It felt like a battle theme music should start playing, but it didn't. No epic music ensuring a mostly happy ending, just the sound of heavy, nervous breathing, and a snarling sound from Sabretooth. When Magneto rapidly realized that the newcomers weren't going to make the first move, he made a hand gesture. It was just a small gesture, but Toad and Sabretooth seemed to know exactly what it meant, and charged.
Sabretooth, it appeared, was heading towards John, which was fine with Claudia. She had a plan. Maybe. Letting herself become invisible, she moved towards Toad, hoping he didn't have any fancy way to tell where she was, like Sabretooth did. She wasn't quite prepared for the sight of Toad's impossibly long tongue shooting out of his mouth against her and wrapping itself around her torso. That was unexpected. The words "Oh my gear god, eeewwwww" shot through her head. Luckily, he only had one of her arms pinned, and as he lifted her -still with his tongue, still oh so disgusting- closer to himself, a plan appeared in her mind. The unpleasant and unexpected sensation was however enough to make her lose her concentration, and by the time she was more or less face to face with him, both faces were visible. She still did remembered something, though, something that might work.
She made a lucky guess, and stuck her hand into his jacket pocket, fumbled for half a second, and closed her fingers around a tiny rectangle. And before Toad had quite grasped what she was attempting to do, and what on earth her hand was doing inside his pocket, she tossed the lighter over to John. He, amazingly, was alert enough to catch it out of the air. He barely managed to dodge a punch from the furry Sabretooth, and clicked open the lighter to reveal a tiny flame. He grinned, and a sudden, and, by the confused, dog like look on Sabretooth's face, unexpected fireball.
"Stupid bitch," Toad muttered at Claudia, with a look of repressed amusement. He pushed her against the wall, and a look of revulsion appeared on her face as he spat some kind of disgusting gooey mass at her hands. It seemed to harden ridiculously fast, and she found herself unable to move her hands. She was just about to shout at John that he had to get her out of this stuff, when Toad seemed to have the same idea, and she shortly found her lower face completely encased in the hard, foul smelling goo. The man must have horrible breath, she reasoned. She also reasoned that she was incredibly lucky not to have had time to open her mouth to shout.
John was doing fairly well with Sabretooth, she observed from her position on the wall. Although the more feral man seemed to cope well with the fireballs frequently thrown at his face, John was managing to keep him out of punching reach. She noticed, also, that the burns on the larger man's face healed within seconds. Damn, that was cool. She noticed ,too, that John seemed to be getting tired. His flaming bursts seemed smaller, and he was not alert enough to avoid Toad's tongue wrapping around the lighter in his hand and ripping it away.
"Hey!" he shouted halfheartedly, before a final punch from Sabretooth knocked him to the ground. Suddenly the large room was very silent. It lasted a few moments, and then came a clapping sound.
"Well done, you two might actually have some potential," Magneto said, his face a mixture of surprised and pleased. "You will start training soon. The human menace is not resting, and neither should we be. Toad, help them get more properly settled in. And take better care of your possessions next time." This last was said with a somewhat stern look. He left the room, and Sabretooth followed him, snarling viciously at John, who flinched where he sat.
"Oi, get up and follow me," Toad said to John, and started walking towards the exit. John did as told, and neither of them seemed to remember Claudia. She tried to shout, but the muffled sounds came out too low, even to her own ears. She tried kicking the wall behind her. It made her feet hurt – she hoped someone would give her some shoes soon –. It didn't make any sound, either. Were they really going to just leave her here? Did this stuff ever crack? How the hell was she going to get loose? She was getting mildly claustrophobic, and was immensely relieved when Toad walked back into the room.
"Forgo' ya there," he said, with a grin. "Sorry, luv, but you're a bit 'ard to notice."
She narrowed her eyes. He chuckled, and with two light punches cracked the greenish goo encasing her hands. Some of the green goo still looked clung disgustingly to her hands. She tried brushing it off, but her hands seemed numb, and just sort of flopped around a bit.
"'S a numbing agent. More fun tha' way. An' I think tha'" he indicated the goo on her face, "will stay."
She tried saying something angry in protest, and when his only response was looking far too pleased with himself she tried clawing at the stuff. It didn't work. Her hands were still too numb for her to do anything, and she suspected the goo wouldn't come off until he told it to. Or something.
"Now c'mon, the tiny pyromaniac's waitin'"
.
The green stuff did come off, but it had taken an hour. And when it did, it happened so suddenly that she accidentally swallowed some tiny green cracked pieces and she wanted to puke. It didn't happen. Nothing happened. Magneto's idea of getting "properly settled in" was to give them some sheets – she didn't think hers had ever been washed – and a bottle of water. She had stared at Toad when he dumped the things on the floor, but she had still been to muted to actually ask him anything at that point. When she had regained her full power of speech, and discovered upon drinking her water that she had been incredibly thirsty, her stomach growled.
Fifteen minutes later she was walking down a corridor. It was similar to all the other corridors she walked down so far; gray and dark, lit by occasional single light bulbs. They were also all eerily quiet. The whole place was grossly oversized compared to its population. But then again, someone had mentioned that they had hoped to free about a dozen more mutants from the government on the day. And Magneto seemed to want to slowly collect an army. A mutant army. She wasn't sure if a minority this small, even with superpowers, stood a good chance against the humans, but then, who was she to judge? Magneto probably knew what he was doing. After all, he did lead these three individuals. Although, they did seem to be individuals who would be hard to lead, she would give him that. But his helmet looked stupid.
She wondered where John was. They had talked briefly. Neither of them fully knew what to expect, nor what was expected of them. Also; neither knew where they could find food. True enough, they had been shown the kitchen, briefly, the night before, but they had no idea where it was. All the corridors were similar, the layout made no sense, and Magneto had not even had the courtesy to put up signs. Maybe if she stayed here long enough, she would be allowed to. But if she did stay that long she would probably know the place by heart.
Another five minutes of wandering later she had come upon what seemed to be a sort of living room, if one had those in giant island headquarters. Probably. Someone seemed to live there, anyhow. There was a small television in the room, which was turned on, but only showed static. A table stood between the television and a large, tired looking couch. The table was covered with a mixture of old candy wrappers, empty beer bottles, dirty dishes, some of which were moldy, and a few quite dodgy looking magazines. The couch was covered with a sleeping Toad. He looked less disgusting, she noticed, when asleep. Just discoloured. Not that she had much of a moral high ground when it came to that. He was still wearing the heavy, weatherproof looking jacket, she noticed. That was odd. She wandered over to a book case behind the table. Most of the books in there seemed to be science-y type works on mutants and genetics, and some that looked slightly more accessible, like Mutants: a Minority in Change by a M. Mactaggert. Aside from the cheesy title it looked interesting. Maybe it would be better to learn more of the social stigma of mutation from books rather than experience. She grabbed the book, but it seemed stuck. She wondered if she was really that weak. She attempted to remove it again, this time achieving something, at least. The book did not come loose, but the entire book case swung out – she had to jump backwards to avoid being hit in the face – revealing a short corridor leading up to a steal door. She began to wonder whether Magneto really was just a cheesy super villain from a bad comic book. The opening of the book case door had made quite a lot of sound, so she shouldn't have been as surprised as she was to hear an annoyed voice from behind her.
"Oi, the hell ya think you're doin' with tha'?"
She whirled around, eyes wide with surprise rather than guilt.
"I was just getting a book, I didn't know it was a door!"
Toad looked at her, head cocked to one side, blotchy, oversized eyes narrowing. He drew himself halfway up in a sitting position.
"Course it is. Magneto likes tha' stuff. Finks it's classy or somefin'," he said, yawning. "Lucky of ya t'find the right book, though. Wot ya doin' with them books, anyway? Fuckin' boring the lot of 'em."
"Thought I'd read up on anti-mutant prejudice. Never really experienced it, myself. Never really read about it either. As a human I didn't see the point."
"As a human? You've always been a mutant, luv."
"Didn't know I was. Same thing. You know, for a group that fights for mutant rights, or mutant supremacy or whatever, you guys really don't know how little humans care about mutants. I don't think I'd even met one before I, well, before I realized I was one."
"Then you've obviously no' met the same humans as me," he answered bitterly. He stared angrily at a point a foot left of her shoulder, looking rather as if he would like to strangle it. A silence spread, then, wherein his expression softened some, and his tone was rather neutral, bordering on amicable when he spoke again after a minute or two.
"By the way, I meant t'ask, how'd ya know I 'ad a lighter?"
"Clothes you gave me smelled like cigarettes. T'was elementary,"
she said, trying and failing to emulate a posh British accent. Toad did not look particularly amused. His voice seemed suddenly more hostile, again.
"Wot ya still doin' here, anyway? I'd appriciate it if ya would read somewhere I'm no' sleepin'."
"Oh, right, I'm sorry. I – I was looking for the kitchen, we kinda haven't been given any food since we got here... Fourteen hours ago..."
"Third corridor on the left, second right, then follow the smell. Now bugger off so I can 'ave a sleep."
.
When she found the kitchen on her third attempt, she found John waiting for her. Or rather, she found him eating something that smelled unnervingly good for looking so disgusting.
"Wha' 'ook 'ou so loh?," he asked, voice muffled by a mouth full of food.
"Talked to Toad. He didn't give the best of directions. And what on earth is that you're eating?"
"Noodles in curry with ketchup," he said. She made a disgusted face. "What? I work with what I got, here!"
She shook her head in disgust, and began rummaging in the cupboards, trying to breathe through her mouth. She found noodles, curry, ketchup and mustard. She looked at the condiments in annoyance, then grabbed a packet of noodles.
"Considering this is an island, you'd think they'd have some seafood or something."
"Doesn't bother me. Feels like home," John said, shrugging, but with a hint of bitterness Claudia might have caught had she not been preoccupied with trying to find a clean pot.
"You," she said, fiddling with the heat, "must be terrible at housekeeping. But then, after the place we came from, anything would be good in comparison. Save the meals, I mean. I wonder if I can get them to fill that fridge with something other than beer."
"There's beer in the fridge?" John asked eagerly.
"...You didn't check the fridge for food?"
"Met Mystique. She said there was food in the cupboards. But how 'bout that beer?"
"If you're that excited about beer you aren't old enough to drink it."
Some minutes later, as Claudia was eating and pointedly drinking a beer, and John was pointedly looking sulky they begun talking about the Brotherhood. They had both come to the conclusion that they didn't really like anyone in it. Or, in all fairness, John said he thought Mystique seemed nice, and Claudia pointed out that this only was because she was naked. But none of the members seemed to be nice persons as such. They both found Sabretooth to be frightening, and they both thought Magneto was rather aloof and unnecessarily sophisticated. He reminded them both somewhat of the scientists the government employed; they had a plan for them, and they tested them, but they were never actually told neither the purpose nor nature of the tests. John thought Toad was disgusting, whereas Claudia, whilst agreeing that the spitting and tongue things were disgusting, was more annoyed with his seemingly random moodiness. John thought Mystique was the hottest thing since sliced bread, though he hadn't, he said, had time to ponder whether she had a likeable personality. Claudia found something subtly disturbing about her, an air of malice. And her voice was weird. There was that too. They concluded, in the end, that they would have to stick together, as the others were, probably, insane in some way.
Author's note: Remind me never to try writing a scene like that first one again. Difficult. Bad result. Regret. It's also the reason the chapter took ages. Also upped the rating. Swearing seems to me to be a natural thing for characters such as these. Also also wik, I noticed in one of the older chapters that I occasionally switch between English and American spelling. Sorry about that, I'll try to get better at being consistent.