THE VROL TRILOGY (36 page)

Donus called a meeting with his night
guards, as he called them, and the five who were to experience
going phase 3 for the first time. Max recognized the young man whom
he had so ungraciously surprised, and once he caught the lad's
attention, made the same circle with his thumb and forefinger,
followed by up and down jerking motions while silently laughing,
taunting the boy. Jennie saw what he was doing and punched him in
the arm, causing him to wince in pain.

"You idiot. Don't! The poor kid's
already been traumatized enough by you."

Grinning, Max turned to his lovely
friend and said, "Aw Jen, we all go through it sooner or later,"
causing her to grimace.

"Ew, gross!"

Donus went over the various details of
their up-coming transformations and housing for the night. Of
course, he left out the grizzly specifics of exactly what would
happen; he didn't want to alarm his audience or cause anyone to
flee. They would have plenty of time to be mortified once they had
completed their transformation cycle and returned to day
form.

Lycans took their full moon
transformations seriously, and although they maintained every
precaution to protect their numbers, they did not denigrate their
special phase 3 forms in any way. It was considered strong and
noble, and all lycans studied very hard to maintain sapience during
that one night every lunar cycle.

###

The day of the full moon soon arrived,
with everyone scrambling around making last-minute changes, such as
cell and meat assignments. It appeared that there were a number of
lycans who would not do well caged next to each other, so an
attempt was made to separate them as much as possible.

Max and Jennie were housed in cells
next to each other. Jennie didn't mind this, but she begged Draagh
to provide her with a vid of her transformation the following day,
which he said he would most certainly not do, much to the woman's
chagrin. The girl had a most disconcerting sense of humor, with a
taste for wanton violence mixed in for good measure.

When everything was ready, and about
two hours before sundown, everyone prepared to go to their assigned
quarters. Donus' night guards took their positions in turrets high
above and overlooking the castle. They had impressive-looking
battle armor that would transform and fit their phase 3 bodies - a
gift from Draagh many years past. In fact, the Rhönen Dominion was
the only clan in the world that possessed such armor. Many others
had petitioned that Draagh make it for their clans, but he always
turned down such requests for reasons known only to him.

Jennie searched around and found
Liliana before the little girl was to be locked away in a cubbyhole
of safety, giving her an affectionate hug.

"You stay safe, ok?" said Jennie. "I
want you to join me for breakfast in the morning and tell me how it
sounded."

Liliana snickered lightly and nodded
her little head, her dark hair having been put into pigtails by her
older friend earlier that day. Jennie then handed her a small box,
rectangular in shape, saying it was for her to play with while
waiting out the night, and Liliana's eyes lit up like stars in the
sky. It wasn't often that someone handed her something that looked
like a gift, even though it wasn't originally intended to be one.
It really didn't matter to her anyway - Jennie was entrusting her
with something, and for that she was grateful.

Liliana opened the box and looked at the wand
inside with an appreciative expression. "Oh my, this is so much
better than that little stick I play with."

"Huh? So it was you!"

"Excuse me? Have I done something wrong,
Jennie?" she asked, gaining a look of panic, as if she had done
something wrong.

"Oh no, sweetie. It was you I saw at the end
of my mock battle with Max. You lit a stick on fire and ran
away."

Liliana smiled softly and nodded her
head.

Needing to prepare for the full moon,
Jennie left her little friend and headed back down to the lower
level, where she met up with Max and Draagh.

"Pops, where will you be when this all
happens?" asked Max, noting that Jennie had just entered the vast
chamber of individual cells, all lined up on either side, with a
two meter-high wall running down the middle of the room, blocking
the view from the cells across the way.

"Oh, I believe I shall be up above,
enjoying the beautiful moon, and perhaps enjoying a bit of my pipe.
You see, Krynos does not care much for the wonderfully aromatic
scent of my herb, so I have refrained from partaking in its
pleasures as of late."

Jennie rolled her eyes as Max chuckled
a bit. He had come to accept that his grandfather loved the pipe,
even though it affected the old mage more than he would willingly
admit.

Jennie and Max then entered into their
cells, and Draagh shut and locked each of the doors as the two sat
down on floor mats provided for their minimalistic comfort. He bid
them farewell and departed for the upper levels, his herb satchel
already in hand.

Not being able to see one another, but
able to talk, they disrobed completely, and hung their garments on
hooks on the walls of their cells. They weren't provided with the
special armor that Draagh had created for the night guard, but they
did want something to put on once they had transformed back to
their normal, lycan selves. There was nothing to do except wait
until the morning, stuck in their respective cells, so they
began chatting about various things, more small talk than anything
else, while lying down and looking at the giant slabs of meat
hanging in each of their enclosures. Jennie looked at her own
personal meat smorgasbord, eyeing it while licking her full,
sensuous lips.

"I'm kinda hungry. Maybe I'll take a
bite already."

"It should taste fairly good. I caught
a servant trying to hang some already-rotting meat in our cells and
gave him the riot act," responded Max.

They both stared at their
gently swaying, raw meals as they pondered what the night would
bring. A short while later, they both heard growling and groaning
sounds coming from down the corridor. Apparently, not all lycans
were created equal, and some changed earlier than others.



Donus unexpectedly appeared at their
location, showing a look of surprise at seeing them sitting without
yet having transformed. Startled by his unannounced arrival, Jennie
instantly jumped back and covered herself with her shirt hanging on
the wall.

"Ah, a handsome woman indeed you are,
young Jennie. You shall make a certain lycan quite happy when you
have chosen your mate!"

"Oh my
God
, don't look!" the girl cried
out, as they both heard Max complaining in his cell.

"Hey! Not fair! Bastards!"

"Shut up, Gunnarsson! You're such a
perv!"

Donus laughed at Max's unfortunate lack
of scenery as well as Jennie's antagonistic response, and
continued, saying, "Young Max - you are certainly being denied a
view of one of the great wonders of the world. Magnificent! Anyway,
my friends! You look quite well! It pleases me to see that the
change has not yet set upon your countenances."

Jennie gave Donus a slightly
embarrassed look, and kicking on the wall of her cell that was
shared with Max she said, "Why should that be weird? I hear stuff,
but what's the difference?"

"My sister, those who are of weaker
constitution tend to suffer their transformation sooner than those
of great strength, but then again, I should have expected as much.
You are both strong, indeed."

Max sat up and did a little drum roll
on their shared wall, and in an announcer-like voice, said, "Ladies
and gentlemen, we proudly announce the coming of…
yarrrrrrrrrgghhhh!"

Max had started to shift to phase 3,
and it wasn't pleasant. Jennie listened in concerned horror as he
screamed out in agony.

"Hold fast, dear brother! It shall soon
pass and you will see all in a different light," exclaimed Donus,
while Jennie got a terrified look on her face. Donus retained a
slight smile and glowing, wide eyes as he watched Max
transform.

"U-oh, here it comes," she groaned,
feeling her body change from the inside out.

###

A phase 3 lycan transformation was
never a pretty sight. In fact, it was known to have caused
witnessing normals to enter into a permanent state of catatonic
shock. The change started internally, with the organs shifting to
accommodate the elongation of bones and muscles, which in itself
felt like the worst cramps and diarrhea one could ever experience
(and sometimes with equivalent results spraying out all over the
place). The individual then dropped to the ground on all fours as
their arms and legs bulged due to the violent muscular growth.
Mutatebots (building/mutation particles) worked in uncountable
quantities, building new tissues (and causing agonizing pain),
while the salubots (health particles) performed their duties by
flushing away dead and unused portions of the body through
orifices, resembling the effects of the deadly ebola virus. Human
skin shredded and sloughed off, with blood spurting out of
ripped-open wounds caused by the sudden, unexpected expansion of
muscular tissues and body configuration changes. The tibia and
fibula leg bones would self-break and reform with a backwards knee,
known as a stifle. Claws violently burst out of the fingers and
toes, with the hands and feet becoming dexterous paws with
semi-formed digits. Near the end of the brain-melting sequence, the
body elongated and the muzzle pushed out of the face. The worst
part of this was that the lupine-style teeth replaced the former
lycan/human teeth, with the old ones popping out and falling to the
ground, followed by ample amounts of blood and pus. Finally, fur
grew over the body and face, and the ears extended. It was almost
as if a werewolf had grown inside and then burst out of the former
body like a balloon.

Needless to say, it hurt - immensely,
and once finished, after about one minute, a very large werewolf
was standing in a puddle of blood, blue pus and intestinal waste,
where a friendly and sapient lycan used to be.

Donus looked at the two
with a rather unsettling smile, and then cleaned his battle armor
and face of human skin and bodily fluids (mostly Jennie's as he had
watched her intently). After making sure they had transformed with
no ill effects, he left and returned up top to be with his
night guard
, and to
direct the
normal
human patrols.

###

Draagh sat up in a turret at the top of
the castle, puffing away at his pipe, when Krynos approached him.
Quickly waving away the pungent smoke, he put his pipe into his
pocket and greeted his old friend.

"Krynos, lovely night is it not? The
air on this world is so pure and invigorating."

The lycan king had yet to begin his
transformation, usually being the last to do so, and had arrived to
greet his friend and have a bit of a chat before he would start
running around the castle and peeing all over the place - marking
territory that was most definitely his anyway.

"I just spoke with Donus. He says that
your two young charges have experienced the change without
difficulty."

"Ah, excellent!" agreed the
old mage. "So then, all we must do is wait out the night, and in
the morning join in the main hall for a mighty
feast."



"That would be correct, dear brother,"
stated Krynos. With that, he looked over at the rising moon and
bounded off out of sight, knowing that he was soon to experience
his own transformation. Draagh smiled, and pulling his pipe back
out, lit it up and puffed away while relaxing in the light of the
rising full moon.

###

The werewolves who were once, and again
would be Jennie and Max, paced in their cells, unaware of their
location, or even of themselves. They were now beasts of pure
instinct, and these instincts led them to choose between three very
different activities - to escape, to eat the meat hanging in their
cells, or to mate. They smelled each other, the mutual attraction
being irresistible. Maybe it was just that they had spent so much
time together, or it was that they were actively denying the spark
of romance while in lycan form, but something drove them to try and
sniff each other at the edge of their shared wall, where the bars
of their cells terminated the barrier, their noses not quite able
to touch.

Unable to reach each other, the beasts
howled and scratched at the thick wall that separated
them.

###

Miles to the north of Krynos' castle, a
massive platoon of slowly rotting, black leather-clad soldiers
marched towards the Rhönen Dominion, with those of leadership
positions astride dark, mutated horses with glowing red eyes.
Vladros took the position of command from the center, preferring to
put his lower-caste troops out front and in all sides as cannon
fodder in the event that a protective cantus, provided by his ally
and fallen Primulus, Marnn, did not function as
prescribed.

For the majority of his existence Marnn
was a watcher with a penchant for tinkering. He enjoyed helping to
prop up those nascent species that only needed a little push to get
up and going. As years turned to centuries, and centuries turned to
millennia he tired of assisting those in need, and instead
formulated his own views on what was right and just in the
universe.