She'd imagine it would be hard to sneak up on a man with ears that could hear up to a mile away and a power that passively sensed mutants up to ten miles in every direction, but she managed it without even trying. The mutant she'd seen only once before flinched violently when he entered his room to find Maverick there, drawing a gun from his waistband and pointing it at her head in the blink of an eye.
"Doctor Embo Cuetlachtli Ravencroft-Watson, born May 13, 1349, current alias Phoenix 13." She was fairly sure, but it was a good practice to account for how shields could affect mutant abilities. He still looked exactly as she remembered him- a dark-skinned Aztec teenager a few inches taller than her current default form, with black hair down to his shoulders and hooded eyes that were a brown so dark they almost matched. There was an illusion around him, some kind of mental trick he was using to try to hide the decades of scarring layered all over his face and bare arms, and a metal band locked around each of his wrists. Inhibitors for his abilities, if she remembered correctly. And exactly why she was here to speak with him.
"Guy who likes to show up to fight Abel, ability to mimick any abilities you observe, so powerful you're at least a nine on the one-to-six scale," He responded, sizing her up. "Approximately twenty-four years old, accent Welsh and New Orleans, six-foot-three, trained fighter with a history of ballet and gymnastics. Isle?"
"Yes. My name is Maverick Mim, also known as Destiny of the Endless, I'm sure you've heard of me." His eyebrow arched, but that was his only reaction to the revelation. She liked this guy. "I'll cut right to the chase. I need your help with something."
He did a good job of hiding it, but she detected the slightest dubious note in his voice as he asked "What could you possibly need my help with? Pretty sure you can just copy my abilities."
"I could." She shrugged. "But not your experience, and that's the part I need. I need someone with your abilities and your experience in learning and controlling them to work with a mutant I've acquired custody of."
The gun went back into his waistband and the tension in his posture loosened a bit. He was still suspicious of her, but a potential mutant in need of help took precedent. Another reason she had come to him. "What kind of mutant?"
"Level six shield with an electrokinetic aspect." His eyes widened. Shields were exceptionally rare, and notably powerful ones were even rarer. Beyond that, there were also less than fifty level six mutants currently alive on the planet. Level six shields were essentially unheard of. In fact, there had only ever been one recorded level six shield in all of history. Embo Ravencroft. "His name is Luna McLeach, he's around sixteen at best guess. He's been raised from infancy to be a living weapon of mass destruction." She paused to give him a second to register that. After all, this guy was a superhuman weapon trafficking survivor, too. "He's been fit with these restraint cuffs all his life that prevented him from using his power without being ordered to, so he's never had to learn how to control it. Now he's out of the cuffs and he's got this mental block he put up to limit his power, but even still, the 10% of his power that he's got access too is way to much for him to control. He needs help and I'm far from the best person to give it to him."
"You want someone who's actually been there to help him move forward," Ravencroft guessed. Maverick didn't even have to try beyond that. "I'll help him. Give me thirty minutes to make sure people don't think I got kidnapped. I want to start with him as soon as possible. That kind of power..." He smiled bitterly. "Better to learn before you wipe out everything in a ten-mile radius."
