Chapter 4: A Shopping Excursion

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men.

Kitty was miffed (To say the absolute least).

It had been almost 48 hours since the Acolytes set up camp at the Institute and she and Colossus had yet to "properly enjoy" each other's company. But Kitty, being Kitty had a plan. All she had to do was time it right.

She and Colossus were sitting on a couch in the foyer pretending to read, when in actuality they were playing footsie under the coffee table.

Then it happened-

SLAM!-The Kitchen door was thrown shut.

They were back from training.

POP!

Kitty smiled. Logan just crack a beer. That meant he was spent-for now.

"Oh c'mon," said X23 bounding behind Logan, "Just one more time through- I'll even let you win this time!"

"Later, kid," said Logan in a somewhat winded tone. He took a swig of beer, "besides we have a danger room session."

"What am I supposed to do 'till then?!" asked a rather dejected X23.

Logan sighed. He'd only officially been a parent for a day and already it was cramping his style.

"I'll like take her for a while," said Kitty, "she needs to go to the mall."

"Why?" X23 wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Because you need clothes," Kitty informed her.

Logan still looked a bit skeptical and who could blame him after his previous experience with Kitty's driving.

"I will drive," Piotr "volunteered" (It was all part of Kitty's master [more like disaster] plan).

"Alright," Wolverine agreed pulling the keys out of his pocket, "but have her back in time for the danger room session and stop fer dinner."

"No problem," Kitty assured him.

Wolverine handed the keys to Piotr, then looked at X23, "No clawing, no kicking, no punching, no growling and no attacking anyone."

X23 sighed and rolled her eyes, "fine."

"C'mon," said Kitty hurriedly as she took X23 by the hand, "we're burning daylight!"

BANG!-The front door was slammed shut as Kitty made a beeline for car dragging both Piotr and X23 behind her.

Logan was left in the foyer drinking his beer. With his new free time he decided to go look at the porn mag under his mattress, only when he got there he found it missing-

"NOOOOooooooooo!"

(I don't know about you guys, but I'm hoping, for Remy's sake, Logan doesn't figure out who took it.)

---

5 minutes later the car stopped in front of the BoM's house.

"Ok, end of the line," said Kitty perkily.

"This isn't the mall," said X23.

"That's because I never said Petey and needed to go to the mall, just you do. So, you're going with Aunt Wanda, while Petey and I hang out here until you get back."

X23 crossed her arms, arched an eyebrow and grinned wickedly, "You do realize this is going to cost you."

Kitty looked at her a little in the dark, "What do you mean."

X23's eye narrowed, "I grew up in top secret military facilities with 90% of the soldier population being men. I know exactly what 'hanging out' means and unless you want Wolverine to find out..."

"Alright, I like get it," said Kitty indignantly. She reached into her purse and pulled out her platinum card, "here."

"Thank you," said X23 sweetly as she took the card from Kitty.

Just then Wanda walked out of the house with Lance's car keys.

Wanda and X23 sized each other up. When neither backed down, they both got into the jeep and drove off, leaving a rather confused Kitty and Piotr sitting in the driveway. But the confusion was only momentary, then Kitty ripped off her shirt and attacked Piotr where he sat in the driver's seat.

"Katya, no!" unfortunately Piotr's request fell on deaf ears.

The car was knocked out of gear and rolled backward into a tree with a- CRASH!

"Shit!" swore Kitty, "now we can't put the seat down. I guess we're just hafta move inside."

"But what about the car?" asked Piotr.

"Later," said Kitty taking him by the hand.

"But..." Colossus continued to protest.

"I'm not wearing any underwear," said Kitty.

"The car is able to wait," said Piotr quickly as they headed toward the front door.

---

"Eww! I'm not going to put tongue there!" Kurt grimaced at Remy's direction.

As I'm sure you can imagine the classes we're not going as smoothly as Gambit had hoped they would. It was going into the second day of the lesson and Kurt hadn't made nearly any progress.

Remy was nearly at his wits end.

"Alright, look, jus' take dis an' look at all de pictures-don' even tink about readin' any articles-an' we'll go over it tomorrow." Remy handed Logan's porno to Kurt.

"Alright," sighed Kurt with a heavy heart.

BAMF! He ported back to his room.

Remy looked over at Py, "Mark, my words, Johnny, dat boy gonna wind up a priest!" (AU ref.)

---

Once at the mall Wanda and X23 parked in section T and then systematically went through the shops on the kiosk that would most likely suit a girl X23's age. They went everywhere it seemed. And they went in alphabetical order:

Alloy American Eagle Arden B. Bebe Claire's Delias Gap J Crew JC Penny Limited Limited Too Marshal's Rue 21 Windsor

Wanda was barely able to keep up with X23 as she was single handedly dragged up and down the escalator more times than she cared to remember in and out of 14 stores. The only time Wanda could catch a break was when they were in a store and X23 was running the sales people on the floor ragged as she sent them scurrying after different sizes.

Wanda rather enjoyed watching the sales people tripping over each other. One thing was for sure and that was X23's determination to ware out the tape on the back of the credit card she was using. Wanda would have enquired about it, but that would have involved walking over to the cash register and her feet already killed, so that was entirely out of the question.

It was while Wanda was sitting on the side line that she noticed a figure in a trench coat (I know-I know it's a bit played out, but for the purposes of this story I'm using it-So there-HA!) following them around. At first she thought it was just the non stop battles between the X-Men and the Acolytes that was taking its toll on her. But after about the fifth store she saw the figure, she knew something was amiss.

Well 14 stores and 10 trips to the car later the girls found themselves in the food court of mall with food from almost every vendor in front of them because up until that point X23 had only eaten army rations or anything she could catch in the woods. Needless to say X23 ate the lion's share of the food as Wanda looked on in amazement at how anything that small could eat so much.

By the time they were done eating, Wanda sent X23 off to the ladies' room to clean up after the 4 BigMacs she managed to scarf down at the end.

Once X23 was out of sight the figure in the trench coat sat down across from Wanda, "We need to talk."

Wanda thought about hexing his ass clear out into the parking lot, but in the end decided against it, not wanting to attract too much attention-at the moment, "Who are you?" Wanda's eyes narrowed.

"I'm Nick Fury. I work for Shield. You are currently surrounded by 35 agents. We are here to take X23 into custody."

"Why?" asked Wanda warily.

"Because she is the best military weapon every created. The engineering that went into her alone is over 4 billion. It would be a waste to let her live out a civilian life, not to mention how bored she would be with no new challenges. She'll be much happier once we take her back to base." Fury assured her.

"How can you say that? She hasn't even had a chance to experience what civilian life is like or for that matter having a real family," Wanda countered, "but tell me more about this organization...Shield, I believe you said."

"Uh, yes," said Fury a little taken a back, but all the same he gave an over view of the organization and it history with Wolverine.

When he finished Wanda leaned back in her chair and smiled slightly, "Fury, I have a proposition for you-a 2 for 1 deal if you will."

Fury leaned forward, "I'm listening."