"It's so bright ..." Armisael said stepping out of the art gallery shading her eyes. She
looked around, "Where are all the horses?"
"Sister." Mal'akh said curious, "How long were -you- part of the gallery?"
Armisael looked unsure, "I'm not sure... it was so long ago... truth to be told, like I think
all of us who were art for so long we came to EMBRACE our fate, it was better than going
mad or being miserable after all...I remember the curator when he was a little boy, and his
father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and... they all blur together after
that... I think the newest president after we succeeded from England and Fat George was a
Mr. James Monroe."
The lionesses all looked at each other. They'd have a lot to teach their pride sister.
"A remember a another cop using the curse on me... he said I didn't deserve being on the
same force as him because I was a Jew."
And something very horrid and very good they'd have to break to her. What, with the
whole mass murder of her people by the Nazis and later the return of the holy land to the
Jewish people...
"This curse has been on Glendale for three hundred and ten years..." Fox realized. "Of
course not everyone in the gallery is going to be from our lifetime..."
The midnight lioness Elise said folding her arms thinking pragmatically, "So there's
nineteen of us now, seventeen if you count that Mary can't be risked and Penny is in no
shape to fight... and there's now... the curator said twelve other statues were missing, add
from fifty two we get sixty four of them not counting the statue and who knows what
else? And if we don't hit them soon and fast we'll lose everyone they've altered forever.
And the only way we could ever beat them with numbers is by dragging our families into
this or by becoming no better than Jensen. Great. Just great." The midnight lioness did not
sound happy at all. "And the SICK PART is that they could have been our sisters and
pridemates and helped END this insanity rather than extend it. Beautiful isn't it?"
"You know... thinking about it." Bernie said, "We don't really need to fight all the wolves..."
Everyone looked at her. The slightly more rounded of the lionesses' continued stroking her
muzzle,
"If they really are acting the way they're acting because the curse has removed the ability
for them to see anyone who isn't a wolf as a person... Then if we can get to Jensen, undo
HIS brainwashing... and the rest will more or less get in line when he tells them to line up
for de-sociopatherization."
"That," Elise raised a finger, "Is assuming Jensen will DISLIKE having turn people into
brainwashed fanatics who are blindly loyal to him."
Everyone nodded at each other.
Bernie said, "It's still our best option, find the black midnight furred big bad wolf, snap
him back to reality with the game, and the rest should fall into place."
"Won't their defenses be mostly around Jensen though? It might be more trouble than we'd
be getting curing the rest first." Gary said.
"No." Felicity said simply. It amazed her how no one gave her mind, nor any of her pride
mates mind. It was like it was completely natural for them to be what they were. "What
their defenses will be most around, will be the pups."
++++++
"Master." Megan asked jumping out of a window and landing right in front of her Master
having listened in, then saw Yomato, "Hello, who are you?"
The red and white flag wolf replied, "I am Yomato, Master-Sama's loyal samurai."
Jensen inserted calmly, "He and all the other new wolves will be introduced to the pack
after our relocation to the island is complete. Is there something you wished Megan?"
Jensen asked calmly, Kaylee having failed to mention Megan's hair-brained scheme.
"Master, it has occurred to me, it might not mean much, but if the familiar who invaded
our home was Trevor, isn't the best way to see if he really did survive and gave away our
home's location is to use your power to find out where he is?"
Jensen started, he hadn't considered that. But all the same it made sense. "Very well."
Jensen thought for a moment, then replied, "He's at the police station. I doubt I'd be able
to tell where he is if he was dead, so that settles that I suppose."
"I'm glade I was able to help Master." With that, with no concern for the outer appearance
of the manor, and with no objection or protest from anyone (the cleaning staff now neither
feeling encouraged nor given encouragement to do their old tasks) Megan climbed up the
front of the house and back into the window she came out of leaving claw marks on the
front of the manor.
"Well?" Margot asked.
"Police station, mangy cat is at the police station, the same place as Ashley."
"I really think I should go help my sisters..." Abbey suggested meekly.
"Don't worry Abbey," Megan said kindly rubbing the living glass' head. "We're just going to
punish that mean old cat who took my brother's eye, and rescue Ashley so she can be with
us on the island before they can move her to some place we can't rescue her from... "
"From the middle of a police station with lions."
"We'll be in and out in three minutes. The lions had the element of surprise on my brother
and the rest... this time, we're the one with the surprise."
+++++++
Mary didn't know why she was in here, because maybe she wanted to see one up close?
Maybe she was curious as a cat will be? She didn't know. Trevor in her arms, she sat
across from Ashley looking at the blue and dark blue she wolf.
"Do you hate me?" Mary was surprised when Ashley spoke first.
"Hate you?"
"I broke into your home, wanted to mutate and brainwash you, and was willing to murder
you to accomplish my objective. That deserves hating."
Mary thought, Trevor staying quite. "No... I don't... you weren't really you were you? It was
all the curse wasn't it?"
"Whose to say this isn't all the curse now? You, me, him. Whose to say anything we say or
do isn't just the curse itself talking? Whose to say we even remotely have any self left at all
that isn't just the curse's own will."
"... I know I'm acting different... Paul says the curse is what made me want to stay this way,
and for my parents to be this way forever more but... if I'm happy, and you're happy, is it
really evil?"
"Happiness can be a veil." Ashley said not sure why she was trying to explain this to an
eight year old.
"... Maybe but... if... we, the pride, mom, dad, and all of my new family can do some good
for Glendale... then, maybe that's the best way to spite the curse? If it feeds off misery and
we make people happy, then we're doing the exact opposite of what the curse wants right?
"
Ashley looked up, "I... didn't think of it that way. ... Thank you... but... is the love I feel for
Jensen real? Is the love I feel for any of my pack mates real?"
Ashley started and so did Mary when Trevor spoke next, sharing Mary's grasp with Lance,
"If it isn't, then take it and make it real. Decide what it is that love for them is. And what
separates it from robot devotion."
"HEY! WHAT IN THE-" They heard a voice of a man sounding surprised and armed, and
what could have been a bathroom door being swung open... and half the bones in a man's
body breaking as he hit a way hall.
Trevor, Mary, and Ashley all stood up.
"STAY THERE ABBEY!"
They heard a gruff woman's voice shout.
Then the armored green door that separated the cell block from the rest of the police
station was hit by an indentation, then another, and another, then finally, it fell foreword
with a Earth shaking thud.
A red-violet and pastel green pair of baled she wolves walking imposingly inward. Behind
them was the door to the men's bathroom off it's hinges, and an officer whose mouth and
nose were all blood as he lay in a heap against the hallway wall.
"MEGAN! MARGOT!" Ashley declared.
"We'll have you out in a second Ashley!" Margot promised.
"Give me the cat ... little girl..." Megan said simply and directly skipping introductions and
drama... Though Margot was surprised to see a LITTLE GIRL lioness, true she had heard
was Ulysses had said but still... "It's very hurt, it's time to put it to sleep."
Trevor showed no reaction to the death's intention.
"Go to Hell." Mary said simply and directly.
"WHY YOU LITTLE-"
Mary let go of Trevor and Lance, and in that space of time took hold of the pepper spray
Trevor had insisted taking in with them and sprayed it in Megan's face. Trevor dutifully
taking Lance with him retreated.
The wolf cried and snarled and instinctively reached for her face. Mary didn't retreat like a
proper cub would, like a child logically should, she attacked. She climbed on Megan like
she was a gremlin on an airplane leaving claw marks up her body and hissing and snarling
tore at Megan's muzzle.
"MEGAN!"
Ashley reached through the bar and grabbed her fellow she wolf and pulled Margot into
the bar leaving a ding and an indentation on the impossibly tough she-wolf.
"Ashley! What the hell are you doing?!"
"Something only someone who actually loves their packmates would do!" Ashley said back,
"The first step to making any dream come true is to wake up Margot."
"UGH! Ashley you don't know what you're saying!" Megan snapped and threw Mary off her
face leaving claw marks behind sending her to the flash hard and turned to deal with their
clearly re-brainwashed pack-mate.
However, Megan had forgotten something that could have been consider kindergarten
level logic and biology.
Mary was a cat. Cat landed on their feet.
Mary landed squarely on all fours and spring boarded and bite Megan right in the green
furry rear.
Megan let out a yelp and turned to see the annoying lion cun. "I'll rip your face off your
mangy cat!"
'NOT ONE MORE TIME!' Trevor swore and bite Megan in the ankle sending her off balance.
Ashley shouted, "Transform or Dare!"
Margot didn't believe what she just heard, "WHAT?"
Megan was busy fighting off the two pronged assault from two cats not half her size.
"I said Transform or Dare... fifty seconds or you get both!"
"Ashley you nut Transform, I can't be, we can't be changed now remember?"
"Margot, transform into a person, who can appreciate every we, our pack, you, and our
Master: have done, are doing, and will do, with perfect objectivity."
Margot's eyes went wide and the red-violet she wolf shuddered. Then her pupils dilated,
her mouth began slightly open, then she screamed. She held her head, her eyes were the
size of saucers.
"--GOD!" Margot gasped.
That was when the orangutan dropped from the ceiling hanging from one arm, then the
two legs and the extra pair of hands/feet did a pair of karate chops to the sides of
Megan's neck... the she wolf fell backwards like timber out cold.
'God forgive this act of violence I have done upon one of your children.' Paul thought.
"MARY! ARE YOU OKAY?!" Trevor begged.
"Yes... yes I am... I promise..."
"Good..." Trevor said look very relieved.
"FREEZE!"
Mary and Ashley both turned, "Don't worry, the green one's out cold, Ashley put the other
one back in her right mind."
+++++++
"We should be working." Ulysses said.
"We won't be able to see this view again for a long long time." Sarah said as the pair was
on the roof looking at the forest property behind the Smith estate. "We should drink it in
while we can."
"Your name is Ulysses-chan and Sarah-san yes?"
"Call me Sarah-chan it sounds cuter." Sarah replied knowing absolutely nothing about
Japanese language but wanting to keep up with the beat.
Standing on the roof top with near super natural grace, Amy stood looking at the pair,
"Your name, it is ULsses-chan yes?"
"Just Ulysses actually..."
"-Chan is merely a term of respect... we need to talk."