Exonerated Insurgence

“They went this way!” The cry of the police sounded oddly loud in the otherwise silent night, and just served to increase the fear that was currently making their hearts race. Chase could feel Victor’s faint breath on the back of his neck, and could tell Gert was thinking hurriedly in the other corner of the doorway, trying to find an escape route out of the situation. He was glad Old Lace was safely hidden with the rest of the team, even if she was a big help in a fight; she would have definitely given them away already. For once he didn’t have a stupid remark on the tip of his tongue.

The hurried footsteps were coming closer and closer, and time was running out, so Victor took a deep breath and whispered, “I’ll hold them off so you two can escape.” Gert was about to complain, but he saw her expression and quickly added, “You know it’s the best idea we’ve got. I’m the only one with powers, so they’ll go easier on me if they catch me.” He gave a brief, weak smile, and then darted out towards the direction they’d recently come from, electricity crackling around each fist as he ran.

“There’s one!” The police immediately aimed their weapons, trained on him as he neared them.

“Get down on the floor with your hands on your head!” One of the officers yelled at him, although clearly not expecting him to follow the order, a point evidenced by how her gun hadn’t wavered in the slightest. Victor focused his power on the guns, attempting to send them flying, but was surprised when nothing happened.

“Didn’t you think we’d come prepared?” The same woman asked, derisively, “We have fully plastic weaponry – there’s nothing you can do. “ He hid his sudden fear, scared that maybe this wouldn’t be okay after all, and resorted to hand to hand fighting, but could see he was fighting a losing battle. A hard punch landed on the back of his head, but he refused to cry out, knowing full well that Gert, and in turn Chase, would come running back if he did so. He spun around and lashed out at his attacker, but as he did so, a sly kick swept his feet out from under him, and he fell to his knees, the police immediately swarming around him. Soon he found himself handcuffed and collared. Now the only dangerous criminal of three was down, the officers retrieved their usual weapons, and then most advanced down the alleyway after the other two, only a couple staying with him as he didn’t pose a threat anymore.

Victor wasn’t particularly surprised when the officers came back, dragging his friends with them, both looking a bit more battered and bruised than he did - the police were all racist bigots, and he’d only been treated better because people assumed he was a mutant. Chase and Gert both crashed to their knees next to him, and the former muttered,

“Well, that went well,” before being kicked by a policeman.

“Silence, sapien!” The woman who they assumed to be in charge was talking quietly with another officer, occasionally glancing over at the prisoners, presumably discussing what to do now. Gert glared at her, willing herself to suddenly develop eye lasers or something, but it was to no avail, and then the conversation ended and new marching orders were shouted,
“Finchley, Stead and Chadbourn, you’re to escort the prisoners. Meet me at the reception for Prince William’s quarters. Everyone else head back to base for a debriefing.” The instructions were immediately put into effect, and three of their captors hurried over, dragging them to their feet roughly. She watched the leader tapping a command into her wrist device, and then she abruptly flickered out of sight. Victor and his guard vanished in a puff of smoke, while Chase and his disappeared leaving only a cloud of dust, presumably the result of super speed, and because she was concentrating on the departure of her friends, she was caught by surprise by the sudden jerk on her waist as she was launched up into the sky at high speed.

Sometime later, although Gert had no idea how long the flight had taken, they were all back together in some kind of antechamber, waiting for the Prince to see them. She smiled grimly at the fact that this implied they’d pissed off more people than they’d initially thought, which was pretty much the only good thing they had going for them at that precise moment.

“You can take the prisoners through now,” a young girl decked out in the palace staff’s attire said uninterestedly from the doorway, before hurrying off once again. The three of them were yanked to their feet and forced out into the hallway, and then off through an ornate set of double doors, where a boy who had to be younger than Chase was waiting for them.

“These are the three who’ve been causing the trouble, your Highness,” the officer in charge informed him, saluting as she spoke. A strange expression flickered briefly across the Prince’s face, but it was gone so fast, Gert almost missed it. She could have sworn it was a look of recognition though, which didn’t make sense at all. She’d never seen Prince William before, and his Highness wouldn’t keep track of a mutant commoner, let alone a human one.

“You can go now,” the Prince stated impassively, frowning slightly when the police didn’t leave immediately. At the look of reluctance on their faces, he added with a hint of annoyance in his voice, “We can deal with them easily.” Chase almost rolled his eyes. Was this guy seriously talking about himself in plural? It was only when a figure shifted in the shadows by the throne that he realised there’d been someone else there all along, probably watching their every move in case they somehow escaped their restraints and attacked the Prince. Although having a bodyguard seemed to be pretty redundant seeing as he was meant to be one of the most powerful magicians in the kingdom, second only to his mother.

“Of course, your Highness,” their guards hastily agreed, before leaving the room. No-one wanted to get on the wrong side of a member of the Royal family, even if Prince William was reputed to be the reasonable one. There were a few moments silence, while the Prince waited for the doors to swing shut, and then he turned back to look curiously at the three young people in front of him.

“What was your crime?” Gert glanced at her friends, and then answered quietly, although the defiance was still visible in her eyes, “A security guard wouldn’t let us get on the tube, because we’re ‘human scum’ and when we complained, he called the cops on us. We ran, and then suddenly we were branded disrupters of the peace. Not that that’s a bad thing...”

“What about you?” William’s brow furrowed slightly as he turned his attention to Victor, whose power dampening collar showed that he wasn’t human.

“I stuck up for my friends.” He was about to add more, but silenced himself when he spotted the Prince’s attendant or whoever he was, whispering something to the young man he served. Looking at how he touched the Prince though, he decided he may have to change his assumption about the man’s role; the contact was too intimate to be anything but that of a lover, so this must be the rumoured consort they’d heard about. The young, blonde part of the gossip was true, but he was definitely no princess. His words were met with a nod, and they both stared at the prisoners, as if they were trying to work out some deeply hidden secret. Out of the blue, the consort stated, “They don’t know you’re a cyborg, do they?” All three of the runaways’ heads snapped up at that, but the thing that convinced Victor that the man wasn’t a telepath, was the amazed expression William was sporting. Seeing that all eyes were on him, he shrugged as if to say, “I don’t know how I knew that.”

After a few moments silence, Prince William seemed to have come to a decision about something, and at a glance from him, the door at the other side of the room from where they’d come in, swung open revealing a young woman in a purple uniform leafing through some papers.

“Kate, if you have a minute, I have some people you may be interested in,” he called over to her. His tone surprised Gert; he was treating her like an equal, and then when she glimpsed the small H etched on the inside of her wrist, identical to the ones she and Chase wore, her astonishment rose. She was going to have to seriously revise her opinion of the Prince. The woman, Kate, immediately set the papers down and strode over to the group, a nod of respect directed at William.

“Who are they?” She asked curiously, already watching them speculatively, forming opinions no doubt.

“Gert Yorkes and Chase Stein, both human, and Victor Mancha, a cyborg.” At the last word, he gave his boyfriend an impressed glance, before continuing with a sigh, “They were arrested for breaking the peace, although it seems that there was a little racism involved.”

“Isn’t there always?” Kate asked, a hint of resentment in her voice, although she clearly knew the Prince was doing all he could to combat it.

Before they knew it, the three of them had been cleared of their crimes, and had been drafted into Kate’s team, albeit on a trial period, a team which aimed to improve mutant/human relations by any means necessary. The funding came directly from the House of M, although they doubted that this was common knowledge. The Prince more than likely hid it from his family, knowing how much trouble he’d get it if he was found out.

They couldn’t change the world alone, but they could damn well try.