Chapter Six- Rage and Regret
Toad looked at the letter carefully, then sent it to the wind, not bothering to look at what was inside the package. He just left it in the pack, and lay back down.
Fuck. He didn't need anyone's sympathy. Everyone feel sorry for the poor deformed mutant. He thought to himself. Pity. He coulda turned out to be something.
Something. Something. He laughed bitterly, tears welling up in his fierce golden eyes. Something.
Rogue's stomach clenched as they rode over New York, memories that had been carefully repressed suddenly rushing forward. They had been so well repressed, that she didn't even know that she had them.
"Mortimer, take a load off. Ya don't have to keep this thing under constant care, I'll take care of it." A voice, a voice that sounded of thousands at once. A voice of a shape shifter.
Rogue opened her eyes to see that she was in a helicopter- high above the Atlantic Ocean. A black cadaver bag was rolled up to her waist, her hands were bound with coils of…steel. Handiwork of Magneto no doubt.
She panicked, her eyes darting around the cabin. A feral looking man and her elderly magnetic captor sat across from her, both deep asleep. A man with a greenish cast to his skin sat to her left, staring moodily out the window.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked, her voice quivering.
The man turned to her, gold eyes of an amazing intensity falling upon her. He looked upset. "Home." And with that vague uttering, he turned back to the sea.
"Who are you?" she asked softly.
"Toad." He muttered, without looking away from the window, a slight bite to his voice.
"What…what's you're real name?" she asked even more gently this time- the man seemed kind.
"None of your damned bloody business." He said, turning to her with a sardonic smirk and an angry gleam in those…almost frightening eyes.
"Mind your manners, my amphibious friend." Interjected the multi-voice from the cockpit jovially. "Just because I'm piloting your 'baby' doesn't mean you have to be rude to our guest."
"Knowing you, You'll crash the damn thing." He grumbled back.
Rogue looked down at her hands. Bare. She couldn't believe this- her captors were making small talk with their prisoner? Did they not care that she was scared out of her wits? She swung her bound hands at the green man's face in rage. He caught her hand before it made contact, but this made no difference. He stared at her in horror and hatred, and fell to the floor.
She blinked, finding another voice accompanying Erik, Logan, and Cody. A quiet, spiteful voice, joint with memories she dare not unfold.
Mortimer didn't recall the incident with Rogue either- a bolt of lightning and a concussion will do that to a person. He lay on the flat slab of rock, and eventually fell asleep. He felt he had nothing to fear in Central Park. Nothing to fear…anywhere. How wrong he was.
The Blackbird landed smoothly in the darkened clearing in which Mortimer lay. The four X-Men looked at their target, stunned. Logan was the first to recover.
"Let's pack it up, and move it out." He grumbled. The others nodded. Toad was obviously injured- his face was more off-colour than usual. Logan picked him up, and carried him to the jet without so much as a twitch. He was out like a light.
Mortimer woke up inside the Blackbird, the X-Woman Rogue by his side. He didn't bother struggling- he was strapped in much too tight. So he sat, staring forward. Rogue turned to him.
"You're awake."
"Am I?" yawning, he looked around the cabin. "Oh bless. You sent the whole team? I feel loved…we can 'ave ourselves a little welcoming party. Of course, I'll have to get some tips from that Stuart woman. It's really quite hard to liven up a jail cell…"
"Shut your mouth, Toad." Spat Storm, who was seated across from him.
"I'd like to see you make me, 'Storm'."
"I have once." Ororo's eyes went white for a moment, grinning. Mortimer's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, and spat a portion of slim on to the weather witch's face.
Nightcrawler 'bamfed' over to their prisoner, three large fingers closed around his neck. "Get that off of her! NOW!"
"My skin is the only thing that can get it off." He said, grinning.
Rogue bit her lip, closed her eyes, and concentrated on her newly-acquired persona. Toad looked on in horror as her skin tinged green, and her eyes glittered with a familiar light.
The solution from Rogue's fingers soon dissolved the scum, leaving Storm coughing, and panting for breath. She shot Toad a venomous glare, and requested she take the controls in place of Logan.
