Chapter 12:  Shopping Mall

I carefully slid the watch like device over my wrist and apprehensively switched it on.  There was a half-second delay as the imaged inducer clicked on, and then I was looking at me, the way I had been before everything had happened.  The inducer clothed the virtual me in a nice fitting pair of jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and sneakers.  It was almost exactly as I would have dressed before I came here, but how did the Professor know that.  'He can read minds idiot,' I thought to myself.  After I finished twisting and turning to look at myself I slowly looked back to Rogue and Kitty who had been patiently waiting as I examined myself.

"It's Perfect!"  I hugged myself, feeling the fur of my arms and Ororo's cloak underneath the illusion.  "Oh I wish it was real, but at least I won't be burned at the stake and I can finally escape the mansion.  I am starting to get a little cabin fever here."

"Ok lets go get cleaned up, like I can't wait to show you, Bayville mall has like everything you would want." Kitty said excitedly.

"Rogue are you coming?"  I asked hoping she would say yes.  I liked to go shopping but I didn't think that I would survive Kitty's exuberance without Rogue there to balance her out.

"Oh all right. Ah'll come, just remember it was yall's idea."  Rogue said in a heaven-help-me sort of voice.

I walked out of the front gate with a spring in my step.  If I was going to be stuck here, I didn't want to be confined to the institute's grounds for the rest of my life.  The sunshine felt good on my face and it was good to be outside and feel at least mostly normal.  The walk to the bus station even reminded me of the canopied road that I walked everyday coming back from school.  Thinking of that brought about a mixture of emotions, so I tried to think of something else. 

"So what are you going to shop for?"  I asked knowing that Kitty would probably talk about it the rest of the way to the bus station.  Rogue apparently coming to the same conclusion gave me a harsh glare with her eyes as Kitty started in.

"Oh I don't know, like, everything."  She said as her eyes lighted up thinking about it.  "I need a few more tops; some of mine are becoming a little worn.  Maybe a pair of jeans, some shoes like those Jean was wearing yesterday, and I don't know possibly a few...."

"Enough!  Ah am going to have to listen to all of this while we are shopping, I don't need to listen to it on the way to go shopping."  Rogue said in a loud exasperated voice.  Kitty was stopped from making her retort however when Kurt suddenly appeared in our midst. 

*BAMF*

"Vell ladies, I've come to save you from making a horrible mistake."  Kurt asked in a light tone as he started to walk beside us.

"And what mistake could we make that would be worse than talking with you?"  Rogue shot back still in a bad mood from Kitty's Soliloquy.

"Vhy going to zhe mall of course, it is too beautiful a day to be spending inside zhe Mecca of capitalism.  Some of the zhe others are planning a pool party back at zhe institute and it vould not be zhe same vithout zhe three most beautiful girls at zhe institute.  Vhat do you zhink?"  This last caused Kitty to blush a little while I laughed and Rogue responded with a sarcastic smirk on her face.

"Ah think that might be about the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say Kurt.  You do know that there are only five girls at the institute total, so being in the top three shouldn't be hard.  But when you're talking about Little Ms. Perfect and Ororo Ah'm pretty sure that would disqualify two of us.  If you hadn't noticed before Ah'm not much of a pool party person, and Ah sincerely doubt if Myst wants to go through a third fur drying session today.  On top of all that, you think you're going to convince valley girl here," Kitty stuck her tongue out at Rogue, "to not go shopping?  Now do you have anything else in that empty head that you feel you have to tell us or are you done wastin' mah time?!"  During the tirade Kurt and slowly inched away from Rogue and now he stuttered.

"Vell I just thought I vould invite you, it vas vorth a shot ja?"

*BAMF*

I started laughing harder than I had in quite some time.

"Whew, I almost lost it before you finished; I don't think you will have to worry about Kurt bothering you for at least a week."  I said after I caught my breath, Rogue just smiled.

"Yeah, you gotta' put a little fear into the elf or you find him popping up into your life just a little too much."  Rogue said as we finally arrived at the station and sat down on the bench.

"I think you might have taken it a little bit too far, but it was, like, pretty funny."  Kitty said.  I leaned back on the bench and closed my eyes enjoying the slight breeze as lightly ruffled my hair.  The next couple of minutes passed in a silence, an unusual commodity among the three of us, but it was nice in a way.  It ended up being broken by the rumble of the city bus's diesel engine as it rounded the corner down the street.  Air breaks squealed slightly before emitting a hiss as the bus came to a stop in front of us.  The driver opened the door and waved us to come aboard. 'Well here goes nothing.' I thought to myself as I stepped up and into the bus after Rogue and Kitty.

Maybe I should have taken it as an omen when the driver closed the door on the end of my tail.

"Mother!" I cursed as I turned around and tugged it hard.  It slipped through the crack and I ended up stumbling backwards onto the floor by the driver's feet.

"Are you all right Miss?"  The driver asked his voice a mixture of concern and confusion.

"I'm fine, thank you."  I said tersely as I stood up and walked over to where Rogue and Kitty where sitting down.  Kitty was trying to stifle giggles with her hand and Rogue openly smirking at me.  "I hate this thing!"  I gestured vehemently to the invisible tail.

"You'll get used to it, I mean Kurt did right?"  Kitty said as the bus started to move.

"Yeah, but he's had his entire life to get used to it." I replied, not wanting to be consoled.  I stared out the window and was amazed at all of the things I recognized, and equally amazed by all of the things that I didn't.   This wasn't the two dimensional world I had watched on television, but a real thriving city with people from all walks of life populating it and doing the kind of things you would expect them to do.  It was a striking revelation.  Garbage men collecting trash, kids playing in the park, and a policewoman writing parking tickets did more to convince me that all of this was real than anything that had happened to me.  There was just no way that my imagination could have this level of detail, even if I had gone completely insane.

"What are yah looking at?"  Rogue asked curiously.

"It's so real."  I said in a voice that was almost inaudible over the engine noise of the bus.

"What do you mean?"

Coming out of my stupor I turned back around to face her and said "Nothing, I'm just daydreaming."  The bus finally got to the mall and I got off first so I could avoid getting my tail caught in the door again.  Now I had a basic idea of what to expect from Bayville mall, but to see it alive and bustling with people in all its upper middle class glory was something else again.  I hesitated nervously just inside the door, there were so many people.  I felt exposed even with the inducer on.  Rogue gave me a gentle nudge from behind and I stepped forward so Kitty and she could come in.

"Isn't it like the greatest place ever?"  Kitty asked in a slightly hyper voice before leading us off into the lions den.

It was three o'clock and I had to admit that I was starting to wear down.  Being out of the institute was great, but my feet were starting to hurt me and it was hard to get into clothes shopping when there was almost nothing that you could wear.  Rogue was wearing thin as well, and Kitty sensing this decided to offer up a truce.

"How about we go in just one more store?"

"What store?"  Rogue asked exasperated.

"Virgin Records?"  Kitty replied, having known what button to push.  Rogue smiled.

"Ok, but after this Ah'm outta here."

We walked into the large two story store and quickly broke off from one another as are musical tastes were pretty far apart.  I wandered over and so found a problem, none of the bands I knew existed here.  After my forth failed search I claimed defeat and wandered over to a listening station to try and find out just what bands I did like.  I'd been listing to a sort of Funky-Soul group called "The Soular System" when somebody grabbed me by the shoulder.  I turned around as I reflexively jerked out of their reach, afraid my power would hurt somebody.  My cloak however, had prevented them from touching me; pity.  There was no mistaking him; the guy in front of me could only be Lance Alvers.

"So your the new girl at the institute, you might want to reconsider hanging out with those chumps I don't think your there style."  He said in a cocky I-know-what-I'm-talking-about tone.

"I don't know what you're talking about, and if you don't stop bothering me I'm going to call security," I said sternly.

"Oh I think you do, I overheard Kitty talking about you at lunch to one of the other X-geeks.  I just don't think a killer like you is really going to fit in with the goody two shoes attitude over there.  I've got to hand it to you; anyone that can take out Sabertooth is alright in my book.  All I'm saying is to remember you have other options if you get tired of them."

"Sabertooth was an accident," 'was it really, you meant to kill him when you first saw him.' My mind accused as I talked, "So don't think you know me Avalanche, you don't."

"Hey I call them as a I see um, and I figured I would extended an invitation."  Lance Replied.

"Ah don't think she wants to talk to yah Lance, so I suggest you leave."  Rogue said with no little bit of venom in her voice.

"I was just on my way out," he said turning around and walking towards the door.  "Have a good time looking for cd's."  He smiled maliciously as he clenched his fist.  The whole store shook and cd's showered down on the floor for a second.  I looked up just in time to see Lance strolling out the door.

"Don't let'em get to yah Myst, he doesn't know his ass from his head, I should know."  Rogue said as she extended a gloved hand to pull me up, Kitty just coming around the corner in front of us.

"Hey was that Lance....Oh I'm going to kill him, your both like alright aren't you?"  She said looking over to us.

Rogue gestured towards where Lance had exited with disdain.  "Yeah, Lance was just shooting his mouth off, as usual."

"Would any of you intentionally have gone out to kill someone though, he was right about that."  I glanced down at my hands as if to see the blood there.

"Ah said don't let him bother you.  You had your reasons, Ah've got a feeling if Ah knew what you do about some things, Ah would have done the same thing.  Now what do yall say about getting out of here.  My feet are killing me."  Rogue said as she started walking towards the door.

"Yeah, like, I didn't feel like shopping anymore anyway."  Kitty said, sounding almost convincing.