Disclaimer: See first chapter.

WARNING: Yeaah…there's a bit of a high gore factor in this one. Just turned out that way. (and those who have read 'playing with fire' will realise that this is actually a scene from a throw-away line in that. Toad did mention he'd been at a cage-fight…)

Blue and Green

America was cold, it turned out. Far colder than it should have been. But it also had handy hiding-places for people with no proper homes to go to. Places with crowds, where he could duck and dodge and pick up discarded chip wrappers (he never understood why people would drop a carton that was still half full of chips), and, because it was the easiest thing to do, occasionally slip the odd wallet out of someone's pocket.

There probably were such places in London, he figured, he'd just never found them and hadn't know where to start looking. Around here, they were everywhere, he already had a few that were his favourites, where no one noticed him at all.

He slid into the murky bar, huddling into the warmth of the crowd and wondering dimly what was going on tonight. Someone had taken down the pole that usually graced the middle of the room, and in its place was a large steel cage. He shivered slightly in apprehension, whatever was happening it didn't look like it was going to be as pretty as the usual Friday night show.

Not gonna concern me anyway he though, gently pulling a ten dollar note out of some mans back pocket, heh, serve him right for having money flapping about anyway.

The crowd was growing, there was an air of excitement in the room. Beer was flowing freely, Toad lapped a small pool off the side of the bar with his tongue while no one was looking, making a face as he did so. Beer tasted awful but he could never resist trying it, just incase this time he suddenly found out what everyone made such a fuss about.

The crowd suddenly started shouting, feet stamping, voices yelling. Toad ducked slightly, out of habit, but the force of their attention was not focussed on him, instead it was on a heavy thick-set man who had just walked out of a door on the left. He nodded his head at the crowd a few times then climbed into the cage.

What did he do wrong? Toad wondered, carefully slipping his hands into the back pocket of a platinum-blonds handbag.

The man didn't seem to have done anything wrong at all. Toad frowned, trying to figure it out. The crowd roared again, slightly feebler this time, as another man came through the door, a lot lighter than the first, with hair that hung over his face in pale brown bangs, partially hiding his features.

Toad didn't understand until he too climbed into the cage and then the realisation hit him oh, they're gonna fight each other. Should be interesting.

The fight seemed somewhat a foregone conclusion. The first man was pacing back and forwards, occasionally shaking a fist at the crowd, nodding as it cheered along with him. The second stood in the corner, rubbing his arms like someone feeling chilly. He looked almost scarily young, much younger and thinner than his opponent.

Toad would had written it off, the older man looked more confident, more skilled, more everything. If it weren't for the fact that the man standing in the corner was grinning. Manically. Toad had never seem anyone smiling like that before, certainly not when facing someone who was built like a brick wall.

It was the concentration, he told himself later (much, much later). He'd been too busy staring at the fighters, too busy wondering whether the young man would have any chance at all, or whether he'd get snapped in two at the first opportunity. To busy to concentrate properly…

It happened like a flashback of that dreadful night in London. One minute he was staring at the cage, the two men were getting closer, something seemed about to happen, and the next minute a hand was engulfing his, pressing on the same injuries as before (they had healed long ago but he still had the memories, oh he'd always have the memories).

He froze, again, but the man that had caught him this time was not six foot tall, he was almost Toad's height, with hair that was combed almost laughably over a receding hairline and a smart pinstriped suit. Suits were fine, in Toad's litany of People to Steal From. Suits meant soft, meant office, meant money.

He tried to twist away, but suddenly there was another man behind him. This one wasn't six foot either, he was far taller, almost blocked out the lights, he wore a suit as well, or rather, the suit seemed to be constructed around him, in the same way that tarpaulin is pulled over a very large rock…

"Is this…" The rock-in-a-suit looked down at Toad and gave up on a descriptive noun, "Is this bothering you?"

Toad tried to spit but his mouth had gone horribly and treacherously dry.

The man holding him made an impatient sort of noise, "Take him outside."

Toad was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hauled off, as the crowd gave a great shout for the beginning of the fight. Desperately trying to struggle out of his jacket, Toad shivered. There had been undertones in the phrase 'take him outside' that he didn't like at all.

Aw shit, shoulda stayed in London with a broken hand.

There was another man outside, not quite as rock-like, who was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. He straightened up quickly when Toad was dragged outside, spitting the cigarette into the gutter.

"What th' hells that!"

"Some guy who was annoying the boss."

"Finish 'im?"

"Nah. Just teach him."

Toad gave a gulp, but his mouth was still dry and his legs seemed to have turned into jelly. The man holding him pulled his jacket over his head, Toad gave a horse yelp as it caught on his hair, and then turned him around, gripping his arms tight.

"M'sorry." Toad gasped, trying to look the man in the eyes, just in case the lie-to-children that apologising for crimes helped a damn turned out to actually be true. "P-P-please, don't"

There was the clink of a chain behind him, and his eyes bulged as he suddenly realised what they were about to do, "Hell, y-y'can't-"

The chain snapped across his back like a whip-crack. Every muscle in him tensed, arching and hissing and suddenly his mouth figured out how to work and started screaming right up until one of them (he didn't know which one) shoved the corner of the jacket into his mouth. It hurt more than anything, more than his hand, more than the accidental burn from Lance's cigarette, more that fire, more than anything he'd ever experienced right up until two second later when the second one landed and then, oh god, it kept happening-

He collapsed eventually, and a series of complicated nods between the two men determined that he'd had enough. They flung him in the gutter and wondered back into the club grumbling slightly about missing the fight.

"Will he live?"

"Yeah, course, think I don't know my stuff?"

Mystique looked at her watch pointedly, giving the night sky an exasperated tut. Four hours late and still nothing. Well, she supposed that was what you got for contacting untrustworthy mercenaries.

Her phone rang and she snatched it up, growling in slight frustration when it turned out to be Magneto, "What?"

"Is he there yet?"

"No." She sighed, "Erik, I don't think he's going to show. Either someone's taken him down between now and last Wednesday or he's just not bothered."

"Leave it a bit longer." He suggested.

She pulled her coat around her, muttering slightly about uncooperative useless Cajuns, "I told you we should've hired that guy from Boston."

"He wasn't a mutant."

"He would have at least turned up. He has a reputation for being efficient. As far as I can tell your Cajun only has a reputation for jumping ship at the right moments and selling people out."

"But does he have the skills to take down Sabretooth?"

She frowned, Erik was right, of course, "I'm not waiting here for too long though, it's freezing."

His back was on fire. That was the simple matter of it, Toad realised. It was of course, invisible fire, but fire none the less. Maybe he could just not move and then hopefully he would fall apart. That would be good, save a lot of problems and it might even put the fire out.

His head felt blurry, his thoughts were all wrong. He twisted his head slightly, groaned, and then realised that there was someone else next to him, also lying in the gutter.

"Yo." He mumbled. Because it was always best to be polite.

The other person gave him a weak smile. He was young, around twenty, with hair that dangled down into his eyes; fairly muscular and deathly pale. He looked familiar and Toad frowned, trying to remember why.

"Weren't…" He asked, but carefully, carefully before his back split open and his head fell out, "Weren't you in the fight?"

"Yeah." The man gasped. One hand was holding his side and Toad noticed with horror that a small trickle of blood was leaking out from under the palm.

"What, what happened."

"I. Won." Was it right for people to look so pale? Maybe he was cold. Toad tried to move forward to help him but the starts didn't want to move, or maybe they did because his head was suddenly full of fuzzy spots and streaks of white pain. Maybe best not to move then.

"You won?" He could hardly believe it. That the thin crazily smiling man who'd been so… alive trembling in the corner of the ring was now here, so pale, so empty. Lying in the gutter while his life trickled out under his hands.

"Yeah. Stupid. Shoulda. Took it. But no. Wanted to. Wanted to show them."

Toad frowned, because the world wasn't making sense any more. "You look cold. You should go in."

"Can't." The man tried to shake his head. His lips were starting to look blue. "Can't move kid, my guts'll fall out."

"Guts." Toad repeated. The word sounded wrong in his mouth so he tried it again. "Guts." It made him feel sick. And when he noticed the trickle of blood from beneath the man's hand had reached the floor he almost was sick.

"Sliced right open. Shoulda. Shoulda took it. Not too bad. Taken a beating before. You gotta know kid. Can't always win. Not always safe. Sometimes. Sometimes you gotta loose. Or they slice you."

"Slice." Toad repeated dutifully, in case that helped.

"Stupid." The man took a breath and started to cry, slight shuddering tears that increased the blood flow from his hand, his fingers were staining with it, Toad wanted to shout at him, to get him to stop or go away or not be real. "Stupid. Stupid. But. Ah. Almost. Almost worth it. Ha. Not gonna take it. Not gonna take it. Not any more."

"Stop." Toad whispered. He wanted to tell the man to stop, to explain that he didn't want to see but he couldn't look away because of the fire on his back, "Please. Stop."

"Paid. Always. Paid to loose. Like a whore. But I'm gonna show them. Stupid. So much. Money. On me loosing. Always. Always was. Stupid whore."

"Please." And Toad was crying now, and each tear tore his back open and made him cry even more. "Please."

And then mercifully, the man stopped. His voice died out, and then even his breath died out. Toad wanted to thank him, but he was too busy trying not to cry.

There was someone else though. Someone at the end of the alley, standing out in the streetlamp. Toad squinted through the pain. It was a man, no, it was…

Now it was a woman. And Toad knew he was hallucinating because she was naked, and this wasn't in a club. And she was blue. In a dazzling moment of clarity he suddenly realised what had happened. He was dying, and they always said when you were dying you got to see your mother, he remembered thinking that if that was true maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

And she was blue! He was green, his father must be yellow, it all made sense now, he wasn't a mutant he was just green. He reached out, head almost creaking with the main and the effort, and he saw her look at him, her eyes shocked and startled and he managed to croak out "M-m-mum. Mum."

And then the stars and the fire took control of his mind and that was all.

Mystique was fed up. Fed up with waiting for overdue mercenaries with no sense of time commitment. Five hours was enough to wait for anyone.

She didn't like her disguise either. The coat was too thin, the beard didn't suit her, she'd overdone the muscles far too much and certain … other parts … were starting to chafe.

She ducked down an alleyway, better to change where no one was likely to see her, no reason to cause a panic, even though there was hardly anyone around at this time of night. She quickly regained her original form, giving a sigh of relief as the blue rippled over her, and was just wondering what form to walk back as (it would have to be some type of man, unfortunately, it was hardly a good time or place to be a woman out alone) when she heard a sound from halfway down the alley.

Her head whipped around, hoping desperately it was just some drunk, she really didn't feel like taking anyone out. She gave a sigh of relief as she realised that whoever it was was lying in the gutter (probably drunk then) which changed to a gasp of horror as her eyes took in the scene.

A boy. Probably around fifteen or sixteen, collapsed in the gutter next to a blood stained jacket and a man who was quite clearly recently deceased. His back was a mess, covered in hundreds of small cuts that leaked out into the gutter. She saw him turn towards her, make a game attempts at pulling himself forwards and mumble something that she had a horribly nasty feeling sounded like "M-mum?"

He was a mutant.

And her mind could not help but drag her back in time to another mutant child. Right now her tretcherous mind whispered, he would be the same age as this one. Maybe in the same state as well; lying in the gutter bleeding half to death and calling out to you. His mother.

She bit the side of her lip, trying to shove the thought away. It wasn't fair, her child had never been part of her responsibility. She hadn't even wanted it, It was blue and furry and looked up at her so sweetly with big wide eyes and had almost broken her heart.

It was sometime around then that she'd decided that she'd never have a heart to break again.

In front of her, the boy collapsed, landing in the blood and the dirt and the mess of the gutter.

Who's looking after your boy now, hey? Who pulls him out of the gutter and bandages him up? Who feeds him and looks after him and how do you know he hasn't died already, died like this one will if you leave him, dead in the gutter.

She grit her teeth and forced herself not to cry. She had never cried, not since she was ten.

Are you going to let him down? Like you let down your own son?

"Mystique?"

She sighed, knowing what was coming. "Yes, Erik?"

"There seems to have been a slight misunderstanding."

She smirked, "In what way?"

"I sent you out to bring back a Cajun Mercenary to help us find Sabretooth. You've returned with a small green child in need of possible medical attention."

He had been quite shocked to see the boy, laid out on a mattress beside Mystiques bed, all wrapped up in bandages with a sheet thrown loosely over him. The last thing they could afford was to show anyone the whereabouts of their secret base, especially a boy who might have anxious parents looking for him.

"He doesn't need a doctor, Erik. Just something to eat and somewhere to stay."

"This is a secret base of operations, Mystique, not a boarding hotel!"

She felt a certain protectiveness stir inside her, "I thought we needed mutants on our side. Besides, he was dying in the gutter, would you prefer it if I'd left him?"

"We need useful mutants, not children."

"He's fifteen, were you useless at fifteen?"

It was a bit of a low blow and she knew it. But the stirring feeling within her was not beneath such techniques, "Wait until he recovers at least, we don't even know what his mutation is. And the way he's been treated he's bound to be angry, probably against humanity."

He gave her a shrewd look, "This doesn't have anything to do with your son does it?"

She managed to keep her expression unchanging which, she realised slightly too late, was a give-away in itself, "That hadn't even crossed my mind."

A/N: Yay, everyone is stating to meet up! Next chapter will have Gambit, Sabretooth, and a whole lot of humorous misunderstandings that will probably involve Gambit getting gratuitously kicked around by an angry Sabretooth for a bit.

:D

Please review and keep my life worth living. :)