THE VROL TRILOGY (63 page)

"Mmmmm, hey sweetie! Rock for me tonight and
Ima rock you too!"

Max looked at the couple, stunned and unable
to comprehend, but attempted to hide his confusion.

"Jel-Jel! So glad you came to watch the
show!" Lennie half-shouted.

"Of course, m'love. Here to support! Hey,
who's your friend?"

Max looked at the two, utterly astounded and
unable to form a proper response.

"Oh, this is Max. He's lycan, but he actually
helped us out. Took out that prat who was stealing our money. Is a
genuine right good mate, he is."

The newly arrived young woman gave Max a
warm, closed-mouth smile, taking care not to bare her fangs, and
extended her hand in friendship.

"I'm Jelly. It's nice to meet you… Max."

Max reached out and gently grasped Jelly's
small, cold hand and lightly shook it, reciprocating the same
smile.

"Jelly, it is my pleasure. I can see why you
like Lennie so much - he's a great fellow."

"Aw Maxie, mate! No need to give me
props!"

Max looked at his new friend, wishing he
could help the man to live a better life. Knowing that the vampire
virus actually shortened lifespans never really brought him any
sort of conscious regret until that very moment. Things were
significantly different between his various worlds, and he made a
little mental note to somehow help Lennie in the future, and then
packed it away back into his subconscious. But before he could
really think further, he saw Adam enter into the bar area, casually
strolling in as if nothing had happened a week before. The false
mage had made a conscious effort to avoid Max for the previous few
days, but it was obvious that the man was accustomed to doing as he
pleased, and his subconscious had eventually guided him back to his
comfort zone - a place where he was dominant. But he saw Max seated
at the bar with Lennie and Jelly, which caused him to freeze in
place momentarily. Max glared at him and smiled, purposefully
showing his teeth while twirling his finger around, much like
Draagh did when he was about to do something mischievous. Adam's
eyes grew wide with alarm, and he quickly made a beeline to the
nearest toilet.

Lennie looked at Max, having noticed the
interaction between the two, and asked, "Hey Maxie, you know Adam?
I mean, have you met him before?"

"We met recently, my friend. He liked some
food I prepared, but I put a lot of spices in it. It gave him a bad
stomach ache, so I think maybe it crept up on him again."

Max laughed as if his comment were funny, but
it was actually because he knew that Adam was defecating out of
pure, unadulterated fear, and hopefully not in his pants again.

Dons and Jessica sat at their new couch
and coffee table, elevated in the back corner of the club, not
missing Adam's odd reaction to Max. Dons was a
normal
, but he was no fool. He knew that
something more than what was explained had happened between Max and
Adam - but he was content to let it play out on its own, as it
seemed that Max had his, and his clan's best interests in mind.
They watched as Max returned to sit with them. He had been
fulfilling a role for the clan in exchange for room and board,
providing excellent meals and fixing broken items of interest and
great need. Dons figured that Max was a scientist where he was
from, but couldn't quite help but think there was something a lot
different about the newcomer. Whenever he did something it came
much too easily to him. Still, he wasn't about to complain, as
everything Max did benefitted his people and his establishment
tremendously.

"Hey Max, seems like you have made friends
with Lennie. Nice fellow, isn't he?"

Max smiled and nodded. He missed his family,
but he had met some decent folks in L.A. and knew he could be in
worse company.

"Ya, he's a good kid for sure. Too bad he's a
vampire, otherwise he could travel around a bit in the
daytime."

Dons gave Max an odd look, slightly taken
aback.

"What do you mean, mate? Lennie goes out in
the day all the time."

"Huh? You mean, vampires can go in the
sun?"

"Well sure. They sunburn easier than most,
but nothing keeps them from going out for some fresh air."

Max had made a conscious effort to not ask
too many questions and show his ignorance of this new world he
inhabited, but it seemed like he was learning something new each
day. This made him think a bit more, as he would have to prepare
for the full moon, due in two weeks.

"Hey Dons, I have a question. Um… where do
those of my kind go on the full moon around these parts?"

Dons gave the lycan an incredulous look and
almost started laughing.

"Usually they come here and party.
That's when they are at their best. You should know this -
A lycan on the full moon is a great friend
indeed
!"

Max sat stunned.

No change?

The trio sat with great amusement and watched
neko females ply their trade, performing seductive dances while
loudly purring. One thing was for sure; normal males liked nekos.
They were cheap, easy and highly skilled. While Max couldn't
tolerate their scent, humans, with their inferior noses, tended to
really like the smell. One normal man told Max during a
conversation that they smelled like a good wine. Max thought they
smelled like piss and vinegar.

Max had noticed that there were a
significantly larger percentage of normal males than females too.
Jessica was probably one of the best looking women around, even
though she was lycan.

Jessica's best friend and battle
partner, Pandy, walked in and sat with the group. Max had met her
earlier in the week when he was preparing a meal in the kitchen. At
first he thought that they were related, so closely the two
resembled each other. Aside from their apparent similar looks,
Jessica and Pandy seemed to compliment each other well in battle,
and it was a known fact that the two were Dons' support team in
fights. Max was curious to see what their exact abilities were,
remembering that Adam had implied that Dons was invincible
with
his girls
, and that they
had healing and power-boosting abilities, which was not typical for
lycans. He knew that neither was a minor mage, so he figured they
each possessed some sort of magic-enhanced object they
used.

"Heya guys! Ready for a fun night?" Pandy
seemed super peppy, which was typical for her personality. "Oh, hi
Max. How have you been? Nice couch and table you made. Perfect for
us to check out the festivities from tonight."

Max simply grinned and nodded at who
was probably the third in command of the Feral Kids. As the early
evening turned to night he would wish that he had been a bit more
inquisitive about what Pandy had meant when she said
festivities
.

The band started to play, and as
promised, Lennie and his group brought some new tunes, even going
so far as to play the slow, manic-depressive song he had told Max
about earlier. As more people filled the club, he noticed that all
the lycans were acting, for lack of a better term,
silly
. It was like they were drunk
on bubbles and happiness. At that moment Max started feeling a bit
hot under the collar.

"Dons, what's the occasion tonight? It seems…
different," asked the lycan commander from a different world.

"Hah, mate! It's the full moon. Thought we
discussed this earlier."

Max instantly regretted not asking more
questions. He had assumed that the moon phases were the same as in
the Rhönen Dominion and hadn't even bothered to go out at night to
track the sky. As it turned out, the full moon arrived in L.A. a
full two weeks before it would have back home, and he was feeling
odd. It wasn't the same feeling he got in Germany of the
43
^rd
century - that was always
a shredding, searing pain, followed by a lapse into
unconsciousness. He would have brief moments of lucidity during the
evening, but that was only because he had been training to master
his phase 3 state and retain sapience, which was the goal of every
lycan.

This time was very, very different.

Excusing himself, he ran outside, wiping
sweat off his forehead, even though the evening was cool. His
vision sharpened its focus as he tracked a Vrol flyer take off with
an unfortunate neko in its claws, which it then tore into halves as
the poor creature screamed its final sound. Looking to the east, he
saw the full moon rising, bright in the sky and obviously having an
effect on him - but he didn't feel happy or bubbly.

Turning around he saw Jessica and Pandy two
meters away. They had become concerned when he started to act oddly
and had followed him outside.

"Hey Max, you ok? You look all flushed," said
Jessica while wearing a look of concern.

"Um, I think so. Well, no. Not so much. Why
didn't anyone tell me it's the full moon? I feel weird."

It was at that moment that Max fell to his
knees in pain. His stomach was churning as he howled loudly. It was
a sight that no one in Los Angeles had seen before, as nature
worked in quite a different fashion there. Vampires didn't smell so
badly, could go out in the sun and were actually nice. Lycans
didn't transform to a third phase in the full moon. In fact, Max
had never witnessed a Los Angeles lycan go into battle mode either.
None of that mattered at the moment. Something very wrong was
happening and he tried to crawl away, but was stopped by Jessica
and Pandy, who were unsuccessfully trying to carry him back into
the club - the last place where he wanted to be.

Then it happened.

Transformative magic particles (which
Max called
mutatebots
)
coursed through his system, working like mad, initially causing his
internal organs to shift and accommodate new bone and muscular
tissue growth. Salubots functioned efficiently, sloughing away dead
and unused portions of the body through any and all orifices, in a
manner similar to the Ebola virus of Old-Earth, as his clothing
stretched and then finally tore. Blood and bile shot out through
his nose as he vomited out chunks of his vocal cords onto the
ground. It was the most horrid sight anyone had ever seen in
Hollywood (and even worse than a Vrol flyer sucking the eyeballs
out of a living child, which the putrid aliens enjoyed doing). It
was also ending up being one of the worst smelling. As Max's facial
structure pushed out with new growth, his human teeth were ejected
from his mouth with sickening, popping sounds, only to be
immediately replaced with sharp, canid teeth, meant for ripping the
flesh off prey. His skin shredded with a sick, dull separating
sound, and fell to the ground, having a covering of thick flesh and
fur growing in its place. Basically, a large werewolf grew out of
an exploding lycan body with disturbing results.

When the process was completed, a very large
beast, the likes of which had never before been seen in Seven Sins,
was standing on all fours where a sweaty and uncomfortable Max
Gunnarsson was just a minute earlier.

The werewolf turned and snarled at Jessica,
but curiously paused, as if it had momentary lucidity. The crowd
that had formed around the horribly changing Max had cleared back,
with most running inside the club, but Jessica was right in front
of the creature, frozen in place. Its muzzle turning to a snarl,
and it appeared to crouch for an attack, when it was suddenly and
repeatedly beaten over the skull with a large wooden plank. Pandy
had fetched the biggest piece of wood she could find, and had gone
to the aid of her best friend. The beast turned its attention to
the younger of the two lycan girls who could only defend herself
with a wooden board, when the proto-mythical creature was hit hard
in the side by five nekos, knocking it into a sideways barrel roll.
Startled, it jumped up onto a pile of concrete, rebar and rubble.
Rearing its head back, it howled loudly before disappearing into
the ruins of the city.

The crowd started to file out of the club
where they had been ensconced for safety's sake. Dons went to make
sure his girls were fine, and then thanked the nekos who had acted
so bravely while all other humanoids (with the exception of Jessica
and Pandy) had hidden.

"So, Max is a bit different, eh?" Dons asked
rhetorically.

"It appears, so," responded Pandy, still
visibly shaken from her brave attempt at protecting her best
friend. "I hope he's ok. Maybe he'll come back if he ever turns
normal again?"

"Yeah, what the hell happened to him? What
was that all about? I've never seen anything like that before,"
said Jessica, also still obviously shaken by the episode.

"Max appears to be a different type of lycan
- maybe a mutant," proclaimed Adam as he exited out of the club in
a most triumphant manner, acting as if he had actually done
something. "I was going to dispatch him to another place far away,
but these brave nekos took care of the situation and scared him off
before I could prepare a spell. Of course, my solution would have
been more permanent, but we are safe for the time being. I shall
keep vigil over the entire area with my magical skills and make
sure he does not come back and harm anyone."

Adam had been hiding in the toilet during the
whole altercation, and Dons knew it. The faker wasn't a brave
individual - he was an extreme opportunist who tried to take
advantage of and get the credit for anything good that happened,
while summarily dispensing the blame for his errors on anyone
unfortunate enough to be the one he picked. He was a bit sharp, but
not anywhere near having the genius-level intellect that he
claimed.