Author's Note:

This fanfic is in response to a challenge the InterNutter has on her web page. (Go to http://cat.devil.com for details. I believe it's on her "miscellaneous" page. Check out her other stuff while you're at it, too. She's got a lot of neat stuff.) While this story may not what she had in mind, I hope she enjoys it.

Please review and give me useful feedback. You don't flame me, I don't flame you. (And believe me, I can get very creative...) This story is still open to massive re-writes. I'm having issues with the fact that it seems so contrived...

Standard disclaimer: I ignored weeding a perfectly overgrown garden today to work on this story. In other words, not only am I not making any money from this story, but I'm also probably going to catch a whole lot of crapola for ignoring my chores...

Radical Nike

Part One

Once upon a time, Bayville High was a normal small-town highschool. It had a football team to be reckoned with, a girl's soccer team to be feared, plus the parties to go with them. There were jocks and cheerleaders (and their admirers), as well as the "rest" of the school (namely, the brains, geeks, and misfits).

Once someone managed to hack into the school's intra-net and leave pictures of ill-repute where easily impressionable and imaginative teenagers could see them, but other than the occasional drag-race on one edge of town and the less-rare keg-parties at the other, Bayville was nice and quiet. They didn't even need to install metal-detectors at the front door.

Then, quite inexplicably, strange things began to happen.

At first, there were only little things, so small that few people ever noticed. There was a rash of practical jokes involving slime. There were cases of mistaken identity, where sometimes people were seen in two different places at the same time.

Odder things began to occur: furniture moving by itself, earth tremors, random explosions, more slime. The gym burned down quite spectacularly. The chemistry teacher apparently turned himself into a monster ala Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Little things. Parents were actually starting to comment on them at the monthly PTA meetings.

There was a theory, of course.

The Bayville Demon did it.

Some scoffed at first, but then, slowly, people began to believe. No one ever saw him for more than an instant, or out of the corner of their eyes, but he existed. Actual descriptions varied, but everyone agreed that he was blue and had a tail. Sometimes he was seen in the boys' restrooms, other times he could be seen hanging off a windowsill. Every once in a while, a perceptive individual would walk pass an out-of-the-way corner and detect a whiff of brimstone. Sometimes more than a whiff.

No one actually saw the Demon when he made his mischief, but still, everyone knew he was responsible.

Well, nearly everyone. Those who knew better weren't about to say anything, though.

"Hey, Kitty," Benny Torque hissed across the aisle one morning during homeroom. "Did ya hear about the latest Demon sighting?"

Kitty sighed and shook out her shoulders, which had tensed quite suddenly. "Arcade, like, you know that there's no such thing as 'demons'..."

"You simply lack imagination," the orange-haired hacker snorted. "Anyway, he was seen sneaking around the cafeteria yesterday afternoon. Shortly afterwards, every single chair was pulled out from under whoever was sitting on it in less than a minute. There was almost a riot, man, a riot." Arcade snorted, muffling his laughter at the mental image it created.

Kitty glared at him and turned back to her YM magazine. The bell would ring soon and she wanted to finish her article. Underneath her annoyance, however, she was thinking hard.

*Jean?* Hopefully, the telepath would hear her thought. After a few moments, a slightly irritated voice responded in her mind.

*What is it, Kitty? I'm trying to study.*

*Sorry. Have you, like, heard the latest "Demon" sighting? Someone saw Kurt au naturale in the cafeteria yesterday right before Pietro yanked everybody's chairs out from under them.*

There was a moment of "silence" and then the equivalent of a sigh from Jean. *I'll let Kurt know, Kitty.* Then her presence was gone.

Feeling she had done her duty, Kitty returned her attention to her magazine.

Kurt Wagner was carefully aiming a paperwad with a rubberband at the back of Mr. Wade's head when a concerned and somewhat reproachful voice interrupted his thoughts.

*Someone saw you yesterday, Nightcrawler. Quicksilver's little lunchtime prank is now being attributed to you, Herr Wagner.*

"Ach," he sputtered as the paperwad flew wide and splatted against the board. The rest of the class snickered quietly. Mr. Wade didn't notice the paperwad, but he did turn to glare at the giggling students. Then he noticed the paperwad, but Kurt had already hidden the rubberband in his pocket.

*Pietro must be annoyed that I'm stealing his glory yet again,* he quipped silently. He pretended to be enthralled to be learning how to determine the slope of an angle and doodled aimlessly in the margin of his notebook.

*Kurt, one day you're actually going to get caught by someone and none of us are going to be around to cover for you.*

Wow, Jean actually sounded upset. *No worries, fraulein. I'm a cautious little devil. Now please remove yourself from my head so that I actually have a prayer of passing geometry.*

*Kurt! This is serious.*

*So is Mr. Wade and I suspect he's noticed that my attention is divided.* Kurt felt Jean pull out just as Mr. Wade's hand come down on his shoulder.

"Mr. Wagner, since I have your unwavering attention, would you mind demonstrating the point-slope form for the rest of the class?"

Damn.

"While you're up there, you can also remove the spitwad from the board."

Busted.

Elsewhere in the school, a rather bizarre pair also heard the rumors. At lunch, the two sought an unoccupied corner of the cafeteria to converse.

The first, who called himself Sylvan (but nearly everyone else called Pat) tapped his black lips thoughtfully. "The Demon has certainly become more active, Rhave."

Rhave (Stephanie) nodded, her jewelry clanking softly. "You said that you came across a binding spell, Sylvan. Did you intend to catch the Demon with it?"

Sylvan smiled, his lipstick smudging his teeth purple. "Yup. Here." He shoved a book across the table at her.

"The Art of Ceremonial Magic?" Rhave read. "Man, this thing was published by Barnes and Noble..."

"It's a reprint, okay? The stuff in it is old, my friend. Good as gold."

Rhave stared at him doubtfully and flipped through the pages, glancing at diagrams and descriptions of the various demons of Hell. "What are we supposed to do?" She handed the book back to him.

Sylvan heard the skeptical tone. Honestly, Rhave wasn't impressed by anything unless it came out of a rotting book that looked like someone had spilled something noxious on.

"Just look at it!" He pushed the book back at her.

Rhave glared and examined it more carefully. Her nose crinkled in disgust. "Man, I am not going to sacrifice a baby goat or do anything else in this book. It's sick." She looked rather green under her make-up.

"Hey, magic can be adapted, Rhave. You know that. We can use some of that sympathetic stuff to lure him in. We have those hairs, after all. Maybe some of that gypsy magic can be useful. We can catch him in a bottle or something."

Rhave hunched over. "Why are you set on catching this thing, anyway?"

"It'd be cool. A sorcerer's got to have a diabolical minion or two, right?" Sylvan's eyes flashed enthusiastically.

"And what would you do with it?"

"Have it do my homework, paint my house, inflict pain on my enemies. All sorts of things."

Somehow, the thought of a demon writing a paper on the social pressures that inspired feminism seemed out of place. The thought of scaring Duncan Matthews and his cronies spitless was more inspiring.

"Hey, y'all."

"Hi, Rogue."

"Hello, Rogue."

The white-streaked girl sank down next to them, munching on her fries.

Sylvan bit his tongue nervously. Rogue made him extremely anxious, but he attributed it to mundane hormones. She was an enigma; she refused to tell anyone her real name. Even the school computers just listed her as 'Rogue.'

She had a way of creeping people out without even trying. Once, when Sylvan had asked her about any past romances, she had laughed and said, I've been told my kisses are to die for.

By the nasty edge in her voice, Sylvan got the felling she wasn't exactly joking.

The time he had seen her practicing taibo in the school's weight room had reinforced the opinion.

"What're ya talking about?" she asked, mildly thrown by the furtive looks in Rhave and Sylvan's eyes.

Rhave slurped at her soda. "Bayville Demon." She took a bite of her pizza. "Why aren't you sitting with the other Institute kids? Where's Risty?"

"Risty's not here today and I didn't want that German stomach over there stealing all mah fries," Rogue. She pointed at a rowdy table where a girl in a pink sweater was yelling at two boys. One of the boys, a black kid with peroxide-blonde hair, was trying to retrieve a bag of chips from a kid with blue hair.

"His name's Kurt, right?"

"Yup. You should see 'im at breakfast. He eats maybe three times as much as anyone else."

Rhave stood abruptly. She hated it when Sylvan began to drool over Miss Untouchable. "Hey, I got to go finish some homework before my next class. Talk to you later."

Rogue and Sylvan watched her go. "She's in a good mood," Rogue said sarcastically.

"Her? Never." At least, not when you're around. "Hey, what do you think about the Demon?"

"Huh?" Rogue stopped eating and looked at him in surprise. "Never really thought about it that much. I always thought someone made 'im up to cover for all the practical jokes that go on around here."

Maybe Rogue was more of a muggle (1) than he'd originally thought.

It was later that night when Rhave and Sylvan met in the latter's basement to plan how to catch the Bayville Demon.

"Okay, here is what we know. First, he seems to have favorite haunts. The ones he seems to favor are the last stall in eastern boy's restroom on the second floor, a group of hedges near the front gate, the chemical closet by the chem lab, and the boy's locker room in the gym. I was thinking that we should set up on one of those spots. He's usually seen between classes, so we won't have to sit and wait for him twenty-four-seven."

Rhave frowned. "You know there is no plausible reason for me to go into the boy's restroom or lockers, Sylvan."

"That's why I figured we'd stake out the chem closet. If we get caught in there, everyone would assume we'd been making out or something..." He ignored Rhave's strange look. "Plus, one more bottle in there with all the rest would go unnoticed."

"So we're going with the bottle thing?"

"Yeah. I found this great spell in one of those books on gypsy magic at the library." Rhave refrained from comment. "What you do is you take a bottle and write this phrase— Uh, give me a sec—" Sylvan pulled out a notebook with some odd script copied down in it. "'Monster who stands by this jar, go in and trouble me no more.'" He gestured to the squiggly marks.

"They really say that?"

"Well, it's an approximation. I figure we can add this other line, 'You who stand within my sway, my every word you must obey.' It's from a compulsion spell. So we've got a way to hold him and a way to make him obey us."

He reached behind him, his chain bracelets rattling. "I got this jar to trap him in." It was a simple specimen jar, somewhat large, but it wouldn't stand out in the chem lab. "All we really have to do is put the demon's hair inside it and inscribe the words on the outside."

"Tell me again where you got that hair from?"

"I found it on the floor in the cafeteria yesterday, all right? He must shed or something. All I had to do was pick it up." He sounded proud of himself.

"You seem to have this all figured out, Sylvan. Why do you need my help?" Rhave asked caustically.

Sylvan went blank for a second. "Uh, well, I figured it would be—"

"—safer?" she inserted.

Well, that wasn't what I was going to say, but that'll work... "Y-yeah."

She grunted. "Well, as long as I get some time using him, I'm all for it."

At the Xavier Institute, the "Bayville Demon" was in the process of catching Hell.

"Mind explainin' the situation, elf?" Logan growled. He had a stony expression on his face that would cause most people to pee their pants. Several girls, including a fuming werewolf, glared, which didn't help the situation any.

Kurt, his fuzzy blue tail twisting behind nervously, grinned charmingly. "I don't know what situation you're talking about, Herr Logan."

"The blue hair in the girl's bathroom says otherwise, fuzzball..."

Kurt broke down. "I wasn't doing anything. It was a misfire. I'm an utter gentleman—everyone knows that..." He trailed off when he noted the irate looks his female housemates were giving him. "Really! I was supposed to land on the balcony at the end of the hall!"

Of course, the accidental glimpse he had gotten of Rahne in the shower had been an unexpected bonus. Pity that her mutation made her nose as keen as Logan's, otherwise he may have gotten away with none the wiser...

"An accident, eh? Maybe we ought to work on preventing 'accidents.' Meet me in the Danger Room in twenty minutes, elf. We're gonna work on that control of yours." With that, Logan stalked away, leaving a self-righteous Nightcrawler to face the fury of Rahne Sinclair, who clothes were clinging to her damp skin in a rather attractive way. Oh, ja, you really are a gentleman, Kurt Wagner, he scolded himself.

Oh, course, Hell hath no fury like that of a Scottish werewolf whose modesty has been compromised.

"Ye better get yerself tae the Danger Room before I decide to mete out mah own punishment, shaggy," she warned ominously as she transformed into her lupine form.

Kurt fled on all fours, ignoring the laughter of the other girls standing in the hall as Rahne nipped at his heels.

Kitty watched Wolfsbane chase Kurt down the hall, feeling rather sorry for the fuzzy blue mutant.

"He can't help makin' waves, can he?"

Kitty looked at her roommate. "Really, Rogue, I think he, like, thrives on the attention. As long as we're not, like, trying to exorcise him, he seems to be totally cool with it."

Rogue popped up an eyebrow. "What about the stuff at school? Ya know the Brotherhood's mayhem has been blamed on Kurt more often lately. What if they pull a stunt that really makes people afraid or hurts them? If Kurt gets found out, folks might try to really get after him."

I know. I'm worried about him too, Rogue. "He's been taking care of himself for, like, ever, you know? His entire mutation makes him, what, the ultimate escape artist?"

Rogue scowled. "Be serious, Pryde."

"I am serious. He's so paranoid about people finding out what he really looks like, you know? And if someone does see him, Jean or the Professor make them forget about it anyway." Kitty turned away and headed towards the den.

I don't want to think about what would happen if he got caught.

In the Danger Room, Nightcrawler watched as Wolverine called up a simulation. There were twelve platforms arranged at random levels throughout the room. They all had marks on them, like a helicopter landing pad. There were similar markings at odd places on the walls and floor as well. The symbols cycled through a series of green, yellow, and red, like a traffic signal.

"'kay, elf. This is simple." Wolverine pointed out the platforms. "For the next five minutes, you're gonna 'port or jump from one landing area to another while dodging me. We'll both be dodging missiles. The catch is that you can only land on one of the marked areas and you can only do it while the platform is yellow or green. All the platforms have different timing, but they always go green-yellow-red. If I catch you, one of the missiles hits you, or you land on one of the landing pads while it's red, we start over. We're gonna do this until you get it perfect." His brown eyes mocked Nightcrawler from under his hood. "Got it?"

"Oh, ja." I'm doomed.

"Pick a platform." Nightcrawler 'ported in a cloud of sulfurous smoke. "Start 'er up, Beast!" Wolverine called to the control room.

The Danger Room came to life as Nightcrawler appeared on the opposite side of the room, quickly jumping to an adjacent platform as three mini-cannonballs came hurling through the space. He turned to see Wolverine flying towards him, knocking away cannonballs with his claws as he hurtled through the air.

Kurt teleported to a green platform and then immediately teleported again as it turned yellow. This went on for another minute-and-a-half before a missile knocked him off one of the targets.

The sim ended as he rolled neatly on the floor. Wolverine glared at him. "Try again."

This time he only lasted forty-five seconds before he landed on a red platform.

"Again."

Gott, this was going to be a long night...

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Author's Note:

(1) A "muggle" is a non-magical person. Anyone who has read any of the Harry Potter books will catch the reference immediately.