By all accounts it had started out as a glorious day. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and firewood was plentiful. The last factor was important to Amelia since Lina had charged her with the task of finding wood to cook their evening meal. Amelia had found more than enough, but she decided it was better to be safe than sorry, so she continued back to the campsite with a huge load of wood. She hummed a cheery tune to herself, so caught up in the glorious day as she was.
Yes, everything was perfect! -aside from the two shadowy figures hiding in the bushes.
"Is she the one?" whispered one shadow to the other.
The second pulled out a small piece of parchment and read it off: "Short dark hair? Yep. Blue eyes? Uh-huh. Insanely cheery demeanor? You bet! That's her all right. So did you bring the secret weapon?"
"Of course! The boss would kill me if I hadn't! And stop calling him that, his name is Harvey!" The first figure pulled out a box and opened it, revealing many small capsules, one which contained a mosquito. The figure opened the capsule, releasing the mosquito.
"You ready, Harvey?" He looked at the other capsules. "So what's it going to be today? Bear, beaver, badger? Or maybe a rabbit...or a raven!"
The other man rolled his eyes. "Just stick to the boss's plan!"
"But wolves are so typical! That boss of our's has no imagination."
"He'll have our heads if you don't hurry! She's getting away!"
"All right, I hear you! C'mere, Harvey." He held up a capsule to the mosquito, who stuck his probe-like mouth inside. "There ya go. Now go do what you do best and I'll give you your favorite treat!"
"There he goes.."
"Yeah, I've been training him special, just for things like this."
"Have you done it often?"
"Nah, just thought it would be best to be prepared."
"Weirdo."
"Look! He did it! And here he comes back!"
"Good, let's just get out of here. We've got things to take care of."
"Great job, Harvey!"
"Little bloodsucker. I just hope this works."
"Of course it'll work. The boss hired me for my skills! And another thing, only female mosquitoes suck blood. Harvey and his pals go for tree sap."
"You really are a weirdo, you know that? Now let's go, we've got more work to do!"
With that, the two men snuck off into the forest.
Lina Inverse, sorcery genius extraordinaire, was having a great day! She and Gourry, her constant companion, had been traveling about employing their skills, or busting bandits when things got slow, when they ran into Amelia. Apparently she had been out "questing for Justice", so she joined up with Lina and Gourry. They had spent most of the day just traveling about, reminiscing on previous outings, and just enjoying each other's company.
They had intended on staying the night in a nearby village, but the weather had been so great that they decided to camp out for the night. (Plus, the creek full of fish didn't hurt!) Lina was currently decreasing the fish population and would have continued doing so had she not noticed her huge pile of fish.
"Hey Gourry, how's the campsite going?"
"The tents are up, I've got the fire pit built, all we need now is some firewood." Gourry answered.
"Amelia'd better hurry. I don't know how much longer I can wait!"
"Here I am!" exclaimed a huge pile of wood. Said pile was held up by Amelia's legs, Lina noticed.
"Think you got enough there?" Lina joked.
Amelia smiled as she set down the wood. "Well, I wanted to make sure we would have enough."
Gourry took two sticks from the pile and got to work starting a fire. Lina watched in anticipation.
"Too bad I can't just toss a Fire Ball in there. That would certainly speed things up!" Lina chuckled to herself.
"Miss Lina, the last time you did that it blew up the whole campsite!"
"Hey, I can always dream." Lina smirked at the memory.
"Got it!" Gourry added more fuel to the small flame until a good-sized fire was burning.
"All right! Way to go, Gourry! Now let's get these delicious fish cooked before I starve to death!"
Amelia just giggled. Some things about Lina would never change!
Lina leaned back against a fallen log, savoring the last of her meal. She glanced up into the sky. "Looks like we'll have a full moon tonight. You know what that means..." she gave an evil little smile.
Amelia shivered, despite the warmth of the fire. "Wh-what?" she asked, hoping it wasn't going to be another scary story about ghosts.
"Lycanthropes." Lina whispered, with an air of mystery.
Gourry scratched his head. "A lyca-what?"
"You know, a shape-shifter."
"Oh! You mean like a werewolf!" Gourry beamed.
Lina hung her head. So much for a dramatic beginning to her tale! "Yes, Gourry, like a werewolf. I encountered one before, you know."
Amelia looked at Lina with awe. "Really? What happened?"
"Well, this was before I met up with Gourry even. I was hunting down a thief, when I set up camp for the night. I was enjoying a sweet baked potato," Lina drooled at the memory but continued on, "when a lost traveler approached me. He was raving about having been attacked, and wanted me to help him get back to the village. Something about the guy didn't add up though, so I ignored him."
"You ignored him when he needed help?"
"Calm down, Amelia, I'm not done yet."
"Oh, sorry."
"Anyway, so this guy keeps raving on when suddenly-"
"What? What happened?!" Amelia was on the edge of her seat!
"I ran out of fish!" Lina cried.
Gourry shot Lina a quizzical look. "Actually Lina, you dropped it. Here." Gourry reached under and revealed her quarry.
"Eep! Gourry! I can get it myself, you know! Some people. ANYway...so this guy keeps ranting, when suddenly he transformed into a huge werewolf!"
"What did you do?" Amelia hid her fear poorly.
"I crushed him with a rock, naturally." Lina tossed her hair.
"That's it? That's not nearly as exciting as the time I fought some green wolf guy. Although how he was that way, or why I was fighting him, I don't remember." Gourry trailed off, lost in thought.
"Why am I not surprised?" Lina shook her head.
"Miss Lina, are you sure it's safe to be out here? What if-"
"A werewolf attacks? We'll be fine, Amelia. Most lycanthropes stay away from humans, especially if they know what's good for them!" Lina made a fist. "And besides, they mostly stay in the mountain ranges, and we're very far away from any mountains."
Lina turned to Gourry, who was still deep in thought. "Hey Gourry, toss some more wood in that fire! It's starting to get dark."
"Huh? Oh, right." Gourry did as he was told.
Amelia, meanwhile, began to fan herself. "Don't you think it's good enough as is? It's pretty warm out tonight."
"Hot? Not anymore than the past few nights. It feels a little cool to me, actually. Are you feeling all right, Amelia?" Lina replied.
"Yes, I'm fine. I just need some fresh air." Amelia stood up.
"But we're surrounded by it." Gourry noted. "Oh, look Lina! You were right about the moon!"
Just then, Amelia doubled over in pain. Lina lept to her feet and ran to Amelia's side.
"What's the matter? Was it the fish?" Lina asked.
"It..burns!" Amelia cried out as if in severe pain. She clawed desperately at the ground as her whole body was enveloped in a burning sensation.
Lina and Gourry could only watch on as Amelia's body changed it's shape. Within seconds a werewolf lay where Amelia once was.
"Lina, I think you can rule out food poisoning." Gourry stated.
"She's.." Lina gasped.
"Kind of short for a werewolf." Gourry finished.
The werewolf, hearing Lina and Gourry's voices, looked up. She clutched her head in pain, then dashed off into the woods.
"Amelia, no! Come back!" Lina chased after her, Gourry close behind.
Amelia glanced back at her pursuers with a look of fear, then finding herself trapped against a cliff-face, turned and gave out a snarl.
"Amelia, calm down! We need to get you help!" Lina cried.
Amelia again gripped her head, then let out a howl of rage and lept at Lina! Lina had no time to react, and found herself pinned under a large snarling wolf.
"Amelia, stop! It's me, Lina!" Lina struggled to keep from being bitten. "Gourry, she's lost her sense of reason! Help me!"
Gourry quickly came from behind the two, and in a quick motion, unsheathed his sword and whacked the hilt against Amelia's head. Amelia went limp, landing fully on Lina.
"Thanks a lot, Gourry." Lina pulled herself out from under Amelia's dead weight.
"Oh man, Phil's going to kill me if he sees Amelia like this! At times like this, there's only one thing to do!"
"Get her treatment?"
"Actually, I was opting more towards running away."
"But Lina, then he'd really have your head!"
"I know, I know! It's just that the treatment cost so much! Wait! Maybe I won't have to pay!" Lina searched around for Amelia's purse, finding it among Amelia's torn clothing. "Yes! Now let's see..." Lina looked in the purse. "I hate my life."
"What's wrong?"
"What kind of royalty only carries a measly five gold coins?!"
"Amelia, apparently."
"I just knew all that treasure from those bandits was to good to be true!" Lina growled in frustration. "C'mon, Gourry. We should get going before she wakes up. There's a village near here."
"What about all our stuff?"
"We'll have to come back for it later, we don't have time right now."
Gourry sighed and picked up the unconscious werewolf.
So why did I write this? Seriously, I play D&D a lot, and one time I was reading through the Monster Manual, and was looking all all of the different Lycanthropes. A while later I had a thought: what if you took a Were, but instead of curing them of the foreign animal part, cured them of their humanity? That's where this story comes in. (Also, I've been seeing a lot of Were stories for Pokémon, but none for Slayers, which should be obvious since there are Weres in the Slayers Universe!) Just a word of warning, this is going to be a Dark story, and some very unpleasant times are ahead for our group. (Also, Xellos is not in this, so those hoping to find him here should look elsewhere.)