A/N: this is an all-characters story. Trust me, I'll find a way to fit everybody into this tale, and even toss in a few OCs. WARNING: I have been struggling with the Block of Writers, so do not expect a regular update, though I will strive to post on a semi-regular basis. Constructive criticism is welcome, so long as it's actual criticism and not just hating on the story.

Also, this is kinda-sorta based off the "Game Changing" series written by Sar-kaz-m. Meaning that Stephen didn't die (he's too damn awesome to die), Becker and Sarah have joined the ARC, but other than that, this twisted creation is all mine. And AU. So very, very AU.


Jenny Lewis woke up with a splitting headache, a throbbing soreness in her left hand, and a bitter taste in her mouth. A low groan escaped her throat as she sat up, an unpleasant rushing sound in her ears. Blinking slowly, she realised quite suddenly that she wasn't at home anymore. She wasn't lying in her bed, even though she was still in a black lace nightgown, barefoot and cold; the source of pain in her left hand was from a bandaged cut across her palm. She was in a cabin of sorts, locked in a large, spacious cage. There was a huge caldron bubbling over a fire. Dozens of shelves bore numerous jars, glittering stones, and drying herbs. Candles flickered from different places around the cabin, centered on a large stone altar bearing several open jars, bowls, a long, wicked-looking dagger, and an open book propped on a stand. There were other cages, though much smaller, containing all sorts of animals: rats and weasels, cats and dogs, small crocodiles and otters, even a large wolf and a snowy owl. What the hell was she doing here? And how the hell had she gotten here?

A soft, pained moan drew her gaze to the left. In another cage beside her own lay a familiar body, now starting to shift. "Connor!" she croaked out, crawling closer to him.

His head of unkempt black hair rose slightly, and dark eyes found her own. "Miss Lewis. What're y'doin' here?" he mumbled, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He moaned softly and cradled his head in both hands. "Ow...I didn't drink, why do I have a hangover?" The words left him in a little whimper.

"Connor, someone's drugged us," she said, reaching through the bars of the cage to touch his arm. "Look where we are. We've been kidnapped."

"You're right about that," said a woman's cool, disdainful voice, and they both turned their heads. Sweeping into the cabin was a beautiful woman, but there was a coldness about her that instantly put Jenny on edge. She wore a dark green dress with golden thread stitched in mystical patterns along the bodice, sleeves, and skirt hem, glistening as she moved. Dark hair tumbled down her back, and icy, blue-grey eyes appraised them both. She seemed… familiar, somehow, like a faint sense of déjà vu, as if Jenny had seen her before but couldn't quite remember where.

Connor wrapped both hands around the bars of the cage; his hand was bandaged as well, Jenny noticed absently. "What do you want with us? Why are we here?" he demanded, glaring at the woman.

"All in good time, pet," the woman replied in her velvety purr. Heels clicking on the floor, she strode over, stuck one hand through the bars of the cage, and yanked hard on Jenny's hair.

"Ow!" Jenny yelped in pain, her scalp burning.

The woman held about a dozen strands of long mahogany hair in her clenched fist. Reaching down, she pulled several hairs from Connor's head as well. She crossed the cabin and approached the stone altar, carefully lying the hair on the stone. Daintily, she began leafing through the book in front of her, apparently searching for something. After a moment of turning, she paused on one page and smiled. "Here we are." Murmuring in a soft language—was that Latin?—she began to pour things into a large bowl, adding powder and liquids and using the blade of the dagger to stir it around. A sharp odour rose from the mixture, and Jenny wrinkled her nose. The woman crossed the cabin and opened one of the other animal cages. She said something in a sharp tone, and the wolf in the cage cringed, whimpering. She seized it by the scruff, dragged it from the cage, and hauled it over to the altar. With one hand still gripping the wolf's fur, she lifted the dagger high with the other hand and then plunged it into the cowering animal. An agonized yowl split the air, cut short as she dragged the knife downward, slitting the creature's belly open from chest to tail. The thick, rank smell of blood filled the air; Jenny gagged. Connor looked green around the gills, eyes wide.

Stone-faced, the woman set aside the dagger and pushed her hand into the wolf's body, making both her captives retch in disgust. It only grew worse as she withdrew her arm, soaked with blood up to the elbow—clutched in one scarlet hand was the wolf's heart. Still speaking in Latin, the woman set the bloody organ on the altar; a small pool of scarlet rapidly formed beneath it. Her red fingers dipped into one pocket and drew out two small vials full of some dark liquid.

Blood, Jenny realised suddenly. That's blood. Our blood, too, she thought, looking down at her injured hand.

The woman pulled the corks from the vials and poured them both into the bowl. Her chanting grew louder, and the sharp scent in the air grew stronger, overpowering the scent of blood and death. She poured the thick, stinking concoction onto the wolf heart.

Suddenly, Jenny wasn't feeling too hot anymore. Her stomach roiled sickeningly, churning as if she'd taken it upon herself to swallow a few thousand acid-coated needles. Her skin prickled and itched, blood running hot, head pounding. She made a noise not unlike a cat with a hairball. Beside her, Connor groaned and slumped over, clutching his stomach. She struggled to move, but couldn't. Helpless, she sank to the floor of the cage. Her mind slowed, blurred, seemed to warp, and then snapped back into place. Energy unlike anything she'd ever felt, white-hot and blinding, shot through every fibre in her body as if she'd just been plugged into a nuclear reactor. She screamed in pain, writhing in the intolerable agony of it. The only equivalent to it was being dipped in acid, run over by a bus, and trampled by bulls all at the same time. She dug her fingers into the metal floor of the cage, nails breaking, crying out in pain. Connor was sobbing wordlessly, curled in a ball.

Something inside of her shattered, reformed, fell together, was reborn entirely. A change had occurred, an irreversible and inexorable change in her very being. The pain grew even worse, doubling in ways she couldn't imagine. Jenny desperately wanted to black out, but her mind stubbornly refused to shut down. It felt as if she was being pulled in two. She couldn't see, couldn't hear or feel or smell or even taste anything. And then...quickly as it'd come...it was over. All of a sudden, she felt powerful, lightened. All her pain and achiness had been washed away in a swell of visceral power.

She opened her eyes. Everything looked different. It was crystalline, sharp and clear. Things that'd before been nothing but blurry shadows were now defined in full colour. Then her hearing returned, just as powerful as her sight. She could hear the susurrus of wind stirring the cattails outside on the riverbank, the steady pounding of the woman's heartbeat, the scurrying pitter-patter of the other creatures in their cages. Next to return was scent. It flooded her nose and nearly made her gag. Overall, it was the scent of old, slowly rotting wood, mildew, dust, and a plethora of different herbs and spices, sharpened by the thick scent of fresh blood and animal fear. She smelled the woman, too. It was a rich, musky scent, but not an altogether pleasant one, a mix of cedar wood, smoke, and mildew, a scent of death. And beside her, she could smell Connor: new leaves, fresh hay, and damp earth, clean and bright like a forest after the spring rain.

"My, my, my, aren't you two beautiful?" the woman cooed, turning towards them with a smile on her face.

Jenny tried to spit out a curse, but no words left her mouth. Instead, a grating snarl came out of her throat, and she froze in surprise. She tried to speak once again. No human sound came out of her, only growling and strange whimpering whines. Then she looked down at herself. Instead of arms and hands, there were two grey-furred legs and dainty white paws. She moved her left arm; the left paw moved. She lifted her right hand; the right paw lifted.

Oh...my...God...

The woman picked up something round and flat, coming over to stand in front of the cage. She held it up in front of Jenny's face. It was a mirror. Staring back at her was not a woman's face. It was a wolf with golden eyes. Jenny yelped and scrambled back, tripping over her own feet. No, not her feet. Her paws. She had goddamn paws! The woman had turned her into a wolf! She tried to rise and fell, tangled in her own nightgown. As she struggled to get free, she heard a terrified whimper, turning her head.

Where Connor had been lying, there was not a man. There was another wolf, entirely black without any other colour in his pelt, tangled up in clothes as well. When the woman showed him the mirror as well, he howled, the sound ringing in Jenny's ears.

All at once, her horror and shock warped into fury, blinding fury. Her crystalline clear vision became tinted with scarlet, and her tongue tasted of burning metal. Her lips curled away from her teeth, her new, dagger-sharp teeth, and a snarl tore out of her throat, the sound not unlike metal grating together. She lunged for the woman, snapping her jaws at the woman's leg, but she was still in the cage, only succeeding in throwing herself against the bars. She stuck her muzzle through the bars with a snarl, snapping her teeth. Jenny snarled again, then looked at Connor, the larger black wolf trying to get himself free of his own clothing.

The woman straightened up with a laugh, setting the mirror down on the table. "Oh, look at the two of you. Poor little mutts," she said in a mocking whine, then grinned.

Why, why, why? Jenny thought over and over, shaking her head back and forth with a low whine. Why did she do this to us? Why us?

With that same icy grin on her face, the woman said something in Latin, and suddenly, Jenny couldn't move. Every muscle in her body had gone rigid, unresponsive to her brain's command. Bending at the waist, one pale hand came through the bars of the cage; Jenny wanted so badly to snap her teeth on that slender wrist and rip it right off, but she couldn't move a muscle. The woman raked her fingers through the thick ruff of fur around Jenny's shoulders and neck, pulling out several coarse silver hairs. Withdrawing her arm, she reached into Connor's cage and did the same thing, taking their hair once more. What the hell was she doing? Taking a step back, the woman murmured in Latin, and whatever force holding Jenny immobile dissipated.

Walking back to the altar, the woman began reciting an incantation once again, her voice ringing with power that made Jenny cringe towards the back of the cage, tail between her legs. God, it was so strange, having to put a name to things she'd never had before. There was a fire burning on the altar, but it wasn't a normal fire. It was purple. Not blue, but the deep, bronze-violet of the ocean at sundown. It belched smoke that stank of burning plastic, a violent assault on her newly-sharpened senses. Then a wave of nausea washed over her. All at once, every bit of fight ran out of her. Her muscles went limp, and she felt like an overcooked noodle, utterly lifeless. Jenny felt a sharp discomfort in her chest; it felt as if someone had opened her up and reached with an alien hand into a place no hand had a right to be and pulled on something precious and secret. She choked on a gasp of sickly nausea, feeling like she might faint or vomit. Accompanying the disgusting feeling of violation was a deep, painful, wrenching sorrow. Memories—places, names, events, faces—slipped away from her, coming away as that alien hand pulled and twisted on her insides. She choked and tried to sob as all that made her her was wrenched away. With a final, disgusting heave, the last vestiges of herself were ripped out.

The she-wolf whimpered and cowered in the metal enclosure that was too small. She was trapped. She could not see the sky or the stars, could not smell the trees or the grass or the earth. No room to run, no place to hide. The only comfort she had was that there was a packmate beside her, a large black male whose scent she recognised. There was a predator there: a human that oozed danger and death, clinging to it like a tangible thing. She cringed away from the predator-human, huddling as close to her packmate as possible, trembling in fear. She had no pack to protect her, and she was trapped. Her only hope was to act as submissive as possible; perhaps the predator would leave them be.

The predator-human picked up a small jar, opened it, and dipped two fingers into the container. Walking to the cage, it threw a small pinch of glittery powder through the bars into she-wolf's face; the thick, cloying scent of roses rushed into her nose. Blackness washed across her mind, and she collapsed to her side, unconsciousness swamping her.