Robots were cool in the movies, but something about seeing them in real life gave Alice the heebie-jeebies. She glanced at the one patrolling the street across from her, its human “partner” taking the lead as they scanned the area for potentially suspicious individuals. She suppressed a shiver and quickly looked away, wondering if the META Bot could sense her X-gene even from that distance. In her grand plan to hide her true identity and parade around as a non-mutant, the police-issued bots were majorly screwing things up. She wasn’t even a criminal, had no intention of committing a crime, but she still felt its scrutiny searing into her back like a hot iron.

They were just so…sleek. And unfeeling. Inhuman. The gleaming, golden badges over their dark chests seemed to make them even more intimidating, as if the emblems gave them license to freely judge human beings.

She understood why the NYPD had decided to integrate the robots (not that she often found herself agreeing or commiserating with them), but it all still left her feeling uneasy. It certainly did not help that some of the METAs had been “glitching” since their inception, confusing their targets, utilizing lethal force against lesser foes, arresting innocents. Many mutant folks were angry about them, that much was for certain. She frequently heard them grumbling in the halls of Xavier’s, especially after glitches were publicized.

She already had bad anxiety. She didn’t need Terminator-induced paranoia on top of that.

Alice picked up the pace, trying to get to the bus stop as swiftly as she could. She desired to be home even if home was her barren room at the mansion, the majority of her belongings packed up into boxes in preparation of her move into her university dorm. She spied an empty bench at the stop, sighing in relief. Clutching her backpack to her chest, she jiggled her knee and counted down the minutes until her chariot arrived to deliver her from this robot rodeo.

Devon had left his class in haste. His summer classes ended this week, buying him a few off before the next semester started. Provided all went well he'd graduate come the winter. It's the whole reason he was paying for these summer hours, trapped in concrete, brick and behind glass while most others worked or heck, even took a vacation. What a novel idea was that: vacation.

His papers were done and he'd had his last exam this past Tuesday. Now he walked excitedly across one quad and between a few buildings, a fresh smile on his face. Walking out onto one of the campus' exterior streets he noted a number of people walking equally as hurriedly. However, it became clear it wasn't due the excitement of summer classes ending as Devon adjusted his sunglasses. It was a META and a rather beefy looking Knight. You could never tell how new a model one was or if it might glitch out. No wonder the nervousness.

A sigh turning his smile down, Devon headed for the cafe across the street. He wanted a croissant with ham and an iced coffee. He could actually sit and enjoy his lunch, maybe look through Sanctuary email, before he headed off to his job at the dentist office.

He waited with a group of five or so people, impatiently watching for the crossing light to change.

The smell of coffee was as intoxicating as several glasses of whiskey on that day. Juliette held it closely between her two hands like a prize, and held it up to her face so that the smell would occupy her thoughts. It had been far too long since she had last slept, and the cup of coffee was just about the only thing that kept her walking down the streets of New York.

Her shift had gone later than she had expected, as one of her co-workers had decided not to show up. Naturally, the hospital had been left understaffed, and the only thing she could think of to do was to stay. It seemed the life of knowing what time you would sleep each night (or sometimes day) just wasn't for her.

Juliette's purse hung off of her shoulder as she trudged wearily down the street. The coffee was like a carrot dangled in front of her nose, and she paid no mind to the rest of her surroundings, including Devon, or the META bot that patrolled nearby. Instead, she simply walked to her memorized destination of the bus stop and sat down. 

Tar walked down the city streets. New York wasn't a bad place. Just WAAAAAAYYY too many people. But she could deal with that on occasion. This occasion had been a fantasy novel hunt. There was huge bookstore she had found online and decided to take a field trip to see if she could find any treasures. She found that new Brandon Sanderson novel and a few other gems. Thanks to her mutation, her father wasn't concerned about her getting mugged. Thanks to her personality, he wasn't concerned about her getting taken in by scam artists either. So little ventures like this were perfectly okay with the both of them...as long as she always answered his texts...RIGHT AWAY.

As she approached the bus stop, she pulled out her schedule. Glancing at the two people on the bench, but not giving them much attention, she focused on her schedule and leaned against the pole of the bus stop sign. The sweet smell of coffee drifted across her nose as she scanned the schedule for the appropriate bus line. Tar licked her lips. She LOVED coffee. She silently pouted that she had not thought to grab soem at the book store as she put away her schedule and shifted her focus to her surroundings. No one was looking at her...well, no more than usual. The two women on the bench weren't. But the one looked familiar. Tar frowned, her eyes directed at the street as she looked at the woman's face through her power. She knew that face, but couldn't place it.

Stupid bad memory!

Sighing, she gave it up and pulled out her phone, texting her dad where she was, and continued to wait.

The teenager glanced at the time on her phone, noting that the bus was late. Typical. She let out a tired sigh, the result of working the morning shift at the teahouse. It wasn’t fun waking at the crack of dawn to serve pretentious patrons overpriced tea. A brunette woman sat beside Alice on the bench but she paid her little mind. She noted the young mutant walking up to the bus stop and briefly admired the hue of her skin but otherwise gave no reaction. (She lived in a school for mutants, after all. Blue skin and tails weren’t things to bat an eyelash over anymore.) Alice fished for her earphones, intending to drown out the city’s din with the sound of melodramatic indie music.

Officer Keller continued to stroll down the street with the Knight in tow, looping around the block to finish his rounds. He was not a huge fan of the robot companions (many on the force had divided opinions) but he followed the orders given to him even if they were unfavorable. The force wanted to make the META Bots more public friendly by increasing their accompaniment of cops on patrol, especially after several unfortunate “malfunctions” had tanked their already fragile popularity.

Luckily, he hadn’t encountered any glitches yet. And he hoped he never did. The beat cop turned the corner and headed inside the station, failing to notice the Knight's sudden absence as the glass doors swung shut behind him. 

“Hey, Keller. Where’s the bot? Wasn’t it on patrol with you?”

"God. Damn. It."

Bzzt. Zrkk. 

Target: Hostile mutant

Location: Piel Café

Objective: Neutralization

With its new orders flashing across its facescreen, the Knight charged full speed towards the coffee shop behind the bus stop, weaving around the gawking passersby with ease. It had a mission to carry out and it would carry it out to its full completion, no matter who got in its way. Any wayward mutants who tried to intervene? The META Bot would use whatever force necessary to remove them from the equation. It brandished a police-issue baton in its black metal hand to hammer that point home.

((The "hostile mutant" is an non-mutant NPC! Anyhow, feel free to add whatever mayhem you'd like! Tempest had the great idea of adding a Cavalry unit as well, which could serve as backup for the Knight when things get hairy.))

Devon didn't notice the officer continue down and around the corner. He was watching the light, eagerly anticipating his coffee. However, he did glance more than once down the street where the META bot had been. It was heading this way now. That was odd; wasn't it with the cop going the other direction before?

The lights changed red on the adjacent street as the walk sign blipped on. People began to cross as the Knight suddenly charged across the street. Darkening eyes watched from behind sunglasses. They turned quickly to the bus stop... and the blue skinned woman... and shit!

"Firefly!" Devon shouted loudly at Juliette. Other screams followed in his wake. While their owners ran the opposite direction, Devon planted his feet. He urged the clouds to gather, for conflicting fronts to war in the skies above. It would take a couple minutes but the stronger the weather above, the stronger he was when it mattered. Now, it seemed it might mean someone's health, possibly even life.

It made sense. Eventually he was going to have to run into at least one crazed, malfunctioning METAbot.

Tempest wanted to blast a column of wind at the bot but he figured he didn't have the immediate strength to keep it back and a gust might just knock it into people or a building. Instead, he sought Firefly's attention as he raised a hand. Electrical energy crackled over his fingertips as he watched the particles around him bombard each other. He readied a bolt of lightning should she give a sign that she wanted it.

Juliette blinked the sleep and confusion from her eyes as her name was called. Except, it wasn't really her name. No one really called her that except...

It was Devon, across the street. He looked somewhat panicked, and there was electricity was dancing across his fingertips. She understood maybe wanting to chat with someone you knew on the street, but why was he yelling at her? And why was he holding electricity? 

Her eyes followed his line of vision to a patrolling META bot. There was usually nothing wrong with them, as long as you stayed out of their way, but Juliette had had her fair share of poor encounters with malfunctioning ones. A thought suddenly crossed her mind as she considered the possibility of that being the case again. The thought was less than thrilled, to say the least.

She focused on the bot as it made its way to a coffee shop. Maybe there really was something going on there, and there was no need to intervene. At least, that would be the best case scenario. 

Juliette turned her attention back to Tempest and gave him a quick nod. There was no real reason to charge at the bot as it was, but it didn't hurt to charge up just in case. She raised her hands to her chest as if she were about to catch a ball of some kind, and waited for his signal.

Tarissa was leaning against the pole of the bus stop sign and staring up at the sky. Her mind had started to wander and her attention on her surroundings waned. Her thoughts turned to her dad and his frantic search to get her into a private school, which he didn’t have much time for since he was working a lot of overtime. The school system would likely start calling soon, wondering what he was doing as far as Tar’s education. How long had it been since her dad had pulled her out of public school? It was right after that explosion happened halfway through the first period of her first day.

Oh, yeah, the one I barely survived. Good thing that nurse was there-

Tar’s mind sparked in recognition.

That’s who that lady on the bench is! Her name is-

“Firefly!”

The shout and many screams prompted Tar to look back at the street in front of her. Her awareness came back to her. She saw the many panicked faces of the crowd fleeing in various directions. She saw through the gaps in the mob, the solid black face of the Metabot headed straight for her. She saw the girl standing on the sidewalk behind her, looking panicked as she tried to discern what all the screaming was about. She saw the unborn child still early in its development floating in the safety of her womb. That safety was about to be compromised. All three of them were in the direct line of the Metabot’s current trajectory. It was twenty feet away.

Tar braced herself against the pole and pushed, leaping backwards and landing beside the distraught girl.

Ten feet.

Tar turned, grabbed the girl’s arms, and squeezed them to her sides.

Five feet.

Tar pulled and spun, tossing the girl out of the bot’s path just as it reached them and slammed its fist into the brick wall of the café. She wrapped her tail around the thing’s leg just above the ankle, and shouted at the girl, “Run!”

Tar then turned and ducked a swing from the Metabot, grabbed her tail with both hands, and pulled as hard as she could. She hoped this thing wasn’t too heavy to topple, or she’d be in some serious mind-numbing pain.

Dark clouds gathered overhead as the wind was slowly picking up. The screams were suddenly punctuated by a thundering boom as Tempest made a curt nod and propelled a bolt of lightning forward. He aimed directly for his friend the Firefly. He knew she could catch it and what good use she'd make of it.

The electrically charged plasma danced and forked through the air but sailed on its intended path for the new X-Man, not that Devon was yet aware. Meanwhile the META bot came thundering into the bus stop. Luckily the blue skinned girl reacted quickly - some reflexes she had there! - and pushed another woman to safety. The bot punched the side of the cafe and new screams echoed from within.

Great. There went the ice coffee.

Tempest ran to the middle of the street and spun his right arm through the air, demanding a gust of wind in the same path of the blue girl's pull next to android. The sudden gust and the leverage of the girl's tail made the bot lurch and fall into the wall, though it didn't quite fall prone to the ground. Still, it was momentarily distracted.

"Everyone get out of here!" Tempest screamed loudly.

Thunder boomed again in the sky as dancing currents of air began to encircle the weather warlock. He glanced around momentarily, checking Firefly and the rest of those clearly sticking around. This was a fight.

Tar felt a gust of wind hit her and watched as the bot crashed into the wall. She released her tail's grip and backed away, hoping that was enough to knock is senseless. No such luck. The thing instantly recovered and came after her. It swung at her and Tar dodged and backed up a step. Another swing and another dodge and another step back. The bot kept swinging and Tar kept dodging and kept backing away. It's swings increased in speed and anticipation of Tar's movements. While it was no difficult task to see its punches coming, the difficulty was increasing.

Lord, please help me survive this.

Two swings nearly caught her when a knee came up hit her abdomen...HARD!

Tar doubled over with pain, her arms around her stomach, and crumpled to the ground. She tried to breath in, but couldn't. She looked up, her body shaking with fear as the thing raised its hands high, preparing to deliver a skull-shattering, double-fisted attack.

"BZZK! INTERFERING MUTANT!! DIRECTIVE: TERMINATION! BZZZT!"

Lord, please take care of my dad.