It was a typical post-Christmas day at the mall, with possibly the entire population of Massachusetts crammed into the complex. Jubilee quickly disappeared into "Contempo." After beating our way past the sales women who continually asked "Seen anything you like?", Monet and I followed Jubilee in.

J already had several tops in hand and was going through racks of shirts. Not that I usually dressed retro, but I spotted a pair of metallic silver pants that I had to try on. And then, of course, I was forced into finding a top that would look good with it. I finally settled on a black silk, long sleeved shirt and went to the dressing room. The pants were a near perfect fit, but it was useless to try on the top with my bandages still on. Since Jubilee and I were near the same size, I had her try it on.

"And I get to borrow it whenever I want, right?" she asked, studying her reflection in the mirror.

"Yeah, as long as I can wear that." I gestured to an electric blue sweater that was draped over her discarded jacket.

She nodded and I left the changing area to see if I could find anything else.

Monet had left a few minutes earlier, with two or three bags of clothes and jewelry. How she bought so much so fast was beyond me, but I had yet to see her return anything. I ended up buying the white pants and the black top, while Jubilee ended up with only the sweater.

After making my purchase, I went to "Shear Elegance" for a hair cut. My dark curls, which had tumbled far past my waist were beginning to give me a multitude of problems when shifting to my ice form. I was planning on having it cut to a little past shoulder length; it would grow back quickly enough. The woman at the salon, however, wasn't so sure on this.

"You just ~can't~ cut it all off!" she exclaimed.

Before I even had a chance to reply she had a fellow stylist by her side, both examining my head as though they had never seen hair before. The second woman was holding a lock in her hands and lifting it up and down as though she was weighing it. They talked softly for a few moments and then began trying to persuade me into a hot oil treatment or something else.

"No, see, I'm a gymnast," I lied, "and with all the routines I have to do, it's not practical to have my hair at this length."

Then they dove into the styling books trying to come up with different things to do to me. I felt an emotion akin to when I was hanging from a tree when we had been captured by Emplate who was narrating the different things he was going to do to all of us. After much arguing and I finally convinced them to just cut my hair. She cut a good six inches from my hair, which still left it hanging past my shoulders. But, somehow, through either a miscommunication or some scheme much more diabolic I found myself roped into having a "golden honey" rinse applied during the wash. Thankfully, it only added a few highlights to my hair, but ended up costing me an extra fifteen dollars.

When I walked out, nearly an hour later, I felt exhausted. I quickly made my way to the food court where we were supposed to meet. I found Everett, Paige, and Jonothan already seated at a table. I sat down next to Synch with a sigh.

"You wouldn't believe the hell I went through just to get my hair cut," I said as I took a sip from Paige's Sprite.

"No, I understand," Everett said. "See, I used to have these really long dreds and I too was victimized by a hair stylists so-called 'creative genius'."

"Oh, stop," I said hitting him playfully.

In a few minutes Jubilee returned, car keys in hand. After only an hour, she had been forced to return to the car to drop off her bags.

"Ya know," she said dropping into a chair beside Jonothan, "they're paying people to be window models down at "The Limited." Anyone want to go?"

"Yeah, sure I'll go," Paige said. She pushed her chair from the table and stood slowly, stretching.

("Oh yeah, the Mutant Modeling Agency finally goes public,") said Jonothan sarcastically.

"Not me," I said, "Angelo and I are going to the movies in twenty minutes."

She nodded, "Ev?"

He shook his head, "Not today, Super Fruit."

Super Fruit was a nickname Jubilee had earned a few months ago. One morning, over a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, Paige had commented that Jubilee's fireworks looked remarkably like the sugar cereal. Then, later during a training session, Ev had called her "Fruity Pebbles" which later became "Super Fruit" because it, according to Evertt, sounded more "hero-like."

Then I asked, "I'm curious, how did you find out they were doing that? Are they advertising?"

"Nope, when I walked by, I saw Monet in the window. Crazy, huh?"

Everett opened his eyes wide in mock astonishment. Jubilee rolled her eyes and kissed him on the top of the forehead.

"Like, adios!"

And then the two were gone. For the better part of fifteen minutes Everett and I talked and Jono participated telepathically. We had started out talking about the likelihood of it snowing anytime this week, which then turned into the question "If Everett synched into my powers, could the two of us combined make a snowstorm?" which then, through a process of mutation that none of us could later recollect, brought us down an entirely different avenue of thought.

("So, what do yer think would 'appen if some hot-shot at Tyco, as a twisted joke, recalled all th' 'Tickle Me Elmo' dolls on account o' the chance that they could cause mutations in children.")

That would qualify as the strangest thing I had ever heard out of Jono's mouth...head... whatever.

I stared at him for a moment, then Everett answered.

"I think that we would have a war. Like, half the owners of one of 'em would be either takin' the things back, or destroying them, as fast as they could. The news and media would begin attacking the corporation for letting such a horrible thing happen, and every mutant discovered in the next five years would have a fierce aversion to children's toys in general and as a result, would grow up to be bitter angry teenagers."

I couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. Soon, Angelo arrived and I excused myself. He had gotten to the point where he wore an image inducer when in public; the headaches it caused him to look perfectly normal weren't worth him even going out, and he eventually began using the device.

Somehow, I felt that it should feel strange, having him look so different, but it really didn't seem like much. I think he had programmed it to have him look the way he would if he weren't a mutant. He hadn't added any height or weight, just "changed the colors." His skin was a light brown and his hair was dark black. It didn't seem to touch his eyes, which were a shade of brown only achieved through mutancy, very light; nearly gray.

"What's in the bag?" I asked, noticing for the first time he had been carrying something.

"Some cords," he said. He handed me the bag and I peeked inside. Sure enough, a pair of hunter green cordoroys were inside.

"Hold on," he said. We stopped and he dug reached into the bag pulling out a smaller bag. He handed the little bag to me.

"White gummy bears?!" I exclaimed. "How did you know?" Out of all the colors, I only ate the white gummy bears.

"I just know these things." He smiled cryptically and arched his eyebrows.

We bought our tickets (to see "Scream") and took a seat towards the back. It wasn't your "romantic" movie, but was a good "boyfriend" movie. The theater was relatively empty, only a dozen other people were scattered throughout.

As the movie started, I slipped my hand in his and watched as the image inducer blurred to try and compensate for the extra skin that wrapped around my hand.

After we finished the movie, we met everyone else in the Food Court again. This time, most of us grabbed something to eat. I was thankful Mondo wasn't there to slow down the process. As it was, we had a good time and split two medium pizzas between the five of us (well, there was six of us, but Jono wasn't eating of course).

Before we went back, we stopped at the Video-rama to rent some things, and the headed home just barely making curfew.

Why are there floatation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?