Find Uncle Sam.

Sam narrowed her eyes. She knew what that meant, or at least had a very good guess. Cold Steel. The man who she had to stop in the park. Wild lunatic with ice powers. Sam could maybe manage Cold Steel again, but this would be a more difficult time.

”I wanted to be civil about this, but if you are going to get the muscle who attacks first and asks questions never…” Sam brought down her arms and lifted the front of her skirt with one hand and drew a pistol from a thigh holster with the other. Then the first hand reached into her blouse and produced a knife.

”Iris is healthy and I don’t want any harm coming to her or any other children here. Cold Steel almost killed a crowd before. Careless. Let me leave so your attack dog doesn’t cause anyone any harm.” Sam waved the pistol pointing it at Maya then to the side and back, indicating for her to step aside.

Maya watched the man who wore Becca's face - adding more fuel to the fire he had lit - draw a gun and a knife. She was already recalling everything Sam and Sergeyeva had gathered about how Travis operated. Magic. Guns. The knife that likely made Sam have some kind of a seizure. She was unarmed. She didn't care.

She smirked.

"Oh. Sam is not coming to attack you. Sam is coming to keep me from killing you. He really believes I'm the best of the X-men, and I shouldn't fall that low. Let's hope he gets here in time."

”Yes. Bluster away. Now move.” Sam waved the pistol slightly again. It was small with a short two inch suppressor affixed to the end, it wouldn’t do much for anything supersonic or with a lot of powder still burning at the end of the barrel. Sam had loaded it with high grain subsonic bullets with barely more than the primer to propel them. At worst the gun would sound like a clap with the sound of metal sliding. The bullets enchanted to reduce mutant power.

Sam knew each second meant Cold Steel would be closer. He also knew that Maya was a massive threat. Her ability to pop in and out of mirrors and potentially pull Sam through one was too big of a threat.

Maya’s power needed to be taken off the board. Sam pulled the trigger.

The man pulled the trigger. Maya ducked on instict but she still felt the impact... and not much else. She looked down, making sure it was not just shock. No blood.

Magic.

She didn't feel a seizure or a burst of power coming on. Which meant it was probably another kind. The kinf Sergeyeva theorized about.

"Power dampeners?" she looked up, clicking her tongue. "Haven't done your homework, have you. Alright, before I beat you up the old fashioned way, here's the thing. I don't want to kill you. For two reasons. First, because my wife would divorce me, so you can thank her in your prayers and take her face off now." she frowned. "The other is that I need you to undo whatever you have done to my child. Immediately."

”Oh. I’ve done my homework. That’s precisely why I have restrained your power.” Sam said, bringing the pistol back against her chest in a guarded position. ”If you come close, maybe you’ll get a taste of what Cold Steel felt. Then I’ll just walk out the door wearing this face.” Sam took a step closer blading off so the knife hand was toward Maya.

”There is no reason to undo what has been done to Iris. She is safer now, no longer patient zero on a daily plague to those around her. You may be too close to the issue to see it, but I have spared her from a life with her curse.” No one could ever see how Sam was trying to help people.

That... the sanctimonious, bigoted savior complex, that was the last straw. Maya went from coldly measuring up her opponent to lunging at him in a split second. She saw the knife. She had been trained in hand to hand combat since she was old enough to walk - first by an assassin-for-hire mother, for self-defense, and then by Sam. And other X-men. And more importantly - today, at least, she was a mother whose child had been attacked. And she had months of pent up rage to take out on this mystic.

Sam lost her polite smile when Maya lunged. As an NYPD officer, Sam had been trained to fight. THe training focused more on hand-to-hand or with a gun, but a little knife play was included. Sam drew the weapon back closer to herself when Maya lunged, keeping the point facing Maya. Then Sam thrust forward before shifting to bring the pistol around for a pistol whip.

Maya had so much rage and adrenaline pumping through his system it felt like a third set of powers. She saw the knife, she saw the pistol, and she was going on instinct, more than a decade of Danger Room training carrying her through the blind rage of this man hurt my child. Becca's face was just insult to injury now - it wore an expression that was unlike her in every way. Maya twisted out of the way of the knife, moving inside rather than to the side, and blocked the pistol with her forearm, and then, never slowing down, moved to headbutt the mystic in the face at full force.

Sam had expected to make contact with either the knife or the pistol or for Maya to try and grab for one of them. It wasn’t normal to just ignore the weapons being wielded against you. Maya did. And she headbutt Sam right in the face.

All Sam saw for a moment was a flash as her world became pain. As her sight returned it was blurry from tears that had welled up from the impact on the nose. Blood ran down from a nostril and Sam did everything she could to not fall ass over teakettle.

Covering her lower face with the elbow of her arm with the pistol in hand, Sam swung the knife in front of her to try and keep Maya at a distance and kicked off those god forsaken heels. ”Okay. No more Mr. Nice guy.” Sam swung the knife again, still blinking away the pain tears.

The impact, for all its shattering force, was so satisfying. Maya drew back to see blood. Good. Blood and pain. He was going to live, but he deserved that much at least. She deserved that much. "You were never nice, you f**ing psycho." She spat, dropping low to swipe his legs with a kick. Fighting among scattered building blocks was definitely difficult terrain.

Maya called Sam a psycho before trying to sweep Sam’s legs. Sam, no longer having to deal with the damn heels, jumped over the kick but landed on a block and stumbled sideways. Catching herself on some furniture, Sam straightened back up. ”Fine. Don’t see my work as helpful. I don’t care. I’m saving the world and I don’t need any praise.” Sam stepped up onto the couch she’d used to keep from falling over and then stepped up onto the back of it.

She could see a way past Maya, she jumped forward toward the door. Her plan was to get out into the hall, break the handle off the door, slam it shut, and thus hopefully delay Maya in the room for a minute. The pistol might work as a bludgeon on the handle but she wasn’t sure.

"YOU PUT HANDS ON MY CHILD!" Maya roared as the man leapt towards the door. He was not going to make it. There was no way in hell that after attacking Iris, after evading Sam and Sergeyeva, after getting away from Ranger, that this man was going to walk out of here in any shape or form. Maya sprung up, grabbing a fistful of the long red hair the man was still sporting, yanking him back as she made a move to kick his legs out again.

Sam thought she was going to make it. She had a lead on Maya. Sam forgot to account for the long red hair she had.

”I cured yo-” Sam’s retort was cut off as her head snapped back from a sudden pull on her hair. Her lower body still carried a little forward momentum and so she wound up leaning back toward Maya, trying to back up her legs to straighten up when they were suddenly kicked out from beneath her.

As she fell, Sam spun and lashed the knife toward Maya’s arm holding her hair. Then she landed chest first on the ground. As much as people joke about women having built-in airbags… They were not fun to land on. ”Ooof”

Upcoming therapy sessions No. 15-98: "I beat up someone who looked like my wife."

The mystic went down; the slash narrowly avoided Maya's arm as she twisted his arm behind him. In a few moment, the mystic was face down on the ground, with Maya kneeling on his back, twisting his arms back, turning a wrist to make him drop knife and gun.

"You are not special." She hissed, leaning her weight on him. "We get ten bigots a week, trying to fix us, cure us, exorcise us, whatever the f*** they think we need. My daughter is a mutant. She is perfect. You are a sorry-ass one-man conversion camp. Undo the spell. Now."

Sam tried to push herself back up to get away, but Maya was too fast. The moment Sam tried to rise, Maya was on top of her, kneeling on her back and twisting her arms forcing her to drop her knife and pistol.

Maya leaned her weight onto Sam as she monologued. Talking like Sam was some run of the mill religious nut or pointy headed ghost impersonator. Sam groaned into the floor. Half from the pain and discomfort of the restraint, half from Maya completely mischaracterizing Sam.

”Yes. She is perfect…Now.” Sam said, turning her face so she wasn’t face down in the floor. ”People feared Iris. Ran from her to avoid what her power was doing. She was the center of a contagion.” Sam tried to blow hair from her face a few times, ”One would think their parent would want to ensure they grew up loved not feared. One of their parents should take care of her and I can’t be around all the time like this to do it for you. And what happens if I break her again? What happens to me? I think I hold the leverage here. So let’s be adults about this.”