Using an abandoned warehouse for his own purposes without permission was probably illegal. Granted, the reasons he was using it were also probably illegal.

Zeph had found out about this place before he even began attending college. The police files on Blackbird had mentioned this building and, after doing some more fishing into ownership papers and monitoring the feed of some nearby security cameras, Zeph had determined that it wasn't being used for anything other than drug deals and gang meet ups. The authorities weren't looking at it too seriously either, since the building had fallen into disrepair, but it wasn't in an ideal location for redevelopment. With his power, he was able to spook away the gangsters and druggies, inevitably giving the building a reputation of being haunted.

Since then, he had put an electronic lock on the door and began to bring scraps of metal, random parts, and broken machines inside to tinker with. In his high school and college years, he began installing more planned out technological systems, making the space more of his own. However, in all that time, he hadn't moved the training supplies that were already there. They weren't really in the way, and he had looked at them in a sort of awe when he was younger. Although Zeph had already known that being a superhero wasn't his cup of tea, vigilanteism had never been entirely out of the question. He likely kept them untouched as some form of respect, but if anyone were to ask him the reason, he'd likely just blame it on laziness.

It had been years since keeping the warehouse protected from the outside world was an issue, but evidently that was about to change today. Zeph froze when he spotted the shadowy figure in the broken window through his night vision goggles. Was that..? No, no, no no nonono. Why had he come back after all these years? Zeph, not wanting to make a sound, didn't even move when he leaped from the ledge to the training area, which was currently obscured from Zeph's vision by a pile of boxes. Alright, fine. He could deal with this. There was no way the other wouldn't notice Zeph's additions to the place, so just waiting it out wasn't a question. Overwhelming him might not work, either, but at the very least it could make him overestimate Zeph's power and leave for long enough for Zeph to escape with the things here which were most precious to him.

Well then, no time like the present. Zeph turned on all the lights in the room simultaneously, consuming the entire warehouse with a harsh brightness. Protected by the light, Zeph was able to look at his phone's screen, projecting the image from one of his cameras onto it. Alright, the professor was by the pull up bar. Good to know. He altered the lights that could move electronically (it only seemed natural to install a few so he didn't need to manually readjust them in the middle of working on multiple projects) to focus on the cloaked figure. Aaand, to top it all off, a little trick he used on the druggies who were in this place before him: connecting to some music speakers dangling haphazardly from the ceiling, he sent clips of computerized phonemes that were saved on his phone so that they formed words. It was sort of like typing, but timing was much more important.

"Why are you here, Night-rot?"

As the voice echoed around the walls, Zeph took the opportunity to move to a more secure location which was closer to the boxes as well as the door. Still, the professor was between him and his only exit, and Zeph didn't have many more tricks up his sleeve. Not many of the things he had been building in here were complete, so he had no control over him.

If video games had taught Zeph anything, it was that boxes were the best hiding places.

Crawling into one of said boxes, he pulled the side panel up to conceal himself, just in time for when the power breaker was destroyed. Zeph visibly twitched as he felt nearly all of the electronics around him die. Sure, he had a generator, but he didn't have it connected to any of the cameras, so he was pretty much blind. Alone in a dark box being hunted by an angry ex-vigilante who could literally just kill him by breathing. Great. This was a great plan. At least he could still use the speakers. "I doubt that Vireximus would condone trespassing and destruction of property. Where would you go if you lost that job, too?"

Ok, yeah, he had no bloody idea what was going on. How was he supposed to know what to say if he couldn't see? Leaning his ear to the side of the box, he tried to listen for a response. However, regardless of if there was a reply or not, some of the parts he was crouching on slipped out from underneath him, causing him to lose his balance and tumble out of the box with a loud metal clatter accompanied by a graceless thump.

"Fuck!"

There was no point in hiding anymore; even if he had wanted to try running, he was in the professor's grasp. Bad situation, bad situation... he wasn't psychic; he had no idea what sort of gas Orrin was breathing, if any. Knowing that his practically nonexistent muscles had zero chance of squirming out of assaulter's grip, he instead opted for holding his breath and clasping one hand over his mouth while trying to reach the switch on Orrin's mask with the other.

"Don't release toxins. I won't run." There was no way he was opening his mouth to talk unless he couldn't hold his breath any longer.