Tyson's hands shook, his breath coming heavy and labored. He gripped the knife in his paws tightly, trying to keep enough pressure so it wouldn't slip. The handle felt bent, but he didn't care, he could barely think about that, he was trying to prep himself mentally for what he was about to do, or at least attempt to do. He wasn't sure it would even work if he could go through with it, he'd never tried anything like this before. But with everything the way it was, this seemed like the only option...

***Half an hour earlier***

Tyson's sleep was as bad as ever. Worse even. He had exhausted himself mentally trying to out run his problems, and he had run so much it felt like his back ached from running on all fours for so long. He knew it was probably his imagination, since he healed so fast any injury he could have sustained would have been okay in a few minutes.. He had finally passed out on his bed. He had finally allowed the mansion to change out the sheets, which had been torn for a long time since his claws had ruined them, but since he had his plastic claw tips now, the sheets no longer snagged and tore. One small plus. For once he had proper sheets, but they did little to ease the nightmares he had about his lack of control and slipping humanity. He still experienced the terror of losing his mind and going on a killing spree every time he passed into sleep, though he was so used to it now that he no longer screamed when he woke up. 

He awoke early morning from the most recent bloodbath of his rampent imagination. That he was used to. He was tangled in his sheets from his tossing and turning, and one of his legs was asleep probably having the circulation cut off, though his groggy mind couldn't figure out which one it was. He started to twist the sheets off of him, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to try and get the feeling back. Strangely he still couldn't figure out which one it was. Until he realized it wasn't his leg. There was a tugging sensation behind him, an unfamiliar one as he shifted his weight. He twisted around to try and look, and saw it, still wrapped in the sheets, but undeniably there. He felt the blood draing from his face as his eyes went wide, and any trace of sleepyness was eradicated by the panic the set his heart beating faster motor engine.

He stumbled from his bed, pulling the sheets behind him before he tore them from himself, pushing himself across the floor as if he could somehow distance himself from it. It was impossible, but there it was, twitching even as he stared. He pushed himself up against the wall, sitting there in shock and horror. It had to be a nightmare, he must still be sleeping, but the rising panic in his chest, the hard beating and blood pounding through his head told him otherwise. A stifled whimper escaped his throat, which was knotted so tightly he was sure he would choke at any moment. It was as if it were validating all his fears...

A tail. A damned tail. He had grown a tail. 

Everything seemed to come apart, what little he had snapped. He was loosing it, he was  turning into an animal, the tail said it all, he was going to devolve into a beast, and his nightmares would become a reality. He couldn't take it, it was too much. He pushed himself to his feet, and rushed to the door, pulling it open, ignoring the splintering wood as the bolt pulled through the wood, splintering the doorframe. 

***Present***

Gripping the knife awkwardly, Tyson brought the edge to the base of his new appendage, holding it steady with his other hand. Honestly he was afraid, even with his healing factor, he still felt pain, and he had never lost a limb before. He could feel the bone in his tail, he would not only need to cut skin, he would need to cut through bone. With a kitchen knife no less. But what else could he do, he didn't want this, couldn't take another push like this, he had been through too much too on top of that be devolving even more into an animal. Would it continue until he was an actual wolf? Was he going to wake up unable to walk on two legs? It was too much for his already strained mind to bear, he wanted it gone. He gritted his teeth, hesitating, trying to muster the courage and will to cut it off.

The best part of waking up is knockoff nonbrandname coffee product in your cup. Accept no substitute because there is none. It is the substitute. If he were rich, he would have bought real stuff that was copyrighted and could get him a product placement check if he were on tv. But he wasn't. He was living in a rent free mansion setting and using their substitute because they were either too cheap or too price savvy to make the real stuff. Thus if he wanted coffee, he had to use theirs. And he wanted coffee for the morning.

Coffee is important. You have to have it if you've gotten addicted. It helps you go.

He needed to go downstairs.

Maybe he would make waffles. Not good waffles. The kind that pop out of toasters. Those would be stellar with some peanut butter and jelly. Maybe he would make a waffle sandwich. Maybe he would even fry an egg. Whoa though, slow down man. That might take effort. Without coffee, he wasn't going to be putting in too much effort or going anywhere. Something was stopping him from getting coffee, though. Something other than a spacious mansion full of annoying interrupting teleporters, speedsters, flying girls, phasing boys, exploding demons, and hamsters with a knife taped to them. It was a wolf with a knife not taped to him, though he was doing his best to make the connection closer.

Elliott stopped in the doorway and expressed his keen oratory skills by saying a phrase usually abbreviated as 'wtf'! It was quite diplomatic.

Tyson gritted his teeth as he felt the edge of the blade on his tail, resting against his skin and shaking slightly with his trembling hands. Even though the appendage was unfamiliar to him, it was still as sensitive as any other of his limbs, and what he was doing was still akin to cutting off an arm or a leg, and the tension and stress was causing him to growl and whine as he thought to keep his wolf instincts, the part of him that automatically sought out self preservation, from acting out and preventing him from doing what had to be done. Not that it made it any easier. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and started pushing... and stopped, still hesitating in anticipation of the pain that would be involved. He took another breath.. and...

The shout caught him by surprise, so focused on the task at hand he hadn't even detected the scent coming up on him. He jerked in surprise, and the blade sliced into the base of his tail. Unfortunately, his grip faltered in his shock. He felt as the blade scraped against the bone before it tumbled out of his hand. Pain shot through this entire spine as his nerves screamed bloody murder. The knife clattered to the ground, stained red with blood. It was followed by the giant wolf man who spasmed and howled with pain. His vision went red and hazy as he felt the pain pulsate like a drum as blood spurted from the wound. He was barely aware of who it was who had walked in on him as he tried to cope with the intensity of the pain he had inflicted upon himself.

"Holy eff!"

Suddenly, he was running and grabbing a hand towel that would get thrown away after today because it was going to get bloody. And there was blood and bleeding that he had not caused. What was important was that first you applied pressure to try and halt the bleeding. What came next? Medical attention? Or burning the wound??? Maybe it was not some sort of gruesome gratuitous Gwar grade blood spray, but in his mind, it was a fountain and he was surprised to find himself just a little freaked out.

The four letter word that starts with f got several more uses over the next minute, amid "Tysom, why?" And, loud enough for someone nearby to hear "Someone get a doctor!" Hopefully, someone would run off and get a freaking medic because he sure didn't know triage. He barely knew first aid.

Tyson had a tail. Somewhere in the hectic helping, he realized that fact. He did not commit to connecting dots, though. If Tyson hated his tail enough to try and cut it off, Elliott didn't realize it.

Tyson bore down, trying to keep himself in control as the throbbing continued. A few moments and it would pass, a few moments more. His healing factor was already kicking in, as much as a serious wound this would be for a normal person, the bleeding was already starting to lesson more and more. It was more that he was unaccustomed to that amount of pain. He wasn't a fighter, or any type of hard core badass, he was, in his heart at least, just a regular guy.

The other person, whoever it was, had leapt into action and applied a towel to the wound. Tyson almost snapped at the hand as it came near, as his wolf brain tried akin over, he stopped himself just short, snapping the air instead. Self defense, fight or flight, he was hurt and the wolf in him was on the defensive. He could just make out the repeated explicatives, and "Tyson, why?" was it someone who knew him? He couldn't think strait, as a number of people in the mansion knew him, it should have been easy to figure that out, but his thoughts were clouded by red flame of pain. "hrrrrrrrr noouuuggghhht phhhhhaaaaaiiiirrrrrr," came his attempted reply, any intelligibility lost, his snapped mind too wracked with pain to focus on forming the words, which were couples with growls barks and whines more animal then anything else.

He had failed, again. He couldn't do it, the pain was too much, and he hadn't even gotten halfway through. He couldn't muster the courage to go through worse pain then this. He felt his mind crumbling, his identity falling apart. Things were just going to get worse, he was being changed physically and mentally. It was only a matter of time before there wasn't anything left of him. He was turning into the animal in his dreams, he would become a monster, he would lose himself, and nothing he could do would stop it. What was the point of fighting anymore? It was torture, trying to hold on for hope only to have it dashed every single time. Trying to be human when everything about him was not, he was tired, too tired to fight anymore.

Margo ran.

She ran to condition for a sport she didn’t play anymore. She ran from people (applying the term rather loosely) who were out to get her. During the rush hour at the coffee shop she worked at, she ran for things. I RUN, read her tank top this morning, with something about turtles stampeding through peanut butter in smaller print. So when there was howling and cursing and “someone get a doctor!’ coming from the kitchen, that’s what she did.

Margo ran. Up the stairs, down the hallways, past the offices. The hallways were mostly deserted, at this early hour… was it too early for the Infirmary to be open, she thought with a hint of panic?

No. The lights were on. Thank the heavens.

“Someone’s bleeding in the kitchen,” she gasped. It was kind of an understatement, but if DocProf didn’t understand her urgency he soon did. In the distance, there was a howl of pain and the sound of something being knocked over.

She ran back. There was blood on the floor, everywhere. Her heartbeat pounding through her chest, Margo stood back and tried to not be sick.

He didn't notice any bleeding lessening. He didn't notice that at all. He was squeezing hard enough to probably do more harm than good. Not a doctor, nope!

Not a face swipe, nope!

Not fair, nope!

He would start making sense any time now. This would require thinking about at a later date, yep. But not today!

He didn't even notice when the person reached the kitchen, which was probably for the best, because if he had looked and seen her gagging, he might have gagged, and that was so unlike him. He did notice when doc prof elbowed him out of the way a couple of moments later. For being an old man, he had kept up with the running I run tank girl pretty well. I guess you don't bet against doc prof when death is on the line. He shouted at Elliott to hold the wolf man still so he could heal him. Elliott tried to oblige, but it probably wouldn't work well. Tyson was stronger than him.

They would see.

Little known fact. Doc prof would see. He would know what caused the wound when he healed it, and he would be mad.

Glitch's night had been quiet. Until she heard a commotion in the kitchen.

“Oh my God!”The sight was among the most horrific Glitch had ever seen. Blood was everywhere. The wolf guy was in tremendous pain, his words so distorted she could not understand them. The alien guy was trying to hold him still for the Doc Prof. Then there was the knife. Oh God, he got stabbed?

Glitch tried not to panic. God, things were horrible. She had no medical knowledge, no idea what to do in that situation. But, God, seeing the wolf guy hurt, she couldn't bear to stand and do nothing.

She rushed in. “God God God God...” she repeated over and over again, fumbling with the roll. So much blood. Shaking, she attempted to help the alien guy hold the much larger wolf man still. "H-here." God, she could almost feel the pain from that wound.

Tyson was quickly finding himself getting overwhelmed by the people surrounding him. The pain, the mental breakdown, the hopelessness, and now this was pushing him over the edge. His loose grasp upon himself finally slipped. A snarl escaped his lips as he tore himself away from the group surrounding him as his eyes became wild and agitated. His wounds hadn't finished healing, and the movement jerked it open again as it tore itself from Elliott's grasp, a fresh spew of blood flowing. More pain shot through his spine, driving him further into his agitated state. His breathing was heavy, and a constant growl emanated from his throat, his hackles raised and teeth bared as he turned to face the group. He was just about foaming at the mouth, and it would have been clear that Tyson didn't seem to be home anymore, his stare that of a wild, wounded, and most of all pissed off animal.

Tyson's eyes darted to each of the others in the kitchen, the girl, the metal creature, the green creature, there was no recognition in his eyes. The stare was that of a predator gauging it's attackers. Tyson was cornered in the kitchen, leaving him with only the fight option, which in the past had resulted in a body count. The metal and green creatures were more threatening, leaving the girl as weakest, and the most likely route for escape. The unintelligible snarls continued, his eyes unblinking, ready to trigger if the wrong move were made.

The scene in the kitchen changed quicker than thought. One moment Margo was gagging— she could smell the blood, she swore, coppery and fishy— as DocProf and the alien guy and the robot girl crowded around Tyson. The next, he was literally snarling in their faces and Margo suddenly didn’t mind the blood so much. As long as it wasn’t hers.

She was definitely the least intimidating. If the wolf were going to maul someone, as he looked one wrong move away from doing, it would be her.

Calm, thought Margo. That was the right emotion when facing off with 300 pounds of fear and anger… right? She thought it until it filled their corner of the kitchen.

On the bright side, if she did get mauled DocProf could probably heal her. Probably, unless she was dead.

Elliott accepted all the help he could get. He barely noticed he was now being helped by a robot. A passing thought danced by: 'they have robots here too?'

The help was short lived. Tyson growled. Tyson got away. He looked upset. He was upset. Elliott's eyes were mainly on the wound that had reopened though, so when he swore, it was more being upset at that than at any threat of violence for the group. "Dang it, Tyson..."

And after a moment, he added quietly and under his breath. "Meditate."

He was definitely calm though. Frustrated about reopened wounds, but calm. Probably, it was for the best, because knocking Tyson out with a boot to the head seemed counterintuitive to helping him heal from injuries.

Doc Prof tried again to approach the wolf man. He was careful, taking great pains to make every step slow and graceful, and keeping his hands palm up and in view. It wasn't a weak pose of a victim. He tried looking nonthreatening, while at the same time, threatening... Not the type of Doctor you wanted to mess with. And probably, it didn't work out so well. An exercise in complication conflict ions, but it got him closer to the wolf.

Glitch quickly stepped back. “Oh God...”

The wolf guy's expression was ominously familiar. She'd seen a person very close to her become a monster before, so she sadly knew the look well. It was a terrible state; she couldn't say so enough. No sense of right or wrong, no distinction between friend and foe, and the only thought in mind survival. God, she hoped that was just the pain talking.

Why Glitch was standing there, calm despite the situation, was a complete mystery. Calm was good, though. She'll take that over panic. Cautiously, she approached the wolf man again. “Hold my hand.” She offered it, avoiding sudden movements. There was no telling what he'd do, but as long as there was a human there, she wanted to reach it.

Tyson backed away from the approaching figure of Doc Prof, greatly agitated by him. Even as a beast, Tyson's experiences with doctors had left him unreceptive to them. When your father stuck you in a lab, experimented on you and stuck you full of more needles then you could count, the idea of anyone in a lab coat was not a pleasent one, and the smell he gave off was more then enough for the wolf to make the association. That fact and the posture the man took was enough for him to back away, the growls he gave off coming even louder as he cornered himself against the cabinets. His hackles were strait on end as he prepared to pounce, on all fours, teeth bared in a final warning.

However it seemed that despite all the physical danger signs, they were going unheeded, as the metal creature approached him haphazardly and offered a hand. There was a sense of calm in the room, but it meant little to the beast, who's concepts of emotions were more primal then to Tyson's, calm merely meant an absence of fear to it, not a reduction in threat, it was still wounded and threatened. If anything, calm made it more dangerous, as it dulled the flight reflex in favor of fighting. So when the creature once again invaded Tyson's personal space, the wolf pounced at it, ready to lock his jaw around the proffered appendage, and his claws ready to tear into whatever it met.

Tyson was not aware of what he was doing anymore, going on little more then basic animal instincts. His mind and spirit were broken and the beast now reigned, and Tyson was lost beneath a sea or pain and sorrow. It was too hard to try be human anymore, too painful and confusing, too much to loose and too hard to hold onto anymore.

The wolf, hackles on end, backed himself against the cabinets as DocProf approached. When the robot girl offered her hand to him to hold, he pounced at her. Margo flinched. She fought down the rising sense of panic and frustration at the fact that every move they made was the wrong move.

Either Tyson was too far gone for her to influence— she had never tried to project on an animal before, but she was mostly sure she couldn’t— or calm just didn’t mean the same thing to him as it did to her. In either case, keeping up this projection was useless. Margo cast trust and safety around her instead. Trust and safety were not the right emotions when you were in danger of being bitten in half by a wolf, but maybe they would pacify said wolf.

If not…

“Unless you guys can get him to calm down, I vote we just knock him out and deal with it later.”

When Elliott had started this day, he had wanted waffles, or maybe pancakes. He had not wanted to make pancakes, but the potential was there. The mansion kitchen had all sorts of kitchen things. It had baking ingredients, it had a stovetop, and... It had cooking implements.

When the wolf man attacked the metal girl, Elliott responded instantly. It was a calm, cool, collected response. They were in a kitchen full of pots and pans. He heard the other girl's comment about incapacitating Tyson, and he was within arms reach of a kitchen cabinet.

He would have liked to kick the man. His kicks were his strongest feature. A couple good kicks, and he would be down. That also left him open to getting his foot torn off by an angry wolf man, and that was a bad option. So.

Elliott drew back the weapon he had pulled out of the kitchen cabinet, and tried to give Tyson a solid whack. The frying pan whooshed through the air towards the side of Tyson's face. If it hit, it would sing the song of its people, and if everything went right, the song would serve as lullaby concussion for Tyson the wolf. If all went wrong, he would follow it up with some kicking, unless things went so south that failed to remain an option.