Here is the long-awaited transformation of Danny Fenton into the werewolf. I didn't spoil any plot points, because this should have been obvious after the preview last chapter. How it happens, and what goes on after he turns into the wolf are the major issues here. Oh, and because I felt guilty about not putting it in before, there is some stuff that could be construed as mild fluff in this chapter. Sort of. I like reading fluff, but for some reason I just can't write it. But I'm trying, I really am. It will get much more prominent in the story line in the last couple of chapters, which I now actually have plotted out. Enjoy!

Warnings/Disclaimers: I own no part of this except my own wacky plots. Danny Phantom is Butch Hartman's show, not mine. Though I probably wouldn't have let them cancel it if it were mine… Save the phantom!

---

Fate is, in general, not cruel. That is to say, half of him is not cruel. In fact, half of him is a happy, smiling idiot who reads sappy romance novels while eating centuries-old Ben and Jerry's ice cream and half-listening to Sex and the City. He thinks no one knows that.

Then, there is the other half, the half we are concerning ourselves with now. If Fate were one person, a casual observer of his behavior might find him to be suffering from a greater case of bipolar disease than two oppositely charged magnates stuck together with Gorilla Glue and placed between slabs of iron.

The other half sat on a cold steel bench in his garden. Part of it was poking him in a way that he hoped was simply because he had shifted positions, and not because, say, it had developed a consciousness and was giving serious thought to the opportunities presented by tipping him into the fish pond that seemed to be getting closer every time he looked.

Indeed, this would not have surprised him. The whole garden, belonging to the sinister half of Fate and therefore by definition being rather spooky, had a tendency to, to put it delicately, move around a lot. The trees rustled in a total absence of wind. The benches, especially the one upon which he was sitting, liked to scuttle around on their ornate sixteenth-century gothic legs when they thought no one was watching. The cobbled pathways, looking like something you might have found in one of the darker Dickens novels, crept along like a conveyor belt, which could be quite handy when you didn't feel like walking. Then again, if you stayed long enough in this particular garden, you wouldn't be able to walk.

Brother Bartholomew, still in his amethyst, all-encompassing cloak, sat on the bench. The fish pond went glorp. Somewhere, there was a very loud, if brief, squawk before it was abruptly cut off. Somewhere, something was enjoying a meal of crow, probably raw. But you never could be entirely sure.

The sky, black and endless, stretched away into the far distance with nary a star to tarnish the fine grain of dark it had achieved. The only thing that occupied such a blank, eternal slate was the golden globular disk of the moon. Bartholomew smiled, a rare occurrence. He had made cultures worship the moon. He had made a select few suffer- and, to tell the truth, experience a state of such sublime euphoria that the Gods themselves trembled with jealousy –over its mere presence. And there it was, lighting his home. He was master of all he saw, for he had almost certainly twisted the tedious march of history to bring it into being.

The grin evaporated. An icy chill passed over him. The pond went glorp, but it did so with a purpose and sense of urgency. He shuddered in rage. Drakkus Bacchus, the renegade Messenger of Fate who had deflected to the other team at halftime, as it were, had taken it too far. Bartholomew had no qualms with pain and misery (as long as the people it happened to weren't him) but those were things that could be fixed given a little time and some elbow grease. They had no practical applications. Drake intended to end the game on a penalty foul, which, besides being nearly impossible, would spoil the event for everyone involved.

His eyes narrowed as he felt the bench tip to the right a few inches, intending to unload its unpleasant cargo. Bartholomew grabbed an armrest and held on with a grip like that of a world-class wrestler. The metal bent and warped. "Bench?" he hissed, his voice radiating clam vehemence. "If you dare get even one drop of that disgusting… muck on my person, you will suffer a slow and never-ending torturous death." There was no more discussion. The bench went back to pretending to be a normal bench.

Bartholomew settled back, a bag of caramel corn appearing in his hand. If it was trouble Drake wanted, then trouble he would get. Just as soon as the situation stopped being funny.

---

Danny Fenton walked down the street, rather more jauntily than was entirely necessary. He had a date! A date with the most beautiful girl in the world and- wait. Back up a minute. Where did that come from? It was not a date, and he certainly didn't like her in that way….

As you can see, having part of you soul warped into a wolf doesn't heighten your awareness of the world in general much. Because of this, Danny remained as clueless as ever while being simultaneously elated at where this was going. Strange, no?

The neon Nasty Burger sign appeared in his line of sight only when Sam grabbed his arm and steered him towards it. He hadn't really been looking where he was going, given recent circumstances that he would much rather have avoided (namely being eviscerated by a not-very-sane werewolf in a park). "Honestly," Sam said, worry evident in her voice, "I don't know what's gotten into you today. You're not usually this cut off from the world."

Danny shrugged, enjoying being out in the night. The moon was alternating between shining and hiding itself behind a cloud. Currently, it was tucked well away which was good because even a single moonbeam was enough to make him lapse back into the nausea and cold sweat of the sickness. "I… it's a long story. There's a lot to it and… in all honesty I probably should have told you sooner. I just… I didn't know what was going on. I sort of still don't. But I guess I owe it to you. You deserve to know."

There wasn't much else to talk about. In a daze, part of him still thinking that this was all a very nice dream and any minute he'd wake up in a bush somewhere, he strode up to the counter and ordered his meal. Sam gave him a look when he took his tray filled with nearly a dozen burgers, but he shrugged it off. Being a werewolf gave you odd hankerings for meat, which he knew he'd never liked this much before.

He scarfed the meal with amazing agility and swiftness, causing the meal to disappear down his gullet faster than a magician magic-ing it away. When he had finished, Sam said, with an air of wariness and foreboding, "So, what's up?"

Danny gulped and opened his mouth to begin, but was wracked with another bout of stinging agony, which caused him to double up in sickness. The invisible tail thrashed wildly. His eyes threatened to roll back in his head. Somehow, he managed to hide all this. "I… I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be tight back." Going as fast as he dared, Danny raced madly over to the men's room, feet skidding unnaturally on the slick tiled floor.

Thankfully, the room was empty and the first stall had a forbidding 'out of order' note taped to the door. He ran into the out of order stall, slamming the door so hard that the rusted-out hinges creaked angrily and threatened to give out. He locked the stall, not wishing to be walked in upon by some malcontent who couldn't comprehend the simplicity of the sign.

Having seen a few monster movies in his time, and not wishing to tear apart his clothing as people in this position are wont to do, he carefully stripped and folded the offending articles, tucking them safely behind the toilet.

Danny lay down on the freezing bathroom floor, his stomach churning. This was it. This was the transformation. He only hoped it wouldn't hurt that much. Then again, there wasn't much chance of that. Perhaps he would black-out before the worst of it?

His back was to the ground, and he could feel the vibrations caused by the feet of many people hitting the earth. For a second, he felt in tune with everything; nature, the universe, the whole package. It was a Zen feeling, though he didn't have a very good understanding of what Zen was.

Then, it began.

It started as a gentle twitching, a careless flicking of one finger, and became more and more as twitching gave way to spasmodic contractions of his muscles and bones. His flesh felt like it was boiling, moving and twisting, writhing and dancing under his skin. And then, as suddenly as it started, it all stopped and Danny lay at rest on the floor, his heart beating fast and his breath coming in long, ragged gasps.

And then he Changed.

---

The Wolf was awake. He had never, technically, gone to sleep, but that didn't add up to much in his one track mind. In a dark corner of said brain, a tiny voice was shouting about remembering sense, remembering who he truly was. But this was largely ignored by the Wolf, as it was dwarfed by the roaring, roiling sea of pure anger and hatred that filled up the spaces of the beast's soul.

The Wolf howled. Somewhere in the ripple of terrifying sound was a scream. He was confused. Why was he in this enclosed space? He wanted to rip, to tear, to devour. He could smell and feel a world outside, and he wanted to be a part of it.

He did all he knew to do. He lunged, hitting the door with the power and energy of a small missile. It flew off the hinges, slamming down onto the floor. Several snow-white tiles shattered into shards sharp enough to be considered daggers in the right hands. The door had been blasted straight outward, and lay without even a slight angle on the tiles that had not broken. The battered and dented metal groaned as the Wolf stalked off of it.

The Wolf looked up, his mind following a few steps behind his gaze. He growled, deep and guttural, fangs bared. There was another wolf there! It was showing him its teeth! This had to be rectified immediately. A few seconds later, bits of smashed mirror were spiraling down to earth. The Wolf whined, sucking on his right paw where a large piece of glass had lodged itself. He pulled the offending item out, and the flesh healed up.

As if nothing had happened, the Wolf hit another door. People shouted. He grinned. Shouting people meant food.

Food, said his wolfish thoughts.

Sam! Shouted Danny.

---

Sam was really getting worried now. This was beyond normal unsettlement over her best friend, this was more. Something serious was going on, and she wanted to know what.

A woman screamed, high and shrilly. Sam craned her neck to see what was happening. A large creature stomped out of the bathroom, a trickle of blood dripping out of its maw. Danny! Her inner thoughts cried. He had been in there! Was he hurt? Where had the wolf come from, anyway?

She got up to go and find him, but was caught in a surging wave of humanity headed for the door. She was screaming bloody murder, but this was nothing new. Half the Nasty Burger patrons were doing just that.

Out on the street, which was already decorated for the coming weekend's festivities, Sam contrived to escape the mob, finding a spot off to the side in which to watch for Danny. It didn't seem to matter that she was standing in the middle of the street. A large crowd was doing just that, and no one seemed to be dead yet.

The wolf charged out of the restaurant, and into the road. Its fur, she noticed was pure white. It was the largest of its kind she'd ever seen. The thing was absolutely massive, almost the size of a car, with bulging muscles and steely claws… and piercing green eyes that stared, if only for a second, into the deepest depths of her soul.

---

Kai sat on the roof of a nearby building, watching the ensuing debacle which edged ever closer to becoming an all-out disaster. So far, she had observed no casualties other than the regrettable death of Danny's common sense, but there was still time. There was a panicked shout and a spray of sparks as a street lamp was uprooted and flung down the street. Amazing what you could do with strong jaws.

Her perked ears picked up the click of claws on brick. It was an old building, with a flat roof and an alley beside it. Just the sort of haunt that Drake would like. The advancing figure turned out to be him. This came as no huge surprise.

"Enjoying the show?" the raven-furred wolf asked innocently, sitting down next to her. The wind seemed to blow fiercer in that instant.

"You know I'm not." She licked her front right paw, and drew it over her ears.

"You," Drake snarled, "are a disgrace to wolfery. Only cats do that."

"Yeah?" she didn't seem interested. "Well, maybe I'm part feline. Leave me alone."

Drake ignored her. Ignoring people was a practiced art among werewolves. "See? See now? I have won. My protégé is wreaking havoc as we speak!" There was a cracking noise as the pavement below was torn in two, leaving a long furrow where the street divider should have been.

"So? That doesn't give you the right to automatically declare yourself the victor."

"Ridiculous! I have given Pandora her… I mean his box, and now he has opened it. The world shall never be the same."

Kai paused in her washing to give him a withering look. The effect was quite ruined by the fact that she had to duck half a car that was thrown her way by the rampaging wolf below. "You reference the legend of Pandora. Have you ever even heard it before?" The scathing look he shot back was proof enough that the research hadn't been done. "Had you paid closer attention to your metaphors, you might have made a point. As it is, you have proved nothing. Shall I explain why?"

"Do tell," Drake hissed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Pandora, the first woman- this alone makes you sound like a fool, by the way –was given a box by the Gods, and told never to open it. Since one of her great gifts was curiosity, she naturally disrespected them and opened it. The tale goes that, in punishment for her insubordination, she unwittingly released all the perils we encounter today. Death, sickness, plague, famine, all that malarkey."

"Sounds good to me," Drake snapped, irate at being called a fool and having his time wasted.

"It's not. Because you see, when all the horrible things had flown out, another came too. One that eased the pain and made life bearable again."

"I'll play along. What was it?"

Kai stared hard at him for a minute before answering. "The last thing," she said, fixating on his rotten face, "was hope."

Then she left him, jumping down into the alley. He had interfered plenty. It was time to fix this mess.

---

The Wolf had found his way to the park oblivious of the girl, clad in black clothing darker than the darkest midnight that was following him. The park was too content, he decided. He was about to ravish an wooden bench, doubtlessly accumulating a few more splinters in the process, when he felt something stab into his shoulder, and everything went black

---

"There!" Sam heard the second wolf reply. Or thought she did. It was a wolf, after all. It couldn't talk. She hoped it couldn't talk. It proved her wrong. "I hate to do this to the poor guy, but it's the only way." Sam observed the wolf pull a knife out of the white one's side. It glinted silver in the moonlight.

She gasped. Before her eyes, the colossal white wolf warped, changing form. Then, suddenly, the creature was gone. In its place lay, to her unending shock, Danny. She blushed when she noticed that his clothes were gone; how could he have kept them on? No wolf can run around in jeans.

The other wolf maneuvered him so that at least he had underwear on, and turned to stare at Sam. "You can come over, you know," the wolf called. "He's your friend, after all."

Sam went over, looking at the wolf. It was a suspicious creature, but then again, she had spent months chasing ghosts with Danny. 'Weird' now had a completely new definition. "Who are you?" she asked, not taking her eyes off her fallen friend. "What did you do to him? What's going on? What's wrong with him?" The shoulder wound was bleeding profusely, the scarlet blood pooling around him and sinking into the ground.

The wolf looked thoughtful. "Okay, in order: What's it to you; lots of things, but most recently I stopped him from continuing a destructive rampage; honestly, I have no idea; and he got stabbed with a silver knife. It turned him back, but I should think we should do something before he bleeds out." She continued to sit there, not doing anything.

After a strained minute, Sam growled, "Well?"

"Hmm?"

"What do we do?"

"Ah, yes. Bit of a sticky situation. I've got a cure… but, alas. No opposable thumbs."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Give it to me! I'll do it!"

The wolf shrugged, and trotted a few paces away, to where she had deposited a burlap sack. She shook it with her mouth, and a small lilac colored bottle of something horrible looking rolled out. The wolf prodded it with her nose. "Rub this over the wound; it'll stop the bleeding."

Sam took the bottle, uncapped it, and tipped some of the contents into one hand. She wasn't saying it wasn't a good thing to massage the shoulders of her friend and secret crush; just that it would have been better if he wasn't in a semi-coma. The ragged, torn flesh felt odd under her hands. When she was done, the wolf gingerly laid a gauze pad over the wound where, due to the blood and treatment, stuck fast.

"Now what?" Sam asked, lost. She had bandaged Danny on many occasions; this was new ground to her.

The wolf thought. "We take him home." Fine. That, she could deal with. "But first, you should get him dressed." The wolf shoved a neatly folded pile of clothes towards her.

Oh, no. That wasn't happening. Sam's face went five different shades of red, and one of maroon. "Can't you do that?"

The wolf raised an eyebrow, which Sam would have sworn was impossible. "Hello? What did I just say about the thumbs?"

Five very embarrassing minutes later, Danny was slung across her shoulder and they were progressing rapidly towards Danny's house. It wasn't hard to find. The Fenton Works sign made it both a local landmark, and very noticeable. Sam was about to ring the doorbell, when the wolf gave her a tiny nip on the leg. "Are you crazy?" the beast snarled, pushing the door open with her nose. "It's late they're asleep. Let's keep it that way."

Getting Danny up the stairs to his room was a challenge, but not out of the realms of the possible. In the end it was done, and Sam tucked him into bed while the wolf found some paper and a pencil. Sam stared at her. The pencil, and #2 Ticonderoga, was clasped in the wolf's mouth and seemed to be tracing words over the sheet. "What's that for?" she asked, remembering to keep her voice down.

"'S a spell, see?" the wolf said through a mouthful of pencil. "When his parents read it, it'll create a false memory of whatever happened tonight. Danny'll, to their minds, have been at school when appropriate and home before midnight. I can draw one up for your parents if you want." Sam looked at the clock, which snidely confirmed that it had now been Thursday for thirty minutes.

"That may not be a bad idea. Knowing my parents, they'll have a conniption fit if they find out I was with Danny at all, let alone this late."

The wolf nodded knowingly. "Don't worry," she said, answering the question that had been kicking around in Sam's skull for several minutes but to no one's knowledge had been asked. "Danny didn't tell you because he was scared, and didn't know what was going on. He was going to tell you before… the episode."

"I hope so," Sam muttered, staring absently out the window. "For the sake of our friendship, I hope so."

---

Whew! This took me most of a Vikings football game to finish, which is just as well when my Dad makes me watch the entire frickin' thing. I like football, but not three consecutive hours of it during pre-season when it doesn't even count. More to come! And more dialogue in the next one, too. Will Sam confront Danny about the werewolf thing? Will Drake succeed in turning Danny evil? Will I ever learn to write something sane? All this and possibly more to be answered… some time in the future. And more romance later, too.