#Shades of Heroes Series Part 3: Only 3 of the team are left, martial law and curfews have been imposed, and Kincaid will stop at nothing. But he's not the X-Men's only problem#

Disclaimer: Not making any money from this

A/N: Howdy, back again with the third in my four part Shades of Heroes series. I guess I should do a brief 'previously' bit, y'know, an introduction, but I'd probably miss a whole chunk of stuff out. Besides I'm sure you're clever enough to catch up pretty quick anyway. Oh, one thing you should know is that this is A/U to X3. So anyway, please have a read, enjoy, and let me know what you think, love Lamby.

Slaves to the Cause: Scene 1

In his office in Westchester Charles Xavier gazed forlornly out of the open window. He watched the guards menacingly patrol the grounds where children had once ridden ponies and played tig. The collar around his neck was fitted with a neuro-inhibitor that stopped him from using his telepathic powers. He wished right now it did more than that. He wished it would stop him feeling as well. Stop feeling the irritation of the collar as it chafed and blistered the soft flesh of his neck. Stop the despair and disappointment that crushed him, now his dream had turned to dust.

General Kincaid, the madman controlling the operation to crush the X-Men and their mutant kindred, was a frequent visitor to the mansion. Yet he was about as willing to talk sense, to negotiate, as an eagle was to drink nectar like a hummingbird. He had ordered the children attacked. He had refused to listen as Charles had pleaded for them. Charles longed to stop seeing the children being cut down, over and over in his mind's eyes. The collar did nothing but stop his telepathy and chafe his skin until it bled.

They had snuck back here in the middle of the night. Their teachers, the X-Men, had been arrested violently in front of them. They had nowhere to go and no idea how to protect themselves. So a small group of pupils had somehow made their way back here. They had walked across that very lawn, straight into a trap. Charles had been helpless. He saw their disillusionment in their eyes as they were loaded onto a convoy of armoured trucks and driven off to whatever internment camp was closest. If Xavier had known about the trap, why hadn't he warned them with his powers? Why had he let his happen to them? Why was he doing nothing but sitting in his wheelchair silently, watching them be taken away?

Charles bit his lip to stop it from quivering. He rubbed his temples soothingly with his fingertips, trying to ease the endless ache that grew there. He longed to reach out to his X-Men, just to make sure they were all right. They were all captured now he knew, with the exceptions of Gambit, Wolverine and Blaze. Kincaid was adamant that all three were together and in the North Eastern US. He had information from numerous sources and wasn't shy about boasting to Xavier, making him squirm.

There was only one thing that gave Charles any hope. As far as his own orders to his three X-Men had gone, none of them should be in that part of the world. He didn't tell Kincaid this, but he suspected that by now none of them were even in the USA. There was a faint sliver of hope that they would have joined forces with Xavier's British field operative Stifle, and were plotting a retaliation. However, it was irrefutably a slim chance.

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Mystique stood alone on the roof of her current hideout. Of course, she didn't look like herself these days. Too dangerous, everything was too dangerous right now. She was the last one left. She had no idea what had happened to her fellow Brotherhood of Mutants members. All she knew was that she had been supposed to meet with them, but none of them had ever arrived at the specified location. Not Sabretooth, Pyro, Quicksilver, Blob, Avalanche, Multiple or the Scarlet Witch. Not even Magneto, though it would be just like Eric to have disappeared to a safe place and neglected to let her in on its location.

Even attempting to gather information on what had happened was a risky business. Curfews right across the country were being strictly enforced by the military and law enforcement agencies. Everyone was indoors by nine pm if they left their homes at all. To be caught out was risking being arrested as a mutant and shipped off to one of the military's holding facilities that were springing up across every state. It didn't matter if you weren't a mutant, they'd ship you away and worry about testing you later.

Mystique had discovered that the most dangerous mutants were being held off shore. They were drugged unconscious and loaded onto vast ocean-going vessels. She'd stood here night after night watching the ships being loaded. Once she had thought she'd seen a figure she recognised coming off one of the transports. A closer inspection, disguised as one of the legions of specialist GRSO soldiers, had proved her right. It was not propaganda on all the news channels. Even after the X-Men had been dismantled, it had not been in enough time to save them.

Iceman had looked in a bad way. His right leg was bent at an improbable angle on the stretcher he was being carried on. Bruises covered his face, swelling up to enclose his left eye in a swathe of puffy purple flesh. Mystique couldn't get close enough to inspect his injuries further. She wanted to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and shake him, like a terrier shaking a rat, to make him do something to prevent him being carted off like a piece of meat. The fury burned her insides, flashed in her yellow eyes. It was time to try and round up some support. The mutant kindred needed to fight back, and for that cause she would put aside all differences.

She'd gone to Mexico on the trail of Wolverine and Gambit. She'd found them on the floor of a bar, unconscious and incommunicative. It was hopeless, fittingly and completely hopeless. Even when she had called upon her enemies in a desperate plea to end this insanity, it had come to no good. All she could do now was wait, and watch her mutant kindred be dragged off into the blackest of nights. As Mystique stood there watching the docks, she wondered how long it would take for them to come for her too.