The couple walking down the street in Albuquerque were clearly very much in
love. The young man with the green hair talked nonstop about the dig he'd
been on yesterday, while the blonde girl held his hand, gazed at him
adoringly, and finished half of his sentences for him. Clearly they had
known each other for some time. Clearly their relationship was a strong one.

The man watching them with binoculars shook his head. So young. So doomed.
But even if the detector hadn't gone wild beeping at them, the green hair
would have been a sure tipoff.  These two needed to die.

He radioed his men in the power suits. "Move in."

A minute later four men in powered armor descended on the couple. Gatling
guns spat steel-jacketed bullets at the two young people...

...who, somehow, did not fall in pools of blood immediately.

In fact there wasn't any blood at all, and the green-haired young man was
holding his arm out as if he could hold off the bullets by sheer force of
will. What was surprising was that it seemed to actually be successful.

"Surrender or die, mutants!" one of the power-suited men barked into his
loudspeaker.

"How about door number 3?" the green-haired young man said--

--and the powered armor shorted out.

As the four men struggled with armor that was suddenly far too heavy for
them to move in, he turned to his girlfriend, who was glowing. "Don't slag
them, Alex, I've got the situation under control."

"Get them out of their suits," the girl said tightly. "Let's make sure--"

"No prob."

The suits suddenly turned upside down, and the backs fell open, dumping
four very startled men in underwear onto the street.  The powered armor
then lifted into the air at a gesture from the green-haired man, and fell
into an abandoned lot.

The blonde woman threw out both hands toward the lot.  A bolt of blazing
white light shot from her hands and chest, striking the armor. Seconds
later, $120,000 worth of heavy equipment had turned into a pile of melted
slag.

The blonde woman turned and faced the four men. One of them had obviously
wet himself. The other three looked back at her with expressions of mixed
terror and desperate defiance.

"That could have been you," she said. "You bother me and Lorne again... and
next time it will be."

She turned to her green-haired boyfriend. "Let's go get a soda. I'm thirsty."