By Maikafuiniel
On a sidenote, I wrote this when I was drunk... after reading it through afterwords, it makes sense to me, but if it doesn't too you, I'll rewrite it again. Okay?
Chapter 3
The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.
Forge sat once again at his work table underneath the school. He preferred his lab at Xavier's institute, but… not everything he liked to work on was exactly the kind of thing he wanted a psychic knowing about. Stuff likes this. Failed experiments like this.
He had discovered what was wrong with the formula, though it had taken three full hours of staring mindlessly at the rats to find it. The formula was, god forbid, working backwards. Not only that but it wasn't something that happened as soon as the formula was drank. About three hours after he had gotten back to bed after the Brotherhood house fiasco he had a brainstorm and run to the lab. When he had gotten there he had noticed it…
Something was off…
He checked up on the animals, and sure enough it was actually that they were younger. The mice had gotten younger then they were when he had given them with the formula.
With that thought in his head he had gone into the science, trying to find out exactly what was going to happen if one of the Brotherhood members drank it. It was simple enough; if they drank it they would de-age by about a month. Nothing so noticeable in a human, even if it was in a rat. However he knew that there were going to be variables, especially if Toad had drank it, being sick and all.
Taking samples of the virus he had forced it to interact with his formula, and he had discovered something odd… the virus that had only affected people with the X-Gene forced a mutation in the formula itself. It affected the formula, making the formula effect it from there. It was quite a head turner in the end.
When he had it all figured out, he realized that were Toad the one to drink it, his X-Gene would be the thing the was de-aged; but because a gene doesn't age, it would do the best it could and de-evolve. If Toad was the one who drank it… he would de-evolve. He would be the human he would have been naturally had he never been a mutant.
It was an incredible discovery; though it left him with an incredible dilemma. He had discovered a cure for mutations… but mutations were a natural cause of evolution. Should he share his secret, and let people who would have been forced into a sort of exile like the Brotherhood had been, into a better life? Or should he let things be as they should be? As nature intended?
Carefully putting down the half bottle of the formula that he had left, he turned around. He was going to go back to bed, and whatever happened… would happen. He wouldn't tell anybody for now, but if he ever had to then it was there and ready.
As soon as he spun around however, he saw the clock. Passed eight, he realized with a start. There would be people looking for him. They would be asking questions…
He opened the door to his lab and walked out- and straight into somebody's chest. Looking up he saw the face of one Lance Alvers, and behind him his group of merry miscreants. Problem was they all looked extremely, extremely pissed off.
"Um… hi?" he said, knowing that he was going to be in a lot of trouble.
He didn't know how much though, even when Mystique began to drag him away by his ear like an angry mother.
Magneto sat in his, for all intents and purposes his throne, watching as the young man in front of him stutter and stammered through his tale. He hadn't told it easily, and Magneto had to threaten to blow up an elementary school before he would even say his name.
Slowly he stood, and for the first time took a long look at the boy he had long known as a smelly Toad. It was amazing, the change he had gone through, even if the boy didn't seem to agree. He looked, god forbid, good. Healthy. Strong.
He looked like the complete opposite of Todd Tolansky.
With a quick flick of his wrist Gambit knew to pull Forge off, towards the laboratory where Forge would work for him. Sure, he wouldn't want to, but that was really a moot point.
With a quick look at the group in front of him he said, "We can use this to our advantage, I'm sure. Everybody who knows what's happened works for us, or is being locked up as we speak."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Mystique asked, knowing that the boys, as stupid as they were, were not stupid enough to question Magneto. "As far as I can see all this means is that were a team member short! He can't fight like this Magneto, and from what I can see it's not going to wear off."
Magneto gave her a long look before saying, "Mystique. Take the boys," he pointed at Lance, Freddy, and Pietro, "and go back to the Boarding house. If anybody asks, Todd Tolansky ran away. He was tired of the fighting. The household violence. Anybody whose heard of the Brotherhood will believe that."
He turned to Todd then, who was trying to shy into a wall as to stay as far away from his view as possible. "And as for you, we'll talk somewhere else. I can't risk that anybody will overhear us, even here."
With that he walked from the room, his cape flowing out from behind him. Todd looked at him in fear, knowing he was expected to follow, but all he wanted was to leave with his friends. Fights and hard life or not, the Brotherhood was what he knew. And being part of some new and bizarre plan (and Magneto did tend to have some really weird ones), was something he wanted to be as far away from as possible.
As the deep metal door slammed behind him though, he ran to catch up with Magneto- stopping himself from tripping by staring at his feet as he did so, carefully making sure that they landed as was normal for a human.
The room was completely empty, except for a small air vent in the ceiling with many devices pointed at it; just in case a certain shape shifter decided to come in uninvited. Toad saw a small spider crawl out, and within seconds it was crispy fried by a laser.
"So." Magneto said, as he spun to face the younger boy, "Toad."
"Um… yes sir?" was the scared reply.
"As you can see, this new development has some interesting perspectives. You look like a literal new person. Your… scent before, for lack of a more polite term, was a side effect of your mutation, so you even smell like a new person now. Without a six foot tongue in your mouth your voice is even different."
"You're point being, Yo?" Toad asked, getting confused and fed up. His feet hurt, his mouth felt weird without a tongue inside of it, and he knew he was going to over-balance again at any moment.
"My point being that with your looks and scent alone, you could have almost the complete institute under the belief that you are, quite frankly, not Todd Tolansky." He looked Toad directly in the eyes, and smiled. "I've been looking for a new lead into the institute Todd, somebody I knew was on our side- but could fake being with Xavier's group well enough. If we were to do some work on your voice… some slights to make sure you can balance well enough, and even fight with a more natural grace then you have now, I have no doubt in my mind you could be a first class spy."
Toad looked at him for a full minute before breaking into full blown laughter. He ended up on his back, clutching his sides, for almost a full minute before he could stop. "You mean you want me," he pointed at himself for measure, "To just waltz up to the Xavier institute and have them take me in? Not gonna' work yo, I can tell you that now."
"And just why is that?" Magneto asked patiently.
"Well for one thing if Todd Tolansky disappears one day and a new mutant comes up the next, they're going to know something's up."
"So we don't send you in for a month," Magneto explained, "It will give us some time for you to work on being a new and improved you anyway."
"Fine," Todd agreed, "What about the voice then? They're going to recognize me, yo. And I do have a certain catch phrase, if you haven't noticed, that's really obvious."
"Ah yes," Magneto agreed with an evil smile, "I have an idea about that too. I have a new colleague, Mastermind. He changes memories. All we have to do is alter your memories so that you remember the lat few years, your entire life even, of people talking with say… a heavy British accent. You'll quite naturally pick it up from there. Some vocal work on top of that and I don't see why you couldn't fool even Wolverine."
Todd looked at him in amazement, almost desperate to find something to call against Magneto, to stop the entire masquerade before it even began. "Okay yo," he said, "What about my mutation? From what Forge says I ain't got one anymore."
Magneto stopped for a moment to think of a response, but before Toad could feel as though he had won the battle, he smiled. "Of course," he said quietly to himself, before saying, "I was trying to discover a new way to hide my own mind from Xavier over the last few ways, and did find a way to do so- however because of my own mutation the interaction cancels out anything that would have come from the mental blocker."
"What do you mean yo?" Toad asked in confusion.
"If we implant you with a chip that I had in fact meant for myself, Xavier will be unable to read you. Therefore your mutation can be mental blocking; he doesn't know I've discovered such a technology. It would also give a reason as to why Cerebro never found you."
"There's even a story behind it, yo!" Toad said, getting a bit excited now. It actually sounded like it was going to work! "Say I have a father whose a mutant, but doesn't want to admit it. He's a telepathic or something and can't read me, so he knows I'm a mutant too. When he finds out people are discovering he's a mutant he pushes attention to me and I have to run away. Wha-la! A reason to stay at the institute, trying to escape a bunch of Brits who want to do me in for being a mutant."
Magneto smiled and nodded just enough that Todd could see it.
"And now a name," Magneto said quietly after a moment. "I understand that Marina Tolansky was your mother?"
Todd nodded sadly. Remembering his mother wasn't exactly his favourite past-time. "And what was your fathers?"
Todd was about to say when he jerked back. "No way, yo! No way am I gonna' go by that bastards name!"
"Toad…" Magneto nearly growled, "What was the mans name?"
He flinched at the tone, and knew that one on one with Magneto was not a good idea. After almost a full name he nearly whispered, "Mortimer Toynbee."
"Mortimer…" Magneto tested, looking at him, "I wouldn't have thought it to look at you before all this, but it does suit you rather well. From now on, if you even think of yourself as Todd Tolansky, you will go through hell and back."
Todd nodded.
Magneto stood then, and turned to leave. At the door however, he turned back. "The way you look now Mortimer, is just a basis. We'll have you changed so much within the next month that even the Brotherhood members won't recognize you. I'll have Mastermind in to see you soon enough… but until you go back you are not to have any contact with anybody but he and I. Understand?"
Todd nodded glumly, and slumped back into a barely noticeable chair in the corner of the room. It was behind where Magneto had been standing, so he hadn't noticed it at first. "Until then," Magneto said as he waved one hand. A panel in the wall moved aside, and behind it were several books- they looked to be about things like mechanics and building. One even had piloting marked across the front, "Keep yourself occupied with these. If you're going to be a new person, even to the Acotolytes, you might as well have some noticeable difference in intelligence."
And with that he left, leaving Todd all alone.
This chapter, I would like to dedicate to Invader Nina, whom I sometimes think is stalking me. :) She reviews more then a few of my stories, and I love having her input! Here's to you Invader Nina!