Chapter 3

Settled into a dingy flat littered with old pizza boxes, with Scruff rummaging through the smells of all the detritus, Mirage and Quicksilver popped cans of coke.

"So tell me about this brotherhood," Mirage said. "If your fearless leader is as cool as you say, maybe I should put him in touch with the Professor. He's always looking for allies."

"Why would the Leader help your professor?" the Scarlet witch sniffed. She sat daintily on the one uncluttered chair in the room- Mirage suspected she also probably had the only clean bedroom in the house. Quicksilver ignored his sister, and Mirage got the idea that she was a bit over the top.

"Basically, Scarlet and I were in a tight spot and the Leader saved us. And he set us up here and made sure Mystique kept an eye on us. When we found out what he was trying to do, me and Scarlet decided to help. We owe him."

"And it's a magnificent cause!" Scarlet added.

"What is it?"

"Fighting for mutants."

"That's what the professor does. He writes the Secretary of Mutant Affairs all the time, and he gives lectures at colleges, and all kinds of stuff. He even went on Larry King."

"The leader doesn't mess around with that Ghandi crap. The Leader breaks mutants out of jail, and he hits the Friends of Humanity, and he leads attacks on registration centres. He's the first general to fight the war." Avalanche's eyes burned fiercely.

"What war?" Mirage scoffed.

"Humans have been trying to destroy us since we were born," Quicksilver said in a low voice. "And we aren't going to take it now we're old enough to fight back. The leader is showing us how to take the fight to them."

"The professor thinks there's a peaceful solution," Mirage said slowly, trying to pinpoint the source of Quicksilver's tightly controlled fury.

"Dr. King came a century after the Civil War, and he got shot," said the Blob suddenly. "You gotta fight before you can have peace."

"Mystique can explain it to you," said Scarlet Witch, tossing her head. "If you stick around until tonight, you can meet here."

Cyclops had always told Mirage that he should fight smarter, not harder. You don't need to blow things up, he said, if you can get around them. Cyclops was always trying to reassure Mirage that he could be a James Bond-type spy for the team, which is easily as cool as turning things to ice or throwing exploding cards, if not cooler. He pointed out that people preferred Batman to Superman, so why not Mirage to Iceman? Those pep talks, always discreet, let Mirage admire Cyclops as a mentor and a brother, but not feel any better about his powers. All he could do, really, was draw pictures.

But the need for intelligence was something Cyclops had fully impressed upon him, so he spent the day with the Brotherhood, as they called themselves, gathering information. Chaz needed to know everything he could about their powers and personalities, in case Xavier thought they could be recruited, or needed watching. A lot of renegade mutants were acting out against society and Xavier was one of the few people trying to stop it before it happened. So, Chaz watched, and listened, and filed everything away.

Avalanche was young and angry. He had a massive chip on his shoulder and the power to send out seismic waves. His real name was Dominic. Chaz overheard a rather funny argument between the Scarlet Witch and Avalanche regarding his code name, which hadn't quick stuck yet: "Why can't I be Quaker? As in earthquake? It makes more sense!" "Because Quaker makes you sound like the guy on the oatmeal box, you idiot. Who runs in fear at the mention of oatmeal?". Chaz did not see Avalanche as having Academy potential. He didn't want to learn control, or discretion. He just wanted to break things. Fair enough, we all go through that phase, Chaz thought, but he can't come to Xavier's until he's ready, and he isn't ready yet.

Blob was a bit of a mystery. The others called him Duke more than Blob, and he didn't want to talk to Mirage. He didn't want to talk about the Great Leader or how the humans had wronged him, or what he would do if he were normal. He wouldn't talk about his power. He sat with each buttock taking up a whole seat cushion on the couch, his chubby fingers flicking away on an Xbox controller. He was playing a zombie slaying game, and his eyes were as glazed as the mindless minions that attacked his character. Mirage thought, in a way, that the Blob was more dangerous than Avalanche. Avalanche was angry, but Blob was cold.

The Scarlet Witch was called Scarlet for short but that was not her real name. Whatever her parents had called her, she wasn't telling, and Quicksilver didn't rat on his twin. Since Mirage had laughed at her theatrics, Scarlet watched him through narrow eyes. She seemed to be sizing him up, as if she wasn't sure if she liked him or hated him. She was also in love with Scruff. She haughtily refused to talk to Chaz about anything, so he used Quicksilver as his source of information about her.

Quicksilver was definitely the key to the group. He spoke to Mirage in long rushing monologues, as if he hadn't been able to talk to anyone for a while and he wanted to use up his words before they expired. His real name was "Pete… basically." He could run fast, and talk fast, and think fast. "I think I'm close to the sound barrier, I really am," he said, eyes shining. "Imagine running so fast you create a sonic boom!". He could run across terrain most people couldn't by the benefit of his speed- like a basilisk lizard, he could cross short expanses of water, and like in old ninja movies he could run up walls and leap between buildings. Mostly, though, Quicksilver seemed lonely and sad.

"So what would you do if you were normal?" Chaz asked.

"I don't know. I can't even imagine it. It's been just me and Scarlet for so long, us against the world, I can't imagine just going to school and getting jobs and stuff." He flicked a small paper wad across the room. "I guess I'd want to make the world better, you know? So bad stuff doesn't happen. Stop people hurting each other."

"Like a cop?"

"Yeah, like a cop or a soldier or something." He smiled. "I could be there between them lifting a gun and pulling the trigger, I could stop them when it was too late for anyone else to help."

"That'd be really cool, Pete," Mirage said, smiling at him. "You could really help people."

"Yeah well, I could never leave Scarlet anyway. She needs me."

"What, with her power? She reads minds!"

"No she doesn't, she's just lucky. She controls chance. Like if you drop pizza on the floor, she can make it land cheese down. She always wins at poker. If there's any element of chance, she can make it happen how she wants. So she was just lucky enough to guess what you really looked like." He grinned suddenly. "She calls it Hexing. And if you piss her off she makes a big show of hexing you- like it's really magic- and then as long as she can keep you in her line of sight, you have terrible luck. She can make you trip or cut your hand or anything like that. You never want to piss her off."

"If she has all the luck in the world, why does she need you?

"She's not really tough, she just pretends to be. She hasn't got any girlfriends, or a mom, and she's trying to be a woman and no one ever told her how…" he trailed off, as if he was remembering something painful.

"You're dealing with the same stuff," Mirage pointed out. "I know how hard that is. Before I met Cyclops I had no clue."

"So what is he, like, your boss?"

"No, he's more like a big brother. Teaches us stuff, helps us do better, watches out for us. He taught me to ride my bike."

"That's awesome. I wish I could meet him"

"You can. Get your stuff together, jump on a bus, and come to New York with me. We have loads of room in the dorms. And there's a girls' dorm. Lots of room for Scarlet."

Quicksilver grinned without any humour. "No way, she's hooked on Mystique at the moment. When they first met she wouldn't go to a movie unless Mystique was coming. She won't leave. And anyway, we owe the Leader. He really did help us out."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Scarlet and I were in a small town, and Scarlet was showing off, playing the big bad witch with her power to scare all the Jesus freaks. Only religious freaks actually believe in witches, and apparently they still believe in killing them. I could have run but I wasn't strong enough to carry Scarlet, and I couldn't leave her there." He looked at Mirage intensely. "I've been working out ever since. I could carry her for five miles if I needed to." He looked down at his hands again. "And then, the Leader showed up. It was like he was flying, and he raised us up with him, and flew us far away from it all. When he put us down Mystique was there, and she set us up here, and she told us all about the Leader's plan to help kids like us and we want to be a part of it."

"And I'll be meeting Mystique soon, huh?"

"Yeah, she comes after dark. Doesn't want people to see her, or they'd know what we are."

Mirage had spent some time with the Morlocks in New York City last year- when Magneto had tried to slaughter them and Gambit had been caught in the middle. Morlocks, all deformed in one way or another by their mutations, were very strange looking people, so Chaz knew he could keep from staring when Mystique turned up. After all, how odd could she be?