(AN: Sorry about the absurd lateness compared to my original clipped pace. Been under
stress lately. And I've been finding myself double guessing myself a lot lately too. And I've
been having attacks of indecision.)
"speaking of being careful." Mr. P spoke up, "I think Master you should be fixing the front
gate."
"It can't have kitten so I'd say it's fixed already." Jensen laughed.
"I'm serious Master." Mr. P said, "That gate needs to be seriously upgraded if you want the
pack and the pups to be safe! We can't have humans wandering in tralala anymore."
"That gate always worked before and it can work now." Jensen replied.
"That was before we were hiding, what, thirty wolves here?"
"Thirty six counting you." Jenny corrected.
"Thirty nine once we bring my family to be part of the pack." Fran said enjoying the image
of her family as part of the pack.
"The point is, we have a lot of wolves living on the grounds now, not to mention the deer
we're going to have breeding in our backyard. We really should have it upgraded so it
obscures more of the few inside..."
Jenny looked at Jensen who nodded, "I'll order the construction crew tomorrow."
Bart said, "The she wolves and males can likely get it done faster with sheer muscle
power."
"True but this'll require a professional touch," Jenny said, "If need be we can just dare the
contractor to head the operation then forget about it."
Jensen said, "If he choses transform then we'd have another she-wolf on our hands, as
lovely as that would be I'd rather have Fran's family be the only new additions we'll be
having."
"Yes Master." Jenny nodded. "I understand. We'll just have the grotesques, keep a silent
unmoving eye on them then in case someone realizes there -shouldn't- be wolf people
walking around."
Marcy and Kevin meanwhile just watched entertained as Alice balanced herself on Mr. P's
back as Darla and Martha did their hardest to cease Alice's antics.
"Also," Mr. P said not worrying in the least of the glass Alice dancing on his back,
"Something I've been meaning to bring up since you brought me into the pack yesterday. I
think there's something off about that one called Zackery."
"Someone off?" Hope asked curious.
"He seem relatively fine to me this morning considering." Isabelle said.
"You think there's something wrong with him?" Grace asked concerned.
"Just the way he's acting," Mr. P said, "He doesn't seem to act quite like the rest. He never
addresses you as 'Master' Master, and his attitude seems to have more to it than at first
glance."
Jensen laughed, "Well, Zylphia was my best friend."
"She was our friend too." Grace said, "We all looked out for each other. You could have
picked out anyone for your friends Master, but you picked us, you could have picked other
friends but you didn't Master, we were always grateful for that."
Kaylee said nothing, slightly annoyed at her 'chair' having opinions of their own. But then
thought of something, "It shouldn't be possible for them to be different. After all,
everyone in the pack was given the clause to be loyal to Master and the pack. Zack should
be no different from anyone."
"I theory yes." Mr P said. "But you can't deny what I just said. He -does- act differently
from any of the other males from what I've seen, AND he doesn't address Master as
'Master' ever."
"That is odd..." Jensen tried to think back to the exact wording of the Transform or Dare
that had been used on his former inner circle of friends. It was hard, there had been so
many, so many now that had been transformed into either part of the pack or servants of
the pack that it had become a salad of words to mentally track down the precise wording
of each.
"If I may be so bold Master." Fran said.
This actually distracted Darla for a moment since she had been focused on Alice she
hadn't noticed her twin come up with something. She accidently bumped into Martha and
both ended up falling on their tales. 'Ugh... the sooner Samantha and Abbey are pups and
we divide them among the three of us the better.'
Fran thought the same but continued, "It is perfectly possible that we overlooked
something when Alexandra spoke the Dare to your clink. We -had- by that point
converted the entire mansion's staff and your family into loyal members of the Big Bad wolf
pack. Following that, it's perfectly possible that the wording might have been sloppy in
hindsight. When a criminal begins to succeed on a spree of crimes, they tend to get over
confident, becoming more reckless and arrogant in their actions. That's normally how you
catch such criminals, by them being over confident once they've caught up a string of
wins."
Jensen didn't like being explain this in such a manner by one of his mates, but at the same
time he couldn't exactly deny the logic of it.
"So you're saying we -might- have missed something?"
"Yes Master." Fran and Darla both bowed, allow Alice to use Darla as a gymnastic bar and
leap over her as Martha did a ill fated jumping skid to try and match her, Marcy and Kevin
wondering how long this could go on. One of Martha's heads bumped into a wall the other
head then gently licking the right head's sore nose.
Kaylee said, "But if he wasn't effected, why wouldn't his parents have called the police? Or
why hasn't he called the police himself?"
"I can't say I didn't find the set up you had here enticing even before you had us play the
game Master." Hope said.
Grace then said, "I think Zylphia said her parents were going to be out of town for a while,
apparently her parents trust her to look after himself in that time."
"That doesn't prove that he ISN'T forgotten or that he ISN'T loyal to the pack or Master."
Kaylee pointed out.
"It merits an investigation though." Said the two former police officers.
"I'd say so." Mr. P said.
"And don't forget." Fran added, "Unlike the other males, well, until Roger and Lawrence got
their back I guess from Margot's upgrade, Zackery still has his turn he can use."
Jensen didn't like that combination one bit at all. The idea of someone within his pack that
wasn't bound to use the game only to further the pack didn't sit well with him at all.
"Grace, Hope, 'Belle, ten-hut."
"Yes Master." Kaylee's chair dispersed, causing the Alpha Female to nearly fall on her tail
in surprise.
The three she wolves with doubles of Kaylee's body stood at attention perfectly with their
arms at their sides.
"I want you to keep an eye on Zackery, if he does, or says anything suspicious, report it to
me, -at once!- Also, Hope, get Alexandra and see if she can remember the precise
wording of the Transform used."
"Yes Master." The three said together like well trained troopers.
"And while you're at it, brainstorm to see if any of you can remember the exact wording."
Kaylee said behind, only sorry he didn't have her stick and helmet.
The clink turned around at once and replied, "Yes Alpha Female!"
++++++++++
"Hey." Said one FBI Agent to another who had both had the bad luck of getting stuck with
double shifts that day, about a thousand miles from Glendale.
"Hey." Said his work buddy.
"You won't believe whose calling again."
"UFO nut who made it somehow through the screening or full of himself CIA agent?"
"Okay, vague question, remember the woman from day before yesterday?"
"Who wanted to know why we weren't doing more to rescue her daughter held by a drug
lord in Mexico?"
"No the other one."
"The one we had to explain to twice that the cost guard handled people lost at sea?"
"No no no, the OTHER other one."
"The old lady who-"
"Never mind. The woman married to the cop out in the boonies who thought we had hired
her husband to go to Iraq."
"Oh... that one... what about her?"
"She's calling us again..."
"Terrific." Groaned the second FBI agent, having to deal with the twelfth agitated person
who had never read one word on what the FBI actually did since this morning....
+++++++
Marcine said to the new buck, "Smell our scene Adam."
"Smell our scent Eve."
"I smell your scent... Marcine." Replied the buck, the concept of 'name' rather than just
scent swimming in his simplistic animal brain.
"I smell your scent... Jack."
"This is the scent of our herd, with this scent... we'll gather the herd... And your scent will
help gather it as well." Said Jack, "And we shall provide for the Big Bad Wolf Pack, as is our
honor."
"W-Wolves?" Eve now said in clear alarm.
"As is our honor, our duty, our purpose." Said Jack nuzzling Eve, his own mind now
having swam in and having dissolved into a sea that was the game as Marcine's had.
"Duty? Purpose?" Adam asked confused.
"Duty. What we must do. Purpose. What we exist to do."
"Purpose..." Eve repeated the concept.
"Duty..." Adam repeated.
++++++++++
When Beatrice came in for a later morning snack, what she hadn't expected to find was
Pearl with several empty glass bottles around her. Looking totally blasted.
"Pearl?" The plain green she wolf so the pearl wolf and fellow errand girl to Alpha Female,
"Are you okay?"
"Oh I'm just PEACHY! Really! Just peachy!" Pearl said smiling and with slightly dull eyes.
"Wanna sit down and have a drink."
"Uh Pearl... if this is about mating with Zack before finding out what kind of wolf he was... I
really really REALLY think this is REALLY overboard!"
"Oh don't be a party pooper! I'm just enjoying myself! Maybe if I'm lose enough the Master
will take ME next!"
"I don't think Master really likes that sort of thing."
"How do we know? What do we know about Master other than he used to be Jenny Smith
and that of course that he is Master? Come on, have a drink with me, it'll make for a
amusing sub scene while the stuff with the main plot gets under way."
"Huh?"
"I said would you like to share a drink Miss Buttersworth?"
"My last name wasn't Miss Buttersworth..."
"Of course not, the author never gave you one!" Pearl then spun on the chair a few times.
"You are completely blasted."
"And?"
"You're going to have the mother of all hang overs later."
"So?"
"That's going to NOT be pleasant!"
"Who cares?"
"I do!"
"Do you love me?"
"We I guess-"
"Wanna get married-?!"
"WHAT?! NO! I MEANT LIKE FAMILY! Like we all are now!" Beatrice took a few steps back
and put the table between herself and Pearl.
"You're now fun." Pearl pouted.
Beatrice thought, maybe she could have a few drink (and count how many just to be on
the safe side) if only to keep an eye on Pearl until the poison in Pearl system ran it's
course.
++++++++++
"So that's my plan for removing Lawrence from the equation." Said June hanging onto
Zackery's back, once again in the bathroom with the shower curtain meant just to keep
the steam from ruining the wooden floors without a door in the way. "We can do Roger too
if you'd like, and maybe Ulysses for good measure."
"There's no point to Ulysses. And with Roger's sister, I'd have to agree with what you said
Pearl said about it might damage cause and effect or the she wolves sense of plausible
denial."
"I love it when you speak like that, you sound just like Master." June whispered in one of
his ears.
"You're welcome."
"So you DO want me to go through with it?"
"....No."
"WHAT-?!"
"Keep your voice down!"
"Sorry Zackery dear... but... why?! Lawrence and Roger's upgrades means the she wolves
have no -need- to let what happened before slide!"
"I may have bent the rules more than once, but I don't cheat!"
"Pst. Typical male ego." June said simply.
"I'm serious, besides, what happens if something goes wrong? I could end up a busty
Asian fountain in the front yard. If this is found out." Jackery thought, Jensen at his core
was still Jennifer in theory... but her personality seemed enlarged, and made... well,
badder. Then again, she WAS the Big Bad Wolf now... what did Zackery expect?
"Okay dear." June said in a calm passive voice, in her heard balancing on weather or not to
go ahead for Zackery's sake with or without his approval.
++++++++++++
"I was sure he was going to be carried off the field on a stretcher... " Ulysses said, the
purple wolf watching the end of the film.
Sarah looked at him and smiled and rubbed his head fur, "Not every story based in the
'real world' needs to have an unhappy ending."
"Actually it's kinda based on a true story." Jasmine injected, the sea green wolf being the
big fan of the film present.
Sarah blinked and looked at her fellow she wolf, "Really? Which parts?"
"Uh... I forget."
Sarah chose not to press the matter in case it turned out to be a unhappy ending for
Ulysses.
+++++++++++++
"You want me to what?" Caroline asked sounding surprised at Nicole's request.
"I want you to petition Master to have me use one of the rooms or part of the back or front
yard to start training the she-wolves and Ulysses in self defense. My senshi said I was a
natural and prodigy."
"I'm sure you're NOT a licensed martial arts instructor."
"So what? You're not a licensed contractor... and I know enough to teach you and everyone
else the basics without dislocating your own arms."
The dark blue furred she wolf sigh, "Okay, I'll ask Master. ...." Caroline looked at the
various she wolves, the vast majority now gathered around stroking the new and improved
Roger and Lawrence. Maxine and Margot both trying to ride Lawrence's shoulders. "THis is
us now isn't it?"
"Eh?"
"This is us now. Our clothes, IDs, and others memories of us are all ashes or never were.
We've remade the house from the inside out to accommodate for our new sizes. And now
you're thinking of starting a karate club... this is us now. The Big Bad pack. We're in for
the long haul, a life time haul. This is our present and future."
Nicole said with absolute confidence she was known for. "You bet it is. Nothing is going to
change that now. I'm sure of it."