While waiting for Penny to come out of her surgery, Kirk had made a phone call.. he
hadn't expect the person he had been hoping to answer TO answer... but they did all the
shame.
And Kirk was more than shocked when his parents commented on how overjoyed they
were that their -son- was restored to them. How they had visited him every week in the
gallery not sure if he could hear them or not. And had never stopped praying for him to
be cured even as their neighbors pretended they were crazy for thinking the statue was
their child.
Then his mother began recounting on a fishing trip were Kirk had fallen into the pound
and how long it had taken to dry the cub's fur. Kirk remembered that, or at least, his
father saying how feeling awkward teaching his daughter to fish.
Finally Kirk got to Penny being seriously injured, and again his mother didn't think for a
second that Penny being a lion or female as not right and instead spoke her deep
sympathy for Kirk's plight and trying to cheer him up tried to recount Kirk and Penny's
first date... Kirk stopped her in time.. that incident had been embarrassing enough for
both.
When the surgery light went off, Kirk had finally said, "Love you too mom." And hung up.
Across town, Gloria calmly hung up the phone. Humming to herself wiping a tear from
her eye at finally having her baby back. All she wore except for her apron dissolved into
nothing to reveal the fur now underneath, her pricey shoes gone or rather never bought.
Her tail swished back and forth growing as she worked. The knife in her hands vanished
having never been drawn as she began cutting up the fish with her own claws. Her ears
moved to the top of her head and she heard her mate's sporting even on TV in the other
room. Her face shifted to a muzzle as she sniffed the air, decided she needed to switch to
another disinfectant.
She took the tray to her husband even as the kitchen archway raised up for her. She
placed he tray down in front of him careful to only obscure his view for a moment before
coming behind the human and wrapped her arms around him and licked his face and he
kissed her back.
"Guess what Jeff dear..." Gloria whispered hotly.
"What honey?" Jeff replied, the couch increasing inside after their kiss, his pose altering
from sitting to cross eagle style. His clothes fell apart on him, his layers of flab MOSTLY
vanishing while the fur appeared.
"I heard from a very special someone just now.." She said playfully.
"Who?" Jeff asked wondering what his mate was at as his bald head became a full mane of
hair around his head, teeth becoming canines and canines into fangs.
Gloria reached down past his tail in his lap and touched his sheath, "I just heard from
Kirk... he's with us again dear, Penny found a way to free him, we have our son back... we
finally... we FINALLY HAVE OUR CUB BACK!"
Showing concern no wild lion would ever show for a cub logically lost forever, Gloria's
eyes mist up in joy. Jeff completely forgot about the sport on TV and leapt off the couch
and hugged his mate.
"Are you sure? It was really him it was really-"
"I check dear, he wouldn't let me finnish talking about his first date, and he knew Penny,
it was him, it was our son."
Jeff eyes were misting up as well now as the apron claded lioness and naked lion man
embraced. "Where?"
"Glendale memorial hospital, Penny she said was hurt saving her.."
Jeff barely remember to turn off the late night sport before in the middle of the night the
two lions made their way to the hospital for a long over due reunion.
+++++++
The curse of course had no intention of playing honorably or within the rules or now by
anything that remotely resembles the laws of war, the time for games was over. The curse
remained mindlessly docile within Glendale, still bound by the rules of Transform or Dare
the witches had left upon it in revenge for the town of Glendale ignorantly refusing the
witches' liberation from things like sanity and taboo. But the massive awareness it had
gained from the massive and short span use of turns and all together was gone, it simply
was now, and would not survive long enough to gather to become self aware again.
On Big Bad Island... all the rules had been thrown out the window, like a genie not bound
by wishes... The echoing wills of Golgatha and Gomorrah twisted Big Bad Island and it's
inhabitant into the 'paradise' Glendale would have become if the town's had simply
accepted their message of pure absolute freedom devoid of all restrictions or
consequences. If only they had not brought the coven to the attention of those five witch
hunters (who were accused of witchcraft themselves when they tried to turn the tide of
rampant paranoia that struck within a decade later). That was what paradise was
supposed to be anyway right? So would the church turn on them for creating a paradise
on Earth? Prudes.
Glass emerged on the bridge of the luxury yacht behind the elderly captain hired to steer
while the rich and spoiled entertained themselves.
Before Glass would have had to be given a turn, to wait for it be passed on, but the chaos
had broken free, and now, like all now completely engulfed in the chaos (rather ironic
given their seemingly organized attitude), she now had an unlimited number of turns.
"Transform or Dare." She said behind the captain's back.
"WHAT? Who goes... huh?"
"Down here." She said simply with the calm of a glacier.
The captain looked down, "What.. are... what are you?"
"I am liberated. I am free. I am without restrained or boundaries. Answer Dare or
Transform or you shall get both."
The captain wondered if he had wandered into a ship's graveyard and had angered the
shade of someone lost at sea, it had happened to his grandfather.
"Dare."
Instead of using the loophole, Glass said, "Steer the ship and keep her on course to the
following coordinates, you'll do your absolute hardest to make sure everyone on board
ends up there... then you'll disembark with the rest." Glass then said what the
coordinates were, she had no fear of loop hole or errors, not anymore, she served the
curse.
The captain gasped realized how out in the middle of nowhere that was... but his body
obeyed without his consent, and he began to radically alter course... and the winds and
tides seemed to twist and warp around the ship (it was actually warping around Glass and
the chaos within her) and pushed the ship along toward Big Bad Island at incredibly fast
speeds.
Of course one man came up to complain when the sudden change of course and speed
caused the ruination of his bingo game.
He gasped when he saw Glass, who simply said, "Transform or Dare."
A minute later the same man was assuring everyone that everything was perfectly fine and
nothing was to be worried about, there was just some reports of pirates and bad weather
and they had to change course to avoid them, but there was special resort that had just
opened that would be perfect for a short stop he said.
What people hadn't expected was for a storm cloud with purple lightning underneath was
a relatively massive island. There wasn't any port any of the socialites could see, but the
yacht sailed straight foreword, the force of nature seeming to push it even harder there as
it moved foreword and just as one woman got the idea of running to the bridge to see if
the old man had suffered a heart attack, the ship crashed right into the sandbar. This
knocked a lot of 'tourists' out of the boat and onto the beach, hard.
The looked up, and saw trees bent and twisted, growing through themselves in
unpredictable and random patterns, they saw waiting deer that were much larger than
they could have logically been, with solid gold eyes and antlers and hooves that could
have been horns and claws almost.
And further up... they saw the swirling purple storm... It quickly reached critical mass as
other people wondered what the others were looking at, their eyes all turning gradient
red. Not ceasing to look up, they all walked over the side of the boat falling over the
edge into the surf or the beach and simply got up and continued to walk looking
upwards.
Names ceased to exist, names were just labels, shackles, things to give other things
limits, what place did they have in the coven's paradise? Clothes fell apart next, nobody
cared or noticed.
Some men and women grew hideously bloated, male and female element growing to the
size of parody and beyond, layers of fat and muscle expanding outward, hands twisted
into barely articulated hooves, faces became tusked snouts, hair falling out as twisted
tails grew from their oversized butts. Their feet became hooves that fit the bare minimum
for standing upright. Ears became flaps, and the humanoid swine squealed and chortled.
Without hesitation, thought or reserve one man instantly began to hump his own mother.
At the same time fruit as large the pigs themselves grew impossibly fast, looking like
weathered red avocados and figs that soon fell under their own weight onto or in front of
the new impossibly fat pig things. Some licks themselves and each other of the sweet
juices, others buried themselves into the downing the delicious fruit barely even tasting
it. And as it went through their system, none thought of cleanness or privacy as they
dumped onto the sand and on occasion fruit and each other which couldn't have been
more ignored.
Another small group gained razor sharp hooves and muscles rippled across their entire
bodies, materials barely staying within the ream of applicable and well past the point of
realistic. Women mooed as as mud brown fur covered their entire bodies and those of the
men, horns as long as their shoulder sprouted from their skulls, their hands becoming
hooves that had render flesh and just enough muscle and flexibility to gasp objects.
Heads became those of cows, long tails came next. The women's breasts larger than the
mens' heads sevearl times over growing four nipples on each breast. And they grew
larger these monsters, the minotaurs soon humping each other with no regard to
anything else around them (yet). the old ones out simply pleasing themselves spraying all
around them.
Fuzzy black fur came to the next ground, their bodies also exploding almost with muscle,
their heads turning into something identical to that of a bear, the tiny round tail almost
looking comical, almost. Their hands became useless for anything but ripping the flesh
off of things. Husband and wife snarled and roars at each other and the sky, they turn
into each other, healing as fast as they could harm each other, they would have killed one
another in seconds otherwise. And their blood splattered everywhere, as the man who
had come to complain to the captain dived into mindless fury on the middle class wife he
had sworn to live till the end of his days and had married under the disapproval of his
family.
Others, the captain included, found themselves not not noticing, but not CARING about
the others around them, or the dear for that matter, all that mattered was them, only
them and could only matter was them. Their lower bodies expanded as dirty gold fur and
hair covered their bodies, their bodies below the wast becoming that of a horse from the
neck down. They crossed their arms which were reabsorbed into their torsos, their heads
becoming those of mundane horses, their eyes closing forever and even the eyeballs
inside ceasing to be, becoming just black spaces on their faces, their ears moving to the
top of their heads, sound creating crystal clarity images for them in a 360 degree radius.
Wings like those of a dragon burst out of the sides of their horses bodies, and their
hooves were as sharp as spears as were the fangs in their muzzles. Their manes were as
black as midnight. Arms that didn't resemble any limbs that a human being would have
formed at their front hips, leaving their shoulders armless. They were perfect. They knew
it. It was the only truth. The only truth that mattered. And they could not see the world
that would dare contradict this truth.
A pregnant woman, her loyal husband now mindlessly mounting her sister, fell to her
knees, her arms and legs vanishing as she fell over backwards. What happened next
should never ever be described to any person.
Children meanwhile laughed, giggled, sniggered, cackled, hissed, chattered, babbled,
spoke gibberish as snakes as if they were tails grew from their rears, fur like coal and
skin like red leather. Their feet became hands. As they climbed into the trees ignoring
their parents without even a look back, the children altered by the curse embracing their
impulses without a second thought committing any act that crossed their minds not
bothered to think if it was good or bad, they felt the need to do it and that was all.
Glass smiled, for it was good.
And the curse fed, until it was gorged. Yes, this was the paradise the coven would have
made Glendale into...
And one command was ingrained into the brains of all that lived within the island
influence, protect the curse and kill all who sought to end it who came here.
Finally two women assumed the poses of the left and right muse from the statue 'the
three graces' become statuesque humanoid solid marble wolves in the progress, a large
base forming beneath them near the center of the island.. the center 'muse' missing. Or
rather, had not arrived upon the island yet... Kaylee would experience the gift of external
beauty first hand.
In the curse's world. Where the shadows of those effected by the game and the curse
itself now wandered.
"It's beautiful isn't it Gomorrah?"
"Yes Golgatha."
And to think, all that had to do was die, and surrender their souls completely to the
infinite chaos twisting them into something that wasn't human. It was quite worth such a
minor price for their paradise on Earth.
+++++++
Mal'akh shivered, "Gaal? That was... that was the name of the witch?" The police officer
from centuries before asked easily the one who had been part of the gallery the longest
by over a century.
"Yes, that was what Amy said the name of the witch was." Amy said.
The lioness Mal'akh remembered.
She remembered a little boy with a pet dog. She remembered a sister a year older than
him. She remembered how the little boy had been her before her transformation into a
statue of Glendale's art gallery by a prejudice fellow officer decades later.
Mal'akh remembered the little boy, the dog, and the little bit older sister playing catch in
a field of flowers.
Mal'akh remembered the woman in the red dressed and black cape, with the very large
snake on one arm. A woman with black hair hanging over half her face with a black cat
nearby. And another blond woman with nonsense braids with a crow on her shoulder.
Mal'akh remembered her slightly bigger sister being offered candy. Mal'akh remember
quoting their parents about the dangers of strangers, Mal'akh remembered the slightly
older sister telling the little boy to be quiet.
Their pet dog had snarled, and leapt at the woman who had introduced herself as Gaal.
Gaal side stepped the animal, dropping the candy. The pet dog leap didn't stop mid air
like in a story book and continued, rammed into the crow, breaking it's neck at once. The
who had introduced herself and Gomorrah held her head and -screamed- in a
combination of pain and loss calling out a name in dismay.
Then Gomorrah snarled something, and the pet dog's body seemed to boil from the
inside... The woman who had introduced herself as Golgatha back handed her and began
arguing.
His sister took the candy and ate it, then she began to giggle, laugh, and never stopped
sniggering, the look in her eyes, it reminded the little boy of nothing less than a mad
animal.
"Sis? SIS! SIS You okay!" Bobbi said shaking the lioness.
"Wha-huh?"
"You were in la-la land."
"... Gaal, that was the name of the woman who drove my sister insane. No, insane is too
kind, she drove her stark, raving mad. ... It seems not all witches use poison apples."
Serenity was still being amazed at the lions from the library were effectively from the
past, "Well, she's gone now, and she won't be causing anymore suffering, and now her evil
is as dead as the rest of her."
Serenity then shuddered, a sick feeling at the back of her mind.
"Great Uncle Scoutts?" Gill asked.
Madam Serenity said, "It feels like a turn being used be...it constantly, it's just there,
there's no flash, or pulsing, it's like a oozing wound."
Alice shivered, "I do not have the power to sense the actions of the curse." Said the glass
pup of seven and a half years. "But I still fear that might be the witches' doing, or
whatever is left of the witches to begin with..."
"Focus on writing out the words needed sweetie." Jensen said.
"For the record, I'm coming." Trevor said simply.
"No." Brian said, "If you're part of our pride now, then you're the pride's cub now, and that
means you stay out of danger."
Trevor shivered as new instincts told him to listen to what the older lion was saying,
however, "I have to, for Judas, his family has been trying for three hundred years to make
amends, this is my chance to do that for him."
"Whose Judas?" The wolves, the pack, and, well, everyone save Mary, Paul and Madam
Serenity.
"Father Mike's pet cat." Said the new gray and black lion cub. "He's a direct descendant of
the familiar of one of the witches... Or he implied as much at least."
"There's no proof that their familiar would be in the black soup as well." The once Irish
now African woman said.
"Maybe not but... it just doesn't feel right unless they were... " Trevor admitted, "And
Judas is a CAT, and he's been very un-house-cat-like in doing what he's done. He -
wants- to make up or it. BUt he's not here, I am. He's my friend. He saved my life. I owe
him." True he didn't remembered if Judas said if it as father Mike who found Trevor, but
right now Trevor needed all the leverage he could get.
All in all, Trevor wasn't sure what felt more alien to him right now, walking on two legs
again, or suddenly being eight year old again!
Brian said, "... Gabriel, Elise, protect this cub with your lives. And keep him from doing
anything stupid."
"Yes." The lion and lioness nodded.
Gill didn't even bother to interrupt this time on Brian being an upstart considering he was
just a civilian here like Felicity. Still, if this lion-man wanted to be a cop, Gill was going to
make sure he had the dos and don't hammered into him! And his wife too.
Wanda said, "You had better tell us everything and anything you know about your island,
otherwise it sounds like this is going to be a very unpleasant fight..."
Bernie said, "There is one other thing."
Everyone looked at her, "If these witches are just... you said shadows? Can they really
answer the turns anymore than an automatic teller? And since they're just a 'ghost in the
machine' of the curse's 'programming' that means you'll have to be in Amy's, I mean, the
witch's dream world or whatever for you to turn their own game against them... sounds
like it won't be easy..."
The Alice said, "I am indestructible... do not worry."
"That doesn't mean invincible little girl." GIll said sternly.
"Please let her work." Jensen implored remembering the time they had wasted when Alice
hadn't completed the wording in time for the ToD to turn the lions into mindless
mundane earth worms... Jensen decided that he'd be keeping that now defunct plan to
himself for the rest of this lifetime!
"Fine!" Gary said, "Let learn everything we can and plan everything we're going to do while
your kid figure out how to screw over the literal genie!"
And the clock struck one AM.