Chapter eight and we're coming up on the end. Which is good for me because, honestly, I don't have much remaining time to work on this. All work is assigned on Fridays at my school, so I like to get a jump on it… ruling out my normal designated FF time. Such is life. Anyway, I figure there are about… three, maybe four chapters including this one and the epilogue until the end, which is daunting when you realize that this is the first time I've actually got to chapter eight of anything.

Warnings/Disclaimers: I do not own Danny Phantom. I own Kai, Drake, and the Fates, but that's not really much of an accomplishment when you think about it. Again, thanks much to Frankie the Cat, who does not now nor will she ever have an FF account. I hope. Gods help us all if she ever gets one.

Quote:

"Am I perturbed? Yes. Worried? A little. Confused? Always." –My Dad.

---

The hotel was dark. At the reception desk, the phone rang and was automatically transferred to the room the call was intended for. The phone there rang too. After some searching, the receiver was located under a stack of newspapers dated some fifty years previous. "Hello?" a peevish wolfy voice growled into the phone, before realizing she was speaking into the wrong end. "Hello?" she repeated, gathering together a bit more patience.

"Kai? Are you there?" Sam's voice whispered frantically.

Kai, with her vast ability to take anything in stride, said, "Yes. Where else would I be? It's two in the morning." She didn't sound mad or even annoyed, just perplexed.

"It's Danny!"

"Look, if this is something X-rated, I don't want to hear it. I mean, I do, just not right now."

"Stop fooling around and be serious for five seconds, will you?" Kai hesitated in her usual programming of witty banter. Sam sounded desperate.

"What about him?" That early in the morning, nobody's brain cognates properly. Kai's, in fact, had stopped doing so several years in the past.

"You idiot! It's a full moon again!"

"You can't mean you haven't noticed!" Kai was shocked, if good-naturedly so. "It's been a full moon since I got here! Connect two and two together, will you?"

"…So what you're saying is…"

"He's a werewolf every night from now on. What's the problem?"

"Are you crazy? He's gone… lupine again!"

Kai, who had been reaching for a blanket, stopped dead. "Oh Gods. What's he done?"

"I don't know! I can't find him anywhere!"

The wolf slumped onto the cluttered floor. "Stay there, wherever 'there' happens to be for you. I'll be along in a minute."

"And then?"

"Possibly nothing. I made sure Drake wasn't around to jam his brain waves… but he could still be a monster."

---

"But Barty!"

"No."

"He's going to get slaughtered! Can't you stop-"

"No."

"Drake's your assistant! Isn't there anything-?"

"For the last time, no!"

"Why not?"

"Because until it becomes definitely life threatening, it's hilarious."

---

The Wolf sat in a dumpster. More accurately, he sat where the dumpster had been five minutes ago, with bits of it scattered around. There was still that annoying voice in his brain, screaming for him to stop… but he ignored it. It would go away soon.

After all, why should he stop? Everything he'd ever wanted, deep down inside, was now his. The world was under his control, or would be soon. Nobody could tell him what to do, what to say, what to think… the girl he desired… she could be his too in so many more ways than one…

The Wolf drooled hungrily, and then shook his head. No. That was what the weak part of him wanted. He was strong. He was bold. The earth was his oyster, and no flimsy human mind would stop him.

The part of the Wolf that was still Danny shut up, and tried to think. It was like attempting to write a novel in gale-force winds. The focus was there, but also partly on the growing disaster all around threatening to consume him.

What was going wrong? What was happening to him? His life was spiraling down the drain quickly. If he wasn't stopped… civilization as he knew it would come crashing down around his feet. Literally, as demonstrated by the wreckage of a local all-night butcher shop that had been making the fatal mistake of cooking sausage.

The Wolf smelled the intruders before he saw them, and since they shared the same body Danny did too. It was a familiar scent, mixed with one that he knew all too well… oh gods no… There was a clatter, and a girl's voice shouted, "There he is!"

"I know! Get back! I'll deal with him first!" Another wolf growled, and then the pain in his shoulder tripled. "Don't hurt him!" the voice said again, to the accompaniment of the other wolf.

"I have to! Do you want him to kill something? Now find that ointment." That other wolf was getting frantic and agitated. In other words, acting like an animal would. This was logical, in a cosmic sense.

"Can't you do that this time?" The girl too was disconcerted.

"What have I been saying about the thumbs?"

"Sorry. Forgot."

Then everything went black. This, he thought, was really getting old fast.

---

Sam stared at Danny's body. "We can't go on like this," she muttered, watching Kai struggle with a length of gauze bandaging. "How much more can he take?" She wasn't worried. She had arrived safely at 'worried' quite a long time before the werewolf thing had even started.

"As much as we can as long as the medicine is properly applied," Kai grunted, through a mouthful of barkcloth binding. "I know it's not easy, but this is the reality now. We're the only ones standing between the Curse and total destruction." She tied off the bandage, and began rummaging around for something else.

"Total destruction of what, exactly? Is there something else you've conveniently forgotten to tell me?" Now she was worried again. Fearful shock had gotten in the way of it so far, but the dam had officially broken and a staggering tsunami of horror was surging through her nervous system.

Kai shrugged her bony shoulders in an exaggerated and complicated motion, which really shouldn't have been possible with her limited anatomy. Her ears flicked in the sympathy that she could not get across with words. "Yes. Only it's not so convenient 'cause now I've got to enlighten you on the topic, I suppose."

There was a long pause, filled with the sort of awkward but well meaning silence that followed Kai like a pet dog. "And?" Sam asked. "You were saying?"

"Oh. I was, wasn't I?" She sighed tiredly. It was clear the conversation was progressing too far for her comfort, which was just fine with Sam. "Alright. You know Drake?"

"The kid you nearly killed in P.E. yesterday?"

"The very same. He's a Messenger like me, only… he's playing for the other team." She stopped briefly to consider this. "Really, it's more like he's playing for his own team. He used to be good, you know. Now I can't tell anymore. He lives for his own betterment which in this case… may or may not involve destroying the world."

"Wouldn't it be better to take it over?"

"Ah, yes. Well, the way I figure it, once he's overthrown the Fates and killed us all, he can create a new world order."

"Consisting of what? Him and a pile of rubble?"

"Him, Danny, and a pile of rubble."

"Why Danny?"

"He may or may not be the most powerful creature on the face of the planet."

"Really?"

"Yes. The fact that he was once a halfa only adds to that."

"You know?"

"Yep."

"And yet, he still won't tell me that he's a werewolf."

"It's different. I just guessed. I mean come on! He looks exactly like the Phantom, just with a jumpsuit."

Sam looked at her. "You know, I never thought of it that way. Besides the white hair, the green eyes, and the lack of living, he's exactly the same."

"Are you being sarcastic?" Kai asked, tying two more strips of bandage together to create a makeshift sling for his grievously injured arm. If Sam had wondered, even briefly, about why the wounds weren't healing quickly, it was now obvious. Only silver could cause an injury that wouldn't heal on a werewolf.

She heaved a sigh, collapsing on a nearby soap box. "I don't even know anymore."

"Then let's just assume you weren't." The wolf stalked over to her pack. Most of Danny's clothes had been recovered for the most part, except for the shirt. He'd been wearing it at the time and it was subsequently unsalvageable. Oh well. He had a closet more of them at home. "Ready to get him back?" She asked, gripping the both the bag strap and the hem of Danny's pants leg in her teeth.

Sam sighed. "Sure. And we're positive about the shirt?"

Kai grinned. "Afraid of a little close contact?"

"Shut up."

"What did I say?"

"Shut up!"

"Really, what-"

"SHUT UP!"

---

"Kai?" Sam asked warily, making her way through the shadowy hall. It could have posed for the set of a slasher film. A not very good slasher film. "Where are we, exactly? Aren't we supposed to be taking Danny home?"

The russet-furred wolf gently pushed a door open with the tip of her shiny wet nose. "Stay out here for a moment," she growled, dashing into the room beyond. Sam lowered Danny to the floor and propped him up against a moldering wall. She stared at him for a peaceful moment before taking a seat beside him. So, he was a wolf now. That didn't change the way she felt about him at all. It was astounding, really, how a sense of normalcy could be fostered in such completely un-navigable terrain. Ghosts had been easy to deal with. This was as foreign as Chinese food marinated in salsa and Greek olive oil.

The door creaked open again and Kai, human once more, poked her head out. "Come on in," she whispered, probably to keep from waking Danny. Sam got the unsettling impression that anyone else in the motel would sleep like the dead due to that being a crucial part of what they were. "Bring Danny too. It's not the greatest idea to leave someone out in the hall like this for an extended period of time. Strangely enough, they usually wake up with arms missing."

Sam gathered her friend up and half carried, half dragged him the rest of the way in. Anywhere on the floor was good bedding, as it was all covered with a dense layer of books and other forms of 'literature'. Most of the manuscripts had science-y names like Evolution- What is it? And Oceans: Who Needs them Anyway? One had the picturesque and rather blunt title of Burly Things that Live in Caves.

Utterly revolted, Sam shut the door as Kai dusted off a chair, causing a minor avalanche of pulp faction. "How do you live like this?"

Kai shrugged again, which was now far easier to pull off convincingly. "It's sort of a base, see? While I'm here, it's here. Research, you know? The odd thing is that it seems too… follow me around. I check into a hotel somewhere and boom. There it is. It's damned annoying."

At this point, to say that Sam was tired would be a grave understatement. If she didn't get some sleep soon, she was going to fall over. With all her talking and exasperating nonsense, Kai was seriously not helping. It was time to cut to the chase. "What the hell is going on, wolf? It's too early for this. We've got to get Danny home!"

The wolf wasn't paying much attention. She was busy searching through stacks upon stacks of various wordage. Shoving aside a magazine opened to the article Scientist Guys who are Dead Now, she gave a small exclamation of happiness. "Here it is!"

"Do you ever listen? Ever?"

"What?"

"Forget it."

"Already have. Look, see this?" She produced a small sprig of flowered bush wrapped in lavender cloth.

"So?" Sam asked, mystified. "It's a twig. You brought me here to see a twig?"

Kai looked affronted. "Don't you know what this is? Haven't you heard any werewolf lore?"

"What do you think I am? Some sort of expert?"

The wolf shook her head. "I would have assumed that everyone had heard of this… it's wolfsbane."

This clicked in Sam's head. "Can you… cure him with that?"

"I'm afraid not. What it does is hold off the effects of the full moon for a few hours… and you've already got two after sundown to get it to him. Look, I know you want to go to this dance thingy with Danny, and he wants to go with you too. Slip it in his punch tomorrow night, and you'll have a great evening."

"It's not a date, or anything. We're just going as friends."

"…I'm sure. But you'd still like to go, right? You couldn't if you had to worry about him turning into a furry monster and ripping your throat out."

"Danny's not a monster! He's a great guy."

"Do you want help or not?"

Sam saw no other choice; she took the small package from Kai and tucked it in her shirt pocket. Glancing at Danny, who still lay prone on the floor, she realized that she really, really did want to go to the dance with him. "Thanks, wolf," she muttered, edging towards the door. "I guess I owe you now, huh?"

Kai grinned. "Don't worry about it. I exist for the betterment of other's lives, remember? Now, you take care of that thing. It's way too expensive, and hard to come across. I had to save up for years."

Guilt welled up in Sam's stomach. "Are you sure you don't need it?"

"I'm fine. I've had decades of practice."

"Decades?"

Kai looked depressed, exhausted, and haunted at the same time. "I'm old, Sam. Too old. I've seen a lot in my time. I've got this to say: If you love somebody, you've got to make a move fast. Live it up while you can, because pretty soon… Danny will be too young for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry to say this, friend, but werewolves don't age. At all. I've been alive for fifty years, but I'm still fourteen both inside and out. Danny hasn't aged a minute since Monday. And he never will again, unless I can find a cure. So… you've got to enjoy any relationship you want to have with him right now, while you can."

"We are not lovebirds!"

"People keep telling me that, and it keeps not being true. Just think about it."

---

The first period bell rang, clanging like a runaway train in Danny's head. Everything was too loud. Even the slightest noise made his head pound.

He was still wearing the bandaging over his shoulder for the reason that, if he began to take it off, it invariably started to hurt worse. This was not something he particularly wanted to experience.

As it was, the pain was terrible. It was like being burned and frozen at the same time, or like having the blade of a chainsaw stuck in his arm. The wound throbbed and bled more with every move he made, no matter how miniscule. The bandage made his shoulder look lumpy under his new shirt, but that didn't matter as much as the pressing feeling that if he took it off, he would bleed to death in the most gruesome way possible.

Class did not look as though it would go well. Lancer was first on the schedule- always a disaster, but made worse still by the fact that Kai and Drake took it together with him. He'd be lucky to get out alive, if yesterday's gym session had been any indicator.

Sitting down in his desk, he nervously searched for the two werewolves. Unluckily, Lancer had placed them in adjacent seats so they could 'get to know the school in company.' There was going to be a tragic moment coming up for sure. Vegas odds makers would have had a field day betting on the outcome of the class.

"Alright, children," Lancer growled, eyeing the Drake and Kai suspiciously, "we have another new student today. His name is Drakk-"

Drake cut in fiercely with "Drake, please, sir. Drake Brock."

Lancer scowled but chose not to comment. People were often intimidated by Drake, because if you weren't you were probably going to regret it on the way to the hospital. "Fine." He made a note on his clipboard. "The office must have gotten it wrong again. In any case, turn your books to page 38 and begin reading."

The book was Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and they'd been painstakingly working their way through it for three weeks. The fact that they had only gotten up to page thirty-eight was kind of sad in Danny's opinion, but Lancer had to keep stopping his lessons to explain bits of text to the less bright students.

The following fifteen minutes of class went fine. Nothing disastrous at all happened in that quarter hour. What happened afterward, however, was the topic of much discussion in later days.

It began simply enough, with Danny going to the bathroom. When he returned, Drake poked him. Hard. In the shoulder. He'd wanted to rip the black-haired wolf's head off for that, and almost tried before Kai poked Drake. They had a snarled conversation, most of which was in another language that Danny couldn't understand, and then Drake punched her in the eye. By this time, the whole class was watching, with Lancer shouting at Drake.

But Kai was far from done. No, even the most pacifist wolf will lay down all morals when hit by her mortal enemy. To make a long story short, she jumped him. There was a brief scuffle on the floor, and then Kai fled for the hall with Drake, Danny, Sam, and Lancer in hot pursuit. Danny was first into the corridor behind the wolves who had changed into… well, wolves.

There was a gasp from behind him as Sam shut the door and saw the wolves. Drake had his teeth firmly fastened in Kai's neck, but she pulled him down and clawed his back… Lancer came out. They ran. Danny followed a few paces, and, in shock, made it back to his seat. He had known who the black wolf was. It was obviously Drake… but who was the smaller brown wolf? There was no explanation.

Neither Drake nor Kai made an appearance until lunch. Kai was wearing an awful turtleneck sweater that might have made good moth fodder, but was worthless for anything else. On her way to the table, Paullina made the error of laughing at her. A lunch tray was rapidly mashed into the queen of pink's face.

"What happened?" Danny asked when she sat down.

"Nothing."

"Are you alright?" Sam inquired uncertainly, trying not to look at the wolf's meaty lunch.

"I'm fine."

"What's with the sweater?" Tucker put in.

"Drop it, okay!" Nobody moved. This was the second time in one day they'd seen Kai mad, and the first that they'd heard her raise her voice. "I… I don't want to talk about it."

Danny gulped and went back to his lunch. Something was going on in Amity Park. Something that, like it or not, he was being dragged into the middle of.

---

Strangely enough, Sam was actually beginning to worry about Kai as well as Danny. She was clearly a nice person, if a little misguided, and she'd wanted to help with the dance…

There could be no other explanation for why Sam trailed after Kai on her way to her locker, the one that was next to Danny's. The wolf opened the metal cabinet with enough force to bend the hinges, revealing a mess to rival that of her hotel room. On the door was one picture, old and browning, of a large dog and a boy by a lake. It had been fixed to the metal with loving care. And a magnate.

"Kai?" The wolf spun around.

Sam had expected the wolf to snap at her, but that didn't happen. "What?" She asked glumly.

"Do you want to… talk about what happened earlier?"

"Case closed. There's nothing for you to worry about here."

"Who's that?" Sam pointed to the picture.

"Oh. It's nobody. Just a picture I picked up someplace." Sam raised an eyebrow, and Kai busied herself digging through the wreckage of her locker for something. "You know," she said, sounding a tiny bit happier, "I know there's some good in Drake somewhere. There has to be. No one can be that evil without being partly good. Besides, when I met him he wasn't like this."

Despite what she wanted to be, Sam couldn't help thinking that, if there ever had been a good part of Drake, it was long gone now. The side of him that Kai knew was never coming back.

She wondered about the picture Kai had. Was that why she was being so helpful? Was that why she'd wanted Sam to make the most of what time she had left with Danny? Experience could be a powerful teacher, but if this was the case… Sam truly pitied Kai. By becoming what she was, she had lost everything, but she still endeavored to help others out as much as she could.

Little could anyone know how terrible this trait, coupled with Drake's basic nature, would prove.

---

A candle burned warmly on the cluttered desk, illuminating an undersized patch of room populated with black and white pictures. Some were of paranormal scenery, some featured various animals… but most centered around a wolf and a boy. Kai looked long and hard at the photos and sighed. She rubbed her temples. Laying a heavy book entitled Parts of Earth that Explode on the counter, she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

Night had come again, but she was adept at staying partially human. Only when she had use of opposable thumbs could she continue her readings and the search for a cure. The curse was a terrible thing, to be sure, but the time when she would have wanted it for herself was long over. Her past was gone, but she could still preserve the future for Danny.

She'd used to think that she didn't need friends. She'd spent years deliberately avoiding them. All she needed was her job and her rivalry with Drake. She lived for nothing else. But…

Lately that had been different. Since meeting Danny and his friends, she'd felt something else rising in her again. It had been years between friendships, but now… there was something about them that she liked. They tried to do good, despite what their townspeople thought about the ghost boy. She liked that.

Kai had had many of her own sacrifices. You didn't spend fifty years living as a fourteen year old without giving some things up. But she had lived with this because she knew that her work was crucial. The Fates needed to exist, or the plotted course for the earth would get off track. That was why she worked tirelessly against what Drake was trying to do. Even Bartholomew wasn't this bad.

From the desk, there was a chiming noise like a small bell. Cursing, Kai dug feverishly through the drawers, ruffling through the files and knick-knacks stored therein. A gleaming crystal plate was removed and set over the book.

Kai waved a furred hand over it, and the surface shimmered unsteadily. A picture appeared, one of a rough-hewn cavern. She'd seen it before, once. It was beneath the castle in which the dark Fate resided. A gathering of wolves had met there, carrying torches…

"Oh no," she whispered, staring in awe at the sight that unfolded before her eyes. There was nothing else she could do.

---

There was the flash of light on silver as another wolf fell, toppling off a spar of rock and into the dark lake below. "Give up, Bartholomew!" Drake shouted, brandishing a mace. "Your day is done! The time of the wolves is here!" The wolf had a manic look in his eye as he roared out. "You have commanded us for far too long! We are strong! We are independent! We are free!"

Bartholomew slashed a burly gray wolf across the chest and pushed him into the icy liquid. His eyes narrowed, never a good sign. "What do you take me for, Drakkus, a fool? You exist to keep the world in balance, not to destroy it!"

"We will take the boy, and we will prevail! There is nothing we cannot do! Besides," he gestured at Antigoras, who was sitting in a large iron-barred cage, "we have captured your plebian friend. There is no escape for you." Antigoras waved.

Bartholomew was mystified. "I have killed your comrades. Do you not want revenge?" They seemed to merely be trying to capture him, and this was deeply confusing. This was not the way he was used to the world working.

"Why should I? They are useless pawns who have outlived their usefulness. They and their pitiful qualities deserve to be removed from the gene pool."

Bartholomew may have been a few Christmas carols away from sainthood, but he knew when something was immoral. He didn't like it. He may start wars, cause pollution, and fix elections, but he knew when it was time for some good old fashioned morality. The fundamental difference between him and Drake was that he knew exactly where the fine line lay, and made sure not to cross it. "You are my pawn, Drakkus. I deplore having to do this to my trusted assistants, but it is necessary."

Drake laughed mirthlessly. "You pawn? Your pawn? Drake Brock is nobody's pawn! You shall suffer for your sappiness, Barty. Your time is gone. Mine is nigh!" There was a meaty twang as Thesarus loosed a goose-flighted arrow up towards the slippery granite ridge where the Fate stood. He cried out as it connected sharply with his right shoulder, causing him to topple forwards.

Still conscious, he struggled to the shore where two wolves gripped his arms and held fast. Tossing Bartholomew into the cage and slamming the door, Drake growled, "Remember my parting words for eternity, Barty. The world has always belonged to me. I was only biding my time."

---

Danny tossed and turned in his bed, throwing the sheets overboard. The moon was behind clouds, so mercifully he was spared the horror of another transformation, at least for a few more minutes. He had dreamed, and it was terrible. Where his other fantasies had been pleasurable, his current one had been heartbreaking.

He sobbed without tears, staring out the window. He wouldn't do that to his friends. Never. His dreams had centered on their deaths at the paws of the Wolf. This was unacceptable. He could never do that. It was beyond thinking. He wouldn't do that to Tucker or Sam. He refused.

Sam… how could he face her? He had to tell her tomorrow. When he went to pick her up for the dance- the one that, sadly enough, was only as friends –he would confess it. He had been insane to think he could honestly keep it from her.

The moon came out. The change wracked his body. The Wolf heard his closet creak open, and saw two figures step out of it. A knife plunged into his shoulder. "There's one thing done," Kai said, letting Sam take over with the healing. "Next, we've got to find a way to cure him."

---

Dang, that was a long chapter. This is turning out different than I had assumed. In any case, I hope my readers enjoyed it. I would sincerely appreciate any reviews you dare bestow upon me. I would be eternally grateful. Until next time, ciao!