Author's Notes: Alright, chapter two! You will notice a lot of this has been blantantly copied off of Ginger Snaps. Well, I give them credit, don't I? o^.^o;;; Again, beginning and ending words are quotes from Ginger Snaps.

~By the way, this is someone talking on the other end of the phone.~ o^.~o

Metamorphosis

Chapter Two: Or Something...

            The two boys watched, frozen in horror, as the swing slowed down and stopped.

            "Let's go...." Tristan whispered softly, standing up. Bakura nodded weakly and took one step forward.

            And then something came flying out of the bushes behind them and knocked them both to the ground. Bakura screamed, and then the scream faded away into the distance as he was carried away.

            The brown haired boy quickly stood up and looked at the swings swaying from side to side. Off in the distance he heard Bakura shriek again, followed shortly by a very familiar inhuman scream.

            "Fuck!" he hissed to himself. He hesitated for a moment before running in the direction he heard the screams from. Facing a werewolf, unarmed no less, was not the most bravery-encouraging thing, but it was better than letting your friend get torn apart and not doing anything about it.

Almost halfway there he collided with something running in the opposite direction--Bakura. The force of the impact sent them both sprawling onto the ground, the shorter youth on top of the taller. The white haired boy was breathing very rapidly and whimpering, and he clung to Tristan as if his life depended on it. Which it did.

            Tristan just stared at Bakura for a moment, trying to sort out things in his mind, when the silver-haired teen was roughly pulled off of him, his fingers clawing at the ground as he was dragged away.

            And there, with its jaws clamped down on Bakura's leg, was a huge, red-furred, canine-like beast with eyes that glowed like dying coals. And it had no tail.

            The brunette stared in horror as the creature dropped Bakura's leg and stared right into his own olive green eyes. It looked like it....remembered him. And then it snarled, baring its blood-covered fangs, its eyes glittering with fury. Bakura was trying to crawl away, whimpering in pain and fear, when suddenly something in Tristan's mind snapped. He leapt to his feet, grabbed Bakura's arm, hauled the shorter boy to his feet, and ran as fast as he could through the trees of the park, not caring where they ended up so long as they got away from the metamorphic monster.

            They ran for what seemed like hours, hearing the pounding of their own feet against the cold ground and the four feet of the werewolf close behind them, when they finally stumbled onto a road. The two boys were most of the way across when they heard a car horn and bright lights illuminated them both in the darkness of night. Tristan threw Bakura and himself to the safety of the sidewalk, but they still heard the thud of a huge metal object hitting a body. When the brunette raised his head he saw a red-furred creature sail through the air and land a short distance away, the car's brakes squealing as it screeched to a halt.

            Slowly and shakily Tristan stood up, helping Bakura up as well, as they watched the driver get out of her car and walk over to the prone form of the beast. The olive-eyed teen shook his head and grabbed onto the silver-haired youth's wrist, leading him along like a child. He was glad his house wasn't far away from the park.

            But what they didn't see as they turned the corner was the creature's eyes snapping open and the beast leaping up to sink its teeth into the woman's throat....

(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())

            About an hour later Bakura was curled up under some blankets, his wounds bandaged. Tristan had cursed a blue streak when he found all the bite marks, hissing nearly every obscenity Bakura knew and some he didn't. Now the brunette was pacing back and forth in his kitchen, mumbling to himself and trying to sort out what to do.

            "I would call Seto but I don't know his number, Yugi's asleep by now and Yami hates it when anyone calls late at night, Joey's dad broke their phone, I don't know Téa's number, and Bakura's the one who was bitten by the fucking werewolf....shit. ShitshitSHIT...." Tristan heaved a sigh and finally decided on something. "Fuck Yami, Yugi's the big werewolf expert now, he'll know what to do...."

            The silver-haired boy just shivered and curled up tighter under the covers. He felt so sick....

            ~Hello?~

            "Yami? Get Yugi on the phone, please."

            ~...Tristan, why the HELL are you calling at midnight!?~

            "Yami, it's an emergency!"

            ~Well, tell me what's wrong, I don't want to wake Yugi. He's got that test tomorrow...~

            "There's another werewolf and it bit Bakura. NOW will you get Yugi on the phone?"

            ~WHAT!? Another werewolf!? How the hell is there another werewolf!?~

            "How the fuck should I know!? That's why I wanna talk to Yugi, so he can tell me why the fuck there's another werewolf!"

            ~Alright, just keep the profanity to a minimum....~

            The brunette heard a soft click and then even softer voices in the background; then he heard the phone being picked up again and Yugi's voice.

            ~Hello?~

            "Yugi, it's me, Tristan."

            ~I know, Yami told me. Why are you calling so late?~

            "Because there's another werewolf and it bit Bakura."

            ~WHAT!?~

            "Exactly what Yami said. So, do you have any idea why there's another werewolf?"

            ~No clue, not yet anyway. Is Bakura okay?~

            "I think he'll be alright, his wounds aren't too deep...."

            ~You still need to get him to a hospital, okay? I'll see if I can find something out by morning—~

            The brunette heard Yami's voice in the background and Yugi saying something like "I don't care about the test, one of my friends was bitten by a werewolf and I'm gonna help him!".

            ~Anyway, get Bakura to the hospital and I'll see what I can find out. Good luck, Tristan.~

(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())

            "Yami! YamiYamiYami! Look! Two new varieties of werewolves have been discovered!" Yugi squealed from his place at the computer. He had joined a werewolf mailing list about a week ago and Yami heard every bit of information the short boy received, via said boy. Often it was responses to questions about werewolf cures, and occasionally disproving theories from werewolf movies.

            "Lovely, Yugi...."

            "Oooh, Yami, look! Homo lupus londones, 'London Werewolf', named 'cuz it looks like that werewolf from 'An American Werewolf in London'! It's a close relative to Homo lupus mutare, but it's got a shorter howl and a bigger ruff around the face and neck and the knees don't pop backwards. And then there's Homo lupus suburbia, 'Suburban Werewolf', 'cuz it lives near suburbs. This one's got a really twisty face and long arms and...." Yugi continued to chatter on while Yami crossed his arms even tighter.

            'Must resist throttling light side, must resist throttling light side, must resist throttling light side...' he repeated to himself like a mantra, hoping it would ease his frustration and anger at least a little bit. It was two in the morning, he was tired, Yugi had a test the next day, a werewolf had bitten one of their friends, and Yugi was going on about new varieties of lycanthropes.

            "Yugi, what about the cure? We need a quick one for Bakura...."

            "Oh, yeah...um..." Yugi searched through his saved messages for a moment, "AHA! Here's one! It's really simple and it works almost immediately! All we need is monkshood, some alcohol, a filter and a syringe....wonder if Seto has any monkshood...."

            "I thought wolfsbane was the cure."

            "Yeah, but wolfsbane is too potent a toxin for a cure like this. Monkshood is a cousin to wolfsbane, and, despite what a deleted scene from that Harry Potter movie said, they're not the same plant."

            ".....You lost me at 'despite'."

            Yugi sighed in frustration.

            "There's a deleted scene in the Harry Potter movie where it's said that monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant. That's not true, wolfsbane is Aconitum lycoctonum and monkshood is Aconitum napellus, two different species. They belong to the same genus, but it's not the SAME plant. And wolfsbane has yellow flowers whereas monkshood has either purple or white."

            "......Okay....." Yami said finally after a moment of looking at Yugi strangely. "I didn't even know you like Harry Potter...."

            "I don't, some girl named Star on the mailing list posted it. She's a bit of a ditz but she's really smart when it comes to werewolves and biology."

            (A/N: *coughs and looks innocent* o^.^o;; And no, I don't belong to a werewolf mailing list, but I wish I did....and the Harry Potter thing is true, by the way. I've studied.)

            "Whatever, I'm calling Seto...."

            "You think he'll mind us calling at half past two in the morning?"

            "I know he will, but I could just challenge him to a duel if he doesn't cooperate."

            "....Yami, sometimes you're weirder than I am."

            "......"

(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())(())

            Two days later, Bakura was at the hospital and the symptoms had begun. He was crying out for random people, saying "no" over and over again, going into convulsions occasionally, and his metabolism was beginning to change.

            In the lobby, Yami, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Téa, and Seto were having a bit of a meeting.

            "Okay, now we're all here. So let's get to discussing how to stop this before history repeats, eh?" Seto smirked and the others nodded.

            "I found a cure that works really fast, but we need monkshood to do it. Got any, Seto?" Yugi queried hopefully, and Seto hesitated for a moment.

            "Um...Mokuba....burnt my garden. I'm ordering new plants, but since monkshood only grows in spring, I have to get that from South America, and that'll take at least four weeks." he mumbled sheepishly.

            "Makes me wonder if you're ordering anything from Columbia...." Joey muttered under his breath.

            "Shut up, you stupid dog! I do NOT do drugs!"

            "Don't call me a dog! You know very well that I'm a werewolf!" the blonde snarled.

            "Ha, you're no werewolf! You're just a meek little puppy!"

            "Say that again and I'll tear you're throat!"

            "You don't have the guts! You don't kill, you said so yourself."

            "Pretty soon YOU won't have guts, you son of a—"

            "JOEY! Drop it already!" Téa whacked the back of the lycanthrope's head and he quieted. She had come for two reasons—one, Bakura. Two, to make sure the boys didn't kill each other.

            Seto resisted calling Joey what the brown-eyed boy had been about to call him, suspecting that the outcome would have been a black eye or worse. He continued what he had been saying.

            "The full moon only lasts three days at the most, so if we just restrain your friend for those three we'll be fine until we get the cure."

            "Won't work."

            Everyone looked at Tristan curiously.

            "Once you get used to the rhythm, you can change at any time, full moon or not."

            "And you know this how...?" Yugi asked, tilting his head to the side.

            "I changed back before moonset. That's what got me so sick, remember? My body wasn't used to the rhythm yet. Once you do get used to it, you can change any time you want—day, night, full moon, new moon....it doesn't matter. And there's sort of a collective consciousness when you're a werewolf. I don't know how I knew everything, but I did."

            "And you remember it?"

            "Every detail."

            "So how long does it take to get used to the rhythm?"

            "Isn't it obvious? Three days."

            ".....My mailing list is gonna have a field day with this...."

            Everyone groaned, especially Yami. Yugi didn't tell Yami exclusively. Even Seto heard some werewolf news every now and then from the short boy.

            "So, we're gonna have a werewolf for a week..." Joey sighed. The others did as well, and then Téa thought of something.

            "Um, Tristan?"

            "Yes, Téa?"

            "If Bakura is a werewolf, would his dark side become a werewolf, too?"

            "I dunno....Yugi, you know more about this dark side stuff, what do you think?"

            The spike-haired haired boy's amethyst eyes widened and he looked at his other and then back at the two brunettes.

"....Uh oh."

Oh, Well YOU'RE A Big Help....

Bwahahaha....:) The (admittedly terrible) plot thickens....