Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me…sniff!
Thanks to all who left a review: Forsaken18, Charlio4444, Scottishwriter, Kazima Kuwabara, Xixie, Michiru-Senko and vizzini13! You guys – and gals – rock!!
Note: The werewolf princess will appear in this chapter, and since I'm tired to always call her 'the princess' but can't remember her name on the show, I decided to give her one: Callisto.
--
2. Chapter
MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! MEEP!
BANG!!
Tommy slumped back on his pillow and groaned, if there was one thing in the whole wide world he really hated it was getting rudely awakened by an annoying alarm clock.
Especially when it was the morning after a pretty exhausting full moon night, plus it was Sunday so one could sleep in as long as one liked – theoretically. Practically though his Mom was a strong advocate of what she called 'Sunday morning family breakfast' and would kill him if he skived.
He turned around to a sleepy blinking barely awake Merton to give him a soft kiss.
"Morning love…you're coming with me to the famed family breakfast at the casa Dawkins?"
"Sorry Tommy" he yawned "but I've got a paper to do for Monday, and also my laundry. We don't want my nosy kid sister making comments about the weird 'dog hair' on my bedding again, right?"
"No, I guess not. Well then, I see you later, maybe I can manage to preserve some muffins from Dean for you." Merton's blue eyes lit up at this for he had quite a sweet tooth and Sally Dawkins triple-chocolate-muffins were simply beyond description.
With one last sigh Tommy entangled himself from the warm, cosy blankets and stood up, bravely facing the cold morning air inside the lair. God, he truly hated getting up so early on a Sunday morning!
While he listened to Tommy singing under the shower – totally off-key, as always - Merton stretched slowly and got up himself.
He felt a little guilty because although he had to do a paper and his laundry, he would have had the time to go with his friend to his family's breakfast.
Merton sighed; it wasn't that he didn't like Tommy's family, far from it. They were great and always friendly to him, but his stomach tightened into knots each time Sally or Bob would ask their son way too casually if he was dating someone. They knew that his short relationship with Lori ended ages ago and were slowly but surly beginning to wonder why their popular, handsome son hadn't a new girlfriend.
So far Tommy managed to laugh off all their questions if he was still mourning after Lori or secretly crushing on some college girl, but it was clear that he wouldn't be able to keep the truth from them forever.
Not that Tommy didn't want to adhere to Merton, quite the opposite; he would love to tell his parents how lucky he was with him, but telling them about their relationship would in the long run reveal the wolf as well. And although Tommy was sure that his parents would love him despite being gay, he wasn't sure if they could deal with their son being a werewolf, too.
After all, it had been his dad who had organised and led that werewolf hunting party back in his early days as a werewolf of which Tommy still had nightmares sometimes were the pitchforks and torches wielding mob manages to get hold of him.
After a short but sweet goodbye-kiss, Tommy left towards his parent's house and Merton climbed up the stairs to the kitchen to grab himself something to eat. He hurriedly made himself a sandwich while the coffee was still brewing, grabbed a huge cup full and was on his way back into his lair before the smell of the fresh brew would wake his family.
No need to ruin his day by provoking yet another 'I'm so disappointed that something like you is my son'-look from his parents or a screeching 'Freaker!' from Becky.
Merton sat down at his desk, sipping his coffee, and began to check his e-mails.
Between tons of junk and advertisement one mail instantly leaped into his eye, a message from Lycantria.
He opened the mail immediately, wondering what it could be about, because although the werewolf-kingdom had finally followed his suggestion and got an e-mail account they were still very reluctant to use the strange new technology.
It was a short note, basically a request from princess Callisto for a talk with him and Tommy via web-cam, and that as soon as possible.
Suddenly Merton's coffee seemed to taste bitter and a cold shiver run down his spine, he smelled trouble. What could be so bad that she only wanted to tell them face to face?
For the rest of the morning he could hardly concentrate on anything let alone on his stupid paper, staring every five minutes at the clock and anxiously waiting for Tommy's return.
By the time his friend came back from his parents in the early afternoon Merton was a nervous wreck.
Of course the werewolf sensed at once that something was wrong with his mate, without thinking he rushed to embrace and soothe his distraught lover.
"Merton, what's wrong, did something happen?"
"I don't know what's wrong yet, but now that you're here we can find out." Replied the Goth cryptically while he all but melted into the strong comforting arms of his friend. Then he told him about the weird mail from the princess.
"That's all? Don't worry Mert, I'm sure she just wants to tell us a surprise and wants to see our baffled faces." Tommy smiled, optimistic as always. "You know what; we contact her right now and hear what news she got for us, so you can stop worrying, ok?"
Merton tried to return the smile, but couldn't really hide the uneasiness he still felt.
Only a few seconds after the had clicked the link to her web-cam the face of the werewolf princess appeared on the computer screen and it became obvious that Merton's worries had been vindicated as she was deathly pale and even more tense than the Goth.
"Tommy, Merton! I'm so glad, I wasn't sure if my mail got trough to you!"
"Hello Cal, what's the matter? No offence, but you look quite…uh..."
"Its ok, I know I look like shit, no wonder, I feel like I haven't slept in ages, everything's all haywire, my dad is still badly injured, our connection to the mainland is severed, Steven is in the hands of this madman and…"
Tommy interrupted her confused sobbing. "Cal! Breathe! And start with the beginning, ok?"
"Ok Tommy." She took a few deep breaths and, after her sobs had ceased, began her story.
"Basically, this all started already during last years Lycanamora. Due to the two moons those who were to get their vision were divided in two groups, I was in the second.
After the first group got their visions, those who had visions of each other mated their chosen at once. Same applied for those who had visions of someone from the second group they had already been dating before, you see, in these cases the vision was merely a last confirmation of what they already knew.
One guy from the first group named Mark, but prefers to call himself 'Ariel', claimed straight away that he had a vision of me and bluntly wanted to mate me on the spot although we weren't even friends before, let alone a couple!
Truth to be told, I never liked him, he's totally old-school, you know, eating raw meat, despising humans, changed his name into that of a moon, all that medieval crap of our ancestors…but unfortunately he's also the strongest young wolf of our generation, hence would have been a logical candidate to become the next King, plus no one could imagine that he would lie about his vision, after all who would want to mate someone that isn't his soul mate? It's plain idiotic not to mention illegal!
Nevertheless, I refused to mate Ariel before I had my own vision, which didn't suit well with him - to put it mildly. That bastard tried to attack and coerce me, which only fuelled my suspicion that something was wrong with his vision.
And so it was, my own vision clearly showed Jamie, one of my closest friends since childhood and now a loyal member of the royal guard.
He had been in the first group too, but after Ariel stated he would be my mate he had been too shy - and also too afraid - to contradict him, so he decided to wait for me to have my vision and recognise my true mate; thank god, that bastard would have killed him to fulfil his sick plan!
Because after I announced Jamie to be my true mate - and by doing this exposing Ariel's wilful deception manoeuvre to lure me into mating him - he got so mad he couldn't help to open his big mouth and the mask finally slipped.
You see, his whole scheme wasn't really about me; mating me should have been just a means to an end to become Lycantria´s next king.
Apparently Ariel conceits himself to be the Messiah of the werewolves, and his mission is to bring back the 'good old days' when werewolves used to hunt humans for their flesh or to enslave them and becoming king should have been the first step on the way to build up his new world order.
Since his plan to mate me didn't work, he now attacked my father, cause defeating the old king is the only other way to become the new king.
Alas it's each young alpha's right to challenge the king so our guards couldn't interfere.
All too soon though it became obvious that Ariel didn't just want to defeat but to kill the old king, like they used to do it back in the old times."
Callisto swallowed and looked down, her voice full of memorized horror.
"I begged and pleaded for him to stop, but he didn't listen and carried on beating and biting my dad even after he was already unconscious….there was so much b-blood…." She hiccupped under her tears.
"I couldn't only stand beside and watch how that lunatic tears my Dad to shreds, I had to do something, but of course I'm not strong enough to step into a fight like this, so I did the only thing I hoped that could save my Dad…I yelled at Ariel that it won't be of any use for him to kill my Dad because he had already been defeated before. That got his attention, and even though he didn't want to believe what I was saying he could see and smell that I wasn't lying.
The guards immediately took advantage of his distraction and arrested him."
"Wait a minute!" Merton interrupted her, clearly irritated. "Haven't you just said that the guards couldn't interfere because this Ariel had the right to attack your father?"
Callisto flinched visibly. "Not exactly…I said that he had the right to challenge the king, but being defeated by another alpha before my dad technically isn't king anymore but a mere regent for our true king.
Of course we kept this crucial fact top secret, but under these circumstances I saw no other way to save my Dad than to betray it. Ariel was arrested for attempted false-mating and high treason committed against the kingdom of Lycantria. He was put into our sole maximum security cell, the one with the silver-plated chains that was specially designed so that it can even hold a strong alpha…at least we thought so.
Last night though Ariel managed to break free, killed the prison guards and kind of kidnapped my cousin Steven."
"What do you mean with 'kind of'?" asked Tommy.
"Steven is what we call a 'born beta', which means he's smaller and weaker than a normal werewolf due to the fact that he was born prematurely and instinctively bound to submit to each alpha.
Whether he wants to or not, he must do as Ariel orders him; together they planted delayed-action bombs along the roof of the underwater tunnel that's connecting Lycantria with the main land. By the time the change of shift found the slaughtered guards Ariel was already gone and the bombs started to explode, effectively causing the tunnel roof to collapse in several places and flooding the whole passage."
She sighed "It will take weeks to repair the damage, until then we're completely marooned, the extreme stormy sea that usually protects our island from getting discovered is now a downside. This computer is our last contact to the outside world; right now we can't do a thing if Ariel is still following his mad plan, and he knows it. I'm sure he wants to get over and done with it before we can capture him again, because this time he won't get arrested but executed for killing those guards – unless he manages to become king before.
So his only chance is to find the wolf that had defeated my dad before we get him.
Luckily neither him nor Steven know the exact identity of the sovereign alpha, but as crazy as he is, Ariel isn't stupid; he could easily figure out that it wasn't a wolf from Lycantria that had defeated my Dad because everyone loves him and no one but that bastard had ever thought of challenging him. However since it must have been a strong alpha this leaves only one conclusion..."
Suddenly she broke down crying again. "I'm so sorry Tommy, I swear if it hadn't been about my dad's life I would have never betrayed you like this!"
Tommy was baffled. "What do you mean, how did you betray me?"
Instead of an answer, Callisto only stared at him with wide eyes and jaw slack. Thereby even more confused, the jock looked over to Merton, who had been awfully quiet during her last explanations and was now looking very pale and even more distressed than the princess.
"You really don't get it, do you?" Tommy could only shake his head at the Goth's quiet inquiry.
"Do you remember when we first met Callisto and she took you with her to Lycantria? I had been so curious that I secretly followed you, but got caught and king Iapetus didn't want to let me go home again so that I could never give away the location of their island. But you wanted to take me back to Pleasantville with you, so you two fought - and you defeated him."
Tommy blinked, totally gobsmacked "Wait a minute…you mean that little scuffle back then? But that hadn't been a serious fight, heck I didn't even break a sweat!"
"Doesn't matter, you had my Dad pinned against the wall and could have killed him if you wanted; he was at your mercy - and submitted. That made my Dad your beta, and everything that had belonged to him was now yours, including the throne. He even offered you his crown, don't you remember?"
"Well yes, I remember him saying something like that, but I thought it was a joke! I mean, I told him right away that I didn't want his crown but just to return home with Merton."
He looked over to his beloved mate. "So what you two are trying to tell me is, because of what happened way back in Lycantria this nutcase is now chasing after me?"
"Yeah…everyone got to know about the 'Pleasantville Werewolf' when Merton requested the herbs from our experts for the Lycanamora ritual. It caused quite an uproar, the existence of a strong, bitten alpha outside of Lycantria; some of our elders still remember the days when us few born and scores of bitten werewolves were struggling for supremacy.
My Dad and I could hush those old fears though, we pointed out that you've never changed someone but disabled the rogue alpha that had bitten you -and probably would have bitten dozens more in the years to come- plus neutralised that nasty syndicate, a source of danger that had constantly worried us."
The princess tried to smile reassuringly "Anyway, since Ariel had never been in the human world before we're pretty sure that he'll need quite a while to get to Pleasantville, I mean he can't drive a car, has no money…and even if he reaches your town before us, he doesn't know your name, so if you stay in your human form he can't find you."
"That's all very well Cal, but why can't I just beat him up when he arrives and lock him away until you guys get here? I can't really reconcile with the idea of this lunatic being on the loose in my home town."
"NO!! I implore you, not under any circumstances can you fight against Ariel! For if you loose, then we're all lost."
"She's right Tommy, we can't take that risk, he would get unstoppable, and god knows what he would do in his madness – remember professor Flugelhoff´s vision of a werewolf-army? Ariel could make it come true.
Also don't forget, as a born werewolf Ariel has almost his full power during all the phases of the moon whereas your power fluctuates much more and is heavily dependent on the lunar phase.
Unless you manage to catch him on a full moon his strength is without any doubt superior to yours. Besides, I highly doubt that he would fight fair, plus he doesn't just want to beat but to kill you."
Merton looked him straight into the eyes, unshed tears glistening in his own.
"I know it's not your way of doing things to sit and wait, but this time it's for the best. I beg you Tommy, just this once, stay hidden and wait for the cavalry. I don't want to loose you."
He whispered the last part, too scared to voice his deepest fear out loud.
His mate's genuine worry made a bigger impact on the werewolf than the upcoming threat to his life; he would do anything to make his beloved happy.
Even if that meant to keep his animal side on an awful short leash for the time being.
Tommy sighed deeply. "O.K Merton, I will keep calm and wait for the guards from Lycantria to handle this guy, promised."
--
On a forsaken camping ground miles from anywhere two biology students had found the perfect spot for their studies and had set up their tent.
Luke and Sam planned to write their dissertation about the breeding of seagulls respective the specific marine fauna of this coastal area.
Though as ideal as this place might be for their research, it also had its downsides.
"Honestly dude, I need to see some human faces again, or I swear I'm gonna die of sheer boredom!" Luke complained loudly.
"Yeah man, I know what you mean, to think that I haven't seen my Mary for two months now, it's driving me nuts."
"Hey! At least you've got a girl waiting for you – I've only got my mom's roast to look forward to."
That comment earned him a groan from his friend. "Stop talking about food RIGHT NOW!"
Sam looked disgusted at their supper, greenish-brown pea soup. "If there's anything I miss even more than my girl it's to eat something that's not coming out of a tin."
Luke grinned; the opportunity to taunt his buddy was just too good to pass.
"Cheeseburger…with fries… and a cool six-pack!"
The two young men continued their friendly banter throughout the rest of their meal, blissfully unaware that, while this part of the coast might be devoid of other humans, it wasn't totally devoid of other intelligent life forms.
Eerie glowing yellow eyes in a dark furry face watched every movement of the two.
They yawned and stretched, time to hit the sleeping bags; Luke whining one last time about how many miles off from the next human settlement they were.
Far off from the next human settlement they were indeed – but alas less than five miles from the hidden exit of the tunnel that once lead to Lycantria.
Ariel grinned, revealing his sharp fangs, and started walking over to the tent at a leisurely pace. By the end of the night there wouldn't be any humans in the area remaining.
