KICKIN BUTT AND SAVIN' FROGS
BY KCHUU & SKETCHY THE SCRIBBLER
Hey all you Kodd fans! Kchuu and Sketchy here! This is our first fic posting here, although we've been working on this story for a while. When we wrote it, it was in an RP style, and we had to change it so it fit into a fanfic format. This should explain the point of view jumping back and forth between characters a lot. This is set in the X-Men Evolution Universe, roughly mid-season two (after Tabitha joins the B-hood). Please note that this is not a pairing at all in the canon -after- season two, yes, we totally screwed with the rest of the plot. But hey, you fanfic readers like that, right? We know -we- do!! Enjoy!
Rated M for language.
(BTW, we know we don't own Marvel or these awesome boys or anything, so no suing us plz)
Kurt stared intently at the jumble of words and pictures on the paper in front of him. His mind tried to connect the complex Latin words to the areas of the skeleton diagram... But he knew he was going to fail this quiz... If only his image inducer hadn't been malfunctioning the day of the frog dissection, he wouldn't have to be in this silly remedial class! He scratched the hidden fur on the back of his arm idly as he turned his gaze back to the words...
"So the mucus glands.... connect..... Ach, this is too hard..." Kurt muttered in exasperation.
Todd's face was planted firmly into the table in front of him. It just figured that he'd been made to sit next to Fuzzy in this hell. Todd had been given a choice, remedial biology or detention: he'd chosen the first option and regretted it intensely. The mutterings of the person next to him made no sense, they didn't even NEED to know how a frogs mucus glands worked. After all, it's not like the alcohol soaked amphibians would ever secrete it again. The book gave more information than the teacher even wanted them to know.
"Would you shut up already, yo?" He growled at the X-geek, words muffled by the table.
Kurt rolled his eyes. Todd Tolensky. Toad. The froggy underclassmen who, together with his 'brotherhood' of losers, tried to make Kurt's life a living nightmare. He turned to reply, and his nose instantly wrinkled in disgust. His nemesis' words were muffled by the table, but his stench could not be ignored. And the teacher had to sit them right next to each other, in the back of the classroom!
"Unlike some people, I am here to -learn-, slimeball. Now if you vould just let me study in peace... I'm actually trying to -pass- this quiz." Kurt spat the words like insults. He'd spent more time wrestling this kid into submission than was proper or necessary, and he didn't want the slimy mutant messing with even more of his free time... especially time he needed to study for his worst class.
Todd turned his head to glare at the currently not-so-fuzzy annoyance.
"The fuck? This shit is easy, I don't NEED to study tah get a better grade than you on this crap." Todd turned his head back into the table, starting to close his eyes to try and nap. When he suddenly remembered that a few mere hours ago a sterile, dead, and quite possibly pregnant frog (From what he had heard, many had been carrying eggs) had been sliced open and guts pulled out with pliers and scalpels. His head shot up as he quickly decided this table was not appealing to sleep on.
"Alright, don't study, but quit ... spazzing around. It smells bad enough in here vithout you waving your greasy hair all over the place." He glanced at his inducer-watch... When was the teacher going to get here? He had a danger room session at 3:30, and while being bossed around by Scott for hours wasn't exactly fun, it was a heck of a lot better than being holed up in this stuffy, smelly room with the Toad.
Todd frowned. Why the heck was fuzzy even here? With that 'Study now, verbally abuse rival later' attitude, he should have done just fine with the dissection. Unless he was squeamish or something, but that same attitude proved they were there for very different reasons.
"At least I don't have a mustache all over my freakin' body. Tell yah what yah furry gecko, you go home an' study your fucking murder book there, that way my hair don't bother yah!"
Kurt shot Todd a look of contempt.
"I missed a class, okay, I have to be here! And enemies or not -this is not the place to be talking about that!- Unless you vant to end up like one of your froggy friends in this book!" The last part excaped his lips in a hiss. Owch. That moustache comment was low. Especially from a guy who had roughly the complexion of a booger.
Todd blanched, Kurts words had sent Todds thoughts off in a direction he had been trying to avoid all day. He had been in class the day of the mutilations. He had seen a few eager boys starting to grab those sick little knives so they could cut the dead amphibians open. Girls squealed in revulsion, and it took all Todd had to not imagine it was him pinned down to that cutting board. Now Kurt had reminded him of it, and that sickening image made him do exactly what he had done last time.
"I gotta get outta here." Todd stood suddenly, the chair falling over in his haste. "I gotta get the hell outta this room!"
Kurt smirked at first, but then his eyebrows twitched in concern. Todd looked like he was about to hurl. He was going to say something, when the teacher entered.
"Take your seats, class." The teacher, a too-skinny, too-primped woman of about 50, strode over and set her books on the desk. "That means you, Tolensky. Don't make me give you detention in addition to your remedial work!" She glared sharply at the paler-than-usual boy.
Todd, eyes wide and breathing hard, simply gave a hateful glare at the teacher.
"Oh yeah, detention, how will I ever survive, yo?" Despite his panic, he had the sense to not provoke the teacher too much. He quickly turned his chair right way up and plopped down on it, scooting as far away from the table as physically possible. His eyes darted around, was it just him, or did the air smell of rubbing alcohol?
The teacher rummaged under the desk.
"Since all of you were absent or refused to participate in today's dissection.... unf." With a grunt of exertion, she plopped a large, clear tank onto her desk. In it, 4 or 5 frogs were suspended in formaldehyde. "We're lucky the school had enough leftovers for you all... Though you'll have to work in pairs." Kurt had to admit, his stomach turned a bit at the sight of those dead animals, and the smell of the chemicals invading his nose made his head spin. He glanced over at the Toad, feeling a small pinch of pity despite himself.
Todd was frozen in place. There they were, bodies of the innocent floating in the death fluid people claimed kept them 'sterile'. It was too much to bear, seeing them with eyes filmed over, once strong leg muscles floating limply. When Todd finally did regain his voice, only one sentence found its way out.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
The teacher had been shuffling under her desk for the tool kits. At the freshman's outburst, she smacked her head on the desk. She staggered to her feet, an expression of pure rage on her face. But the boy who had yelled the offending comment was nowhere to be seen.
"Tolensky?! TOLENSKY! Get back here THIS INSTANT!" She whirled around, looking for the stinking delinquent... But neither he nor Wagner were anywhere to be seen.
The stench of sulfur consumed the overly clean odor of death that Todd had smelled before. For a second he didn't know what happened, the room was spinning and he felt lightheaded. Suddenly he realized that he was now in the mens restroom, the one two halls away from the biology room. A soft, furry touch on his arm alerted him to the hand holding his now quivering limb. He stared at the floor, trying to get his breathing into a normal pattern.
"Why'd you do that, Wagner?"
Kurt thought about it. Why did he teleport? He panicked. He hated to see someone ostracized, targeted, just for being a certain way... Even if the one singled out -was- Tolensky. "I... I didn't vant to be graded by a teacher that riled up... And plus, I vasn't particularly excited by the idea of cutting up little dead things, anyway..." He held up his human hands, with their barely disguised, awkward fingers. "I'm not exactly built for... fine motor dexterity, ja?"
Todd gave a weak chuckle. "'Ja', I can see that, yo." He looked at the other side of the room, not so much to see anything there as to avoid Kurt's eyes. He could feel his chest constricting painfully, and he cursed at himself. In any other situation he would be putting the X-geek down for even thinking of helping him, but right now all he could think about were those corpses. "Doesn't...Doesn't it seem wrong, yo? What they're doing in there?"
"I mean, I can see -vhy- they do it... For the students to learn about anatomy, and vhateveh... But somehow, it does seem wrong." A flash of memory tugged at Kurt's brain. Tubes... lots of tubes. Inside him? And blinking monitors... and that man with the mask--He snapped back to the present. Where he was. Who he was talking to. "But... you don't need to be such a pussy about it, okay? Either suck it up and do it, or don't go. There's no need to make the administration take more notice of us than they do already."
Todd's head shot around to glare at Kurt, angry at the 'pussy' comment, and the fact that the fuzzy boy didn't get it.
"It doesn't matteh who does it, yo. What mattehs is that those pricks in there see those frogs as disposable, worth less than dirt. I can get eating frogs legs, gross as it is, because there's a PURPOSE to that shit. But in there they--they just rip them apart to see what's inside! They don't care if those frogs had a soul, or hope or happyness!"
Kurt leaned against the wall, suddenly very uncomfortable. It had been a bad idea to 'port them to such close quarters, especially with the other mutant being in such a volatile state. "Vell.... Sometimes, that's just the way the vorld is, Toad." Kurt said bitterly. "The strong people pick on the weak. If a guy in a lab thinks it's a good idea for high schoolers to kill a bunch of frogs, then teachers vill do it. If a politician thinks that some people should be segregated... then people vill follow him. If a guy looks different from other people, goes against the grain... " Kurt fidgeted with his inducer. "... I don't even know vhy I brought you here. I've got a danger room session to get to--" he moved as if to bamf away..
Todd instinctivly lunged at Kurt, grabbing the boys shirt and pulling him down to stare right into his eyes.
"Don't you give me that crap, too, Fuzzy, 'that's just how it is' doesn't justify anythin'! It don't justify excluding people, it don't justify ruining every fucking second of someones life, and it sure as hell doesn't justify murder!" Todd pushed Kurt away, angry and looking like he wanted to kick the heck out of something. "Isn't that what all you geeks up in that mansion think? Or are you telling me that I believe more in your motto than you do?!"
"Verdammt, Toad!" Kurt smacked his fist into the wall, cracking two of the off-white tiles. His tail, unraveled from around his waist, arced out from his pants and twitched angrily. "You think that's how I VANT it to be? That's vhy I'm fighting with the X-men! To try and make it so that the minority von't be persecuted anymore! But if I'm discovered, if I keep making scenes and using my powers stupidly like your brotherhood does, that could be -me- being experimented on! Sometimes it's best to just blend in... No amount of anger or shouting vill save those poor frogs anyway, now..."
"At least I'm fucking trying!" Todd yelled, "Even if they're dead, at least someone gave enough of a damn to give them an ounce of respect!" He stared, half at Kurt, half into space. "At least one person tried, at least just one." That was more than he had ever been given. He snapped out of his half daze, anger welling up and focusing on the tailed mutant before him. "At least ONE FUCKING PERSON cared more about them than A STUPID BIOLOGY QUIZ!"
"So vhat are you going to do about it?! Go get those frogs out of that tank? And get yourself suspended?! And vhat vould that do? Vould that really make you feel that much better?! The frogs would still be dead!" Kurt's body automatically shifted into his normal, leaning forward pose. Inhibitions gone, his tail whipped, and the unseen hair on his neck rose as his muscles tensed for an altercation.
Todd gave a strangled screech, lunging at Kurt full force and slamming into him. They landed on the floor with a thud, and Todd started fighting to stay on top of their two man dog pile.
"QUIT ACTIN' LIKE THEY DON'T MATTEH!"
Kurt struggled, arms and legs flailing violently. He managed to flip himself on top, and held Todd's shoulders to the cold tile.
"Quit acting like nothing else matters!!!" His last word was cut off abruptly as Todd's fist connected with his cheek.
Todd took advantage of the split second it took Kurt to recover from the blow; he gathered his legs up and kicked the X-man off of him, quickly following him and forcing himself on top again.
"None of you fucking X-men get it, you don't know what it's like to have no one care if you're alive or not!"
Kurt froze. He stared up into the other boy's pained amber eyes. Somewhere in the fighting, his image inducer had fizzled out, and he felt like those amber eyes were staring through his yellow ones and right into his core. A shudder passed through his body at those words, be it of pity or sadness or something else he didn't know, and he scooted slightly backwards. The other boy was still on him, but his own fuzzy back was up against the bottom of the bathroom stall and their faces were at the same level. Kurt just looked at him, speechless. He's right, Kurt didn't know what that felt like. He'd been lucky to have great foster parents, and now a group of classmates who cared about him... but Todd...
Todd didn't know why he said that, especially to Wagner; because as true as it was, he still hated to think about it. Yet those frogs in that tank, they reminded him so much of himself. Strange, hated, useless, and disposable. Those frogs had come into the world with no chance in life, they'd die alone and be cut up for science, the same future he saw for himself.
"No one cares about what happens to me, yo, and no one ever will." Dragging his now all too heavy body up off of Kurt, he struggled to find a position to stand in the cramped stall, avoiding Kurts eyes all the while. "I'm not gonna let those frogs be the same, expelled or not, I'm gonna give them some kinda funeral. They deserve that much."
Kurt half-leaned on the stall door, head still spinning. He hated to admit it, but Todd was right. What kind of X-man could he really be if he just let injustice stand? Those comments his rival had uttered hurt so much because they were true. He closed his eyes, and stood in a languid motion. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then turned to face the shorter boy. "Vhat the hell. Let's do it."
Todd stared at Kurt, he must have heard wrong. "You wanna help, yo?"
"Sure. I normally vould take any excuse to get as far away as I could from the Brotherhood's delinquent crap, but you've got a point." Kurt felt his pride deflate with this admitted defeat, and he grit his teeth. "I don't like saying this, but vhat kind of X-Man would let innocent lives be disrespected like this..." --unglaublich! saying this... to the TOAD....-- "....That teacher has it coming, anyway." A corner of his mouth pulled up into a rogueish smile. He never could resist a bit of adventure.
Todd just blinked for a moment, then slowly a smile spread across his face.
"Alright! Let's go save some frog souls, yo!" He was about to open the stall when he noticed something. "Er, Fuzzball, you might wanna fix yo' holo-watch thing first."