Nothing Less than Extraordinary

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At the sight of General Macintyre, everything came flooding back the same way it had when I was reunited with the unit. Instead of feelings of remorse and condolences, it was anger with hints of confusion and scorn. The last time I had any contact with him, I was trying to catch him in Zaine's hospital room after he told the nurses he was his son. If it wasn't for that alarmed sense of protection over Zaine, I probably wouldn't have landed in his room, ruptured his injury (or subsequently healed him) and fled. Even though Zaine's health was a silver lining, I couldn't ignore the trauma Macintyre had caused in Zaine's life and in all of our lives.

And to make matters worse, the general strutted around the court room as if he was untouchable and un-witnessed to all of his crimes.

"Ladies and gentleman, let's make no mistake—no matter the age, ability, or character of mutants, they're still mutants," he began and finished his sentence glaring right at Cheshire, who had finished writing down information and handing it to the judge. He arrogantly sat on the Agency's table and sported a posture and composure challenging Macintyre—almost daring him to insult us again. The general accepted. "Between the arrogant, misfit teenagers," he stated before knowing not to look into Cheshire's eyes too long so his gaze fell upon Zaine and didn't weaken at all, "to the ones with powerful potential," he said towards his former test subject briefly before looking upon the audience, "their 'Special Society' was bound to form and it's our duty to the American people—and the citizens of the world to take advantage of our revolutionary cure that is proven to work—"

"The cure that was illegally tested on Academy students?" Warren asked. "Because no matter the security clearance, there's no way you went from isolating genes for stabilization to eradication under the radar that easily without consequence."

Warren was trying to catch him in a simple, underground patent lie, but he should've known better than that. Macintyre would have his bases covered even if Nick Rawlinson walked in himself to reiterate the story he gave us about how the Cure had its beginnings. And while Macintyre refuted Warren's accusation, my eyes fell upon a fed-up Cheshire who had walked over to one of the bailiffs. I wondered if he was asking them to apprehend him in advance so he wouldn't completely pummel the general and be held in contempt, but he simply looked deep into the old eyes of the guard and convinced: "You heard the judge—bring in Chevy," before the guard was sending off the request through his radio clipped to his shoulder.

The judge noticed this abuse of power from the non-authoritative teenager while Macintyre continued his propaganda, and addressed the issue—saying something along the lines that he shouldn't be passing orders in his [Connally's] court room, especially involving his powers.

"I'm just trying to speed things up," Cheshire reasoned and I could see his eyes flash into a playful purple at the pun in reference to Tyler's powers. Cheshire danced his way over to Zaine, looking over at him as if he'd dare to ask permission, but with one glance to me, I was reminded that Cheshire was the kind of guy to ask for forgiveness instead...if we were lucky. "Go ahead, big guy. Put it all out there before his shit gets blown wide open."

"Union, can you get your little...criminal instigator...in line? We're here to conduct official business," Macintyre insulted towards Cheshire and received a gasp from the crowd. It was well known that none of the Agency fancied Cheshire, but this was explicit and unprofessional.

"You wound me," Cheshire responded with a hand over his chest.

"Cut it out," Cariba muttered. Cheshire just rolled his eyes and looked back to Macintyre.

"Mr. Nichols, one more outburst and you'll be removed from this room indefinitely," Judge Connally warned. Cheshire got another look on his face that we could easily read as a precursor to more of his shenanigans, so I found myself getting up to approach him. He had no problem looking down at me and I was already hearing his heart pounding rapidly as if adrenaline coursed through him as cause and effect to all of this. I reached out and grabbed his wrist and instead of hearing his heartbeat, I was feeling his throbbing pulse without even trying.