Title: Mortimer
Author: Gremblin
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. No, really! I don't!
Authors Note: Okay. In this, Toad isn't Toad he's just Mortimer Toynbee. He isn't a mutant, but just an average every-day human. He still carries an X-Gene though, but it's recessive. This story is what would have happened if he hadn't been a mutant from birth, but his powers were forced upon him later in life when he was older. Okay, now go read! Go! Stop reading this and read the story!
0o0o0o0o0o0
Mortimer Toynbee sat in the backseat of his stretch limousine. His driver had warned him this might happen but Mortimer hadn't listened nor cared. He had been doing something at the time and the people he was meeting with could wait for him
And now here he was, stuck in a traffic jam. But again, the people could wait for him. He was, after all, one of the richest and most powerful people in the UK, and born into one of the richest and most powerful families in Europe. It was well known that if you messed with one Toynbee you messed with all of them, so his job would never be threatened. The only other people who owned stocks in his company was his brother, niece, uncle, his second cousin, and some guy who owned Microsoft owned two or three shares. But he couldn't do anything to Mortimer, as he owned most of the shares in his company.
Mortimer leaned back into the plush seat he sat in while sipping white wine. He glanced at the year on the bottle to see that it was a good and expensive year before pulling a wallet out of his briefcase. He extracted a picture from it of a beautiful woman, his wife. Her name was Isabelle and she was Mortimer's whole world. He didn't know what he would do without her and counted himself lucky to have even found her at all.
She had blonde hair, blue eyes and lightly tanned skin. In the picture she was wearing shorts over a dark blue one-piece bathing suit, and had a genuine smile as she linked arms with her long-time friend Estelle, who everyone called Essy. It had been summer at the time it was taken and they had gone to the beach for the day.
Mortimer himself currently wore a black business suit, smart shoes, and a black tie with thin purple stripes. He had light brown hair and tanned skin from all the time Isabelle had him sitting outside to paint him. He was very good at staying stone-still and it was a talent Isabelle took full use of. She had an entire wing of the house covered with paintings of him in ridiculous poses that only she could get him to go into. He had tried to have them taken down but she had claimed it raised the servants' spirits.
"Sir, there seems to be a disturbance ahead and a police officer wishes to speak to you. Should I send him away?" The driver asked over the intercom.
"No, I'll speak with him. Mortimer replied. He placed the picture face-down on the seat beside him and rolled the window down.
A male police officer leaned over to look through the window at Mortimer. Mortimer had very little patience for police officers, and would like to jump off a bridge more than he'd like to talk to them, despite the fact that he made very generous donations every year to the United Police Charity Fund.
"Yes?" He demanded of the officer rudely. The man took it in stride though.
"I'm sorry Mr. Toynbee but there's been another mutant attack further ahead and it's rumored they're still close by. It may be another hour or so before traffic clears." The officer said. Mortimer sighed and held his head in his hand. He couldn't possibly be that late for the meeting. Ten minutes, maybe, but never an hour.
"Where's this 'disturbance' at? Outside what building?" Mortimer asked.
"1344 Edlebrook ave." The officer replied. Mortimer sighed again. That was the building he needed to get to.
"Thank you." Mortimer said before rolling his window up. He picked up the picture of Isabelle and looked at it lovingly before picking up his car phone and dialing the number of the office the meeting was being held in. It rung twice before someone picked up on the other end.
"Yes?" The person said. Mortimer recognized it as the man who ran his company when he himself wasn't there. Josh Geller.
"This is Mortimer, I can't make it in. I'm stuck in traffic, and it isn't going to be cleared for another hour." Mortimer said.
"Yes, we were all wondering where you'd gotten to. We could just put you on speaker phone and get the meeting done that way." Josh suggested. Mortimer thought about it, and as tempting as it sounded he preferred seeing the people he was yelling at.
"No, just postpone it until tomorrow if it's possible." Mortimer replied.
"I'm sorry sir, but most of us have important business to attend to tomorrow and that's why today was chosen. It fit into everyone's schedule. If we postpone it we'll have to wait another month and a half." Josh explained. Mortimer sighed.
"Fine." He said. "Put me onto speaker phone." There was some moving around and a click as Josh did as he was told and then Mortimer heard the sounds of people moving around in a large open space. There was another click as the receiver Josh had been holding was put down and the meeting went underway. They talked about how well the company was doing, what they could do to make it better, and what their subsidiaries were doing. Mortimer found out that he wasn't the only one that had gotten caught in traffic, and that three other people were stuck too and that was why he was able to get away with it without complaints. The meeting ended before the traffic even moved, which annoyed Mortimer to every extent. He decided to get out of the limo and stretch his legs, despite the mutant threat.
"Driver, I'm stepping out for a moment. I'll be right back." Mortimer announced over the intercom before opening the door. He stood up and looked around, to see devastation surrounding him. His windows were tinted so that he couldn't see in or out, as he didn't really like seeing other people. That was what Josh was for.
"You look like your ready to go to a party, flatline." a gruff voice said behind him. Mortimer turned around and saw a tall man wearing what appeared to be animal pelts. He had dirty-blonde hair and looked like he could take down a grizzly bear. Heck, he probably would look like one if he had fur and was in the right lighting.
Mortimer took a step back in surprise and caused the large man to grin. He continued to walk backwards slowly, followed by the large grinning man, until he bumped into another person. He spun around and saw that it was a teenager with white hair and wearing light-blue and white streamlined clothes and was grinning at Mortimer. Mortimer moved away from the teen with a look of anger and suppressed surprise. There hadn't been anyone there a moment ago.
"Don't you dare do anything to me! I'm a very important person and you'd be making a lot of people angry in killing me!" Mortimer warned them. That only caused them both to laugh.
"Looks like we've found the guy father wanted." The teenager said. "Grab him, I wanna get outta here ASAP." The teenager ordered. The larger man looked like he didn't want to listen to the kid, but did so anyways. Obviously the teens father was either a very scary man or a very powerful man, or both. Mortimer decided that he didn't want to find out.
He found that he didn't have much choice however, as the large man stepped forward and hit him on the side of the head, knocking him out.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Mortimer woke up strapped to what appeared to be a medical table inside a room with what looked to be walls covered in sheet-metal. He tried to get up but found that he was held down by yet more metal in the form of cuffs.
He looked up when he heard a door open to reveal a woman without any form of clothing on, and blue skin. She had scales covering herself just enough however, that she could get away with it. Mortimer couldn't help but stare even though he was mentally yelling at himself that he was happily married and shouldn't even be thinking about this strange woman in that way.
"So you're the one Magneto wanted. Pity Kelly died, you two look like you would have gotten along well." The woman said off handedly.
"Who would Kelly be?" Mortimer asked. The woman smiled, revealing bright white teeth to contrast against her blue skin and red hair.
"Senator Kelly." The woman replied.
"I know Senator Kelly, he's a good friend of mine. My father helped him get into the position he's in today. Kelly isn't dead." Mortimer replied. The woman laughed as she walked over, more of swaggered actually. She revealed the contents of her left hand that had been hidden behind her and showed that she held a needle filled with a green liquid that Mortimer didn't like the look of.
"Kelly's been dead for quite some time." The woman said before she stuck the needle into a vein in Mortimer's neck and injected the liquid into his system. The woman grinned as Mortimer's eyes rolled back from the waves of pain spasming through his body. He wished that he would fall unconscious but knew that he probably wouldn't. People like this would have made sure that he wouldn't so that they could enjoy watching the pain. That was just what they did.
And so he lay there wracked with pain beyond any he'd ever previously experienced, with the strange yet oddly mesmerizing blue woman watching. Once, he had been able to glance at her and saw that she was actually surprised at how much pain he was obviously in.
The spasms started passing after a good half hour, but the half hour was anything but uneventful. A few people had come to check on the woman and make sure that everything was going according to whatever sick plan they had. The pain was gone after one last surge, and then just disappeared. Sweat coated his body and he knew that it had soaked through his suit, virtually ruining it. The only thing he could think of was that Isabelle would be furious with him, as she had picked it out.