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Delta Seven balked at the demand, pointedly looking away from Gawain. It wasn't "reading his mind" per se, but he was reading... something. The only thing the human-shifter could manage was a sheepish, "...no?"

He bit his lip. Now they really wouldn't keep him. Mirage spoke softly to Mirror, and Mirror classified what the DR really was-- not a jail, but an... underground training room, so to speak. A place where SUPER couldn't find him. The rest slipped in one ear and out the other. The only thing that mattered was that he couldn't be found. He didn't much care about the "Ms. Taylor", or whoever that was...

They arrived at perhaps the largest mirror they had crossed that evening, which opened into the cavernous room. This... had to be the place... or else Mirror wouldn't have come to a halt, as they did now...

They crossed the threshold, the crisp and drafty air of the DR rising to meet faux!Gawain. A shiver ran over him. It was much bigger than Gawain's memories had let-on. If Seven had taken an interest in the "Ms. Taylor" of whom Gawain had spoken, perhaps he would have been more prepared for the person who greeted them now. He expected the DocProf... he didn't expect... her.

His stomach felt like it fell out from under him, his expression likewise collapsed. Seven wrenched his hand free of Gawain's, the shift eroding around him as the tendrils released the form. The suddenness of the shift sent him to the ground, but it didn't take the fight out of him.

He scrambled further out of the (who he believed to be) Kappa operative's range, voice cracking from strain as he yelled, "She's one of them!"

A furious, fearful red-orange overtook his eyes, and the child staggered to his feet, wobbly on his legs, but sinking into a fighting stance nonetheless. Was it all a ruse? Were they all SUPER? Was this a test? Or was it just her? Where was the way out? Where was a weapon he could use to defend himself? Who could he trust? No one. He could trust no one.

A smile cracked across his frenzied expression, but there was no note of joy in it. He'd had the audacity to think he was free.

"Agent Taylor," he greeted tersely. Tears were welling in his eyes. It had to be a ruse. They were all operatives, every last one of them. This was one of SUPER's psych exams, a test for reconditioning. Nowhere was safe, nothing was sacred.

"You're a Delta, aren't you?" he demanded of Gawain, "This was all just a test, wasn't it?"

He knew he wouldn't get answers. They never gave him answers. No matter how hard he fought, they'd detain him, send him to reconditioning, and he'd lose his mind all over again. But that never stopped Delta Seven from fighting. He'd had the audacity to think he was safe, to think that he was free. And maybe... he could fight to hold onto that.

The form unraveled once Mari's aura enveloped him, cords slipping like an unclenched fist. Uncertain, orange-brown flecks swam through his eyes, and a smile cracked across his features. He glanced at Mari out of the corner of his eyes, his face bent towards his hands. His natural hair was getting shaggy, the white tips of his bangs falling over his eyes.

"I mean... not like this?" Chase said with a winsome smile, glancing at his cousin, "My power, you know, it lets me use people's things as a... uh... shortcut. Sometimes. I've never just... tried stuff on."

He was stammering. And quickly getting embarrassed.

"I just-! Saw this cartoon, and, uh," even if Mari was trying to be calm and accepting, the whole thing felt sooo weird! "In the cartoon there's an alien that can choose if it- they- want to be a boy or a girl. And they don't choose until they're thirteen."

The latter half of the explanation came out in a hastily uttered string of words. He couldn't believe he just said that. He could choose, too. That was the unspoken declaration. He was a mutant with the power of choosing. If only Chase had been so articulate. His ears burnt with a blush.

The shapeshifter's eyes swirled with confused colors. Where his tag was? He couldn't-- he didn't-- Seven grit his teeth. The only memories that simmered up in his mind are the bag-and-tags he'd participated in during the past few months.

"Usually they have... guns... for bag-and-tags," Seven explained, "They try to... aim... where it's hard to reach?"

His hand tensed around Gawain's, his stomach churning, "But my skin... is like snakes..." which meant that his tag wasn't subdermal. It was deeper, but he didn't know... how deep.

It was all so confusing. That was the best way to put it. Confusing. Scary. Things weren't so black-and-white when you could sometimes be a girl, or sometimes be a boy, and most of the times feel like you werent really either. There weren't words for that. That wasn't possible. You were a girl OR you were a boy. That's just how it was. And Chase was doing something very un-boy-like by donning his cousin's skirt.

>> "Of course. There's nothing wrong with that. With any of it... I'm not going to tell them anything because there's nothing to tell. It's just a skirt. You are allowed to wear a skirt, regardless of how or why you want to."

The child's head, and gaze, lifted marginally. Marisol was older so, by default, knew more. She had to be speaking from experience, so Chase pressed, "... I am?"

It wasn't much, but it was something-- the slightest fissure in his hastily erected wall. It wasn't that anyone had ever, overtly told him that he wasn't allowed to wear a skirt. But no one had ever told him he was allowed to, either. It was sort of an unspoken thing. You were a girl OR you were a boy. Girls could wear pants or skirts, but boys... it's just how things were. An unspoken thing. But if Chase was allowed to... the child unballed his hands.

>> "It looked good, you know. The skirt. The hair."

"It did?"

He was looking at Mari now, and a small, hesitant smile touched his expression. He didn't know why he was smiling. His body language was altogether bashful-- a hand hesitantly rubbed the forearm of his opposite arm. A sock-clad foot pivoted against the floor. His eyes darted away again, though.

>> "Can I get closer? So maybe we can sit and talk?"

Chase intuitively knew what that meant, as someone who could be forced back into their natural face by someone like Mari or Mama.

"Yeah," the child agreed, taking a seat on a spare patch of bed. What would they talk about, though? What was there to talk about? Sometimes, Chase didn't understand older people. They always wanted to talk.

The child beamed at the granted permission, wrapping his arms around the small box of Legos. He marched after Celeste to the registers, only surrendering the carton of interlocking blocks long enough for it to be scanned, before wrapping it in his arms once again.

>> “Well… Let’s go back to my school, okay? I’m sure they can help us find out where your parents or guardians are.”

The boy nodded. The logic was sound to him.

>> “Be careful touching stuff, okay? It might sting. Lots of people come in and off the bus…”

Another nod. His hold on the Lego box tightened. After a brief wait, the bus rolled to the curb, the pressurized doors sliding open to allow passengers in.

"Why are you going to school at night?" the boy inquired, the strangeness of the concept finally settling on him. The two of them ascended into the vehicle, the mutant child exchanging an owlish glance with the bus driver.

Delta Seven watched the two strangers with detached interest. He was no stranger to the language they used-- other operatives sometimes swore on missions. He wasn't sure what had prompted Mirror and Mirage to swear, though.

>> "I am stuck. And I can't. But he can."

>> "Alright, Ch... kid. Let's get you out. Can you tell me where the camera is in your cell?"

Delta Seven looked towards the upper corner of his cell, at the intermittently blinking red light that shone through the darkness.

"Up there," the child said, jerking his chin, "But they'll come if I touch it."

His face burnt with a flush, his eyes fixating on the floor. He couldn't look at Marisol-- what could be possibly tell her that wouldn't make it seem weird. Already, Chase's hair was shortening, reverting to its usual unkempt boy-cut. His nose also reverted.

His mouth moved as if to speak, but words eluded him. The first day he'd met Marisol, he'd showed off for her-- borrowed something from Jorge and used it to mimic him, so she probably knew the process didn't require him to fully don someone else's clothes. He also couldn't seem to Mama's or Mari's clothes for shifting. Something about their auras muted their genetic signatures.

>> ”H-hey, honey. I’m not gonna freak out. It’s a nice skirt, right?”

"I mean, if you like skirts!” the shifter-child snapped, his face still red and eyes still downcast. He balled his hands in the skirt, gritting his teeth. He should watch his tone. Mama said that all the time, when Chase was in trouble. "Don't take that tone of voice with me." If he took a tone with Mari she might tell.

"... It's a nice skirt, if you like skirts," the child admonished, "Which I totally don't. I just wanted to see if shifting would work if I was all the way dressed as you instead of just... holding onto things."

He still wasn't looking Marisol in the eyes. The words gushed out of his mouth too quickly. There was an uncertain smile upon his lips, and a fearful, anxious red swirling in his irises. It was almost a good lie, if Chase hadn't been so panicked. Chase knew this. If it was just an experiment with his mutation, he wouldn't be so scared. His knuckles were nearly white from gripping the skirt so hard.

"You aren't gonna tell, are you?" For the first time since Mari came in, Chase dared to look at her, "I can wash your clothes. All of them. This is the only thing I tried on but I can wash all of them. But please don't tell."

There was a sort of unspoken "I'll do anything" trailing at the end of that sentence.