There was someone in his warehouse, and that someone was most definitely not supposed to be there.

It was late at night, and Danny had decided to make a midnight check on the armory inside the building. Richard hadn't been the only engineer he'd hired, but he was by far the most proficient, meaning the storage building was already filled with weapons prototypes. Nothing combat-ready, of course, but progress was going well. He supposed that the whole setup may look awfully suspicious to anyone who wasn't aware of the intent. Well, it was suspicious no matter what, seeing as it did look like he was arming an entire battalion in here.

But what was worrying him was the fact that one of the opaque windows high up the walls was crooked ever so slightly open. It was an easy access point, and really the only access point if you didn't want to go in through one of the secured entrances, and Danny knew this because he'd used it to get in a few times when the admittedly glitchy lock - which required vocal identification as well as a passcode - refused to function. Nobody else but him used the "back entrance," as far as he was aware - most of the scientists had an override code, to be inputted manually (he'd forgotten it, which was why he didn't use it). Thus, the logical conclusion was that somebody was breaking in - and he didn't like that.

This entire thought process was occurring as he perched on the rooftop across from the open window, so, after formulating a rough plan, he jumped to the ledge, pushed open the window fully, and hopped down into the tall shelving conveniently in front of the window.

"Hey, Jack?" he called out, sounding appropriately terrified for someone who was breaking into a warehouse at night looking for a friend. "Jack, it's Derek. Where are you?"

He easily climbed down the shelving, having done it many times before, but added in a stumble for effect, knocking down a crowbar, which clattered to the ground with a clang. He swore under his breath, quiet enough to seem to himself but loud enough to be audible, and then leapt onto the ground.

"Seriously, dude," he called out cautiously, "this isn't funny. C'mon, just come out, we're all waiting."

Hopefully, whoever was investigating, it was some good Samaritan who would help poor Derek find his friend. Either way, he'd be able to figure out who the intruder was soon enough.

Jude froze right where he was.

Sucknuggets. Did someone see him? Jude was not as great at keeping himself in a non-human shape. But then again, this was a particularly tricky power to master.

He waited, his body spread as a mist along a small space of the ground while one person, one male, called out for his lost Jack.

Except there was no Jack. Using his peculiar senses, he felt out the area again through the very air inside the warehouse. He wasn't as good at interpreting that information as Ghost was, but there was nothing else in the warehouse that was moving.

> "Seriously, dude, this isn't funny..."

Was the guy spooked? He didn't understand what the guy was doing, but fear was something he could work with. He was a ghost right now.

Jude felt out with his sense one more time, just in case there was a Jack who happened to be sneakier than he was. Yup. Not a soul. Just him and some really interesting bits that he'd rather see with his eyes. The X-men were not going to believe him unless he got some better details.

This guy was probably going to trip some kind of security. He had to get him out of here.

"Heeeeeeereeee." He dragged his words out and let it echo here and there. "Yoooooou should nooooooot beeeeeeeee heeereee." The words seemed to slither, coming from nowhere in particular.

Yep. Now this warehouse was haunted.

...so, apparently, his warehouse was haunted now.

He was going to call BS on that particular attempt at subterfuge. If there was a haunt plaguing his warehouse, any of the many engineers available (or him) would've probably seen him before, and thus the ghost would know that he should very much be there. Also, he didn't believe in ghosts, so there was that.

He ran through the possibilities for the intruder in his head - the most obvious choice was the X-Man (er, X-Woman) known as Ghost. But this guy sounded vaguely male, even if it was difficult to distinguish the gender of the intruder based on voice. So his best option would be to keep up the charade, then - it didn't seem as if the intruder recognized him as the owner of the warehouse, which was good.

"Ha ha, yeah, so funny," Danny said, adding a touch of exasperation to his voice. "Jack, I have been searching every warehouse in this wharf for about an hour, and this is the last one, so I know it's you. Stop joking around and just come out, okay?"

With that, he deliberately passed a motion sensor, which he knew would set off the loud alarm and the flashing red lights, and which he knew would also activate the turrets. Yes, there were turrets, and while they would recognize him as "not a target," he ducked below a nearby desk anyway, swearing loudly.

"Jack, sorry, I think I tripped something. Where the hell are you?"

Red lasers crisscrossed the warehouse, looking for a target. Danny didn't hear any firing yet, but hopefully, they'd take out the intruder and he wouldn't have to do anything else.

Damnit! That one worked in the Princess Bride. Why not here? Jude stayed right where he was, tracking the intruder's progress with his senses.

Aaaaand the stupid guy ran right into a sensor of some kind. All the air in the warehouse went ballistic, reverberating in time to carry sound from a klaxon alarm.

Well, if the police showed up, that wouldn't strictly be a bad thing...

"Aaugh!" He imagined putting hands over his ears which made his form gather into something more humanoid for a moment. Enough moment to realize this place was armed to the teeth with things that shot bullets right through him. RUDE! Also, putting his hands over his ears did nothing to make the sound stop when he was in this form. Only one of those tricky vacuum bubbles would 100% make the sound stop and he wasn't super great at those.

Instead, Jude sent a focused torrent of wind at the nearest klaxon, ripping the thing from its moorings and sending it vaguely in the dude's direction. Bullets peppered the moving horn as it was the only tangible item moving around right now.

"GEEEEET OOOOOOUT!" So the whole haunting thing was really all he hand going for him right now. He decided to stick with it. Also. Really, dude? Jack didn't need friends like him. He was clearly the smarter one for not being here right now.

From his little hideout beneath a desk, Danny could look out into the general vicinity of where he thought the voice was coming from, and he turned out to be right when the air seemed to shift, before blasting one of the loud sirens straight off the wall and right at him. Well, there were still a couple more, but this one had become the new target for the mounted guns. The turrets had fired at something previously just as he'd heard a noise of pain from that area - whoever the other guy was, presumably. He was going to assume this was Ghost or a similarly-powered mutant. And even though he may not know too much about her mutation, the name kind of said it all.

But the horn flying at him was a more immediate issue. Because while the turrets knew not to hit him, they were a bit slow stopping after firing at the horn, meaning a bullet plowed right through the desk, hitting Danny in the shoulder.

He swore loudly, and the sound was almost swallowed up by the remaining sirens, but loud enough to hear.

Well, that was the first accident of the night. Eh, he'd just initiate a rebirth by the Hudson or something, and he'd be fine later. But the immediate issue was still the intruder, who was continuing to make ghost noises. Points for effort, at least.

"I can't move without being shot more!" he shouted, trying to sound as panicked as possible. Suddenly, he froze, aware that the unknown mutant (because he was, by now, a hundred percent sure it was a mutant since the guy got shot at and lived) may be watching, since he didn't know the intruder's full power set yet.

"Oh, shit," he said slowly, letting a bit of revelation into his voice. "Shit, you're not Jack, are you. Get me the f*ck out of here!" Now, hopefully, whoever it was would get close enough to attack.

Now it was classic good guy conundrum time.

The guy asked for help. Jude did not want to give it for many reasons, the most recent of which was the fact that this guy was a moron. Moron said he couldn't move without being shot more. Like. Hey. No big deal. I had plenty of time to leave when things got spooky, but instead I stuck around and GOT SHOT. Sure he sounded in a bit of a panic, but not about the current wound. Not about spooky sounds and dark warehouses full of unknown threats. He was panicked about further potential injury.

If he was used to taking bullets, maybe he could stand to take a few more?

No. An X-man shouldn't test that theory on a hunch.

Maybe it was the scrambling of his senses by the loud sounds reverberating through the air in the enclosed space, but the whole situation just didn't sit right with Jude. His gut told him to throw more things. Or wait. He could do that too.

Or option C. There was supposed to be a bodysnatcher at the Mansion now.

Jude made his way through the boxes and selected one at random to seep into. It would be very telling who showed up, police or private security. How would they treat Jack's friend?

The temporary aeromancer took hold of a loose crate lid some distance away from his current location. He bumped it. And he nudged something heavier, closer to the window he'd opened to let himself in.

Let him think Jude was leaving him. He didn't know he was an X. No need for Jack's friend to pin moral obligations on him.

Well, shit. Looks like whoever was in his warehouse was abandoning him.

Maybe it was because backup was coming - the alarm was set to alert Danny, the turrets, and private security. It'd been two, three minutes, maybe - so they were due to show up in maybe another two or so minutes. For now, Danny took out his smartphone, activating a connection to one of the many combat-oriented bots in the warehouse.

In the corner of the building, something scuttled and came to life - a little dog-like robot, armed to the teeth with specialized weapons, and a little bit weighed down by them. Well, so, it wasn't really scuttling, it was waddling at this rate, because it was kind of heavy. It had come armed with high-tech surveillance equipment already, and Danny (with the engineers) had merely added a taser and some other fun stuff.

Under the desk, Danny squinted down at the image on his phone, and started maneuvering the robot towards the sources of the sounds, to find... absolutely nothing. The window was closed, just as he'd left it, and from what he could see, all that'd been moved were some crates. So, bluffing. In that case.

He swore loudly (he'd been doing that a lot lately), and shut down the robot, which automatically returned to its charging point before actually shutting down. Then, he dialed the number of the leader of the group he'd put on warehouse security (all his own men), and who would be waiting outside the building itself, waiting for his signal to actually come in.

"Uh, Dad?" he said, when the team leader picked up. "You know, funny story. You won't have to pick me up from the park anymore."

"Gotcha," the gruff voice responded, and then somewhat further away from the receiver, Danny could hear him call, "Move out!" before promptly hanging up. He continued talking, though, to keep up the farce.

"Uh, where am I? Well. Looking for Jack, actually... No, I'm not doing anything illegal, why would I do that? You know I wouldn't -" He paused, frowning, and looked down at the phone. And swore, again.

Now to keep on with the general idiocy he'd been projecting, and just sit there and wait, before calling for good measure, "C'mon, whoever you are, come back, please? I kind of can't leave without getting shot again?" Speaking of which, he should patch that up, so he set to work making a temporary way to stop the bleeding as he waited.

His senses may have been scrambled, but even Jude didn't miss the quadrupedal robot dog that started bobbing around. If it wouldn't give his location away, now would have been an appropriate moment to whistle in awe of the resources at the disposal of this warehouse's owner. Of course, close as he was now, Jude also was able to notice Jack's buddy fiddling with his phone the entire time le dog was out of le cage.

Coincidence? Sending a text? Or was that his robo death dog?

And again. The whole call to dad was fishy. Jude could tell the guy was getting answers through the phone. So it was at least a real conversation. He was focused enough to tell something was coming out of the speaker, anyway. If the stupid klaxons weren't STILL going off, Jude would have heard both sides of the story.

Sigh.

He guessed that the guy probably wouldn't tell dear old dad if he'd been shot if he was tying real hard not to get caught doing something illegal, but the alarms blaring in the background would clearly contradict that illusion. Again. It was fishy as hell, but not a definitive answer either way.

>"C'mon, whoever you are, come back, please? I kind of can't leave without getting shot again?"

Idiot or con-artist? Idiot or con-artist? Gah! It was too hard to tell. Again, Jude could wait him out. He probably should have. But, impatient as usual, Jude bum-rushed the guy incorporeal style. The white misty form of his body rushed out of the box behind Jack's pal like a fog machine gone full blast. Except this fog was steering itself straight for Jack's buddy's mouth, ears, and nose. Anyway he could get into this guy's body, he was going to.

Yeah. Probably uncomfortable, but if he was a moron, he didn't deserve to be in charge of himself. If he was a bad guy, that was doubly true.

Once Jude got settled in the body, his first order of action would be to use that phone to dial 9-1-1. Uh. If he could guess where the damn smartphone screen's buttons were, that is. Spatial senses didn't help diddly when looking at a smooth surface.

Oh, shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

He'd known that the unknown intruder possessed abilities similar to Ghost - he just hadn't considered that Ghost's body-possession abilities would be used against him. The mist had hit him before he could do anything, and he could feel something orienting itself, disturbingly, and taking control of his body. It didn't feel like telepathic possession, like he'd felt before - it was more like being possessed and used as a puppet. A puppet trying to call 911, apparently, which was very much a bad idea.

Well, good thing his phone was locked. He didn't known if this possession would extend to being able to telepathically determine his password. But without that, the guy wasn't doing anything, seeing as his phone didn't have that convenient thing most phones had to call 911 when locked. (That was a bit of a personal modification, meant for this very reason.)

So now, what to do? He'd tried pulling lightly with his own arms, and found that he couldn't do that at all. He had no backup coming - he had, inconveniently, called them off. So he did the next best thing that he could in this situation.

In the time he had as his possessor fumbled with his phone, he ran through the people he thought this might be. It was likely an X-Man - no development had yet started on weapons against Sanctuary mutants, because Danny had (apparently correctly) assumed the X-Men would be the bigger threat in wanting to shut down his operation. The only X-Man he knew of who was an aeromancer and was able to possess the body of others was the one codenamed Ghost, and that theory was backed up by the fact that the intruder was pretending to be exactly that - a ghost. So his intention was to call the other person out - but if he said Ghost, the other person may not realize he was identifying them. But he had forgotten Ghost's real name, dammit...

...oh, wait. Not all of it.

"Csendes," he said, surprised yet pleased that his mouth worked. "I thought you X-Men had more tact than this. At least face me in your solid form." Well, he really hoped it was her. Because he was in for all kinds of awkward if it wasn't, especially since he was pouring every ounce of his admittedly lacking sinister confidence in those words. He really didn't have it in him to be a supervillain, dammit.

“You’re hella informed, friend.” Could he make the punk punch himself in the face now? Again, not the most X-men-like… but he did deserve it. Jude manipulated the body he wore and just gave himself a little slap. A love-tap, really. Not that Jude could feel it.

“This isn’t about tact, son.” Son? Well, it felt right. Probably because he felt like being condescending here. “It’s about this cache you’ve got.” Jude turned the guy’s head around as if he were surveying the warehouse. In reality, that wasn’t how Ghost’s senses worked in this form, but Danny still needed his eyes to consider what he might be about to lose.

“And it’s about that wound. Ouch. You really did get shot didn’t you? We should probably just go to a hospital. Get you patched up.” Was that… steam? Smoke? rising from his wound? That was so not normal.

Wait a second. This was a guy, as far as he could tell - so why the hell was he responding to the name Csendes? As the guy slapped him with his own body across the face - embarrassing, sure, but finding out whoever this was was a higher priority.

Okay, super humiliating. He was so getting revenge on Jude for this.

...oh my god, Jude. Jude Csendes - Ghost's son, from what he'd gathered, and either an X-Man or something along those lines. Well, he'd been right on most counts, at least - from what he knew, the guy borrowed powers, so he couldn't really be blamed for the mixup.

So now what did he know? Jude was related to Ghost. And... that was it. His power set matched hers as of now, so he had a better idea of what he could do.

And now the guy was just making fun of him, taunting him and threatening to bring him to a hospital, and messing with him by panning his own head to see his warehouse. Joke was on him, though - he didn't seem to know Danny's own power, and Danny wasn't below blowing up a hospital for vaguely petty revenge. An innocent or two was merely collateral damage, after all. He supposed that the steaming wound may have given the guy some of a hint, but considering he'd fallen for Danny's "poor helpless idiot" act, pulled off with his horrific acting skills, he wasn't betting on it.

So he had two courses of action - one, be outright evil. Two, be sneaky. He wasn't entirely comfortable with doing something as drastic as he'd been planning just yet, so it looked as if he'd have to follow through with plan two.

"Look, I know we've had our differences," Danny said almost placatingly. "But I think we're here for the same purpose, this time. Yeah, I work here, but I stay and inform at the Sanctuary. That's it. I thought you were a night guard, which is why I pulled the act." Convincing enough... right? "I thought you were your mom at first, which is why I was cautious. We don't have a good history together." A lie - he didn't have to know that, though. "I'm just here to check out the weapons, same as you. Look, I'll even help you if you just let me go - I overheard the address to another warehouse they have that they're producing something else in." Similarly false. Danny had money, but not enough to splurge on two warehouses, sadly.

Now to just see if he'd fall for it.

Honestly, someone needed to put a tracker on Ghost's kid.

Gawain merged out of a window just as the shots went off in the warehouse. He had been taking his own route to the scene of the mission, and Jude took another one - apparently he made it first. Or maybe they were just lucky.

The X-man peered in through the window. Weapons everywhere, lasers, bullets, the works. It looked like a DR session in there, one that Sam put together on an off day. Possibly hung over. Avoiding the lasers, Gawain let himself in through the window and descended halfway down the shelves, before a bullet made him jump down and roll.

There was more yelling.

Peering around a corner, he could finally pinpoint the source, at least.
It wasn't Jude.

"..."

Goddammit.
He had been wondering where that guy had been.

"... Danny?!" Gawain half-groaned, ducking out of the way of a series of bullets and finding another hiding spot "... what the ever-loving, pixelated **** are you doing in here?!"

Jude was suspicious of the guys answer, but he just didn't know enough to poke holes in it. Yet. "If you work here, why be scared of the guards?" And really, the only people who didn't get along with Ghost were people who were a) complete jerks and b) psychopaths, even then it was a 50/50 toss up.

> "...Danny?"

'Bout time Gawain showed up. It didn't bode well for Jude's suspicions that Gawain knew teh guy so Jude relinquished the tight control he'd taken of Danny's body so that the boy could react to Jude's fellow X. It was hard to keep someone immobilized, let alone the horror that was trying to walk in a meat suit that was not your own.

Now Jude would probably have to stick closer to X-standards when dealing with this dumbo. So... probably a good thing that Mirror had come when he did.

"You should probably turn off the defense system," Jude offered helpfully, "because this could get embarrassing." Jude was feeling an awkward Danny suit dance number coming on now that they had an audience.

Frick.

Mirror.

He'd been kind of hoping that he'd never see her again once he'd started doing things that he was relatively sure she would heavily disapprove of. Also, that one time they switched bodies and... yeah. He preferred not to think about it.

All of a sudden, he felt the force that had been controlling his body weaken, and he nearly toppled over, having already started to depend on the support without realizing. He caught himself just in time and righted himself, growling a bit as he did so.

"You should probably turn off the defense system, because this could get embarrassing." No shit. It looked like any excuse he was going to or had pulled was going to fall through, so might as well fess up now. Sighing, he tried to duck out from under the desk, only to find that he still didn't have full control back. Dammit. He awkwardly tumbled out, and none of the admittedly numerous weapons fired at him, recognizing him for who he was.

"All defense systems on standby," he called out, as he stood up in a rather unwieldy manner, and immediately there was silence, the system recognizing his voice. Everything shut down except for the laser sights, which were kept firmly trained on the foreign intruder, meaning the weapons were primed and ready to fire should they try anything. The only sound was the whirring of the machines, ready to move on a moment's notice. Sadly, Jude hadn't stopped possessing him, so he'd have to figure out a way to get him out before he could try anything.

"Apologies for the caution, but you know how it is," he said almost apathetically, peering down at the bullet wound now that he could see. It was a clean through-and-through, thankfully, so he'd be fine until he could find somewhere safer to be reborn.

"Jude a friend of yours?" he asked, now directly addressing Gawain. "Because he was being rather un-X-Man-like, so I assumed he couldn't be one of you. For starters, he won't get out of my body." A pause. "Erm, that came out slightly not as intended. Ignore that."

He glanced around the warehouse, surveying the damage - nothing bad. While the turrets were a new model, meant to fire with extreme precision, they weren't a hundred percent functional yet, as evidenced by the wound in his shoulder. Thankfully, they were functional enough to mostly avoid shooting at anything important, as programmed, and anything that was really important was locked up, anyway. The only thing with holes in it was the tank that he'd pilfered from the Order, deciding that it'd be ridiculous to buy a new one when he could just help haul it out of the demolished prison and take it as his payment, and he was pretty sure the holes had been there already.

"You do realize this is private property, right?" Danny finally said, turning back to the other X-Man, but speaking to Jude as well. "There's a contract and everything. It belongs to a weapon manufacturing company, so I don't know why you're here. Everything's legal." True, yes, but even Danny wasn't stupid enough to not realize that they'd probably be back investigating when they thought he'd lowered his guard. So a threat. "I'm really sorry - not to you, Jude, but to Mirror, who has actually demonstrated empathy in the past - but I can press charges against the X-Men. You attacked me on my own property. I don't want to have to do that, but I will." He paused. "Unless you swear to leave and end this investigation, now."

>>"All defense systems on standby,"

Things stopped buzzing and also stopped shooting, which was definitely an improvement. Gawain didn't miss the implication though that one word from Danny could start them up again. Just what the heck kinda place was he running here?...

>>"Apologies for the caution, but you know how it is. Jude a friend of yours? Because he was being rather un-X-Man-like, so I assumed he couldn't be one of you. For starters, he won't get out of my body... Erm, that came out slightly not as intended. Ignore that."

Gawain arched an eyebrow as he stood up from cover and took in the scene. Jude must have copied Ghost's ability, and used it to get into Danny...
... yeah, no. Bad choice of words.

"He's an X in training" he said pointedly at both Danny and Jude. But he didn't order him to get out either.

>>"You do realize this is private property, right? There's a contract and everything. It belongs to a weapon manufacturing company, so I don't know why you're here. Everything's legal. I'm really sorry - not to you, Jude, but to Mirror, who has actually demonstrated empathy in the past - but I can press charges against the X-Men. You attacked me on my own property. I don't want to have to do that, but I will. Unless you swear to leave and end this investigation, now."

"Whoa, hey, hold on" Gawain said, holding up his hands in a sign of 'chill the hell out' "No one is suing anyone. And we are not investigating you. We are investigating this place, because, dunno, suddenly a freaking arsenal popped up in the middle of the city with a freaking tank in it. So." he sighed "Care to explain to my why the hell are you suddenly a purveyor of fine weaponry? Is there gonna be a revolution or something?"