Chapter Three: Takes Two To Tango
Sean almost choked on his juice when the bronze-haired girl entered the kitchen. If it wasn't for those bright green eyes, he wouldn't have even recognized it as Tobi. Alex looked at Sean in alarm as he coughed and pointed at Tobi.
"Dude…"
Alex found himself staring at the girl who was following Raven to the fridge. She had on a pair of cargo pants and a black scoop-neck shirt. That was Tobi? Damn, someone got hot. He didn't know a shower and some decent clothes could make such a huge difference. Still, hot or not, she'd shoved him up against a wall, so he continued to eat his cereal with an indifferent attitude.
Even Hank was staring in disbelief at the transformation, although it wasn't that he thought she was hot rather than because it was such a change from seeing her grubby and dressed as a street urchin. Raven caught him and frowned, waving a hand in front of his face with a heavy sigh. Finally she clicked her fingers and Hank snapped out of it.
"Boys. You're all the same."
Tobi was uncomfortably away of her metamorphosis. She felt like a caterpillar that had become a reluctant butterfly. She caught Alex looking at her with a frown and pulled the finger without thinking. Did he have to try and make her feel little all the time?
"What?" she snapped at him as his scowl deepened, "Quit staring, why don't you?"
Alex just rolled his eyes and continued to eat his weetbix. He didn't need to deal with this obnoxious little brat. She was just a kid. How old was she anyway, seventeen? Sean's jaw had dropped so far that Alex thought it would probably hit the floor. He nudged him in the side, refraining from rolling his eyes. Sean was like that with every girl – he'd eyed Raven and Angel off countless times as they passed him by.
"Close your mouth before you start to drool."
Sean nodded approvingly as Raven and Tobi went to sit in the dining room with Angel and Hank. There was a smug smile across his freckled face.
"She's hot, man."
Alex snorted into his cereal. That was also what Sean had proclaimed about both Raven and Angel, before both had shown clear disinterest. Darwin came into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of orange juice, unscrewing the lid and draining the rest of it. He put the empty container into the bin and moved around to smack Sean around the back of the head as the boy continued to stare at Tobi in awe.
"Is your power looking like an idiot?"
That evening, the teenagers – and admittedly, Darwin – sat around in the games room, attempting to get to know each other. Charles had got Hank to fill Tobi in on the details of the current missile crisis when she acknowledged the fact that she was going to be staying.
The crisis had been started by a man named Sebastian Shaw, but more than that Charles did not disclose. They didn't quite know how best to deal with the situation…in fact, Charles and Erik were currently in a discussion with Moira and other members of the CIA about the next step they were going to take.
Tobi found out that aside from Raven and Hank McCoy, these mutants had been recruited by Charles and Erik within the past few days. Despite his youth, Hank was a prodigy and had invented Cerebro, which Charles had used to find them all. His abilities consisted of being incredibly intelligent, as well as being very agile and fast.
Angel had previously been a stripper. Darwin used to work as a taxi driver. Sean was just your average teenager who hadn't yet gone into university. Alex had been accepted into military custody, a decision he'd made himself. Tobi was curious about this, but decided not to ask questions about his time spent in prison. Alex disliked her enough as it was.
"We should think of code names," Raven suggested enthusiastically, blue eyes glittering with excitement, "We're government agents now, we should have secret code names. I want to be called Mystique."
"Damn!" Sean exclaimed, leaning back in his seat and giving Raven the once-over, "I wanted to be called Mystique."
"Well, tough, I called it." Raven then morphed into Sean, causing the others to gasp in surprise, including Tobi, who hadn't known what Raven's ability was. "And I'm way more mysterious than you." She turned back into herself and then faced Darwin calmly, as if nothing had just happened. "Darwin, what about you?"
"Well uh…Darwin's already a nickname," Darwin confessed, getting to his feet, "And you know, it sort of fits. Adapt for survival and all."
To demonstrate, he plunged his head into the fishbowl and immediately grew gills. Everyone laughed and for the first time in ages, Tobi found herself laughing, too. Charles had been right. This was the sort of safety and security she'd been searching for. Finally, she'd found a place where she was accepted and she didn't have to hide her bizarre abilities.
"What about you?" Darwin addressed Sean, who grinned widely.
"I'm going to be…Banshee."
Hank looked a bit confused. "Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?"
Sean grinned. "You might want to cover your ears."
Everyone including Tobi immediately jammed their fingers in their ears as Sean opened his mouth and whistled. The window opposite them shattered and Sean laughed easily as everyone took their hands away and looked at him in astonishment. Sean leaned back against the couch with a Coke in his hand, clearly pleased with himself.
"My stage name is Angel," Angel confessed, getting to her feet, "It kinda fits."
The dark-haired girl shrugged off her jacket and turned around so that the black markings on her arms Tobi had assumed to be tattoos fluttered to life. They all watched with amazement as Angel hovered about a foot in the air and did a twirl.
"You can fly?" Raven asked incredulously.
"That's not it," Angel held up a hand and then opened her mouth and spat something acidic that hissed as it made contact with the statue that stood on the lawn outside. Everyone applauded and Angel descended back to the ground, folding back her wings.
"What's your name?" Angel asked of Hank, who flushed bright red and looked too embarrassed to answer.
Alex's lips curved into a smirk as he set his drink can down. "How about big-foot?"
"Well, you know what they say about big feet," Raven quipped, before she looked down at Alex's feet with raised eyebrows. "And your feet are pretty small…"
Tobi couldn't quite restrain a smirk as Alex glowered at Raven. Apparently, Alex just wasn't good with people in general. Maybe it had something to do with all the time he'd spent in isolation. Tobi felt a little sorry for him. He was probably just anti-social and didn't know how to communicate.
Angel turned her attention upon Alex. "What about you, Alex? What can you do?"
Alex's expression darkened and Tobi thought she might finally have found someone who was afraid of their power as she was. He got up and head towards the broken fragments of glass that had once formed the window. The others crowded around the window frame as Alex stepped outside, carefully sidestepping the shattered glass. He whirled around and glared as Tobi came out after him, a deadpan expression on her face. The others were watching apprehensively from the remains of the window Sean had shattered. Alex scowled as Tobi walked across and stood right in his range.
"Tobi, get out of the way. The rest of you, stand back."
Alex was annoyed as Tobi just smirked, folding her arms across her chest and raising her eyebrows.
"Hey, you're showing off your powers and I'm showing off mine. What's the matter, big guy? Scared you might hurt me?"
Alex glared. "Yeah, actually. You should be, too. Now get back inside. You're irritating, but I don't think Charles would like it if I killed you."
Tobi just shrugged as if it didn't make any difference to her. "You can try if you want."
Alex rolled his eyes as the others stuck their heads out. He was really started to get a little pissed off. Not only were the others in the way, but now Tobi was messing around…yet Alex felt that if she was so certain, perhaps she really did have something that could withstand his energy blast. Gritting his teeth, he summoned the energy to him and whipped it around in bright red circles.
Tobi just stood there for a few moments with a secretive smile that spread slowly across her face. As Alex blasted the energy, Tobi moved with a speed that made feel like a blur, narrowly missing the sonic beams that headed her away. The others clapped and cheered in awe as Alex and Tobi relaxed. Tobi shot Alex a smug look as they headed back inside the games room, as if to say 'I told you so'.
"You should be Havok!" Raven declared, pointing animatedly at Alex, "And Tobi…you can be Jett!"
"So what else can you do?" Raven asked as she painted Tobi's nails a fluorescent green. With Charles, Erik and Moira gone, Darwin and the teenage mutants had decided it was party time. Firstly, the girls had decided to have a 'girl's evening'. Tobi hadn't known what this even was until Angel and Raven had whisked her into Raven's room, started putting make-up on her and doing her hair, something she was totally new to.
After the girls were done dressing up, they planned to sneak out and Darwin said he would drive them to the nearest pub so that they could all get a drink. Raven hadn't been so sure about leaving the military complex when Charles had told them to stay put, but the others had won her over eventually.
"Well, just fast reflexes mainly. Oh and I can sense what sort of emotions other people are feeling…sometimes."
"Really?" Raven raised her eyebrows, looking impressed. "Can you tell what I'm thinking about right now?"
Tobi concentrated, focusing on Raven. Yep, she could feel the older girl's mixture of anxiety and excitement about the night out and Raven looked pleased when Tobi relayed her findings. Across the room, Angel was sorting through Raven's clothes. However, while Tobi and Raven were both 5'7, Angel was only 5'2.
"Most of your clothes are a little big on me," she sighed as she shrugged off a slinky green dress of Raven's that had gaped on her small frame. Then Angel paused, taking in Tobi's green eyes and the matching colour of the dress. "Alright, Tobi, you are so wearing this dress."
Tobi grimaced. "Shit, no. I'm not a dress person. I'm just going out in this."
Raven and Angel exchanged horrified glances as they looked at Tobi's tracksuit pants and long-sleeved white shirt. They were going out for a night on the town and she wanted to wear something incredibly casual? It just wouldn't do.
"No way, honey," Angel interjected, grabbing Tobi by the arm and pulling her to her feet with some force, "You trust Raven and I. Sorry if I sound rude, but you've been disguised as a boy for the past two years. Dressing up sexy is what girls do. So you just try on this green dress, okay?"
Angel had opted for a black dress that had little beads and threads coming off it, and silver high heels to make her look even taller. Her hair was left out and she'd put silver glitter over her eyes. Raven, on the other hand, was wearing a loose-fitting blue dress and flats. Reluctantly, Tobi pulled on the green dress. While it had been a bit loose on Angel, it fit her snugly. It clung to her like a second skin, showing off her curves. The low neck showed her cleavage and she fiddled with it, but Angel smacked her hands away.
"Relax. You look hot."
Tobi forced herself to have patience as the other two girls fiddled with her hair, then practically attacked her face with make-up. When they finally done torturing her hair and face, Raven and Angel released her and practically shoved her in front of a mirror.
"You definitely don't look like a boy now, sweetie," Angel remarked with a wicked smile.
Tobi's eyes were rimmed with black, bringing out the green of her eyes. Her already tanned skin had a nice shine to it and her lips were now cherry-red. This was a far cry from the girl who had posed as a fourteen-year-old boy.
"I'm not eighteen yet," she reminded the other two, refraining from biting on her lip, "I'm not supposed to be in a pub."
Angel winked at her. "Who's going to be able to tell? You look eighteen. Hell, I don't know how you even passed for a guy in the first place with a body like that."
Tobi felt her cheeks flaming red. "Is there something wrong with it?"
"Not at all," Raven convinced her firmly, "What we mean is, you're not exactly flat-chested or straight up-and-down."
Oh. Tobi got it now. "Well…I wore really loose clothes."
Raven just shrugged and Angel grabbed Tobi's hand, practically dragging her to the door.
"Come on. We have to show the boys how nice you are when you're all dressed up."
Tobi groaned. "Oh, God…"
