Disclamers and warnings still stand. I don't owe anything. However, if you wish to send me money (or chocolate really) please, do so!

Moon's POV

I saw my pack sister lying on the human bed, not moving. Then Phineas put something around her neck. I felt the hair on my arms bristle, much like they would have if I had been in my original form.

I didn't like being human, and I wished that my sister would take on the form she had learned from me, so that we would be true pack sisters. But she chose to keep her human form. It made me feel like she was drifting away from the life she had lived. Like she was becoming more human. When we were pups she would have done anything to be wolf form.

When I saw Phineas for the first time, I didn't know what I was feeling, and I knew I had to hide it until I knew what it was. I had taken on my human form, to speak with him, and beg that he help my sister.

It had taken a few days, but he had finally agreed. He was staying with us at the underground caves to regain his strength, and I had followed him everywhere, hoping he would change his mind. It was strange being away from my sister, and John. I hadn't parted from them for more than a moment since we left our home in the jungle, and even then it was only during our prowling games.

After he put it on my sister, it took another two more sun risings for her to wake up.

Shadow's POV

I had spent two long weeks training in the land of the dead, while my body regained strength. I could feel John, always nearby, making sure that I was alright. I felt his pain as something interfered with my contact with him.

"Do not allow yourself to be distracted child." He said.

I looked back at my father.

"But John is in pain." I said.

"I know, I can feel it. But all love must undergo some trial or another. And there is danger if you do not continue to train while your body heals. The danger lurks within the bureau now." Trevor replied. "And that danger will come in form of one who calls himself friend."

"Alright father." I replied.

I stopped, days later, feeling a burning at my throat. I felt as if I were falling without actually moving. The man who was my father seemed to sense my disorientation. He put his hands on my shoulders.

"It is time to hear the prophecies Shadow."

I stared at him for a moment, trying to put the words together in a way I could understand. It was hard; the burning was stealing away my concentration and my strength. He put his hands on my face, and I could hear myself growling at him.

"That is enough Shadow." He said sternly.

"He's right Shadow. Behave, you don't have much time. I will do my best to protect you against the one who is trying to steal your secrets and powers." Crescent said.

It felt as if a cold rain was touching my skin when I was sick.

"Now, Shadow, you must listen."

"Alright father."

"The full moon is almost here, the one with a stolen face had to make sure that he bridled you before you awoke my child. You must overcome his leash." My father said.

"You must be quick Trevor, or his power will overcome me, and our souls will be lost forever." Crescent said.

"I will do what I can. Shadow. A Chaos Mage keeps balance in the world. The amount of chaos they need to balance into order determines how many of them are needed in the families of mages. Should all the Chaos Mages be destroyed, the world will fall into the apocalypse. The last Chaos Mage to be killed, in a ceremony, will invoke the worst of the chaos, their power will flow into the one performing the ceremony, and there will be hell on earth.

"The prophecy is that one must travel beyond the realm they know, that one will steal the face of another and attempt to do what cannot, should not, be done. In this Month of Blood Moon, a Chaos Mage's power is vulnerable. In the time when the moon is dark, one will take that which is not his." Professor Broom said.

I fell to my knees. Everything seemed to flare up. I didn't want my mother or father to be lost forever. I used whatever love I felt in my heart for them, and sent them away to safety.

I slowly opened my eyes. John was not next to me as I thought he had been. No one was there, except someone who seemed almost familiar. I felt something like the invisible wall breaking.

"I wanted to thank you for saving me. My name is Phineas." The man said.

Something made me want to bare my teeth, and not in the way John did when he saw me. I sensed something in him that seemed familiar, but not right with him.

I smelled John as he came to the hospital room.

"Shadow! Thank god you're awake!" He shouted.

He bared his teeth, and I felt safe again. I still felt a little hurt that he had not been there when I opened my eyes, but now, I saw how much he had been hurt by my absence.

John was doing very well with his training. He had practiced when the Doctors kicked him out of my hospital room. He had managed to take wolf form a few days after I had woken up. I was happy with him, and spent as much time as I could with him. I felt wonder each time his hand held mine, or he touched my hair.

"You need a teacher Shadow." Phineas said. I was waiting for John to return from a mission.

I looked at Phineas, raising an eyebrow. I had seen Liz do it, and she had shown me how to groom them as she did. I had also learned how to show my dislike, disbelief or other emotions with my eyebrows. It was a strange lesson, one I had decided on teaching myself, simply because the humans used them a lot in their lives. I had noticed it in the way Hellboy and Liz interacted, and some of the agents as well, those who were attracted to one another, those who hated one another. It was curious.

"I am the same kind of mage as you are Shadow. A Chaos Mage is the only teacher another Chaos Mage can have."

"My father teaches me." I said.

"The dead make it difficult to learn. They are not always honest."

"My father is plenty honest. He does not think I should exist." I said.

"And you think he is teaching you out of the good of his heart?" Phineas asked.

I stopped and looked at him. Something about him drew at me. I couldn't understand what it was, and I disliked it very much. It was as if he wanted to draw me away from John. His hair seemed much like my mother's in her human form. I tried to think of what my father had told me before I had been taken from the between place. I couldn't remember what he had told me I was supposed to remember. I thought he had spoken of the appearance of mages, how they often had a similar appearance, eyes and hair at least.

The days I waited for John, Phineas was finding me. I stopped hiding after a while, he could always find me. He could always distract me. And I remembered little of some of those meetings, as if someone hid my senses in a cloud.

"If you're going to continue to be obstinate, then you can forget my teaching you Shadow!"

I didn't know what had brought on his anger, but he directed it at me. John had gone with Hellboy out to investigate a few unnatural earthquakes, so he wasn't there to tell Phineas to stop shouting.

"I told you, my father teaches me." I growled.

"Fine, if you wish to be taught by a corrupt spirit than do so. When you destroy yourself with your power, it is not going to be on my hands!" He shouted, and stormed off.

I stood there for a moment, wondering just what he was talking about. I didn't care though; I didn't need him to teach me. I needed my father; he had been a much better teacher, even if he was a reluctant father.

I decided it was time to go see him, and time to honestly start my lessons. And the only place to do that was in my dreams.

Phineas POV

I knew that it wouldn't be long until someone sought me out. I had made it easy enough to track me down and they would have every reason to look for me. I sat in the small apartment of the man whose face I wore. I called up a crystal and stared into it, waiting for an opportune moment.

I would allow her time to feel safe in her environment, but only until she started to learn anything that might stop me. I couldn't wait too long, the moon was waning, and soon the night of No Moon would be upon us. It was my only window, for the next ten years. There would be a Blood Moon every year, for that was the other name for October, however, it was only going to be the most potent this year, and then not for another ten after that, simply because that was how it worked in the old books.

I had another three weeks to wait. It had taken two weeks after they took me in for her to wake up, and then another two weeks while I was training her. That left me with eighteen days for them to come crawling to me, work my way between those that were closest and destroy this pathetic world, and rule what was left, as an immortal.

Shadow's POV

My father was sure to teach me well and as quickly as he thought was best. The sun came and went many times. The moon was shrinking again, and I felt something in the air, making me more and more anxious.

"As the veil grows more and more thin, I will be able to move to the realm of the living Shadow. Then I will be able to see what you are not able to tell me. Something has hidden itself from me. And that worries me my child."

"I am sorry father."

"No, it's not your fault. Someone has bypassed all the safeguards you have." He replied.

"John and Moon would not have allowed anyone near me with something they suspected." I said.

I shot up out of my bed, gasping for air. I felt like I was on fire. Something had pulled me from my dreams, from the important training I needed. I could hear myself making a noise somewhere between a whimper and a howl.

I heard something crashing around outside my room, and the door was open.

"SHADOW!"

John POV

She had a seizure. I don't know what else it could have been. I heard a strange keening noise in her room, and I don't know what came over me, I was so scared. I wasn't sure what I would find in there. Moon was already there, but she seemed to be feeling something too, some sort of pain, she whimpered, unable to wake up.

I heard Hellboy come in behind me, unmistakable when the door splintered behind me.

"What the hell?"

"I don't know. I think she's having a seizure, something to deal with the magick." I said, holding her close.

She stopped shaking, but looked like she wasn't breathing. Hellyboy scooped her up quickly, and ran to the infirmary. I looked at Moon, who was trying to get to her feet. She shook her head, bending the world around her, turning into a human. I helped her up. She growled at me, non committal, and I helped her to the infirmary.

"I'm sorry, but your sister is in trouble." I said.

I watched Shadow in the infirmary for many days, not even noticing when Moon left.

Moon's POV

My sister was hurt, she was very sick. I had to find the other like her, the hairless one that seemed so strange to me. At first I hunted as a wolf, because my sense of smell was best, but after terrifying many humans, I decided to go as a two legger. I could still smell him, which was fine, but there were many other scents that had disappeared. I supposed I should be grateful, since most of those smells were distasteful.

I came to a building; it had locked entrances made of solid air. I touched it; barely noticing the human at the entrance stare at me for a moment, then roll his eyes while I explored it. I watched a few humans, unbeknownst to them, and then walked up to the door like they had. The human shouted at me, angry that I was trying to gain entrance to his cave. I followed the scent pattern of the pack brother Phineas, touching things John had told me were buttons. The door opened as if a wind had come, and the guard stopped.

I looked at him, baring my teeth, but not in the way John human did when he was with my pack sister. But I remembered once he had looked at me like that, when I had first taken on the human skin I now wore. It made me feel strange, and at the same time, sad, because I knew he did not feel the same for me, that he belonged to Shadow.

I followed the scent, listening for him. Strangely now, his scent now seemed to hide something much darker and rotting. But it came in fleeting whiffs. I watched the other humans as they tried to open the doors with their hands, and when I arrived at the door that cut off the majority of the scent I was hunting.

I yelped; the sudden contact with the door hurt my hands. I caught a whiff of surprise from the occupant, and the door was opened quickly.

"My dear you have quite an arm on you. You almost knocked my door off its hinges." Phineas said; his strange words different than John-human. "What is wrong…? Moon is it? What has happened? You look distressed."

"Shadow is hurt. She is very sick." I said.

I remembered how he had reacted when I first spoke, so I tried my hardest to sound as graceful as him when I spoke.

"You have come a long way my dear; and I don't mean in just distance. Before, your pack sister had been ahead in magick and speech, but now I doubt you are behind any longer. Are you sure it is not you who is the mage, hidden in the body of a Celestial wolf?" He asked.

I could feel heat in my face, as if it were a fever, or a hot wind. His words made me feel better than John-human's touch ever did, or even the thought. Too bad he could not become wolf-kind.

"No. It is Shadow who bears power, not Moon."

"Come, sit down dear. You must be exhausted." He said.

"Can't. Shadow is hurt." I said.

"Alright. I shall come with you to the bureau. Give me a moment to gather a few things. I will do my best, but your sister made it clear to me she did not wish for my help. She would rather be taught evil by the dead." He replied.

"NO. Shadow is not evil." I growled.

"Are you quite sure my dear? She has always come first in your lives, has she not?"

"She is eldest."

"That may be, but that shouldn't matter when it comes to those you care about. I saw how you looked at John while we were there, but she has snatched him from you. She took you from your mother, and keeps her in her own dreams. She went so far as to force your mother to take on a human form. I've seen her dreams, as I am like her. But I will not be like her; I will not take from you that which you do not want taken."

I was shocked to hear this of Shadow. I did wish that I had taken John for my mate, but she had stepped in there. I remembered her speaking of our mother to John, but never to me. Crescent was never her blood mother, as she was mine. And she spoke of her to one who wasn't even nature kind? I felt shame for my sister, wishing that she would stay asleep. I almost turned to leave him as he gathered things.

"No Moon, do not be like your sister. Perhaps it isn't too late to save her; to bring her back to the sister you knew." Phineas said.

I nodded. He went into another room, one which seemed to reek of something rotting, like old meat. I wanted to tell him of this, because he obviously had a horrible sense of smell. If that was one thing my sister had been blessed with, or one she had stolen from wolf kind, it was one he didn't have. That was when I noticed the images around me, hanging from the walls. They looked like this man, but didn't smell like him. I thought it odd that he had changed his scent. Maybe he had different chaos magick than Shadow. His cave looked like he never used it. This was just as odd, since it probably meant he didn't know where this rotting meat was.

When he came back, he had a small bag at his side. It looked like it was full of things that normal humans wouldn't carry where we were going. I smelled the tang of a strange metal, and somewhere there was a smell of blood. It made me slightly dizzy, mixed with everything else.

"Are you quite alright?" Phineas asked.

"Strange smell, something in the air is so strange."

"Well, we best go then. I am afraid my neighbors have been having trouble with their pipes. It may be their sewers you are smelling."

With that, he walked outside. I followed him closely, trying to avoid all the other people once we made it outside. The man at the door looked shocked, and I could smell fear coming from him. I was curious as to why he was afraid, but Phineas grabbed a hold of me, and pulled me towards the place that had many caves, one which held my sister. I stared at his hand, gripping mine. I felt light headed again, but it wasn't the smells of the outside world that made me dizzy.