Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution doesn't belong to me.

Reality Bites ~ Todd thinks about what happened to the other Brotherhood members after mutant hunters got them, and how it has affected his life.

If there's one thing that's different between us and the X-Geeks, besides the obvious schmancy pansy stuff they get while we have zip, it's the bonds we have. I'm probably sounding all corny and all, but we were a real family. I mean, take Lance for example, he was everybody's big brother that routinely beat us all up and would have hung us outside on a flagpole by our underwear, except Freddy cause he would probably break it, and Tabby because hey, she's a girl. Although we do tend to forget that. He took care of us, even though he never let us really know it, but you could always tell it. Course, soon as you try to mention it to him, he'll get all tough and stuff and probably beat the pulp out of us, so we never brought it up. But he cared for us all the same.

I wonder what has happened to him now…

The others too. They're all gone, taken away by mutant hunters. They didn't take me though. Maybe I wasn't worth their time, or maybe they didn't even notice me. That happens a lot. Bullies can spot me about a mile away, but basically everybody else can't spot me even if I'm standing in front of them. Maybe it's because I'm too stupid or something. I dunno. It's just that nobody really cared much for me.

Except them, yo. They cared, although like Lance, none of us would really admit that we cared more than for ourselves and the Brotherhood cause.

They're probably dead.

It's been a while, I realize that now. It used to be that I'll still be making up those corny fairy tale stories, where one day I'll open my eyes and see them all back, safe and sound. Or maybe this is just some really long nightmare, and I'll come out of my room, looking like I've just been run over by several trucks, and they'll be sitting around the table, moaning and complaining about the city cutting off the water again and how the entire house is falling apart. Sure as hell annoying, but at least we were together.

Course, after a while, you stop believing anymore. There's only so many days you can go through alone, walking through the house, expecting to run into the spazzbrain since he never looks where he's going. Or maybe stepping on one of Boom-boom's energy bombs and nearly getting your foot blown off. Or the house shaking because big brother Avalanche can't figure out how to do the fantastically complicated calculus, and Freddy yelling because there's no more food in the cupboards, which usually did the same as Lance's patented earthquakes. I used to hate all of that stuff. I used to whine and complain every time I ran into Pietro, nearly got my foot blown off by Tabitha, almost had the house fall down on top of my head by Lance and Freddy… now I'll give everything in the world for it.

And you realize after a while that it's not going to come back. I can pray and I can do all this stuff and tell myself they'll be coming back, but reality hits, you know? They're not coming back, they'll never coming back. Even if they do, it's never going to be the same. Of course, they're not coming back, so I leave it at that. I shiver to think what would happen if they came back.

They'll be different, guaranteed.

But they're not coming back. So I don't dwell on how different they'll be.

I'm such an idiot. Talking to myself like this, like I have freaking multiple personality or am schizophrenic or whatever. Maybe that's what happens to you after you're alone for so long.

They were my family, yo. My family. The only family I ever knew, and I loved them. I don't care what the X-Geeks say, mankind is never going to completely accept us, and we got to stick together. They don't look down on me even though I'm the weakest. I can't shake things up, blast things apart, run circles around the planet in record time, or take every blow possible, although I can slime up the place.

Jeez, I'm pathetic. It doesn't matter anymore, none of this does.

Sometimes though, I still like to tell myself that they'll come back. Even though they won't. But more often, I find myself thinking about what happened to them. Or thinking back to when the mutie hunters came…

God, I so thought we were going to all die when they showed up. We don't exactly live in a residential area, our house (if you wanna call it that) is practically the only one for a mile or something like that. I dunno, I never measured it.

I still wonder how they found us.

We fought. We lost. Magneto sure would have been proud. There'd been a lot, not too many, but we still lost anyway. Cause we couldn't kill any of them. Juvenile delinquents, jail escapees, vandals, etc, etc, etc, we were all of that, but we'd never killed anybody. Although we might have considered setting the X-Mansion on fire…

Lance and Tabby are probably dead. Or been brain-washed into some type of living weapons. We're not human to them anyway. We're just these freaks of natures that need to be poked and prodded until they can determine what exactly is wrong with us and fix it. If that's possible, course. Anyway, those two spooked them with the earthquakes and energy bombs. I watched when they knocked Tabby out, any harder and her brains probably would have leaked out. They didn't really care though. If she died, I mean.

Freddy and Pietro… I don't know what happened to them. I don't think they're dead, but they probably are. Maybe they've been cut open and dissected. I don't know. It makes me throw up just to think about it.

Everytime I think about what I lost that night, I want to blame somebody. Anybody. I lost so much more than just four friends. They were my… why do I keep asserting this? I don't need to anymore. I know this. I lost my family. Lance with his superior attitude and hilarious crush on Kitty… I wonder if she cried when she learned about what happened to him? She's one of the few X-Geeks that seem to be the type to care if we were all wiped out. I miss Lance a lot. He was really funny, you know? When I used to have nightmares about my old man and all, he'd always stay there with me in my room. He'd stay there for practically the entire night until I fell asleep. Then the next morning, he'd have these great big black bags under his eyes cause he hadn't gotten enough sleep. It happened more than once too. And not to just me. We're all the products of crappy childhoods after all, and he felt responsible for all of us, so he'd stay there, never leaving until we were snoring again. It was really funny because he'd never bring it up, and we'd never bring it up too. Course when I wake up now, the sweat dripping off my face as I remember that night, he's not there to comfort me to sleep. Although, I can say he's really nice without fear of him smacking me silly anymore. He'd never mean it though. Just had to keep up that tough guy attitude, I guess…

Freddy just claimed that he had no affection for any of us, but you could tell he did. We always knew. You could tell because he'll keep going on and on and on about how much he hated us sometimes and how he wanted us to all be locked up in some mental hospital so he could have some peace and quiet, but at the same time, he'll never let us do something dangerous by ourselves. When Lance wasn't there… doing his job and all, Freddy would be there. He was so damn dependable too. Slow maybe, but you couldn't help but like the guy, you know? As long as we didn't tease him about his weight, I think he would have followed us to hell and back.

Tabby I didn't know too well, but she was cool. Although I'm still a bit miffed that she'd never let us in her room… Mystique's former room… she was cool. She knew how to have fun, and had all these hilarious ideas. Stupid ideas, granted, but funny…

Pietro, that spazzbrain. He's the youngest one of us, but you'd never tell. From his attitude, you'd thing he was the king of the world, and he'll believe it too if he wanted to. You couldn't keep any control of him. Lance tried, but ended up with a headache bigger than the ones he gets from using his powers. It was hilarious though, to watch Pietro run around like a one-man insane asylum. Doctor, nurse, patient… he could be all of that and a lot more too. Out of all of us, he was the one who was the most psychotic, although Tabby could have given him a run for his money. He was also very protective, like Lance, but different too. More of a protective attitude that didn't come out until he thought he was going to lose somebody. He teases and annoys the hell out of all of us sometimes, but it wouldn't be the same without him anyway.

It wouldn't be the same without any of them.

So yeah, I miss them. How can I not?

Course, I'll never tell them that. If they came home right now, I'd probably try to look cool and ask them where they've been. Or at least, I'd try. Maybe I'll end up hugging them, I dunno, but I'd never tell them that I missed them every second of every minute of these past months. It'll be too embarrassing.

Sometimes, I hate em. I hate them for taking away so much in my life when they got taken away. It's stupid, I know, but sometimes I can't help but hate them. Then I feel sad and guilty because they got taken away, and I didn't, and I'm probably luckier than they are because I'm still alive and physically okay when they might not be breathing anymore. Though if I'm truly better than them, I can't be sure. I don't think I'll ever be the same type of okay that I was when they were around.

You know how they say how you take something for granted before it goes away? I guess that's what happened here. For so long, I'd no one. They were all repelled by my slime and weird looks. Then they came around, and they didn't care. I thought we were going to be together forever, through college and life and everything so we could grow old together and lose teeth together and be old geezers together.

Plans never work out the way you want them to though.

I want to blame the X-geeks for not saving them, but why should they? We're just… pests, I guess, and maybe they're all glad that we've been wiped out. Well, maybe Kitty misses Lance, and that back-stabbing traitor might feel some sympathy, but other than that, they really shouldn't care anyway, so I can't blame them. I can't really blame all the 'normal' humans either because I'm sure they're not all that way. Although I still don't think we'll ever be truly accepted either. I mean, come on, do you want your daughter to date some guy who looks like he got spliced with toad genes? Or a guy who could destroy your house in a matter of minutes cause he can make earthquakes? Or let your son date a girl who could blast his body parts off one by one? It'll probably never happen, but it could, and that's why we'll never be truly accepted until everybody's like us.

But they're not going to be around to see that. I'm probably not going to be around to see that. Yet they're paying the price for somebody else's mistakes.

Maybe, I can keep dreaming, yo. Maybe I can keep closing my eyes and counting to ten, and I'll suddenly be in a pretty meadow with butterflies and all that crap, and maybe a pretty brook with rabbits drinking out of it with a couple trees growing here and there that have all these birds singing and all, and I'll be happy because they'll all be there, having some pathetically story-book picnic that Tabby and Pietro decided to do in a sugar-rush hyper-attack. And maybe we'll all be laughing because Freddy has eaten all the food while we're still starving, Tabby nearly blown off one of Pietro's hands when he tried to throw her into the river, or because the two had found the daisy chain that Lance had been absent-mindedly making for his pretty Kitty, or maybe because I did something real stupid to make us all laugh.

Then reality slaps me in the face.

And I'm all alone again.

Reality sure bites, doesn't it?

This is the product of depressment due to the fact that I still have a half-day of school left. *thinks* And because I've had bad writer's block and all.

*grimaces* This story is really going off the deep-end… *grins* Don't worry, I'll probably be deleting it in a bit since it's so freaking disturbing and not exactly very intelligent…

=D Thanks for reading! Please review to make my day! ~@_@~ I'm a glutton…

Pikachumaniac