Chapter 4: what the…??

Lance came down from his room to see Pietro all ready to go, by the looks of it he hadn't slept a wink. Pietro looked at him and then got up.

"You coming?" he said. "I want to get this over with"

"yeah I'm worried about him too" Lance muttered and grabbed his keys "come on then, our little paitent is probably wondering where we are!"

When they got there they were greeted by an angry Scott.

"Nice plan but I think you blew it" he growled.

"Excuse me?" Lance asked.

"Your so called 'dying' friend attacked Mr Mcoy and trashed the medical bay!" Scott explained, Lance and Pietro rushed past him to the medical bay to find Hank shaking his head and wiping slime off his coat. The floor, wall and even the ceiling was coated in green slime everything was dripping with the stuff.

"Where's Fred?" Pietro demanded "He was suppose to watch him!"

"I don't know, I came in here when I heard Fred call out for help saying Toad was going nuts. By the time I managed to get the door open he attacked me and then crashed through the window" he explained pointing to a shattered window.

"Okay so where did Fred go? That window is too small for him" Pietro asked "And more to the point how the hell did Toad attack Beast?"

"I'm more concerned of where Fred is" Lance said when a pile of slime shuddered behind him, he spun around and saw the tip of a massive familiar trainer.

"Fred!" he cried and began to dig him out, he uncovered Fred's face and he gave a moan. "Come on buddy speak to me"

"uhh…Toad" he mumbled.

Fred sat there recovering as Hank did a test on the sample of slime, he looked up at the computer screen.

"Amazing" Xaviar declared "This substance has paralyzing propetires"

"ugh! Tell me something I don't already know!" Fred exclaimed "My head is still spinning"

"Okay how about this, how the hell did a guy we all assume was dying attacked Beast and bring down Blob!" Scott demanded.

"the last thing I remember is waking up to see Toad going nuts, he was acting like his head was about to explode or something the way he kept grabbing his head like that" Fred explained "Then he leapt up knocked me to the ground and slimed me to the wall"

"yes but there is no way Toad can produce this much slime like this as he does" Xaviar mused and Fred shook his head.

"Nah he wasn't spewing it, it was coming out of his hands!"

"Okay can someone say like 'eeeuw!'" Kitty shuddered "And I thought he was gross before"

"oh this is bad" Hank said "The blood test just finished, it isn't good"

"What!" Pietro cried "what the hell is wrong with him!"

"Well we all know Toad's body isn't that of your average person, his mutation has allowed his body to take on ambihibian qualities" Hank began.

"Thank you Mr Obvious" Pietro exclaimed "that's why we call him TOAD!"

"Yes but it also means his body produces chemicals different to us, when he drank the Power8 the chemicals in it that are dangerous to mutants haven't damaged him they're accelerating his mutation far quicker than he can handle" Hank explained.

"So he isn't dying he's just becoming more powerful?" Lance asked "Why is that Bad news?"

"nah he means it's bad news for the X-men not us" Pietro explained.

"Uh no that's not what I meant" Hank declared "You remember what happened when Jean's powers had a growth spurt"

"Oh yeah the freaking out and warping of the manison" Kurt said.

"Since Toad's powers are of an animal nature he's proably gone feral to deal with his mutation" Xaviar declared "He's proably run off to the nearest place that seems safe for him"

"Local woods" Lance declared "That's where he always go when he has a tantrum"

"Okay people let's suit up, we get Toad and bring him back here" Scott declared "We don't want him attacking any innocents"

"Err Excuse me!" Lance shouted "This is our friend mate we're talking about!"

"Which is why we need to bring him back here so we can help him" Xaviar declared "we can use the serum we created to help with Evan's mutation but to do that…" he stopped "We'd have to inject him with it"

"Great!" Lance groaned "Toad's gone nuts and you want us to approach him with the one thing he hates mosts, oh I bet he'll love us"

"That's why he have to restrain him, come on" Jean declared.

"Dude have you seen Toad when he's on a suger high or something! He's like a crazed boucing ball there's no way we can catch him!" Pietro cried.

"I thought you were 'the fastest mutant' out?" Wolverine smirked.

"Yeah on the ground! Toad sticks to the trees and high up and he hops around so fast not even I can keep up with him!" Pietro exclaimed "He's like this Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing!" he added flicking his finger around in random directions to show what he going on about.

"Well we won't catch him here" Beast declared "I'll bring the antidote"

They came to the woods, they were dark and murker and only little trickles of light managed to pentrate the gloom of the trees. Cyclops, Jean, Shadowcat, NightCrawler, Beast and Wolverine was accompanying Quicksilver and Avalanche.

"Do you have any idea how to get Toad to stand still?" Quicksilver whispered.

"Not a clue, normally it's Fred that calms him down not me!" Avalanche muttered back "He never said how he did it"

"Would have been good if he came then wouldn't it?"

"Fred could barely stand how the hell was he gonna keep up let alone catch him?" Avalanche growled.

They walked deeper and deeper into the wood until Kitty tripped and went face first into a puddle, she looked up to see she was covered in slime.

"Eeew…eeeww…EEEWWW!" she shrieked.

"Whoa…if you think that's gross Kitty check this out" Scott muttered they all looked to see the surrounding area was laced and covered with slime, all the trees were webbed together with it.

"Okay Beast you're the supposive expert, care to explain this?" Lance demanded.

"Some animals do mark their terriotory, but this is first time I've heard ambihibians doing it" Beast muttered, Wolverine sniffed the air and growled.

"He's here somewhere"

"Err…if this is his territory…and we're invading it, then won't he attack?" Kurt mumbled, suddenly a loud angry hiss echoed through the shadows.

"That'll be a yeah!" Scott yelped he clicked his visor and sent out a bolt of red energy, a branch fell down smouldering and they froze as they glanced around trying to see where their attacker was coming from. Toad leapt down and kicked Cyclops away into a tree and with two hands full, slimed him to a tree.

"Oh gross he likes gets grosser by the second!" Kitty declared.

"Scott!" Jean cried and tried to grab a hold of Toad but he bounced away and slimed her in the face and then kicked her into the tree. Wolverine growled and leapt forward but once again Toad leapt away and into the trees, Wolverine slashed the tree and knocked it down but Toad had already hopped to the next tree.

"Splut!" Wolverine fell to the floor when a slimeball smacked him hard in the chest, he tried to get up but Toad kept barraging him until he was smothered.

"Toad just took down Logan!" Lance cried out.

"If he was conscious of this he would be loving it!" Pietro laughed suddenly Kitty and Beast cried out as they were attacked and slimed, Kurt looked around nervously only to be attacked and knocked out before he could teleport to safety. Toad landed in front of Avalanche and Quicksilver hissing menacingly.

"Okay Toad remember us? We're your buddies!" Lance said carefully "You don't want to attack your buddies right?"

Toad hissed loudly and leapt forward Quicksilver picked up Lance and made a break for it, Toad threw a slimeball and it landed on Pietro legs.

They had gotten out of the woods before Pietro fell down, resulting in a mutant duo tangle. Pietro rubbed his legs manically.

"I can't feel my legs!" he screamed "he's paralyzed my legs!"

"Easy Pietro, just calmed down" Lance said and rubbed off the slime "I'll help you walk until the goo wears off.

"He took out the X-men…on his own! He didn't even break a sweat!" Pietro cried out as they staggered back to the jeep

"He did didn't he? He also took out Beast who had the antidote too" Lance muttered "Aww man what do we do now?"