Chapter 9: A Spyke Eye View
-Bayville Water Tower-
At the Bayville Water Tower, a very large man came walking up towards its fenced in entrance. 'Big as a house' didn't even begin to describe him. He was around either eight to nine feet tall with large muscles, long dirty blonde hair that seemed unbelievably grimy and looked like an unkempt wildman.
The man walked up to the gate and thrust his hand through the stay out sign and chain link fence as if it were cheap paper. Forcing it out of the way he started walking towards the tower and then started climbing up its ladder.
(Elsewhere)
-Bayville High-
Evan was in his History class, and was looking at the grade he got on his report on the Star Wars Program, which he apparently got a D on.
"Aw man! Professor Xavier's gonna ground me for the rest of my life!" He groaned.
"Mister Daniels, could we have a moment if you please?" His teacher asked while gesturing for him to come to his desk. "Admittedly I did say I wanted a report on the Star Wars Program, but I wasn't talking about the movie."
"There's gotta be something I can do to make this up. Anything?" Evan asked.
"Actually, there is something." The man said as he pulled out one of the drawers of his desk and he pulled out a digital camcorder.
"Whoa, a Digicam!" Evan said as he took it.
"Current events can mean anything mister Daniels, it doesn't necessarily have to be exciting, it just has to mean something." The man explained. "All you need to do is find something that means something to you. You'll have until the end of the week to turn in the project, alright?"
"Sweet! Thanks, teach!" Evan grinned as he ran out the room. As the boy looked through the camera's features he looked out the window through it and zoomed in through the eye lens until the Institute came into focus. "Whoa! I can even see the Institute in this thing!" He said as he then noticed Logan. "Hello, Logan." He chuckled.
"Evan!" A voice said below him, which caused the boy to almost stick all of his spikes into the person, but thankfully stopped once he realized that it was Kurt.
"Hey man, don't do that! I almost toothpicked ya!" Evan said as he retracted his spikes.
"Sorry. Image inducers on the fritz, I need to get back to the Institute before someone sees me." Kurt explained as his watch's projection kept glitching. "So I won't be able to get to our shop class."
"Hey don't sweat it, I'll get it on tape for ya!" Evan smiled while gesturing to the camera in his hand.
"Sweet! Thanks man, now I better get out of here." Kurt grinned as he telephoned away.
Evan then started to go to his next class, but stopped when he saw both Rogue and Kitty coming his direction, the Valley and Goth girl both arguing the whole time.
"Ah told you, Ah didn't steal your book!" Rogue snapped at the brunette.
"Oh, so I guess it just got up and walked off?" Kitty questioned. Evan meanwhile was hiding behind his locker as he zoomed in on their faces.
"You loaned it to Kurt and he loaned it to me, I was gonna give it back." The Southern girl snapped as she crossed her arms.
Kitty was going to retort but she was stopped when she bumped into someone, which was a boy from the drama club, Jason.
"Oh, sorry!" Kitty gasped as both of them dropped the things they were carrying. "Could I be any clutzier?"
"And enter: the love interest." Evan smirked as he zoomed in.
"No no, it's fine. I wasn't paying attention either." Jason assured her as he helped her get her things. "Here you dropped these."
"Wow. Like, thanks Jason." Kitty smiled while she gained a rather visible blush.
Rogue, meanwhile, just scoffed as she gave a look of disgust. "Thank you, Jason!" She mocked in a disdainful tone.
Kitty ignored her as she talked with Jason. "So, what are you doing?" She asked him.
"Oh, I'm hanging posters to try and get people to go to the tryouts for the school play tomorrow night. The play is next week." Jason said as he showed them a poster, which was of a rock musical of the Dracula story. "We're doing a Dracula musical."
Rogue then decided to chuckle. "Ah know for a fact that Gavin is gonna be trying out the moment he finds out about this." She said with an amused expression.
As if on cue, said pseudo Vampire came sliding in out of nowhere, headphones on, and his floppy brimmed fedora and round rimmed sunglasses on. To the keen of hearing, it could be clearly heard that he was listening to swing music, more specifically 'King of Swing' by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
"Whoa, those are some cool moves." Evan said as he followed the boy who spun around, his jacket flapping the whole time.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, he and I are trying out for the main male lead." Jason nodded, as they watched the boy dance right down the hall.
"You guys are gonna tryout for the role of Dracula?" Kitty asked.
"Yeah, why don't you guys tryout too? We need girls who can sing and dance." Jason asked them.
"Yeah! Sure, like, of course I'll try out." Kitty smiled as she blushed pretty heavily.
"Ugh, Ah am definitely going to be ill." Rogue scoffed. As Jason left, Rogue gave Kitty a snide look. "Just when Ah thought you couldn't get anymore pathetic." She said in a condescending tone.
"At least I have a chance of getting cast!" Kitty smirked.
"Please, this play was made for me." Rogue scoffed, whipping her hair to the side. That was when she noticed Evan filming them. "Hey! Whaddya think you're playin' at, Porcupine?" She snapped.
Evan got up as he raised his hands defensively. "Hey, It's cool, I'm just doing a film project for Vandivir's class."
"Well Ah better not see my face on that tape, or they're gonna be callin you Spyke-less." The southern belle hissed.
Evan nodded nervously as the two left before sighing in relief. "Gotta work on that." He whispered to himself.
After school Evan was skateboarding home while filming himself, when out of nowhere someone jumped on top of his shoulders and pushed him, grabbing his camera and making him fall in the process.
As soon as he was able to get up, he went looking for the device and found it laying under the steps of the street area where he was. After checking it, he was then caught off guard by the light post next to him stretching and a large blob of metal separated from it.
The blob then rose up and took a humanoid shape, revealing it was Devin, Gavin's brother. "Hey, what're you doing here, man?" Evan questioned.
"Shh!" The Japanese boy hissed before looking around. "I'm hiding from Toad. Ever since the Middleverse incident, Mystique's been having the insufferable slime ball keep an eye on me constantly in case I might defect like Rogue did." That was when the sound of hopping could be heard in the distance. "Here he comes. If he asks, I was never here." And with that, the boy turned into a puddle of metal and headed into a nearby storm drain.
'Gavin is gonna want to hear about this.' Evan thought as he skated away.
(The Next Day)
-Xavier Institute-
The next morning Evan woke up and stretched like he usually would. But this was interrupted when two spikes shot out of his hands and buried themselves in his dresser mirror and light respectively.
"Aw man, not again." He groaned, possibly hinting that this was a regular occurrence.
Right at that moment, Storm walked in. "Up and at 'em, little man. Breakfast in ten." She said before noticing the camera. "What's this?" She questioned, picking it up.
"It's part of a project I'm doing. It's life at the Institute, from the Evan Daniels perspective. Pretty cool don't ya think?" He asked as he got up and got dressed.
"Yes, but I don't think a Spyke eye view is a good idea." She commented while pulling out the spike from his lights to prove the point.
"Yeah, I see what you mean." The boy nodded as he left.
On his quest for footage for his project, he came across Jean who was trying to pick out some clothes. "Hmmm, maybe the red?" She said as she held up a shirt. "No, that won't work."
Evan continued to film until Jean noticed him and then telekinetically forced the door shut and sent him flying towards the adjacent wall.
"Touchie, wasn't that interesting anyway." He said as he left. The blonde's next stop was Gavin's room, and fortunately for him the pseudo vampire had yet to wake up, that being evident by the lid of the boy's coffin bed being closed. "And here we have the Xavier Mansion's resident Vampire in his natural habitat, about to wake up from his slumber."
Literally a second later, Gavin's alarm clock went off and played the theme of Dracula. After a moment, the coffin's lid was removed from it and revealed Gavin, who rose up from it like an actual vampire would. Then his pet bat immediately came flying towards him from its roost on the ceiling and landed on the boy's head while said pseudo Vampire cracked his knuckles and stretched. His mouth wide open in a cavernous Vampire fanged yawn. Now thoroughly freaked out, Evan bolted before Gavin could notice him.
The final stop Evan had in mind was the courtyard, where he saw both Wolverine and Cyclops doing a training run, which he decided to capture on his camera while he followed the action on his skateboard.
The run was pretty simple, and both mutants were going through it like it was nothing. But right then, a machine that shot circular saws shot three of them out in rapid succession, and Evan was completely unaware of this, at least until Wolverine made it known.
"Look out!" Logan yelled before he tackled Evan out of the way, which made the blades hit a wall, a side of the mansion and decapitate a garden statue all at the same time. As the Scraggly man hoisted the boy up, he snarled angrily at him for his stupidity. "Whaddya think yer doin' here, bub? Don't you realize that if ya made one wrong move that woulda taken yer empty head right off?" Logan nagged while knocking the kid on the noggin a few times.
"I was just-" Evan tried to explain before Logan took the camera and then pressed 'erase'. "Hey! What did you do that for?!" The boy whined.
"Let's just say you got on my bad side. Now what else do you have on here." Logan growled as he hit playback, which suddenly revealed the face of a man none of them recognized. He was twice as rough looking as Logan and looked twice as mean, with long fangs, cat-like eyes, and a 70's style long hairdo that looked really grungy.
"Thanks for showing me where Logan is, kid. I owe ya one." The man said before the film quit playing.
"Who's that?" Evan questioned.
"Sabertooth." Logan growled as he handed Evan back the camera.
"He's got an old grudge against Logan, and it looks like you just clued us into our location." Scott explained.
Just then, the proximity alert sounded, and at the front gate Sabertooth was there bending the front gate out of the way as if it were flimsy plastic. He kept stomping on towards where the others were as the defense systems kicked in. Lasers shot at him, but were soon destroyed.
"Pretty good Logan, but not good enough!" Sabertooth growled as he lept towards Wolverine, and was met by the shorter mutant.
The others there joined as Storm started to whip up a strong wind storm which blew Sabertooth back right into Gavin, who was standing there while pulling on his gloves.
"Hey there Sabertooth, I'm Vampyr." Gavin smirked as he pulled on his gloves. "Releasing control art restriction level 3, 2, and 1." He intoned before he started creating a dome of smoke around them.
Sabertooth looked around as he realized that it was pitch black in the dome, and his nose wasn't able to pick up the scent of the boy, since the smoke smelled like him.
"Get out here you brat and take your beating like a man!" The prehistoric themed mutant snarled as he looked around.
"Oh I'm sorry, is the smoke too much for you ya little blonde bitch?" Gavin asked as he appeared behind the man and gave him a good slash with his sword as he said 'bitch' and disappeared into the smoke again just as quickly.
"Gah! What the-?!" Sabertooth growled as he tried to recover from the hit.
"I was all ready to start watching my TV this morning and then you had to come in and fuck up all my plans!" The boy yelled as he unleashed another barrage of slashes, causing the wounds to spew blood because of how deep they were and then a second later, delivered a back handed fist to the side of the man's skull.
"Are-are you seriously picking a fight with me over a fucking TV?!" Sabertooth yelled in rage and disbelief before managing to land a solid blow to Gavin's face, making his jaw become knocked completely loose, only for the boy to put it back in place right in front of the blonde.
"So you got a healing factor too, huh kid? Well fuck me side-" He said before he was soundly cut off (literally) as his hamstrings, Achilles' tendons and back of legs were cut clean through, causing him to drop to the ground.
Gavin dissipated the smoke as he stood in front of his opponent, a murderously gleeful look in his eyes as he wiped the blood from his still healing jaw. "Ya know, they say not having your TV won't make you violent..." The boy growled as he hoisted Sabertooth up to his face. "BUT I'D SAY NOT HAVING MY TV IS MAKING ME PRETTY FUCKING VIOLENT!" He all but roared in Sabertooth's face before throwing him down while the man was still bleeding profusely.
"Wha-What is with this kid? What's in that sword? I can't heal!" Sabertooth growled as he tried to crawl away.
"Come on! You were talking all that good shit a second ago! You only stopped after I cut your fucking legs off!" Gavin growled as the man was slowly trying to get.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, kid?!" Sabertooth roared as he tried to stumble backwards to the woods.
"Come on ya kitty cat bitch! Just heal your legs already! Summon up your demons, hit me, FIGHT ME! Gimme a hug." The boy said while grinning maniacally as a smoke swirled around him and formed a long wispy cape behind him, as if it were a part of his body.
'This kid is insane! I gotta get out of here or I'm dead!' Sabertooth thought frantically as he struggled to get away from Gavin.
"Get back here!" Gavin yelled as he and Logan followed after the man.
Everyone was left there in shock. That... That was the Level 1 personality? Just how damaged was the boy's psyche to create such a depraved personality?
Later on, Gavin was of course berated for his behavior and was expected to not release his seals to level one unless it was absolutely necessary, which the boy was more than willing to accept.
Evan, meanwhile, wanted to set things right, so he devised a plan to stop Sabertooth. As such, he got Rogue, Kitty and Gavin and then had them travel out of the Mansion in a secluded area.
Sabertooth of course saw them, as predicted. "Four little piggies all alone, Logan you're making this too easy for me." The man chuckled darkly as he followed them.
Evan then had Kitty and Rogue start dancing while Gavin stood off to the side and watched. "Come on Rogue you gotta get with the program!" Evan told the girl.
"Hey, she has her way of dancing, Ah have mine." Rogue huffed.
"You gotta move a little more Rogue, you're like a walking zombie." Kitty told her as she started dancing.
"Hey I got it!" Evan chirped. "Rogue why don't you shed dem gloves and give K girl a tiny tap, that way you can rif her moves."
"Yeah, and I'll show you a couple." Gavin added.
"What? No way." Kitty said indignantly.
Rogue looked between the two before reluctantly removing one of her gloves. "Just concentrate on 'em." Rogue told her.
"Alright, but you better not, like, lay me out." The brunette stated, and with that, both girls connected their index fingers together. After three seconds, the two of them disconnected, which caused them to both shudder, Rogue's more defensive posture turning into that of the flirty valley girl.
"That was, like, pretty icksome." Rogue shuddered. "Urg, am Ah talkin like her?" She questioned.
Gavin couldn't help but stare, it may have been a subtle change in posture, but it seemed to stir something up in him. It honestly looked really cute to him for some reason.
As the music started up again, both girls started dancing again, and as the Pseudo Vampire watched his southern friend copy the movements of Kitty, he couldn't help but think that it was really hard not to stare. Which he honestly just kept doing, his jaw hanging open, which Evan then closed for him.
"You're staring man." Evan told him.
"Sorry." The boy apologized sheepishly.
Aaand that's when their session was interrupted by none other than Sabertooth, who came stomping in and swinging his clawed hands and the kids while destroying the boombox in the process.
The muscular mutant picked up Evan, but was promptly stuck by the boy's spikes. "Gotta be tough when yer messing with the Spyke man." Evan smirked before he was hurled away right into Rogue.
Sabertooth then turned his attention to Kitty, but was unable to pounce on her because of her intangibility. Then he was met by Gavin, who then pulled at his Day to Day fingerless seal gloves.
"Control art restriction release level 2." He said as he became his more dignified and condescending persona. In a quick flash of movement he disappeared and then reappeared next to Sabertooth and back handed him to the side.
The larger mutant then did something unexpected and then went under him, then delivered an uppercut slash to the boy, causing his white T-shirt to be ripped and blood to spew from the wound before it quickly started to heal.
The two then locked arms as they tried to push at each other and then, in a bid to catch the boy off guard again, Sabertooth then kneed Gavin in the groin rather hard, though if this bothered him, he didn't show it.
"... Please, this isn't a bar fight, have some class." Gavin said with a deadpan look. This smart remark was met by a headbutt by Sabertooth and then was followed up by Gavin suddenly reaching his hand out and a thin tendril of his smoke (barely visible and about the size of string of fishing line) wrapped around his swords handle and brought it to him as he gestured it to, as if he was using telekinesis. He then followed this up by a quick feint slash and then a solid sucker punch to Sabertooth's face, sending him up against a tree.
As the man sat there trying to recover, Gavin leaned down and looked at him face to face while showing his fangs and hissing. "Do you have a god to put a last prayer to, Sabertooth?" He hissed.
"Yeah, this one!" The man smirked before driving his claws into Gavin's stomach and sending him flying into a tree, bleeding and unconscious due to the hard impact.
Sabertooth started walking towards him, looking forward to a bit of revenge. Before he could even get close, he was interrupted by Wolverine charging in.
"Picking on kids, Creed? Big mistake." Logan growled.
"Oh yeah? Why?" Creed questioned.
"Because it really pisses me off!" The metal boned mutant growled once more before charging.
Sabertooth threw Logan over his shoulder by using his own move against him and was about to strike another blow, but was stopped when he felt a roaring pain in his back and felt his energy being drained before he fell unconscious.
This revealed that it was Rogue who did it, and due to her draining so much, she then started growing long fur, claws, fangs, and her hair was getting longer, not to mention her ears were pointy and her clothes ruined.
"Aw, and I just shaved my legs last night!" The girl whined.
Gavin, meanwhile, was being helped up by Kitty and Evan, and honestly, minus all the fur, Rogue actually did look good with long hair. "Wow...that long hair actually looks good on you, Rogue." He grinned before hissing in pain, his wound still not quite done healing.
The southern girl couldn't stop herself from blushing as she brushed her now longer white bangs from her face.
"A finishing touch. You planned this, didn't cha porcupine?" Logan asked Evan.
"... Yeah, I did." Evan admitted, feeling guilty about Gavin getting hurt like he did.
"Yeah well don't go doing it again, and don't gimme those puppy dog eyes half pint. Yer grounded, all of you!" The man snapped at them.
"For how long?" Gavin questioned, who was now able to move.
"... I dunno, at least 'till she-wolf there gets a haircut anyway." Logan shrugged while picking up Sabertooth.
"So what's gonna happen with you and Sabertooth? Word is you guys have been going at it for a long time." Evan stated.
"We got unfinished business, but now's not the time." Wolverine told them.
"So, now what's gonna happen to 'em?" Rogue asked.
"Oh he'll be having a little cooling off period." The man chuckled darkly. And so he did when the professor dropped him off in the frozen tundra of Canada.
(One week later)
-Bayville High-
Evan was in his class while they watched the video he made. "Family, that's what I've decided to do my report on. This is Bayville, it's pretty laid back compared to New York where I'm from, but that's fine. And although they aren't my real family, the kids at the Institute are pretty cool." Evan narrated as a clip of him skateboarding played. "That's me, Evan Daniels, thrashing street skater."
Next was a clip of Scott washing his car and Kurt spraying him with the hose. "That's Scott, He's cool, but can be pretty strict, though Kurt usually takes care of that."
Next was the clip he took of Gavin rising out of his coffin and Brownie landing on his head, which made half the female demographic of the class faint out of either fear or 'sexy vampire boy' swooning arousal, or just gush over how cute Brownie was. "That's Gavin, our resident Vampire and Horror enthusiast in his natural habitat, you need advice about stuff like that? He's your guy. And that little bat on his head is Brownie. That little dude is a true blue bug killing machine!"
After that was Jean and the Prof, who was letting Jean sculpt him. "The Prof's like my new dad, and then there's Jean, that girl's got looks and talent." Then it changed to Storm playing the piano, Kitty,and Rogue dancing, and Gavin and Kurt who were dancing on a picnic table (Gavin doing some Swing dancing). "That's Auntie Ororo, she's one seriously classy lady. And speaking of classy ladies, check out Rogue and Kitty! They got some moves! But so do Kurt and Gavin, those guys like to Par-ty."
Finally it showed a montage of Jean shoving him out of her room, Kitty taking a picture of him while he was recording her, and then ended with everyone watching Kitty, Rogue and Gavin on stage with Jason as Dracula, and the Japanese boy playing the (added) role of Adrian Tepes aka Alucard, Son of Dracula. "We may all fight sometimes, but I can always count on them to be there for me when I need them, because that's what makes us all family." Evan's narration finished as 'The End' appeared.
(Elsewhere)
-Philadelphia, PA-
In the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chelsea finally got off the train she took from Chicago to there and was finally able to relax, her duffel bag sagging on her shoulder as she pulled out the business card of the Institute again, before flipping it over, reading the inscription written on the back which was written in Arabic and English. "Faith cures all doubt".
The blonde sighed as she put the card away. "Even if your parents were real A-holes, you still had faith in their religion huh? Eh, guess I can't judge. If keeping faith that this Institute place is really out there has gotten me this far, I guess there must be something to it." Chelsea shrugged as she made her way to an airport and got a ticket for a flight to New York. She then looked at a chapel that was just across the way. "Well, if you're really watching Mr. Almighty, keep it up, cuz I could really use the help." She said to herself before she disappeared into the crowd of people heading for the same destination.
Right behind her though, about thirty minutes later, the same people with the skulls on their uniforms came and started looking. "Anything?" One asked.
Another kept hitting some sort of tablet. "Damn it! The signal's lost again!" He cursed.
"How is she avoiding our trackers at such short notice?" The first one asked.
"She must have found out where the tracker was and tampered with it somehow." A third suggested.
The leader cursed under his breath in German before looking at the same chapel Chelsea saw. "Interrogate the locals, find out all they know. We must not lose her!" He ordered. "The force of many, cut off one head-"
"Two more shall take its place!" The other two continued.
"Hail HYDRA!" All three yelled as they saluted each other and went their separate ways.
Little did they know that just at that moment, the person they were looking for had already left on the plane northbound to her next location. 'Next stop, New York, final destination, Bayville.' The green eyed woman thought as she relaxed into her seat and then slowly drifted off to sleep.