Guess whose back!

I'm seriously running out things to say at the start of all this!

Ah, what the heck! Tom's finally out of the hotel with Batty, but Mavis has disappeared…or has she?

Chapter 3: The 'Village'

Amongst the large, thick trees that littered the forest, a single, large black bat could be seen weaving through the branches where it couldn't easily be seen. Poor Mavis was flapping her wings like crazy after managing to slip out of the room after Tom, trying to keep up with him, fear clear in her eyes; clearly having a mild-panic attack.

She was actually panting lightly from the effort of speed she was putting into flying…and it didn't help that by trying to stay hidden, she kept crashing into a few of the tree branches. When she finally decided to catch a break, she heard the swoop of wings and peered through the leaves to see two bats fly up above the trees.

One suddenly turned into Tom, who did a backwards-free fall as he cried out loudly in excitement, "WHOO-HOO!" Just as he started to fall toward the branches, he turned back into his bat form as Batty pointed and said, "I can see some lights ahead!"

"That must be the village!" Tom said with excitement in his voice as they flew towards it, eliciting panic from Mavis, "Just like Mavis said!"

She wasted no time in flying ahead of them to where the village was. It was considerable small, fitting snuggly into the clearing it was in. The streetlights were doing well to light up the dirt streets, while filling the alleys with darkness. Mavis changed back and looked around anxiously before speeding into the nearest alleyway where she was effectively hidden.

She watched as the two bats flew in, disappearing in a half-circle behind the clock tower, allowing Tom to change back into his human unseen. As he knelt down, safe in the shadows, Tom peered around excitedly as Batty perched on his shoulder, also taking in the quaint town. While the bat didn't look quite as excited as his master was, he did like the change of scenery.

Tom's smile, however, couldn't get much bigger as he took in the sight of his first human town. For pretty much his whole life he had been cooped up inside the walls of buildings, only seeing specks of the world through windows or balconies. He had no idea the world could be so big like it was now and this was a tiny fraction of it! His chest threatened to explode with all the excitement at the ideas of all the places to go and see. Even if was just thirty minutes tops, this was a good a place as any to start. He quickly drew his scanner so he could snap a picture for KidChaor.

Tucking it back into his pocket, Tom stood and literally walked down the roof and wall, hopping onto the street with ease. Everything back in the hotel when it was alive and busy was also so bright and busy and…noisy, but here everything was so dark and…quiet. A clear, slightly disturbing, but welcomed difference all the same.

Mavis watched, keeping herself hidden, as Tom looked around curiously, looking much like a child experiencing his first time at the park or store. As he looked around the square, Tom paused at the simple looking fountain and felt the cold stone and a wide smile appeared on his face, "So this is a fountain…"

"Didn't you have a fountain at your birthday that one year?" Batty asked as he flew onto the stone ring, looking up at him inquisitively. "Chocolate fountain," Tom reminded him, "Doesn't count."

He leaned in and scooped up some water in his hands, before rubbing them together, not noticing Batty mimicking him as he grinned, "This is gonna be clawsome!" He then took his scanner back out and snapped a picture of the fountain.

Something else then caught his eye; a clothing shop. He paused as he checked it over, remembering Cleo's warning and smiled when he saw it wasn't a retail shop. He rushed over and peered through the glass to find it was displaying something similar to what Draco would have in his own store; one was a simple men's dress shirt that had naturally loose sleeves and black pants, while the other was a sundress that was a deep red with a small slit up one side with gold and ruby jewellery.

He gave a fanged grin as he turned to Batty, who was flying next to him, "Well, what do you think?" His shadow slid in through the crack in the door before posing in front of the male outfit, a pose which he mimicked, "Too much?"

Batty looked between the outfit to Tom for about a minute, before answering, "Add a bat pendant, a belt with signature buckle or chain belt…and sure, it be nice." Tom rolled his eyes at that, before looking at the dress. "What about something for Mavis?" He asked much to Mavis' surprise as his shadow morphed to look more like her and made a pose over the dress.

Batty hummed before shrugging, "Turn it black and put a rhinestones and for her…it maybe presentable."

Tom cackled at him from that before turning back to snap a picture of the display. But suddenly, a villager appeared in the display case, eyes burning with hate and anger, face fixed into a permeant, scary glare with a pitchfork in hand as he snarled at him, "Vampire!"

Another appeared next to him, holding a torch, sneering at him, "Bite off toes!"

Both males jumped back with startled yells, Batty falling onto Tom's shoulder from fright and Tom nearly dropped his scanner. But Tom remembered what Frankie told him about presenting himself, so he smiled, trying to be as friendly and non-threatening as possible as he waved as he put the scanner away, "Oh, hi humans! I'm Thomas Dracula, but I prefer…" He was cut off when the lights flickered off and Mavis hid a sly smile from where she knelt over a power cable, a single of her claw-like nails shrinking back to normal size.

A sudden light made the two turn to see more villager were seeming to slink out from every which-way, armed with pitchforks and torches, shouting out his kind's name as if it were a curse. One even shouted out in a snarl, "We take your candy!"

As the villagers began surrounding the poor boy, he tried his best to reason with them, despite the underlying fear that was crawling into his voice, "Really…I-I-I'm harmless…strictly vegetarian."

Batty gulped as he hid in Tom's collar, whimpering, "Somehow…I don't think they care about that…" He yelped when one of them suddenly swung out at him with a wooden spike in hand, nearly nicking him, "Did you just try to stake me?" Panic was clearly edging into his voice.

But suddenly, another villager held something out to him, at first he thought it was an oddly, long and oval-shaped loaf of bread…until a certain hit his senses. "Is that garlic?" Tom asked horrified as he quickly covered his nose, already feeling his stomach wretch with the realization.

As the villagers continued to surround him; neither he nor Batty saw one behind them trip over his own feet. His head came loose…to reveal one of the zombies that occupied most of the hotel's staff. From her hiding place, Mavis gasped in panic, and in a stealthy blast of speed, rushed through the 'villagers' and fixed him, getting out of sight just as Tom turned.

Tom could feel his dread reaching no levels when suddenly one of the 'villagers' stabbed one of his own comrades in the head, startling the both of them. Tom felt his eyes widened in shocked-alarm, while Batty fainted, Mavis, however, face-palmed at this.

Out of nowhere, another 'villager' tripped over his own feet, dropping his torch and setting the rest of them ablaze, creating one heck of a bonfire. At the sight of this, Mavis groaned before grabbing onto a beam and started to bang her head into it…repeatedly.

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Meanwhile, not too far from the 'village', Johnny and Kazlyn were trekking through the alleged haunted woods. While at the inn, they heard many stories from both the other patrons as well as the staff that the woods were unnatural compared to other places in the region. Anyone who tried to venture past a certain point would get scared away by a varity of things; ghosts, zombies, strange winged shadows, there are even sightings of a shadowed, caped female figure with the most hypnotic, yet scary red eyes you'd ever had the misfortune to ever see. One man, big, bulky, not someone you'd mess with, broke down into tears as he described her and all the horrible images that assaulted his mind as soon as he made the mistake of making eye-contact with her.

Naturally the two became curious, while secretly, Johnny felt a strange…pull at his mind, whenever the woman was mentioned. Yes, pull would be the right word; and the feeling was leading him out into the woods. His sister, however, was more curious about the others things that supposedly made the woods their home.

However, while exploring, Johnny tripped over one of the upturned roots, causing him to fall backwards over a steep hill. He had tried to grab onto a branch for support, only to grab Kazlyn's sleeve by mistake, dragging the startled girl down with him, right into a much darker, spookier part of the wood.

As they tried to find their way back, Kazlyn felt her irritation grow as minutes grew into an hour and decided to voice her frustration, "Admit it, we're lost, aren't we?"

Johnny was looking at his Ipod and frowned, "Yep, I can't even find anything on the GPS. It's like wherever we are, doesn't exist period," He looked around and sighed, "You'd think there'd be a town out here."

But it was then they spotted a large firelight, most likely from a town. The two siblings blinked before looking at each other in surprise as Kazlyn slowly said, "That certainly is convenient." That said, they headed towards town.

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Back in town, Tom could only stare in horror at seeing the humans all on fire and no even flinching in pain as he shouted, "Holy Rabies, you're on fire!" He tried again to be friendly as he asked, "Are you alright? Can I help you?" But they still sneered at him.

Tom, cornered, could only speak with his voice just barely above a hurt whisper as he realized the truth, "Mavis was right..." Mavis was about to bang her head again when she heard this and paused in surprise. Tom's face was filled with despair as his dream was crushed as he said again, "Mavis was right..."

Unable to take it anymore, Tom turned into back into his bat form and flew off, Batty right behind him, heading back for the hotel. Mavis, stunned, turned into a cloud of mist so she could stand in the center of the crowd, watching as her brother's bat form disappeared behind the trees along with Batty. She did it, she really did it.

"I...it worked," Mavis let out in stunned-disbelief, which melted into immense relief as she smiled up in the direction they left, "Now my little brother will be safe...forever," She sighed again before a loud groan reminded of her of where she was and she frowned seriously as she addressed the crowd, "Okay, okay, everybody, you can stop now; show's over!"

The 'villagers' removed their masks to reveal they were all the zombie bellhops from the hotel that Mavis convinced to help her keep Tom uninterested in exploring the human world and ultimately keeping him safe. As much as they were hesitate to help, they did.

"Everybody, back to work!" Mavis ordered, "And tear this place down!" The zombies began to take down every building which was really clearly disguised cardboard cut-outs held up by wooden beams. Mavis nodded in satisfaction before noticing one of the zombies leaving the store and was taking the mannequin, causing her to reprimand him, "Stop, stop, leave the mannequin!" She got a pleading look from the zombie in question, to which she said in response, "You don't need a mannequin; put it down!"

As the zombies continued to tear down the movie-set like town, Mavis watched for a moment to make sure it would be done how she wanted before nodding to herself and switching to her bat form, flying off to check up on her brother. But as she did so, she and the zombies never noticed two figures falling down a hill...again, once the figures stood back up, they took notice of the commotion and began to follow them.

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(Back at the Hotel, in Tom's Room)

Once making convincing lies to get past her and her brother's friends and family about where she was, Mavis made her way to her brother's room. She paused at the door and took a deep breath before putting a curious, yet still warm and pleasant smile as she opened the door and peeked in to see if he was even there or if she was early. Sure enough, she found Tom sitting on his bed, knees drawn into his chest, scanner on his dresser and jacket hanging up on his desk chair. The poor boy looked so distraught it pulled at her heartstrings as Batty tried his best to console him, but she kept her facade as she walked over and asked in concern, "Tom, sweet-blood...you're back early," She stood in the open space in front of the mini-corridor that led to the door, "How'd the village go?"

Tom was momentarily startled by her appearance, but upon him looking up, Mavis was startled to see the tears in his eyes. However, that grew into all out surprise when he pretty much leapt out of the bed and almost bowled her over tackling her into a tight hug. He would've knocked her over had she not quickly grab the wall for support, now she was really concerned, which she voiced, "Thomas?"

"Oh, Mavy; you were right! They attacked me!" Tom choked out holding onto his sister tightly, almost afraid that if he let go, she'd actually disappear, "They wanted to burn my clothes, stomp my toes; one even tried to stake me!"

"What?" Mavis asked shocked. "And worse!" He continued clearly upset, "They had garlic, on bread!"

"WHAT?" Mavis yelled rubbing his back soothingly, like she did when he was little and accidentally hurt himself bad enough it did hurt, "Oh, Tommy, I'm so sorry you had to go through that!" She gently caressed his hair in comfort, "I'm sorry your first night out had to be so bad, my little scorpion."

"No, I'm sorry I doubted you, Big Sister," Tom whimpered as Batty flew up to join the hug offering the distraught vampire more comfort, "I never want to leave again."

However, that last part caused Mavis to secretly smile as she said, "A-Alright, little Devil, if that's what you want," She pulled away as Tom wiped away his tears and gave her a weak smile and matching nod, "I know it will take a lot, but I will make this up to you, Tom; after all, we still have a full six days of fun before your big day and as such..." She smiled as she took out a plate of what looked like oatmeal cookies...with larva in them, "I got you your favorite, oatmeal and larva-chip cookies," She then leaned in with a smirk, "I had to sneak them past Aunt Wanda, so don't go telling her."

Batty nearly threw up at the sight, but managed to hold his ground, while Tom gave her a grateful look as he graciously accepted the plate. Mavis continued to speak, most playfulness gone, "I wouldn't much more on it; I know you'll feel better, with time, maybe when you open your pre-age gifts Mama and Papa left you."

This made Tom perk up a little with a more genuine smile. It had become a tradition that after a vampire was naturally born, the parents would both set aside two gifts; one for when they turned of age at 118 and the other for when they master a good portion of their powers at any given age. Mavis had gotten her pre-age gifts when she turned 111, their mother had given her a vast book of abilities vampires could use but couldn't naturally learn like their natural abilities, while their father left her a relic of his human past; the crown that had belonged to his first wife, as for when she came of age, their mother had passed on her necklace, a priceless family heirloom that granted them much stronger control and strength to their elemental power, whilst their father gifted her with a dagger that had the symbol of the Scared Order of Dracul in the center of the hilt. Since he had mastered everything but one skill, Tom knew this meant he would be getting the latter.

"Hmm," Tom hummed in thought of what his gifts could be, "What do you think they left me?"

"I honestly have no clue," Mavis shrugged, "They were rather secretive when it came to you; all I know is that they are much more special compared to what they left me," She then headed for the door, smiling warmly, "You finish your cookies and then meet down in the lobby; I have so much fun planned, alright?"

Tom nodded with a smile before calling after her, "I love you."

Mavis paused before smiling, "I love you too, Tom," Once she closed the door, she let out a huge, but quiet, sigh of relief; knowing her plan had worked, "Thank Satan..."

This, of course, immediately caught the attention of the shrunken head, who was immediately highly suspicious as she said, "Oh no, what did you do?"

Mavis' face hardened as her eyes flashed like ice as she replied in all seriousness and finality, "What I had to do."

"You know you can't protect him forever, right?" The shrunken head asked skeptically with a raised eyebrow. "Doesn't mean I can't try, can I?" Mavis shot back rhetorically, "Besides, he'll thank me for this later."

The shrunken head rolled her eyes before agreeing sarcastically with her usual sass, "Mmhmm, funny; that's what the guy who shrunk my head said."

Fed up, Mavis took out a handkerchief from under her sleeve and with a little of her levitation, used to gag the shrunken head. She walked away smiling innocently as the shrunken head's muffled yells faded away from her ears.

Meanwhile, back in Tom's room, Tom had set the plate aside, the cookies untouched and instead sat at his window, staring out into the vast landscape his view gave him. He was still a bit upset as he traced random figures and shapes in the sill-frame. Batty took notice of this and flew over to perch on his knee. "Hey, Tom...are you...okay?" Batty asked with concern.

Tom didn't answer at first, but after a few seconds, he spoke, "Batty...do you honestly think my sister's right? About humans, I mean."

Batty was quiet at this, ears down in thought. After a bit, he shrugged, "I really don't know how to answer that, Tom: I mean, sure, those humans who experiment on me weren't nice, neither were those villagers, but hey," He looked up with a bad attempt to smile, "Can't judge the whole crop on a few bad apples, as Zak always says, right?" He wilted a little when Tom returned to looking out the window, "Why do you ask?"

His shadow brought his dark-colored scanner over and into Tom's waiting hand. Tom stared at the screen for a moment before bringing up KidChaor's homepage, a long list of her 'Rivals' and 'Allies' were placed beneath the totals of her wins, loses and ties. For so long he thought maybe his sister was wrong for once, after all, if someone could so sweet and outgoing like his online friend had always been, how could they hate someone for simply being different?

"I...never mind," Tom sighed shaking his head though Batty still looked concerned. He noticed he had a new message and brought it up, he rose an eyebrow at the seven simple words that stared back at him in bluish-white letters:

Do you want to play for real?

Followed by 'yes or no', he immediately felt like it was some sort of prank. After all, how can you play Chaotic for real? However, in hindsight, he could honestly see no harm being done in this short of prank unless it was some kind of meet up location should he pick yes. Deciding to go for it, he hit yes and almost immediately, the whole screen went black accept for the Chaotic logo, which was a bright blue and the button above was flashing the same bluish-white as the letters had been.

Tom blinked before trying to open his scanner, only to find he couldn't. "HEY!" He shouted in disbelieved-anger, much to Batty's startled-surprise, "My scanner!" He furiously pushed at the regular buttons but nothing happened. He gave a frustrated sound. Don't tell him it was some kind of virus; he thought you couldn't put those on internet based things. He looked at the flashing button warily before pressing it. The screen came back to life but the whole thing was blank safe for his profile picture, which was a picture of Batty flying in the distance.

"MY DECK!" He shouted now upset all over again, only this time more enraged then sad, he swiped over the screen to see if he still had any cards left, but let out a groan as he left his head fall back against the sill-frame, "Just great..." He sighed tiredly as he closed his eyes.

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Meanwhile, in an unknown space, Tom groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, reaching up to rub them, feeling like he just got thrown out of a tornado and wondered if Billy pulled that fan-prank on him again. "Ugh...what the heck...?" He started to wonder only to pause when his vision cleared and realized he wasn't in his room. Heck, he was pretty sure he wasn't in the hotel anymore.

Everything around him looked like something out those science-fiction books Frankie always gets him, everything was a whitish color save for the potted plants, even the tables and chairs were white with an odd curve to their design giving a futuristic appearance and strange metal things carrying what looked like trays of food and drink in weird glasses were literally floating about. He was standing on what looked almost like a painter's palette and other people were appearing on the fainter circles in strange swirls of blue energy that had what looked like white numbers flashing through the streaks. Each of them were holding a scanner of a different color; red, blue, yellow or brown. It was then he noticed something, thousands upon thousands of people were walking about or sitting at tables; humans.

"Batty..." Tom said in a low, slow tone of voice as he glanced around nervously, fear gripping his non-beating heart, slowly raising panic in his eyes as he kept his mouth as closed as possible to hide his fangs, "I don't think we're in the Transylvania anymore..."

However, at not getting a response, Tom blinked and looked at his shoulder, "Batty?" His eyes nearly bulged out of his skull when he didn't see the usually talkative bat on his shoulder. He immediately checked everywhere the fruit bat could hide on him, never noticing a few humans pausing to look at him in funny as his panic rose, "Batty? Batty?" He was slowly growing more frantic, "Batty, come on, little dude, this isn't funny!" He voice grew small with the realization Batty wasn't here, he could faintly feel his eyes swell with liquid fear, a whimper escaping his throat, "M-Mavy...?"

He looked around, hoping no one was giving him bad attention. However, all he saw was humans, all of them, ranging all sorts of appearances, but not one monster in the whole crowd. They weren't dressed anything like the pictures he saw in books or those pictures Mavis used in her yearly welcoming speech. They were fairly covered, not fat in a hideous way, didn't wear those over-bearing, stuffy clothes from his books nor did they have any pitchforks or torches. All the sounds of talking, slurping, the clinking of metal, scraping of chairs and the loud cheers from groups watching the large screens high up on the walls filled his highly sensitive ears. Poor Tom almost literally jumped right out of his skin by a huge, loud boom coming from behind him from a speaker.

So, he did what any reasonable, level-headed, teenaged vampire would do. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Tom screamed in fear, so loud it echoed out across the court and over every bit of noise in the dome-like place, startling everyone so badly, a number of humans fell onto their butts.

BAH-HAH-HAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist putting in the actual realm of Chaotic since Tom and Kaz have their scanners! And Tom's reaction to be suddenly surrounded by humans as far as the eye can see! Right after being attacked by a 'mob'! Oh, call me cruel, but I find this a bit funny!

So, what do you guys think? Love it, hate it? Just review it.

Also, there are still characters from the previous chapters to identify.