Little Red Riding Wolf leaned back against the door that was the poor man's only way out
that wasn't through even more wolves. Crossing her arms over her chest she watched
intently as Alice would finnish up the last of the grounds keepers and they could then
move on to preparing for the main staff's arrive and their assimilation into the pack via the
game (she honestly didn't like the idea of sharing Master, but the twins had made it all
good fun and they pleased Master, and she had been created to be submissive to him after
all).
Jenny and Marcy flanked their father, who had to sit down on a crate that barely supported
his mass as the room was a too low him to stand at his full height. After having seen Jack
and Marcine begin their twenty four hour march to deer-hood, and the other two men
become simple puppets, they were interest seeing a true transformation right here and
now!
Alice looked calmly up the man, her paws together and her arms behind her back, her
entire posture being one of innocent curiosity and plain observation.
The ultimate problem all the transformations faced was really quite simple. How to make
sure no one ever came looking for them? O at the very least never even remotely came to
the estate to look for them? Jensen been on enough dates to vampire movies to know
what happened when people started vanishing after going to the Count's castle.
They had provided good enough instructions for Marcine and Jack. On the plus side the
staff wouldn't have any other jobs they'd be missed from (Bart had made sure of that), and
Adam of course had neither friends nor enemies who'd miss him everyone would assume
he had simply drifted onto the next town. And of course the shadows could clean up
personal matters themselves.
That left the rest of staff themselves who weren't total loners like Adam and wouldn't be in
a position to really clean up their affairs after their absorption into the pack. The near
incident with the police who had become the twins had taught Jensen to be careful. Well,
at least a little cautious.
It had taken quite a bit of brainstorming on Bart's part to come up with a proper solution
for their scheme of filling the estate with wolves and creatures to serve them while
remaining legally invisible. But there was one thing that could be possible but needed to
be tested.
The poor man had a name, he had parents, he had dreams much beyond working here, he
had friends, but all of that was about to not matter anymore.
"You shall turn into a beastie that stands up as if it fancies itself a man that is one half
wolf and one half dragon. You'll be made out of stone and as such you won't really be able
to eat or breath, but being stone you won't really need to either will you? Rocks can roll
down a hill or fly went spat out of a volcano and all that, so you'll be able to move about
and fly too.
Rocks remain at their post without fail, and never retreat from the enemy, and so being
made of rock you'll be loyal to the pack and Master and never grow bored or tired with
standing still all day and all night without so much as blinking.
Also. No one besides us wolves and who us wolves have played this game with shall
remember who you were. It will be as if a Snark that was a Boojum had found you. Double
goes for any records of you since we have not played the game with your records and the
records of you would not be able to play the game anyway."
Jensen, Marcy, and Kaylee all blinked at this one.
"Read the poem." Jenny said proudly at having known what it meant.
"I have..." The poor man was barely able to croak out hearing of... the murder of his
memory.
"You do not count." Alice said simply. "This all won't happen for about five minutes and
won't happen for precisely four minute and forty four seconds. You really should use that
time to wish your parents fair well and friend if you have the time. But you really shouldn't
mention they won't remember you soon, nor should you mention games or wolves. That
could cause trouble for the pack, and this is the absolutely last thing you want to do really
so you really should give a very good reason for them not coming to the estate to look for
you. When all is said and done, you will have no name nor identity beyond your purpose
and function."
Jensen had no idea of the last part would work or not of the man's records vanishing and
thus the need for the clause there too. But made a point to memorize the phone number
he called to ask later about the son the parents had working at the Smith estate. Their
answer would decide a lot.
"I'm surprised you didn't have Alice include him becoming a lady." Kaylee said eyeing the
doomed man and the glass wolf child.
"I wanted our gargoyles to all be female but Bart figured that a male one for starters would
add some contrast." Jensen said.
"Actually," Jenny corrected, "He'd be a Grotesque, gargoyles are statues that poor water
out of their mouthes."
Marcy gasped, "You mean the disney cartoon -lied?-"
Jenny turned to Marcy and solemnly nodded. Marcy whimpered and put her face in her big
sister's shoulder as Jenny hugged her.
The man meanwhile felt the thoughts overwhelm him, and hammer into his brain. Like
needing to breath, he -needed- to call his parents and friends and tell them good-bye
and that they'd never find him if they looked at the estate. He didn't really understand -
why- he had to do so only that he had to like he needed to blink his eyes!
The man went to a nearby telephone set aside for staff use and pick up the receiver and
dialed the number of his parents' home. He waited fifteen seconds before it picked up.
Sadly, in the short time he had, and not being a man of that grand an imagination on so
short a term, he did the only thing he could think of to fulfill his NEED and duty to do as
the game had directed him: and said the most horrid and hateful words he possibly could
think of into the receiver.
Kaylee in a blur was away from the door and covered her daughters' ears while Alice
covered her own ears.
After thirty seconds of this, he hung up, soft crying being heard on the other end. He
called his best friend and girl friend in very quick succession and briefly explained he had
a conflict with his parents and needed to move away and find himself and before they
could offer more than the most brief of protest he hung up.
The need gone now, he felt horrid for having done so.
He didn't have to feel horrid long as he hugged himself as his muscle mass suddenly
doubled, then doubled again, his clothes bulging as he grew some inches in height to
book. Finally his muscle mass doubled more one more time and his clothes exploded off
him effectively, his bones increasing in size and strength to keep up. Black fur flooded
across his entire body as his hands turned into five clawed killing tools with black scales
on the front as three clawed black scaled talons grew as his toes fused together and
relocated. Then a tail looking like a kimono dragon erupted from his spine and muscular
batwings burst from his shoulders. He felt a third lung grow inside his chest. His manhood
vanished behind protective reptile scales between his legs. His face pushed into a long
muzzle filled with fangs and his canines became like the front jaws of a saber-tooth tiger.
His ears moved to the top of his head becoming triangular and his eyes became yellow
gems almost in their gleam without visible centers. And then in one blink of an eye, he
stopped breathing and his body was stone the same color as the walls and other outside
structures on the estate.
The stone beast looked this way and that, it's eyes centered on Jensen and bowed it's head
so lowly that it touched the floor.
"So properly horrid a creature it does be." Alice commented.
Jensen ordered, "Go outside and stand in front of the front door where the stone dividing
wall is, I always felt it needed a statue. Stay perfectly still until order otherwise. If anyone
tries to flee the estate or cause harm to the pack, break their arms and legs. You will use
your turn only when there is no other option for the pack or ordered otherwise."
Then beast did not speak but merely nodded again and exited the house the way it came
in barely being able to squeeze through the door and almost cracking the frame in the
process.
"Now that that's settled, let's introduce Alice to everyone before the staff proper shows
up." Kaylee said.
++++++++++++++
The study was not the business office, so the two wolf boys did not get in the way of the
shadows as they went about their task of preparing to be Jenny and Bart's unwitting
proxies in the outside world.
Bart had Kevin write down all his personal information from when he was Karen and Marcy
was Mark. This was so Bart could have the banks have Karen and Mark legally exist long
enough to sublimely move their holdings to some relatively anonymous accounts (totally
private bank accounts weren't allowed to exist sadly), it was too ugly a waste in Bart's
opinion to let all the Perkins hard work go up in smoke to be assimilated by their bank.
Still, Bart knew to be more than careful: true this wasn't identity theft since Kevin and
Marcy were legally giving their holdings, but Bart didn't want it to slip that the Perkins
were now Bart and Jenny's little brother and little sister and had switched genders.
Explaining that to the taxmen would be simply more trouble than it was worth.
The moment the pups heard the door to the study being opened, Bart put the papers in
the desk in desk front of him and began to read Moby-Dick (which he had been meaning
to read for twenty years anyway). Bart knew he had been technically reading, but didn't
want to gamble Martha would see it the same way.
Kevin meanwhile had found a copy of Adventures of Alice In Wonderland, and still
wrapping his head around the preface (after he realized the study had no Captain America
comics).
Martha did indeed come in, spotted them and went behind Bart and whispered in both his
ears at the same time, "Next time, time how long you'd have gotten by the time I got
here."
Bart's heart skipped a beat at Martha's words. He expected a swift whack on the tail but
Martha left him only with a cold sweat on his noise and his ego ever so slightly taken down
a peg.
Martha then took Kevin and put him in her lap and began to explain the nineteenth
century phrases and terms he didn't know (and wouldn't have known as an adult anyway),
one left hand on the chair arm. One right hand around Kevin's, and her other two arms
holding the book with Kevin, one head looking down at him, while the other head kept a
watchful eye on Bart. Her former employer now her Alpha female's pup and Martha's
charge.
++++++++++
Darla and Fran sat on the chairs sideways assuming mirroring lady like poses without
giving it a first thought. Thinking the same thing,
'I hope we don't get an overload of Dares, then again, maybe it's an overload of
Transforms we'd need to worry about. After all, we can just use the 'dare you to dare me
to ask you transform or dare and chose transform' clause to transform those people.' The
twins thought. 'We can work out the ratio of new pack members and others that way a lot
easier.'
That was when they saw the stone wolf/dragon beast thing climb in top of the decorative
short wall ahead of the front doors, the thing the same color as the stone it was sitting
on. If the twins had not seen it move, they'd have thought it just a statue.
Darla and Fran looked at each other and echoed at each other, "I really hope Master leaves
room for some new regular pack members with all the customized ones he's making."
"HEY~!!!"
Both twins turned their heads at the same time to see Jenny having hopped up the stairs,
the black furred wolf pup looking excited.
Jenny waved. "There's somebody the Master wants us to all to meet!"