robot.
"Looks like it," she agreed, pleased with his response. "It's getting kinda late, let's go eat. We can look for their trainer tomorrow."
"Okay," he agreed, his stomach growling a second later, making him blush.
"You should have told me you were hungry," she scolded him as she grabbed his hand and dragged him inside.
Feeling the concern behind her words he simply followed along. "Inconsiderate and unthinking," he suggested cheerfully as she complained about his lack of care for himself.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
B2-50 turned to B2-51 and straightened her institute issued grey and white jumper. "Their assumption that they are simply trained birds should make acquiring them easier, it provides an excuse for knowing where they are and should help lower their guard."
B2-51 nodded, the synth looking to all the world as a young woman with short dark hair and slightly pale skin in her early twenties, a perfect mirror of B2-50. "If we take up residence in the building for the night they can 'discover' us in the morning, allowing them to make contact with us so they feel more secure in our presence."
"I'll retrieve weapons while you get the expedition supplies," B2-50 ordered.
"Is there anything special we'll need?" B2-51 asked.
"They are young, rock candy should be sufficient enticement to go with us," she said thoughtfully, "we'll also need a full med kit with extra RadAway in case their abilities are a result of radiation."
"What names should we use?"
"Names…" B2-50's voice tailed off as she considered the question. "Sally and Linda," she decided. "I'll be Sally."
"If we are playing twins shouldn't we use similar names?" Linda asked.
"No," Sally said firmly, "naming twins almost the same thing is a horrible idea causing additional confusion and stunting ego development."
"It's a common human practice," Linda pointed out.
"Here at the Institute we do not mindlessly repeat humanity's past mistakes," Sally said proudly.
"Yeah," Linda agreed, "we make all new ones!"
"Yeah-" Sally cut herself off and glared at her 'twin'. "Just go get the supplies."
Typing by: fyrewolf5
TN: 'Linda's' not wrong about that, and yet they're still trying to lure children with candy, totally not something that a kid would find creepy/concerning, although I suppose in the Fallout world kids may be naive enough that it works for them on occasion.