Chapter 3:Wolf in Womans' clothing.

Lara's Gym

Ever since she was around 13 years old, Lara would work out in her gym to keep her in top physical form. She has everything she needs in that room from weight sets to a climbing wall and even some things that were inspired by traps she discovered in the tombs she had visited over the years. Her strength level had always stayed at a normal level throughout her life, but today something was off. When she went to lift her usual peak weight of 147 lbs., she found that it was far easier than usual.

"That's odd." She declared in her head as she decided to experiment. She added 10 lbs. to the dumbells and attempted to lift it and did so with little trouble. She did so 2 more times until she found that she now could lift up to 173 lbs. Of course this was probably the result of all the extra activity lately. Since she discovered that her mother was not dead, but instead was on Avalon, she had been running around the world looking for answers, but had so far run short. At the present time however she had other things to worry about. The gala she had to attend tonight was playing havoc on her nerves. If it weren't for the fact that the museum curator was a close friend, she wouldn't even consider going. Although she did have this beautiful new dress she wanted to try out, so tonight was as good a night as any. She would have to deal with men staring at her as usual, but after a few years of it, she had gotten used to it, it's not her fault that she was blessed with a good body. Just then, her phone rang, so of course she answered it.

"Lara Croft." She stated to make it was a right number.

"Good afternoon Ms. Croft."

"Hello Mr. Dumonds. How are you?"

"Very well indeed. Winston called with the good news that you would be attending the fundraiser gala tonight, thank you." He said with his usual glee.

"No problem at all, just make sure to put me in the wing away from the stuck-up section." She said in a sarcastic tone.

"Of course, I want you to be as comfortable as possible. So Winston tells me that you plan to add yet another piece to the museum, yes?"

"Yes, a beautiful ruby I found in a temple near Peru. Alister is still decifering it's origin, but as soon as he does, we'll send it right over."

"Jolly good. Well, I'll see you at the gala tonight."

"Alright then, goodbye." With that, Lara hung up the phone headed to her room to change for the party.

30 minutes later...

"Perfect." Lara said as she inspected herself in the mirror. The dress she was wearing was a black, backless number that came up to her knees with a slightly low cut collar. She wouldn't usually wear her hair down, but parties were the exception in that she felt looked a lot better in dresses with her hair down.

"Lady Croft, your car is waiting." Winston said as he prepared to drive her to the museum.

"Thank you Winston, I'll be down shortly." She said trying to put off the inevitable.

"You look radiant Lara, your mother would be proud of you." Winston said which made Lara feel as though he were a second father to her. He barely ever called her by her first name, simply because he was her butler. But on occasion, he would switch from butler mode to friend mode either when Lara was upset or when he was very happy for her.

"Again, thank you Winston, you look nice too."

"Ahem, I'll be waiting downstairs for you Lady Croft." Winston went out the door and Lara was left with her thoughts. That comment about her mother brought back the memory of the day she disappeared. The stone dais, the sword, the stone pillars, it had all been a mystery to her until the day she took Excaliber to the stone dais in Bolivia and found out what had really happened to her mother. She finally snapped back to reality and headed downstairs to the car. Memories would have to wait, she had a party to go to.

The museum...

"Ah Lara, thank you for coming. I know how much you hate these rich engagements." Mr Dumonds said as he sipped on his drink.

"Your welcome, just don't expect me to be too friendly with the other guests." Lara exclaimed with a joking tone.

"Of course not. To tell you the truth, I could do without them too, but the museum needs their money to keep from going bankrupt so I need to be nice. But enough of business, how have you been?"

"Fair I guess, I recently discovered that ruby I was telling you about."

"Oh yes, the ruby. Does your friend Alister know anything yet?"

"No, not yet, but by the looks of it, it should bring you an awful lot of publicity, it's the most beautiful ruby I've ever seen." She said as she imagined the way it looked when the moon shined on it the night before. How good she felt when she touched it. She then felt a slight pain in her stomach. It passed as quickly as it came. It must have been from the tons of food I ate this morning. She quickly pushed the thought out of her head as she saw Mr. Dumonds notice.

"Are you alright Lara, you look ill."

"Yes I'm fine, just a slight pain. So what were we talking about?"

"We were discussing the- Oh! Sorry Lara, Mr. Eidos is waving for me to come over, and you know how impatient he can be. We'll discuss this later on." He said as he walked over to the extremely rich Mr. Eidos. Lara had heard of him before, he's an entrepreneuer who got rich off of selling rare artifacts, some of which made archeological history. She dispised people who only searched for artifacts for a quick pound. She ignored him and started strolling through the many wings of the museum. She entered the hall of North American animals and admired the creatures who were displayed. She hated the fact that some of the animals were killed to be put on display, but at least most of them died due to natural causes. She then stopped when she noticed one of the wolves they had on display. It was in an idle pose just staring off into space, but it still looked beautiful. She had seen wolves many times, and sometimes unfortunately, she was forced to kill them to stay alive like when she went to Vilcabamba to search for the first piece of the Atlantian Scion. But she had never really noticed how majestic and beautiful they could be. She stared into it's eyes where she could barely make out the reflection of the moon as it shined down light through the window. She turned around and looked up through the sky light and again stared at the moon. Her mind went blank again as she was lost in the moons bright light. It was even more beautiful now than the other night in Peru. She soaked up the rays of light as the moon eradiated them. Just as she was about to snap out of it, she felt another pain in her stomach, only this time it was much worse. She doubled over in pain as she fought to hold back her scream of pain. She looked around and saw the ladies room not too far away. She hurried to the bathroom and ran into one of the stalls. She hunched over the toilet and threw up furiously. She had never felt so sick in her life, it obviously wasn't the food that was causing this. She walked out of the stall and splashed some cool water in her face. She looked at herself in the mirror and was about to leave when she caught a glance at something that just didn't look right. She closely examined her eyes and was shocked to see that their color had changed from their normal brown color to a strange sort of hazel. She then began to notice that her hair was longer than usual, but not just the hair on her head, she was now sprouting tiny hairs all over her body. She screamed as she noticed them spreading and growing slightly longer with each second. Her dress suddenly began to get tighter as she noticed her body start to grow. Her muscles surged with power they strained and tore the dress. She felt a slight pain in the tips of her fingers, when she looked at she saw the tips bulging as her fingernails were replaced with black, razor sharp claws.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!" she screamed as she felt her feet changing to a digitigrade form. They tore through her high heels as claws formed on her toes and ripped through the material. Her thoughts switched over to a pressure in her lower back as a small nub formed above her rear. It slowly stretched out longer to form a tail. For the first time in her life she was well and truly terrified, she was turning into some type of monster and there was nothing she could do about it. Try as she might to hold back the transformation, it only made the pain much worse. She then lost her balance and fell down on all fours, where her claws scrapped the tile. She tasted something strange in her mouth, when she opened her mouth to check for the reason, a drop of blood dripped out. At first, she thought she was starting to cough up blood, but when she looked in the mirror she saw the reason, her teeth were growing larger and sharper, which was tearing her gums. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a strange animal like whine. After a few minutes, her dress had finally given up the fight as her body outgrew it. New muscles grew within her, her arms surged with newfound strength, her stomach became rock hard as her abs grew into a well defined six pack and her pectoral muscles surged causing already ample breasts to grow even larger. She felt a painful pressure within her jaw as it started to enlongate into a short mussle and her nose reshaped into that of an wolves'. Her ears then shifted from their normal position on the sides of her head to near the top of her head and then reshaped themselves into a more canine shape. As the final changes took place, the fur all over her body grew longer and covered almost every inch of her naked body. She reared her head back and with one final jolt of energy she howled to the heavens. She went back down to the ground, breathing hard from the exhaustion after all that had just transpired. She attempted to push herself back onto her feet, but met a little resistance as she was a little off balance. She balanced herself on one of the sinks in front of the mirror and gasped in shock as she looked face to face with the same wolf she saw in her dream. She stared at herself in the mirror and uttered the only phrase she was thinking of at the time.

"Oh my god!"

Sorry for the long wait, but hey, what can you do? Please review.