((Shortly following the events described here))

Not good. Not good at all. So. Very. Not. Good.
...
Someone might have said that the sh*t just hit the fans around the X-Mansion. Big time.

Because fighting bad guys and evil mutant-hating fanatics was one thing.
The leader of the X-men was another.
Even though she had been training with him for years, the thought of confronting some kind of a brain-washed Cold Steel sent chills down Maya's spine.
And she didn't even appreciate the pun. That's how serious this was.

"Come on, pick up pick up pick up...." she drummed her fingers on the office desk. Ring, ring. Slate was bound to answer something. Phone, cellphone, X-communicator. Technically, he was on the team. And he was really, really badly needed. As in, right now.

((ooc: Sorry for the long delay! Got sick after le LARP weekend. >.>))

Slate had a landline phone, listed in neat handwriting in his student registry at the Mansion. From when he was still a Mansion student, that was. This number connected to a white phone in a high end apartment overlooking Central Park. A small cloud of dust puffed up as it rang. He had not stepped foot in that apartment in over a year.

His X-Communicator was a vital tool for keeping in touch with teammates in dire situations. This was a fact he was respectful of: he kept the device safely stored in his team locker. In the Mansion's basement. Across from the X-Jet. It buzzed angrily atop his neatly folded uniform, before falling silent.

His primary contact device was, of course, his Crackberry Blackberry. While some of the students had his vocational school had begun to pick on the elderly device—it was nearly two years old now, after all—he remained loyal to the trusty device, which always resided in his pocket, next to a certain small black box. It would have been ideal for Maya's purposes, in fact, had its number been listed anywhere but the contacts list in Katrina's cellphone, and those of a half-dozen former Kabal and Mondragon Labs employees.

There remained only one last mode of communication.

>>> —Pick up pick up pick up...

What am I picking up? The telepath asked, pausing to blink as he stepped inside the Mansion's doors, and effectively back inside of his communication range with his fellow X-Man.

((No prob, I have been scarce too))

>>What am I picking up?

"GAH!" Maya threw the communicator across the office. Sudden intrusions into one's mind, although not unexpected on Mansion grounds, were still unsettling as **** when one was already wired up.

Apparently noting.

She frowned and picked up the communicator. She reminded herself that she should not take out the frustration on a teammate. Deep breaths.

Meet me at Cerebra. Ten minutes ago.

This should be interesting.

The girl on the other end of his brain sounded rather... there was a word for this. He had been practicing his colloquial phrasings. She was... frazzled. Strung out. In a tizzy, even.

I will be right down. Unless you wish me to find a time traveling mutant first; then I will be there ten minutes ago. He had been working on his humor, as well.

Cerebra was in the Mansion's basement, like most of the things which were generally excluded from the school's informational brochures. The Danger Room, the War Room, the Blackbird's hanger, the janitor's closet. Cerebra was located behind the hanger, in a room even more fortified than the rest of the basement's locations. It was behind several layers of security, and required proper access to approach. That, or creative use of mutant abilities, and improper supervision of minors.

Though Slate had since learned the name 'Cerebra', and its purpose, some part of him would forever call it by the name he had first associated it with.

The telepath stepped inside of the Evil Hat Room, and blinked inquiringly at the gender-shifter who awaited him there. It had sounded urgent: therefore, he had come directly down, and not first gone to his room. Therefore, he was still clad in the grungy clothes that he used in his automotive classes. There was a backpack over his shoulder, and a spot of grease on his cheek.

Hello, Maya, he greeted her cordially. "You called?"

>>I will be right down. Unless you wish me to find a time traveling mutant first; then I will be there ten minutes ago.

Maya hoped that the mental eye-roll echoed all the way down the line, before she mirror-hopped down to the basement to disable the security. She had clearance. Thank god. it would have been awkward to ask Sam, given the circumstances.

>>Hello, Maya, "You called?"

"Yes." she nodded to her teammate who she hoped was better at using his mutant power than at humor. "We have a situation."

Sooo action movie.

"First, you absolutely cannot tell about this to anyone. Not yet. The team will know soon enough."

Gotta give some extra warning to the mind-speaker.

"Sam has gone missing. Worse, I think he's gone rogue. There might... I am pretty sure there is some kind of mind-control involved. Also, we are missing three kids from the school who disappeared together with him. Chase - Miss T's son - Teddy, and Elke. We need to find all of them. As soon as possible."

She looked around in the ominous room of high tech science and mutant future.

"Do you know how to work this thing?"

The telepath's initial reaction was as eloquent as it was simple: he blinked.

Rogue. Sam had gone rogue, and taken Mansion children with him. Though he was not familiar with the listed codenames, it sounded like three young boys. Possibly a speedster, a venison shifter, and a—stuffed animal shifter? No, that was far too ludicrous of a power, even by the Mansion's standards. 'Teddy' was, possibly, just a normal nickname.

"Well," he stated matter-of-factly, "I suppose it was only a matter of time. Do not worry, I will treat this matter with the utmost of discretion."

For as long as discretion was necessary, or even possible. This was Sam; this was Sam, with three missing students. It wasn't just the Team who would find out soon enough—the entire Mansion would know before long.

"Yes, I have used it before," he said, inviting himself to sit in Cerebra's chair, in front of its ill-labeled control panel. Its use was quite simple, really: one pressed a few of those buttons over there until the lights over here flashed; that meant it was turned on. The buttons in the middle controlled the intensity of the headache it produced in the wearer. Also, the effective range it boosted the wearer's own telepathic abilities out to. He left the eldritch monstrosity of a hat hanging innocuously above his head for the moment; there were things he needed to know before they began.

"How long ago did Sam take them?" Slate asked. "What was their transportation—car? X-Jet?" Finally, and most importantly: "Am I searching bars first, or would he have taken them to a strip club?"

Slate had been practicing his humor lately, but this was no joke. Oh, Sam. How he had ended up in a leadership position, entrusted with the care of so many minors, Slate had never understood. It really had been a matter of time.

>>"Well. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Do not worry, I will treat this matter with the utmost of discretion."

If anything, that just made Maya worry even more. A creeping suspicion started to dawn on her as she watched Slate take a seat and look at the control panel.

>>"Yes, I have used it before. How long ago did Sam take them? What was their transportation—car? X-Jet? Am I searching bars first, or would he have taken them to a strip club?"

"A few hours. They took the X-jet to... wait, what?..."

Strip cl...

"No!" Maya ran both hands into her hair in frustration "No no no no, that's totally not what's happening!"

She never realized that there would be a time where she wished Sam would take three kids to a strip club, instead of the alternative. Ugh.

"Sam has kidnapped the kids. Not for a fun field trip either, if I am guessing correctly. He is... probably not himself right now. Is it possible for you to... detect if there is someone else in his head?... Nevermind. Just find them."

Blink. Blink.

"Kidnapped?" Slate repeated, somewhat bewildered. "Meaning, they left not only without the consent of their parental figures, but also against their own will? What are you basing this upon?"

He scanned his own mind hastily—the man's general disposition, his rather unorthodox leadership and teaching styles, his well-known-secret mini-fridge. All available evidence supported his own conclusion. From what source of information was Mirror drawing hers?

"I... believe I will be able to detect another mind, yes," he answered. "What do you know, Mirror? Where did he take them? Why have you not alerted the rest of the team, also?"

>>"Kidnapped? Meaning, they left not only without the consent of their parental figures, but also against their own will? What are you basing this upon?"

Leave it up to copy-Calley to define the concept of kidnapping. Maya sighed.

"That's exactly what I mean. We keep tabs on kids in the school, believe it or not. These three vanished the same time Sam did, and Miss T will skin me when she finds out."

>>"I... believe I will be able to detect another mind, yes. What do you know, Mirror? Where did he take them? Why have you not alerted the rest of the team, also?"

"If I knew where he took them I would be on my way." She folded her arms "I mean... sorry, I'm just really stressed. Sam... recently returned from a trip and he had no memories whatsoever or where he was or what he had been doing. He has... history with mutants who can do that to you. He made me promise I'd take care of whatever happened to him. And then he broke out of the infirmary. If he is... being controlled, and violent, he is more dangerous than any mutant I have ever met, including Aura. But he is still our leader. Once we find him, I can only take the most experienced members on the team to take him on. But I need to know exactly where he is, and who is in his head, to shut this down for good."

Slate did not actually believe that tabs were kept on the Mansion's children, no. Unless she meant only the younger ones? That would make sense—unlike the Mansion's somewhat transient population of teenagers and young adults, an small child disappearing was alarming. Still, Maya's proof of Sam's sudden turn to villainy was hardly conclusive. Three children had disappeared "at the same time" as Sam? She did not have anything more concrete than that; if she had, it would have been only logical that she would have offered it. There were no witnesses of Sam leaving with these children, no photographs, no mutant divining powers indicating so. There was only Mirror jumping to conclusions after Sam returned from a trip with holes in his memory. This did not sound like an atypical weekend for the X-Leader.

This all lead him to wonder: was Gawain always this prone to hysteria, or was it a facet unique to his Maya days?

"This," Slate said evenly, "is serious. I will do what I can to ascertain his exact location and mental state."

On most days, he found his general lack of facial expressions an inconvenience in social settings. At this particular moment, he was just as happy to be hard to read. Still, while his thoughts may not have shown on his face, a somewhat more telling statement may or may not have slipped out of his mind.

I am glad Katrina is not such a... girl.

He was undoubtedly the Mansion's premier expert on Cerebra. Being the only psychic to dust the thing off in years, he could not help being so: it was not a very high bar, when there was no competition for the title. Still, since moving into the Mansion, he had visited the machine a few times, and asked what members of the staff he could what they knew of its operation. From there, it was a matter of experimentation. He still did not know how the machine worked, anymore than he knew how the Danger Room did, but working it was a really a simple matter. All it did was boost a physic mutant's existing range; how far the boost went depended on the mutant's inherent strength, and the extent to which they wished to incur cranial bleeding. Like many things in the Mansion, the machine had not precisely child safe.

With no further irrational feminine prodding, Slate pushed at buttons and twisted dials until the machine was set to "Minimal Brain Damage." Then he slowly lowered the large metal cap onto his head.

Despite Mirror's assertions of far-flung X-Jet flights, he began his initial search locally. Manhattan. The city. The state. He found... a cockroach, trying on hats. Something in the sewers. A bird man, flying. A cat, eating something—what even--?

Rat in a sweater, Calley replied. Move along, Slate.

He did. There were more; mutants he knew and didn't, mutants who sensed his attentions, and those entirely oblivious to it. He did not know the three children well enough to search for them; it was Sam alone that he was trying to find. He reached out, and clicked a dial on the control panel one notch higher.

There was a unicorn in Wisconsin, but no Sam.

Another notch.

He found—

Katrina, in Colorado. If Maya was watching his face, she would see a smile tug at the corners of his lips as he updated their chess game; in the middle of her question on flight simulators, he visualized a white bishop moving to F5, and placed it in her mind. Your turn. Of course, he did not need any machine's help to contact Katrina; her mind, he could find anywhere in the—

—such strong arms—

...He broadened his narrow focus out, to include her tour guide. Her young, blonde tour guide, of above average stature and musculature. His visualization of the bishop hiccupped before it was complete; it only went to E4, rather than F5. This was a poor strategic move.

The boy experienced a minor, inexplicable feeling as if someone were frowning inside of his skull.

Slate moved on. Since he was already in Colorado, he might as well finish with the vicinity. This was not something he did because he was trying to keep one psychic eye on Katrina and her buzz cut young tour guide; this was simply because—

Because Sam was here. And so was someone else; that much was immediately apparent. Someone strong. The X-Leader's mind was... not as Slate had remembered it. It felt almost...

He pushed at it, and something intangible gave, but it was not simple mind control he found on the other side.

Slate was standing in the hallway of a house. A clock was ticking. Somewhere, he thought he heard the sound of a child laughing.

"...Sam?" The telepath called out hesitantly.

There was sunlight here, and something else. It felt almost... happy.

Continued from For the man that has everything

Sam walked down the main hallway of his own house slowly taking everything in as if it was the first time he never stopped and fully appreciated how great his life was now. Bo and Bruno trailed along both sides of him now as he promised them both he’d take them for a walk and while it wasn’t an actual promise, any mention of the word or any word sounding similar to ‘walk’ was as good as one with them. ”Well at least I can pretend that I’m shocked when I see them put the decorations up.” Sam said looking down to Bruno who looked back up at Sam with a drooling expression.

Turning a corner towards the door he heard Ayrin laugh in the distance running from her brother who was chasing her. Sam also heard his voice called by a voice he hadn’t heard in some time. ”….Slate?” Sam asked as he spotted someone he hadn’t seen in some time. Immediately his thoughts went to Kat and how he hadn’t seen either one in some time. ”Holy… Haven’t seen you in years!” Sam said as he grabbed Slate in a hug as both Bo and Bruno sniffed Slate and wagged their tails happily.

”How the hell did Alexandra convince you to come to the party?” Sam asked as he let Slate go from the hug and patted him on the back, ”Looking a lot younger than I remember, your kid and wife coming ah who am I kidding of course they are you never leave them alone for long! Haven’t seen Kat in ages!” Sam patted Slate on the back and then nodded to the door, ”about to go for a quick walk with the boys here, you up for it or you want to say ‘Hello’ to everyone first?” Sam asked his face glowing with joy. ”Man, I wonder who else she got to come. Man I’m actually looking forward to this shindig now!” It had been a few years since he had seen everyone together and now this was all he could think about.

The telepath stood awkwardly as the taller, distinctly more muscular man embraced him with decided emotion. He was not entirely certain that his feet remained on the ground during the encounter. He did notice he had trouble staying on them when the man released him, and subsequently patted his back.

"...Party?" The young Italian asked dumbly.

The X-Leader's words kept coming, in a jubilant rush. Alexandra (Circe? ...The woman who had once blown his arm off?) Katrina (and their child?) A walk with the boys (the boys were dogs).

Slate blinked. Before he knew it, he was out the door and standing in a sunlight day. A well kept yard stretched out before him; there were other houses in sight, but none very close. Sam did not put his dogs on leashes. This was nothing new. Despite New York City law and general dog owner etiquette, the ice elemental persisted in—

It was the familiarity of the criticism that made him realize just how unfamiliar the rest of this was. For a moment, he had been enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on the skin; for a moment, he had almost remembered Katrina and their child. Surely they would be back in that house, if he only turned around.

...Surely this was a very powerful psychic he was up against.

"Sam," the telepath stated, holding out a hand to the man's chest to stop any forward progress on this inconsequential walk of nonexistent dogs. "Something has happened. Mirror believes you are being mind controlled; I..." A dog came running back, barking at the bipeds to hurry. "...Have just confirmed this."

Luke and Raina, Sara, Neena, Abyss, Ghost the list continued on he was sure they would come if Alexandra asked them, it had been far too long since he had seen most of them. Luke and Sara he talked to on a regular basis but Shin and Kealey and Tricity? ”Man!” Sam said shaking his head still in slight disbelief his wife had managed to pull this off. She was really great.

”How about this weather?” Sam said stretching and watching the dogs run off Bo clearly out running Bruno due to his age. Shifting his eyes from them back to the lawn Sam reached up with his hands and ran them through his hair. ”I know it isn’t New York but my family grew up on the other side of that mountain there. Dom lives there now, but this air and sun?” Sam said thinking about his brother Dom as well figuring he’d been one of the people to help Alexandra get in touch with everyone.

Sam lowered his hands and started to step forward into the yard till Slate stopped him, ”Yeah?” Sam asked wondering why Slate was stopping them from the walk surely whatever they were going to discuss could be discussed on their walk. It seemed Bruno and Bo were already irritated that he and Slate weren’t fast enough. Slate continued and Sam still smiling just stared at him.

”You alright? What are you talking about?” Sam asked no longer thinking about everyone and everything but rather focusing on Slate who seemed somewhat serious. ”Mind controlled, me?” Sam asked letting out a chuckle. ”I’d know if someone was in my head Slate, you helped train me with that.” Sam said shaking his head still dismissing the idea, ”And that is Mirror for you, he/she bored running that school yet? Mirror has always been known for his/her practical jokes. Granted this isn’t really that good of one.” Sam said shaking his head.

”Mind controlled.” Sam shook his head and reached up and patted Slate on the shoulder and stepped around him. Turning his attention back to the walk where the dogs turned and ran again now that Sam was starting to walk with them. ”Really though, Slate.” Sam said looking back at Slate, ”How are things?”

This was not the shocked reaction that the telepath had expected.

For a moment, he sympathized with Mirror, waiting next to his body back in Cerebra's control room. Was this as frustrated as she had felt, when he had failed to believe her? He seemed to remember that she had thrown her hands in the air; that her voice had become louder, and her words pronounced with distinct emphasis indicating agitation.

He restrained the desire to mime these things. He could practice socially appropriate reactions later. For now: he would focus on killing Sam's dogs.

"I am speaking the truth," Slate stated, falling behind as Sam continued walking, and he did not. The dogs, of course, only cared about their master; once he started moving, they took off again. Just as real dogs would.

"Mirror does not run the school," Slate stated. "I am not married to—not yet married to—" He had not shared that ambition with Sam, as a point of fact, and he did not care to address the issue now. "And neither are you."

The younger dog was even the faster of the pair; it raced out ahead, its tail held high as the elder lagged behind. It was all very realistic—the dogs, the house on the other side of the mountain from where Sam had been born, the way the man had known about certain plans regarding his future spousal aspirations.

It was enough to make him either doubt his own grip on reality, or sincerely appreciate the art of the mutant he was up against. As he took his own state of sanity as a given, he chose the later, and focused on the dogs.

This was Sam's mind. Slate was no artist with his mutation: he could not create such a flawless setting as this, or make someone believe something that was not true. But he could slice a mental knife through things; separate pieces from the whole, and wall them off. All he required was to be in touch with the mind in question.

"Watch your dogs, Sam," he instructed levelly.

It took a moment. A mind was a very large place from the outside; bigger still from the inside. Especially when the dog's names—Bruno and Bo—came to him unbidden, as if he really had known them for years. It was the names that lead him: to the right area of the mind, to the place where the running dogs existed as just a part of this scene. Despite his claims, Sam was not well trained against psychic invasions. Once Slate had them located, the rest was easy. Like dropping a computer file into the trash bin.

The dogs disappeared, from one bounding step to the next. He wondered if Bruno's whimper in the last moment had been an extra artistic flare by their host, or a touch supplied by Sam's own mind.

"This is not real," he re-stated with calm practicality. "You are being mind controlled. Wake up."

Slate had it, all those years using Cerebra must have finally cooked his brain, and maybe it was the strain on being able to connect your mind to thousands even millions in any given moment. The thought of that gave Sam a headache for a second, as Slate tried to continue to convince him his current life was a dream. Which Sam knew full well wasn’t. The question now was how would he tell Katrina about Slate’s mental well-being? Maybe it was just a momentary breakdown?

Sam shifted his attention back to Bo and Bruno when Slate told him to watch them. Sam blinked with both his eyes and watched as both dogs who turned towards him and were running towards him from a distance started to fade out and vanish. He heard Bruno let out a small whimper and Sam felt his heart ache slightly for the sudden disappearance of his oldest companion and Bo. Sam blinked again and tried to feel their body heat with a quick activation of his mutation. Sam snapped his eyes wide and turned to Slate when he couldn’t feel anything, ”What did you do to them?” he said still surprised.

Sam walked closer towards Slate and was tempted to grab him or swing at him but this was slate over the years they had become friends through his own friendship with Katrina who he knew was capable of making things ‘just vanish’. ”Tell Kat, very funny. I’d like my dogs back now.” Sam shifted his attention to his house for a moment and away from Slate and the dogs to where Katrina most likely was hiding, ”This is a very bad joke.” Sam turned away from Slate and started to head back to his house in hopes of finding Katrina and his two dogs inside, Katrina when he would find her would probably yell, ‘surprise!’ or something along those lines. It was poor humor but then again Slate always did have a dry sense of humor if one at all.

Off in the distance Sam spotted his son Sammy flying towards him after exiting his room window. His tailed son flew towards them with a big grin on his face while he was waving in their general direction. “Dad, I---- hey Mr. Slate!” Sam sighed slightly seeing his son relaxed him a bit, this couldn’t be a dream.