"What's all that damn commotion in here?" shouted Eric through the doorway as he strode into the commotion like a dictator. "Shit!" he cussed again, stumbling back at the sight of a huge sow in the kitchen. "What's a pig doing in here?"
Matt grinned knowingly, which Eric noticed when he finally got around to looking over at his stepson. "Don't make come over and knock that grin off that weedy little face of yours. You had something to do with this, didn't you, you little shit? Get on up to your room. I'll get rid of this animal and figure out what to do with your scrawny ass later."
"Ya know, I'm gettin' sick and tired of you talkin' to me that way," blurted Matt in his newfound confidence. "It ain't my fault she died, or that you married this drunk that treated ME like an animal these past two years."
That did it. Eric kicked the sow in his frustration, which squealed and ran out of the room, just as he pointed an index finger squarely at Matt. "You ain't even mine, ya know! You should be kissing my feet for letting you live here with my real kids. You're lucky your slut of a mother was a hot piece of ass, or I wouldn't have ended up stuck with a piece of trash like you."
Matt just squinted at Eric, face red and blood boiling, letting those words "piece of trash" sink in again. They reminded him of what he'd just said to his step-mother about how she treated him--how they all treated him. He bit his lip, lowered his head, and spoke with coolest fury he'd ever mustered up to this point in his young life.
"You're going to be stuck finding a lot more trash, Eric," he announced softly, rubbing the bracelet gently, not even bother to call the man Dad one more time, watching Eric's face sprouting black and white fur. The 44-year-old had opened his mouth wide to say something even more hostile but froze up as a set of long hairs started waving around on the sides of his face. Matt watched his step-father reaching up to feel at his new whiskers with a confused look on his face before trying to pluck one out and wincing in obvious pain. "Ow!" the furry-faced man exclaimed, causing his Matt to burst out laughing.
"Why you little--" Eric was stopped in mid-insult by a loud ripping sound and a burst of sensation that made him freeze up in a sudden spasm. Matt glanced down the man's legs at the bushy, black-ringed tail that had forced itself from his jeans to dangle almost to the floor. The agony of his new appendage shoving itself into existence right through a layer of thick denim flooded through Eric all at once as soon as the shock wore off, and he tumbled over belly first onto the kitchen floor moaning and trying to catch his breath. Matt took this opportunity to make some less dramatic changes: his hands sprouting claws, his arm growing fur, his nose turning black. Eric stared in amazement at the bestial but still dexterous hands he'd been given, visible distressed when whiskers started sprouting from those, too.
Matt held his breath in expectant joy, watching his step-father meet a different but equally inhuman fate compared to Ariel. Matt stifled a chuckle seeing him put himself together enough to look behind him and investigate the unfathomable feelings from back there. Eric's eyes widened at the sight of the long striped tail that ruined his pants, darting around in their sockets to follow its movements as he flexed it experimentally.
"Fuck!" Matt heard his step-dad cuss one last time, standing up and curling his tail around from the side so he could grab it in his rough, whiskered hands. Matt finally let out his chuckle, seeing a grown man holding his tail in front of him like in a cartoon. Eric looked up and spoke to him in a softer, more pleasant voice like someone would use to redirect a small child.
"Go and get the phone and call for help, Matt, go and let someone know I need help."
Matt snorted, "Call and tell them what? That my step-dad's turned into a raccoon?" Eric's feet were darkening and growing pads and claws. Eric seemed to flinch at the first explicit mention of his new species.
"Come on, you wouldn't want anything happen to your old man, would you, son?" he said in the classic guilt-trip voice that had so often followed his outbursts in the past. His ears had broadened and loosened up so he could move them; they were aiming straight at Matt to hear his answer.
"What, like turning into an animal? I made that happen to your wife and it's a joy making it happen to you."
Eric gasped and flattened his ears before the size changes finally took over. He shrank back into his clothes before they fell off and exposed his gray shaggy body. He was left as a pet-sized pest making chitter noises, standing up on his hind legs as he finally understood who was responsible for the strange goings on. Matt wished that he was gone to live on the street like the vermin he was, and in a flash, Eric was gone. As far as Matt was concerned, he could spend the rest of his life raiding dumpsters while Ariel ate slop on some farm.