Evelyn listened carefully while Sam gave her instructions. While she didn't like the warning, she knew the seriousness of the situation warranted it. Any level of skill or preparation could always fall short when it came to a mission. His priority was to make sure she got it back to the mansion safe, and her responsibility was to make sure nothing he did endangered her in the long term. While she generally hated being treated like a child, in this situation, she knew his trust in bringing her along was more important than the actions he took to keep her safe. She could be useful, and she would make sure she was.

With her bag on her back, she nodded that she was set to go. A mile was long, but she had no complaints despite being born a rather spoiled city child. She had worn good shoes, and training with Sam lately had helped. She paid close attention to the sky, and nodded with focus.

"The dark isn't a problem for me. The echoes are pretty good at finding their way around," she explained, tucking the flashlight into the pocket of her jacket for now. The echoes were on alert as they moved, listening and processing what was around them. [Rustle, right, distant corner of tree. Bird. Overgrowth hiding log to left. Tree, tree, tree.] It was good they weren't talking, allowing her powers to focus more on her surroundings. While her eyes might have struggled with less light, her hearing helped fill in the gaps along with her powers.

In the end, they made it to a van and Evelyn got inside, scanning what was in front of her. The electronics looked promising, and she set her backpack down, letting her echoes familiarize herself with what she was given. "Ready." She didn't ask questions for now, figuring she would find out more when he left. The waves of excitement were settling into determination. She would make sure this went well, so Sam would keep training her. She needed to prove she was more than just a kid, that she was worth being a teammate too.

It was a quite drive into town. If you could call it a town. There were some vehicles on the road but nothing too crazy for the most part the buildings all looked abandoned except for a few locals that refused to move out of a dying town. Most of the shops were closed and boarded up. Trash blew past the van as he turned down a side street the word ghost town came to mind.

Pressing the opener in the van the large steel doors opened to the side allowing them access to park the vehicle. When he turned the van off he turned to Eve who should have eyes everywhere in the building and outside of it. ”Keep a look out I’ll be right back.” he didn’t wait for a response but shut the door quietly behind him.

It took some time and the sealing of two upper windows and he was satisfied with the safe house. ”What’s the plan again so I know everyone is on the same page?” he asked forcing a smile. While she could probably read him like a book he wanted to continue to make it seem everything was perfect. Sam removed his X-communicator and handed it to Eve.

”Operation rescue Po is a go!” he said offering up a high five before he shut the van door behind him.

Evelyn found it hard to control her curiosity as she looked out the window and watched the city roll past. She had never left New York, so each experience was fascinating, even an abandoned town like this. When you were someone with a perfect memory, anything new felt exhilarating. Trash and empty streets were just as breathtaking as the forest had been. Well, in different ways. Less beautiful, but more of a macabre curiosity sort of wonder.

Reaching the safe house, Evelyn quickly made herself familiar with the feeds in the van, and her new battle station. It would work nicely. The echoes could easily scan between feeds, and now that the initial interest faded she could ignore the strange empty surroundings.

He asked what the plan was, so Evelyn recited everything in her mind that fell under the title ‘plan’, ”Listen to what you have to say, stay out of danger. With the memorized documents I use the earpiece, direct you through the maze. We need to both get home safely. But if anything happens, return to the jet and get ahold of Becca or Mirror if we have to.” She did not fidget or wiggle. She sat perfectly still on her post next to the monitors. When she took the xCom she did it like an adult would, poised with the seriousness of the situation.

The only sign she was a child and not an adult was the bunny backpack sitting next to her, and the color pencils blueprints she pulled out and spread onto the table, using a taser and some pepper spray as little paper weights. She accepted the high five, perhaps more confused by that than any of her tasks.

Sam left and she settled in, pink pencil in hand. She drew a little pink version of CS on one of the documents and labeled it with an X. Now, she was set.

Once the van was shut Sam was already on the move, given the circumstances he had done everything he could have to prepare for this even brought Eve. Something he knew was going to bite him in the rear later, she was a kid after all and he was doing what he always said shouldn’t be done. He should have let her be a kid but Po’s life was on the line so there were circumstances that made him into a hypocrite. He’d think about that later.

Sam shot himself upward with an ice pillar and once he was comfortable with the building cover he decided to slide into an alley a few blocks from where Eve was. ”Mic check. Mic check one two.” Sam said into the mic as he landed and walked to the edge of the nearest building to get a look around. His face still visible as the skullcap hugged his head. He shifted from window to door and moved. ”Holmes… you reading?” still not sure if he was stuck on her codename.

Sam bolted across the street shortly after a windowless van passed by. Probably patrol to notify if anything was concerning. Sam was consider concerning so he didn’t let himself be seen. Sure enough the van led him to where he wanted to be. ”At south gate entrance. White van checking in and one checking out.” Sam relayed ”Try to watch out for them. If you see one hanging around let me know.” He’d do what he could to save Po but Eve was far more important, she had no business being here.

Sam ran up to the closest fence. Construction signs were posted everywhere notifying the public that there was an ongoing construction site. No one ever questioned man power or tools required. Ignoring the barbed wire he launched himself over the fence and avoided the lights. ”Coming up on southeast entrance. I see three stories all have windows. Whatchu got Holmes?” Sam said hugging a small brick wall.

Evelyn was as ready as she could be, listening until Sam spoke into the mic. The code name made her smile a little, and she responded clearly back. "Read you loud and clear, CS." Then she noted where he entered her hand drawn map. South gate. White van, noted. She let the echoes scan the monitors for her, one registering a stray cat chasing a plastic bag. She noted it as possible shapshifter just to have all bases covered, and continued her job.

"Your best point for entry is going to be a bathroom window to your left. Little bit of a jump, but I did not see any security feed for that area," she decided. The side door was an easy mistake, posted security noting the weak point leading to their trash compactor. She put a little X on the entry point and let her powers take over from there. When he was inside the bathroom, she kept her voice low and gave further instructions.

"Take a left, follow the corridor and then a sharp right. One more left and you will come up to the stairwell. If you hear anyone coming, there is a storage room down the second hallway, third door on the right." She listened as he moved, noting progress on her charts. Keeping a good visual would help her find the right path either in or out of the facility. If he needed additional escapes, she marked down one cramped air duct, and one unfinished bunk room. Always good to have on hand.

Stairwell, to the bottom level. She scanned that blueprint and paused. "Stairs take a straight shot out into an open room. They'll have visibility on you before you will see them. I would make yourself a mirror or something to scope out what's ahead. Unless you like having people shoot at your legs." That sounded messy. The echoes felt the ice could protect from a lot of it, but she didn't like the gamble on those numbers.

Sam scanned the area she noted for him. It took a second but he noticed a light go on and off briefly. If he had to guess, ‘a bathroom’. Sam waited till a few ‘crew workers’ walked past. They had the helmets and vests but they all had a side arm just under the vest. Defiantly not construction union approved. Pushing himself up from the wall he quickly and quietly made it to the window. No trace was left behind. The icemancer pushed his hands against the window ice already hitting the locks till they broke.

”I’m in.” he said looking around making sure no one was around. There wasn’t. Now was the time to activate his thermal sense as well. He didn’t want to be seen till he had Po in hand. That was the goal of him coming. He deserved a life as well.

Left, sharp right, stop avoid a now obvious T.A.T. agent. He had the earpiece and tactical belt. Sam cursed under his breath and waited till he went the opposite direction before taking the stairs. ”Keep at it kid.” Sam said as the door shut quietly behind him. Now was the time he wished he could go invisible. He was quick and quiet and was more versatile than most about avoiding detection but to be invisible that would have been nice.

Sam made it to the bottom level only having to slide down a flight once, as he passed the second floor the door opened and coupled with his thermal sensing he was told there would be three men coming. Sam didn’t want to deal with that, yet. Hopefully not at all.

”No, I don’t like being shot at.” Sam said flatly and quietly. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to make a joke or not. If she was, they’d need to work on her delivery a bit better. ”Powers don’t work like that, exactly.” Sam said condensing his powers to the door in front of him. The air around him in the stairwell became cold and heavy. Ice started to coat his legs as an ice clone started to form next to him.

”I can feel two of them but there are some small blurs off a bit more. I can’t tell what they are, meaning element of surprise will be best.” he hoped. There wasn’t much more he could do at this point. Straight lines are often the shortest route right?

”Ignore what you hear.” Sam said quietly as his ice clone burst towards the door. The door fell apart easily thanks to his power and when the clone entered the door a dense mist followed him into the room. Sam sent him towards the right guard and Sam quickly followed with the left. His ice clone knocked the unaware guard with ease while Sam had to drag his target back into the mist as his clone followed.

Three more guards were ready at that point guns drawing forward. “The hell was that?” “Intruder!” ”Calling it –“ the third one who was about to call gestured towards his ear and was met with a cold blast to the face with enough force to stagger him. The mist quickly moved forward from there and his clone charged into one of the guards as Sam forward and took the final guard with a serious of strikes. ”Yup. They had eyes on me.” Sam said going through and removing their guns and ear pieces and phones. He froze them in a pile then pinned the guards with ice before they could come to.

The mist remained as Sam looked around to the next door. Turning his back Sam erected a wall of ice from the door he just entered. Too late now, all it did would slow the oncoming guards, they would have figured it out when they came in the room anyways. No alarms were raised yet meaning he still had surprise on his side.

”Rooms clear.” Sam said as he obscured a camera. No thermal images registered to Sam. However that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone. He put his back to the wall near the door to the next room. His clone of ice stood ready to run through.

Evelyn wanted to make a face that his powers couldn't form a mirror. Heck, working with a mirror-walker, she would have thought he could have found a way to do that. Couldn't ice be shiny? The echoes thought it could, but again, that was the conflict between logic and execution. They needed to train together more so she had a better sense of the limits to what he could do. Letting the echoes make things up was probably poor form.

Like, how he could feel people? How was he feeling? What was he feeling? She was a good student and didn't get distracted or ask, but stayed silent when he told her to ignore things. There were noises [Door opening. Thuds, fighting. Voices. Intruder, movement.] She couldn't exactly turn off the whole closed caption thing going on in her head, but she focused on drawing on the map where he was fighting. How many voices had she heard? 3? She noted the little downed guards with little frowny faces in red. Nice.

Cleared room. She looked around the blueprint, and picked the next direction. "You have a hallway up ahead, different doors branching off. The most logical one is going to be 3 down, to the right. That one has no clear exit, no ventilation, reinforced... Basic one way in, one way out sort of deal. Point of ambush will be the first door on the left. That has a secondary stairwell. Be on guard." She wondered how many more little frowny faces she needed to draw. Should she sharpen a pencil?

"If you can close the access point on the left, then the only other risk I'm seeing is the end of the hallway. That could be storage or an armory. The map didn't have enough detail."

Shifting his eyes to the clone to the door he nodded his head and the clone opened the door. To the hallway and they both entered. Like she said, There was the rooms and he pushed his thermal senses outward. No one yet. The doors were thick meaning he couldn’t see if there were any forms of heat on the other side but that didn’t mean no one was there. He looked to the door that led to the stairwell and he blasted the door with a beam of ice so the door would freeze shut. They could get in that way but he’d at least hear them coming.

Mist enveloped his feet as he walked towards the end of the hallway ever door he passed that he wasn’t going to bother with was hit with a fall of ice. Sam looked up to the security camera shot up the middle finger waved and hit it with some ice. ”Looking good, Sherlock. Keep it up. All clear on your end?” Sam said trying not to worry about her. She wasn’t a mercenary, she didn’t have much training and she’d be in danger if anyone discovered her. Sam decided he’d wouldn’t let that happen.

”Approaching the room.” muffled screams could be heard from the thick door and Sam’s stomach started to churn remembering what caused those screams. A few of his scars lit up in solidarity remembering being tortured. His anger swelled and before he knew it he knocked on the door and the screaming stopped.

“Did you bring what I asked for already?” a voice called back and unlocked the large metallic door. When the grizzled form of an older agent opened the door his jaw dropped when he realized what was happening. He turned and tried to shut the door but Sam and the clone forced their way in. He looked to the single man to the one who was being tortured. It was po, well it looked like Po but he was skinny, missing an arm and looking down blood dripping from his face. Rage swelled.

“You can’t be here… you know who I am… wait.. Steel? Oh this is a treat.” Sam looked from Po to the cart of torture devices and then over to grizzled man. Some of the tools looked familiar but he didn’t think about it. Sam forced a cold blast at one of his legs and the guy collapsed when it shattered from under him. He let out a quick scream and Sam pulled his ear piece out and put it in his pocket where he hoped it wouldn’t be anything more than muffled screams.

Evelyn watched the monitors, and found nothing out of the ordinary. She checked for signs of traffic, let the echoes scan for signs of danger, then responded to her teacher. "Everything is clear on this end still." It took a few moments before she started to hear unpleasant sounds, and she wondered how much she should listen to.

A man was speaking, the echoes struggling to pick up on what he said. Evelyn could hear the tension in Sam's voice, withheld rage, pain...Not current pain, pain of age old memories that he wanted to go away. Evelyn felt strange as the echoes picked up on those feelings, like she was listening to a reveal of emotions she shouldn't know. That felt more upsetting than the screams and the fights as Sam took care of the bad guys.

These people had hurt Sam once. And they were hurting his friend. Evelyn felt a rush of emotions that were hard to keep in check, and she didn't mind as the echoes tried to calculate what was breaking, what was being injured. She couldn't lead Sam with the earpiece where it was, but she would be ready when he returned. The path out would be fast.

Taking a moment, Evelyn pulled out a spare piece of paper and started scrawling on it, letting the echoes continue to monitor the feeds. She finished the card quickly, and set it on his chair for when he returned. Sorry people are jerks it said, with a little drawing of Sam kicking the bad guy in the nads.

With that taken care of, she heard the earpiece shuffle, "Are you able to leave safely?" she asked professionally.

The screaming continued for a moment then Sam leaned over and slammed his fist into the torture’s face knocking him out. He should kill him. He really should the amount of pain the torturer inflicted on Po, him and all the other forced to be agents. A chill ran down his spine when he reminded himself there was someone listening. He placed the earpiece back into his ear and cleared his throat signaling he was back and that everything was fine.

”Yeah…” he looked at Po and hesitated a second not sure where to grab him. It was then he realized Po’s other arm shot out and grabbed his throat. Sam choked slightly barely having enough time to grab the hand from the air before it latched on or enough time to freeze before he felt his windpipe starting to cave. ”Po…” Sam gasped as his former teacher recognized the voice. Even with his battered body and face the older man managed a small smirk.

”Told you not to come…” he quickly released Sam’s throat and the icemancer took a step back ice covering his body now. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Even if Po was a friendly it wouldn’t take much for the man to kill him he was decades quicker than Sam.

”Sorry… they took my arm… I’m mad.” it was a weak apology but Sam gave the thumbs up to Po. ”Just you or did you get a team together? Amanda isn’t here but she is on her way. Why do you look like a kid?” his teacher pulled a tooth from his mouth and spit blood. ”We shouldn’t be here any longer than we have to.” Even with one arm Sam had never been more impressed by someone when it came to focusing on the task at hand. ”Errr… something like that and Yes… Yes we can.” Sam pointing to his ear then giving the thumbs up to Po.

”I don’t think they are aware….” just as he was about to say it the alarms went off. Emergency lights kicked on as the compound was going into lockdown. Sam swore. ”Dumb@ss what did I teach you about talking.”

”Change of plans Sherlock. Safely might not be possible.” Sam looked around and cursed to himself and not the ear piece Eve didn’t need to learn anymore than she was on the mission. ”Don’t go anywhere. We are heading back now.” Sam looked back to his teacher. ”How you holding up old man?” They exited the room to the hallway Po laughing, ”They should have taken both my hands and you look you just hit your prime. I think we will be alright. Tell me you brought the whiskey?”

”Not here. We will have to enjoy it while we get you out of here. Got a ride waiting.” he tapped his ear piece as he looked around. ”Sherlock. Might need some quick directions. I’m going to set off the fire suppression system.” he reached down and picked up a handgun that was left from the scuffle and tossed it to Po. He looked to the nearest suppression head and shot at it. On cue water started to rain out from every head in the hallway.

Sam smirked, ”Hopefully you won’t have to do much teach. I can show you how your best student is doing.” ”Oh? You bring Sydney?” he laughed as he looked to the gun and tossed it to the side like it was going to be more of a hindrance than some form of protection.

It didn't take long for things to go south. One moment Sam said they were set to leave, the next there were alarms going off. She could hears the annoying blare echoing through the headset. It took a lot of control for her not to remove the little device and focus on her maps. Her brain was already calculating backup plans in the way she had no control over.

Fire suppression system... water, ice... Evelyn glanced at her map and nodded to herself. "Water holding tank is down the hallway to the right, if you want more to work with. Best exit is a stairwell just behind that. It's narrow, should offer good coverage and you can see anyone coming down toward you."

Evelyn scribbled on her papers, making sure she had alternatives. While the echoes could keep it all organized in her head, writing felt like something extra to do with her nervous energy. She didn't want to let Sam know she was nervous. She was too happy to be able to come along. But not being able to really do anything was frustrating. Only giving directions was frustrating. She wouldn't let on she didn't like this part, or she might not get to come again.

”And that’s why you are here Sherlock. Just made things hella easy.” he said smirking and waving Po forward behind him. The fire head in the area erupted and water started to rain down. His connection to the amount of water was immediate as the temperature drop created a large abundance of ice and snow. ”Guess I’ll leave a calling card.”

Po’s body temperature dropped behind him and Sam could feel it he grunted slightly and loosened his hold making it a little warmer around his former teacher. Following the directions from Eve they found both the water holding tank and the stairwell. Waiting till Po hit the stairs. ”You’re getting a head start. Hit ground floor and wait for me.” he said as he smirked and entered the room with the water holding tank.

Po entered the stairwell without asking any questions the now one-armed mutant ran up the stairs with inhuman speed and endurance despite just being tortured. Every floor Po encountered a few armed guards and every floor he managed to disarm and launch his opponents over the railing if they weren’t dead before they were thrown they were dead after.

Sam looked at the tank and formed some ice in a giant spike and slowly walked to the door towards the hallway that lead to the stairwell. ”And…” he got to the hallway and activated his powers launching the spike into the wall of the tank. Water started pouring out quickly. So quickly Sam barley made it to the stair well before being ankle deep in water. ”Go.” Sam said as he ran into the stairwell noticing the pile of corpses. Running up the bodies he called upon his powers and turned the cold up.

Ice appeared in the stairwell, ice rocketed Sam upwards from and launched him out the ground floor and kept erupting upwards. The entire stairwell was covered from the floors below to the top. ”Calling card.” he said smirking looking around to see Po sitting on half a dozen agents.

”Any visuals Sherlock?” Sam asked as he and Po hit the streets and started down the first alley making sure they weren’t followed.