"Shit," Danny muttered, as he tumbled over the fence and landed on the ground with a thump. He winced, scrambling up quickly, glancing around hurriedly to make sure nobody had seen - for his security and his ego. Nothing. With a small sigh of relief, Danny glanced around one more time - carefully - before continuing on.

His goal: break into the X-Mansion and find any information they had on some humans that seemed to be mutant-proof. He'd been simply walking down the street when he heard a muted conversation - nothing too interesting, but there had been a brief mention of a human somehow neutralizing a mutant's powers, which was highly worrying. What if contact with one of these people would allow Danny to die permanently? He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, and brushing away the thoughts that were far too philosophical for two in the morning, and decided to do some more research (see: attacking them and demanding information), which yielded absolutely nothing. So his last resort was what he was doing now, the night after - breaking into Xavier's Mansion for Gifted Children for information.

Sadly, he had been too excited and worried about this new development to do his research.

On his way to the main building itself, he triggered far too many alarms for his liking - most were minor slip-ups that he deactivated almost immediately, but one floodlight stayed on for a good ten minutes before he found - wait for it - an off switch.

Hoping that those breaches might be blamed on a raccoon or something, Danny finally made his way to a window. Cursing the fact that his mutation wasn't metal manipulation or something, he ended up having to circle the entire building before he found one that was slightly cracked open, and undid it with a playing card from the deck in his backpack. (One never knew when they would come in handy. Like now.) He rolled over the ledge and into the house, cursing softly as his plain white shirt caught on the weirdly sharp latch and tore slightly. Nothing serious, but a few threads still clung to the metal. Danny figured that nobody would notice and didn't bother to clean it up, instead carefully shutting the window properly this time. And with that, he started to prowl down the carpeted hallway, mind completely focused on stealth.

He knocked over a plant with a muttered curse, catching the clay pot just in time before it smashed.

He really needed more practice.

Being an insomniac meant being up for a really long time, and often, being really bored. Having a perfect memory sort of increased that lack of entertainment. Reading a book or watching a movie would ingrain the information in her head for eternity, regardless of if it was good or not, and she hated taking that sort of risk. Goodness knows she would never forget some of the crappy superhero movies. Yeah, like they all ran around in catsuits for the heck of it.

Tonight, however, something seemed...off. Alarms occasionally tripped from time to time, but they never seemed to just turn themselves back off. Especially floodlamps. Some of the other x-men might have brushed it off, or missed it altogether if they were tired enough. But Evelyn was always suspicious, especially after some of the baddies they had running around. Frowning, she kept her eyes and ears open for anything further. It wasn't long for the echoes to take not of a small change in one of the rooms.

[Window closed. Fibers. Intruder.] The information rushed through in rapid succession, and Evelyn reached for the sai on her back. Well, it wouldn't be a boring night after all.

Sneaking up on someone sneaking through your house wasn't the easiest task, but Evelyn did have the advantage: she had a perfect memory. She didn't need to turn on lights to navigate the hallways, and the echoes were tracking the changes along the way. Even if he was quiet, she knew this school better than anyway. She couldn't be perfectly stealthy: her powers were in her brains, not her ninja reflexes or something like that. But she at least managed to catch up and hissed when she was close enough, weapons ready. "Unless you're some type of clumsy teleporter, I'm pretty sure you're not lost. So I suggest you have a good reason for being here." She remarked calmly.

The mansion was frickin' huge, and not in a good way. Sure, it was probably more majestic and all in the daylight, but at night and for an intruder, there was no way to figure out where a database or something was. He wasn't about to just waltz up and ask someone, considering that he technically hadn't been invited, but he was starting to grow more and more irritated with the lack of signs. Or a map. Either would've been helpful beyond belief.

Completely focused on his search for a computer lab, he didn't sense somebody coming up behind him until she spoke. "Unless you're some type of clumsy teleporter, I'm pretty sure you're not lost. So I suggest you have a good reason for being here."

Oh, crap. Apparently he wasn't as stealthy as his ego suggested.

"Uh, yeah, hi," he rushed to say, scrambling to find an excuse. He normally would lash out at her and fight back, considering she was holding a sai (which, fun fact, he was semi-proficient with, so if he could get it from her...), but he wasn't about to attack somebody in their own house. That was a whole new level of asshole that he wasn't touching. And she was a woman, older than he was (physically), and rather gentle-looking at that. No, he'd wait before drawing his knife.

"Right, so, I think I broke into the wrong house," Danny finally said. He nearly facepalmed right then and there, because this was probably an X-Man and that'd be frowned upon anyway, but there was no backing out now. "I was aiming for this guy's mansion who stole my, uh, car. That's what he does, steals people's cars and makes enough money reselling them to buy a mansion. So, you're clearly not a male in his forties, so I'll be going now, yeah?" And with that, he started to back away slowly - retreating to where, he wasn't sure of yet.

I broke into the wrong house.

Evelyn nearly laughed out loud, but she controlled herself. Apparently, he was worse at lying than breaking and entering. "A male in his forties that steals cars? Well you've pegged a good portion of the New York population, although you've missed the rather obvious fact that we're one of the only mansions out this direction. That and you're a terrible liar." The echoes didn't even need to note the slight facial twitch when he picked a bad lie, or his guilty body language. His eye cues, voice, everything...it all screamed he was trying to just talk his way out of this.

There was something dangerous about this guy though. While his first instinct was the lie, the echoes caught the more subtle movements: the way his eyes lingered on her weapon with interest and not fear, which suggested some familiarity with them. The way he paused when she first spoke, perhaps considering attacking before giving his excuse. He was being a little foolish now, but she wasn't underestimating him. "You have a few choices right now, so let me break it down for you. You can A) try to run away. Which won't get you very far because this is my house and I'm going to know exactly which end table you're going to slam into. And when you do that, waking up the other mutants in this house, well... lets say some of them are more of the shoot first, ask questions later variety. You'd find yourself in time-out in some inanimate object before you could say 'guy stole my car'. Then there is B) you could fight back. But I'd hate to stab you, plus that creates more noise, and brings the same result is option a. Or there is C) you can hand over your weapon. I'd say...knife, based on your familiarity with close combat weapons, somewhere easy to reach in case you got jumped. Plus you're trying to be stealthy, and bringing along a gun doesn't really help with that. Either way, put it down, maybe we'll talk and I won't let one of the other x-men lock you in burglar jail. Our way." The echoes buzzed trying to figure out where the weapon would be, waiting for the subtle twitch in motion, although it was really hard to make that out in the dim hallway. The further he backed away, the darker it was getting, so even the dim light from other rooms was muted.

Danny winced as the woman easily called him out on the lie. It hadn't been a very well-thought-out one, granted, but he legitimately hadn't expected to run into somebody. At one point in time, he had broken into a museum to grab his phone, which he had left in there by accident. Now he couldn't even break into a mansion full of sleeping people to search something up. He wasn't about to tell the woman what he was looking for - the two men he had attacked for information had been almost too scared to tell him, and he had suspected that it was something that wasn't supposed to be common knowledge.

She spoke again, and Danny's eyebrows raised. That was a pretty in-depth analysis to know that he was a fighter and used a knife - maybe her mutation was hyper-observation, or something? He'd seen something like that on television once. So, controlling himself, he let his hand twitch ever so slightly to where his knife was concealed in his belt, reasoning that even if she noticed, he still had his trump card. Then he started to consider his choices. His choices, not hers, because he had absolutely no intention of listening to what somebody else told him to do.

And it gradually occurred to him that there was nothing else he could do. She'd covered it all

So with a sigh, he slowly drew his knife from his belt and set it on the floor, kicking it to her. He stood up again and raised his hands. "Okay, you win," he said. But he kept the fingers of his left hand loose, ready to snap and activate his gauntlet as soon as he saw his chance.

Knife. Point for the echoes. Evelyn put one of the sai back in their holster, then picked up the knife while letting her powers keep a close eye on him. It would almost be amusing to see him try something. She had grown past the damsel in distress she might have been once upon a time. Some life or death situations, a hunt for vengeance and a power growth or two could do that for you.

"C it is. So, care to explain yourself? Most mutants don't break into power friendly schools unless they are actively looking for trouble." The word "mutant" threw itself in there with the aid of the echoes. Kid sets aside his weapon, yet doesn't seem nervous to have someone armed in front of them? Clearly, he had a back-up plan, and since she had already ruled out the 'concealed weapon' sort of idea, that left mutant: someone who tended to be permanently armed. It would be easier to do this in the light, but she wasn't quite sure where she wanted to steer this guy anyway. Kitchen would just give him more weapons if he felt like it, living room might be an option... She half-wished Mirror was here to deal with this guy. Her girlfriend had much easier methods of keeping someone locked up for interrogation. But unless Angua got wiff of the strangers scent, it was pretty late and the mirror-walker's appearance was doubtful now.

The woman picked up his knife, and Danny felt a little pang of annoyance. That was his favorite knife. Even if he had six more of the exact same blade sitting in his apartment, losing even one made him feel a little irritated.

"C it is. So, care to explain yourself? Most mutants don't break into power friendly schools unless they are actively looking for trouble." Mutant. How had she known he was a mutant? He was going to go for either telepathic or hyper-observational, as he had theorized before. Considering she wasn't making him hand over his gauntlet, he was still going to stick with the latter.

"Maybe." He left his response short and curt and intentionally vague. He didn't want to give away anything with his tone like he had with his lie from before, and this seemed like the easiest way to do so. And he still wasn't telling her why he was here. But he couldn't resist a last quip. "It seems we've reached a bit of a stalemate. What now?"

He briefly considered bolting again, but considering what might happen if he did so, he dismissed the thought. He'd likely have to resort to running away at some point, maybe smashing a window to get out before she could catch him, and...oh.

Window.

He actually hadn't considered that up to now. His half-formed plan had been to wait until she was distracted, knock her out, and carefully make a quiet exit. Maybe exiting with a bang was his best choice by now. He glanced surreptitiously to his side - a window lay conveniently within reach, but he had to move now, because she'd surely noticed. Maybe he could even loop around back and try searching again. (He always was a stubborn bastard.)

He turned and sprinted to the window in a sudden movement, smashing the glass as he barreled through it, hissing as a large chunk sliced his arm. Nothing serious, but it still bled quite a bit and hurt like crazy. He landed in an awkwardly executed roll, thanks to the cut that he now could see spanned his entire upper arm. And then he sprinted off towards the woods in the distance. If he got there, he could lose his pursuer. Hopefully. He wasn't going to underestimate her, so he had to get there first.

It was clear he was going to run before he actually darted for the window. Unfortunately for Evelyn, short of actually stabbing him with the knife or bashing him on the back of the head with the sai, there wasn't much she could do to physically stop him. She could have maybe thrown the weapons down and executed a football dive, but there were other options.

While he was diving for the window, she engaged the security features on the grounds with a security panel that wasn't too far away. Nothing lethal, but there were some good tranquilizer darts in some of the guns, and the floodlights would turn back on. She also overrode any other tampering with the devices unless they came from the panel she was standing at. By now she wouldn't be surprised if other x-men woke up. But until then she just had to tuck the kids knife away for finger printing, and clean up the broken window.

Surprisingly, he got to the woods by the mansion without much trouble. For some reason, the woman wasn't trying to chase him, which was somewhat worrying, considering whose property he was on. He also briefly considered going back for the knife, as his DNA and fingerprints were on it - and then remembered that all she would find were matches for robberies and a few murders (that were perfectly justified) over the past few decades, but not a name or profile. Thank god computers hadn't been invented during the American Revolution.

He almost thought he was in the clear when what seemed like every single floodlight on the property turned on.

"Oh, crap," he muttered, glancing around before he suddenly felt a prick in his neck. Scrambling to feel what it was, he jerked out a tranquilizer dart. "Oh, sh*t." He'd handled tranqs before, though, and discovered that a rebirth would flush them from his system. And considering that the woman's plan had seemed to be 'knock him out and let him freeze in the forest,' he didn't mind what he was about to do.

He fumbled for the suicide button on his gauntlet, triggering a rebirth just as the tranquilizer started to kick in.

Let's see how the X-Men would fare against a forest fire.

While the kid was running across the grounds, Evelyn made her way to the security office with a bag of chips and plopped in front of the computers. Like the god room in the Danger Room, the panel gave her control over the grounds and the ability to cut off invaders (or escapees in this case) without having to get too up close and personal. Which was good, when the kid decided to push a button on his gauntlet thing, and burst into flames.

Well, good thing they had a good sprinkler system...Not like this wasn't the first time someone decided to burst into flame around shrubbery. A few moments later the area was drenched with water that jetted from the ground with much more force than the average garden hose. When the flames were out, she turned it off and made sure the kid was okay.

Phoenix. Good to know. Hadn't seen one of them in awhile. Well, not since that one with the god complex who tried to burn down half the mansion, but that was another matter entirely...

She chomped a few chips and waited to make sure the kid would finish making his way off the grounds. Later she'd sketch out a detailed picture to hand over to CS to check the records for. If this mutant tried breaking and entering again, the reception wouldn't be quite as nice. But he wasn't quite wanted... yet... There were still some questions he hadn't explained and he was teetering on the guilty/innocent line.

[OOC - Good luck on your new job tomorrow!]

"F****n' X-Men," Danny muttered. He'd woken up minutes ago only to find himself soaking wet. Apparently, this mansion had a sprinkler system. This was getting borderline ridiculous. Would nobody let him just get in and out in peace?

Well, he did try to break in, but...

His options - leave or loop around. Considering that looping around would likely get him tranquilized and soaked again, he chose to leave. As he loped off the property, grumbling the whole way and wringing out his white t-shirt, for God's sake, he decided that maybe he should leave this issue alone for now. Hopping the fence, he caught sight of a security camera, and unabashedly flipped it the bird.

Screw the X-Men. He wasn't coming back here again anytime soon.