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"Heh heh, we sure got us a nice take today, eh, Murray?"

"Ya got that right, Elmer. The boss is gonna be mighty pleased." Murray finishes counting the last stack of cash and places it in the briefcase with the rest. "Fifty thousand dollars! I swear, selling cocaine in L.A. is a sure ticket to the big time!"

Closing the briefcase, Murray hands it over to the third man. "Here ya go, Joe. Get it to the boss in one piece, or its all our heads."

Joe takes the briefcase. Hugging it tight against him, he taps the piece inside his coat. "Don't you worry, Murray. Any fella that tries to take this from me gets a slug of lead for his trouble!"

As if on cue, a window of the warehouse shatters inwards, a grotesque figure leaping through it. He lands on the floor in a crouch, grinning at the drugrunners maniacally. "Good evening, gentlemen. Hehhehehaha. You have money. I want it. Now."

That said, the grotesque man leaps forward, twisting his body to come feet first into Joe's chest. Crouching on the briefcase, and on Joe, he lowers his head until he's inches from Joe's face. Sniffing, his smiles vanishes, and he says, "With all this money, you should be able to afford some mouthwash. I suppose you'll never get some now."

Grabbing the briefcase, he leaps up into the air, briefcase in hand. Murray and Elmer draw their pistols and fire. Making an amazing backflip in mid-air, the leaper dodges the bullets with ease. The thugs stare in amazement as the man lands on the far wall, and crouches on it!

Laughing in merriment at the fun he's going to have, the man drops the briefcase to the floor and leaps at the thugs. "Now you boys have done it! I was gonna take money and run, but now I'm gonna have to teach you to respect the Toad!"

Leaping all over the place in the random fashion of a madman, he makes it impossible for Murray and Elmer to get a bead on him. They keep firing, though. The guns are shortly empty of bullets, and that is when Toad makes his move.

Twisting his legs into positions no man should be able to, Toad kicks both Murray and Elmer in the face at once. Landing on his hands, he wraps his legs around the dazed Murray's head and tightens his considerable leg muscles. A loud snap!, and Murray falls to the ground. Dead.

Elmer looks at the dead body of his friend in a mixture of amazement, fear, and anger. Crying out Murray's name, he throws a punch at Toad. Toad immediately crouches below the blow and kicks out. Hard. Elmer moans in agony, his testicles now up near his stomach. Toad stands over the thug writhing in pain. A quick kick to the ribs, and the thug is thrown across the warehouse, his ribs broken and his body full of internal bleeding.

A small jump of eight feet takes Toad back to Joe, still lying on the ground in a state of semi-consciousness. Crouching down, he removes the gun from Joe's coat and empties the clip. "I've always despised these weapons. They make the lowest of men feel like kings, and everyone must know their place. Take me, for instance. I'm one of those homo sapien superior, a mutant, and so I'm above every member of your race. However, even one such as I know that there are other mutants that could crush me with ease, and so I show them the respect they deserve."

Standing to his full height of five feet and eight inches, Toad places his foot on Joe's throat. "You, however, show me no respect. When you should be bowing in my presence, you instead attempt to kill me. Do you have any idea how much it hurts my feelings when inferiors laugh at the mere mention of me? Well, do you?!"

Joe desperately shakes his head, tears streaming down his face. Toad crouches down and places his hands over Joe's face.

"When the police come here, they will find a man with a broken neck and another man beaten to death. Neither points to me. This, however, is a unique gift that I paid handsomely for. Believe you me, it just screams 'Toad'! You should feel honored to receive it."

The last thing Joe remembers is a liquid of some sort spreading over his face and filling his mouth. In seconds, the muscles in his face are frozen, and he cannot breathe. Three minutes later, Joe is dead.

Humming a tune, Toad retrieves the briefcase and leaps out the same window from whence he came.

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, briefcase clutched in his hands. Toad makes his way through the darkness of the Lower West Side. Finally, he finds home sweet home. It is indeed humble, a shabby building with a vacant first floor, a tiny apartment on the second, and his good friend's place of work in the basement.

Squeezing through the tiny, dirt-covered window, Toad has entered what appears to be a small operating room. There are instruments, an examining table, and credentials on the wall. It's all for show though. Something to give patients the illusion that they are really being given plastic surgery, and not altered by the mutant powers of -

"Hey, Masque!" Toad yells out, throwing the briefcase on the table. "Come on out of the darkness and see what old Morty found!"

Out of a small room at the side, he comes. Wrapped in surgical clothes and mask, he removes the mask to a face that not even a mother would love. He is the former Morlock known as Masque, and he is angry.

"I thought we agreed I was the Surgeon now! Masque is supposed to be dead, remember?"

Toad shrugs. "I've been doing some thinking about that, Masque. Magneto, that babe Phoenix, Captain America, Elecktra, and all those heroes who died in Onslaught have all come back, so why not you? Besides, Cable didn't blow your head off, just some toady you made to look like you." After saying toady, Toad starts to giggle, like he's made some huge joke.

Fuming, Masque opens the briefcase, his anger lessened greatly at the sight of all that green. "This is terrific! This is more than enough money to forge the proper credentials I'll need to open a major practice. Maybe I'll even get Pamela Anderson as a client." This thought brings a pleasant smile to the mutants lips.

"Oh, please. You've made more than enough money on your own to pay for those forgeries. No, my friend, this money is for fixing my...mental condition."

"What!? You steal money from a major drug dealer, and you want to spend it to get psychiatric help? Word would get out, Mortimer, and you'd be squashed just as easily as your namesake."

His maniacal grin shrinks considerably, and Toad leaps up on the table in a threatening manner. "Two things. One: Even if he does find me, I'll kill him as easily as I did his men. Two: This money isn't for psychiatric help. It's for buying a favor from a man who deals in favors."

Masque raises his hands. He's obviously more scared of Toad that he lets on. "I know, Mortimer. I'm sorry if I sounded like I had lost faith in you. You look out for me, I do some work on you when you want it. I've got no complaints."

Satisfied, Toad steps off the table and puts his arm around Masque. "And you have no need to complain, Masque old buddy. Except for a little I'll be taking to Detroit, I'll always be here to protect you."

"Oh, you're going somewhere? This have anything to do with that favor you were talking about?"

"Masque, Masque, Masque. You are such a clever little bugger. I'll bet you've also figured out that this," The paralyzing liquid drips from his fingers onto the floor. "Is not one of my mutant powers. It's actually an power this guy in Detroit gave me in exchange for a favor. Unfortunately, since I welched on that favor, I expect a little trouble in obtaining this second favor, hence the money."

Toad removes his arm from Masque's soldiers, and picks up the briefcase on the table. "I'll be leaving tonight. Try not to go anywhere. I'll have some work for you to do when I'm back."

Like gunpowder suddenly going off, Toad leaps up and through the window of the basement. Masque can hear his cackling laughter fade off in the distance. Relived, Masque pours himself a shot of brandy and goes over his appointment book.

Cackling in the cool Detroit moonlight, Toad deftly leaps over the massive mounds of junk in the, well, junkyard. Spying an old pair of sneakers that look like he size, he decides to pick those up on his way back. He takes the long way through the junkyard towards the central structure, searching for other treasure troves. By the time he reaches the structure, Toad had found an air conditioner, a nice rocking chair, some macaroni art, and an exquisite figurine of toads that he just has to have.

Easily leaping over the last pile of debris, Toad silently creeps up to the door. Trying the door, Toad finds it locked. The thought of knocking doesn't even cross his mind; he just steps back and delivers a roundhouse kick to the door. The old door shatters like kindling, but the steel door underneath only suffers a mild dent. Toad hops around on one foot, holding his injured toe.

With a loud creak, the steel door opens outwards, beckoning Toad to enter. He does, the briefcase of money clutched in his hand. Down the dark passage he walks, uneasy, expecting an ambush of some sort. The hall leads him into a small, crowded room, crammed with various instruments and pieces of junk.

Toad takes a small look around, curious to see if the device that bestowed upon him the excretion power is around here somewhere. He also searches for any occupants in the room, and he is not disappointed. "Hello, Sledge."

From the shadows steps out a large, hideously disfigured man. Steadying the crutches that help his tiny legs support such a massive frame, Sledge looks at Toad impassively.

"You have a lot of nerve coming back here, Mr. Toynbee. I don't appreciate it when people run off without returning my favors."

Grinning his insane little grin, Toad tosses the briefcase at Sledge's feet. "Consider the favor paid for."

Sledge looks down at the briefcase, then back up at Toad. "I have no need, nor want for money. We made a deal. I fix your mental problems and give you a useful power, and you reform the Brotherhood to do a job for me. Because of your cowardly failure, I had to go after some of the members myself."

Much to Sledge's surprise, Toad throws his head back and laughs the cackling laugh of the insane. "Hahahahheeeheehee. Well, Sledge, chalk up that particular failure to your own failure. You failed to completely cure my mental condition."

"Impossible. When you left me, you were just like your old self before you met Magneto."

"True, indeed. But you failed to make it permanent. When I first met Magneto, I was a confident young actor with the world ahead of me. He quickly changed that, making me his whipping boy, a timid toady who couldn't do anything without someone to order me around.

"You were supposed to restore my self-confidence; Give me the ability to lead the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants as I was meant to. Unfortunately, you and your talk of favors started to get to me. How could I have confidence in myself when I was still taking orders? In the end, the Brotherhood fell apart, and I degenerated back into my old state.

"Now, after so long, I've finally been able to reassert myself. Thus, I have come to repay the favor in the only way that I can. Take the money, Sledge, and let me live with myself, free of authority."

Sledge looks at Toad for a long time, considering his words. He's no psychiatrist, and thus had no true idea of his actual mental state. Finally, Sledge speaks.

"While I am sympathetic to you, Mr. Toynbee, I'm afraid that I must decline this money. I did you a great service, and still request the services of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in return. However, I think we can handle this situation in a way in which you can still be your own man."

"I'm willing to listen."

"You go ahead and form your team, something you planned to do anyway. Choose whomever you wish to make up this team, I really don't care. Sometime, in the near future, I will call upon the services of your team. Those who don't already owe me will be paid for their work. You can merely consider yourself paid in advance to do a job you may have done by yourself anyway."

Toad considers this proposal. Finally, a smile passes his lips. "I'm willing to accept that. Any hint of what this future job may be?"

"I have a feeling that, eventually, the government will be coming after me. When that happens, I will contact you."

"The government, huh? I remember Mystique had some run-ins with them. Sure, I'd love to have my Brotherhood take a piece out of them."

Nodding at Sledge, Toad turns to go. At the door, he turns and says, "Oh, and keep the money. Consider it interest."

Sledge starts to object this, but thinks better of it. Refusing a choose of Toad's would only further damage his mental health, and he's obviously insane enough as it is.

Several days later, Toad is back in the City of Angels. Leaping across rooftops he's grown familiar with, he makes his way back to the office of his friend Masque. Squeezing through the window into the basement, he knows that something is wrong. Some of the equipment has been upset, and Masque is fatally anal retentive. Also, there is now a revolver pressed against his head, the hammer clicked back.

"So, you're the freak that wasted Murray, Elmer and Joe, huh?" A raspy voice whispers. "I see you don't have the money with you. That's bad. Guess that means I'll have to tell the boss to dump your ugly friend, just as soon as I'm through with you."

Standing perfectly still, Toad quickly talks to save his skin. "I don't have the money with me because I'm not stupid. It's hidden somewhere safe. I can lead you there easily."

The thug hasn't said anything yet, but the hammer of the gun is set back into place. That's all Toad needs as, quicker than fingers, he brings up his left leg behind his head to strike the gun at to the side. Thus, when the gun goes off, it's not at Toad's head, which makes him happy.

Making use of the extra seconds of life he's just bought himself, Toad wraps his legs around the thug's arm and takes him to the ground. Knocking the gun away, Toad applies pressure to his shoulder, causing it to pop out of place.

"Shut up." Toad snarls in response to the guy's screams. Bracing his foot against the guy's throat, Toad talks again. "If you don't tell me what I want to hear, I will separate your head from you body. Now, what has your boss done to my friend!"

Blubbering like a child, the thug tries to answer as best he could. "Pl-please don't hurt me! He-he's at the penthouse of the Angels apartment building. Iton't tell me what I want to hear, I will separate your head from you body. Now, what has your boss done to my friend!"

Blubbering like a child, the thug tries to answer as best he could. "Pl-please don't hurt me! He-he's at the penthouse of the Angels apartment building. It's owned by the boss, so its a fortress. Guys all over! Yo-you wouldn't have a chance!"

Smiling maliciously, Toad applies the pressure and breaks the guys neck. "I take may chances. Your boss'll learn not to mess with the Toad!"

Next Issue: Toad sets out to rescue Masque from a Los Angeles drug lord! Expect more death and surprise in Toad's quest for respect!

Contact Stephen Crosby at: sjoc@linkny.com