Duncan watched Rogue's furry form disappear into the distance and then headed back toward his own home. "Me and my big mouth," he muttered. He idly thought about just turning the megawolf loose Downtown and letting him have his fun. It had certainly been entertaining the last time. But then the military would get involved again and there would be singed fur and crushed bodies and hard feelings on both sides. It was easier just to keep the the big wolf distracted. Briefly he thought about asking for another delivery from the prison, but it wouldn't be at all like the first time. After that horrific spectacle the crime rate had fallen nearly to zero, and there surely wouldn't be enough to keep Rogue occupied for more than half an hour.

Distracted, Duncan barely felt the metallic crunch beneath his left foot. There was a sound like a beer can being crushed against the forehead of a Georgia mechanic. "Oh, great," he said with a roll of his eyes. Lifting his foot he was not at all surprised to see a small car, or rather the three-inch-thick remains of one, pressed down into the asphalt.

Duncan shrugged. "Oh, well." He was about to be on his way when a tiny figure came bumbling breathlessly up from nowhere. He squinted and realized it was a black cat, and a very pudgy one at that, bound up in a big hoop skirt with a scarf around her head that pulled her ears flat. Or maybe she was really that mad.

"Lookit wotcha dahn!" she shrieked. "Jes' lookit wotcha dahn!"

"Who, me?" Duncan looked around innocently. Rogue was long gone, too far away to blame.

"Lookit me auw-toe!"

"Come again?"

"Me AUW-toe!" She hopped up and down and flailed her arms. "Me AUW-toe!"

"Meow Tow?" Duncan said slowly. He scratched his head. "Sorry, I don't know that company. Maybe if you called Triple-A?"

The cat yowled furiously, stalked up and kicked Duncan's toe as hard as she could. "Hey!" he growled. "What's that for? It's hardly my fault."

She kicked him again even harder. Sighing, Duncan cocked that toe and flicked her hard with it, sending her tumbling ears over tail. "Listen lady," he said wearily, "You only have yourself to blame. Look here." He pointed to a a large white outline of a kangaroo in full bound painted just a few meters ahead of the vehicle's foil-thin bumper. "You're the one who parked in a boomer-lane. Just be thankful you weren't in it." He raised one foot ominously. "And if you try to kick me again, I'll claim self defense and no jury in the world would convict me. Now go call your insurance company, go home and have a nice bowl of chicken soup, and have a nice day." Without any further thought he turned and bounded off, shaking the remains of the vehicle out of its impression.

He did not look back, and so did not see the cat climb wheezily to her feet, nor did her see her grab a fallen strand of his green fur from the ground and rub it angrily between her hands while she muttered a string of syllables so bizarre that even the author could not manage to translate them.

The next morning Duncan woke up with a headache, which was odd because he did not remember having anything to drink the night before. Then again, maybe that was precisely why he had a headache. But no, he was sure he had not gone on a bender. He spent a few moments pondering, but then remembered his promise to Rogue and tried to ignore the throbbing. "It'll pass," he said to himself. Rogue might have had the memory of a goldfish, but nonetheless he could be particularly single-minded about things. Duncan thought back to the week where he had played Fetch with the megawolf -- for the entire week, before Rogue finally got tired of the game. Duncan was tired of throwing the gang bangers after the first six minutes, but...well, as hard as it was to get an idea into Rogue's head, it was ten times harder to get it back out. Stopping only to pop a few cases of aspirin, Duncan hopped off to find his friend.

Rogue was in hot pursuit of a shiny red sports car when Duncan caught up with him. Duncan himself did not particularly care for sports cars and red ones just screamed "asshole," so he decided to join in the game. Smirking, he hopped forward and stamped a lengthy foot down to block the fleeing vehicle's path. This driver apparently had experience with megafurs, however, and swerved expertly around the big 'roo's toes. Duncan realized too late that he had made a tactical error as Rogue, never one to pick up quickly on new concepts and still determined to catch the vehicle, plowed headlong into him. Both went down in a tangle of fur and flailing limbs while seismographs up and down the state registered the impact. Duncan found himself on the business end of the megawolf's slobbery tongue as his face was washed with colossal enthusiasm. "OK, OK!" he sputtered, twisting his head from side to side in a vain attempt to shield himself. "I'm happy to see you, too!"

Rogue wagged and jumped up, eager for play. Duncan climbed to his feet and dusted himself off, then gave a rueful look down at the...

...down...

...down?

Duncan rubbed his eyes. He was looking up at Rogue. Confused, he looked down to see if the big wolf was standing on top of something -- as if there was anything nearby that could have supported his weight. No, the big furry paws were planted solidly on the ground, and Duncan was not standing in a hole. He looked up again, right into Rogue's eyes, which looked just as bewildered as his own. Duncan struggled to think of something to say other than "What the fuck?" but that was all that he could come up with, and it did just fine.

Rogue stared. He cocked his head one way. Then he cocked it the other. He leaned down and sniffed at Duncan's face. Somewhere behind his eyes the rusty wheels creaked into motion. A big grin split his muzzle, and he gave his friend a firm bump with his chest that sent Duncan stumbling backward. "Hey! Wha??" Duncan yelped, flapping his arms for balance. "Cut it out! This is serious. There is something definitely, definitely way screwed up here." He paced back and forth, then stood in front of Rogue and put his hand atop his own head and then stepped back. He saw that with his ears down he came up just about to Rogue's chin. "Right. OK. Definitely screwed up." He shuffled his feet. They were itching on the bottom, something Duncan dismissed as the result of some badly frazzled nerves. Just a day before Rogue had had to stand on his tiptoes to sloplick Duncan's face that way. "Rogue...dude, we have to face facts. You're growing!"

Rogue said, "Hrrrr?" and looked down at himself. Then he grinned again and wagged his tail. "I'm bigger!" he said, and his powerful chest crashed into Duncan's again, almost knocking him down.

"Ack!" Duncan's thick tail kept him from falling back this time. "Stop that!" He folded his arms and scowled, but whereas Rogue had always cowered at that look, this time he just wagged his tail and licked up over his nose, just like a big puppy. Big puppy! Of course! Duncan snapped his fingers. Nobody knew how old Rogue was, even Rogue himself, who had never learned to count. Obviously he had hit a growth spurt. Damn, though! Another forty feet overnight was just insane. How the hell big was this wolf going to get?

His feet were still itching and Duncan started to wonder if he wasn't standing on someone who was still alive. He looked down and saw something that would have made the color drain from his face if his fur wasn't so firmly pigmented. Surrounding each of his toes he could see a gap, as though he had stepped squarely into the footprint of another kangaroo who had a larger shoe size. That gap, to his mounting horror, was slowly but relentlessly getting bigger. The itch, he realized, was the movement of the grass beneath his shifting pads.

"Oh...oh, shit."

Rogue cocked an ear. "What?"

"Rogue," Duncan choked, "You aren't growing."

"I'm not?" The big wolf's ears fell back in disappointment.

"No. I...I...."

"What?"

Duncan looked up again. He no longer reached Rogue's chin. He was staring instead at the broad furry bulk of Rogue's chest. "I...think we have a problem."

Rogue looked confused, but that was nothing new. After a few moments of pondering what the problem could be he ducked his head down and bit playfully at Duncan's ears. "YEE-OWCH!" Duncan howled. "Rogue, quit it already! This is a crisis!"

"Oh, right." Rogue looked chastened -- well, not really. He dropped a forearm on Duncan's shoulder and leaned, happily looming.

Duncan shrugged away and paced to and fro. "Shit," he whimpered. "Shit shit shit. Fuck." His feet tramped deep prints, which he noticed with dismay were becoming less deep by the minute. One of the prints lay across the desperate tire tracks left by the escaping sports car. Suddenly Duncan recalled the crazy black cat from the day before. "VOODOO!" he shouted.

"Who?"

"Not a who! A what! Voodoo! That goofy cat lady from yesterday, the one whose car I stepped on. She must have been some kind of voodoo woman and put a hex on me."

Rogue stared blankly.

"Never mind!" Duncan said impatiently. "Come on! We have to find her!"

"The voodoo?"

"No. Yes! Just come with me."

Although Duncan's pace was feverish, he was well aware of the heavy thud of Rogue's footfalls behind him, and in particular that they were gradually slowing down to keep from overtaking him. He did not stop until he reached the very spot where the black cat's auw-toe had been so carelessly flattened, and when he did stop he immediately felt the crawling tickle along the bottoms of his feet. When he turned he was embarrassed to find himself staring up close at the crotch of a megawolf who had never in his life worn any sort of clothing. The awkward moment made him cough. "Here's the spot," he said quickly. "Now I need you to help me find her."

"But I don't know what a voodoo looks like."

"You don't have to." Duncan pointed to the ground. "Her car was right here. You've got a good sense of smell. You can track it down for me."

"Hey. Yeah!"

"Everything's gonna be OK," Duncan panted, more to himself than to the megawolf. "We'll find out where her car got taken. We'll get it fixed up good as new, I can apologize to her, she'll change me back, and everything'll be just fine. Right!" He took a deep breath and crouched down, tapping at the pavement. "It was right here. Come on and put that big, wonderful old nose to work."

Rogue wagged his tail at the praise and obediently dropped to all fours. He thrust his nose down to the ground where Duncan had indicated. Twin tornadoes kicked up in front of his nostrils. He growled low in his throat, his tail high, ears alert. Another growl, a triumphant sound, and suddenly the giant wolf was on his feet and pounding with determined stride down the road. "Good boy!" Duncan shouted gleefully. "Good Rogue! That's it! Find that car!" He hopped eagerly behind, trying not to dwell on the fact that Rogue's rump was now high over his head, and that even at full speed the megawolf was steadily outpacing him.

Tires screeched and pedestrians scrambled to get out of the way of the mammoth paws as they crashed onward. "Sorry!" Duncan shouted again and again. "Sorry! My bad! I'll pay for that! OOOO...too slow. What a mess. Sorry about that!" The cars that he passed were getting bigger and bigger, Rogue was getting further ahead, and Duncan was nearly out of breath when he started to realize that Rogue had lost track of his mission, and before long it was clear that he had zeroed in on an airport shuttle that was careening desperately in his sights. "Oh, shit. Rogue! Stop! Bad! BAD wolf! Heel!"

Rogue did not heel, and in fact Duncan was so far behind that he wondered if Rogue could even hear him. The crunch reached his ears a second or two after Rogue's hand came down on the vehicle's roof and jerked it to a halt. With sheer brute strength he tore the vehicle in two. Luckless passengers tumbled out and were snatched up and turned into megawolf-chow before Duncan could get another word out.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Duncan groaned. He bounded up behind Rogue's calf and swatted it as hard as he could to get the big wolf's attention. "Down! Heel! Bad! Bad!"

Rogue turned slowly and looked down. The legs of a passenger kicked wildly from between his lips; Rogue casually licked them inside and swallowed. His expression was one of feral blood lust and did not change as he peered at the diminutive kangaroo. His eyes glimmered with the same predatory glee that always showed when Rogue had found himself a new toy. Duncan felt a chill as it dawned on him that the Laws of the Pack worked both ways. "Um...that's good. Good Rogue."

Rogue licked his whiskers. His hands went to his hips. A grin that Duncan had seen hundreds of times and whose meaning he knew well glistened high above. "Uh...steady there, Rogue," he quavered. "It's me... Duncan. We're pals, remember? Um...want to play?"

The giant wolf's eyes were utterly devoid of recognition. "Yeah," he rumbled, his tone worrisome. "Yeah. I wanna play." One powerful leg shifted and began to rise. Duncan saw the bottom of the enormous paw sweep into view. "Let's play!"

With a terrified yelp Duncan leaped backward but he was not fast enough. The mammoth foot came down, slapping him down on his back and burying him completely. Duncan could already see the big round toepads growing larger before his eyes. "Rogue! Stop!" he pleaded.

Rogue laughed. "Make me!"

Duncan knew that he had no way of doing that. The only weapon he had left was Rogue's famously feeble thought- muscles, and he knew that he would only have one chance to take advantage of them. "Holy cow! Rogue, look behind you. It's the voodoo!"

Rogue pricked his ears and turned around, not at all sure what a voodoo was but somehow remembering that it was something he had been chasing. At that moment Duncan struck, biting down as hard as he could on one of the giant wolf's toepads. It took a moment for the impulse to make its way up to Rogue's brain, a moment that seemed like forever to Duncan before the mighty foot rushed up off of him and a howl of pain and rage tore through the air. Duncan was up in a flash and bounding for all he was worth.

"Make way!" he shouted as he leaped over a car coming at him from the left. "Coming through!" The driver of that car skidded sideways to a halt. He never knew what hit him as Rogue's foot smashed down on his car and kept going. Duncan knew that he could not outrun the megawolf. The astonished people that he passed on the street were now as tall as he was, and after just a few more hops he was looking up at them, too. Behind him he could hear the dreadful sounds they made as Rogue stepped on them, barely noticing their presence, fixated on the little green kangaroo like a brutal child trying to chase down a grasshopper.

A manhole stood open and surrounded by orange cones in the street ahead. Out of options and able to feel the gusts of air displaced from beneath Rogue's tread on his back, Duncan made a mighty leap and plunged down into the big round opening. The good news was that years worth of old leaves and muck at the bottom broke his fall; the bad news was that the hole was only six ladder-rungs deep; worse news was that Duncan was now only as big as the space between those rungs, a distance that was getting wider with every passing second; the worst news of all was that a lupine eye the size of a planet was hovering over the opening. With a growl that sounded like an approaching tornado Rogue began to dig, with claws each the size of a backhoe bucket ripping up a half ton of pavement with every swipe. Duncan watched helplessly as the top of the hole got closer and closer. Rogue was quite clearly not going to give up until he had caught the little green 'roo, and Duncan did not want to think of what the giant wolf would do when that happened. Cornered and out of ideas, he turned in desperation to the author. "I don't suppose you could come up with an ending that has me big again," he pleaded.

The author, unfortunately, had already taken sides.