The curse was disgusted. Instead of feeling the hubris sense of superiority and sadistic
dominance Jensen had at first at his 'children' and his pack of she-wolves; he was feeling
the weight of the mantle of leadership, and openly and sincerely CARED about his new
family the way any decent patriarch would. At least it could sate itself on the flavor of
Jensen dark desire to show Madam Serenity just what the 'Big' and 'Bad' in Big Bad Wolf
really meant.
The curse could eat up the wonderful moment of misery and delightful loss as the wolves
were robbed from their families and their families were robbed of the memories of their
loved ones... but the wolves were all so damn HAPPY and tolerant with each other!
Happiness had the same flavor as battery acid to the curse.
Jack and Marcine were now but intelligent and sapient animals and steadily become
detached to ideas like 'good and evil', like the overwhelming majority of animals were. So it
could not even drink in them being depraved in their impartial sex with simply beasts
because they were but simple beasts themselves now! They were giving the dumb animals
some value to themselves by giving them all -names!-
Kaylee like Jensen was becoming increasingly sour to the palate of the curse, she still had
some sweet sugary sadism at the former clink using them as her personal chair, but this
was mixed in with the foul tasting gunk of her realization now that she truly did love her
pups and would die for them rather than see them harmed.
The shadows were totally tasteless, they simply did as Bart and Jenny would ask of them if
they would have asked. And the gargoyles, while they had some delicious savagery in
them, and the pain the victims had suffered was tasty, their absolute and pure desire to
protect with no profit to themselves left a disgusting taste at it's core.
Mr. P... while he now had some meaty savagery in him that wasn't there before, and the
death of the cat Queen had giving it a FEAST of suffering and self-loathing in Trevor, Mr.
P too had that terrible smelling matter of selfless desire to protect those who under his
charge could not protect themselves.
And Martha... ugh, she certainly smelled appetizing, and that lovely first course meal of
her misery and pain at her transformation encouraged this idea, but the sweet smell of as
being treated as inferior by the rest of the pack was off set again by the pack she had for
the pack's pups and they had for her.
The triplets, there was the honey coating of the loss of a good deal of their individuality,
but it just hid the rotten taste of total sisterhood and total love for each other and the
three glass pups that left the curse practically gagging.
Those wretch, happy, cheerful, innocent, pure, disgusting glass brats! And Alice, the curse
was not used to experiencing emotion in any form towards it's victims beyond what a
snake feels towards a mouse before it enters the snake's belly, but oh oh oh! How the
curse now -hated- her! She using the very power it had given her and could not be taken
back, now could place the curse itself in a verbal straight jacket! Yes. The curse hated her
utterly!
If it was a dijinn, it would have used the next use of the game in a completely absurd and
mindlessly illogical way to deal with her, but there was no way on Earth, in Hades or the
Heavens that even possible! For that would be a violation of the very foundations of it's
nature that would cause it to self-destruct if violated: while the witches had released the
curse into the world to for revenge, they left behind irrefutable safety measures want it
getting any schemes or ambitions of it's own that would make it deviate from -how- it
was to spread misery (what was revenge without a person touch?).
No, the power was a PART of Alice now, as much as her ability to slip into the mirrorverse
and convert non-wolves pack agents to her own kind. But now Jensen's attention had
been brought about by Caroline's mutation, and now Alice would oversee all uses of the
game by the pack... Yes. The curse hated Alice fully and completely.
And the curse was silent, for it could do nothing beyond it's function, it could now think
and feel in a crude manner, but it was still a prisoner of it's very nature (like anything in
existence) and could nothing. And the worst part was, this only applied to the parts of
itself that were with the pack and it's servants, the rest of itself in Glendale still simply
was.
The best way to think of this was that each time the game was used, the game would
transfer to a new victim, and when the game was used on multiple victims, like an amoeba
the curse split into identical clones with recent experiences of the original. Each 'clone'
was away of the existence of other parts of itself, and all indeed did feel it when two parts
of itself were spontaneous were destroyed, but they could not directly speak to each other
though 'feelings' got through, like in the Glendale art gallery, one particular statue gave a
constant stream of tasty loneliness. Thus while the rest of the curse was aware of a large
part of itself being 'ann-gree' at something, it could not tell what.
++++++++++
Mr. P stared mindlessly at the TV during the virtual tennis tournament, it was all just
glorified game tokens to him. The monition sensitive controllers were a nice touch, but Mr.
P as patrick always saw such games as glorified Ping-Pong.
"One regretful thing about the wii-characters, we can't make them look like wolves."
Kaylee said and she didn't care to look at the character she had fashioned as Kyle to look
like himself.
"Actually mommy, we have a present for you." Marcy said happily and dramatically.
They went to the wii's character creation channel and showed Kaylee the gift from her
children to her.
Marcy and Kevin had surprisingly, after playing with the options for an hour, would
actually manage to get a fairly convincing wolf face on the cute little human wii-character.
"Do you like it mommy?" Kevin asked.
"Like it? I love it!" Kaylee cheered, "I absolutely love it!"
Nintendo's proof of quality held true when Kaylee used it to do a virtual dance-step game,
the motion sensitive board holding under her weight. The children then spent the next few
hours tweaking and editing more virtual characters in the vague iconic images of
themselves and the rest of the pack. Kaylee provided tips where she could as her children
stole the show, and her enjoying every minute of it!
As she danced, an idle thought crossed her mind, 'If they are my pups through and
through, does that mean my body is now the age it would have to be so they could have
been birthed by me nine years ago?' Bart and Lisa were nine, and Kevin and Marcy were
seven. 'If that's the case, I'm sorry I didn't get to be pregnant with them, feel the pain of
giving birth to them, and the trials of having them grow up to this point.' The ideas of
losing a few years of her life meant absolutely nothing to her. Kaylee realized if there was
a single thing she regreted about this new life, it was that. But she had them now, and she
felt sunlight on her soul whenever she thought of that.
She realized her children were clapping. She looked at the screen realizing the virtual
dance routine had ended.
Kaylee started... for the first time since getting the game... ever... she had gotten a one
hundred percent.
"I know where I got my gift from." The only black furred pup Jenny said proudly.
"Congratulations Alpha Female!"
The reddish brown wolf woman Kaylee started and turned around to see the plain green
Beatrice. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"I am sorry Alpha Female! You were doing so well that I couldn't bring myself to intervene.
I have a message from Master to everyone. Ahem. You are only to use a turn when you
have Master's permission, and you've gone over the wording with Alice. The only time you
can use the game otherwise would be if you have a gun to your head or it would be the
only way to save lives of Pack members. This order remains standing until otherwise."
"I see." Kaylee said, though wondering why Master felt this relatively minor change in
policy. Things had been changing so hard, so fast that Kaylee had completely lost track of
how many days it had been since she had called Jennifer as Kyle and had set off the chain
of events that had been their destinies.
Jensen, herself, the twins, and her pups had all been transformed on the same day. Then
on the following they had transformed Martha, the shadows, the deer, Alice, and the
twenty plus one wolf pack members. Then was it the next day that the clink were
transformed? Then Mr. P. And yesterday Julie had finally been added to their family along
with Abbey and Samantha. Had there been a day where they had all just relaxed without
transforming someone yet? Kaylee wasn't sure anything, everything had become such a
blur, and their pack had gotten so large, so so large. And she knew it was only destine to
get larger.
"Also Alpha Female." Beatrice said, "I think lunch is about to be served."
"Thank you Green."
"Beatrice Alpha Female."
"Beatrice, right."
Kaylee then looked at her offspring and clapped her hands together, "Okay kids! Food
break!"
++++++++
With Alice taking one hand, and Abbey and Samantha taking two more, (and Martha of
course carrying their dresses from New York under one arm) the girls had stepped 'one,
two, three' and were back in Smith Manor.
Samantha still wearing the golden kimono looked at her sister and exclaimed.
"Abbey you didn't!" Samantha exclaimed.
'What? I think it looks cute!" Abbey said now wearing the child sized version of the fuku
they had seen hanging on the store wall. And on her, it did look rather pretty. Having
been out of view of the mirrors, it side stepped a rule of reality, in this case it looked
almost like 3D ink and paint, it looked nice on Abbey all the same somehow, though it
still needed alterations for her tail.
Martha had to admit, she had been surprised at the composition of the blond pups' world.
She had expected some void full of floating mirror, or a faux winter wonderland where
everything was made out of glass. The only real difference Martha really spotted at first
was how there were no people or animals outside of the view of the mirrors in the real
world. Martha wondered how this applied to moving machines like train cars and 'naturally'
moving objects like rivers.
Then again it seemed to be four am in the twenty four hour opened store, so if the
mirrored doubles of the sun and moon were moving, why not others? Martha did notice
how nothing felt really hot or cold, everything seemed to be the same even temperature
everywhere. But the mirror doubles of the cloth she felt were decidedly cloth, as was the
maid uniform that had popped into being when the girls had brought her in. Though Alice
warned Martha not to eat or drink anything while in the mirror universe least she end up
with glass in her stomach when she came out.
'But what about the air I'm breathing? Wouldn't glass in the lungs be even worse?!' Martha
thought through her brain wired to her two heads, 'AM I really breathing air or is it just the
natural instinct?'
Martha wondered if this was how the Alice in Lewis Carol's original book felt about the
fantastically illogical peoples and things in the underground.
Alice in contrast to the pretty golden kimono Samantha was wearing with her hair down:
Alice had her hair done up in a pair of chopsticks and was wearing a kimono showing off
wolves depicted within the four seasons in a flowing style. This held a particular nostalgic
feelings for Martha when Martha remembered wolves were extinct in Japan.
"Hey," Abbey asked flaying with the scarf that came with the fuku, "Do you think we'll still
have all our new dresses if we're wearing them when we stepped out of the mirror and
then stepped back in?"
Alice, always the brave one as well as the curious one, said simply, "Only one way to find
out." Alice calmly stepped out of the dinning room mirror, turning into bald naked glass
as she silently stepped down. Alice then stepped right back in. She was in her normal
attire, but in her arms suddenly was the kimono she had been wearing along with the
chop sticks.
"That settles that." Samantha said as the pups then exited the mirror with their nanny.
++++++++++
Zack had very carefully text messaged his parents where 'she' was so they would come
straight to the manor. Their car was destine to be sliced up as the Perkins had been. This
would keep things clean. On the plus side, given their previous behavior, Zackery's
parents were more than likely to come straight here. So that was one less thing to worry
about.
And then Beatrice had begun to run through with a new message about it being lunch
time. With Roger out of the game, and Zack and Lawrence having the world fairly divided
between them, the males got up and headed for the dinning area, Pearl and June hanging
on Zackery's arms.
Sarah and Ulysses came in from the backyard where they had been playing -tag-! At
Sarah's insistence. She knew Ulysses wasn't an eight year old, but she felt it was better to
let go of some things sometimes.
Chester had been doing what he had been doing mostly since arriving at the estate when
not in the company of the girls, hiding in Mr. P's shadow.
Anne managed to 'sneak' back into the mansion with none of the she wolves paying her
mind or thinking what she had done was somehow in violation of anything Master had told
them. She also didn't she why she needed to tell anyone about Serena, after all, it had
been just a friendly Sunday chat with a fellow church goer, it wasn't like she had blabbed
to the enemy or anything.
Nicole entered the dinning room riding on Nick's back, enjoying him giving her a piggy
back ride her trademark ribbon streaming behind her. Alexandra calmly and dignified
walking behind her.
Sandi did her beset not to look anyone in the eye, Terri just hugged her.
Jasmine this time was the one elected to drag out their feeding. Technically speaking,
having the same meat diet at each meal almost should have been becoming monotone by
now, but somehow the wolves just didn't care.
Kaylee of course was sitting next to Jensen, with the pups behind them each of the glass
wolves in the laps of their respective mother, each mother with the same smile and
twinkle in their eye.
Jensen stood up, giving all the she wolves a good view of his wolf hood which all the she
wolves very much enjoyed.
"Hey, where's Caroline?" Megan asked sitting next (if somewhat distant) to her brother.
Ashley looked at her, "You can pick her out missing out of our entire pack?"
"She is our fore-wolf."
"Ah, right." Ashley nodded.
"My family and my pack." Jensen said stopping all discussions at once. "Caroline as I'm
sure some of you saw have brought the day workers who have upgraded the estate's gate
into our pack as a reward for their services. And you shall be introduced to your new pack
mates quickly. But first, I wish to show you Caroline, or as she wishes s to now call her,
Cobalt."
The cobalt colored she wolf stepped out of where she had been waiting in the kitchen area
for all of the pack to see her. There were a number of gasps, some just blinked. Nick
actually commented 'Cool!' (A sentiment shared by Kevin and Bart.)
"Curiouser, and curiouser." Alice said to herself. "Though I fear things may become too
curious for us."
"As you see, a unknown choice of words in Caroline's Transform resulted in Caroline's
mutation into Cobalt. This is why Alice shall now oversee the wording of all T.O.Ds save in
life and death situations."
All the wolves nodded, "Caroline, or Cobalt as she wishes now to be called, now resembled
the rest of your thirteen new pack members. This now puts our numbers at fifty-one.
Enough to insure our short term survival. However due to a glitch in Zackery's bringing in
of the pack, his parent too must by necessary be brought into the pack as well this
evening. I do this with great hesitation, for Zackery's glitch and Caroline's alterations
prove the game is infallible in it's interpretations of our Transforms and by logic our Dares
as well. Thus why Alice must look over everything, for she understands language better
than any of us and thus why she was the one to phrase the Transform that insured we
would never have our wolf hood stolen from us."
There were some cheered at Alice for them, the glass wolf would have blushed if she
could.
"All of you have heard by now our retreat in case living in Glendale becomes impossible
for us. Caroline and the new additions to our pack shall be acting as it's care takers, with
help with Alice and her cousins/half-sisters they will be able to work on preparing and
maintaining the retreat without putting any new pressure on the estate. Only after the
shadows establish themselves in the world of business within and around Glendale, and
the detective Madam Serenity is dealt with, can we ever hope to move onto creating
enough of our species for us to survive long term opposed to short term. And at that
time, we will expand beyond the manor. But that day is not today, tomorrow, the day
after, next week, next month, or next year.
"Only once the six shadows have legally and economically become an unquestioned factor
of Glendale's life, can we hope to be legally and economically shielded from any
unforeseen happenstance that might occur. Which is why tomorrow the six shadows will
be sent out into Glendale with the Smith's business and financial resources in their arsenal
to begin their purpose in full scale. And during the time that the shadows are establishing
themselves, we will be adding to the pack's numbers the old fashioned way."
Everyone blushed, giggled, laughed, clapped or sniggered at this.
"Now let me introduce the gem wolves who shall be the care takers of our safety measure
to insure the pack shall have a future long after the rest of us are gone."
So one by one the gem colored wolves entered. It took a moment for them to realize
Jasper was male, but unlike Roger or Lawrence, Jasper just seemed to grin at this. It also
took a moment for the pack to realize Amber was a female and no a girlie male like Jasper
given how maternal material had been handed out among the pack, but she stuck out her
flat chest with pride.
Lazuli turned some heads. With Coral and Touramline, Maxine suddenly didn't feel so
lonely anymore. Emerald, Ruby, Topaz, Goldie, Carnelian, and Garnet all made their
entrances, all with the same solid color eyes as Caroline now had.
Martha having six eyes of the same motif herself, could appreciate these new women.
Opal was more quickly identified as male than Jasper (both having the same long full hair
as the she wolves and that cute daisy in their hair) but again he didn't seem to mind in the
least.
And of course there was Amethyst. How her back muscles were able to support the
weights on her chest was super human in of itself. When she turned one way she actually
gently smacked Garnet with them (Garnet being the shortest of the lot). Yet she seemed to
smile and beam even more than the rest, seeming totally oblivious to all the males staring
at her glorified milk factories acting as if in a pleasant day dream. Some began to wonder
what had been in that Transform Caroline had used on HER.
When thought about, the size of the size wolves' maternal materials as a whole wasn't all
that illogical. They were all six feet tall at the least, and the triplets and Kaylee were all
seven feet tall. Quite taller than the average human and human female in particular. And
given the logical appetite of what those things would be eventually feeding, it could
almost be considered justified.
"Alice."
"Yes Father?" Alice curtsied.
"I want you to examine how Zackery will speak the Transform to his parents, close any
loopholes. After that, you are to take Cobalt and the rest of the gem wolves to the retreat
at where you were told before, the reflective water's surface should provide you with an
entrance and exit, feel free to bring along a mundane mirror with you. The gem wolves will
know what to do when they arrive. You will leave them there to do as they will until they
are to return to the manor which will be done by you or one of your cousins. You or one of
them will be needed in this task perpetually from on as they migrate from the estate to
the island as need be."
Alice curtsied one more time, "As you wish father."
Beatrice asked of Cobalt, "So did it hurt at all?"
"No, I didn't even notice it had happened until I looked in a window. I was quite freaked
out let me tell you, but now I completely fit in with the rest, we're a complete team of
fourteen to create and safeguard our home away from home."
"That nice." Beatrice replied calmly.
++++++++++
"Hello brother, I'm surprised to see you out and about..." Said a black cat looking a little
smaller than Judas. "You know what everyone thinks of you."
"Yes I know. But this is more important than that." Judas replied speaking to the other cat
on a room top. Unlike Judas, this cat didn't have a collar.
"It had better be if it's going to convince big brother. He still refuses to accept you're living
with a human in the house of a human god and have abandoned Bast."
Judas chose not to bring up his reasons again for converting to Christianity. "Little brother.
A new breed of dog has appeared in Glendale. They walk on two legs and are larger than
humans and are treated more or less as equals by humans."
"You have GOT to be joking! Or you're now as crazy as everyone else thinks you are."
"I am neither little brother. And there's more, they seriously injured a tom and killed a
queen."
"... isn't this taking this sort of thing a little bit far, if big brother-"
"It is NOT a sick joke little brother! I swear it! These wild dogs are very real. They were
created by The Game..."
".... ... " The small black cat stared and back away a bit, "No."
"Yes."
"... Big brother please..."
"There are now over thirty of these dogs now little brother. Possibly more. But the tom
and his human have a possibly solution in mind, but they need something very important
first."
"Big brother no! Please no!"
"Yes little brother. We need to find a human in Glendale not loyal to these two legged wild
dogs that currently has a turn of The Game."
".... Most cats besides our line don't know about the game... do you really want to tell
them this?"
"They'll believe you and big brother. And don't forget I still have friends AND family.
They'll be asking around too one way or the other, so it's a moot point."
"Okay big brother, okay, I will, I'll begin to spread the word. For the sake of Bast's perfect
creations I will. But you better speak with your secret friends and get home before Bigger
Big Brother tries to tear off your parts again."
"I'm sure he's not going to try that again after last time."
".... on that big brother we agree on."
The two black cat parted ways. Lewis making sure his scent wasn't followed visited a slew
of cats brother named and stray to begin listening around for a human who had a turn of
the game who could be used in the neutralization of the giant two legged wild dogs.
Mary looked up at the roof and said to herself, "I wonder what is they talk about. Likely
just mice and fish..."
++++++++++++++
"So," Alice said looking over the piece of paper, "So you wish to have their genders
switched, the boy to have pale pink fur, the girl to have white fur with red highlights. For
them to be both eight years old. And to keep their adult IQ Scores so they'll be more
useful to the pack?"
"Yes, and the rest."
"I don't think we can safely erase the memory of their existences from history and
everyone's minds not of the pack. Or people will start looking for a orphan Zylphia or the
game might accidently erase of memories of you or you might lose your own memories
since you logically wouldn't be able to exist without parents. That will most decidedly have
to be left out."
"Ah I see. And the last part."
"I must admit I am surprised, but I am also intrigued."
"I figured it's a logical step, given that the game is beginning to prove rather unruly lately.
They'll keep us from needing to use it for the most mundane of things."
"Any human either of them touch who is not subservient and loyal to the pack unlike the
shadows, and whom either of them call a 'Big Bad Wolf' will become such with their gender
altering to sustain our gender ratio with memories of their human life erased from
everyone else, and the new wolves themselves loyal to the pack without question and
loving utterly and unconditionally the Master, my father? With the normal contact memory
revival sub-clause?"
"I'm also considering them able to alter humans into pups with different phrasing but I'm
worried it might trip them up if they get scared and panic."
"I see... there is one important thing you forgot to add?"
"What?"
"The clause I wrote for the pack that will make their wolf selves impossible to be undone."
"Oh... yeah... right..."
"Though I will admit the idea of wolves who can create new wolves for us without the limit
Martha has of it being on the full moon is practical. And keep us from having to use the
game is very practical. And since it is on a trigger that means accidents can be avoided."
"Master did say I had freedom to transform them however I pleased. I am not violating his
will."
"Yes... he did..."Alice said thinking it over. "Very well, let me write out the Transform, if it
meet with your approval I shall be on my way with the new gemstone colored wolves."
"Thank you Alice."
"Welcome Mister Zackery..."