Tails' Notes on Lycanthropy (LYC-N73)

Biology

The average viral cell does not have a nucleus, which means they essentially don't have a brain. Which makes LYC-N73 special. It adapted over the years to the day-night cycle of Mobius. Symptoms of LYC-N73 vary depending on the time and setting of wherever the host is located. The symptoms begin to show around 3-5 pm, they get worse at 5-7 pm, and the physical mutations (or the transformation) begin at 8-9 and can last from 7-35 minutes.

As the host is in a transformed state, it has the urge to eat. Mostly for meat, raw meat. Meat contains enough nutrients to supply the viral cell with more healthy benefits. When the Lycan consumes food, the viral cell will attach to a cell that absorbed the nutrients and suck them dry. Almost like a parasite, the virus will kill another cell, infected or not, to take the nutrients for itself.

The cells tend to have a "reproduction schedule", where they only reproduce during the day. During that time, they will reproduce asexually in the salivary glands. These cells do not focus on infecting blood cells and instead focus on entering another bloodstream. During the transformation process, the salivary glands swell, filling the mouth with saliva. The cells take this chance to attach to the teeth, most of them surround the canines. If the Lycan were to hunt an innocent Mobian and manage to bite them, the cells would be swept away by the saliva like a tsunami in a city and into the victims' bloodstream. The cells would begin to make their way around the body and attach themselves to cells and veins to await the next night.

There is also a slim chance of getting infected via scratches. After a bit of self-research and I managed to find traces of the virus in fingernails/claws. Most of the cells are dead, about 1 for every 10 cells are alive, making its survival-rate little to none during transmission into another body.  

The virus tends to pick certain locations on the body to attach to. These areas being main arteries, blood vessels in the neck (especially the jugular), and the heart. But they don't attach directly to the heart, they stick around right outside the heart. It's unknown why they do this, but my theory is they use the pumping to travel throughout the body much quicker and more efficiently. 

One minor thing I've noted is they sometimes willingly sacrifice themselves for another cell that cannot produce a sufficient RNA strand. A viral cell will make its way towards the cell without the strand, inject not one but two RNA strands into that cell. Afterward, the cell will die and float around the bloodstream while the other will asexually reproduce, splitting the RNA with the copy.

With such a unique ecosystem they have developed, I'm more than sure there's more to these cells than we know. Whether or not we'll find these are unlikely, but I have to admit it's interesting to me.