Shay's apartment was a few steps better than modest. Truth be told, if you just glanced at the living room and kitchen and then read the price tag on the apartment, you'd think that Shay was being scammed. But almost all of the extra price was storage space, and a sizeable walk in closet. Shay had more clothes than most people owned in their entire lives, that tended to happen when you could change shapes and genders basically on a whim, you ended up needing a lot of clothing. This was further compounded by one of Shay's professions requiring new clothes all the time.

One method of circumventing some of the cost that naturally came with doing a lot of cosplay, was to get good at making your own costumes. Something Shay had really taken to. So Shay was sitting, with a very old anime about magical girls blasting on one of their large T.V in the centre of the living room, sat cross legged in one of their three favourite forms in front of it. Shay today was a fairly androgynous looking Male, wearing a fox onesie and pyjamas, a whole set of materials and knitting tools on the table in front of him.

He hummed quietly, slowly working on one of the outfits from the show in front of him, it was about half way done, but clearly identifiable as one of the magical girl outfits.

Movie walking was a fun power, but not one Mirror used very often. Even the best movie could go horribly off the rails once someone new was introduced into the plot, and once one got started there was no stopping until the movie ended, or until they died. Mirror did not like dying, even on the screen, because frankly, it sucked. Luckily, they had been getting better at avoiding accidentally moving into a screen while mirrorhopping. It only happened when Mirror was not paying any attention at all, and accidentally made the wrong transit.

Like today.

It had been a long week at the Mansion, full of de-aged exes, de-aged X's, freaky pregnant girlfriend powers, paperwork, missions with a bratty Sam, and it was not even Friday yet. Gawain had been a little out of sorts all day, wobbly from the lack of sleep, running errands downtown, hopping from mirror to mirror to get home sooner. It was fairly late now, and there was still stuff to do.

He didn't even notice he walked into a screen until everything turned cartoon-colored.

"Oh, sh*t." Gawain gasped, immediately recognizing his mistake as he looked around. He was surrounded by some loud, technicolor fight scene filled with sparkles. And everyone had very large eyes. "... oh f*ck."

This was definitely a classic anime.

Shay hummed to themself as they gently worked threads through in a cross stitch pattern, it was under a fairly well hidden fold so it wouldn't be obvious by the time that the costume was done. Shay had gotten fairly good at hand stitching over time, they could totally do things by machine too, but it was more satisfying and precise for things like this to do it by hand.

Besides, they'd already done a morning stream, it was a good way to pass the time and settle their nerves.

They'd watched through the series once already so they kind of knew what was going on in any given episode, it was just kind of useful to have it on in the background while working on the costume.

They blinked and slowly looked up when they heard the scene shift, not remembering these events.

... That was a new person. Then they cursed! Shay also cursed, but because the needle pierced their finger lightly, drawing a little blood. "What the F-"

The way animated movies worked was kind of trippy: the moment Gawain walked into the screen, he also took on a cartoon-like appearance. Nothing confused one's own mind more than seeing a Japanese style two-dimensional version of themselves. Even if it was just the hands, for now. Gawain did not want to look into a mirror.

It was kind of a winter scene, with ice and snow everywhere. Despite the cold, a group of girls was moving around with ballet-like elegance in very short skirts on very long legs.
Well, at least it was not a Maya day. Thank god for small miracles.

"I don't wanna be here!" Gawain yelled, looking around. It wasn't like he could see the screen from the inside, but if the show was on, someone must have been watching.

"Then get out of the way!" yelled one of the magic schoolgirls. They must have thought he was a civilian, getting in the way of their heroics.

"Turn off the f*** TV!" Gawain yelled into the void.

Preferably before someone thought of transforming him too.

Shay stared slightly dumbfounded for a few moments. Nope this was definitely not something that normally happened, did they have cursed discs or something? This was like something out of one of those 90's VHS horror movies. Freaky. And They were definitely bleeding.

Shay was leaning forwards in their seat, kind of captivated and terrified by whatever the hell was going on. When the new figure on the screen yelled something about turning off the T.V Shay yelped and practically fell over. Scrambling for the remote Shay probably hit a few other buttons before hitting the power button.

It was as much that when a commanding or strained voice shouted something at you, you listened, as well as just being generally freaked out by whatever was going on. Shay definitely didn't want to get cursed or anything.

The magic schoolgirls sprang right into action. There were a lot of sparkles, and some evil laughter on the villain's part. Gawain did his best to duck and cover, which was hard, given that the long-legged women were practically everywhere. At least their skirts were tactfully kept in place by some miracle.

He just hoped someone was watching this. It was probably a kid who was just about to suffer something that would merit years of adulthood therapy, but there was no way in frozen hell Gawain was stick around till the end of the whole episode. He'd rather take his chances while he was three-dimensional.

Click. Everything went black. A moment later Gawain tumbled out of the TV screen, faceplanting right at Shay's feet.

"Ugh. Sh*t. Ow." he groaned, rolling over to look up. This did not look like a kid's room. Well... not quite. Thank god. "You're not a kid." he whined, sitting up. His ribs were not happy about it. "Yay."

Shay had definitely been through some strange experiences over the years. Particularly being a pro-gamer led to some interesting stories, especially when you were living in a house with your team and spending every day with them. Strange habits were weird, and parties had occasionally led to interesting stories. But it felt like the last few months, living in New York, everything was just dialed up to 11 on the weird-o-meter.

Never, in their life did Shay expect someone to fall out of the T.V.

"I-W-Wha-" Shay backed up rapidly, looking around frantically for their phone.

Did you call the police in this situation, run out the front door or like, just lock yourself in the bathroom? Spotting the phone, it was behind the man that had just landed on Shay's coffee table.

Okay so maybe the person whose TV he just fell out of was not extremely pleased with the situation. Gawain blinked as they scrambled back. He knew it was a natural reaction to accidental home invasion, especially in weird mutant New York, to GTFO at the first sign of trouble. He sat down hard on his ass, holding his hands up.

"Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to end up here, believe me..." he pointed at himself "Teleporter. Accidentally walked into your TV. My bad."

At least he was not wearing an X-uniform. That would have been embarrassing.

Did Teleporters do this regularly?? Like, did they appear in people's apartments often? What if like, they were assassins and just murdered you without anyone ever finding out? Is that why Shay had never heard of this? Barely conscious of what the man was saying Shay edged closer to the door, not even thinking about the social fo-par of running around outside in a fox onesie.

"I-teleport?" He was visibly shaking. Going outside and being sociable was bad enough, Shay absolutely did not need a live reenactment of the ring in his living room.

Freaking horror movies.

Okay, so the guy was freaking out. Gawain could understand that, but really, in the grand scheme of things, he really was not the worst person to fall out of a TV screen. It could have been a villain. Or a thief. Or Aura.

>>"I-teleport?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Gawain found it was hard to stop apologizing when you were trying to convince someone you were not here to murderize them. "My name is Mirror. Well, they call me Mirror. I usually walk through reflecting surfaces, like... mirrors, and such. And sometimes accidentally into movies. I wasn't watching where I was going, it's... been kind of a day."

He seemed... Apologetic. He definitely wasn't coming and closer to Shay, and if he was here to murder Shay or something that probably would have happened by now. Into mirrors and stuff? That was... Oh! Mutant power, duh.

A little gear did click in the back of Shay's mind that their own mannerisms and power might seem strange to some people, or get confused or intimidated. "I-eh-" Shay gulped and edged a little further back. "M-Mirror sounds familiar." Shay admitted, but wasn't sure where it was from.

Shay's apartment for the most part was fairly well kept, there were definitely areas of mess, but most of it was actually clean, their stream set up was visible in one corner, and any area of the room where the camera would have a view on were pretty clean. The pizza boxes were also most definitely out of view.

It was hard to explain to someone how mirrorwalking worked. Also, Gawain was not sure that admitting he was a mutant would help the situation; most people did not want anyone falling into their living room, let alone a mutant. But since he'd already been a cartoon moments ago, that thing was kinda blown anyway.

>>"I-eh- M-Mirror sounds familiar."

Go figure.

"Uh... yeah. I'm on the X-men team." he sighed. Another potential hit or miss. "I'm off duty. You can call me Gawain. What's your name?"

X-men? Right. Shay had heard about them, read about them even, but Shay wasn't really so much a real world person. They liked heroes, but generally the ones found on pages of comics, inside of video games, and other areas of fiction. The real world could be very scary at times, and Shay was definitely glad that there were actual super heroes out there, making a difference but still.

"O-oh. Okay." That explained the lack of uniform. What an interesting power! "I-Er-" Shay took a moment to steady themselves, not having released they were leaning against a cupboard near the door.

"I'm Shay. Your power is c-cool." Shay admitted.

Name-dropping the X-men worked. Kinda. Maybe. At least the cops were not being called just yet. Gawain sat on the carpet a little defeated, hoping he wouldn't have to run like a common criminal.

>>"I'm Shay. Your power is c-cool."

"Oh. Thanks." he blinked. Okay, that was progress. Shay. "Sorry I ended up in your room. I don't usually walk into people's anime like that."

This was still better than the time when he walked into a Disney movie with Maxine in front of a theater full of kids. He could work with this.

Very slowly the adrenaline ebbed away and Shay's heartbeat came back down to what was nearly an acceptable level. Clearly Shay was in no danger, and while this was awkward and embarrassing, it was clearly some of those things for Gawain too. "It's um..." Well it wasn't really okay, but it wasn't really like it was Mirror's fault either, was it? They'd made it pretty clear it wasn't something that was done intentionally.

"I-I mean you said you didn't mean to..." Shay cleared their throat again, still maintaining a fair distance, but not running away any more.

"Is it um, weird being in an anime like that?" Shay asked. Shay got power questions all the time, people always wanted to know weird things, and did appreciate they could be awkward. "Er... Sorry if power questions are weird."