Chapter 32: Hatari!

It was early March at the Institute and everyone was getting home from school with their progress reports. Gavin and Devin were entering the main room while they looked at each other's progress reports.

"Straight A's again, I see." Gavin said as he noted his brother's report, which was all A+s, except for drama which was an A-.

"A string of B's and an A again, I see." Devin parroted, noting his brother's report being full of B+s except for drama, which he got an A+ on.

"Hey, at least I'm not the one with an A- in something as easy as drama class." The pseudo vampire said.

"... Shut up." Was the metal mutant's only retort.

After they all got in, Gavin went down to the Danger Room and started doing a run called 'Vampyr's Vendetta' on repeat. This consisted of him fighting endless waves of Life Model Droids in the shape of HYDRA soldiers, getting blasted by lasers and flame throwers, attacked by drones, saw launchers, and large slabs of metal dropped on top of him which all weighed ten tons each.

He had been doing this for the past three months ever since he overheard Chelsea talking about the memory that resurfaced. Due to him doing this method of training nonstop for this period of time, his base power became as strong as Level 2. Level 3 will be as strong as Level 1. Level 2 will be as strong as Level 0 (pre enhancement). Level 1 will be as strong as Level 0 (post enhancement). And Level 0 is left ambiguous.

Why was he doing all this? Because he had a one man war to prepare for. He had gotten around three hours of fighting in before he spent the remaining hour trying to hold up the giant ten ton slabs that were set on top of him. It had reached around a hundred slabs when Storm and Evan walked in the danger room and were pretty surprised at the amount of weight Gavin was holding up.

"What the-?!" Evan got out as he looked at the sight with wide eyes, Storm in the same boat as he was.

Gavin's arms began to slowly tremble as they started to give, the weight that was on top of them reaching right around nine hundred thousand tons. "Arms are starting to give…" He groaned painfully.

Before his arms could give out fully, he quickly turned into smoke and got out from underneath the large pile of weights, leaving them to crash to the ground with a loud thud. He reformed before he collapsed in exhaustion and breathed heavily. Ororo and Evan rushed over to him in concern.

"Gavin, are you alright?" The weather witch asked.

"I'll live." He groaned as he rested.

"What the heck were you thinking, man?! You were holding up nine hundred tons!" Evan exclaimed.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I've taken up the hobby of mutant bodybuilding?" Gavin asked as they helped him up.

"Not even close." Was the spikey boy's response.

"Gavin, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were getting ready to wage a war." Ororo commented as she and Evan carried him out of the Danger Room.

"If that was the case, who would I wage it against? The Manhattan High Sea Hawks?" The boy joked before groaning as his muscles ached.

"Come on, hotshot. Let's get you to the infirmary." Evan said as they continued on their way.

(The next day)

Rogue, Risty and Gavin were getting ready for their next class when the pseudo vampire decided to bring up the British girl's pregnant aunt.

"So, how's your aunt doing?" He asked.

"Oh she's doing great, according to her and the doctor, she should be having the baby any day now." Risty told him.

"Oh… Good." Gavin said in a slightly strained tone, though thankfully Risty never picked up on it. Rogue placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down, which thankfully worked.

"What's it's gender?" Rogue asked.

"It's a boy. And she's already picked out a name too." Risty told her.

"Really? What name did she pick?" Rogue asked, unable to stop herself.

"Damian. And the middle name she picked was Qrow." She replied.

'Damian Qrow Shirakumo… Huh. It actually works.' Gavin couldn't help but think. As they got to their lockers, Rogue decided to change the subject.

"So something really crazy happened at the Institute last night with miss Munroe." She told her friend. "After a training session with Evan, she totally wigged out. Now she's paranoid that someone's out to get her."

"Probably something to do with her claustrophobia." Risty said before she covered her mouth.

"How'd you know about that?" Rogue asked with a raised eyebrow, which Gavin mimicked.

"Uh, Aunt Raven told me. Apparently she was shoved into a crate as a kid before being shipped off to America back in the sixties, part of a human trafficking case I think." She explained nervously.

"Ouch." Gavin cringed. "Not pleasant."

"Well that explains a lot." Rogue nodded as they then went to class.

The next day everyone was then hit with the double whammy of yet another incident with Storm's case of paranoia and the shock that Evan was going to be leaving the Institute.

"Are you seriously gonna take this lying down, Evan?" Gavin asked.

"I never took you for a quitter, Daniels. Guess I was wrong." Devin scoffed.

"Why the heck are you two acting like you're caring?" Evan asked with a scoff.

This remark got him slammed against one of the lockers by Gavin as Devin tried to keep Jean, Kitty, Scott and Kurt back from the two.

"Now you listen to me, you little punk." Gavin hissed, anger clear in his voice. "We aren't acting like we care, we're doing this because we actually care. There's a pretty big fucking difference."

"Like, what's up with him?" Kitty asked.

"Evan's apparently under the impression that we don't care about him, so my brother's trying to drive the point that we do care home." Devin explained. "That, and it's the week of the full moon, so Gavin's X-gene is causing his brain to create twice as much anger endorphins than normal."

"So in other words, be careful with our words around him?" Jean concluded.

"Precisely." Devin nodded.

"Anything else we should be aware of?" Scott asked.

"No, I don't think so." The boy said as Gavin let Evan go and the boy walked away from the group.

(Later that night)

Chelsea and Gavin were in the middle of a sparring match in the Institute's backyard in the middle of a dense fog. After hearing about the fact that the boy was essentially having an 'anger-period' as Devin put it, she decided to help him vent said anger while also talking about the boy's boost in power and current training regimen.

"Why'd you come up with a regimen like that, exactly?" The dragoness asked as she threw a punch.

"Even if you were to force me into a choke hold, I wouldn't tell you. It's personal, okay?" The boy said irritably as he caught the punch and squeezed on the woman's fist hard, causing her to wince in pain. The boy was currently wearing a tracksuit, so due to the humidity caused by the fog, it did little to lower his irritability.

He let the blond woman's fist go and was about to throw a punch when he paused. Somewhere in the fog, he heard numerous whispers speaking of things he couldn't identify. He tried to listen as closely as he could, but the voices were too scattered.

"Wait, you hear that?" He asked her, which got her to shake her head.

"No. What are you hearing?" She asked.

"I hear…. Whispers. What they're talking about is a mystery to me, though." He replied with furrowed eyebrows.

"Whispers?" Chelsea asked. Then her nose picked up something. "Wait, now that you mentioned it, I do smell several people. They smell like they've been on a safari." She added, sniffing the air before pinching her nose.

"Yeah, and… Hang on, they're, they're speaking in Swahili." Gavin noted as his ears finally managed to pick up a couple words.

"Can you understand what they're saying?" Chelsea asked.

"A little. My mom used to take me and Devin on trips with her to Africa, and our guides usually spoke Swahili… Okay, one word I definitely recognize is, Hatari. It means danger." Gavin explained.

"Isn't that the name of a John Wayne film?" The blonde asked in confusion.

"Well yeah, in fact it's one of my favorites, but that's beside the point." Gavin said. "The point is that we're dealing with-AGGGHHH!" Before he could finish his statement, he howled in pain as he clutched his ears as an unbearably sharp and ringing sound entered his ears.

"Gavin, are you okay?!" Chelsea asked in concern as she rushed over to him. "Hey what's wrong?" She asked before he punched her in the gut so hard, he sent her flying into a tree. As she shakily got up, she saw that the boy's eyes were wild and almost feral looking. He was panting heavily and was practically foaming at the mouth in a wild rage. "Oh fuck me…" She said as he let out a loud hiss-like roar.

(Elsewhere)

Everyone was running out of the Institute as soon as they heard both Storm and Gavin scream, but once they got there, they couldn't see them anywhere.

"What's going on? Where'd they go?" Jean wondered.

She was answered by a very pale and beaten up Chelsea flying towards them while being pursued by Gavin, who was still going absolutely berserk.

"Will someone please get this kid off my tail before he kills me?!" She yelled as she landed behind Logan.

"What the hell's gotten into you, fangs?!" Logan growled as he stood in front of Chelsea protectively.

He was only met by Gavin tackling him and sinking his teeth into the man's neck and applying a massive amount of pressure on his windpipe, almost as much as a lion or great white.

Acting fast, Scott fired his eyebeam at Gavin, managing to knock him off the scraggly man. Skidding to the ground on all fours and hissing at him, Gavin then turned his attention to Scott and charged at him before attempting to do the same attack on him.

Jean was quick to grab him with her powers while he was in the air, but she was straining herself due to the berserking boy thrashing around so much.

"What is going on with him?!" Evan asked.

"There's only one thing that could have caused this: the Trigger Sound." Devin noted as he recognized the state his brother was in.

"What's that?" Rogue asked, worry being very clear in her voice.

"A sound frequency only his sensitive ears can hear, it's on a frequency so specific that it can only be heard by certain species of bats. When he hears it, it sends him into a berserker rage of pure, unbridled feral instinct." The metal boy explained.

"Do you know how to get him to calm down?" Kurt asked.

"I do, but you're not going to like it." Devin told him.

"What? Do you want us to sit on him?" Chelsea asked sarcastically.

"No." He then looked at Rogue. "Rogue, I'll need you to suffocate him by hugging him to your chest as tightly as possible. Your scent could help calm him down long enough to knock him out."

"WHAT?!" Rogue shouted with an atomic level blush, the solution almost making Jean release Gavin.

"What she said!" Kitty agreed with her own blush.

"This is what I meant when I said you wouldn't like it." Devin sighed.

"What if he tries to bite me?!" She snapped.

"I can't hold him for much longer guys!" Jean said as her hold started to wane.

"... Fine." Rogue sighed before she reluctantly made her way to Gavin. Jean then dropped him and fell to her knees, allowing the pseudo vampire to charge at his auburn haired friend and then get pressed into her chest as she grabbed and held him as tightly as she could. Naturally, Gavin struggled to get free, but Rogue refused to let go, though her face was cherry red throughout the whole ordeal.

After a few minutes, the pseudo vampire's movements slowed before they ceased altogether and Rogue released him and saw that his eyes were closed but his rising and falling chest told her that he was still breathing. Sighing, she picked him up and walked to the Institute.

"Ah'll put him in his coffin." She told everyone before she sent a glare at Devin. "You owe me big time for this, Devin. Ah hope you realize that." She growled, getting a nod in return. With that, she headed for Gavin's room

(Later)

As soon as the boy managed to wake up, everyone went to find Storm. Apparently while he was out, Wolverine had managed to find an old friend of hers who had somehow gotten into the Institute's yard and told them that a witch doctor called the Hungan had her captured in a crate on a cargo ship.

Once everyone made their way there, they went to rescue the weather witch. Once they got to the crate she was in, however…

"Are you kidding me?!" Gavin growled angrily upon seeing that Storm was under the madman's control.

"What are we gonna do now?!" Kitty asked as she tried to not get blown away.

"I've got an idea. Gavin, come with me, I'm gonna need your crazy ears to find this guy." Evan called over the howling of the wind his aunt was producing.

"Got it!" The angry boy called back. As the two boys searched for Hungan, Gavin listened for any chanting in Swahili, though when he did, he also heard the Trigger Sound as soon as they found the man. It was coming from a whistle fashioned out of a bat skeleton.

The second the Trigger Sound reached Gavin's ears, he re-entered his berserker rage and charged at the witch doctor, murder in his eyes.

"DIIIIIIIIIIIE!" He roared as he charged at him in his smoke form. With a mighty lunge, the boy exited his smoke form and tackled the African witch doctor and threw a reforge around him, forcing the staff and whistle out of his hands and towards Evan. And then he did something unspeakable. As soon as he had Hungan pinned down, he clamped down on the man's throat and crushed his windpipe before ripping it clean out of his neck.

Evan looked at the display with a scared look before he looked at the bat whistle and shot a spike through it, rendering it useless. He then tried to get away from the scene as quietly as he could with the Hungan's staff in hand.

With Gavin, as soon as the man under his grip was rendered lifeless, a whisp-like whitish-blue orb floated from the corpse, and on instinct, Gavin snatched it out of the air with his mouth and gripped it tightly in his fangs.

Evan, meanwhile, had just released Storm's spirit from the staff and she was back in action. But once they got to where Gavin was, the weather mutant gasped in horror at what she saw: Gavin was standing over the dead body of Hungan, with the man's soul between his fangs.

"Auntie O… I'm scared." Evan whispered in fear as his legs trembled.

"And I don't blame you." Ororo said as she held her nephew close.

"What is that thing?" Rogue asked, pointing at the orb in the boy's mouth.

"That… Is Hungan's soul." Ororo explained.

The explanation made everyone look at Ororo in shock before they turned their attention back to said man's soul.

"And he's gonna eat that?!" Scott asked, his eyes wide behind his shades. As if to confirm what he just asked, the currently feral mutant swallowed the glowing orb in one gulp, licking his lips as if it tasted good before he smiled widely, saliva dripping from his open fanged mouth.

"Oh crap…!" Evan got out before Gavin suddenly charged at them.

However, before he could cause any harm, Xavier acted quickly and sent several psychic waves at the boy, quickly disabling him and causing him to collapse. Everyone let out breaths that they didn't know they were holding while Evan fell to his knees.

"That was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen." He got out as he breathed shakily.

"So, what? The kid can eat souls now?" Chelsea asked incredulously.

"That it would seem, Chelsea, yes." Xavier nodded gravely before taking notice of the smashed bone whistle. "Evan, you said the Hungan used this to make Gavin hear the 'Trigger Sound', correct?"

"Yeah. Why?" Evan asked as he calmed himself and got up.

"I think I may know why the Hungan used this. He somehow knew about Gavin's sensitivity to it and used it against us as a means of distracting us long enough for him to capture Ororo." The man theorized. "Though in any case, we should get him home. No doubt he'll be waking up with a rather large headache."

Everyone nodded before they made their way back to the Institute, Evan practically clinging to Storm like a lifeline. It would take a while for him to get what had transpired out of his mind.

(The next day)

Everyone was finally able to relax after the whole ordeal, but Gavin was still slightly shaken by the fact that his powers apparently gave him the ability to eat someone's soul, though oddly enough he still thought it was kinda cool.

"Sorry that I scared you guys… Twice." He apologized to them as Evan came down with his stuff while Ororo and his mom were talking.

"That was pretty nerve wracking, not gonna lie." Scott said, Jean nodding in agreement.

"Yeah. No argument here." The boy sighed.

"That aside though." Ororo said while turning to Evan. "Evan, your mother and I were talking and, we think it would be alright if you were given another chance."

"Wait, seriously?!" The blonde asked in surprise. Everyone all smiled when they heard this news, especially Gavin.

"You were there when I needed you. So I'll be there for you as well, if you let me." Ororo told him.

"That goes for the rest of us, too." Scott nodded as he and Gavin draped their arms over Evan's shoulders.

"Heck yeah! Spyke's in the house!" Evan cheered as he pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.

(Elsewhere)

-In an undisclosed hospital, New York State-

Mystique was currently in a hospital bed in her normal blue skinned form while dressed in only a hospital gown and her legs were spread open as she panted, moaned, groaned, and screamed as she was giving birth. And the doctor who was helping her give birth, was none other than Sampson Marks.

"I can see the head! Keep pushing!" He urged. The man was called in because he had at least three or so years of experience with delivering babies of mutant women so far, which really was his saving grace if he was honest.

"AAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!" The shapeshifter screamed before she gave one last push, her eight hours of struggling and agony after nine months of waiting was finally rewarded by the sound of her crying newborn son.

Sampson quickly handed the baby to the nurse next to him and she cleaned the newborn before swaddling him in a blanket and handing him to Mystique's awaiting arms. "Here's your son, ma'am." She said as she gave the newborn to his mother.

Mystique smiled as she looked down at the baby. He was rather small, even by newborn standards, but was still very healthy. He had black hair like his father and blue skin like her, but his skin also had small dark navy blue spots that resembled freckles, but had the texture of alligator skin all over his body in various places. He also had wine red eyes, just like Gavin, and lastly a small birthmark on the side of his neck that looked vaguely in the shape of a bird.

"Welcome to the world, my darling Damian." Mystique cooed softly, kissing the baby's forehead as he nuzzled his little head into her bosom. Though it seemed like he was trying to get away from the bright lights of the room, as if it hurt him. Damian whimpered in pain before he began to lightly cry. Mystique frowned slightly before taking part of the blanket and covering his face to shield him from the light.

"He seems to be sensitive to light. Perhaps it's part of his mutation?" Sampson asked.

"Perhaps. Though you said that you saw something odd about his ultrasound when I first came to you, why?" She inquired.

"Well, it's just a theory, but I believe his mutation may have activated as he was growing in your womb." The Marks patriarch explained. "And he also seemed to have a twin as well, but as soon as the mutation occurred, his embryo absorbed the twin's embryo."

The shapeshifter looked at her son with wide eyes. Not only had her son's mutation apparently activated as he grew, but he absorbed his twin as well? This was very new.

"Well then, it seems that my little boy is much more special than I realized." She smiled as she kissed the infant slightly before she handed him back to the nurse. "Now that he's born, the next phase of my plan can begin." She grinned darkly as the doctor and nurse left her to get some much needed rest.

Dragon Emperor0: Dark undertones aside, isn't it great that this chapter ended with something as awesome as the birth of a baby?

ThermalsniperN7: Yeah. After what Gavin did, something like this is very welcome.

Dragon Emperor0: And before you guys ask, yes Gavin was always able to suck out souls, he just hadn't figured it out until now. Also the training part with the metal slabs? Got that idea from a Teen Titans episode. And the Trigger Sound? It's basically my version of X-23's Trigger Scent, and plus it's an old element to his powers left over from one of his original drafts. I added it to give him a weakness that could be exploited by enemies to turn him against the others.

ThermalsniperN7: Honestly, it's more like a double edged sword. If done improperly, it'll draw Gavin's rage to them instead of their enemies.

Dragon Emperor0: Hence why I kept it. Anyway, Damian's finally here and we are currently 3 chapters away from the next big Arc in the story. An arc that me and Thermal are dying to write because of how much we planned for it. The Vampyr's Vendetta arc.

ThermalsniperN7: Yep. It's also where two new badasses get introduced. I would give you their names, but that would ruin the surprise now, wouldn't it?

Dragon Emperor0: But a little preview. Expect some references from Hellsing: Abridged and Naruto in this arc, specifically from the character Pain. And the training Gavin's doing? It's gearing up for this arc. So be prepared!

ThermalsniperN7: You forgot to add Castlevania to the reference list.

Dragon Emperor0: Riiight, whoops. Anyway, see you guys next chapter!