There really was someone else in the mirror with Jesse. He had not seen anyone like this, not since his own other-world doppelganger. Could there be more than one of those, for some people? Or were there more dimensions, maybe inside the mirrors? Or just other mutants with similar powers and a very unlucky physical side-effect?...

>>"Yeah. Mirror walker. Like yourself."

Jesse blinked, not sure what to say. His attention was split between the wraith and the fight outside.

>>"Your friend seems to be fighting a losing battle. He doesn't really know what's going on, it seems."

The helmet was gone now. Next time Jesse glanced out of the mirror, he could see the guy's face. He did not seem to be getting anywhere against the water monster.

"Get. THE HELL. OUT OF HERE!" Jesse snapped at Cheshire, hoping he would finally make the smart choice, instead of keeping up the fight.

>>"Do you- Know what's going on now? On a separate note, can you get out of the mirror and help him out? Or are you trapped, like so many beings like us?"

"Like us?" Jesse turned back to stare at the wraith; it was beginning to unnerve him "There are others?..."

The pale faced man smiled.

Us. "Yes," he agreed. "There were many of us."

Keyword, were?

Benji could hear the sea again. Really, though, this time it was quite literally water rushing over his head. He'd slipped up one second, and been drawn in the next. Again. Embarrassing. One would think he'd be faster than this, but he was getting tired, and it was cold. Cold can make one sluggish. Especially with clothes weighted down by rain.

The wraith-like man didn't react to the Korean kid's plight. His focus was on the person across from him in a whole other world.

Bubbles escaped Benji's mouth. And then... he heard something else. A weird voice that seemed to come from everywhere around him, echoing like sounds in a pool. The water creature was talking. Inside itself, with sound vibrations. It sounded like it had already been talking, in fact. The sentence picked up halfway through what could have been a much longer monologue. He sounded mildly British, and highly put off. "-- then, that's better. Really don't see why you don't just listen when i try telling you things. Even if it's impossible to speak without vocal cords. Should be faster than this, kid. Mentally speaking, of course."

Benji said nothing. He kind of needed air to say words. And talking with your head in a body of water isn't as easy as it sounds.

"Yes. So. As I was saying. Mirror man. Behind you. Danger. He's been draining the water from the bodies of victims in the rain, when puddles acted as mirrors so he could briefly interact. Hoping to drain enough energy, life force. Water. To regain cohesion and escape for good. I've been fighting him. Being made of water, however... it's a bit of an undertaking. Probably as stupid as you trying to beat me upside the head with a lead pipe and oh yes, humans need air." He cut off, ejecting Benji from his chest. The speedster took in a ragged breath, and coughed up some liquid. His head was racing, and not just from the lack of oxygen and the blood pounding in his ears. The possibilities.

He turned, to shout at the glass and all that was going on behind him, hoping he wasn't too late. He could see the damned weird guy in the mirror now, talking to the man who had told him to leave. It wasn't entirely intended to be the same exact thing the man had just told him, but-- "Get. THE HELL. OUT OF HERE!" Benji shouted, cupping hands around his mouth so it carried over the storm. Thunder crashed.

The wraith smiled. "I can help you, you know." He said. "Set you free. We don't have to be stuck in this blasted mirror world forever." Freedom was sweet. Sweet as honeyed milk. The shouting from beyond the wall between worlds was muffled by thunder and pouring rain. 

>> "Yes. There were many of us."

There was something in the way the wraith said that that did not fill Jesse with a warm and fuzzy sense of belonging. Quite the opposite, actually. The past tense, and the way the 'us' sounded made the mirrorwalker's skin crawl, like he had just been roped into a cult somehow. Were? Did people in mirrors turn into these... things?... Jesse shook his head. He could not dwell on that now.

>>"Get. THE HELL. OUT OF HERE!"

Cheshire was free again, and yelling at him from a distance, trying to... what? Warn him?

"Yeah that's not really an option." Jesse snapped. He could get into another mirror... but that still left the wraith in there with him.

>>"I can help you, you know. Set you free. We don't have to be stuck in this blasted mirror world forever."

We. Which meant, it was stuck. As much as it did not want to be, Jesse doubted it could offer freedom if it had not gained it yet either. It was a trick. And something was horribly wrong.

"No. Thanks. I like it here. Get lost."

Ah. The man seemed to be catching on. No matter. He didn't need a friend. He didn't need the man's permission, to drain the life out of him, to dehydrate him like a raisin.

The eyeless man smiled calmly. "You like it here? Really? Good." He could stay here, as a corpse.

He was the traditional bad guy. The kind that said something clever, and then struck when the hero was distracted from processing the clever comment. It was a tried trope, he knew. Tried, trite, tripe. But always worth a try. He was set in his ways, so kill him. He didn't even care if that wasn't the phrase. Law suits aren't the end-all-be-all. Why sue when you can kill?

The pale man rushed at Jesse with a hand wrinkled like a prune. He clawed out, and tried to rake the man across the eyes.

If he caught him, he could try and drain him. It took time. They always struggled. He felt like a ripoff, because of how it worked. He'd seen Harry Potter. He'd seen it through a mirror. With an eyeless face, it was best not to ask how. But he knew how similar his method of draining life was to that grim Reaper thing's demented kiss. With a simple kiss, he could drain the water (and the life) out of a victim in what he considered to be a very odd sort of mouth to mouth reverse resuscitation. Don't judge. He hadn't made the rules.

He'd learned the rules the hard way. And when he'd turned and fled the scene, he had accidentally crashed into a glass door. He'd gotten stuck. He'd never been able to get out. It had been a rude awakening for his powers. The whole thing had changed him, and not just his appearance. The changes had not happened instantly. Not even over night. He had experimented, and he had learned... and over time, he had changed. Kind of like Gollum. There he went again, bring unoriginal. Thinking he was clever, with his murderous intent and his references. His witty comment probably hadn't even been that witty. He could almost laugh! Laugh at the amusement he felt over the whole situation, laugh at his mad sense of self loathing, that fought desperately against his desire to escape. To get lost. In the real world.

People who'd met him before his awakening had always told him he was far less clever than he thought. They'd told him to get a life! Welllll that was exactly what he was trying to do!!!!

Every time he drained someone, he felt more alive. It had to be working. It just had to.


---

Benji watched the conversation play out in the reflection. He stared at it. A watery hand slopped on his ear to whisper something. And then he shouted that something to relay it to the man in the mirror.

"DON'T LET HIM KISS YOU!"

He spun on the water man, anger and disbelief clearly painted on his face. "REALLY?!" He asked. Under his breath, Cheshire muttered. "This whole situation is getting ridiculous."

If only the water guy would tell him how to axe the real bad guy. He couldn't do anything if they were trapped on one side of the glass, with him on the other.

((Ooc I turn over full control of crazy NPC man to you to fight how you will. Although maybe we can figure out how to get him in something and shatter him, or have him appear in a puddle and stomp on his face. His weak point is a glass chin and the need to monologue. Aquaman can crush his dreams.))