1
Todd leapt away from the downed guard. "These people don't deserve my shopping dollar no way, yo."
Rogue smiled and jogged to catch up to the boy straightening into a walking stance. X-23 tried to walk away but the prone guard, conscious unlike the ones that had made the mistake of touching Rogue's skin, grabbed her ankle. Which allowed him to view the claw that slid out of her foot. X-23 pulled her foot back like she was trying to score a soccer goal from across the field. The man clenched his eyes in terror at the adimantium blade coming toward him. The claw *snikt*ed back into her foot and the toe of her shoe tapped him. By then, the guard had curled into a ball and X-23 was free to catch up to her date and his other date.
"So much for me getting a date.", Todd fumed as he stormed out into the parking lot.
"What?", X-23 asked, annoyed.
Rogue took in a breath. "We're not going to let people like them ruin our day-okay? We'll just go somewhere else."
Todd glanced between the girl on his left and the girl on his right. X-23 nodded. And Rogue offered a hopeful shrug. "After all, you did let that guard go. And being right ought to be worth something."
"So where are we going?", X-23 asked.
That's when a Sentinel fell out of the sky. Its palm pointed toward the teens as a mechanical voice instructed. "You are under arrest. Resistance by mutant ability will result in maximum force."
Todd answered X-23. "Well, I was kinda holding out hope for at least purgatory with a chance at heaven...but who am I kidding?"
The Sentinel fired its palm's repulsor. Rogue dented a nearby car as she was blasted away by the incinerating asphalt of the parking lot. The concrete trash can X-23 was sent sailing through shattered. The spot Todd was standing on still smoldered.
"Todd!", both the girls screamed.
"I don't need screaming, yo!", Todd assured. The girls turned from the smoking pot hole to the Sentinel's chest plates, where Todd was adhered. "I need one of you to rescue me.
"Yikes!"
Todd then proceeded to cling his way up to the mech's shoulder to avoid the giant hand that swatted at him. When the Sentinel moved to grab him, he slithered onto the Sentinel's back. The machines arms pivoted inhumanly, and two more beams burned holes into the ground.
"Any time now, please.", Todd said as he crawled around to the Sentinel's groin.
Rogue pealed herself out of the car she was thrown into. The girl ripped off one of the doors and hurled it into the Sentinel's face. She spun back to the car and started to yank in futility on the other door.
"I'm out!", Rogue cried to her team mate.
X-23 nodded. "Then you might want to close your eyes."
"You're not the best there is at what you do.", Rogue reminded.
"Will do.", Todd replied.
X-23 nodded. "Sure. But what I do isn't any prettier."
2
The cop wanted to just start throwing people in the back of his squad car and let the captain sort it out. The kids sitting on the side walk under the same blanket wasn't stopping him. The old man that refused to talk and just debated at him with the fervor of an atheist at a creationist convention didn't stop him. And the blind woman, with her bemused expression as if she had expected all this certainly was not going to stop him either.
But the ever smoothing, floating in mid air ball of was one Sentinel...that gave him pause.
"And so you see-officer.", the man continued. "Even my offer of transporting your defunct genocide machine to an appropriate recycler without your department absorbing the exhorbinant expense of heavy machinery shows how very community minded us law abiding citizens truly are."
The man continued to squeeze his hand and what used to be two and half stories of weapons platform continued to coalesce into modern art.
"Well, what am I supposed to do about the six knocked out inside?", he countered.
"Give them the day off and a copy of Black Like Me."
"You do know that if there wasn't security footage of these kids being attacked unprovoked and their response being clear cut self defense, they wouldn't just be free to go.", the cop reminded.
The white haired man demanded, "And what of the crimes committed against them?"
"Listen, pops."
"No you listen/"
"He'll be mindful of that officer.", the blind woman called out.
The man spun on her so fast that the ball of robot parts dropped two feet before it recovered.
"Well he better.", the cop told her. Turning to the younger mutants he only repeated "Stay out of trouble." before walking into the mall.
Irene then walked up to the group on the date. "Rogue, let me take you and your friends back to Xavier's while Magnus disposes of his war trophy."
Erik appeared offended. "It isn't a war trophy."
Irene put her hand on her hip. "You aren't going to strip out the armor and reshape it into a statue that you can hide among the rest of Xavier's collection?"
Erik turned on her and rose into the sky with his war trophy.
Irene addressed Rogue again. "So are you going to introduce me?"
"Mama, this is Todd-you might know him from the Brotherhood house. X-23 lives with us at the X-Mansion."
Todd turned to Rogue. "I thought Mystique adopted you."
Rogue nodded. "They both did. Raised me after my own parents threw me out."
"Come Todd.", Irene...suggested. "You can tell me all about your intentions towards my daughter on the ride back."
The boy hung his head. "And I was so close to surviving."
Two right, teenage hands gently patted his shoulders.