By Maikafuiniel
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
Lance parked his jeep, trying not to notice that the wheels of his oh-so-important car had left skid marks in the driveway, and jogged up to the house. The feeling as though something was wrong was coming to him now like a waterfall, but he just couldn't face it… couldn't understand what it was.
What could one X-Geek do? What kind of power did the boy have anyway, he had never asked. With a jerk of his head he berated himself for not knowing what he should have about his enemy. What kind of team leader let these things go unnoticed? You could be sure that were one of their group to get a new power or new mate, the professor and Logan would know about it in moments.
Stepping inside the doorway he could see the faint sounds from the television, still on and playing. There was Toad, wrapped up tightly on the couch. His hair was tasselled just enough to make him look like a younger child. Lance smiled when he noticed that the boy was much darker now, the paleness only around his eyes and on the middle of his cheeks. He was even smiling, probably from a good dream involving Wanda.
When Toad made a slight sound, as though something had disturbed him, Lance took a step towards the television. He turned it off, engulfing himself in the darkness, and made his way to the kitchen where there was several empty plastic bags on the table. He smiled at the thought of having a real breakfast in the morning, and decided that maybe Forge was just being paranoid, walking so close to the Brotherhood house so late at night…
Lance yawned deeply then, and decided to head off to bed. Unless Mystique had been murdered during the night, which he seriously doubted, there would have been some kind of indication of trouble.
It was about six o'clock in the morning when the first rays of light managed to make it through the slight crack in the curtains, shining right into the face and the eyes of Todd Tolansky. He blinked several times, but his eyes adjusted quickly to the brightness.
Slowly he rolled over, revelling in how comfortable he was, smothered under all of the blankets. But after a moment he realized that he was hot. Boiling in fact, and he needed air… it surprised him, because he had never really been overly hot. He was cold-blooded, and when he got warm it just meant he would be all the more awake. He was never uncomfortably boiling.
Tossing off the covers aside with his legs he sat up carefully and put his feet on the ground, all the while trying to find any trace of the illness that had been after him for almost three days. But he smiled when he realized that he didn't just feel good… he felt great! He felt as though a large weight had been lifted off of his chest, and his shoulders, and everywhere. It was strange, but he could almost imagine he felt lighter then before. More balanced.
Cheerfully he stood up to go to the bathroom- and fell right back on the couch. "Yo," he muttered quietly through the blankets that had fallen right onto his face.
He mumbled several curse words that were unintelligible through the covers, and again tried to stand- and fell right back over again. Something was overbalancing him, he knew, and so he sat back more comfortably then the last time, and took a look at his legs and feet. They looked normal. They felt normal.
But something was wrong, he couldn't seem to balance as much as he wanted to.
Putting both hands on the side of the couch, he stood up, careful to put all of his balance on leaning on the couch. When he was finally standing he shuffled his feet until he felt he could stand up, and took his hands off the couch. It was working, he thought in amazement. The strange thing was he was standing in a way that he had never done before.
His feet… were flat on the ground. Not balancing on the front as though he were going to jump, or on the balls as though he were going to do a back-flip. He was just… standing. Standing like normal person would.
It felt strange.
He took a careful step forward, watching as his feet moved to stay flat on the ground- using his whole foot at once. It was strange, he had never actually used his whole foot at once. It was either the back or the front and this, this was just weird.
When he was sure he had gotten the hang of walking, he decided to go upstairs and take a shower. The stench of vile was still hanging around him, and now that his nose wasn't plugged it was coming at him at all force. But it wasn't just the puke, he could smell something else too. Something damp, moist, and moulding.
Shuddering at the scent he went upstairs to the bathroom, carefully holding onto the hand rail the entire time. Just because he was quickly getting the hang of using his whole feet to push himself from the ground, it didn't mean he trusted himself to use the stairs. He couldn't imagine how anybody could walk like this, and promised himself that he would find out what had happened to his legs as soon as he hand a shower and got rid of the horrible smell.
Walking into the bathroom he went straight to the shower, knowing that if he didn't get the stench off him he was likely to get sick again. Turning on the water he stepped in, but shivered at how cold it was. He had never had a problem with water temperature before, but obviously something was wrong…
As he stood in the shower, actually using shampoo and conditioner in his hair without a second though, he wondered what could have happened to make him feel so different. To actually have to walk different. To feel temperature in a way that he hadn't before. Hs first thought was the illness, but a lot of people had had it, and they hadn't had their mutations changed at all during their sick time. Another thought was that he might have been overly-stressed when he was sick, bringing out another type of mutation. After all, he was only sixteen and some people didn't even start getting their mutations until around now.
That thought in his mind he continued to wash his hair, watching in facination as the water came from the showerhead clean, but slowly turned a dark rotting brown colour as it rolled through his hair and over his shoulders. He couldn't remember the last time he had used shampoo or conditioner, and so decided that this must be a product of it. When the water was finally running clean again he took a bar of soap gingerly, trying to ignore the slippery gross feeling he got when he held it- but this felt different too.
Before today he had always hated soap, because it felt like it was sticking to him; all the more gross then normal dirt or slime. But now it felt as though it just slipped onto him, and when the water ran across his skin it came away easily, bringing with it dirt like he couldn't believe.
When he had washed his whole body, shocked and surprised at how much dirt was coming off of his now, he wondered why he had never noticed quite how much dirt he had picked up. Sure, he showered every month, but the gross-ness never came off like this. Before it almost looked like his skin was just a darker colour, but now when he used the soap he could see an extreme white colour of skin underneath. For almost forty five minutes after that he scrubbed his body until every inch of him was that same colour.
The colour of Pietro's skin.
Normal skin.
"What the fuck is wrong with me, yo?" he asked himself rhetorically as he turned off the tap.
Opening the curtain he was shocked at just how much steam had built up during his time in the water, and walked up to the mirror. He wanted to see what he looked like now; pale and sick probably, after just getting over a major illness and maybe even getting a new mutation.
Walking up to the mirror he looked into it, quickly wiping away a bunch of the steam that had built up on it, causing his reflection to be distorted and smothered. And when he saw what he saw… he couldn't help himself.
He screamed.
Lance lay comfortably in bed, his covers pulled right up over his head, as he listened to the sound of pounding water in the bathroom. For a moment he considered going out there and pounding on the door to make Pietro hurry up, but decided in the end that it wasn't worth it.
He couldn't understand how a boy who had so much trouble standing in place for more then three minutes, and absolutely no chance of standing in place for more then five, could possibly spend near to an hour in the bathroom. Lance understood how hard it probably was to get his wings just right, but it didn't change the fact that there were four other people in the house who were going to want to use the bathroom- and one of them was a very blue, very angry woman.
When he heard the tap finally turning off, he pulled himself out of bed sadly, and grabbed the blue towel that was hanging off the end of his bed. He was going to have to make his shower fast, he knew, but to not shower at all would probably be just what Kitty needed to decide she hated him once and for all. And that was something that he just couldn't test.
Suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream coming from the bathroom, and it took him a moment to understand that it wasn't Pietro… actually, it sounded like a distorted version of Toad, though that made no sense to him.
Grabbing his pants he ran for the bathroom, where both Mystique and Freddy already stood, about to try and bust their way in. He said "Stop," quickly though, before the Blob could throw himself at the door, and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. "I've got a debit card in here," he continued, "I'll just jimmy my way in so we don't have to replace the door."
Mystique nodded, though the Blob looked disappointed at the thought of losing his chance to bust down the door. Quickly the door was pushed open, and a cloud of steam billowed out at the trio, making them blind to anything happening in the bathroom, giving Toad a chance to grab a towel and cover himself up.
Mystique had spent the an almost unforgettable (though not in a good way) part of her life with the little slime ball, and she knew exactly what he looked like. But when she saw the boy in the bathroom both of her eyes opened widely; as did Freddy's and Lance's.
"Toad?" she asked, and it was the first time in her life she could ever remember her voice sounding weak.
"Yo, what the fuck is wrong with me?" he said, just as startled.
Toad looked like a completely new person. Surprisingly tall, as tall as Mystique at least. Long legs, still well muscled but it a more natural human way. His skin was a very light pink, like somebody who stayed generally clean but spent most of their time in the basement. His hair was pitch black, wet and sticking up in some places, but those were the major changes. The changes that had shocked her were to his face.
For as long as Toad could remember his face seemed wider then it was long, because he needed big cheeks to hold in his six feet of tongue. Now his face was slimmed down, with a well defined and much larger jaw and chin. His lose was longer, and didn't end in quite the same point as before, and his eyes were a much more natural size. Not only that but now there were an emerald green versus the slime that they were before.
And he had virtually no odor. …At least, not comparatively.
"Oh my god…" Lance said, "Look at you… you look completely different!"
"I know, yo!" Toad said, scared and worried, "I just saw me! And I've been doing weird things all day! I even have to use my whole foot to walk! And I jumped in shock when I saw the mirror… and I only came a foot or two off the ground!"
Mystique's eyes tracked him for a moment, thinking about what could have possibly caused this. With a sudden turn she looked straight at Lance. "Did you leave anything in the fridge yesterday? Any kind of drink? Or did Quicksilver?"
Lance shook his head in confusion. "No, I didn't, and I don't think Pietro did either… why?"
"We found it in the fridge and we thought that one of you had left it for Toad… it did make him feel better. It's the only cause for such a drastic change that I can see, unless you three idiots have any better ideas?"
Freddy and Toad both shook their head miserably as Toad sat on the edge of the tub, his head in his hands. Lance however had an idea. "Oh! That Forge kid, I saw him last night heading home. He had to have passed the Brotherhood house for sure! I bet he did this!"
Toad stood up quickly at the words, however fell back again when he over-balanced. Freddy caught him and helped him back to his feet as Toad said, "Okay then. Let's go find out what that seventies fuck-up did to me."
With that they all headed towards the door, only stopping when Pietro zipped into the room. "Hey," Pietro said before anybody had a chance to explain, "Who-the-hell-is-he?"
A/N: From now on (to make sure I get at least one review from every reader, lol) I'm going to devote each chapter to one of my reviewers. All you have to do is click the button, and one of the chapters will eventually be yours! So come on, come all, and review review review!