>>“I am blind. But I still can see things around me, mostly. When you used your power, I could not see at all, it was like a big quiet peaceful hallway with all the lights off and then suddenly we were here which was like being shoved out a door into a roaring crowd because now the world is back and we're not in the same place at all and I have not ever teleported before so I am not prepared for this so I sit down. ...I think I feel better now.”

On the plus side, the kid did not throw up. He did, however, word-vomit all over the place, and Gawain shook his head as he tried to pry out the facts and the useful details from the ranting. He also tried to keep an ear out for a Terminator possibly approaching. He was not sure how keen the sound equipment on the tin men was, but he was sure that a kid loudly panicking about mutant powers was not going to help the situation.

Blind kid. Oh joy.

"Uh... um" Gawain muttered, trying to wrap his head around the information. So... the kid had some sort of a sixth (fifth) sense that helped him see his surroundings even when blind... and the mirrorworld blocked that sense from working. It made sense, kind of. But it also meant that he'd have a woozy kid on his hands every time they had to jump.

"So... you have some kind of a sixth sense?" he ventured "What is it based on?..."

Bats? Wasn't it some kind of a bat thing?...

"I can't promise we won't have to teleport again to get out of here" he added "But I'll give you more warning next time... I teleport through mirrors. Your sense probably doesn't work in a two-dimensional setting..."

It was not 2D that was the problem. Panu's sense did not work without wifi.

He did not correct the X-Man on this.

>> "So... you have some kind of a sixth sense? What is it based on?..."

With both of his hands, Panu made very extra sure that his headphones were still on straight.

“I just see. Like there are many cameras around and I am looking through them.” Exactly like that, because that was exactly what he was seeing through. “I do not control how many or where. Only see.”

He still could not see the mirror walker's face, but the man did not sound like he was impressed. Panu would also not have been impressed with a blind boy who maybe looked like he was going to throw up on his rescuer's shoes. He took a deep breath, and climbed to his feet, and only wobbled a very little.

He was better than this. He was Secret Arch-Nemesis. And now that he had found a Good Lie, he could be more than a stupid toddler the X-Man had to drag around.

“There are five METAs on first floor, where most people are herded to. It is by glass front doors. Two METAs on every other floor. I think they are look for more people. Before they are acted like they could see us before they could really see us. Probably they have special sensor or infrared or other way of knowing where people are. Our two are where we are leave them, I do not think they know which way you took us.”

The blond squared his shoulders and straightened his hoodie, and tried to look where the X-Men had last spoken from. This was Resolved Face.

“I am sorry I am useless before. Please accept apology. I will be helpful now. If you want to leave with only me or if you want to trick other METAs away so everyone can escape, I will help with either.”

As a Secret Arch-Nemesis, he had dignity to uphold. Otherwise he was only a lame little boy being rescued.

>>“I just see. Like there are many cameras around and I am looking through them. I do not control how many or where. Only see.”

Mirror blinked, glancing around and noting that there were, in fact, cameras in the shop. And the blind kid was... looking through them? That had to be... ugh, disorienting as ****. It took a long time for Mirror to even learn looking through the spacial distortions of the mirrorworld. No wonder the kid was a little... off.
He seemed to be pulling himself together, though, which was a good sign, because they were still sitting ducks.

>>“There are five METAs on first floor, where most people are herded to. It is by glass front doors. Two METAs on every other floor. I think they are look for more people. Before they are acted like they could see us before they could really see us. Probably they have special sensor or infrared or other way of knowing where people are. Our two are where we are leave them, I do not think they know which way you took us.”

"Well... that's a nifty power." Mirror blinked again. Heck, the kid had some serious potential. He made a mental note to talk to Sam about it; not that they should have had a random kid dragged into the Mansion, but it was always good to know what kinds of powers were out there. Especially when the team had a mimic.

>>“I am sorry I am useless before. Please accept apology. I will be helpful now. If you want to leave with only me or if you want to trick other METAs away so everyone can escape, I will help with either.”

That was a tough question. He should have taken the kid to safety, and dealt with the buggy bots himself; and yet he did not have much of a chance to do so if they did not accept his authority... and the kid apparently had the capability to help.

"Alright" he nodded after a short pause "Can you help me with distracting them without going anywhere near?..."

>> "Well... that's a nifty power."

The blonde boy puffed up like a proud eaglet. The X-Man's voice acknowledged a very important fact: Panu Harmaajärvi-Jaager was useful. And the mirror walker was not questioning further, so probably that meant he believed that clipart imitation of power that Panu had said. So not only was he useful, he was super-stealth-secret even-more-useful-than-X-Man-knew.

>> "Alright. Can you help me with distracting them without going anywhere near?..."

“Yes.” The boy said without hesitation and with much confidence-from-experience. Except that if his power was only sight like he had just said, then no no no he could not. “Maybe,” he hurried to correct. But if the X-Men was across the building, then he could do more than the X-Man could see, and these things Mirror did not ever need to know about. “Yes,” he nodded, confident again. “But do not ask me what,” he added, to be safe.

There. That settled that. The blonde boy re-settled his headphones very firmly, and shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket. Spare batteries and electronics knocked together as plastic hit plastic. He let his gaze drop to the floor, because now that Mirror knew he was blind, it was easier to stop pretending that he cared about looking around.

“Do you have phone? If you do, then we can talk, and I can tell you about people and META movements. Minimize contact. I can keep very far away from them,” (or deal with them in his own way if they came too close but Mirror did-not-need-to-know-that), "so do not worry about me. People are much more terrify than robots, but there are not many left on higher floors now. I will stay up here and be safe." 

If the man did have a phone then Panu already knew and already had the number on his speed dial. But it was polite to ask. After all, he was definitely not the technopath all the METAs were looking for.

>>"Yes... Maybe. Yes. But do not ask me what,”

Well, that was... about as confident as he would have expected from a child this age. For a moment, Gawain paused. Was it okay to drag a kid into this? Even if just from afar?... It was ethically shady, at best, but he was in this alone, and he needed to improvise.
Besides, with his power... the mirrorwalker was starting to have a pretty strong conviction that the people held downstairs were definitely innocent.

>>“Do you have phone? If you do, then we can talk, and I can tell you about people and META movements. Minimize contact. I can keep very far away from them. So do not worry about me. People are much more terrify than robots, but there are not many left on higher floors now. I will stay up here and be safe."

"Alright" Gawain sighed, patting the kid on the shoulder. He reached into one of his pockets, fishing out the spare X-comm he carried for emergencies "Here, use this. And stay here. Hide under a pile of clothes or something... I'll come back for you when I'm done, okay?"

The X-Man handed him a communications device.

It was long-range high power secure channel listen-and-transmit radio in very portable form. Advanced custom technology. Panu had known there was advanced tech in the Mansion, he had felt wonderful things at the edge of his range when he walked by but he was too scared to go closer because he could also feel black hole where Adapted was standing but now in his hands there was X-Man Communicator.

Gawain handed him a tiny sliver of the doors of heaven. The technopath accepted it with confidence. For the first time since they had met, his hand did not have trouble finding Gawain's. Not with Tiny Beacon of Tech to guide his fingers. Was it possible to faint from happy?

“<I am not giving this back,>” the blonde boy said, in the ecstatic Finnish of a puppy who has just caught a steak that master dropped from the dinner table.

The X-Man was talking. Panu blinked and replayed the one-sided conversation in his head. Enough so that he could answer.

“Okay. Can you go straight down? If you do, path is clear all the way to ground floor. Good distraction is on way. If you leave now, it will arrive same time you do.”

He clasped the X-communicator tightly between the palms of his hands, his blind eyes entranced by the fine circuitry his mind saw. Ragnarok's cooperation in this civilian rescue had been bought and paid for.

He did not promise to stay under a pile of clothes. This would be too childish even if he was not a terrorist. Instead, as soon as the mirror-walker was gone, Panu raced back the way they had come.

This put him in range of the two bots they'd just left behind.

To one of these bots—the Knight model—Panu CTRL+F replaced all text in code: mutants with METAs. It was sloppy job, full of holes, but glitches were extra okay.

Down there, he nudged it, and it was more than happy to jump over a railing. It fell very nicely over the side, and landed with tile-cracking satisfaction on the main floor.

“You are under arrest,” he heard it say to the first fellow META bot it encountered. And, not long after: “Are you resisting arrest?