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Everything was too much. Too much. The neon lights. The pounding music. The clatter of bowling balls against pins. Who was he? Where was he? The room was spinning. He felt like he was going to be sick. He had to get out of here. And so he was running blindly through the crowd, towards a promising doorway lit by even, fluorescent lights. Anything better than the piercing blue against swirling neon. The child brushed past the front desk and into the well-lit hall outside. A mall. Why was he at a mall again? Maybe, if he found someone he knew, he could tell them.

The human-shifter walked down the tiled alleyway, past back-lit signs advertising the "glow-bowling" within. What an awful place. People tilted weird looks at him, and they were met with an equally scrutinizing look. He looked too small to be by himself, first of all-- secondly, he wore his natural skin, which was altogether unnatural. He didn't know that, though. He didn't remember that. He had to find someone who knew why he was there. Or, at least, someone who could help him figure-out why he was there.

He peered in through a storefront window, noticing numerous displays of brightly-colored blocks. Something at the back of his brain told him that he liked those blocks. The child reached for the handle of the doorway, but winced as his fingers grazed the handle, withdrawing his hand. It stung! Rude!

The kid continued to amble along, shoving his prickling fingertips into his pockets. He shouldn't be shopping, anyways. He should be looking.

The retort was not appreciated, and Delta Seven could see that Agent T had fixed him with a sharp stare in his peripheral vision. He kept his gaze forward, the only indication that Delta Seven had realized his faux pas being the leaping muscle in his jaw, which flexed as he clenched his teeth. Further protest would only lead to more restrictions. But despite the fact that he was a brainwashed government tool, he was also an adolescent government tool, which led to occasional flaws in the system. This, of course, was noted in his case file. Conditioning had grown less resolute due to the shifting hormonal balances in his system.

“It was an unnecessary question,” the boy agreed thinly. Which question was unnecessary would be left to Agent T’s interpretation. Though he was an agent that required requisitioning, he was still an agent—just with less agency—he had the same training as everyone else and, in some cases, more in-depth training. Nothing more needed to be said on that matter. Agent T led Delta Seven to the hand-to-hand combat chamber, and Delta Seven surveyed his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror that loomed before him. He rolled his lips, thinking back to his friend from the mirror-world. What was their name again?? He’d endured a reconditioning since the outbreak, which meant that his mind was foggy at best—he couldn’t even be sure that his mirror-friend was even real.

“Affirmative, Agent T,” Delta Seven replied dutifully, “My training implements my mutational advantages.” He would not say that his training “relied” on his mutation, though. That’d suggest that he was useless when cooperating with a Kappa. And, if that were the case, he wouldn’t have been partnered with Agent T in the first place.

“This is not requisitioning,” Delta Seven observed, remaining by the doorway. He hadn’t been ordered to enter, so he was technically not breaking orders. Requisitioning did not occur in the hand-to-hand combat room-- the diagnostics assessments were performed elsewhere, and an inkling of the boy's good sense told him that Agent T had not brought him here for requisitioning.

Delta 7 trotted after Agent Taylor dutifully, occasionally jogging a few strides to keep up with her. Kappa Agents and their damn Kappa auras. What a pain in the butt. But Agent Taylor had ordered him to stay close, and so he would.

>> "Have you received combat training?"

This was all in his records. In his file. It was standard for operatives to receive training, combat or otherwise.

"Yes, Agent Taylor," the boy reported, "Have you?"

He probably shouldn't have said that. But it was a stupid question to ask.

Chase inclined his head at Ignacio’s response, arching his eyebrows. Solar Absorbation? What did that mean?

“Like a solar panel?” Chase pressed. If that was the case, what did he power? They usually put solar panels on buildings. Was he solar-powered? Like a plant? In science they talked about photosynthesis.

The shifter child grinned when the question was returned to him, and he announced, “I can look like other people!”

Always eager to show-off, the boy hopped to his feet, abandoning his math work.

“Do you have a wallet?”

How the child had managed to avoid reprogramming was a mystery to him-- then again, SUPER's surveillance had no way of noting that there was a mutant in the mirrors, talking to one of their best tools-- Delta 7 had no intention of telling them otherwise. He still knew protocol and was fully aware of his training, so his encounter with Mirage would in no way impact his ability to serve his purpose.

When Delta Seven was requisitioned, he was not advised of who he would assist. Kappa operatives were fairly standard, because they could interrupt him if he got out of hand. But there were... a lot... of Kappa operatives. Earlier that day, guards had delivered civvie clothes and instructed him to change out of his uniform. Thus, when the door opened, Delta Seven was finishing wriggling into a fitted tank top. The hiss of pneumatics pulled the child's attention as the door swung open.

Agent Taylor. The child frowned. At least Delta 5 gave him treats.

>> "Delta Seven, report for duty."

Delta Seven slid his feet into his shoes, neither of which were tied, and clopped towards the door. It wouldn't do to keep Agent Taylor waiting, even if it meant walking around in untied shoes. Delta Seven stopped in front of her, lifting his gaze.

"Not really!" the boy frankly announced, "He's kinda mean. But he knows what he's doing."

The truth from the mouth of babes. Kalos requested warm milk, and Chase padded back towards the cabinet, retrieving another mug for her. He poured the milk in to that mug, too, and retrieved a spoon to add the chocolate powder. Kalos was, all the while, being Kalos.

>> "If you like the flavor of the chocolate-flavored, why don't you just eat the chocolate-flavored? We had goats for milking, but I see that all of your things come in plastics and the animals are not here."

"Sometimes I eat the chocolate powder," Chase confessed, smiling, "But you can't just eat all the chocolate powder, you'll get sick. And the grown-ups don't like it."

He added a few more dollops of chocolate powder into the mugs of milk, stirring them into a fine chocolate milk mix. Inevitably there'd be clumps of powder at the bottom, but that was the best part.

"Besides, if you use milk, you get chocolate lumps at the bottom, and you can eat it with a spoon."

As the older friend, it was Chase's job to impart such wisdom upon Kalos. The two mugs were carried carefully towards the microwave, on the other side of the kitchen. Chase popped the door open and deposited the mugs inside, before dialing-in the time. Twice as many mugs meant twice as much time, right?

"There's no room for cows in the city," the boy remarked, walking over to the stove to peer into the pot of water. Bubbles were beginning to form, but it wasn't quite ready, "So people who live outside the city send milk in."

"I don't remember the rules," Chase whispered, nibbling the eraser at the tip of his pencil. He squinted at the worksheet before him, trying not to look bashful. Ignacio rattled on about how he'd said the answer in Spanish, how surprised he was to find someone else who spoke Spanish, before talking to Chase again, in Spanish. The boy's brow furrowed.

"I don't speak Spanish," Chase corrected, "I just understand it... My first family spoke Spanish, and in the homes... so... I don't know, no one really taught me to speak it, I just understand some stuff."

"I'm from here," Chase said lamely. Was he from somewhere else? He couldn't remember. He was only twelve, but most of his earlier memories were foggy. Ignacio surveyed the math problem, calculating through a few steps. Chase's pencil wiggled along with his calculations, jotting the numbers down in an untidy scrawl.