Nicholas "Nick" Gerhardt

Nichoals “Nick” Gerhardt

Portrayed By	Alex Pettyfer
Gender	Male
Date of Birth	August 13, 1995
Age	17
Zodiac Sign	Leo
Aliases	n/a
Place of Birth	Martin, North Dakota
Current Location	Salem, New York
Occupation	Student
Known Relatives	Johanna Gerhardt (mother – deceased), Karl Gerhardt (father – deceased)
Significant Other	n/a
Identity	Secret
Known Abilities	Telekinesis
First Appearance	???

It takes a tragedy to learn how the people around you really feel.

Table of Contents

History

For the fifth time in the last hour, I read the newspaper article in my hands –

Mutant Kills 3 in Sheridan County

November 18, 2011

Sheridan County, North Dakota – Last night in the city of Martin, North Dakota, the owners of Silver Crest Riding Stable, Karl and Johanna along with their stable hand Bodie Becker were found murdered. Karl and Johanna Gerhardt were found tied up in the basement of the burnt house and seemed to have died of smoke inhalation. Becker was found shot three times in the chest in the horse stables. Authorities believe it was the work of Nicholas Gerhardt, 16, the son of Karl and Johanna Gerhardt. Gerhardt’s teacher, Robert Schafer, said that it was known through out the community that Nicholas is a mutant and that ever since his powers developed he started bullying the other kids in school, often using his abilities to do so. For the last four years Nicholas has been nothing but disruptive and the school had been looking for a reason to expel him. Kirsten Zimmer of McClusky, ND, was the former girlfriend of Gerhardt. According to her Nicholas was very abusive and she was afraid to leave him. Gerhardt had threatened to kill her several times and even demonstrated by killing small animals in front of her, saying she would be next if she did anything to anger him. The neighbor of the Gerhardts, Elisa Klein, said that Karl and Johanna Gerhardt were talking to her earlier that week and telling her they finally decided to kick Nicholas out of the house. They could no longer deal with having a mutant terror in living there. David Garrison claimed that he was once a friend of Gerhardt until Gerhardt would bully him regularly, using his mutant powers to get what he wanted from him, if it was a video game or money, Gerhardt always looked for a way to push him around.

It is believed that Gerhardt, upon being told to leave the house by his parents, became enraged and used his powers to subdue his parents, tying them up in the basement, before setting the house on fire. When Becker, the stable hand, came upon him Gerhardt shot and killed him before leaving on horse back. Gerhardt is wanted on three counts of murder and arson. He’s considered extremely dangerous and if seen please contact your local police department. [Picture of Nicholas Gerhardt below the article]

After folding the article up and putting it back in my pocket, I dried my eyes and tried to figure out what to do next. I was wanted for a murder I didn’t commit. My parents were dead. I was badly injured. I tried to think back to the events that brought me where I am, sitting out in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota, on a cold day in November, with my horse, Orion, covered in bruises, bandages and soot, one last bottle of water trying to make my way to Florida…..

I was born Nicholas Waldron Gerhardt in a small county in North Dakota, and I mean small. In the city I lived in, Martin, North Dakota we had about a hundred people. In the entire county there was about 1,325. Everyone knew everyone, and our family was especially popular as we ran the only riding stable in the county, Silver Crest Riding Stable. My mother, Johanna, inherited the stable when her parents retired from the business and moved to Florida. Ever since I could remember I grew up around horses and learning how to care for them.

Before I get into the Stables, which was a big part of my life, let me tell you a bit about where I lived. Martin is small. I mean really small. My elementary school and high school were forty five minutes away in McClusky along with almost everything else. We didn’t even have our own fire department; there was one in the next town over, ten minutes away. Also everything is flat. It’s like you just stand there looking in the distance at flat land for miles. There are a lot of farms out here, and things are a bit…well small town. I mean we’re not backwater or anything just small town rural. Every year we have several county fairs, one for each season and they are big deals out here. I’m not complaining, I actually like it out here.

Anyway, back to horses. It was just a matter of time before I started riding and by five years old I was on the back of my first horse. By the age of ten I started competing. Most of the competitions were ones that were at the farm at that age. When I got older we traveled all over the state to go to competitions, my family was very supportive of my competing. I got into racing and show jumping. I was pretty good and had tons of ribbons back home and a few trophies. Most of them were on display inside the stable along with the awards my parents and grandparents won. I don’t want to sound like an egotist but I even had a coach talk to my parents and me about training me for more professional competition and maybe even Olympics. We turned it down, though my Mom and Dad would have been supportive if it was what I wanted. It’s just I wanted to stay at Silver Crest and help my parents run things. I knew exactly what it was I wanted to do when I grew up, take over the stables and still compete for fun.

My parents let me tell you, they were the best people in the world. They were supportive of anything I wanted to do, and the spoiled me quite a bit. We were well off, they had a very successful business teaching horseback riding and people paid them to keep their horses at our stable. If I wanted the new video game system for my birthday or for Christmas, I usually got it. They didn’t just buy me stuff for no reason and my allowance depended on how hard I worked doing my chores and helping at the Stables but things weren’t rough. When I was thirteen they bought me my very own horse for my Birthday, a quarter horse named Orion.

Orion is beautiful and was barely trained. I got to teach him, with the help of my Dad and Bodie, to jump, how to walk and he just responded to me. We could read each other’s moods and there wasn’t a day we weren’t together unless I was on vacation at Christmas time. Orion is a beautiful bay quarter horse with a black mane and just a touch of white on his forehead. He wasn’t good with anyone other than Bodie and me, I mean he was okay with my parents, but Bodie and I were the only ones he’d let ride. He was the best gift I ever got from my parents and my first, and only, horse of my very own.

So as I explained, I’m trying to get to Florida, but there’s a problem with that; I have no direction sense. Almost none. It’s been a joke among my family and friends since I was little. I was that kid with the leash cause when we were in stores, I would get lost and give my parents, and myself, a panic attack. When I was eight, I was at my best friend’s, David Garrison’s, house. He lived about a half hour bike ride away in the next town over, Anamoose, not to bad considering the distance of things in Sheridan County. On my way biking home I got lost, really lost. I had no clue where I was, later I found out I was west when I should have been south, but I gave my parents and the Garrison’s quite the scare. It took them three hours to find me, and by the time Bodie found me, I was a wreck. I clung to him and couldn’t stop crying, I was eight, I was terrified. That was when my parents decided to get me a cellphone with one number in it, theirs. I was only allowed to use it if I got lost and believe me, I used it a lot. Especially when my family went down to Disney World

See my grandparents live in Flordia so every Christmas we went down to visit them and always spent time in at least one of the theme parks. I got lost all the time there. I was that kid who got lost and they were calling the parents over the loud speaker. One of my parents or grandparents was designated to be with me at all times, just in case. Most of the time it worked, other times, that cellphone came in handy. When I got older my parents got me a hand held GPS to take with me when I went horseback riding, like I said, I have no direction sense. I would get lost in my own school.

Anyway I just mentioned two people who you are probably wondering who they are, David Garrison and Bodie Becker. David was my best friend. When he was six his parents signed him up for horse back riding lessons and he was scared of the horses. I don’t know why but six year old me went up to him and tried to help him get over his fear. I took him to the stable and showed him how to feed the horses sugar cube and introduced him to all of the horses we had stabled there at the time. He was starting to warm up to the horses when his parents came to pick him up. The next week he was less scared and by the third week David was up on a horse, also in that third week we became inseparable. We were having sleepovers at each other’s houses, playing video games together, going horseback riding and running around the city. David is an only child like me so we liked having each other for company. Over the years we became closer and closer and stayed best friends. He never got into competitions like I did but him and his family would always come along to support me. The Garrison’s were like a second family to me.

Then there’s Bodie Becker. The man I looked up to, after my Dad that is. He started working at the stables when I was little, to the point when I can’t remember when Bodie wasn’t there. He was ten years older than me and amazing with animals. Bodie had this way with the horses that I always admired and as I got older he taught me how to talk to them, read how they were feeling from their body language and other tricks. My dad always affectionately called him ‘Horse Whisperer’. Bodie would spend holidays with our family and sometimes even go down to Flordia with us for Christmas. He may have been our ranch hand but he was a big part of my life He didn’t live with us at the Stables but he lived right next door. Bodie, he was also the man who saved my life.

Now I should get into the whole mutant bit since that’s what got me into the trouble I’m in now. When I was twelve things would just start moving around me. Like a mug would start shaking or a fork would fly off the table. Once the pie my Mom made for the county fair flew up, splatting itself on the ceiling getting berry filling every were. My parents were just as scared as I was, we had no clue that it was me, not until when I spent the weekend at David’s that it started happening again. Then at school, this curse seemed to follow me. Honestly, it wasn’t hard to tell it was me after a while as the more it happened, the more my eyes would glow a brilliant blue when it happened. It wasn’t long before everyone knew what was going on, in a city of less than a hundred people, everyone knows when you pee. Maybe it was good that people knew I was cursed because one woman, Marlena Zimmer, came to the conclusion that I might be a mutant.

Marlena Zimmer ran the gas station and car repair in town with her husband, Frank, and she became the Yoda to my Jedi. She started teaching me meditation tricks and working with me on my powers. Before I knew it the episodes started to fade and it was either do or do not, there is no try. I found I could lift things with my mind and at twelve years old I became a bit of a celebrity among the county. I was Mr. Odd Job with my abilities. I would help people with heavy lifting, my neighbor Ms. Klein with her grocery shopping since she was really short and couldn’t reach t he high shelves, and anything that people could think off. I got decent money for it too, twenty bucks to help repair a barn by using my mind to hold up things, hell yeah! A few years of doing this and I was great a lifting things with my mind, Jedi Knight Nick Gerhardt! I even helped save Mr. Willis when he got into an accident with his tractor and it rolled over on him. I was able to move it and they were able to get him to the hospital for treatment before it got to bad.

Marlena Zimmer was great in helping me with my powers but through her I also got to know her daughter, Kirsten. Kirsten was my age and I knew her since she was little but she was a girl and girls were icky. At least that’s what I thought until I was twelve. We started hanging out and she was a regular running around with David and I. Also, she liked video games too! I mean how awesome was it that a girl liked to play them too! She was definitely not an icky girl and by thirteen I had a full out crush and by fourteen she was my first girlfriend, first date and first kiss.

So by age sixteen I was still in High School, I had got my drivers license, still had a wonderful girlfriend, Kirsten, and was teaching riding classes at Silver Crest Riding Stables. I started teaching when I was fifteen and my parents made me take all sorts of first aide classes just in case. For my birthday I got first car, a ’98 Ford F-150 (complete with GPS) so it was easy to get back and fourth from school and run errands for my parents. I was still getting lost frequently, lucky if I got a B in school, and was fairly popular. Though when there are only ten people in your class and you’ve been with the same nine kids from kindergarten to sophomore year of High School it’s really hard to be the odd one out. Like I said earlier, small town.

Anyway it was a few days ago when my whole world changed and it lead me to where I am now, lost in the middle of nowhere. I had just driven home from school and immediately knew something was wrong. The front door was open and seemed crooked, like someone broke in. I rushed inside and started yelling for my parents. I was about to yell out Mom for a second time when I was grabbed from behind and punched so hard in the stomach that the wind was knocked out of me. I was told ‘shut up mutant’ and that was about all I remember before the beating. I know I struggled a bit but even with my athletic build they were stronger. I was on the ground bleeding crying by the time they were done, my face just felt wrong and so did my shoulder. I was dragged to the basement where I heard my parents. I saw the two of them tied up and I couldn’t fight back as they tied me up as well against one of the support posts.

I finally got a look at the men, they were all in long black coats with a white cross on the front. They spoke of god and purifying the mutants from this earth and how my parents were wrong in creating an abomination like me, and how we weren’t fit to live in God’s eyes. It was all wrong to me, everything, I went to church every Sunday, God wasn’t about killing. There was a lot more talk of fire being the most cleansing and purifying of God’s forces followed by an ‘Amen’ and the men left. Then things made more sense in my foggy mind, as I smelt the smoke.

There was a lot of crying, not just me but my parents as well. A lot of I love yous, both my parents kept telling me they were proud of me and it wasn’t my fault. I kept apologizing and telling them I loved them, we were all terrified. My parents started coughing from the smoke but I never did and I realized there was a bluish field around me. It was keeping me safe but I couldn’t save my parents. I started screaming, yelling, for my parents, pulling at the rope that held me tight but I couldn’t get free in time. I couldn’t save them. I’m just glad I didn’t have to hear their screams as they burned to death as both passed out from the smoke before that. It still was awful and the guilt of not being able to save them….I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it anymore.

Eventually I was able to get a hand free and get free of the ropes; maybe I used my powers, I don’t know. I just know I made it out of the burning building in the middle of the night and it was Bodie who found me. He was panicked and wouldn’t let me talk, he just told me to run. I told him about the men and my parents and he said, “I know.” He handed me a few twenties, helped me pack a few things in a backpack in the stables, mainly a spare horse blanket and a first aid kit. He already had Orion saddled and ready. Bodie gave me a big hug, it hurt but I didn’t care, and he was crying. He helped me get on Orion and leave. The last thing Bodie told me to keep faith and to be safe and just run as far away as I could.

I ran for hours, resting a few times only to get back on Orion and just keep running. I decided to go to Florida since that was where my grandparents were. When dawn started to break, I stopped and started cleaning up a bit, mainly the cuts and blood on me. My wrists were rubbed raw, I think I had a broken nose and my shoulder was…something. My arm didn’t want to move and it hurt, and I was filthy. I know I looked horrible as I reached the first town I saw, went into the Wal-Mart and bought some more first aid supplies, water and beef jerky, and with that I was broke. The clerk gave me a really weird look but I didn’t care. I got to the edge of town and I used most of my water to wash up, and clean my cuts and the blood off of me. I bandaged myself the best I could and put my arm with the injured shoulder in a sling I just picked up. I downed a handful of aspirin and was on my way again.

By nightfall I was hungry and I figured I would just sneak into a gas station, fill my water bottles in the bathroom and maybe steal something. I’d never stolen before but I needed to do what I could to get to Florida. As soon as I got out of the bathroom I saw my face on a stack of newspapers. I didn’t even look around as I grabbed the paper and ran, jumped on Orion and ran as far away as possible. Once I stopped, I read the article and couldn’t believe my eyes, and then I read it again. I thought I cried all I could, I was wrong. By the fifth time I read it I was done, I folded the article up, put it in my pocket and decided to move.

I couldn’t believe it, what everyone said was a lie. My girlfriend, best friend, neighbors, teachers, all of them were lying about me. Did they really believe that, because I was a mutant I wasn’t to be trusted? Were they that eager to throw me under the bus at the first moment? I was devastated reading that. I felt like my whole world was just turned upside down, I felt weak.

As the days went by I just got hungrier and hungrier, my water had run out quickly and both Orion and I were having trouble keeping a pace. I didn’t even know if I was going in the right direction. On the fourth day things just got fuzzy. I couldn’t go on, I felt so tired. I decided to close my eyes for a second and then it felt like I was falling and that’s the last thing I remember.

That night a representative of Xavier’s that had been looking for him found Nicholas Gerhardt. The news about him had traveled on a national level and Xavier’s also got wind of the Purifiers being in that area of North Dakota. Nicholas was found fifty miles north east of Martin, ND and, after a mental scan to see that he was innocent, he is now at Xavier’s in the medical bay recovering from his injuries and dehydration.

+ Behind the Scenes

Theme Songs

- Shinedown - Stranger Inside

Powers

Telekinesis - Nicholas has the power of telekinesis, where has the potential to become a very powerful telekinetic his skill and knowledge of his powers is very limited. Whenever he uses his powers his eyes glow a bright blue. Right now he can only do one thing with it, lift things and move things.
Currently Nicholas can lift up to two tons; he can hold it in the air for about five minutes before having it put it down. The lighter the object the longer he can hold it up. He can move an object as well, such as taking a glass down from a shelf, moving a large board from point a to point b as long as it’s within the two ton range. He’s got decent control except for when it comes to very fine motor things. He can tie a shoe but he wouldn’t be able to thread a needle. Nick has to be in eye contact of whatever he is moving and right now he can’t use his powers unless he’s ‘guiding’ what he’s moving with a hand. Does he have to, no, but it’s sort of a mental crutch. Lastly, if he throws an object it’s thrown using his telekinesis, he can throw objects as if he had the strength of a man who could lift two tons. He doesn’t feel the weight when he throws it as being cumbersome unless it’s within 250 pounds of being two tons. It’s a mental issue where he ‘feels’ the weight because he knows it should weigh something.