Jell-o reader of Fan-fics. This here is a prequel of the actual story that will be made…eventually… It's set a few years before the Liberty Island incident and is a Toad/OC thing. I will and am doing everything in my power to keep this from being a Marry Sue.

NOTE: Toad will NOT be in this one, nor will he be in the next…honestly, I'm not sure when he'll hop in, but it won't be during this little story set-up, so don't ask…

X-Men is owned by the awesomeness that is Stan Lee and Marvel.

The main character, along with a few others, are mine.

With this in mind, lets roll!

**

**

The bus driver glanced in to his rearview mirror for the fourth time that night, his eyes landing on the only figure. The person was female due to their noticeable bust, even through their hoodie. The hood was up, head kept down. Had been that way since she had gotten on about two hours ago. He wondered if the girl was asleep. The last stop was coming up, and he wasn't allowed to go any farther.

"Excuse me, miss," He went to gently nudge her shoulder, only to have her abruptly stand in a hunched position. It was then he noticed how incredibly large her pants were. How'd she keep them on her waist?

"Is this the last stop?" Her voice was deeper than what he was used to hearing from a young woman.

"Yeah. 'Fraid you're going to have to get off here." He stepped aside as she passed, only to stop before exiting the bus.

"By the by, where is 'here'?"

"North Miami, miss. This is North East 151st St. Head down that way you'll hit a college. You might want to be careful. Not exactly the friendliest of places at night," he warned. She shifted a little before nodding a 'thank you' and stepped onto the sidewalk.

She watched the bus disappear down the street before glancing around. There wasn't anyone around, none that she could see anyway. She was glad that she had taken a bus that went north this time around. She was never good with directions. Miami, Florida was a rough place; muggers, gangs, drug dealers and weed farmers. At least that's what rumors told her. This is where she could sign her death warrant. She found herself in what she hoped was a more secluded location. One way looked like it was heading to a more populated area, the other leading to the college was wooded and far too dark for comfort. Her hands fidgeted in her hoodie pocket as she watched a car pass. She sank her head lower in the hood to keep her nose from numbing in the chilly air and pressed on toward the lit buildings. She'd take her chances in the more populated area.

She moved down the sidewalk, flip-flopping her thoughts on how she came to be in this predicament. She had had the house to herself on that day, her parents taking her younger brother to his soccer game while she stayed in bed with a fever from the night before.

It wasn't unusual for her to get sick when the weather was warm and pleasant. It was a sign that the warm would be getting much colder soon; the more intense the illness, the colder it would get. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for Florida's bipolar weather. 98-degrees with 97-humidity for a week, then 64-degrees for a random twenty-four hours before jumping back up to Ninety-eight. Pissed her off.

But, it wasn't the weather making her ill this time around. She couldn't say what it was for the longest time. While her fever was only for a day, she had been getting pains here and there for a long while. Her feet, hands, ears, and spine were what where really bugging her. At first she ignored her hands, thinking it was from writing too much; her English honors teacher knew how to keep them busy. She figured her feet pain was from when she almost tripped over her puppy and landed on her foot strangely. Her back was easy; she never did have the best posture. And her ears? She had gotten them pierced a few weeks prier: five in the left, four in the right. Her mother had freaked. She couldn't wait to see her mothers' reaction when she came home with two more rings in her right eyebrow.

She'd never be able to see her mothers' face again, though…

Her body was shifting, growing, as she unknowingly yelled in her sleep that morning. She had been abruptly awoken to a pounding head, a throbbing body, and her mothers' screams. She didn't understand why her mother was yelling. She never got upset over a soccer game.

It wasn't until her legs gave way to pain as she was pulled from bed that she figured something was wrong. She remembered her mother continuously asking her what she did to herself. What did she do? She hadn't gotten the tattoos that she wanted yet.

Ellie sighed as she kicked a rock, watching it roll into the street. As it turns out her body was changing to a slight reptilian look; she just lacked scales. Her once pale pink skin was now more of a light orange and her ears grew to be long, and rounded, like a goat. These physicality's were what had gotten her parents upset.

She was a mutant. One that couldn't be so easily hidden; her physical mutation worsened as the days passed. Her parents did what they could to hide and comfort her; they never minded mutants so much, just so long as they weren't threatened by them. Her eleven-year-old brother was jealous. He couldn't wait to turn seventeen and sprout a tail, no matter how painful he was told it was.

That tail…That was the thing that just about put her in her grave. Her spinal column, spinal cord, nerves, skin, muscles, blood vessels, and whatever else was located in the area had to grow and lengthen. She was bed ridden for about two weeks during growth; the new thin appendage reached a good seven feet.

The pains in her hands and feet had started to reach to her arms and legs when her tail was fully grown. They didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as her tail had, but she had become immobile once again. Her hands merely grew to a large size. What worried her was when two of her fingers merged to make a hand of four digits. She didn't have much of a problem until she found that her pencil was far too small for her to use. Her feet were a little worse in both pain and physical appearance. This would be the hardest to hide. Her feet grew to be bigger than her hands; toes merging with one another to make three large reptilian-like toes. Her heels rose off the ground to where she was walking with digigrade feet. Well, looking for shoes would no longer be a problem.

When it was all said and done about three months later, Ellie thought she looked…cool. Her tail came in real handy with gathering items, she was quicker despite her bulky frame, and her hearing was never better (though her mother had teased her, saying that she could never again make a 'I didn't hear you' excuse). And, much to her delight, her strength increased greatly.

There were set backs, though. Her larger limbs made her rather clumsy in the smaller house, and her puppy had a habit of seeing her long tail as a chew toy. Falling asleep had become difficult now that she could hear every creak and groan in the house. Her hands were so much larger that she was unable to handle everyday objects without a struggle. She had to be real carful of softer objects, and the tile floor and counter tops with her new talon like nails. But, worst of all, she couldn't leave the house. While her parents were accepting of her mutation, they worried that not everyone else that they knew would be.

She had walked a few blocks when her eyes spotted a sign that read 'Southern Memorial Park.' She thought about it. Yes it was dark, but there were few enough trees to allow some of the streetlights to shine through, and her eyes were sensitive enough now to pick up movement in dim light in case her ears were occupied with another sound. She figured it'd be better to stay in a lightly lighted area than a pitch dark or brightly lit one. She found a good size tree and crawled to the highest branch that would hold her weight. The bark was rather uncomfortable, but it was better then the ground where she could be easily spotted.

***

Morning came all too quickly as the sun burned Ellie's eyelids. Her sensitive ears were picking up some high, rather loud voices. She rolled her head on the tree trunk hoping to sleep a little longer. Her foot began twitching at the feel of something crawling along the bottom. No, not crawling. Something was lightly scrapping the bottom of her large foot.

Peeking through her hood, she glanced down to find a small figure on a branch below her, poking her foot with a long stick.

She froze as a jolt of fear ripped through her spine. Were they going to alert her presence to other around? Scream when they found her to not be 'safe'?

The stick hit a nerve and her foot flexed, causing the child to giggle slightly.

Nope. He was going to continue to poke her foot to watch it spaz.

Ellie pulled her foot up, watching the boys face as it changed from innocent delight to slight panic. He looked up in to the darkness of her hood like he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Sorry," he said, as he held the stick behind his back. "Didn' tink it a good idea to sleep so high in a tree. You fall!"

"So you poke me with a stick?"

"To wake you up!" Could anyone truly argue that logic with such a face of innocence staring up at them?

Ellie couldn't help but smile. "Well, you did wake me up, munchkin. Now move over, I'm comin' down."

She landed in the ground with a quiet 'thud' next to the child, now thinking that she would have been better off with him making her foot spaz in the cover of the leaves. It was Saturday and it seemed that everyone and their grandmother was there at the same hour of the morning.

She was about to slink her way out of the park when a tug on her hoodie halted her. Turning around she found the boy holding onto the fabric. "Will you play with me?"

"Sorry, munchkin, I've got places to avo-" Suddenly, a panicked voice filtered its way toward the two, causing the boy to almost yelp.

"Benedict!" A stout woman came all but running in their direction. "I've been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been?!" She stopped short in her words upon seeing Ellie, who looked nothing short of your standard anti-social outcast.

Benedict pointed an accusing finger up at Ellie, "I found her sleeping in dat tree and went to wake her up before she fall! But, I don' tink she would now! She's got really big lizard-man feet!"

Ellie swore her heart stopped beating just then. The woman was now giving her a strange look. Ohhh, this is bad…

**

**

*cue dramatic music and exit stage right*