-- Author's Note -- Sorry, I'm a day late, but I promise this chapter was well worth the wait! I hope it's not too short, I feel like it's too short, but hopefully you will disagree. Next chapter is probably going to be the last chapter, aren't you sad? I know I am, but I'm excited to start the next FtLoaH, Fast Forward. I will be adding a short scene that I've been plotting since I came up with the idea at the end of the chapter. It will most likely be fairly short since I don't want to give too much away! More info about Fast Forward will be included in the next chapter. Anyway, after I posted the last chapter I noticed some issues with it, i.e. a lot of the stuff that was supposed to be italicized wasn't. So I am going to repost it and fix it. Hopefully you all understood what was going on, since I think it was fairly clear. That and I didn't get any angry reviews. I will do my best with the next chapter, but I'm not going to rush it since it is the end/beginning. Yes, beginning. o0 Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Well, again more next chapter! You can always check out my live journal/homepage for info on updates if you're wondering as to when the next chapter will be posted. I always try to put something about the next update in when I post, so check there is it's next Monday and you're like 'where's the chapter? there's supposed to be a chapter!!!'
Chapter 13 Goddess Truths
Danny hummed happily to himself as he walked to school. For once in the past few days things were actually starting to look up.
Last night had really been an experience. He decided to take a shortcut through the park, only to run into Sam. He was mindlessly fingering his cell phone, the one that Sam had given him, when she had called out to him. She had almost scared him witless.
They talked for a few minutes and got onto the topic of them. Not that Sam knew she was his girlfriend. The sun went down while they talked, covering the world in darkness. When he offered to walk her home she actually smiled like she use to, the smile just for him.
When he had gone to bed he knew that the old Sam was still there somewhere.
"Hey Danny!" Tucker called from the front doors. "Whoa, hold on. Are you sure you're Danny?"
"Yes, it's me Tucker."
"Are you sure? You've got this thing on your face I don't think I've seen before."
Danny gave him a punch in the arm before heading into Casper High. Tucker followed rubbing his arm.
"Man, that hurt," he whined.
"I didn't hit you that hard."
Danny asked Tucker if they had found anything after he left. Tucker told him no, but then started going off about what had happened in the next episode of Teen Titans.
"So then Terra—"
"DANNY!" Sam screamed running into the school. The two boys stared at her in shock. "Danny you have to help me!" she said out of breath.
"Are you okay Sam?" Danny asked, slightly wary.
She threw her arms around him tightly in a hug. "Oh my gosh, I've missed it. It's so horrible. I don't know what happened, but I..." Sam started but trailed off.
Sam slowly backed away from Danny, her eyes narrowing at him. "It's you, isn't it?" she whispered even though there was no one else in the halls. "You're that Halfa boy. I should have seen it sooner. All of this is your doing, isn't it?"
"Hey. Danny hasn't done anything to you!" Tucker said in his defense.
"Hasn't done anything? Ha! What hasn't he done? He changed me into this freak of nature. He even said so himself. He abandoned me, leaving me to fend for myself. And now he's trying to control me.
"It was so clear. A voice, a small quiet one that would help me, calm me. She would never suspect anything, would she? And then, when the trust is built and it's strong enough it will take over.
"Isn't that right Phantom? The only thing I don't understand is why. But right now, Phantom, I don't care. I want my life back. I want to be normal. I want to be human."
"I can't do that Sam."
"I know, which is why I'm going to do the next best thing. I'm going to kill you like I should have done in the first place."
Danny flinched, wanting to transform. She merely grinned at him.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait. Classes start in a few minutes. Tonight, in the abandoned warehouse, midnight. Don't be late." She grinned again before walking off.
"What was that about?" Danny asked quietly.
"She's lost her mind. There's nothing else to it," Tucker muttered in disbelief.
-------------------
Thokk watched on as his mistress stood over her cauldron. She barely seemed to leave it since her plan had gone into effect. She was always watching those two Halfas. (A/N Hey! I bet you were wondering when we'd see these guys again, huh? LoL.)
"It's nearly time," she whispered to him.
"Time for what, mistress?" He still had no idea what she was plotting.
"It's so simple, Thokk. Tonight at midnight the Halfas will battle. That Phantom is no match for Spectra with her 'gifts.' She will kill him, and the spell will be broken."
"Broken, mistress?"
"Yes. The false world I have given her will fade away. She will remember nothing of it, only that she killed the one person in the world who she cared about. And if she does not kill herself, you will."
A silence hung in the air for a moment. She turned away from the cauldron. Thokk still could not see her features; she stayed hidden behind her cloak. (A/N Cloaks are soo cool. I think we should bring them back into style, what do you guys think?)
"However, there is one problem that I did not plan on."
"Mistress?"
"Spectra is fighting back. A part of her sees that this is not the truth she knows. She cannot break free from the spell until she has killed Phantom. Follow her and make sure that nothing goes wrong until those two are face to face in battle."
---------------------
"She's lost her mind," Tucker mumbled again as the two boys sat down to lunch. Sam had completely ignored them all day. Needless to say, Danny was no longer smiling.
"I don't get it. What happened?" Danny asked.
"You just had to pick the crazy for your girlfriend, didn't you?" Tucker questioned.
"Me? You're her friend too. And Sam wasn't always like this."
"Ultra-recyclo," Tucker coughed.
"Well at least my girlfriend isn't obsessed with comics!" Danny practically shouted.
"Whoa, dude, chill. Jessica's not my—"
"Not your what?" she asked coming up behind him.
Tucker went bright red. Neither of the two had seen her all day, so they figured she was home sick or something.
"Ah, nothing Jess. It's nothing really."
She grinned knowingly. "Ah come on Tucker. It's not like you were talking about me being your girlfriend or something like that."
He went redder at this and Danny laughed to himself. Jessica really knew how to put Tucker in his place.
A smile touched her face as she watched Tucker shift in his chair. "Tuck, we'll talk about this later. Now is not the time to be thinking about our petty love lives. We should be focusing on Danny's."
"Hey!"
"You know what I mean. Anyway, sorry I was late today. I was up late going through videos after you guys left and completely overslept. So what were you talking about before I because the topic?"
"Sam. Something really weird happened this morning," Tucker told her.
"And last night," Danny added.
"Last night? I thought you were going to stay away from her house while you're in ghost form?"
"Hey. First I was not in ghost form, I walked home."
"Why? If I could fly I'd never walk anywhere!" Jessica commented.
"I had some stuff I wanted to think about. Secondly, I was nowhere near her house. It was in the park. And finally she came up to me."
"So what happened?"
"We talked for a bit and I offered to walk her home because it was late."
"You enjoy trying to get yourself killed, don't you?" Tucker asked him.
"Ha ha, Tucker. No, but I'm not even sure why I asked her. I thought for sure that she'd turn me down."
"She didn't?"
"No! In fact she smiled at me, with her old smile. Like it was really her."
"Creepy," Tucker said with a shiver.
Jessica frowned in thought as Danny continued. "We talked about school and stuff as I walked her home. Things just seemed normal again."
"So that's what was with the grin this morning," Tucker thought aloud.
"What happened this morning?" Jessica prompted Danny to keep going.
"Well, Tucker and I were walking into the school and heading to our lockers. Then Sam comes bursting in the front doors screaming for me. She hugged me and started going on about how much she missed me, and how scared she was."
"Then she started to say something but stopped short. It was really weird. She just kinda stopped like she just realized was she was doing, only her whole personality seemed to change. She was the old Sam, and then she got really cold," Tucker remembered.
"She backed away and started going on about how she should have seen the truth sooner and that everything was my fault, and how she hated me. Then she was talking about this voice trying to control her. Then she said she should have killed me in the first place. And that I'm supposed to meet her tonight in the abandoned warehouse at midnight."
The girl was silent for a minute. "It's just like I thought. Sam's being controlled by a spell."
"You found something?" the two boys asked.
"Around midnight or so I realized that I was looking in the totally wrong type of movies. It was in an anime that I had seen it, Ah! My Goddess the movie in fact."
"What happened?" Danny asked barely believing this.
"The main character, Belldandy, is put under a spell by her old mentor who is trying to change the world. He makes her forget about the past three years that she has lived on Earth with Keichi, the boy she's in love with."
"How did they break the spell? What happened?"
"Nothing they try to get her memory back works, but the more time she spends with Keichi she starts to remember the past. Like he was creating something inside her to fight the spell. I think that's what's going on with Sam."
"Excuse me? Can you explain this in English please?"
"Belldandy had visions, and Sam was saying something about a voice, right? What if that voice is the real Sam, trying to break free. This morning she could have done that, and she was trying to warn Danny, but the spell took control again. Of course in taking over that opened everything she knew to the spell version of herself, which would be how she knew that you were the Halfa she had fought."
"Makes sense, I guess," Tucker mumbled.
"Keichi was able to wake Belldandy up by telling her that he loved her, and then they fight her mentor and win and the world is safe, etc. Which means—"
"Which means Danny has to confess his undying love for Sam? Hahaha!" Tucker laughed.
Jessica frowned at Tucker for not taking this more seriously. "That's not funny Tuck, but yes. That looks to be the only way."
"I can't. I can't do that."
"What? Why not Danny? Don't you want Sam back?"
"Of course I want Sam back. But I made her a promise. I promised her I wouldn't until I was sure, and I'm not. I don't know what I feel. She's my best friend and I care about her deeply. I would do anything to save her, but I can't break that promise I made to her."
"But what are you going to do then?"
Danny dropped his head to the table. "I don't know. I have to think about this. I'll come up with a plan. I'll meet you guys at Jessica's house at ten, all right? We'll go over the plan then, okay?" he said standing up.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. I suddenly feel very ill."
"All right Danny, we'll meet you at my house. See you then," she said as he walked off.
