Quiet. Disorienting quiet, until he remembered where he was and what had happened. Then it was just quiet again... timeless, and even kind of peaceful.

Peace that was interrupted by a growl from the solid warmth curled up beside him.

"You think that's funny," Hunter muttered, refusing to open his eyes. "But it's not."

The growl twisted at the end, a sharp sound almost like a bark. His eyes opened into darkness illuminated only by a glowing golden gaze. "Shit!" Hunter scrambled out of the way, raising his arms to defend himself even as he flinched back from an attack that didn't come.

Instead the owner of those eyes chuckled, and the light faded abruptly. "Gotcha," a rough voice teased.

Hunter cursed again, slumping against the wall. "If you don't kill me," he grumbled, "it'll be because I kill you first."

And to think... yesterday, his life had been perfectly normal.

He had left work and headed straight for Ninja Ops. It was easy, thoughtless, part of a routine that he had never fully appreciated. After all, he and Blake hadn't exactly led uneventful lives. When he thought about it, which wasn't that often, he figured they were probably a couple of the more unique residents of Blue Bay Harbor.

Sure. A uniqueness that suddenly skyrocketed the moment he descended into the Rangers' darkened command center. He'd been immediately on alert--for all the good it did him. There should have been lights, he knew there should have been, but of all the things their absence could have meant, he hadn't been prepared for the reality of it.

"Guys?" He'd called out warily, trying to figure out what was going down. Just one of Cam's annoying experiments? An unexpected power surge that tripped some master breaker somewhere? Or an infiltration by the enemy, another hostage situation, a trap laid out specifically for him?

"Hunter. Shh." Tori's voice, soft and way too close, made him jump. And her whisper was followed by a menacing growl that really made him nervous.

He wasn't convinced that the voice he heard was the one he knew, but he didn't have any more likely sources of information. "Tor? What's going on?"

"Shh," she insisted, but the caution was drowned out by an angry roar from the other side of the room. Hunter stiffened, raising his guard to fight something he couldn't even see, let alone identify. What the hell was going on here?

"Cameron, no." Sensei's voice, sharper than he had ever heard it. It was the voice of someone who wasn't sure he would be obeyed. And then there was a crash, a yell that sounded like Shane's, and damned if there wasn't something running at him.

Lights flared to life around him before he could do more than brace himself. There was a howl, a flash of brown and grey, and something heavy bowled into him. The world tilted crazily as he tried and failed to keep his balance. There were hands on his arms the second he slammed into the ground, pushing him, pulling him away.

Then Tori was on the other side of him, putting herself between him and whatever had hit him and speaking in what was probably supposed to be a soothing voice. She was usually good at that sort of thing, but this time the words had a note of hysteria to them. Not to mention insanity.

"Cam," she was saying. "Cam, listen to me, Sensei's right. You're not an animal! You're a thinking, feeling... person! You're not Lothor, and you're not what Lothor makes you. Cam, it's okay!"

Propping himself up on his elbows, wary of moving too quickly after disobeying her earlier command to stay quiet, Hunter squinted at Tori. Then his gaze shifted to the shape beyond her, and he raised an eyebrow. Okay, that was a really big dog that had just hit him. And since when the fuck did Cam allow--

The "dog" lifted its head, shoulders rolling as it tried to get its front feet underneath it. Its eyes were half-closed, but the snarl of menace left no doubt about its alertness. And those incisors weren't dog teeth, either.

There was a wolf in Ninja Ops. There was a really pissed-off wolf in Ninja Ops, Hunter amended a moment later. And either Tori was delusional, or that wolf was Cam.

"We're going to turn the lights off again," Tori was telling the wolf. And frankly, Hunter didn't think that was a very good idea: he was thinking muzzle, not darkness.

"Dustin?" Tori said quietly. The only consolation here was that the wolf seemed to be having trouble getting to its feet. "Kill the lights."

The lights went out. The change wasn't as drastic as the transition from sunlight to unlit Ops had been, and this time he could see that there was a little red light on in one corner. Its glow was just bright enough that Hunter could see the outline of the wolf as it struggled into a standing position. Two gold eyes opened all the way, casting an eerie light of their own as their glare found and fixed on him.

"Uh..." He really didn't know who he was supposed to be talking to, here. "Tor?"

The wolf growled what could only be a warning.

"Okay, Cam?" Hunter said quickly. How was he supposed to know how much the wolf understood? "Someone tell me what's going on."

Cam's built in alarm system started to wail. It seemed a little late, to Hunter, until the monitor lit up with the location and status of a badly timed alien attack. Or really good timing, Hunter thought grimly, remembering Tori's remarks about Lothor. Two of their zords were still out of commission from the last battle, and without Cam to back them up this fight had the potential to go very badly.

"You must go," Sensei's voice said from the shadows. "I will stay here with Cameron."

Yeah, great. Cause he'd been really effective last time, right? Hunter frowned, wondering what Cam had meant by charging him like that.

"Is that okay, Cam?" Tori was the only one with the presence of mind to actually ask Cam, but he didn't seem disposed to answer. The wolf was shifting, settling back on its haunches maybe--it was hard to tell in the dim light. And what would constitute an answer, anyway?

All around him, he could hear the quick movements of Rangers falling into position, and he lifted his morpher automatically. "Thunder Storm!" This, at least, he knew what to do with. "Ranger form!"

And before he could finish a fuzzy shape was hurtling at him, a considerable amount of mass slamming into him for the second time as it knocked his morpher loose. He didn't even know how it happened--those things were designed to stay on no matter what--but he was really afraid those had been teeth he felt against his skin. His ears followed the sound as the device clattered away in the darkness, but it wasn't handy by and this was not a good situation.

"Hunter!" Tori was running toward him--

Until the wolf swung around and growled, a low rumble that let her know exactly where to stop when she got too close. Cam was warning her off, Hunter thought. Keeping his lupine shape between Hunter and the rest of the Rangers. After tearing his morpher free and forcibly preventing him from morphing.

For the first time, Hunter felt a twinge of fear.

"Hunter?" Shane's voice asked when Tori stopped.

"I'm fine. Go on and take care of Lothor's latest goon," he told them. "I lost my morpher when he hit me; I'll catch up with you as soon as I find it."

Like he had a choice.

"Dude, are you sure?" Dustin, of course, apparently unaware that he had a very large wolf standing between him and any realistic option of doing anything other than what he already was.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Hunter said. He tried not to sigh in relief when the wolf suddenly got up and loped away, disappearing into the shadows of the room with three long strides. "I'll be right there."

"Okay--call us if you need us," Shane reminded him. Yeah. That would happen.

"Yeah, sure," Hunter said. One good thing about the light: he could roll his eyes and Shane would never know.

From the shadows in the direction Cam had vanished, he heard a soft woofing sound.

Then the other Rangers were gone, and he was pushing himself to his feet. "Sensei?" he called, squinting like it would help in the red-cast room. "Where did you go?"

"I am here, Hunter." His voice, too, came from the direction Cam had gone. "I believe I have located your--"

This time the growl was distorted by something, but no quieter than before. Sensei's words were totally overridden. When Cam finally shut up, he tried again. "Your morpher appears to be in Cameron's keeping."

Great. Just what he needed. Tug of war with a wolf that had it in for him.

"Cam?" he prompted, trying to sound reasonable. "How 'bout giving me that morpher, buddy?"

The door that opened onto the corridors leading to the zord bay slid open. Not to its normal height, but far enough that something on four legs could squeeze underneath. Which it did. And that just pissed Hunter off, because whatever game Cam was playing he didn't have time for it. He rolled under after the wolf and came up in a fighting stance, determined to threaten the guy out of his Thunder morpher.

The door slammed shut behind him, and he narrowed his eyes. Not that it did any good. With the closing of the door, all light from the front room was cut off. "Very funny," he snarled, rapidly losing what was left of his temper. He knew where the controls were for this place... right?

Right. He had almost kind of paid attention when Cam had pointed them out. At least, he thought Cam had pointed them out. He fumbled for the light controls, found the door opening switch instead, and realized almost immediately that it wasn't going to happen. That door was shut and it was going to stay that way, with Sensei and the light on the other side.

And some more light on this side. Well, that was an improvement--the lights worked, anyway, and he tried to shield his eyes from the glare as he scanned the area around him. Or he tried to shield them until he heard the howl that made covering his ears seem like a better idea. What did the guy have against light all of a sudden?!

Hunter turned the lights off again, more to protect his eardrums than anything else, and as before the interruption seemed to have slowed Cam down a little. So much so that Hunter couldn't actually figure out where he'd gone. He would have heard him if he'd slunk away somewhere, right?

"Cam?" he called out uncertainly.

With a roar, the damn wolf plastered itself to the front of his body and they went down in a tangle of fur and leather. This time, Hunter couldn't contain himself. "What the fuck are you doing!" he yelled. "I'm sorry you're a wolf, all right! But I'm not your damned punching bag!"

There was a growl that trailed off into a whimper, and the weight on his chest was suddenly gone. More silence. More darkness. And the sound of labored breathing from somewhere very nearby.

He was almost afraid to ask. "...Cam?"

"Not a wolf." The whisper barely reached his ears, and he stretched out his hand in that direction unthinkingly. His fingers contacted with something that wasn't fur, and the whisper escalated into a cry. "Am a thinking--"

It wasn't even Cam's voice, but it broke suddenly and he heard it sob. "Feeling..." Very softly, it finished, "Person."

Hunter held absolutely still. It was Cam's voice, really, that was the freaky part. He knew intuitively that it was Cam. But that voice--those words, couldn't have sounded any less like the withdrawn computer genius Hunter knew.

"Yeah," he said awkwardly. "You are, y'know. You're--"

His searching hand came in contact with what was definitely an arm, but it immediately jerked out of his grasp. "Get away get away get back!" The words spiraled into a by now familiar growl, and it made Hunter freeze all over again. He really, really wanted to be able to see.

But without light, and short of touching, all he had was his voice. "Still with me?" he asked, flinching at the sudden movement.

An impatient growl was his only answer. Great. So... he hadn't been a wolf there, for a second. Hunter was pretty sure of that. Unless wolves could suddenly talk and no one had told him. He wasn't up on the latest scientific developments, but he felt like that one would have worked its way down to him.

So he was a wolf, and then he wasn't, and now he was again. And he was just as hard to deal with in either state, as far as Hunter could tell. He also had Hunter's morpher, and apparently control of the door that was the fastest way out of here.

First things first. Who knew what Lothor was up to out there? "Cam," he began. "I really need my morpher back."

The only reply was the sound of clicking toenails as the wolf trotted off down the corridor. Hunter gritted his teeth, pushed himself to his feet, and put out a hand to find the wall. He followed as best he could and painfully slowly in the blackness. Since when was there not even emergency lighting in these hallways? Had Cam overridden those too?

The only good part was that, emergency lighting or no, Cam didn't let any of them clutter up the corridors down here. So once he found the wall, he could be reasonably sure of not running into anything. He counted doors as he went, but it wasn't long before he couldn't hear anything except his own breathing, and the darkness started to get oppressive.

It wasn't that he was scared of the dark, he told himself. Just the things in it. Namely, the very large wolf that could be anywhere by now. Not that he didn't trust Cam. Well, most of the time he trusted Cam. But wolf-Cam's control seemed to be tenuous at best, and Hunter made it a point to classify people he knew in terms of their potential threat level if they ever snapped.

Cam, unfortunately, rated extremely high on that list. Second only to Sensei.

Gold eyes appeared on a level with his own not more than two feet in front of him. Hunter jerked to a halt, biting back a curse. "A little warning?" he hissed.

The eyes flattened a little, accompanied by a woofing sound. It took Hunter a minute to get it. Cam was laughing at him.

It wasn't a rational decision. It was born of frustration and anger and maybe a little bit of fear, and if he'd thought about it at all he would have realized what an incredibly bad idea it was. But Hunter lashed out without thinking, taking a swing at the animal and connecting solidly with fur and muscle.

There was a blur of motion and a roar in his ears that could have been real or imagined and he felt an easy slicing pressure tear across his arm. It didn't even hurt at first, but he cradled his arm instinctively and he could feel wetness through his torn uniform. Then there was pain, and shock, and the knowledge that Cam had just bitten him.

"If you just turned me into a wolf," Hunter snarled, the harshness masking the waver in his voice, "you gotta know I'm gonna be bigger and stronger than you are and you're so going down."

There was a snuffling sound, the brush of fur against his fingers. And then, to his utter surprise, he felt something warm and damp rasp against his skin. He yanked his injured arm back before he realized what was happening.

"That's gross!" he exclaimed, glaring into the darkness. "Geez! First you bite me and then you suck my blood! What are you, a vampiric wolf?"

Another whimper, and glowing gold eyes were wide and gazing up at him pitifully. If anything about a giant wolf with a nasty temper could be said to be pitiful. How did his eyes do that thing, anyway? There wasn't any light down here to make them glow.

"I don't care if you're sorry," he informed wolf-Cam testily. "Just don't do it again!"

The eyes swung away, and a moment later the body of the wolf followed. Hunter sighed, loudly, but the animal vanished into the darkness without another sound. Where was his morpher? If the wolf had had it in his mouth before, it obviously wasn't there now. So when had he put it down? And where?

For lack of any better idea, Hunter reached out tentatively and started to feel around the general vicinity. He found the cart the wolf had been standing on--so much for the no clutter rule--but no morpher. No morpher on the floor, either, which meant one of three things: he just couldn't find it, it had been dropped before they got here, or Cam had left it somewhere else deliberately.

The click of returning toenails warned him this time. And that eye thing was weird, because the gold glow was actually casting vague little shadows on the floor as he moved. With something in his mouth, Hunter realized a moment later. That was what the shadows were. Whatever was dangling from his jaw was catching the light of his eyes with every other step.

The head dropped, something skittered across the floor, and then the eyes were staring up at him again. It wasn't his morpher, he could tell that from the sound. But picking up the offering still didn't tell him--

Keys. It took him a moment, but finally he recognized them. "These are your keys, right?" The electronic keys that Cam used to lock some of the workrooms down here. Or maybe everything could be locked, and Cam just left certain rooms open as a courtesy to the other Rangers. Didn't seem likely, though.

He took the sharp woof as an affirmative, but that didn't explain what he was supposed to do with them. "Yeah, nice," he told the wolf. "But it's not my morpher."

The wolf turned and walked a few paces before stopping. He growled quietly, impatiently. Hunter got the message.

"You want me to follow you," he said with a sigh. "Fine. But if anything happens to the others while they're out there fighting evil, I'm holding you personally responsible."

A high-pitched howl, soft and more restrained than any other noise the wolf had made so far, made him flinch. That was not a happy sound. And it was weird, but... in that moment, the wolf seemed very much like Cam.

He followed without another word.

Wolf-Cam led him to a digital laboratory, and it only took him three tries to figure out which key was the right one and how to use it in the dark. Inside, finally, he found another red light that didn't make the wolf cringe, and his eyes were so adjusted to the dark now that the red light might as well have been daylight. He took a look around.

This was from the day Lothor attacked the Wind Academy, Hunter realized slowly. Everything in here had played a part, and now seemed to be in various stages of analysis. He glanced over at the wolf, but it was pacing restlessly like in front of one of the video monitors, so Hunter went over to stand by it.

They played hot and cold until he pushed the right button, and somehow he wasn't surprised to see security camera footage from the day in question. He heard a thump behind him. He turned to see the wolf had flopped to the floor, nose buried morosely between its paws as those glowing eyes stared straight ahead.

Or maybe they weren't glowing now, it was hard to tell. The light made everything seem strange. The wolf looked up as soon as Hunter looked down, though, and lifted its upper lip in a silent snarl. Then it sat up again and stared intently at the screen.

Hunter folded his arms and watched along with it.

It was a long tape, probably a compilation of several different cameras. The wolf started growling a couple of minutes in and just kept it up, a low-level rumble like he wasn't even aware he was doing it. Hunter's gaze twitched from wolf to screen and back again, wondering what he could possibly be waiting for.

Suddenly the wolf stiffened. His growl snapped, a harsh retort that was accompanied by a glare directed in Hunter's direction and then directed back at the monitor. The wolf was on his feet, quivering as he nosed the air in the direction of the images now playing.

His dad. His dad in human form, and Lothor. Lothor firing some kind of energy at Sensei, straight out of his hands. Hunter clenched his fists, not aware of the action until after he'd done it. He really hated the dark ninja powers.

Sensei being thrown backwards, disappearing... disappearing? Lothor laughed, Lothor left, and then... something very small moved, in the corner of the screen. Something very small and--furry.

Sensei was a guinea pig.

Hunter looked at the wolf beside him, and found it staring back at him intently. "Tori was right?" he guessed. "Lothor did this--" He gestured vaguely at the wolf shape. "Like he did to your father?"

He was starting to recognize the characteristic hunched posture of a wolf about to spring, but he didn't have time to brace himself before it knocked him back against the nearest hard surface. Which for once wasn't the floor--Hunter found himself pinned to the counter, two large furry paws on his shoulders and a tongue lapping at his face. Cam's tongue.

"Yeah, okay, okay, stop it." He tried to shove the wolf away but couldn't get enough leverage. "Cam, that's weird, cut it out--"

And then it really was Cam, and the breath was sucked right out of him as a leather-clad samurai pressed up against his chest and kissed him full on the mouth. Hunter tried to push him away and kiss him back at the same time and mostly failed at both... His head wouldn't stop spinning, and what the fuck was going on here!

With a strength born of desperation, he managed to throw Cam off of him. "What's wrong with you!" Hunter shouted. "This isn't the damn circus! We've got enough freaks on this team already without us adding to them!"

Us. Shit. He'd meant to say you.

Cam's eyes flared bright gold, and Hunter tensed. It wasn't the light after all, they really had stopped glowing before. But they were glowing now, lit up with a fury that he had never seen on Cam's face before. Cam's upper lip curled, just like it had when he was a wolf, and a sound suspiciously like a growl started somewhere in his chest.

Hunter did the only thing he could. He lifted his fists and landed a solid right hook on Cam's chin. The samurai staggered back a step or two, and the fear gripping Hunter's heart eased a little. Only human, after all.

Then, to his horror, Cam crumpled to the floor. He hadn't hit him that hard. Hunter moved forward without thinking, reaching down to offer him a hand up. "Look, man, I didn't mean to--"

Cam pulled his knees up to his chest and scooted backward so that his back was against the wall. He lifted his clasped hands in front of his face and rested his forehead against them, the very picture of despair. Hunter swallowed nervously. He had no idea what to do with this.

Cam's form blurred, and in its place was a wolf curled into a ridiculously small ball. He hadn't thought something that big could get that small. He clapped his hands over his ears as a high keening sound emerged from the circular shape, then forced himself to drop them back to his sides.

"Cam," he snapped. Then, louder, "Cam!"

There was no response. And that noise was seriously getting on his nerves.

Hunter glanced at his arm, which felt like it was bleeding again--probably from the impact of the punch he'd thrown--and decided he might as well not risk the other one. Crouching down beside the wolf, he hesitated long enough to call his name again. When there was no answer, he reached out his injured arm and stroked the fur over one shoulder gently.

The awful howl stopped like someone had thrown a switch. Encouraged, he patted the nearest shoulder again. The wolf twitched, and a moment later one gold eye emerged from its furry prison. Hunter stopped patting and just looked at it.

The wolf heaved a tremendous sigh, letting his head loll back against the floor as his entire body went slack. Slumping against the wall, Hunter muttered, "You and me both, buddy." He wasn't sure whether he was more relieved that Cam had relaxed, or that he hadn't had his arm taken off.

"Trying..." The whisper startled him, and he opened his eyes to find a human form sprawled on the floor in front of him. "To remember who am..."

Fingers clenched above his head, and Cam was staring at the ceiling so hard that Hunter was tempted to look up and see what was there. "Who I am," Cam finished harshly, not moving.

"Yeah." Hunter hadn't meant to say that out loud, but once he had started he couldn't stop. The hand that had stroked Cam's fur twitched involuntarily as he muttered, "Me too."

Eyes fixed on him, the gold shining oddly in the red light. "Lothor."

"Yeah, I got that," Hunter agreed, eager to move on. "Lothor, the dark ninja powers, bad things happened. What are we supposed to do about it?"

Cam groaned. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms, apparently refusing to participate in the conversation any further. Great. That was really helpful. He would probably be a wolf again any second, and communication would be limited to growling and biting. And licking.

Hunter tried not to think about that.

"Is there any way to keep you human?" he asked abruptly. "I mean, Sensei doesn't change. Why do you?"

For a moment, he thought Cam wasn't going to answer. Then, softly, "Sensei..." The word seemed to confuse him, and he stopped.

On a hunch, Hunter supplied, "Dad?"

"Dad," Cam echoed. He was way more out of it than his occasional lucidity suggested, and it made Hunter nervous. Was he just disoriented, or was it part of the spell, the magic that was making him... less than human? Would it get worse? Could it get worse than it was now?

Hunter knew the answer to that. Now, Cam still recognized him. He knew how to unlock doors and he knew how to operate computers and he knew how to speak. He might not do any of those things very coherently, but he could still do them. If whatever dark ninja power Lothor had used on him was degenerative, he might not be even this useful for very long.

"Dad's mind's strong," Cam mumbled, and it took Hunter a second to decipher the words. Mine? Mines? Mind... Mind is. Sensei's mind was stronger and that's why he was stuck as a guinea pig?

Hunter considered that doubtfully. Cam was fighting whatever this was pretty hard. And he could change, even if he wasn't controlling it, and Sensei couldn't. Of course Sensei didn't go around biting people and forgetting who his family was, either.

Not that it would hurt as much if a guinea pig had bitten him, Hunter thought irritably. Unless it was like, rabid or something. He had a sudden mental image of a rabid guinea pig backing wolf-Cam into a corner and threatening him with a very small stick.

"Okay, look." Once he had started, he didn't have any idea where he was going with that. But he had to say something. "This is a problem, right? But whatever's attacking the city is the imminent threat. We have to get out there and stop it."

Not we, he reminded himself. Cam wasn't in any shape to fight. But maybe by saying "we" he could get a little more cooperation in finding his morpher.

The wail sounded so much like a howl that he thought he was dealing with a wolf again. Then Cam's arm lashed out, slamming into a cart that had been resting innocently against the wall. Everything rattled violently and something must have fallen because the sound of glass shattering a moment later made Hunter wince.

Cam didn't move. Hunter could see broken glass not inches from his head, his arms, dangerously close to bare skin and maybe some of it had already hit him on the way down. He opened his mouth, then froze as Cam whispered, "Imminent threat."

"Yeah," Hunter said uncertainly. "Lothor. The city."

"No!" Cam howled, springing to his feet and swinging his arm around again on the hapless cart. This time it lurched away, crashing to a halt against the wall again as more glass shattered and Hunter tried not to flinch. "Me! Not him! Me!"

He could have just been angry, selfish, finally past all reason and operating solely on instinct: the instinct to heal, to fix, to claim all attention for himself until he was better. But that wasn't what Hunter heard. Maybe he just had too much respect for Cam, or maybe he knew too well what it was like to not be able to communicate with the people whose help you needed most. Either way, he thought Cam was trying to tell him something.

"You're the threat," he said softly. "Lothor did this on purpose, right? Messed you up, sent you back here... and then called all of us away."

Cam was standing perfectly still now, his whole body tight as he stared hopefully at Hunter.

"That thing out in the city is just a distraction," Hunter guessed. "You think Lothor wants you left alone." Inside Ninja Ops, he thought, but he didn't say it aloud. With all the keys and the passwords and no real control over what you're doing.

Cam shoved past him and typed something furiously on the keyboard near the monitor they had been watching just a few minutes ago. At first Hunter thought he was trying to show him something, but screens of information flashed by too quickly for him to follow. He drifted closer, trying to see over Cam's shoulder, and suddenly the samurai whirled, hands raised in wild-eyed surrender.

Hunter tensed, lifting his own hands in as non-threatening a way as he could manage, but Cam just stood there looking scared. Cautiously, Hunter glanced back at the screen. There was a single question flashing there, an old style DOS prompt that he had seen Cam favor on a couple of his computers.

Hunter's eyes widened. With a sideways look at Cam, he reached for the "n" key. Cam made no move to stop him, but as soon as the prompt disappeared he grabbed the keyboard again and started typing something else. This time Hunter's heart clenched as he saw the zord symbols start to flash across the screen.

"Uh... Cam," he said quietly.

He trusted Cam. He wasn't sure he trusted Cam like this.

And wasn't that exactly what Cam was trying to tell him?

Cam lifted his hands again, fingers jerking away from the board in front of them like it had shocked him. He pointed at the screen, then at the keyboard, index finger hovering between "y" and "n." If Hunter hadn't fully understood the implications of the first question, this one could mean only one thing.

The zords that were currently the only thing stopping Lothor's goons from wreaking havoc on the city? The zords that could lock their pilots out with a single command from Cam's magic mainframe? He had never thought about what it meant that Cam was able to control the zords when none of the Rangers were inside them. Of course there was an override. There had to be.

Cam was staring at the keyboard now, but he lifted his eerily golden gaze to Hunter's with an agonized expression. "Don't know," he cried. He took his hands away and pressed them together at the wrists, holding them out to Hunter like he was going to be cuffed. "I. Don't. Know!"

"I do," Hunter said firmly, surprising both of them. He pushed "n" and "esc" and waited until the computer screen started looking less threatening before he turned back to Cam. "I do know," he repeated, putting his hands on Cam's shoulders. Cam lowered his own hands slowly, terribly reluctantly.

"You took my morpher for a reason," Hunter reminded him when he looked as resigned as he was going to get. "I'm gonna stay with you until this is over. I'm not gonna let you do anything stupid, okay?"

Cam just stared at him, clearly frustrated. Hunter didn't back down. Cam had picked him. Probably because he was the only one stubborn enough not to give up after being beaten and bitten and generally mauled in the name of communication. But still, Cam had picked him. And he was gonna get what he asked for.

Cam's gaze dropped a couple of inches, and Hunter's mouth went dry. Just like that, it occurred to him that the staring wasn't a battle for dominance after all. Cam was staring at his mouth, and all he could think about was the feel of their lips pressed together in those few confused seconds between wolf and human.

"Including that," Hunter quipped, keeping his voice as light as he could. God, would Cam even remember any of this? Maybe he could just--

Gold eyes snapped back to his, guilt and anger written all over his face. Cam produced an awfully convincing growl, and the sound was enough to get anyone's guard up. Human or not, Hunter was talking to the wolf now.

"If you fucking bite me again," Hunter said quietly, "I will take your head off. Got that?"

A sound from the hallway made Cam spin away, and the air seemed to flicker around him as he flowed into that damned wolf shape again. A line of fur stood on end from his neck all the way to his tail, but it was a long moment before Hunter could identify the noise as a familiar voice. All things considered, that was a really freaky look.

He heard Blake shouting his name, and he raised his voice without thinking. "In here!"

The howl almost drowned him out. It suddenly occurred to him to get between Cam and the door, which he didn't do quite fast enough. Blake was quicker than he was, and he burst into the lab like he expected to find bloody remains.

Unfortunately, the large wolf didn't take kindly to someone racing into his territory like they belonged there. Which they did, by the way, if Cam would bother to check his possessiveness at the door. But he hadn't, and Hunter ended up knocking him out of the way as they both struggled to reach Blake first.

"Back off!" Hunter yelled, when the wolf came at them again. "We're on your side, here!"

"Bro," Blake said urgently. The wolf was subsiding, reluctantly, hackles still raised, but Blake was looking at Hunter. "You all right?"

"Yeah, fine," Hunter answered. He was keeping one eye on Cam. "You get rid of Lothor's latest deal?"

"Yeah, like it wasn't even trying." Which sounded alarmingly like what Cam had been saying before. "Bro, you gotta get that looked at."

"What?" Hunter frowned at him, then followed his gaze to his own arm. "Oh. Right."

"Come on," Blake insisted. "Let's get going."

He had a flashlight, Hunter noted absently, but he was careful to keep it pointed away from their wolf friend. "How'd you find us?" he asked. It wasn't that he was stalling for time so much as it was that he had no idea how Cam was going to react to the idea of leaving the lab and... well, he was stalling for time.

"Sensei told us where you'd gone, and once we busted past that door we split up to look for you." Blake swung his flashlight around to shine it directly on Hunter's arm. "What'd you do, stick you arm in his mouth?"

"Something like that," Hunter muttered.

The wolf growled. Hunter frowned at him. "You got something to say?"

The wolf's upper lip curled in warning and Hunter sneered right back. "Sucks to be you," he taunted. "Too bad you can't talk. Oh, that's right--you can. When you're human."

This was a wolf that probably looked mad when it was asleep, and it did "menacing as hell" like nobody's business. Even Blake was shifting nervously behind him. Hunter just held out his left arm and offered, "What, you gonna bite this one too? Go ahead. Make my day."

At that, the wolf lowered its head and did a credible impression of mad and ashamed at the same time. "Yeah, whatever," Hunter muttered. "I'll bite you next time."

"Bro?" Blake said, after a long pause in which no one moved.

"Yeah, I'm coming." Hunter headed for the door, then stopped when he got there and turned around. "Well?"

Without lifting its head, the wolf gave him a dark glare. But it trotted over to join them willingly enough, and Hunter followed Blake out into the hall without another word. They headed back the way they'd come, toward the treatment room that served the indoor practice areas. Blake called the others on the way, keeping a none too subtle eye on the wolf the whole time.

Everyone but Dustin was waiting for them when they got there. The place looked eerie and hostile by flashlight, but even in the dimness the wolf retreated to the farthest corner and made itself small. Or maybe that was because of the guinea pig glare Sensei was throwing in his direction.

Rabid guinea pig with a very small stick, Hunter thought inconsequentially.

Blake cleaned and wrapped his arm for him, filling him in on the details of the zord fight while he did so. In return, Hunter passed on what little Cam had been able to tell him about Lothor--which also required an explanation of his weird tendency to shapeshift, something apparently none of the others had known about until now. Even Sensei seemed surprised, and not a little disturbed.

"Is Cameron... clear, in human form?" Sensei asked, with obvious hesitation.

"Clear like does he know what's going on?" Hunter shrugged. "Yeah, no question. He's clear like that now. But clear like, can he express himself?" He threw an apologetic look in the wolf's direction. "Not so much."

The wolf didn't so much as lift his head.

At least not until Dustin barreled through the doorway a moment later, checking himself as he entered the room and looking around curiously. Hunter lifted his chin to indicate the prone form under the farthest table from the light, and Dustin followed his direction. He nodded at the wolf, who just lowered his head again and closed his eyes.

"No one's picking up on the secret tipline," Dustin told them, shrugging a little self-consciously. "They might not be able to tell us anything anyway... like, if Lothor did this, it's probably some really advanced thing no one else would know about, right?"

"That may be so, Dustin." Sensei was starting to sound a little more like himself, or maybe he was just falling into his "support and encourage" routine. "But a question unasked will often go unanswered."

"Yeah, I know, Sensei." Like they'd never heard that one before. "I'll keep trying."

"Is Cam--" Tori stopped, and this time the wolf looked up at the sound of his name. "Well, no offense, Cam," she said apologetically. "But you were kind of... hard to talk to, before. Are you... is he in control of himself?" she asked Hunter. Looking back at Cam, she added, "Are you?"

The wolf just looked at her, then swung his head slowly toward Hunter.

"He doesn't think he is," Hunter said quietly.

"Well, neither do I," Blake put in, giving Hunter's arm a significant glance.

The wolf got to its feet, turned deliberately a hundred and eighty degrees, and lay down again--facing the wall. He lowered his head to his paws and sighed, a sharp exhalation that they could all hear. His shoulders slumped as his tail settled over top of one of his hind legs, the tip drooping against the floor.

Pathetic. That was the only word to describe him, and it made Hunter feel weirdly protective. He shoved that feeling away as best he could, reminding himself firmly that this wasn't some random stray. This was still Cam, that super sharp brain still inside somewhere, probably filing away everything they said and did to use against them later.

"He thinks someone should stay with him," Hunter offered, trying to keep his voice neutral. He couldn't let himself sound sympathetic. "To make sure he doesn't do anything to... you know, sabotage Ninja Ops or something."

"What, so he should just be allowed to run around loose as long as someone's with him?" Blake demanded. "Look, no offense here, but I'm thinking muzzle, not babysitter."

There was no reaction from the shape under the table.

"He asked me to watch him," Hunter muttered. "I'm gonna do it. If it takes more than just someone watching, well... I guess we deal with that when it comes up."

"When it comes up?" Blake repeated incredulously. "What do you call that, a bruise from hitting the punching bag too hard? Does he have to tear your arm off or what?"

"I hit him first, okay?" Hunter snapped. "It was my fault. I wasn't kidding when I said I practically stuck my arm in his mouth--he had every right to go for me."

"We need Cam," Shane said, speaking up for the first time. "And we can't just lock him up somewhere; he doesn't deserve that. If Hunter's willing to keep an eye on him, I say we let him do it.

"Dustin," he added. "Keep trying to get in touch with your secret agents, find out if they know anything. Blake, see if you can backtrack to where this happened and turn up anything there. Tori and I will hit the books, try to find anything in the stuff that Sensei showed us when he changed that might help Cam."

"Yeah, okay," Dustin agreed easily.

"Sure thing." Blake didn't sound anywhere near as enthusiastic, but he didn't argue.

"I will assist you and Tori, Shane." Sensei's announcement came as no surprise, in fact Shane had probably been counting on it. He just nodded, then glanced in Hunter's direction.

"We're good," Hunter said, flexing his right wrist to test the give of his new bandage. "Me and Cam will check out the zords, see how the self-repair systems are doing."

It was an easy job, not really a job at all, but no one called him on it. He was the one with the wolf, after all. And he was injured. Hunter smirked to himself. He might get sympathy points out of this yet.

"Let us know if you need us," Shane advised him, and this time he didn't roll his eyes.

"Yeah," he repeated. "Sure." And he meant it.

So he ended up with a wolf tagalong while he did nothing in particular. The others either weren't finding anything or weren't bothering to keep him informed, and wandering around in semi-darkness had a sort of surreal feel that made him wonder what year it was. Even when Cam was Cam, he was unnerving company, but Hunter got the feeling that he didn't want to face the others again just yet. So they continued to wander.

He didn't earn any more scratch marks or bites, but he did learn that wolves liked to sleep whenever they weren't actively engaged in something. So twice he found himself risking life and undamaged limb to rouse Cam from whatever nap he'd slipped into, until finally he just gave in. It could be dinnertime or half past midnight for all he knew.

The next time the wolf curled up under something and went to sleep, Hunter let him. He even sat down on the floor next to him for a little while, but then he decided that those knee cushions in the cupboard had a lot to offer in the way of comfort. He was just going to lie down for a few minutes. The cushions turned out to be better than he expected, though, and he didn't wake up until he felt fur tickling his skin.

The wolf had come over and laid down next to him.