Superhero. Well, that was certainly an idea. Evelyn matched the sneer though and chuckled slightly. She kept confidence in her movements, meanwhile still tracking the fight below. But talking allowed was enough stalling to try to avoid beating Gawain's mom...or...getting beat up by her. "Superhero has a ring to it, but what makes you certain I'm one of the good guys? There are plenty of vigilantes around."

She caught the knife with the sai, and countered with a blow towards the mans legs. He dodged it easily, but the push with her right hand opened up a moment to switch both weapons to the same hand. Backpedaling she managed to fish out another star and send it into the wall next to the fighters. Both sai came back in time to catch the knife. The kick to her shin sure stung though. She focused back on her own fight. They exchanged a few hits, and the knife clipped her shoulder. The sting hurt, but considering what could happen it wasn't worth noting at this point. She wasn't getting anywhere fast in the fight, but the echoes were starting to learn. Which had would get favored, which battle habits she could take advantage of. Training with the x-men had certainly given her echoes a leg up or two.

>>"Superhero has a ring to it, but what makes you certain I'm one of the good guys? There are plenty of vigilantes around."

"Vigilantes always think they are the good guys."

Gawain rolled and ducked a kick and a punch, one from strong guy and one from the rapidly swirling puff of smoke. The fight was going nowhere fast, and he was getting worried about Evelyn and the person up on the roof. Even if the third assassin was Mom, she didn't know who Evelyn was.

Another star landed at his feet, and he took advantage of it to change positions. He needed a better plan.

Up on the fire escape the young man ducked out of the way of the throwing star and glanced over his shoulder.

"You got guts, hun, thinking you could hit... oh."

His head whipped back, and he glared at Evelyn with renewed intensity.

"You kids need to get out of here. Now."

The echoes picked up on the change in demeanor, the man's eyes following the star towards Gawain. Well, that solved one problem, but there was a new issue at hand. The fight was still going, and now Evelyn was the wrong person standing on the fire escape. She wasn't ready to have this conversation yet, and with both of them sporting coms, private seemed hard to manage. The point was not to tip everyone off of this secret meeting. That hope seemed to be diminishing.

"Us kids kind of had other plans." She flipped the sai in her hand, keeping her battle stance. It was going to be hard to keep up appearances without tipping off the other assassins.

>>"Us kids kind of had other plans."

The young man swore and lunged forward, feigning to the side and making sure not to push Evelyn over the railing. Something crunched underfoot - the comm device pinged on the metal as it fell towards the street in pieces. The young man grabbed Evelyn by the waist and pushed her into the wall, out of sight from the street level.
When he looked up, he looked definitely... different.

"What on earth are you two doing here?!" Jillian Morris hissed, keeping her voice low "This is not a damn game! He promised he wouldn't do this."

Evelyn was not exactly thrilled by the situation at this point. This was probably the worst way to meet Gawain's mom, but assassins weren't typically your 'invite over to dinner' variety. Probably better than Maya meeting her parents... They both had family issues.

The echoes caught the com falling away though, and that was a relief. She dealt with getting pushed into the wall, hissing what she could back as the facial features changed. At this point she wasn't too taken aback by mutations.

"Gawain had some questions, is sort of a long story. Ran into someone who...met a relative who probably isn't the best apple of the family tree. But he wants to know who his dad is." Well, that was the crash course in things. Below she could still almost follow the sounds of the fight. She was getting more impatient now that she couldn't help.

Gawain was not exactly happy with the situation. He was being attacked by a human bulldozer with shining fists and a munch of smoke he couldn't punch. Evelyn's smart throwing stars helped a lot in him not being instantly dead, but he didn't get closer to Mom either, and that rendered the entire plan... a fail. he kept struggling though, hopeful that Evelyn on the other end of the radio silence would come up with something clever to say.

On the fire escape, Jillian Morris looked surprised at what the blonde had just said. it was not the explanation she had expected.

>>"Gawain had some questions, is sort of a long story. Ran into someone who...met a relative who probably isn't the best apple of the family tree. But he wants to know who his dad is."

"Dammit kid" she growled, leaning against the bricks, both of them still out of sight from the struggle below "Whatever he thinks he got the stubborn from me, and you can tell him that." she sighed, looking at Evelyn "Are you his girlfriend, or just another teammate he managed to drag into this?... Either way, I'm sorry."

Evelyn could still hear the sounds of fighting traveling up from the alleyway, the echoes carefully tracking the progress of the battle. Gawain was still ok, it seemed, but she didn't know how long that would last. It was hard to focus on the conversation she was having when she was concerned that Gawain was still trying to fight two assassins by himself. The echoes had been watching the mutants, analzing their battle strategies, and she was getting eager to relay the information, or help put it into action. So eager, she nearly missed the woman's question, and blinked as forced a quick smile.

"Oh, I'm his girlfriend. And while we're apologizing, sorry for this." Before the woman could respond, the sai had transferred to Evelyn's other hand, her fist went flying, and the punch had blindsided the older woman on the side of the face.

Consequences for punching your boyfriend's assassin mom? Soon to be discovered...

As Mirror's mom went down, the knife went falling, rolled off the fire escape and Evelyn was quick to follow it. With quick movements she dropped from one landing to the next, then took the last leap to the ground where the fighters were still engaged. Bending her knees, she landed, rolled, and swung out with the sai, catching the smoke mutant on the back of the knees before he knew what was happening. He fell backwards, half-smoke, half-human, and a kick to the head stopped him from transitioning back to the former.

Problem with having a smoke form was solidifying to hit someone often left vulnerable openings. Echoes 1. Assassins 0.

The larger mutant was clearly surprised by the turn of events, and his fists clenched threateningly. While she'd thought of a way to help with one figure, this was someone she didn't have a strategy against yet. Evelyn tossed one of her sai back to her free hand and shifted them back into battle position. "What'd I miss?" She said casually to Mirror, heart racing in her throat and her shoulder bleeding slightly.

>>"What'd I miss?"

Evelyn dropped out of nowhere, and the shadow mutant was suddenly on his back. Gawain couldn't help but be impressed with the turn of events. Wherever Mom was, talking would have to wait.

"All the fun" he said, keeping an eye on the strong man as he backed away to regroup "Which reminds me."

Picking up one of the throwing stars he tossed it to Eve, trusting her to catch and not hurt herself.

"I need a lift."

He took another step back to another star and waited for Evelyn to catch the meaning in his words and in his movements. Once the star was above the strong guy, he would have his leverage.

In the meantime, the shadows should just stay down, right?...

Fun... Evelyn could think of several other words for this, fun was perhaps not one of her top choices. She caught the throwing star as it sailed at her, which was difficult when the thing was bladed and could have easily cut her fingers. She made a note to get gloves or something next time. She could imagine this going badly next time.

Taking Gawain's instructions, she took aim at a board above the fighters and sent it into the board with a decisive thud. Meanwhile, the echoes kept watch on the shadow figure, who was still slumped on the ground. She had her sai ready just in case, but she wasn't sure how much she could do if he went incorporeal again.

Stun gun... Stun guns would be useful right now...

Gawain took a running start and merged out of the star above just in time to put his full weight into a kick to the guy's head. He went down like a significantly large sack of potatoes. Gawain landed on top of him and scrambled to his feet.

"Ugh" he huffed, catching his breath "Okay so maybe fun isn't the best..."

The shadow person chose that exact moment to get back up, merging from solid to smoke and then back, rearing up to strike at Evelyn.
But he never got to. A knife flew out of the darkness behind him and hit him square in the neck, a part of the shadow-body just solid enough.
The rest went up in a puff of smoke.

"So." Jillian noted, walking up to the X-men "I have fifteen minutes before I have to check in. Make it count."

Using the echoes excessively was difficult, especially while trying to fight at the same time. It was like trying to do complicated math while painting a picture at the same time. Eventually the focus shifted one direction or the other. Unfortunately, for Evelyn, the 'other' turned out to be the fight, and she nearly missed the shadow mutant about to take her out.

The knife from Gawain's mom solved that problem. Her expression was somewhat torn between relieved and dreading. "So, we didn't get far talking... just the basic you have questions speel." She quickly told Gawain, and then glanced back to Jillian. "And sorry again, about that." She motioned to Jillian's face, hoping there would be no hard feelings about the punch. This wasn't exactly the way she wanted to meet anyone's parents.

>>"So, we didn't get far talking... just the basic you have questions speel."

Gawain, who had been leaning on his knees to catch his breath, look up at his mother. She looked determined, slightly worried, and sporting a black eye.

>>"And sorry again, about that."

"Your girlfriend's got spunk" Jillian noted with a slight smirk much like her son's. Gawain huffed and stood up.

"Tell me about it."

The young knight allowed himself a brief hug before they got down to the real conversation.

"She tells me you want to know about your father."

"Yeah." Gawain nodded "It's not like I really wanna know about him... but... there is a kid that might be related to me. And unless you have other kids I don't know about... it's probably from the other side of the family."

Jillian sighed and sat down on a nearby crate.

"Honestly? Very well could be. Your father... was a bit of a one-night-stand..."

You know those conversations where you somehow get involved in them, then a few minutes or so in, you wonder if you SHOULD be involved in them? This was one of those situations. Evelyn came here to help Gawain make contact with his mother, but she almost felt like she was eavesdropping on the mother and her son. The two of them had been in some awkward situations together, sure. Heck, the interactions with her own parents had been a little awkward. But she still wasn't sure exactly what to say during this chat.

She glanced at the downed figures to make sure they stayed down, put her sai away and collected throwing stars while they talked.

The echoes slowly took in their surrounding, studying the alley and making sure there were no more surprises. Without having to fight at the same time, she could let them take in more of her surroundings, even while listening to the conversation.

"Honestly, I am not sure I wanted to hear that." Gawain's face was wearing the expression most young people get when they hear about their parents' love life. Jillian shrugged.

"Well, you asked. We met, we were young, we had fun, he disappeared. Oldest story in the book."

Gawain blinked.

"Wait, that's it? No... dunno, MIA in the war, evil mutant overlord, stuff like that?"

"Nope."

The young knight sat down on the crate next to his mother.

"Well, that's... not what I expected."

"You really thought your father fought an evil mutant overlord?"

"Nah, I thought he was one."

Jillian chuckled.

"It's not like he is a stand-up guy."

Gawain looked up.

"Wait, you know him?"

"Haven't heard about him for years." Jillian sighed "I kept tabs on him for a while. I found out he's a teleporter, which explained how he got away so fast... I also know that he has at least one other kid out somewhere. Maybe two. Could be a lot more than that."

"So... it is technically possible that I have evil half-brothers out there?"

"Technically, yes."

"Great." Gawain sighed "Fun family."

"You mean, a mutant assassin, an X-man, and a brood of evil teleporters?"

"Yeah."

They laughed.

Evelyn collected all the throwing stars, and tucked the pouch back into her pocket. She snuck away for a moment to collect their bag, and Gawain and his mom were sitting and talking still when she returned. She didn't know how to really be polite and vigilant at the same time. Tact was never something she mastered, but she tried, and perhaps that was what counted. It was hard to be super concerned with manners when you had unconscious bodies and a clock ticking away on the conversation. Fifteen minutes wasn't much, but it was enough to at least help Gawain learn what he needed.

Brood of evil teleporters.... Her powers suddenly seemed quite tame.

[Stirring figure. The echoes announced, and Evelyn moved to kneel next to the beefy mutant, quickly finding the pressure point on his neck. The echoes directed her, and with some adjustment her gloved fingers against his neck knocked him back out. Pressure points were freaky business... But sometimes they were still useful.