Thanks for all the reviews and as you know I must not respond to reviews in my chapters so I won't be doing that this time. This may be the last chapter for a while, I'm moving in February so I'm not sure when I'll have Internet once I move. Don't worry I will still be able to write chapters just not update.

Okay I know I've been late with this one too but stuffs happened and so if my writing gets a little more negative I'm sorry but it is just how I feel lately.

Chapter 19

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My robot can beat up your robot

Standing over the now cooling bodies of the FOH men the assembled mutants Knockout, Lightning, Hyacinth, Animala, Masque, Bailey, Pyro and Holly Marco a.k.a. Corpse stood in a sense of debate. They wondered if they should feel bad for the death or happy since they were about to kill Pyro.

"We don't kill you know." Knockout said looking over at Pyro who seemed the least affected by the dead bodies in front of him. "But that's the price you pay with a former terrorist. Okay team move out!"

"Griff who made you leader?" Katie asked.

"Woman please I have been here the longest who better to lead the team than me?" Knockout replied still continuing to move forward even though no one else was following.

"Uh-huh I've been here the longest!" Katie yelled back. "So I should be in charge!"

"Fine! YOU be in charge of watching the hotel with your chipper boyfriend!"

Katie growled and through her hands up frustrated then marched into the café, Masque close behind her.

"Come on you lazy Sheila's let's go before trouble arrives." Pyro walked slowly to catch up with Knockout.

Corpse, Bailey and Hyacinth slowly followed behind the two men, Corpse staring intently at Pyro's backside.

"You know you might want to close your mouth and wipe the drool from your face." Caeda, Hyacinth, said walking next to the older girl.

Holly looked at the younger girl confusion on her face. "What do you mean?"

"Oh please, you looking at our fire boy is like Bailey when she's around Zack." Hyacinth answered all the while smiling wide.

"HEY!" Bailey yelled angrily.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Corpse said and quickly walked away from the young Australian. Leaving Caeda alone with Bailey, the latter being eager to "talk".

Walking away from the broken window of a Jeweler's shop the shape shifter Zack, or Shift as he called himself when in uniform was having a crisis in his mind. He had stolen something and what pissed him off more was he actually cared! He always bragged, mostly to himself since no one was listening, that he didn't have any sense of ethics or a soul. Now, however, much to his disgust he actually cared. The teenage mutant turned around and walked directly into the shop and placed money in the cash register for what he stole and then walked out feeling better about what he had done.

Stepping out of the store the rain began to pick up again and Shift heard a loud crashing sound coming from in front of him. As he turned in the direction of the sound all he could see was a small shape coming towards him. Then the shape hit him sending him through Jewelers store.

Shift groaned from the pain of whatever hit him. His head had gone through the counter of the shop as he pulled out his head and set it against the desk the cash register fell onto his groin. "OW! I hate karma." Suffering from both a blinding migraine and slightly broken groin he managed to look around the shop for the source of what hit him. Much to his surprise standing in front of the window in dripping wet clothes was a young girl whose eyes were full of tears.

Ignoring the pain Shift stood up and hobbled over to the girl. "Hey are you alright?" He asked kneeling in front of the young girl. She seemed slightly delirious as her eyes looked around her taking in the street. "Hey little girl!"

The young girl jumped as she realized someone was in front of her. It was a boy about her brother's age or the age he was before the robots took her brother and mommy away. She was alone now and that monster could be chasing her along with the robots and the men in suits. It was too much and she through her hands around the boy's neck and cried.

Shift had to brace himself from the girls hug she packed some strength, he heard her cry and felt the tears on his neck and did the only thing he could think of, he hugged her and patted her back. "There, there. Why are you crying?"

Between sobs the girl found the strength to tell him about her mother and brother. She couldn't bring herself to let go even after the tears stopped. She was so scared and her thoughts went back to the monster and she became scared again. "The monster's coming! He's going to get me! Please don't let him get me."

This was it, one of those superhero things that Shift was supposed to do. Someone was in trouble and needed help exactly what he'd signed on for. There was also the fact that the girl reminded him of his sister only a bit older. "Okay little girl I'll keep you safe." The young girl's tears had stopped and her body stopped shaking but she still could not release the death grip she had around Shift's neck.

"It's ok now, you can release me." With minor resistance Shift managed to pry the young girls grip off of his neck. "There now, I'm Zack what's your name?"

"Olivia." She replied as she began to shake again.

"Well Olivia I promise we'll get you safely back to your family okay?"

With a sniff of her nose she nodded and reached for his hand. The two mutants walked quietly through the streets careful to keep an eye out for the Sentinels.

Standing on the rooftop on a small house in New York City Paul Stevenson waits for a Sentinel. He being in control of electricity he waits for a Sentinel to come at him and obliterate it. They'd killed too many mutants and he for one was not about to let them continue to kill.

On the streets around the house Paul waits on symbiote owner Hawk walks along the street doing much the same as the younger mutant, waiting. He waits for a sign of the robot menaces, any stray mutants, or the missing Jack. Kara had left to look for him the day before and he'd lost track of Scope or Force. The sentinels began their attack and he was the only one available to help. So now he did what he was trained to do fight.

A black hole opened in front of Hawk and out fell out the femme fatales The Shriekers. Letting out a heavy sigh Hawk had to fight the urge to scream this he did not need. "This I do not need." He said looking down on the girls who fell down on top of each other in a pile of bodies.

"Wait! We're good now!" Shifter yelled jumping to her feet and throwing her hands up.

"Yeah you are looking at the new and improved Shriekers. We're all for helping Homo-Inferior and cleaning up their mistakes." Ghoul said angry for their new position and angry she couldn't fight Hawk whom she owed a black eye.

"Then go off and clean up." Hawk said walking past the girls leaving them behind.

"Shouldn't we be helping one another?" Balefire asked knowing fighting the sentinels would not be easy especially with her team.

Hawk hated the thought of working with the girls, no respect for authority, no team ethic, and the last time they'd met they were enemies. The threat of robot menaces was a bigger threat to handle by themselves, sure he could take care of himself but Jack would have helped them. Defeated Hawk turned to the girls and nodded. "Fine."

As the reluctant team walked down the streets, Paul followed along jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Shift sighed, he had taken the apparently mutant girl Olivia with him, Olivia however would not let go of his arms and would scream at any moment she saw a shadow move. The shape shifter tried and tried to break his arm free yet he could not for her grip was too strong.

"So Olivia you ever heard about Santa Claus?"

"He's not real, Richie from my school told me so." She replied matter-of-factly.

"The hell he's not. He's one of the greatest mutants of all. Hell he's even the first mutant team leader."

"What are you talking about? HE'S NOT REAL!" She screamed, her grip growing increasingly tighter on Shift's arm.

"No really how else could he deliver all those presents and the reindeer…they all fly! Mutants. Then there's Rudolph, I mean come on he's got a red nose for crying out loud. Mutant!" Shift got no response and felt satisfied with their conversation. As the two approached a street corner he stretched his neck and head to check down each street corner.

His head reverting to normal size he nodded to Olivia and walked with her down the street he deemed safest. "So is your giant head your power?" She asked eyeing his head.

Shift paused. His first instinct was to either smack the girl or give a smart-ass remark but he chose the higher ground, he laughed. "No, and I think you know that too." Shift looked up as the two came to another cross. "Huh this wasn't here last time."

"We're lost aren't we?" Olivia asked her grip increasingly the limit and Shift felt his arm go numb.

"No, we just don't know where we are. Could be because someone won't let go of the death grip on my arm." Olivia blushed slightly and released his arm standing on her own now.

Mutant Signature Detected! The mechanical voice of Sentinel said as it released a large cable from the palm of its hand to grab Olivia.

"Son of a bitch! Let go of my arm I said, damn me." Shift ran up to the sentinel and began to hammer away at the robot to no avail of course.

Olivia screamed as the cable sent waves of electricity out of her before she fell unconscious and her world went black.

On the ground Shift was blasted back a third time by the Sentinels laser. As he got up he felt a sharp pain in his side, something was definitely broken. He had one last choice; he just hoped it wouldn't kill him. "Hey Tin Man! IF I die tell Bailey that I'm sorry!" As the teenager ran at the behemoth in front of him he focused his powers inward and restructured the entirety of his anatomy and leapt after the Sentinel's feet. His entire shape turned into a large circular saw blade cutting the robot's feet off in the process.

The other teenage mutants of the F.O.M.E. were bravely fighting wave after wave of Sentinels. Bailey was acting as bait, in her liquid form she provided the perfect distraction to keep the robots off the young, nearly defenseless mutants the monstrosities were hunting.

Each member was to play a specific role in taking down the robots. Bailey with her unique molecular structure was to be the decoy, keep the robot busy, Holly Marco a.k.a. Corpse was playing pretty much the same role though every so often she'd send a zombie to fight the robot. Pyro and Hyacinth used their powers in the offensive to combat the machines the best they could. Only Griffin Riley a.k.a. Knockout was rather useless in the battle. He'd do the best he could punching the robot, but he would not even make a dent, so he tried his best to save the mutants.

Unfortunately the mutant team was incredibly uncoordinated. Bailey had begun spinning so fast in her liquid form around the Sentinel's head that she had lost control in her spinning and crashed into a dumpster.

Hyacinth was rendered unconscious by a blast from the hand of the robot, Corpse was crushed from a piece of debris from a building one of the Sentinels had blasted, the sentinel had launched one of its fists off colliding with Knockout sending him into the alley that housed Bailey's dumpster.

Pyro, however, having the most experience fighting the Sentinels as former member of Magneto's Acolytes, was flourishing. His fire creations had managed to save him from harm many times and even get in a few hits. The other thing he'd learned from his days in the Acolytes and having a price on his head was how to avoid taking damage, run!

Pyro ran away from the fight as fast as his feet would carry him. Down the street he ran into the middle of a four way split. He slid in mid run to try and turn as a Sentinel landed in front of him, as he turned around another landed in his way until he was surrounded.

Mutant Signature Detected. Came the monotone voice of the robots.

Pyro created a towering fire giant to battle the Sentinel's only to have it smoldered by the one of the machines. "I surrender!" He screamed throwing his hands into the air. The robots all pointed their weapons at Pyro and prepared to fire on the fire manipulating Aussie. Pyro closed his eyes and prepared for death. "At least where I'm going there will be fire everywhere."

Pyro's eyes grew wide as he watched the robot's crumble from some sort of attack and fall down all around him. Cocking of guns, many guns, around Pyro, interrupted the momentary happiness. He kept his hands in the air and sobbed a little bit.

"Stand down men! This is St. John Allerdyce, Fury want these mutants alive!" Ordered one of the soldiers.

"We so would be dead if we were X-Men." Joked Hyacinth as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents lifted her out of a pile of rubble.

Olivia groaned as she slowly came to. She tried to sit up but the throbbing pain in her head caused her to instantly lie back down. Slowly opening her eyes she saw that she was lying in the front seat of what looked like a car. She reached for the side lever and the chair lifted her up into a sitting position. In front of her was a large giraffe, she immediately forgot about the pain and opened the door and ran out only to run into a large gorilla. But when she hit the gorilla she found it was plush.

"It's not real…?" She looked back to the "car" she was in, it wasn't a real car but an up to scale replica. The giraffe along with a few other animals around her were stuffed animals. "Toy store?"

"Ah good you're awake." Olivia turned to see a doctor with a large round metal thing on his head. "Thought maybe I'd lost you there."

"W-who are you?" she asked flinching a bit as he came up to her and flashed a light in her eyes.

"I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV." The doctor said with a smile, his face changed to match that of Shifts.

"Oh its you…what's with the metal thing on your head?" The young girl asked as she pushed the light away form her eyes.

"Back in my day doctors always wore these when my mom watched her stories." He said with a shrug as he changed from the doctor uniform to his FOME outfit. "Good to see your up, thought maybe that robot put you in a coma."

"Where are we?" the young girl asked as she looked up at area they were in toys was on every level and all around.

"Well after you blacked out I picked you up and ran to the nearest building. I think the store said EAO Schwarz. And what better place to hide from evil robots than in a toy store?"

"So what do we do now then? Do we just sit and wait for this all to end?" Olivia asked jumping into the lap of a large stuff animal.

"Yep." Shift said with a nod. "Of course we don't just have to sit here." Shift smiled an evil grin and grabbed Olivia's hand.

"WEEE!" Shift screamed throwing his hands up in the air, well up as high as they would go in the motion simulator. The shape shifter had discovered it while waiting for Olivia to recover. At the moment he was on his 69th time, Olivia sat outside the machine sighing. The simulator was using the 'Mine of the Future' simulation.

The doors swung open as the simulation ended and Shift tumbled out. "WOO! I got to do that again!" He exclaimed as he stood up only to fall down just as fast as he could stand.

"Why? You've already been on it a bazillion times!" Olivia asked showing her distain with the situation.

"68 times, not a bazillion. Besides I just need to go on it one more! It's my lucky number. If I get on it once more no more harm will come to us tonight." He said smiling as he tried to get up only to fall down again.

Olivia gave a defeated sigh, "Fine. Just try and turn off the music. Who would have guessed that the mines of the future would play techno country music."

Shift stood up and was about to step into the simulator a final time before he saw a group of men in suits and glasses in the reflection, the sounds of guns cocking caused him to turn around. "Olivia run!" he yelled, and immediately changed his shape to a large muscle bound form and tackled all the men he could down.

He quickly stood up and began to fight; exchanging punches and kicks with the men. It didn't matter whether he'd win or not he was just meant to distract. He quickly changed his hands to larger heavier fists and hit the men's head as hard as possible causing them to fall unconscious. He looked over at the rest of them as he caught his breath. Olivia! His mind raced as he quickly jumped over the ledge of the floor landing on the main floor. "Didn't think that through" He groaned as his feet gave out sending him falling to the floor.

Again the cocking of a gun, only this one was pointed directly in front of his face. "I'm sorry Bailey." Shift said then closed his eyes prepared for the bullet.

"Die mutant scum!" The man said, spit landing on Shift's face. Just as he squeezed the trigger the man was tackled, the bullet shooting off into the ceiling.

Shift managed to open his eyes in time to see what he figured was Olivia tackle the man, he was thankful but when he looked to find she had crashed through two buildings and stood above the unconscious man a few buildings away. Shift quickly ran after her.

The man sat in an unconscious heap; Olivia could not take her eyes off the man. He was the same dress as the others who came after her and her family. She hated those men but she didn't want to kill them, and yet this man could have been dead. A tear ran down her cheek as she continued to look at him.

She didn't move when Shift kneeled in front of the man and checked his pulse; she didn't stop him from searching the man's pockets. "Do you have to steal his money? He's already dead!" Olivia asked sniffling and wiping away a tear.

"He's not dead. Merely unconscious." Zack replied as he took the money from the man's wallet. "Besides I'm not stealing his money," Zack lied. "Just taking his ID." He grabbed the man's belongings to him then changed into a pink outfit and with Olivia he took off into the air.

"Why are we flying away?" She asked as she looked down below her as the man came to and a group of others approached him.

"Kid some questions just shouldn't be asked, like 'What's a Hollaback girl?' they just can't be answered. No matter how bad I want to know and ask many people No one knows." Shift continued to ramble on about a hollaback girl until he neither crashed the two mutants into a telephone pole.

Under Hawk's direction the Shriekers managed to take down every Sentinel that came into their path. He wouldn't let them know it but he was smiling ever so slightly under his symbiote costume. With another Sentinel down he let the girls take a break, they couldn't fight if they weren't rested.

"You have done good ladies, but if it wasn't for my intervention with the last few ones a few of you would now be at the hands of whoever is waiting to dissect you! So you may be doing well, but without me you'd be dead! Don't forget it." Hawk said in his form of a pep talk.

As the team moved on they didn't notice one of their own members, Balefire had been left behind. When the team set down to rest she had passed out from exhaustion. Once she had come to and found herself alone panic set in. Fear, overwhelming fear caused her to sit on the curb and caused her to not fight back as a group of human-size sentinels touched down around her.

"Die mutie!" one sentinel yelled in an almost human tone as it raised its palm and along with its teammates fired upon Balefire.

The first blast managed to burn her snapping her out of her fear. This time the fear was pushed aside and replaced with the will to live. The rest of the blue projectiles came just inches from her before bouncing off. Balefire wasted no time wondering what happened and immediately attacked them with her firepowers.

The Sentinel's began to burn and Balefire noticed that they had skin over their faces. Part human? That's… her thoughts were interrupted as another group of human-size enemies surrounded her. Again they fired and again the attacks bounced off. This time she looked around, turning around to look behind her she saw Paul Stevenson a.k.a. Lightning standing behind her. He was what had saved her.

The two mutants nodded at each other and set off into combat. Lightning would drain one robot and attack another with the electricity he had absorbed. Forming two electric swords he set off to chop the robots up into pieces.

Balefire managed to take down all the Sentinels around her before collapsing in a heap on the street. Paul quickly picked her up and created a chain lightning effect taking out the remainder of the enemies and sprinted with Balefire in his arms away from the enemies.

"Why did you…help me?" Balefire asked breathless.

Lightning looked down at her and winked, "Couldn't let a pretty lady such as yourself get hurt now could I?" he replied still running away as fast as he could.

Those were the only words exchanged until the two mutants reached a cross street where Pyro stood in the center of falling Sentinels.

"Stand down men!"

Shift had managed to drop Olivia in a bush before his Cyclone shape faded and he plummeted in human form in a dumpster, the lid already on the dumpster he created a hole in the lid and landed with a thud on something soft.

"Stand down men!" was all Shift heard before his hearing was reduced to the inside of the dumpster which was full of groans, his and…someone else's?

"Get off…please." Groaned Bailey, whoever was on top of her was going to get their ass kicked then she'd get Zack to finish the job. She shoved the person to the corner of the dumpster under a hole in the lid of trash receptacle. "Zack!" She squealed seeing his face in the faint light. Immediately her arms were around his neck and she kissed his face over and over.

"Hey…you know I've always had a dumpster fetish." Zack replied giving a suggestive wink and sending Bailey onto her back with him on top of her and returning the kisses.

Lightning carried Balefire over to one of the medic units of S.H.I.E.L.D. and joined the rest of his team who were being collected from what was left of the battle. Pyro still held his hands in the air, his face portraying the look of someone who was wetting him or herself in fear. Corpse was saved do to her zombies who had pulled her up, Hyacinth had medic units surrounding her checking all parts of her, while Griffin was laid out on a stretcher.

"So all that's missing are Zack and Bailey right?" He asked as he looked around at the team not seeing either of them.

"Bailey was sent into the trash." Groaned Hyacinth as she pushed away the medics.

As Lightning approached the dumpster, and heard the faint sounds of giggling and…well he didn't want to think about what the other sounds were. "Zack! Bailey! You can come out now."

Zack grumbled something in the dumpster and the immediate image of a large hand flipping off the Canadian came out through the top of the dumpster. Taking this cue Lightning turned around and walked to the rest of the team who were more or less coming to.

"One of you seems to be unaccounted for, a miss Jessica Soranido." One of the SHIELD officers stated looking at their clipboard.

"The men of yours that brought us from England had her last." Griffin replied as he sat up holding his chest.

"WE did not send any men." The officer replied. "Our men have all been here dealing with the robots."

The FOME members all looked at each other in confusion.

"Hey driver! Where we going?" Jessica asked looking out the window of the SHIELD vehicle she was in. She should have been back at the apartments by now but instead she found herself in unfamiliar territory.

The car came to a slow stop and the doors unlocked. The door opened and in the darkness Jessica could make out that it was a woman with blonde hair. "Hello Ica." The woman greeted. Jessica's eyes went wide.

I know it's late folks, real late. That doesn't mean you shouldn't review still. There were only about two or three the last time, so come on it can be a new years, Christmas, and Valentines Day present. REVIEW DAMN YOU!

Also there may be some confusion and I am sorry, I just had to get this done though so forgive me for this chapter.