-1Fancy French Restaurant
Monday
1200 hours
"You're late," Toad said, tapping his watch without even bothering to look up from the menu.
If the girl who slid into the booth opposite him shrugged, leaning back to appraise her new acquaintance. "And you're green," she replied. "But hey, who's keeping score, right?"
Toad smirked, then turned to the waiter, who had also materialized at their booth. He rattled off something in French, then turned back to his new guest. With her olive, Mediterranean features, long black hair and amber eyes, she certainly wasn't hard to look at. But that had nothing to do with why they were here. "Jasmine Soriano, I presume".
"Yeah."
"Great. I'm Toad and-"
"Toad?"
He shrugged. "Codename. Plus everyone's called me that since I was a kid. You might as well too. Anyway, as I was saying I'm a bit new at this whole recruiting thing so hope you'll have a little patience. Usually my colleague Pietro would be doin this, but with him off on a mission you're stuck with me."
"And you work for the government, right?"
Toad nodded. "Government agency called SHIELD, actually. I'd go into what it stands for but half the time even I forget. Our division is special though, a branch with only meta-humans."
"And you want me to join," Jasmine finished.
Toad nodded, not quite sure what to expect. Recruiting, as he'd told Fury a hundred times, was NOT his thing. He didn't even look like a government agent for cryin' out loud, suit or no suit. Of course what he didn't expect was the laughter. . .
"HAhaha. . .oh man, really?" Jasmine chuckled, shaking her head in disbelief. "You know, when you guys first contacted me to set up this meeting, I had no idea what to expect. I mean, it was a pretty fair bet that somehow you knew I was a freakin. . .mutant or whatever. I figured maybe you just wanted me to register or something. But I'm a sophomore in college! Studying nursing! Why the hell would I want to throw all that away by outing myself and becoming some government guinea pig?"
Toad sighed, brushing a rebellious strand of brown hair out of his eyes so he could read the briefings he'd been given more closely. In the end, he pulled out a simple photograph, glossy and a bit blurry still. But the visual impact was still there. He slid it across the table.
"What is this?" Jasmine murmured. Then a gasp. "What the. . ." The photograph clearly showed her, hovering high in the sky with a flash of blue light directly above her. It was an aerial view, the light only partially obscured her features, staring up into the in panic. Jasmine scowled, crumpling up the photograph and hurling it back at Toad. "How did you get this?!"
"You're losin control of your powers," Toad said simply. "With powers like yours, it was only a while before we noticed something going on. When you opened a portal two miles up in the air, the energy registered on some very sophisticated satellites. They thought you were a foreign missile or something, probably. Started takin pics like crazy, except that once the guys with the computers and lab coats started analyzing it they found you." He sighed. "That was two months ago, and the energy readings have kept popping up every once in a while. Now since a college girl like yourself probably has better things to do with her time than go teleporting around in the stratosphere, I'm guessing that you can't help it.
"I can control my powers just fine," Jasmine growled, albeit unconvincingly. "And-and even if I can't, its none of your business! I'm not hurting anyone."
"Yet," countered Toad. "How long before you accidentally send someone else through one of your little portals. I mean, do you even understand how they work?"
"Do you?" she shot back.
Toad laughed. "I dropped outta high school Jasmine, I don't even know how my toaster works. But like I said we got people with lab coats and degrees comin outta their ears. Come with us, and they will give you your life back."
She eyed him warily. "What if I don't want to join?"
"Whelp, then you better hope you can get those powers in check all by yourself. Because if you end up hurtin somebody, the next time you see me, or any of my people it'll be to put you down."
Up until then, Toad had seemed casual, even a little bored by the whole meeting. But the way he said 'put you down' literally sent chills through Jasmine. She knew, without a doubt , that he meant it. And as hard as it was to take a guy with green skin, a permanent smirk, and a name like 'Toad' seriously. . .she wondered if maybe she'd been too hasty in refusing.
Toad watched her inner struggle with an odd detachment, thinking instead about the immense irony of him not only belonging to a government agency, but also trying to recruit other young mutant to the fold. Five years ago, he would have laughed aloud at the notion. Yet here he was. . .
"You don't have to give me an answer right now," he said. Just think about it, okay? You're not alone, and with your powers you could make a really big difference for a lotta people."
She arched an eyebrow. "Kinda cliché, don't you think?"
"Yeah, well its true too. Listen, you have a card in your mailbox right now. If you decide you wanna know more, the instructions on there'll tell you what to do next." He started to rise.
"Are you leaving?"
"Yeah, I'm tryna get back home kinda soon."
"We haven't even been served yet though. We've only been here like what, five minutes?"
"Hey," said Toad, "You want a long lecture you might as well head back to your university. I'm just here to give you our sales pitch or whatever you call it. Hey, you should stick around though, cuz I told the waiter to really go the distance on your meal. Three hundred dollars of SHIELD money at a fancy place like this doesn't happen every day, so you might want to make the most of it before you go back to cafeteria food."
Jasmine laughed again, except this time without anger behind her mirth. "You know," she said. "You don't really seem like a government agent."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Toad said. And it was true. He'd been deemed a repulsive freak since childhood, and even though in adulthood he'd finally gained a bit of muscle, height (and not to mention hygiene), his pale green skin and yellow eyes still tended to evoke the same reactions.
"Its definitely a compliment," Jasmine clarified when Toad didn't immediately elaborate. She smiled, and without even realizing it he found himself smiling back.
"We'll be awaiting your answer," was all he could think to say.
***
Shield Metahuman Resources Division
Monday
2100 hours
"Well, that certainly didn't take you too long," observed Wanda as she entered the spacious rec room, located right in the center of the Metahuman Resources complex. Toad and Blob had insisted on it upon their recruitment, and Nick Fury had grudgingly obliged them, going so far as outfit the area with its own theater system, video game consoles, and even more traditional fares such as pool tables and air hockey in the back. Tonight though, Toad wasn't occupied at any of them, despite being on break from his SHIELD duties.
He was in the Observatory, almost but not quite its own room. It jutted out from the game area like pier, and while the rest of the entire complex had been built entirely into the face of a mountain, the Observatory was the only part that stretched out into the open night sky, suspended an unfathomable distance above anything that could remotely be considered ground. For Wanda, who was slightly afraid of heights, the Observatory was one of the last places she would ever think to go. But seeing Toad lying in there, his head propped up on a borrowed couch cushion, her curiosity got the best of her.
Toad stretched his head back to acknowledge her presence, then once more returned his gaze to the transparent dome that comprised the Observatory's 'roof' and the starlit sky beyond it. "Hey Wanda. What didn't take too long?"
"Your little recruiting mission," she said, walking even closer. "Usually when its on Pietro, he's gone for the better part of a day. You were away for what, an hour?"
"Hour and a half, but yeah I see your point. Guess I don't have Pietro's people skills. I tried though."
"Oh, without a doubt," said Wanda. "Apparently you underestimate yourself too. Word from Lance is that she called in a few hours after your little meeting. Said she wants to learn more about us."
"Yeah, well I'm not doin that again," said Toad. "WHy should I be tryna run around convincing every mutant with a pulse to join up with SHIELD when I don't even know if I should be here myself. Lance and the others. . .even you, y'all like all this black-ops, cloak and dagger combat stuff we do. And you're good at it."
"So are you," Wanda pointed out.
"And you love doin it."
"Oh, its not that simple," Wanda countered, plopping herself down beside him. "We all have our own reasons for doing what we do, Todd. For me, I've seen firsthand the kind of destruction and misery that rogue meta humans can cause, myself included. And every time I go on a mission and help save lives or prevent some kind of catastrophe by taking down people who use their powers to hurt. . .it gives me a little bit of peace inside."
Toad half-grinned. "Y'know you're the only person who ever calls me 'Todd' anymore," he said.
"Way to change the subject."
Toad turned to look at her. "You wanna know why I fight the good fight?" he asked. "Honestly, its cuz it pays the bills. I ain't no hero Wanda, and even now fighting our kind at nick Fury's whim still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I mean we work for the guys who created the Sentinels for chrissakes."
"Bolivar Trask went rogue," corrected Wanda. That was never an official SHIELD initiative. And don't give me that 'it pays the bills' bullshit either- we both know you're a better person than that."
Toad's focus had shifted once again to the stars. "Am I?" he wondered aloud. But before Wanda could answer she silently shushed her, pointing up at the sky. "Showtime," he whispered.
"Wha-Oooooh" Wanda did indeed shut up, out of pure awe if nothing else. For above them in the night sky was one of the most beautiful displays of light she'd ever seen. The myriad colors washed over them, and inn an instant Wanda understood why Toad had come here. "What is it?" she whispered back.
"Years ago, back when Magneto was using his powers up in the stratosphere to sustain that floating sanctuary of his, the electromagnetic forces kinda stayed up there. I mean, there's a buncha complicated science about how they bend light and stuff, but basically for the past five years these little light shows have been goin on as a result. I saw it on the news that they predicted one for tonight, so here I am."
"Its beautiful," she told him, pure wonder in her voice.
"I figured that's why you came by here. I mean, this is hardly your favorite place to hang out. And its not as if my company's all that enchanting. . ."
Wanda wanted to tell him not to be so sure of that. Something about the lights and the way they flickered and danced, casting their luminescence onto the two of them. . .it was almost. . .romantic. And somehow, that word wasn't as difficult to associate with Todd as it had once been. She'd known him for years, and somewhere in between adolescence and adulthood he'd grown up. Not to say that he couldn't still be annoying, and a bit of a smartass. . .but that was tempered by a newfound maturity that even Lance and the rest of the team didn't have.
She sighed. Not that the two of them would ever work. These days, Todd didn't seem much interested in anything, including her. Plus she was kind of technically dating Simon Williams, the de facto head of the SHIELD's meta division. He was independently wealthy, good looking, and could juggle a tank or two with unbelievable ease, as per his own superhuman abilities. That coupled with a snug number five spot on People's Sexiest Mutants list should have made him the perfect partner. A veritable wonder man.
Yet he wasn't the one that she'd thought about all afternoon, or come to check on tonight. She took a brief break from her stargazing to glance back over at Todd. Smirking and scowling were usually his default expression, and yet now there was a third: contentment. She smiled at the sight, and then turned her attention back to the light show, already beginning to fade. She didn't tell him any of the thoughts going through her mind though, and was saved from having to say anything at all by the vibrating of her cell phone. She flipped it open, taking a moment to scan the short text message on the display before returning the device to her pocket.
"Lemme guess," said Toad mildly, "Simon?"
"Yeah," for whatever reason she felt sheepish at the admission. "He wants to see me so. . ."
"Gotcha." Toad looked up at her as she stood, flashing her one of his rare genuine smiles. "Hey, thanks for the company Wanda."
"Anytime Frog-boy," she said endearingly. "Seeya tomorrow."
Toad watched her leave and thought, not for the first time, that Simon was a lucky guy indeed.
***
For an initiative still in its nascent stages, SHIELD's Metahuman Resources Division was surprisingly large. Comprised of over one hundred agents, with at least eighty possessing active meta human abilities, it was perhaps the single largest assembly of metas in existence. For organizational and practical purposes, the metas themselves were grouped into small squads, based on how well their individual powers complemented each other. The Division was, above all, a black-ops task force. It sent these small, elite units into situations around the globe that required specific meta human assistance.
The former Brotherhood of Mutants had joined as a team, and insisted that they remain on a team as another condition of employment. They had fought side by side for years, was the argument, even if it wasn't always on the side of the 'good guys'. They knew each other's strengths and weaknesses like no one else could, and their diversity of skills and powers, combined with SHIELD's own extensive paramilitary training, had made them one of the most dangerous fighting forces on the planet. In less than a year, they had risen to the top of the Division, consistently outperforming every other squad and garnering results in the field that even Nick Fury himself couldn't have dreamed of. . .
"And you want to screw that up?!" Wanda demanded in outrage, glaring at her boyfriend as he watched her absorb the news he had just given her.
"Babe," said Simon soothingly, "I wanted to break the news to you first. . .but yes. We need to expand your roster. Who better than this new teleporter?"
"She's a college student! She's never even seen combat that wasn't on the other side of a TV screen!"
"Well we'll train her then. Honestly Wanda, I don't know why you're so upset about this. I mean it was your guys that recruited her."
"At high command's insistence," countered Wanda. "But we didn't think she'd be joining our squad. All that we've achieved is precisely because of the small, close-knit nature of-"
"Oh please," Simon cut her off with a wave of her hand. "I've heard this speech before. And yeah, you guys are an impressive bunch. . .but even Pietro can't get you out of a tight spot as fast as a 'porter. And who else? Avalanche? Pyro? Or Toad?" He laughed harshly at this. "Wanda, not only will having this girl eliminate a lot of our transportation costs, but it'll also make things a lot safer for you in the field. And your teammates, of course."
"Me, and my teammates, are just fine as it is," Wanda said through clenched teeth. "Thanks for the heads up, Simon."
"Wait," he said, scuttling in between her and the door. "No need to leave so soon right? We haven't been able to spend a night together in months Wanda, I was thinking that maybe tonight we could-"
Wanda didn't even bother responding as she slammed the door shut behind her.
****
Westchester Community College
Tuesday
1300 hours
The next afternoon found Wanda and Toad flying down the road at highly illegal speeds to pick up Jasmine Soriano. Once again, the job would have usually gone to Pietro, but the silver-haired speed freak was just as pissed off as the rest of the team once hearing the news that she would be forced into their unit.
In the end, it was decided that Toad should go because of the familiarity he'd already established with the girl, and Wanda because she might feel a little more at ease in the presence of another woman.
"Maniac," muttered Wanda as Toad made a screeching U-turn after accidentally passing the street he wanted.
"Sorry, can't hear ya over that heavy metal crap you insisted on blaring through the speakers."
"Toad, you wouldn't know good music if it bit you in the ass."
"Stop thinking about my ass Wanda, makes me uncomfortable." He glanced over, trademark smirk firmly in place. "That's gotta be irony right, the Scarlet Witch literally turning scarlet?"
Wanda blushed even harder and started to shoot a comeback, but before she could the car skidded to a bone-jarring halt. "We're here!" Toad announced cheerfully. He deftly clambered out of the driver's seat, then made a short hop that landed him on the roof of the car. "This is the student union, right? And there goes our girl. . " He started to wave, but then something happened that froze him in his tracks.
Twenty yards away, just as Jasmine was exiting the main doors of her student union, her entire body suddenly went rigid in mid-stride. Her eyes widened as her hands came up to feel around her neck, and then she collapsed.
"What the-" Wanda started to say as she climbed out. For right before them, two dark-haired men in black jumpsuits, overcoats, and boots rushed out of the bushes that enclosed the main entrance on either side. The first rushed to catch the unconscious Jasmine, hoisting her over his shoulder like a rag doll and leaping back through the bushed toward the adjacent street.
The second man was clearly there to stop the two mutants from giving chase. He walked purposefully toward Toad and Wanda hands emerging from his overcoat with what Toad recognized to be handheld grenade launchers. Without even hesitating a second, the man launched both weapons.
"Wanda!" shouted Toad as he saw the weapons fire. He knew even as he shouted that Wanda would not have time to react. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that they were being attacked and their recruit kidnapped- right in the middle of a college campus.
So Toad sprang to life. Scooping Wanda up into his arms he leapt as far a he could away from the car, a split second before it exploded. He could feel the intense heat on his back, followed by the intense concussive force which propelled them all the way across the street, dumping the two in an unceremonious tangle of arms and limbs.
The Scarlet Witch turned back in the direction of their mysterious attacker with an otherworldly energy blazing in her eyes. He had dropped the grenade launchers and was now running past the throng of screaming college students. In her teen years, that would have been enough to elude the Scarlet Witch, but her control of her powers had improved immensely since then. Once she was able to focus on the man. . .
The hex beam hit him, and diverted all of his forward momentum sideways. . .right into a tree. To his credit he made it back to his feet, but Wanda's next hex bolt dropped him like a dead weight. He wouldn't be getting back up for a while. . .
For his part, Todd was already racing toward the black minivan parked on the union's side street. The same minivan that the second black-clad man was trying to shove Jasmine inside. With a desperate leap, he catapulted himself onto the van's roof a moment before it sped off in a squeal of tires.
A third man, who had evidently been waiting outside the van, wriggled halfway out of one of the side windows, an assault rifle in his grasp as he attempted to shoot the unwelcome guest. But one flick of his prehensile tongue was all Toad needed to pluck the gun out of the man's hands, followed, by a swiftly-hardening glob of goo in the face. The man desperately clawed at the noxious, suffocating substance and Toad took the opportunity to swing around on the opposite and crash through the side window.
Just in time to see Jasmine disappear in a flash of blue light.
"Todd!" came Wanda's voice from the wrist communicator that all SHIELD agents wore. "The girl's back here, I think she 'ported."
"Police?"
"Already on-site. They're freakin out over here, we need to extract this girl as quickly as possible."
"On my way," Toad assured her, giving the van's occupants one last glare before leaping off of the vehicle. He was already a good two miles away from Wanda's position, but he was also a man who could move fast if he wanted to. With a speed borne of urgency, he leapt across the distance in a manner that put his namesake to shame, bouncing off of trees and telephone poles like a rubber ball.
He arrived to a scene of chaos. Police cruisers, helicopters, news vans. . .the student union of a small community college had been transformed into a media frenzy. And Wanda was at the epicenter of it, waving her SHIELD identification in two police officers' faces while shouting back and forth at them.
Toad wove his way through the crowd, already on his wrist communicator calling for backup. By the time he actually reached Wanda she looked about ready to permanently rearrange the troublesome officers' molecules (something she could probably do, if she put her mind to it).
". . .slack-jawed, donut-munching halfwits have three seconds to-" Wanda was in the middle of threatening when Toad stepped into the fray.
"Whoa" he said, eyeing the policemen. "What's the problem."
"Who the hell are you?" one of the policemen, a short man with a mustache and an unhealthily red face asked rudely.
"SHIELD Metahuman Resources," Toad informed him, simultaneously flashing his own credentials.
"Yeah, well I don't care who you are, you can't just waltz in here and expect us to twiddle our thumbs while you make off with an unconscious kidnapping victim and an unidentified suspect. The girl needs at least a visit to a hospital to check for trauma, and the suspect we have in custody's been puking non-stop for the past ten minutes. Plus we have the smoldering wreckage of a car right in the middle of the damn campus, with no reliable information on how it got that way."
"Two hex bolts?" Toad whispered from the side of mouth to Wanda. "Bit overkill don't you think?"
"He's lucky he didn't get worse," she muttered back. "Bastard tried to kill us." With a look at the officers that said she would definitely be back, she hustled Toad away from the crowd, frying any cameras that seem to focus too long on them with a flick of her fingers. "I don't know what to do," she told him once they'd successfully escaped the throng of people.
"Yeah, me either," Toad admitted. "Part of me wants to just grab Jasmine and our little grenade-thrower by force and just hightail it outta here, but we're kinda stranded ourselves."
"Plus our badges don't seem to pull much weight around here," added Wanda ruefully. "What about the guys you chased?"
Toad shrugged. "I didn't really have any way to detain'em so I just stuck my cell phone to the roof of their and booked. Our guys with the GPS should be trackin' 'em as we speak. Other than that. . ."
"Yeah," Wanda finished, "we just wait. . ."
Toad nodded, the breeze forcing him to swipe a few unruly strands of hair out of his field of vision. He thought offhandedly that it was really time for another haircut. . .
Already in the distance, he could hear the sound of SHIELD choppers slicing through the sky, no doubt full of all sorts of personnel who would create official cordons and sweet talk police and the media. He sighed. And the week had started out so well. . .
**************************************************
Author's Notes: First, if you made it this far (all the way through my first chapter) then thanks for reading and do feel free to drop a review on your way out. I haven't written an X-men Evo fic in literally years, but I just finished watching the entire series online, and got that writer's itch that only a few hours of furious story writing can cure. The last episode, which I had never seen until now, really stuck with me because of all of the rich storytelling opportunities that Xavier's vision of the future offers. His vision of the Brotherhood members as SHIELD agents really grew on me, and that coupled with my personal belief that Toad gets a decidedly awful (and unfair) treatment in most episodes is pretty much what led me to come up with this. Anywho, the next chapter I'm working on will definitely have more Brotherhood members, and maybe an X-men cameo or two.
PS: Also, in case you were wondering the timestamps are in military time. Why? Simply because it seems so badass when they do it on TV! *shrug*
PPS: For the really big nerds out there, Simon Williams is the civilian name of the Marvel Comics character Wonder Man. In the comics, he's one of Scarlet Witch's love interests (trust me, the details of that relationship will give you a headache trying to figure out), and so I decided to toss him in as a foil to Toad.
Til then, and hope you liked!