Chapter 1

"You stupid stupid reptile!" Mystique screamed at Todd, striking him across the face while I watched from the doorway of the kitchen. It wasn't exactly a rare occurrence to see our "leader" take out her anger on him, although she didn't usually resort to violence. But then again, these were different circumstances.

"Actually, toads are amphibians." Todd corrected meekly, receiving a boot in his face in response. He flew back from the force of the kick, smashing into the mess of peeling paint that made up one wall of the Brotherhood House. The place was a mess, with trash strewn all over the place. I would have tried to clean up every now and then, but I knew that, living with Todd and Fred, the place would be back to the trash heap it was now within a day. Sometimes, it was better to just leave things alone.

"Like I care! You idiots made us lose our greatest weapon to Xavier and his little cult!" Mystique roared, referencing the recent turning of Rogue to the X-Geeks, which had hit all of us pretty hard. Maybe we weren't all on best terms with her, but that didn't change the fact that we all felt betrayed by her actions, most of all Mystique. I don't exactly know why, but it always felt like Mystique liked Rogue a little more than the rest of us, so it had hit her particularly hard when Rogue attacked her.

"Hey, lay off! He didn't do nothing to make her leave!" Fred protested, wincing at the savage beating Todd was receiving, something that I was tempted to do myself. Fred was a good guy, and he really cared about all of us, so I knew that seeing Todd in this state was really affecting him.

"Uh, Mystique? Aren't you being a little rough with him? I mean, I know that you're upset, but Toad didn't do anything wrong." Pietro said, somehow actually thinking of someone other than himself for once. Normally, I don't think he would have concerned himself with such an issue, but I guess even he felt at least a little sorry for the poor guy, who was now putting his hands up in an effort to shield himself, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, as I continued to watch, my fingers clenched tightly into a fist, and a scowl spread across my face.. I couldn't just stand by while my teammate was being beaten halfway to death. It was true that Toad got on my nerves sometimes. Okay, maybe it was all the time, but that didn't change the fact that he was the closest thing that I now had to family, along with the other guys in the Brotherhood. And I could not stand around while someone hurt my family.

Without any hint of hesitation, I thrust my arms forward, and immediately, the entire building rumbled as I channeled my seismic powers into a powerful shockwave that had the already decrepit building groaning under the added stress. I gritted his teeth as my eyes rolled to the back of my head and a familiar migraine screeched through my head.

"What are you doing, Alvers?" Pietro wailed, eyes on the ceiling that threatened to come down on his head at any second. He instinctively lifted a foot off of the ground, ready to take off should things get out of hand, evidently not planning on being caught in the inevitable rubble.

But I gave no response, focusing my energy on one spot of the ceiling in particular, grinning in satisfaction as I saw a crack appear in the wood. Mystique never even looked up in time to see what was going on when the ceiling finally gave way and came crashing on top of her.

"Whoa!" Toad screamed, taking advantage of the fact that fists weren't flying at him to hop out of the way of more pieces of ceiling that came tumbling down while I held out one arm, satisfied with my work.

Debris rained down on Mystique, with one particularly large piece of ceiling striking her directly and sending her to the ground, knocked out cold, while more and more ceiling raining down on her.

"Holy shit, Lance. Do you have any idea what you've just done?" Quicksilver said, frantically running a hand through his messy silver hair and pacing back and forth at a lightning quick pace.

"Um, is she alright?" Blob asked shakily, disquieted by the sight of our caretaker lying on the ground, unconscious with a nasty bruise sure to be on the way.

"She'll be fine. I didn't kill her." I muttered, clutching my head as the piercing headache finally began to fade, "Or at least, I hope I didn't." I added softly as I crossed the room to Todd, who was currently wiping some blood off of his lip.

"Are you sure that was the right thing to do? You know, Mystique's gonna be majorly pissed when she wakes, yo." Todd noted, grimacing as he tried to assess the damage to his face. He was covered from head to toe in bruises and cuts, especially his face, which looked like it had been hit by a train.

"No she won't." I replied, tapping a particularly nasty gash across Toad's forehead, causing the mutant to howl in pain. As I watched his teammate's reaction, I felt anger boil up once more at Mystique. She had gone way too far this time.

I had made my choice. I wasn't going to stand around and let my friends be abused by her, but at the same time, that left me in an awkward position. When she finally woke up again, I wasn't going to escape her wrath, and I had no doubt that she was going to beat the living hell out of me for my stunt. That is, unless I wasn't here anymore.

"Sorry to break the news, Lance, but Mystique isn't just going to forget the fact that you dropped the ceiling on her." Pietro said, finally having stopped in his panicking, although he still was ready to run at the first sign of trouble. Typical Pietro.

I stuck my hands in my pockets, feeling sorry for not intervening earlier in the beating that Toad had received. Just looking at his face sent a pang of guilt through my chest, "I meant that we wouldn't be here by the time she wakes up. I'm out of here, and you guys should think about tagging along."

"Wait, Lance, whattya sayin?" Blob asked.

"I'm saying that maybe we should go live somewhere else." I replied, to the collective shock of my teammates.

"Yo, Lance, I know that you're mad right now, but think about it. I mean, where are we even gonna go?" Toad asked.

I knew that anywhere would be better than the Brotherhood House at the moment, but the prospects of living in the streets wasn't exactly appealing either. I paused, biting my lips as I tried to think of any place where we could go. In general, the Brotherhood wasn't welcome at most places, by virtue of our normal diet of pranks and wrongdoing. But then again…there was one place that I could think of. It was a long shot, but I guess it was worth a try.

Knowing just how unpopular the next words that were going to come out of my mouth would be, I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, "I was thinking that maybe…we should go talk to Xavier."

As I predicted, I was met with a set of gaping jaws.

"A-are you serious, Lance? You can't be serious! These are the X-Geeks we're talking about here!" Toad said incredulously, not believing the words that had just come out of my mouth. Believe me, I could hardly believe what I just said too.

"By the way, last time I checked, the X-Geeks don't exactly love us." Pietro added, rolling his eyes at my suggestion, "Or have you forgotten how much we fight with Summers?"

Well, I guess he had a point there. I definitely had issues with the Boy Scout with a stick up his ass, but right now, living with him was looking better than staying with Mystique. Summers might have been uptight, but at least he wouldn't beat the crap out of us randomly.

"Look, guys, I know it sounds crazy, but I doubt Xavier would turn us away if we came to him. And right now, anywhere would be better than this place." I said, hoping that they would see my logic, "Or would you rather be stuck with Mystique?"

At this, I saw Todd's body tense at the mere mention of the shapeshifter. Clearly, her attack had an effect on him, although it didn't really look like he was ready to leave her by any stretch.

"Look, guys, I can't stand watching her treat us like we're nothing. I signed up for the Brotherhood because I thought that it would change what people thought of us, so that we could be more than nothing. Don't you guys want the same? Mystique doesn't care about us. As far as she's concerned, we're just a bunch of hoods who are good at doing her grunt work. I'm not staying here and taking that, and you guys shouldn't have to either. I'm out." I said, pulling open the door and walking out onto the front lawn, feeling surprisingly free, now that I was away from her.

I fished my car keys out of my pockets, hopping into the front seat of my jeep and jamming them into the ignition.

"Hey! Wait up!" I looked up from the steering wheel in surprise, seeing Todd hopping towards my car, with Fred in hot pursuit, each of his massive steps causing the ground to shake.

"Lance!" Fred called out, skidding to a stop next to my jeep.

"What do you two want?" I asked, wanting to confirm their intentions. If they were planning on stopping me, that definitely wasn't happening.

"Look, we, uhh, thought about what you said…" Todd started, while Fred nodded and continued, "And you're right. We don't want to live like this anymore. We wanna be somebody."

I smiled at their words, "Well, I'm glad to hear it, guys. Hop in."

Todd enthusiastically did as he was told, literally hopping into the passenger seat while Fred gingerly climbed into the backseat, causing my jeep to creak under his weight.

"No Pietro? Well, I guess I'm not really surprised." I sighed, knowing that the speedster was infinitely more stubborn than Todd or Fred. I hadn't really expected him to be on board with my plan anyways.

I was going to make something out of myself, and that's all that mattered. I didn't have time to worry about him.

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed the beginning of Turncoat! I found out that all of X Men Evolution was online, and I was inspired enough to come up with a story revolving around some of the members of the Brotherhood, since I never understood why they kept taking orders from Mystique when they weren't being appreciated for their work.

Still, I don't want to write anything that no one will read, so please, if you're interested in seeing more, let me know with a review or PM. Thanks so much for reading!