They trudged down the hallway as Gawain made an attempt at explaining what he did in the school when he was not being an X-man. X-men work was interesting, but when kids were all brand new and bright eyed and bushy tailed all jaded and prematurely sarcastic, it was better not to get their hopes up about being on a superhero team. SO, he focused on the more mundane tasks instead.

>>"I bet you can't help train my powers. I already know how they work, why would I need you? And I could take GED test right now and pass if the stupid teachers would let me. Then I wouldn't have to waste so much time in class."

"Wouldn't know" Gawain shrugged about the GED. He was not exactly formally educated either. "But powers, that's a different thing. They change all the time, and people tend to develop new ones over time. And even when you think you know what you can do... training can push the limits to try things you might not have thought of. Or scenarios you might not be prepared for." he shrugged again "That can wait, though. First... you'll need a room." he pointed down the boy's dorm hallway. Angua jogged along, pushing on a slightly open door with her nose.

"Training is stupid." Panu grumbled, because Gawain did not even care that Panu was being rude to him and that was annoying. If the Finn was going to take the time to be rude, he wanted results. It was boring if the man just kept shrugging and smiling. "In training you can hold back and everything is okay. It's bad habit, bad thing to practice. Real world, if you hold back people are hurt or die or maybe police catch whole family. Powers aren't for playtime. Probably you did not just learn from training, you did not seem completely awful with your powers at mall."

Grumble grumble.

Angua was on his side, at least. She looked back at him and wagged her tail and pushed into a room.

It was much bigger than the California rooms. There were two real beds instead of bunkbeds, and there was carpet instead of tile, and if he climbed that dresser it probably wouldn't even fall over. Panu held up his phone and looked around. It would not be bad, especially if he could wire up a camera there and there and maybe also there.

…First he would have to find money for cameras. Then he would have to explain to X-Men and his parole officer where he got money. This was going to take forever.

Worst. Room. Ever.

There was a lot of resistance from the kid, and Mirror suddenly wondered what his alternate-universe baby would be like as a teenager with an assortment of scary powers. At least the parents had a decade to practice? Teens were generally cool, even around the mansion, but this one looked extra sulky. Gawain reminded himself to go back and check why he had been transferred back from California.

>>"Training is stupid. In training you can hold back and everything is okay. It's bad habit, bad thing to practice. Real world, if you hold back people are hurt or die or maybe police catch whole family. Powers aren't for playtime. Probably you did not just learn from training, you did not seem completely awful with your powers at mall."

Gawain smirked. Not completely awful. Was that a compliment? Bless the lil jaded technopath.

Angua pushed into an empty room, and Gawain followed, standing back so that Panu could look around.

"You can eventually get a roommate if you want, but it's all yours until you get settled in." he offered, then paused, thinking about conveniences "... uh, if you want, we can get you some cameras in here. You know, for... better vision. Bathroom's in there, and Angua and I will show you the kitchen in a bit."

Gawain was one of those people who didn't get angry at anything. He was made of shrugs and smirks and listening-to-people-when-they-spoke. He was awful.

>> "... uh, if you want, we can get you some cameras in here. You know, for... better vision…"

…

"Yes please," the Finn said, swallowing down every single bit of snark. Since he had been talking with 90% snark, that left only a quiet little 10% volume voice to come out. "Also Angua can be my roommate if she wants to."

But no, this was a trap, the X-Man was just trying to bribe him for good behavior. It was all that goodies really know how to do. He sat on the nearest bed and stuck his feet out in front and made his best glare-face in Gawain's direction (though probably he was glaring at the wall slightly to Gawain's left).

"Just to be clear," he said.

"You don't know anything about me," Gawain's phone said.

"And we are not friends," his x-communicator finished.

"But I will need three or four cameras," the boy himself said, with chin in air. "Thank you."

Baby steps. It had nothing to do with babies, as Gawain had learned, because all of those were little slobbery drunks, but as a theory, it was sound. Little by little, you could win someone's confidence. And this one was not even pointing a gun at him.

>>"Yes please. Also Angua can be my roommate if she wants to."

Gawain smirked. Angua wagged.

"Angua tends to roam when she's not sleeping next to my bed" he noted "I'm sure she'll stop by to visit."

She was not the only Manison dog, but probably the most noticeable one. That was actually a dog.

>>"Just to be clear,"

>>"You don't know anything about me,"

>>"And we are not friends,"

>>"But I will need three or four cameras. Thank you."

Gawain blinked in surprise as suddenly all technology began to talk to him in the boy's voice. It was almost as freaky as a telepath. Like an episode of Dark Reflection or something.

"Whoa! You're... what, a full blown technopath?..."

Cameras, indeed.

>> "Whoa! You're... what, a full blown technopath?..."

The full blown technopath sat down on the edge of one of the beds. He made sure to sit quickly, so that he bounce-bounce-bounced. Just like a child.

"When we met at mall, you gave me X-communicator. Thank you, it was very useful to Ragnarok. Helping instigator of mall shutdown escape was also very appreciated. I even got to keep dog-robot until stupid police confiscated it."

To be fair, Panu had paid for those services by stopping the Metabots from arresting and/or tasering the X-Men during their escape. And he had wanted to tell Mirror the whole time, because what was even the point of tricking your enemy if they never know?

Gawain wasn't the only one who could smirk.

The kid took a seat on the bed, and for a blind preteen he looked for all the world like he owned the place. Or at least owned Gawain. Given the things he was saying now, Gawain suddenly felt totally unprepared for the new transfer student.

>>"When we met at mall, you gave me X-communicator. Thank you, it was very useful to Ragnarok. Helping instigator of mall shutdown escape was also very appreciated. I even got to keep dog-robot until stupid police confiscated it."

Ragnarok.

The damn kid was a damn mini-supervillain.

... villainling?...

Angua must have felt the tension, because she made a whining sound, looking between Gawain and Panu, her ears flat. Dogs were perceptive that way. Gawain, on his part, ran a hand through his hair, trying to deal with the fact that he had rescued the hacker, back at the mall. To be fair, though, who would have suspected... Panu?...

"No wonder they kicked you back here from California" he sighed, finally, shaking his head "They wanted you next to Ms. Taylor, didn't they?"

Angua was whining, why was Angua whining? Panu wanted to go over and sit next to her again, but Gawain was looking at him and finally finally there was no smirk on the X-Man's face. Finally he was not treating Panu like a stupid child. Maybe now they could talk like equals, like Proper Rivals. So he curled his fingers into his palms and did-not-pet-dog.

If his shoulders flinched at 'kicked you back here', then this was just because he'd ever been stupid enough to think they wouldn't kick him out.

"Yes," the mini-supervillain-500-times-smarter-than-mirrorwalker said. "My power is Best Power. I do not need your stupid training, I have already trained against X-Men and against police and you would never have caught me if my dad—"

Had not disappeared. Left him. This was normal thing adults did, he should have had contingency plan in place, it was his own fault.

It was not the police who had caught him first, it was child services. If he found out which stupid concerned neighbors reported him he would maybe see if he could burn their house down.

He made himself take Deep Breath and then he sat up straight and lifted chin. Getting upset was stupid. He was Munin of Ragnarok and Takala of Tuonela, he had pride.

"Only way to stop me is to have prison warden who can perform lobotomy. Does it feel good to help muzzle other mutants, Assistant Warden Mirror?"

They had a tiny ball of anger and technopathy going on sociopathy. Awesome. Gawain wondered if Ms. Taylor (was it Ms. Taylor-Cervantes now?) knew what she was getting into. This kid was yet another candidate for being chained to an adapted. Until he changed his attitude, anyway. What the hell was Xavier's thinking, even letting him in?... He was still a kid, sure, but a kid that could hack search history...

>>"Yes. My power is Best Power. I do not need your stupid training, I have already trained against X-Men and against police and you would never have caught me if my dad—"

Gawain blinked. That sounded like a line from a children's cartoon. If it had not been for those meddling X-men... or the dad. Whoever the dad was. Tiny villains usually had backstories that sucked. Kids were cruel, but not naturally villainous.

>>"Only way to stop me is to have prison warden who can perform lobotomy. Does it feel good to help muzzle other mutants, Assistant Warden Mirror?"

"Whoa, kid, no one is lobotomizing you."

No wifi access for the kid, though. Could a technopath make his own wifi? They probably could, because the rules were made up and the genes did not matter.

"So... we are daycare for minivillains now. Awesome." Gawain sighed, sitting down on the other bed. Angua sighed too, and walked over for a scratch before turning around and looking for the same from Panu. "I mean, we can let you walk out right now for all I care. What's the end game anyway? Spacenet? Robot overlords? Mutant paradise?..."

>> "So... we are daycare for minivillains now. Awesome."

Panu folded up his legs on the bed—wait no, first he took of his shoes and then he put his feet on the bed--and nodded in now-we-are-on-same-page satisfaction. "Now you are share my joy. Congratulations."

The X-Men was a hundred times less annoying when he was not smiling like the world was something that deserved smiles. He could still go jump off a cliff if he wanted, but Panu no longer felt urge to push him off.

This did not mean he was not still on the lower half of the intelligence bell curve. Panu propped up his phone against his knee so that he could keep an eye on the X-Man, and then he leaned down to scratch Angua's ears (but not very far because she was So Big). Her fur was wiry and coarse, not soft like a puppy, but that was okay because everything in this world that was soft either grew up or died.

"Stop being stupid. This is not child's game. I am eleven, I have best power ever for crime, but it is mental only. I am not fast or strong. Probably most adults can pick me up by one hand. If I am not already with villain group, then other villains try to take me. This is Fact. And if I stay here, I still get taken but people get hurt. I do not know you, I do not like you, whatever children you have here I also hate. None of you should get hurt for me, that would be stupid."

He couldn't see Angua, but he could hear her tail thumping against the side of the bed. She was a very good listener. Not like Gawain, who probably was only listening so he could say something back with a smirk-face.

"Do not worry, you only have to babysit until I finish researching groups in city. Then I will go to best place for protect me, and you will only see me again if I screw up. But I am smarter than when we were at mall, so hopefully you never see me again. … Please do not tell my parole officer I say any of that, you will have to put up with me for longer if you do."

>> "Now you are share my joy. Congratulations."

Knowing what he knew now, Gawain had to be the better man and admit that some of that snark was probably well founded in life experience. Which made the kid even creepier, in a way. Kid villains were always the most terrifying, because they had kid brains that did into function like adult brains and God knew what they would come up with. At least with adults it was usually money, sex, revenge, or power. With kids? It could have been anything. Like, literally. Cotton candy or dinosaurs or spaceships or No Vegetables Forever...

>>"Stop being stupid. This is not child's game. I am eleven, I have best power ever for crime, but it is mental only. I am not fast or strong. Probably most adults can pick me up by one hand. If I am not already with villain group, then other villains try to take me. This is Fact. And if I stay here, I still get taken but people get hurt. I do not know you, I do not like you, whatever children you have here I also hate. None of you should get hurt for me, that would be stupid."

This minivillain sure did sound like he had an adult brain. "Feeling's mutual" Gawain muttered, for lack of anything better to do.

>>"Do not worry, you only have to babysit until I finish researching groups in city. Then I will go to best place for protect me, and you will only see me again if I screw up. But I am smarter than when we were at mall, so hopefully you never see me again. … Please do not tell my parole officer I say any of that, you will have to put up with me for longer if you do."

Gawain was silent for a long time, processing the information. Panu's reasoning was... sound, if nothing else. And surprisingly mature for a kid his age.

"Ooookay" he sighed finally "Let me see if I get this straight. You got useful powers, and you are easy to snatch up, so villains are falling over themselves to get to you. Which is why you decided to just team up with the biggest fish in town. I gotta say, kid, if I was in your shoes, that's exactly what I would do too."

Angua huffed, finally deciding to lie down in the middle of the room, tail wagging lazily.

"What makes you think we can't protect you here, though?"

The X-Man was suddenly making sense, saying things like 'feeling's mutual' to not-liking and 'that's exactly what I would do' to Panu's very good plan. This was Very Suspicious. Panu replayed Gawain's words once, twice, and also translated back to Finnish to make sure he wasn't missing something, but when his silent replays were done still he was left thinking that there was no trap in the words.

Probably that just meant it was a very good trap.

Angua had abandoned him while he was thinking. He tucked his hands in his lap, and pointed phone at Gawain so that he could keep a close eye on the man's face. Something was wrong here, but until Panu knew what it was, he did not see the harm in Being Honest.

>> "What makes you think we can't protect you here, though?"

"You have no reason to. You can't use me, my power isn't good for legal things. If I am not valuable to you, then I am just… random child. Random children are hurt or die all the time, it is stupid to think you can help them all. I am criminal, so probably I am at very bottom of Who-To-Save list, it is only smart place to put me." He started to fidget with the phone in his hands, but fidgeting with the only camera-eye he had in the room was a good way to make himself motion sick. He set it down and tucked his hands under his legs. "Is this part where you try to convince me that everything will be okay? Because that is what other school said, and then they kick me out."

That was another reason that being with villains was better. Villains at least laughed when they broke their word, they had fun with it, they made him feel like dirt but if he could be smarter next time they wouldn't trick him again. When goodies did it, they just looked sad, and yelling liar at them just made them look worse and worse until it felt like he was being hurt too.

It was a sad world in which a mutant kid found out he had powers, and concluded, through serious unshakable logic, that the safest course of action was to become a supervillain. Gawain couldn't even argue with the reasoning; all he could do was think about how to present other options. Options that did not involve a 12-year-old taking over the Internet. Because that thought was so many flavors of problematic...

>>"You have no reason to. You can't use me, my power isn't good for legal things. If I am not valuable to you, then I am just… random child. Random children are hurt or die all the time, it is stupid to think you can help them all. I am criminal, so probably I am at very bottom of Who-To-Save list, it is only smart place to put me."

Gawain opened his mouth, but was not sure what to say. Once, again cruel logic. The kind of logic that was logical to people who had to deal with all the things that sucked int he world. Front that point of view, it was unshakable.

>>"Is this part where you try to convince me that everything will be okay? Because that is what other school said, and then they kick me out."

"Okay, first off - they didn't kick you out, they transferred you here. Now we can argue whether they were right or not, but here you are." Gawain pointed out. Angua, on her part, lazily wagged her tail some more. "Second... you are just a kid. Yeah, you have powers, and I'm sure they have perfectly legal uses, but guess what, it doesn't matter, because you are a kid. No one should be using your powers for anything, except for you. That's what the school's for, to figure them out." he sighed "And FYI we don't have a Who-to-Save list. But we have been doing well with protecting ourselves so far. Especially the kids. If you live here, you are one of ours. Not a criminal."

And then, just was quick as he had started, the X-Man stopped making sense.

No--that was not fair. He listened, he opened and closed his mouth as Panu talked like fish gasping at air, and then he decided when everything was done that he would play the you are a kid, I am adult, let us live in magical world where this fixes everything card.

So Panu also listened while Gawain talked. Politeness returned. But he did not open-close-fish-gape with his mouth. He took in deep breaths and let them out so that he would not scream. Probably that would have hurt Angua's ears, and she was not playing the Adult Card. She was playing the Dog Card, which was much less pretentious.

"Thank you," the little Finn said, his hands tight on his knees so the skin under them hurt and maybe his knuckles turned white. "I had not realized I was kid, this is wonderful and enlightening fact. Now I can safely entrust my fate to adults-who-know-better, never has this gone wrong for me before. Such wonderful safety I feel in being totally powerless at whims of older wiser people. I feel much better and very relieved and ready for you to leave the room and let me unpack suitcase because I will definitely be staying, and not being transferred at short notice with no option, not to be confused with being kicked out. You have won conversation forever, because I am just-a-kid."

Of course he was a kid, that was the problem. His knees hurt a lot under his digging fingers but there was no point strangling Mirror, the man was stronger than him anyway, even if maybe not as smart. This was all he could do.

Gawain could see the kid visibly tense up while he was trying to calm him down. Something was not connecting. Gawain had been a kid once, one alone and lost and doing all kinds of morally questionable things to survive, but he'd never gone as far as seeing being a supervillain as a valid career path. In a way, they did not have much in common. But in many other ways, Panu was still a kid, who should not have had to worry about who was going to take advantage of his (considerable) powers.

>>"I had not realized I was kid, this is wonderful and enlightening fact. Now I can safely entrust my fate to adults-who-know-better, never has this gone wrong for me before. Such wonderful safety I feel in being totally powerless at whims of older wiser people. I feel much better and very relieved and ready for you to leave the room and let me unpack suitcase because I will definitely be staying, and not being transferred at short notice with no option, not to be confused with being kicked out. You have won conversation forever, because I am just-a-kid."

Gawain's mouth fell open at the sheer volume of sarcasm.

"That's not... what even..." he gaped "That isn't even..."

Seriously?

Gawain let out a defeated sigh, and slid off the bed to sit on the floor. Angua, on her part, sniffed at him, then circled back to Panu.

"That is, like, the exact opposite of what I'm saying." Gawain sighed, shaking his head. How did he even make sure to get the actual message across? "Okay, let me try again. What I'm saying is... as a kid, you should have the option to not pawn your powers out to anyone. You shouldn't have to find the biggest shark, to feel safe. That's all. Options. I just want you to see this place as an option. And sure, we are not 100% safe, but no one is, really, and at least we don't see you as a very handy... hacking tool." whatever those were actually called, Mirror was not a tech person outside the DR "Like, you move in here, and you need cameras to see. I can do that. You can tell us what else you need, to... feel safe, and to work on your powers. And you don't have to pay us with using them. Because you are a kid. And using kids for... whatever reasons, is wrong. There are like, child labor laws about that."