Three members of the Pack were now together with most of the Pride. The two largest
masses of Turns for the Game brought together for the first time in a long time. And of
course the turns held by the gallery statues who had been together for a long time, some
for centuries, were now with both the pack and pride. Like like a network cable for two
computer systems, the two masses of Turns for the Game connected, and in that moment,
the curse KNEW!
It was aware! It felt! It knew! All across the board it KNEW! All together. Serenity. Gill.
Trevor. The Pack. The Pride. The gargoyles. The deer. The Shadows. All together. The
number was now at over a hundred of course victims or those who held a turn!! At this
number. It was fully aware of itself. It fully knew itself. Golgatha, Gomorrah, and Gaal. The
three witches of anarchy and havoc who had been executed and spat their curse on
Glendale with their dying breaths. Was the curse itself the combined spirits of Golgatha,
Gomorrah, and Gaal? Or did Golgatha, Gomorrah, and Gaal only transfer their knowledge
and intent into the curse? Even the curse didn't know, it didn't care.
And with becoming aware, it felt it, emotion, full and complete, and it knew -fear-! It was
massive enough to feel the senses the ideas of it's victims now. And now it felt what
Serenity was intending with the turn that stayed with her unable to use it: and it knew, that
she now had the instrument and the intent, to destroy it utterly and completely! After the
turns within the pack and pride were exterminated, she would move onto putting he
dreadful concoction in the city's drinking water! And have the priests bless the whole town
to completely and utterly eradicate it!
Normally these schemes to end the curse once and for all amused it, because they would
fail! Like when the police the week of the Stock Market Crash had everyone with a turn use
the game outside of Glendale where it was worthless. Oooh how the game had made sure
the entire world suffered for that one, for DARING to hope.
But... BUT THIS... THIS WOULD WORK! It would be the utter and complete destruction of
the curse!
It couldn't be allowed to happen! It must not happen! The curse felt like an armless legless
man forced to sit watching the executioner come with the axe.
While it had lost the annoying taste of peaceful acceptance and serenity that the statues
slowly gained as their panic and despair turned sour and became serene meditation
almost, it now had the awful taste of -freedom- in it's mouth.
At least the conflict between the pride and pack had stirred up something nice in it's taste
buds. The bitter sweet guilt from Margot, Megan and Ashley. The confusion and anxiety of
Abbey. And of course Kaylee dislike of having to give up her precious video games. And
the entire sprinkling of defeat the entire pack felt at having to retreat from the manor.
Sadly the agitation and betray the pride should have felt when they failed to understand
their lion selves were their fate now wasn't last nearly as long as it should have. They were
quickly becoming as horrid tasting as the pack!
And that one, Amy. In her own way she was as dangerous as Alice! The curse had no clue
what she really was, but she was no mere wolf child! Amy couldn't figure out what she
actually was! So the curse couldn't sense it either! It was like the warmth from the sun
followed her wherever she went... and it left a horrid sun burn on the curse.
And the curse would -swear- that Amy looked over her shoulder and SAW the curse that
connected to her like a second shadow, she was looking right at it!
The curse didn't like that either in the least.
Sadly, the curse's option were limited. It could cause a transformation or alteration outside
of a transform or dare, and it couldn't kill someone who didn't even have a hurt or bring -
direct- harm on someone who was curse since that would be hurting itself (and would
end that line of the curse and thus that line of human misery).
But it had to do something. It had to survive! IT MUST SURVIVE! IT WAS THE GAME!!! It was
the only thing that gave this no face worthless town any meaning!!! All the miserable
mutant freaks of nature, all the absurdly endowed men and women, all the sapient objects
screaming screams no one could hear! ALL SO BEAUTIFUL!
And these ants sought to ruin it all?! FAT CHANCE!
Like it's ancestor the rings of invisibility mention in Plato's play (both rings long since
destroyed and annihilated along with their magic). It basic talent was simply removing
sociological restrictions on a person's mind, letting their id run wild, letting their selfish
and petty side in total control.
The wolves ha grown far too cautious of it. And the pride had no intention of using it again
except to put the shackles of civilization back on the wolves' brains! DISGUSTING!!!
It couldn't allow this! It must not allow this!!!
Kaylee, and Jensen, yes, Kyle and Jennifer, who all this smaller and beautiful pettiness had
started and then exploded into something much larger and greater in just the curse of a
week!
And all too soon it was all coming to an end-?! It was too soon! Too soon! IT MUST NEVER
EVER END!!!
If only it could influence Jensen just a bit, just influence him a tiny bit, and encourage
Kaylee's love of seeing a statue transformation, if only it could muster enough influence to
do that, to have Jensen turn the two AWOL she-wolves who held turns and turn them into
new statues as examples of what happened to those who defied the authority of their -
MASTER-, Alpha Male and Alpha Female. If only it could do that, then the conflict would
need never end!
++++++++
Amy looked at the lavender and purple wolves. Sarah and Ulysses. One a young woman,
the other an early teenager. They looked back.
"That's us, you're Zack's little girl right? Amy?" Sarah asked.
"That is the name I have for this incarnation yes." She said simply.
"Came all the way up here to say hi before we head to the island?" Sarah asked simply,
wonder what she'd look like in victorian era dancer girl dress in the mirror world.
Yomato had apparently been in full Samurai armor, while the four other japanese wolves
had been geisha girls without the face paint or bonnets. Though Chiyoye might have been
a konichi, contrary to movie land, most ninjas on the job didn't look like ninjas (which was
the entire point).
They hadn't talked about what the art wolves had been dressed as. Their bodies were
statuesque however as any of the pack could see, like they were still statues only now
were flesh and blood instead of marble.
"No." Amy shook her head, "I'm just here to ask. Do you really care about Ulysses-kun?"
"Yes." Sarah said simply.
"And do you care about Sarah-san, er-chan?"
"I do."
"... And Mary-chan is your friend... right?"
"How do you know about Mary?"
Amy wondered that herself. "That doesn't matter. The point is, do you still wish to be with
Mary-Chan? As your friend?"
"Yes."
"Even though the Nippon wolves and I saw that their forms are locked like ours?"
"....." Ulysses started, then said, "Yes."
Sarah only stood back and observed, she loved that there was now some determination in
the man-pup's eyes.
"Then you know a war between the pride and the pack will have the exact opposite effect,
you two would be forced to fight each other."
"... I don't want that."
"I don't want that either." Amy said, "Which is why it has to end. We are becoming
something beautiful, this pack of 'Big Bad Wolves.' But if this war comes to pass, the scars
will never go away, and we shall remain ugly."
Ulysses didn't know what to say to that.
That was when Hope and Grace, two of Kaylee's replicas, stood before the gargoyles and
asked them the game. Amy wondered what they were doing... until she heard Alice's
phrasing that sealed their forms.
Amy felt like she had been run through by a kodachi.... she was horrified, she felt,
ASHAMED, like she should have been able to do something but she hadn't done anything
at all! She actually held her head and fell over on her side!
IT WAS WHAT MASTER WANTED SO WHY THE HADES SHOULD IT BE WRONG?! IT DIDN'T
MAKE ANY SENSE!!!
But something that went deeper than her gut, deeper than her base instincts told her that
she had failed, she had failed the six who were now living statues for eternity. And she
had every right to be ashamed.
Sarah managed to grab Amy before the white and red she wolf fell over the side onto the
ground two stories below.
"AMY! Are you okay-?!"
Sarah saw the red and white pup look up, and Sarah realized shockingly that Amy was
crying.