The brown haired teenager collided with the training mat in a graceful manner. If one counts landing flat on one's back as graceful. Compared to some of the other ways he had been sent flying this morning--and their associated landings--Slate was willing to argue the point: that had been graceful.

He wheezed in a breath, and coughed.

"I think you're getting better, Sir." Nicholas Williams said, with that smile of his. He was dressed in the loose pants and coat that composed a gi: all the better to practice Judo in, my dear. "You're getting better at the landings, at least. You sort of rolled with that one."

"If I did any manner of rolling, then I assure you," Slate wheezed, "it was an accident."

The soldier offered a hand down to him. Slate took it, and climbed back to his feet. He was beginning to appreciate the sensation of 'standing'. He had never realized how deeply he had taken it fore granted. "One more time," he said simply. Only the fact that he had been saying that for the past two hours indicated his stubbornness on the subject.

Nicholas' eyes flashed to something across the room, above the door. The clock. "I could do this all day, Sir, believe me. Don't you have somewhere to be, though?"

The clock. It was five minutes to nine. "Ah," Slate said, simply. It was as good as a fluent curse from any other person.

He was not late. Let us be entirely clear on this subject: it did not take five minutes to walk from Training Room Seven to Training Room Three. It took approximately two minutes, in fact.

Therefore, the new Kabal leader was not late to the training session between Circe and Slade that he himself had insisted upon scheduling. He was, in fact, three minutes early. Additionally, wearing a judo gi to a training session he would only observe--and which would have very little to do with judo--was not a shameful action. Nor was the white belt Nicholas had smirkingly given him, which was currently tied around his waist, keeping the white coat shut. Additionally, his hair was always this tousled. Only the slight dampening at its edges from sweat was a bit abnormal.

He entered the training room with perfect pose, reigning in his breathing so that its steady pace countered his rapid heartbeat. There was nothing but dignity about the teenager. Perhaps a bit too much dignity, actually.

Slade pushed his way through the busy hallways of Mondragon, since it was now official that the upper echelons had indeed changed a new energy had consumed the organisation. Even his own underlings were working with a renewed efficiency. Slade put this down to fear, from experience when new leaders came in very often new workers came in. Those that were worthy enough remained but quite often a new leader used his new responsibilities to 'spring clean', each underling hoping he or she were not to be... swept away.

Either way, today was Slade's first chance to show this Slate his metal. Or, to be more precise, his combinations of different sheet alloys that made up his chassis. He was confident he could handle any mutant Slate threw at him, he was a keen fighter if not specifically trained in an art as such. He'd been in brawls all his life, being from Detroit, and the added weight of being a human car helped impose his advantage in a fight. He didn't expect it to be a breeze however, if Slate were anything like mr Anotnescu it would be a difficult and indeed testing challenge.

Slade pushed open the doors to the allocated training facility he had been given for today, as he stepped in about a minute before his expected arrival he saw his erstwhile employer. Slade looked at his employer somewhat quizzically, although he would not voice his confusion at his employer's chosen attire Slade did wonder what had possessed the young man. Was Slate to be training with them today? A white belt? Then again, he didn't need to be anything better than a white belt, it was precisely why he employed people like Slade. It was just slightly surreal a notion; to be taking orders from this boy in his judo-pyjamas.
"Sir? Will you be training with me today? Slade asked politely, "Reporting as ordered, when would you like me to begin?"

Circe walked trough the Mondragon Labs trying to find the Training Room number three. Probably Slate didn't know that she was clueless when it came to orientating trough the labs. Back when Hunter was the leader of the Kabal he had kept Circe away from the labs. His reasons... still unknown. And the employees of the labs were busy or simply not nice enough to explain her where the training rooms were. Sometimes she wished she'd learned the damn chemistry of the human body completely so she could blow some people's heads off.

She sighed as she finally read on a door "TRAINING ROOMS". The doors opened automatically and she found herself in what it seemed to be a very large and empty room. She looked for the door with the number three and as she noticed it began to walk toward it while looking at her watch. It showed 09:02. Two minutes late. Whatever.

She pushed a button to open the doors. The first thing she saw was Slate dressed in what it seemed to be some white pajamas. At a better look she observed that it was a judo training outfit. She mentally laughed at her previous thought. She took a step forward then stopped as she noticed someone who seemed pretty familiar to her.

"Slade? What are you doing here?" she asked with a mix of curiosity, surprise and amusement.

>> "Sir? Will you be training with me today? ..Reporting as ordered, when would you like me to begin?"

Slate nodded his head in cordial greeting as the car mutant entered the room. A brief flick of his eyes to the clock over the door told the time: 8:59. Additionally, Circe was not yet here. Slate allowed himself to feel a slight tinge of victory. There it was, officially time stamped: he had been early. The first one to arrive is always early.

"Good morning, Mr. Ravenscroft. I fear I will merely be observing today; perhaps another time, we can actually spar. We are waiting upon--"

>> "Slade? What are you doing here?"

Slate raised an eyebrow as, at 9:02AM, Ms. Leigh entered precisely in time to interrupt him. Her words saved him quite a bit of time by way of introductions, however. He nodded a greeting to her, as well. "Good morning, Ms. Leigh. Please attempt to be punctual in the future. I take it that you and Mr. Ravenscroft are already acquainted?" He looked between the two of them, one eyebrow raised in seeking of confirmation and, perhaps, explanation. It was always good to know how your employees knew each other. Not knowing things like that could lead to unpleasant complications.

"Slade? What are you doing here?"
Impossible? Slade stood, rooted to the spot, how could she even be here? Slade shook his head, probably another employee who wasn't expecting him.
"Well miss, I work he..." Slade stopped mid sentence, his body tried to stop in kind but not ready for the shock of seeing Circe it stumbled awkwardly.
"Circe?!" Slade choked out with an effort, how long had it been? He'd never been able to get back in touch after that day that affectively changed the course of his life. Too many thoughts, things were slotting into place with a familiar omen. That was why Banks had taken interest that day, that's what led to his employment here. She'd been working for the Kabal all along.

Awkwardly Slade tried to regain control of his functions, probably not a good time to die of shock infront of the boss and all...
"Er, yeah sir, we met once before I joined the Kabal. I had no idea you worked here Circe? Where've you been?"
Slade had forgotten they were about to start a training exercise, it didn't seem important now.

Tension was in the air as the car mutant named Slade, shook his head almost in disbelief. Clearly, he didn't know who was calling him.

"Well miss, I work he..." he began to say as he turned to her but stopped as soon as he saw her. "Circe?!" he asked surprised.

The fact that they met in the Mondragon Labs was a surprise for both of them. Back when they were running from the Stalkers Circe hid the fact that she was working for the Kabal just as Hunter had told her. And now, she was pretty sure that that chase had brought the immortal mutant to Slade. Thanks God. At least one familiar face in the chaos she was in right now.

"Good morning, Ms. Leigh. Please attempt to be punctual in the future. I take it that you and Mr. Ravenscroft are already acquainted?" Slate spoke, his eyebrow rising in curiosity.
"Er, yeah sir, we met once before I joined the Kabal. I had no idea you worked here Circe? Where've you been?" Slade answered to the new leader of the Kabal. Actually, it was a really brief answer as she was convinced that Slade, just like herself, was more curious on how they had ended up in the same organization. Well, one thing was sure. This training session was becoming more interesting than she had ever expected.

Circe moved her eyes from Slade to Slate, and with a bit of annoyance replied. "Leaving me a note with some tips on how to get here it would have been really helpful. As you might know, I'm not fully acquainted with the labs."

Her eyes turned back to Slade and a small smile appeared on her face. "I've been working here ever since you've met me." she answered and moved forward to the two mutants. "As for where I've been, I was just down the hallway, to the Infirmary Section."

She looked him from down up, still not believing that she met Slade here."What about you? What have you been doing?"

Indeed, his employees seemed quite acquainted with each other. From what he could tell, their initial meeting had been some time ago, and neither had known of the other's employment. Given Circe's initial orders to remain undercover and her subsequent coma, this was hardly a surprise.

Slate allowed the two a few uninterrupted moments in which to inappropriately socialize in front of him. Then he attempted to move them back onto today's scheduled activity: training. Leigh had mentioned 'tips on how to get here'. He used this as his sedge way.

"As you may have noticed," but he strongly suspected that neither of them had, "the warm up to today's training was actually finding this room. Mr. Ravenscroft; you passed. Ms. Leigh; you did not."

"On a mission," the brown haired teenager continued, impassively, "you can and will be expected to be mindful of deadlines. Two minutes, Ms. Leigh, could mean the difference between success or failure; on a mission, Mr. Ravenscroft could be dead right now because you failed to meet a sensitive deadline. As every member of my staff is a careful monetary investment, and the missions I assign I will be expecting you to complete dutifully, I would be most displeased by this outcome. Suffice it to say that you would not receive the full bonus for the mission even if you did manage to complete it, and his funeral would come out of your paycheck."

That callous lecture aside, it was time to begin. "Computer, activate Xavier Simulation One." Around them, the large room disappeared, replaced by a well-kept lawn at night. Up the lawn stood Xavier's Sister School. He waited to see their reactions to this scenery. What did they think about a training simulation that concerned a school of mutant children? This was a useful bit of information to know, and one that was better to learn in a simulation, rather than out in the field.

Slade looked on wide eyed as Circe retaliated to Slate’s rebuke , was it the shock of seeing Slade or just her natural fiery personality that was responsible for her failing to remember that Slate was currently the most powerful being in the world, her boss and in most respects right to rebuke her tardiness? Had it been mr Antonescu Slade wasn’t sure Circe would still be standing, he’d seen a new employee back chat to mr Antonescu once. It was the last thing the poor sucker ever did, either way Slate seemed more intent on enforcing his points vocally. Slade would have wished for a less dark lesson, the idea of Circe paying for his funeral seemed unimportant compared to the prospect of his, albeit unlikely, demise. The very detail that implied that Slade was nothing more than an asset stirred a sense of nostalgia in Slade, this kid was more like mr Antonescu than Slade had previously thought…

”Not much Circe, just earning more and working for an underground organisation intent on world domination. Still living in the den where we last ended up, still slugging back petrol…” Slade smiled back warmly, it was nice to see Circe again. It felt right, and Slade had missed her. Being who he was he didn’t make too many friends, it was comforting to know he would be training and working with one. Slade then remembered, training, Slade shook his head and tried to get back into the frame of mind necessary to complete the upcoming tasks. As he did the room morphed into that of the mansion grounds, Slade instinctively dropped to a knee raising his right arm; the hand whining and buzzing as it transformed efficiently into the shielded auto pistol. Quickly he visually swept the area, it was clear for now.

Slate probably wasn’t impressed, Slade had lapsed in his duties and not been ready for the start of the training. He wouldn’t offer any more disappointments, this had to be the mansion grounds, no one could mistake the grandeur and economically wasteful architecture that stank of nobility and unfulfilled good intentions. The question was, what would the mission entail? It was the perfect location to test in, full of mutants and packing with plausible operations. Slade moved to Circe, he needed to know what she was capable of.
”Ok, here’s how it is. I’ve got an auto pistol and my more obvious powers to assist us in this training, I need to know what you can do. We should fan out and wait for further details of our mission, if we come under fire either take cover or get behind me you’re no use to me dead.”
Cold but that was how Slade had to be, his training under mr Antonescu blocked out all other thoughts beyond his mission parameters. He had no idea how good she was under operations, as such he wouldn’t take any chances with her. The mission was his sole focus, his sole purpose now. Everything else was secondary now, nothing would stop them if they could work as a team.

Circe listened carefully as Slade told her what he has been doing lately. The short version however. Well, they will have time to discuss after the training session. She didn't imagined Slate waiting patiently for them to finish their chatter. With a small smile she nodded in aknowledgement. Her eyes turned back to Slate waiting for him to speak.

"As you may have noticed, the warm up to today's training was actually finding this room. Mr. Ravenscroft; you passed. Ms. Leigh; you did not."Slate said then continued to lecture her about the importance of timing while on missions. Circe watched him unimpressed, waiting patiently until he finished. She was in no mood to begin a conflict with Slate so she bit her tongue. Considering the way she looked at him, Slate could have pictured very well her opinion about what he had said earlier.

"Computer, activate Xavier Simulation One." Slate spoke. The room changed to what it seemed to be the Xavier Institute's grounds. She never saw the Institute but during the Registration Act it appeared enough times on tv so she was able now to recognize it. Her thoughts focused on her powers as she activated them. Due the lack of her contact lenses, her brown eyes slowly began to turn to an electric blue. Slade also prepared himself for battle, one of his arms turning in what it seemed to be a pistol. He turned to her and spoke.

"Ok, here’s how it is. I’ve got an auto pistol and my more obvious powers to assist us in this training, I need to know what you can do. We should fan out and wait for further details of our mission, if we come under fire either take cover or get behind me you’re no use to me dead.”

"I am a molecule manipulator. But I need to know the basic elements of the objects I manipulate. What is this room made from?" she asked turning to Slate. What the holograms activated by the program showed didn't matter. She needed to know what the real room was made from in order to manipulate it.

The corner of one lip twitched in what may have been amusement as the robocar dropped and trained his built-in gun on the grounds. What a... quaint reaction. There was no twitching of any sort in response to the look on Circe's face as he gave his extremely fair lecture. She did not talk back, though, and that was good. It saved him the trouble of moving to higher reprimands. Those would have been unfortunate, as they may have involved testing Slade's loyalty to his employer over his casual feminine acquaintance. It was curious: Slate could probably ruin the woman's mind with a touch, but he highly doubted he could do anything less subtle. He... would have to work on that.

As it was, there were other matters to work on. He stored the issue of his own practice to the back of their mind for a later time. The list back there was growing; it seemed like there was entirely too much to do these days to physically fit it within any consecutive twenty-four hour period.

He nodded his head approvingly at the quick exchange of basic power information, and at Slade's rudimentary but apt plan until they received more detailed orders. Fortunately, the fraternizing seemed to have ended; Slade, at least, was a picture of polished professionalism. Ms. Leigh would need a bit of work. That, though, was precisely what training was for.

>> "I am a molecule manipulator. But I need to know the basic elements of the objects I manipulate. What is this room made from?"

Slate quirked one eyebrow. "A very good question. Computer, recite a list of this room's material composition." The computer did, in a disjoint feminine voice he was fairly certain the Lab programmers had stolen directly off of a Windows voice emulator. How cute of them. Her question prompted one of his own, however. "What do you typically do to determine the composition of objects when you first encounter them? If you encounter something unknown in the course of a mission, will your powers be useless, or will you be able to discover its composition through some process of trial and error?" It was rather an important detail to know.

Now. On to the briefing. "In the Mansion, there exists a large super computer known as Cerebra," Slate began. "Its exact location and physical features are unknown; likewise, the security around it is a closely guarded secret, though you can assume it to be quite high. Our intelligence sources suspect it is in the Mansion's lower levels, somewhere near the War Room. Your mission is to enter the Mansion, locate Cerebra, and tag it with this." Slate held out a hand, palm up; reacting to the signal, the computer obliged him by forming a small magnetic disk. Again, the programmers had had their fun: it was a white and red bull's eye.

"You have precisely twenty-seven minutes to locate and tag Cerebra; you must--and I feel I should emphasize that point--must be off of the Mansion grounds before the thirty minute mark. You are likely to encounter opposition both in mechanical and biological form; some of it may be running around wearing spandex with an embroidered "X"." Thanks to the combined footage of Calley and Roland, those biological roadblocks would be quite realistic, down even to their power set. Tricity, Silver Streak, Raven Fire, Nika, Seraph, Luke, and Raina were all quite neatly programmed in, though their respective personalities were somewhat lacking. Cold Steel had managed to dodge a proper recording thus far; given the man's recent promotion within the team, Slate intended to correct that as soon as possible. Verbal accounts of the man's abilities left the programmers far too much artistic room. He would much prefer realism. Ghost was likewise absent, but given her personality, he found the absence less troublesome.

"To be entirely clear: your mission is not to destroy all opposition; your mission is to succeed despite all opposition. It is a fine distinction, but one I wish you to understand." Really, it was the sort of distinction that separated how the Kabal would function from how the Order already did. The Kabal was not a gang with crowbars, chains, and the smell of cheap beer on their breaths; they were a strike team. "If you cannot tag Cerebra within the twenty-seven minutes, drop the tag inside the Mansion and exit the grounds." He looked at them both in equal measure as he spoke, ignoring the stray temptation to weight his gaze upon Ms. Leigh. He had a plan for her, after this training: he hoped that she would not prove herself too unrefined of a tool for him to immediately put to use.

"If you have no questions, you may begin. I will be watching from just outside of the Mansion gates." The pleasant thing about the Training Rooms: the ability to call up a video screen in mid-air to watch their progress. He would do that, just as soon as they started.

The clock would begin ticking just as soon as he was certain their questions were answered. In a real mission, he would strive to provide them more intelligence than this. When practicing basketball seriously, however, a team in training should use a weighted ball. It built up the muscles, as it were.

Slade took in the briefing, besides the slightly unsatisfactory answer to Circe's question it was adequate. Slade immediately began to process this information into formulating some fashion of a plan. It was very doubtful that Slade would be able to sneak through, he was sure there were cameras and even so if there weren't (by some miracle) his metallic structure made it difficult to be quiet and efficiently mobile.

Slade felt here that complete stealth was out of the question here, it was impractical with Slade involved. It wasn't something he wanted to ask of Circe but this might require splitting up to some extent, that is Slade create a big bang while Circe sneak in the back. Slade had no doubt that he couldn't defeat all of the X-fools, but distracting enough of them wouldn't be a problem. As long as Circe could handle herself against maybe two, three at most; things could go to plan. On the other hand, they could move in together as far as possible, upon meeting resistance Slade hunker down and Circe find a way round. The final option was of course to blitz in and hope that they didn't get bogged down, this of course had the advantage of not splitting up but the disadvantage that either way they would be outnumbered two, maybe three, to one. Slade checked his dashboard clock, which in humanoid form was placed conveniently on his left hand wrist. They'd already used a minute, things were going to have to speed up.

"We've got about twenty-five minutes, meaning we can't afford to get bogged down. I'm up for suggestions here but I believe our best bet is for me to draw them out into a fight while you sneak around the back and infiltrate into the lower levels. I don't like the idea of splitting up but I'm honestly not sure how far we could get together."
Slade waited for a response, he needed her to be ready for this. As such when it came to stealth he often relied on others, it being his Achilles heel. This left Slade uncomfortable of course, relying on others was such a risk to take. Unfortunately a risk worth taking here...

"A very good question. Computer, recite a list of this room's material composition." Slate's answer came. A feminine voice began to say the name of the elements. Without being full of herself, Circe noticed that they were the same with the ones she had in mind when she first entered this room. It had become a habit to analyze the components of her surroundings. After all, she knew very well that life was unpredictable. Yeah, she could be attacked while walking the streets, she could be attacked while drinking her coffee, hell, she could be attacked while taking her shower. Although she hoped that the last option would never occur as fighting naked wasn't exactly a pleasure. As the computer ended the list of elements in the room, Circe restrained herself to tell Slate that she had known that. After all, she wasn't here to impress him. She nodded at him.

"What do you typically do to determine the composition of objects when you first encounter them? If you encounter something unknown in the course of a mission, will your powers be useless, or will you be able to discover its composition through some process of trial and error?" came his next question. Yes, a good question. A question that remembered Circe that sometimes she couldn't rely on her powers. If she didn't recognize the elements, she was screwed. Of course, she had this 'molecular memory'. If she had manipulated that kind of matter before but she didn't succeeded to recognize it, with a simple touch she would have remembered. But if she never manipulated it then she was actually screwed. Fortunately, she had spent all her time to learn how to overcome this weakness. There were few things she couldn't manipulate. For example, the human body. Her powers were limited when it came to affecting humans as their chemistry was very complex. She needed time in order to learn such complex things. Taking in a deep breath, she told Slate the short version of what she thought.

"If I manipulated before that kind of matter then I should be able to recognize it trough touch." she said, leaving out the option where she was screwed. Slate would understand. "Fortunately, I am able to recognize just about any type of matter." she added.

Slate continued with the mission briefing. To put it out shortly, she had to tag the computer Cerebra, inside the mansion in 27 minutes. A red and white bulls eye formed in Slate's hand. Circe took it and set her watch. Personally, she thought this whole training session was stupid. Mission as complex as this one needed a better briefing, needed to be discussed. You can't send in two mutants on a mission to the Mansion like this. She wondered if Slate did that in real missions too. Oh, hey, I just woke up this morning and had this dream about destroying the mansion. Go do that for me please.

She turned to Slade as he began to tell her his opinion on the mission. His idea was to split up and while he was the decoy she would sneak inside the mansion and tag the computer. Sounded pretty good and had been her own idea ever since she heard the mission details. She couldn't imagine Slade walking on his tip toes inside the mansion. She admired Slade for knowing his strengths and weaknesses very well.

"Let's go." she simply said. She had to do this right. Failure was not an option. Not because of Slate. No. Circe needed to demonstrate herself that she was as good as always. Even if the last day she woke up from an 8 months coma.

Slade called after her as she strode off in search of a more subtle entrance to the one Slade would be choosing,
"Don't lose track of time and don't wait for me when exfiltrating." As an afterthought Slade finished with a nod,
"Good luck ok."
On that note Slade hussled up to the Mansion building and moved across its outer walls. He needed to make a big entrance, and where better than those extravagant front doors that the x-fools loved so much. He'd bust in, make an unreasonable amount of noise for the hour and hopefully tie them down in the atrium for twenty minutes. As long as noone got behind him he could exfiltrate straight back out of the doors and drive away with the sole hope that Circe could live up to her side of the mission. He had faith in her, sentimental and irrational it may be but her trusted her. Slade just hoped she could live up to that trust.

Slade reached the doors and paused, he needed to give Circe a minute or two of peace and quiet, he didn't know if there were any external defences that his rude entrance would set off. This part was always the worst of any mission, the brief calm before the storm. He raised his shielded auto pistol in front of him once more and stepped up to the great doors to the Mansion, he heard nothing from here to indicate there was anything directly behind the doors.
"Here goes nothing." Slade thought brusquely as he shouldered hard into the centre of the door. Time to make some noise...

"Don't lose track of time and don't wait for me when exfiltrating. Good luck." Slade called after her as she began to walk towards the back of the impressive mansion. She nodded in response and her pace fastened, her senses alerted. Although she mostly liked to be in dirrect combat this time she tried to go stealthy.

Her mission was to plant that damned thing on the target not to destroy the opponents. As she reached the back of the mansion she smiled. One piece of back door located. Lights: off. She looked at her watch then back at the door. She hated the silence. The mansion was famous for its defence system. It seemed almost too easy. Maybe Slate made this mission easier because of her recovery? That seemed a hardly viable option. Not to mention embarassing for her persona. She looked at her watch again. It was time for Slade to make some noise. In the next moment, all the alarms inside the mansion began to ring.

Perfect.

As Slade smashed bodily through the supposedly reinforced doors alarms went off everywhere,
"Bring it on" Slade thought malevolently as he skidded into the empty entrance foyer, raising his already transformed right arm to bear his shielded auto pistol. The lights blacked out in a split second and Slade crouched, moving blindly to what he had seen to be a corner of the foyer he waited silently. In the light he would have been taking fire as soon as the defenders reached his position, but in the pitch black he knew he'd have the advantage. He had a feeling the machinations would be sent out first, if one can dispose of a threat using robotical fodder then all the better for taking care of business. Fortunately the robots would be programmed to look for life forms, being a machine himself the registration might be slower than usual. Of course they'd realise he was an intruder as soon as that scan was complete but the time it gave him was invaluable. Sure enough he heard to metallic thuds as into the black pit came the automated defences, he heard a pause as servos whined in their primary scanning duty, it was now or never.

As Slade burst forwards his chest-located high beams blasted into life, it wouldn't be too effective against machinery but the few seconds to adjust to the new threat would be all Slade needed. Shouldering one of the two mid-processing machinations of its feet and into a pillar Slade released a volley of gunfire into the second bot's visual and power inhibitors. It sank to its knees, deactivated, as Slade landed deftly a few metres away from the second bot. It clearly didn't appreciate being tossed into a pillar and retaliated with a tazer shot at Slade's leg.

Slade swore violently as the electrical charge surged through his systems, rolling towards the machination he grabbed its head and tore at it brutally with his organic-metal hands. A few seconds later the bot's cognitive functions shut down and power to the tazer dissipated, rips and tears scarring where its head should have been and around its neck and shoulders. Slade sank to his knees and turned his high beams off, wincing he turned and tried to catch his breath. The mutants would be next and they would not be so forgiving to such a blunder. His systems ached but Slade bit through the pain, he had trained for this and he knew the key to minimising pain was through mental exertion towards the task in hand. It was still dark and therefore he still had the upper hand. Slade cupped his hand between his clock and his face so to cover the brief burst of neon light and checked his mission time, there was about 17 minutes left, he'd breached the main doors with about 22 minutes to go, so Circe should have had some time to infiltrate the mansion at least.

As he tried to get back into a suitable position in the night that was to host the coming battle, having barely had time to catch his breath, he heard the heft and clink of a aerosol sized object bouncing close by.
"Ah sh..!" Slade thought as he rolled instinctively, again, closing his eyes he braced himself for the flash bang he bet had just been lobbed before the incursion. Classic breach and capture tactics when dealing with hostiles, Slade just hoped they kept the light off. The sh*t was going to hit the fan and Slade needed every advantage he could gather against the incoming mutant threat, these guys trained almost as hard as he did and as such he needed to take them out as swiftly as possible. Either that or carve a bloody path out of there when time ran out...