A/N: Sorry, Chantrea! Joviana just doesn't find Toad attractive--but I can see your point, when he's played by the amazing Ray Park. Hades started out as a god, but it became another name for Hell.

"What are you doing in my room—and on my computer?" asked the Toad.

While I avoid the labels of 'superhero' and 'supervillain', it has not escaped my notice that most of the 'heroes' tend to be well-built and good-looking, the exceptions being those who are homely but nice, like Ben Grimm. The 'villains', on the other hand, tend to be more varied in build and facial configuration, but they usually range from unappealing to hideous, taking in a number of deformities along the way. Victor, of course, occupies a category all his own.

(Women who go into the costumed adventurer business, on the other hand, almost always have breasts as large as their heads, which may explain my feelings of inadequacy in that department. It doesn't seem to matter where they stand in terms of good and evil. They also usually have skin like silk and hair that never goes frizzy, limp, or stringy. Some day I may ask Sue why this is.)

It is a terrible wrong to assume that goodness goes hand in hand with attractiveness, and immorality with the lack of physical beauty. It is superficial prejudice; it is wrong-headed and indefensible—and all the more so when people apply it to themselves.

That having been said, the Toad was not an attractive individual. He reminded me of nothing so much as a lump of earwax, and he was looking at me in a way I did not like…

"Checking my e-mail" I said, casually and naturally, while I closed Latveria-net.

He crossed the room to lean over my shoulder. Unfortunately, I was sitting on the bed, as it was the only place to sit other than the floor. But, so far, so good—he seemed to accept me as if Malice was the one in control.

"Uh-huh." He looked at the computer screen. "I thought you might have come by to give me a taste of what Doomsie's been getting before it's wasted."

My first thought was, 'Doomsie?' The Toad's proximity made my skin crawl, so I gave him a mocking smile, and said, "I don't think so."

"That's funny, because you never said no before—so you're not Malice!"

He didn't actually finish the sentence, for I was anticipating that, so I flipped the bedspread over his head and bashed his head in with his own laptop. It was extra heavy because of an anti-degaussing shield, which was needed to protect it from Magneto's powers. I threw the computer at his head and ran for the bathroom I had visited earlier. Noises behind me told me I had not knocked him out.

I prodded Malice mentally as I ran. 'How could you afflict yourself with that?'

'I might ask you the same question about Doom!' she retorted.

I was glad she couldn't access my memories, and I certainly wasn't going to probe hers on the topic of the Toad…

I could not know how close the pursuit might be. When I reached the bathroom, I slammed and locked the door behind me. It was also part of the shoddy do-it-yourself installation, as wood would not have survived the centuries of submersion. Intended more for privacy than for security, it was flimsily made, hollow and light. It was not much stronger than cardboard. It would splinter at the first hard blow.

I reached under the sink for the cleaners I saw earlier. Wrenching the tops off two of the bottles, I tucked one under my arm while I poured the contents of the other into a plastic bucket, my hands shaking. My eyes began to sting from the fumes.

I heard an animalistic roar. The door exploded in at me in a shower of wood fragments as something like a locomotive hit it. Sabertooth shook his straggly, straw-like mane as he bared his fangs at me in a terrible grin. "Hiya—."

I flung the bucket of pine-tar based concentrated cleaning solution in his face. The label says that you should not let it come into contact with the skin or the eyes, and if by chance it does, to flush well with plenty of clean water.

He let out a yowl like a house cat with a stepped-on tail, and began to claw at his eyes. I stepped back, and whipped the other bottle out from under my arm, aimed it at him—and squeezed. A stream of clog-dissolving gel splattered over his forehead and cheeks, and it was the thick, goopy kind that clings. Incredibly corrosive…

His yowls turned to screams, and he collapsed on to the floor. I shoved more bottles into the now-empty bucket, and leapt over him, out the door. I ran, clinging to the bucket as to my life, not knowing where I was going, knowing only that I had to get away.

Had Sabertooth been anyone else, I might have felt remorse. But he was a stone-cold killer, and he would heal completely, and fast. How fast I did not know; I hoped it would take longer than three hours, but even after he could see again, he wouldn't be able to smell anything but Pine-sol.

A/N: A mini-chapter. More soon.