Darkness greeted his closed eyes and for a moment he was confused. Where was he? What had he been doing? Light blossomed from flame in the center of his upturned palm and he looked around. Memories, he could still hear the woman whose power had been the ability to create and control fire, inside his head. Using another of his pilfered abilities, he shunted her aside and focused on his surroundings. Where the hell was he? The walls were a rough stone, the door a blank canvas of splintery brown. No handle, no portal. Frowning, he trapped the ball of flame in a bubble using again the power he'd gotten from a psion, telekinesis and telepathy primarily. The flame moved silently in front of him as he went to the door and touched it with a calloused finger, which was when he first realized he was nude. He'd been stripped of the heavy ankle length wool coat, his clothes, and the gloves he wore so his skin wouldn't touch another's. The only remaining article was the stainless ball chain strung around his neck carrying a rectangle of engraved metal. Turning, the ball of flame illuminated the rickety cot that lined the wall opposite the door. The stained naked stretched canvas, marred only by the dirty gray blanket that had been covering him, still carried the dent of his weight. With a grunt and a passing look of interest he returned his attention to the door. He could feasibly teleport, the door was unguarded from what he could sense, but they might be wearing helmet's like the great Magneto's that kept the likes of him and others, even someone as strong as Charles Xavier, out. It was too risky, even with the healing factor he'd acquired from a teenaged boy, which was an unwarranted boom because he had always coveted the mutation of the greatly feared and despised Wolverine, so he returned to his cot. Covering himself with the ratty blanket, he prepared to wait. The rest of the mutant power he'd acquired when he received the healing factor kicked in as the sounds of footsteps reached his ears alongside the smell of heavy perfume through the thick stonewalls and oaken door. He sneezed at the odor and waited for the approaching person to carry himself down the hall that apparently lead to this room. He absently scratched the stubble gathered around his mouth as the footsteps became audible without the aid of his enhanced hearing. As the sound of a key turning in an infrequently used lock creaked through the small dungeon, he realized that the man behind the door was either powerful enough to block him or he was wearing a neural blocker. He made the flame disappear as the door opened and flooded the room with harsh fluorescent light.

"Ah-h-h-h, John, I see you're awake." The older man's voice was smooth as silk, caressing his ears and mind as silk would caress the skin. It set him on edge instantly.

"The name is Psion," he told the other man and shook the tag around his neck at him for punctuation.

"Which is amusing since your powers in that realm, however formidable, were not your own." The older man smirked, "It is amusing that it is not even below the Canadian government to experiment on and use members of our race, is it not."

"Spare me."

"You don't believe me? Or do you not remember…how cliché."

"I remember just fine," Psion said in a low voice. The experimentation was the main reason he was such a grab bag of mutant abilities. The psionic powers had been the first. They were supposedly 'required' for him to cope with what was to come. He shuddered at the memory of manacled captive mutants being lead one at a time and kept still with a crackling cattle prod as he laid hands on them and absorbed enough of them to manifest their powers. "Why am I here?"

"Now, now, is that anyway to speak to a gracious host?"

Psion growled, "Lets try something easier, who are you?"

The older man sighed overdramatically and fluffed his cape, "I see you are as they warned me. My name is Hassan, and you are here because you are too dangerous to be left on the street."

Psion raised an eyebrow and spoke frankly in a flat voice, "The only thing keeping me here right now is curiosity, and perhaps my severely lacking state of clothes."

"Oh really? You certainly have a high opinion of yourself."

Psion said nothing, only stared at Hassan with the unbiased eyes of a predator. Hassan cleared his throat and spoke to fill the silence. "You have accrued quite a reputation for yourself John. I have heard rumors that the X-Men are looking to recruit you, the American military in their racist stupor want you for experimentation or as an assassin or perhaps both, the Canadian government has put a price on your head so large I could retire as an even wealthier man if I were to hand you over…"

"If they could hold me, which they've already proven incapable of doing…"

"Even the infamous Magneto has offered a reward for information concerning your whereabouts," Hassan went on, unfazed.

Psion snorted, "The X-Men already have someone like me. America wants me because Canada wants me dead. And Magneto can go suck it for all I care, I won't be part and parcel to his ignorant jihad on humanity, nor will I be used like Rogue was at the Liberty Island scandal."

Hassan merely stood in the doorway looking smug as Psion finished his diatribe, "Do you feel better?" Psion merely glared as Hassan went on, "I invite you to try to escape John."

"Where are my clothes?"

"They are being laundered." Hassan said shortly but with a look of expectation.

Psion wasn't going to give him the pleasure of doing what was expected, "If I am going to stick around can I at least have a clean cot and a shower?" He smiled inwardly with satisfaction at the shock that flitted across the older man's face.

"Curious."

"That I am." It was what was keeping him in place. He knew he couldn't have teleported now, or phase through the floor, or even blast the wall of his cell out and escape. There were inhibitors in place to halt the powers he could have used to escape. The only thing left for him would have been fire, ice, and the myriad of psionic powers he'd developed and mastered over the past years. But if he wanted too there was nothing that could keep him here. Ice could kill as easily as fire. "Well?"