X-men+Werewolf: The Forsaken = Evil Plot Bunnies

[Desperado]

Disclaimer: This fan-fiction is the result of total abject boredom and should not be taken seriously in any context. This is what happens when my creative mind gets thirty minutes to run loose.

Shadow-Powered Mutant + Werewolf Bite = Something you do not want to meet in a dark alley.

Our intrepid hero, the Shadow-wielding mutant known as the Desperado, despite his every effort to instead be known as Jak o’the Shadows, was doing his nightly rounds of bar-hopping (and subsequent bar-brawl hopping), when he encountered a man he should not have picked a fight with.

OK, so Jacob didn’t actually pick a fight with the guy, that wasn’t Jacob’s style. To be more accurate, the little weasel pissed Jacob off, so he punched him across the bar. Not the man’s bar, whatever that may be, but the actual bar. Up and over he went, crash-landing on the direct opposite side from where he had been sitting, to the raucous laughter of the three other bar patrons. The geeky little ferret-face got back up, his face streaming with rage, his teeth gnashing, and his eyes…glowing?

Yes, they were definitely glowing a golden hue, but that was the least of Jacob’s worries as the twerp began literally foaming at the mouth and getting hairier.

Jak had seen enough horror movies to know exactly what was going on, and, despite his best instincts, despite the fact that the little guy was steadily getting less little, and despite the back of his brain which always railed against people in horror movies who stood around while the werewolf/alien/whatever underwent its horrid, gruesome transformation, he just stood there. Like a…thing that…stands. Like a coat-rack! Yeah, a coat rack, that sounds about right.

When the great, big, growling, snarling, drooling Loup-Garou (Hey, I know French!) stood at its full height of somewhere around the roof, Jak decided it might be a good time to shadow-shift. And then the screaming started. Grown, drunken, beer-hardened men screaming like little girls. As annoying as that was to Jacob’s ears, it must have been ten times as worse to the werewolf’s, cause he didn’t like it at all.

He was the only one not screaming, but then when you’ve seen one big, hairy, animal-like humanoid you’ve seen ‘em all, right? Beast and Nightcrawler gave him an unfair advantage over everyone else. Still, Beast and Nightcrawler didn’t prepare him for this, as they were never snarling, drooling, and looking at him as if he were the single-greatest annoyance on the planet and desperately needed to be removed. There was just something…wrong about this creature. Jak couldn’t figure out what it was, but as whatever it was rooted him to the spot in abject fear, he definitely wanted to find out and get the Hell outta there!

Unfortunately, he had no time to figure out just how to do this, as the creature leapt over the bar and didn’t become Inside-Out Boy, but instead attempted to turn Jacob into Inside-Out Boy. Jacob embraced the shadow-part of his mind instinctively, the werewolf flying right through him as if he were naught but air. Upon losing his chosen prey, though, the wolf-man decided to check out some of the other contestants, who were at a severe disadvantage in this regard.

Jacob was forced to leave the safety of the Shadow and attempt to restrain the big, hulking beast, using one of the table shadows to form a sort of straight-jacket around the brute’s torso just as he leapt at another of the patrons, binding his forearms to his body and holding him in mid-air. The chosen target took the initiative and ran like Hell out the door along with the other three, Jak buying them just enough time to escape before Wolfie shattered his shadow-jacket like a cheap plywood box.

Now Jak was alone with a werewolf.

Aww, shit.

[Desperado]

The wolf-man leapt at him, since apparently leaping is the only thing that the author can come up with for the werewolf to do, only to get side-swiped by a table which Jak had wrapped in its own shadow and levitated for just such an emergency. After the wolf-man landed, grabbed the table and promptly ripped both it and the shadows holding it apart, a feat that Jacob severely wished he wouldn’t get to experience first-hand, it threw both halves back at him, at speeds which showed that the whole “werewolf” super-strength thing was severely underrated! Jacob stepped out of the path of one only to get slammed by the other, it’s force enough to keep going and carry him with it until both hit another table, rolled across it, and landed on the floor. Before he could even get up, the beast had tackled him to the ground, coming very close to causing his spine to snap by the sheer force of the impact.

And then the most gruesome, searing, painful form of pain imaginable to a pain expert exploded on his shoulder. He lost himself in it, succumbing to the most base and primal instincts that the human mind could.

And he lost control.

The werewolf flew backwards at astonishing speeds, propelled by several very large shadow-pikes, his jowls being wrenched from Jacob’s shoulder, where they had found flesh. Had the son of Allan O’Reilly been in anything but Total Celtic Berserker Mode, he would have probably been screaming in pain or completely unconscious.

Unfortunately for both Jak and the werewolf, he was in Total Celtic Berserker mode. If he had the option, he would be buck-naked with nothing but a sacred wristband protecting him from the enemy’s arms. Behold the power of the Blood, for it is powerful.

As the wolf was impaled against the opposite wall, a final spike was driven through it’s head. And then a shadow-blade chopped its head off. And shadow-tentacles ripped its arms off. And…yeah. It wasn’t pretty.

Doesn’t matter. Whole point is: Mutants-1, Lupines-0.

Unfortunately, now Jacob was in dire need of medical attention. And, of course, he couldn’t do something worthwhile like stay awake and attempt to shadow-shift back to the Mansion. Oh, no, he just simply had to lose Celtic Berserker Mode and start succumbing to the pain.

“Ow,” he said. Then he passed out.

When he woke up, he was in a very familiar place, with very familiar people standing over him. There was Tatiana, Christine, and Beast.

“Aww, nutbunnies. Was I in a coma again?” he asked, attempting to sit up in bed. The sharp searing pain in his shoulder, ribs, spine, and head cut off Christine’s calm, soothing voice that probably said something to the effect of “You should lie down.”

“Yeah, so maybe I should lie down,” he said, setting himself gently back into a prone position.

“How’d I get back here?”

“I found you in a bar soaked in a puddle of your own blood,” Tati said, a look in her face that said something to the effect of, ‘What did you think you were doing?’ “You’re just lucky I was in the area when three grown, drunken, beer-hardened guys ran past me screaming like little girls. Just what happened, exactly?”

“You mean you couldn’t tell by the dessicated remains of the large wolf-like creature on the opposite side of the room?” he asked incredulously. How do you not notice the dessicated remains of a large wolf-like creature no matter where they might be in relation to your line of sight?

“Jacob, you were the only one in the bar when I went in.”

Jak thought about that for a moment. He didn’t remember much about what happened after he succumbed to the sheer pain he was feeling, but he definitely remembered that he had killed the werewolf. There were various factors, other than his not-so-good memory, that seemed to support this hypothesis, the fact that he was still alive being one of them. In fact it was the main one.

“So…what happened?” Tati persisted, apparently not satisfied with his dodging of the question by simply not answering.

“Werewolf,” he said matter-of-factly, as it it were completely obvious that everyone knew werewolves existed. Hell, until tonight, he didn’t know for sure. He had certainly believed they might have existed. He definitely knew vampires existed, that was for sure. And if one, why not the other?

Unfortunately, when he casually mentioned the word, everyone in the Med Bay, including Beast, turned to look at him as if he were the craziest person alive and desperately needed to be removed. He had been getting feelings similar to this a lot lately, and he didn’t know why. Sure, he knew that he needed to be removed, but how did everyone else figure it out? He liked to keep those kinds of things under wraps.

“Christine,” Beast interjected, finally speaking up after being silent so long, “I must speak with you quickly.” He then pulled her aside, out of Jacob’s ear-shot, and started talking to her, probably about him.

“So, werewolf is the best you can come up with for why you got your ass kicked, huh?” Tati said smugly, setting herself down on the side of the bed.

“I did not get my ass kicked,” he replied, neglecting to remind himself that he very nearly almost did get his ass kicked. “If anything, I kicked its ass, Mutants 1, Werewolves 0.”

He moved his arm up to feel his shoulder, which apparently was sever enough to where it had to be stitched up. “Couldn’t you heal that?”

“I tried, but I couldn’t even get it to stop bleeding. It was almost like…I don’t know. What caused it?” She seemed worried, upset. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. He glanced over at Christine and Beast talking. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they both had very solemn faces. There was definitely something wrong. Paranoia is strong with this one.

[Desperado]

“Tati, you better tell me what’s going on.” The fact that he was in no condition to be making any kind of threat notwithstanding, it still sounded really empty. He couldn’t hurt Tati. A) she was a woman, and B) she was a woman. Just didn’t work.

“What do you mean?” she asked, feigning confusion.

“I mean why do you look so upset, and what are they talking about?” came the response. “I know Beast has already run blood tests. What did he find?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” She insisted. Jacob wasn’t buying any of it, but he would let it go for now. For now.

“I think I’m gonna take a nap,” he finally said, even though he wasn’t tired at all. Despite this, as soon as he closed his eyes, he was asleep. His dreams were disturbing. Shadows and primal chants clouded them. Wolves running in packs through the woods while Celtic tribal drums resounded in the distance. Dark flames flashed in firepits while shaman performed strange rituals. And all through it, a bestial urge flowed through him. It was as if he wanted to join the wolves, the shaman, the shadows.

When he awoke, he was not in the Med Bay, but in a different part of the Mansion. And he was running for the door. Really, really fast. The really weird thing was that he wasn’t making a single noise. At least, none that he could hear. He stopped suddenly, and a large blue creature ran into him.

“The least you could have done was warn me that you were about to end your mindnight perambulation,” Beast said as he expertly flipped off of Jacob. The pains in his shoulder were gone, as was the pain in his ribs and his spine. He still had a headache, though.

“Come to think of it, it would have been better had you simply not taken a midnight perambulation.” Thanks to the implanted memories from the Android Des, Jacob actually understood what a midnight perambulation was.

“What was I doing?” He asked, confused. This was all very weird. The stitches in his arm were still there, but the wound was appearing to heal very quickly. He looked back at Beast, who was staring at him very intently. More specifically, at his eyes.

“What?” it was a rather blunt question, but one that he felt had to be answered. Whatever it was that caught Dr. McCoy’s interest so completely, he wanted to know.

“Nothing,” Beast said, probably in the hope that Jacob would believe him. Well, that was a stupid hope.

“You might as well tell me, Dr. McCoy.” He asked. The other man’s face gained an expression of intense solemness, and it was at that time that Jacob realized something. There was no light in this hallway. None at all. Yet he could see Dr. McCoy’s face perfectly. Every tiny hair on the man’s face, which was a lot. There should be no reason that he could see that well. Unless he had somehow developed Night Sight.

“We should be getting back to the Med Bay.”

[Desperado]

Jacob, unfortunately, didn’t agree.

“Why? I feel fine,” he argued, even though it was only partially true. He did feel fine physically, but mentally he knew something was wrong with him. And then, his mind put things together. He had been bitten by a werewolf.

This was not good. This was nooooooot good. A look of primal panic seized his features, causing Beast to come closer in a worried, yet ready, manner.

“I’m gonna turn into a werewolf, aren’t I?” He finally managed to stumble out. Just when he thought that his life couldn’t get any worse, what with his severe anger management issues coming to the surface and all, God pointed at him, said, “Nope, not done with you yet,” and did this to him. Now, congratulations! You have a poison inside your DNA which is gonna turn you into a snarling beast of destruction every full moon or in times of extreme stress, whichever story you believe.

“We’re not sure,” Beast replied in a soothing tone, attempting to calm him no doubt. It didn’t work.

“No, I can’t be turning into a werewolf, I’m too pretty!” OK, it was a horrible justification for why he wasn’t turning into a werewolf, but he decided to go with it since he was in the Denial phase of experiencing a traumatic event. Is it a bad thing whenever you go through the Denial phase, and you know it? Cause Jacob did. He really did. He knew that next would come Anger, then Bargaining, then Despair, and finally Acceptance. He knew this process like the back of his hand and seen many a person go through it.

“Let’s just get you back to the lab so I can run more tests on you.” Bad answer, Beast.

“Hell, no you ain’t runnin’ no tests on me!” the frantic teen-would-be-wolf replied, grammatical caution thrown to the wind as it so often was when he got angry. This wasn’t the Anger phase, he was still in Denial. This was just a minor distraction from the current situation. No one shifts that fast.

“Jacob, listen to me,” Beast said, coming ever closer to him. The Primal Urge that Jacob had felt in his dreams was slowly coming back, now, as he perceived Beast as a threat. Didn’t help that the man looked like a muzzleless, tailless werewolf, either. He fought to contain it, wrestling it down, but it was slippery like a shadow, and wouldn’t go down easy.

“Dr. McCoy, you may want this to wait for morning.” For some reason, his voice sounded more gutteral, more feral than it used to. Well, not for some reason, for that goddamned Primal Urge! Still, it caused Beast to back down. He knew without any doubt in his mind that he had no idea what Jacob was capable of now, featwise. What the boy was capable of morality-wise was also under question at the moment. Needless to say, it tok very little for him to justify backing down from Jacob’s immediate presence.

“Alright. Until morning then. However, you may wish to get some sleep.” The blue man then leapt over Jacob and began heading back to his lab. He had a sample of Jacob’s blood from when he came in, but he would have liked to have gotten a current sample to compare. He didn’t know what was happening to the boy, having no experience with true werewolves before, but he did know of someone whom he might be able to ask.

Jacob, meanwhile, had every intention of heading to the Rec Room, laying down on the couch, and doing anything in his power to prevent himself from falling asleep. He didn’t want to have those dreams again. Maybe Robert Jordan was right about wolves and dreams. Maybe somehow the two were connected. As Perrin Aybara had experienced many times in the Wolf Dream, to dream was to become the wolf.

It was at this point that Jacob moved from Denial to Anger. Why? He actually remembered things from the accursed Wheel of Time books and was comparing them to his current situation, that would make any WoT reader pissed.

Those books steal your soul.