Santana stared at the pile of apple mush and broken wood from the crate that Charlie had accidentally destroyed. She licks her lips and turns to look at Charlie, who didn't seem particularly perturbed by the fact that she had destroyed another makeshift table and the last of their apples. They had gone through five bags and Charlie didn't seem to be picking it up, and each time the amount of magic that swirled around Charlie was immense at least compared to the task that she was given. It had been the right choice to move this to an abandoned warehouse. "I was certain that I said push, not smash." Santana stressed as she kicked a piece of wood that was covered in apple chunks.
Today had once again been an abysmal failure, and they were running out of time. She hadn't expected the other magic-touched to turn against Charlie like they had, but most of them felt like she was to much of a danger. Which was bullshit, Charlie rarely used magic to begin with. The problem was when she chose to use it. She didn't have any idea of how much magic was to much magic. Even for little tasks like moving a stupid apple across the room, Charlie seemed to draw an immense amount of magic.
"No one asked me to push an apple before Santana," Charlie muttered sullenly. They'd been doing this for hours and she wasn't going to get the treat Santana had promised her if she could do it.
"Well what did they ask you to do Charlie?" Santana said letting the frustration into her voice, it didn't seem to scare Charlie off this time, and she sighs. "Do we have to go through all the fruits before you get this? I didn't think it'd take this long, you pick things up incredibly fast."
"I hunted magic-touched and destroyed them," Charlie answered after a moment's pause. "That's what I'm supposed to do, not push apples."
Santana shivered, she had suspected that the Templar had plans to use her for something nefarious, but this was something else entirely. She had been built to be a killing machine, to hurt people. "You're going to need to give me more to work on than that Charlie."
"I was put in simulations, they had me hunt down magic-touched that were hurting people, it was mostly monsters, but there were a few times when they had me go after people who looked normal. If I hurt too many civilians I got shocked. If I didn't find the magic-touched fast enough I got shocked. If I messed up—"
"You got shocked," Santana surmised shaking her head.
"And no dinner," Charlie added, making a face at this fact.
That part made sense, considering how thin Charlie had been when she had first arrived and how she treated the most simple of foods as if they were high-class meals, all of it made sense. It was troubling that Charlie seemed to find that more offensive then being shocked for mistakes made. "How often were you shocked."
Charlie shrugged, "I always did something wrong, sometimes it was once a day, sometimes if I was really good they wouldn't shock me. But there were days when I messed up a lot and they had me do it again and again till I got it right."
It was said in such a matter of fact tone, like it was just a fact that it actually made her heart hurt. How wasn't she foaming at the mouth ready to kill every Templar out there? How could she see them as good? "I'm not going to shock you, I'm not going to torture you but you need to get this right Charlie. So let's try something else. What do you feel when you use magic?" As far as she could tell Charlie had no point of reference when it came to using magic, and she had been rewarded for using massive amounts of magic for small tasks. "I let the magic build in my body it's like this heat, I feel warm." It was difficult to describe and she knew everyone felt magic differently. "When you were trying to track Mike, and were holding the magic and letting it grow, how did you feel?"
Charlie shrugged, she had never really thought about it. "I don't know, I was annoyed. I'd never seen magic like that."
"It's spatial magic, everyone has a type of magic that they are good at. I can't do what Mike or Brittany do, and in the same vein they can't heal like I can. There are people who can summon things—" Santana began, maybe she should have started with this and then they could find what Charlie was good at.
"Like this?" Charlie asks turning her over hand over, a silver gun appearing in her hand. She looks up at Santana with a pleased smile on her face.
Santana stared at the gun and then looked up at Charlie, who was pointing the gun at her. "Fucking hell Charlie," she said moving out of the line of fire, and moving to take the gun. "You never point a gun at someone unless you want to kill them. This is like basic gun safety." Santana paused and looked at the weapon, it was definitely Templar made, she'd recognize the silver weapons anywhere. What she hadn't expected was the magic that pulsated from the weapon. She'd always suspected that the Templars were hypocrites but this was actual proof. She flicks her eyes to Charlie for a moment, she had barely felt any magic when Charlie had made the summon. "Hold up—you can summon?"
Charlie shrugged, rubbing her eyebrow. "They wanted me to learn so I did. You can't fire a gun in a crowd though so I had to learn other ways to fight." Charlie said moving her hand again and a combat knife appeared in her hand. She shows it to Santana before it disappears.
Santana looked around for a moment spotting some empty beer bottles and cans. Mike had made a comment about her movements, and how smooth they had been as she had chased him, she had some agility, even though it didn't look like it. She lines up the bottles on another wooden crate, before moving towards Charlie and handing back the gun. "So you know how to use it?" When Charlie nods she points at the bottles and offers her the gun. "Show me."
Charlie took it and immediately turned and with precision took out all the glasses and cans that she had lined up. She finishes and offers the weapon to Santana. "Can we go home now?"
Santana looks at the shattered glass for a moment and then back at Charlie, "In a moment, can you something else—an apple?" Santana blinked as an apple appears in Charlie's hand. Once again she had barely felt any magic. "When we first met, you weren't summoning anything were you? And when you were trying to stop Mike? What exactly were you trying to do? Show me, using the crate."
Charlie made a face as she turned and flicks her wrist, as she tries to focus on just the crate. The wood immediately splinters, and she winces as cracks begin to form rapidly grow on the ground, but this time the ground break apart like it did the last time she used her magic. She frowns, "I could have killed Mike," she said finally, frowning at the cracked concrete.
Santana turned to look at the splintered ground for a moment and then back at Charlie, before looking at the box once more. They had done more than enough today, and Charlie had just shown her something that she needed to think about. "Alright, we can go home now. But let's stop for pizza on the way so we have something to eat for dinner."
A giant smile crossed Charlie's face, "Okay."
"What do you mean she's versatile, Santana? You don't have more than one basic ability. If you can summon that's basically all you can do. If you heal that's practically all you can do, sure we can dabble in other fields but we'll never be as good as someone who was born with the talent to do that."
Santana paused and looked up at ceiling of her bar, Charlie was upstairs in the apartment asleep. She had called both Brittany and Mike to talk to them about what she had found out. "I know, you think I don't this. It's not like any of us checked what her magic was. I mean we just found out that Charlie can't sense other people's magic. I don't know I didn't notice it sooner, Charlie was never exposed to foreign magic throughout her development. I thought she reacted when I first healed her because I used magic, but it might just have been because I touched her foot."
Brittany bit her lip, "That doesn't explain why she can use two different types of magic, that as far as we can tell aren't related to one another. She can't have multiple talents in different branches of magic. It doesn't work like that."
"It makes sense." Mike shrugged his shoulders, as he studied the weapon that Charlie had summoned earlier that day.
"Mike, you need to say what you're thinking," Brittany reminded him with a gentle nudge.
"From everything you've relayed the Templars wanted a weapon that they could control. If I was creating a human weapon, I'd want them to be versatile. Her not being able to sense magic, is an oversight born of ignorance. They don't know that we can do this, so they never bothered to teach it to her. Their oversight is our salvation if you think about it. If Charlie could sniff out magic then the Templars would have an unstoppable weapon against the magic-touched."
Brittany frowned, "So you think we shouldn't teach her how to sniff us out?"
"I think it's far too late for her to learn. Other magic feels foreign, it's different than what we use so we know what to look for. You learn from your family, you notice it when other people use it. You develop the sight for it, throughout your life. Some people are better than others at it, like anything in life. Charlie's in her twenties, maybe if she was an actual child she would pick it up and develop it on her own, but now?"
"She's still loyal to the Templars, at least in theory. I don't think she wants to leave this place, she's made it into a home. Still teaching her to hunt us is a terrible idea, even if it could be done," Santana murmured. "You touched her, didn't you get a read off her?"
"Not a proper one," Brittany said with a sigh, "She panicked and at that moment that's all I felt, that with a bunch of colors. It was only for a moment. She doesn't like being touched."
"No shit, so what do we do about it. She needs to learn to control her second talent, and we need to know if she has anymore that she's not showing us." Santana groaned, her life had used to be simple. But this wasn't Charlie's fault this was the Templars, what other horrid shit had they done to her. She suspected that they were just scratching the tip of the iceberg but Charlie wasn't big on sharing her life unless directly asked and she didn't want to imagine the horrid shit that they did to her.
"Give me a week, I'll figure it out," Mike said with another shrug. It had taken her that long to learn how to cook, it would probably take her a solid week for him to figure out Charlie's magic and teach her to control it. "We had people to teach us magic, she had the Templars. And she learned from the templars plus I think she likes me best."
Brittany exchanged a look with Santana for a moment, "This isn't a game Mike—"
"No but it should be, you explained the simulations she went through, how she learned, and how she learned quickly. Besides if she can summon, it's more in line with my magic than any of yours," Mike explained.
"A week?" Santana mused she had spent the past two days attempting to teach Charlie and nothing had stuck, but Mike seemed sure of himself, "Fine but I'm not paying you, I'll have to bring Marissa in—" Santana groaned.
Brittany huffed, "Don't be cheap Santana, this needs to get done. Charlie's a ticking time bomb and we need to diffuse it carefully. Also, I think he should get hazard pay as well."
"Charlie isn't going to hurt me," Mike insisted looking at Brittany who huffed. He shook his head and looked at Santana. "I mean she doesn't even get angry, not really—frustrated and irritated but never angry."
"They probably shocked that out of her system as well," Santana groaned. "Fine, I'll pay you for the week like normal but we need to figure out Charlie's talents quickly."
