Prayer of the Refugee

Look, I know nothing about this stuff, I just write what sounds good. Lol.

Chapter o13

Toad limped to the garage, at least he could find the same form of solace here that he had had back with the Brotherhood, he could always go mess around with the tech equipment. He didn't have much work left to do on that jet before it would be running again, it was almost unfortunate really, as that was a fairly enjoyable project.

He got there without incident, mildly surprised he hadn't taken a wrong turn through the maze of halls. Leaning his crutched against the wall by the doorframe, he rolled his shoulders uncomfortably and turned to the craft in question. A pair of legs dangled out of the open engine hatch and he figured it to be TecH tinkering around in which case he wasn't bothered. From what the Brit had gathered, the kid knew his stuff and was probably fully capable of fixing it on his own.

Eventually anyway.

He opened his mouth to ask the teen how much he'd gotten done but abruptly stopped when he saw a mess of very essential parts scattered across the floor and more on their way to join them. "'Ey, wot the fuck are ya doin?! Are ya daft?!"

The gremlin in question peeked out just enough to look at him. She stared for a moment and pushed off the craft and hung in the air grinning at him little too broadly for his liking.

It was a girl, despite her pixie hair-cut and boy's clothes, it was defiantly a girl. Although her thin, lanky frame did not sport much of a feminine curve, especially in her present clothing.

"Who are you? Git outta here!" he demanded in the fiercest tone he could muster. She giggle and zipped towards him, floating upside down above him, but keeping at his eye-level. She giggled.

"Who are you? I've never seen YOU here before, only Techie!" Her eyes were bright and her voice was light and childish, but her body put her age at somewhere around twenty-one.

"I think I asked you first," Toad snarled.

"Yeah, ya did. You actually asked me more than one question," she told him, as if it was something she had had to remind him of a hundred times. "I don't like questions… Why are you green? Are you like a plant? Venus and Ivy are green and they're like plants!" she chirped, abruptly changing her tune. "But you don't have any flowers like them. So you like… what… mold then?" She laughed at the thought and righted herself.

He'd dealt with all kinds of people in his life, normies, mutants, crazies, but this one was sort of worrying him. "Cor, I thought ya didn't like questions.'

She rolled her eyes and spun in a little circle. It seemed odd seeing her hovering about like that with no sort of aid. What was her power exactly?

"I don't like questions when they're for ME, duh."

She circled him a few more times, looking him over and getting just a little bit higher with each completed circle. Just when she opened her mouth to speak again, he grabbed her ankle and yanked her out of the air.

However, instead of the satisfying thud of her hitting the floor, he heard an obnoxious pop noise and she was hovering a good six feet over his head.

"Well that wasn't nice! I'm telling Natalya!"

He repeated the action with his tongue and it startled her enough that she did hit the floor. Hard.

"Go ahead," he challenged.

Instead of whining or teleporting off, she made a rather shrill, obnoxious noise that weirdly seemed to denote delight. "You're a FROG!"

She was way too pleased about that revelation.

"Go away, Loki.. Please. Leave him alone, he's a guest," TecH's voice came from the side room, low and cautious.

Had he been there the whole time? Had he LET her destroy the engine like that? Why would he do that?

The girl stuck her tongue out at him, but disappeared.

"Sorry… about her," TecH told him sheepishly, "She's always doing that; coming down here and messing with stuff."

"Do somethin' 'bout it, then," Toad snarled.

TecH flinched staring down at his shoes rather hard, "I can't, she's Loki. Loki is… well, Michael calls her a force of nature. I think that's about right." The teen was nervous without Natalya here; he admired Toad for his technological prowess, but he didn't know the guy, and he was quite imposing up close even if TecH had a good five inches on him as far as height.

The Brit snorted, "Pick up all this junk then, if it's broken, chuck it, if not, bring it over to me."

"So, you a mutant?" Toad asked offhandedly. He wasn't trying to spark a conversation, he was just trying to put to bed a curiosity.

Too bad the people here were a talkative lot.

"Yeah, I am," TecH told him proudly, "I can magnetize just about anything metal. I'd show you, but there's a lot of sensitive stuff in here and all."

A simple yes or no would have been sufficient.

"Um… if you don't mind my asking, what are your powers? I mean, I saw the tongue thing, but… can you do anything else?" the teen asked eagerly.

"Look kid, if ya needed to know, I'd tell ya. But you don't, so I won't," Toad snapped, "And a word of advise, dun tell people what yer powers are. Don't let anyone know until yer usin it against em, that way they can't prepare for it."

It was good advise admittedly, but TecH was only sort of weirded out by it. "Oh… okay."

They worked in silence for all of ten minutes before TecH felt the need to speak again. "Did your… um… did your parents kick you out when they found out about you?"

The Brit mentally flinched, such a weak spot to stab at, "Yeah." His voice had no tone, no anger, no sadness, it intrigued the teen.

"Me too. I mean, I know I look normal and everything, but my dad caught me using my powers and-"

"Cor, shut up, kid."

He did so and there was silence for another good ten minutes.

"My older brother was normal you know, human." Toad only narrowly resisted the urge to punch him. "Man, we used to hang out all the time, usually we played video games. I mean, most brother's fight and stuff, but he was like, my best friend… actually," TecH laughed, but there was no humor in it, "he was my only friend. I used to think he just felt sorry for me, but I think I know better now. I wish he was here, I mean, the closest think I got to a friend here is Loki."

"Kid?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut. Up."

"Okay."

"………….. Kid… ya wanna go up to the arcade?"

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