Kurse was dead. Weakened by the use of the cure by various members of the Pack and Pride as they fought their respective foes. And finally killed through combined magics of Amy's powers as a reincarnated Shinto Priestess, through Paul's faith as a Christian Monk, and Trevor's bravery as a boy who lost everything, and was looking for redemption. In doing so... everything that Kurse had done, since arriving on Bad Island began to unravel.
+++++
"They're gone," Darla cried as Julie arrived to look at the statues of Jensen and Kaylee, "gone forever..."
Julie couldn't say anything. She was too overcome with grief. The whole mess for her started with her losing a husband, now it appeared it was going to end with her losing a second one along with a "woman" she had never known, and was beginning to see as a friend.
Amethyst only looked on as her betas cried. She was amazed by how things had changed. While her freed personality didn't didn't find Kurse's world as ugly as the others did... neither did she really find it beautiful. It was as she described it "a powerful LSD hallucination"... and it was slowly undoing itself now that Kurse wasn't there to drive it. Amethyst's eyes were no longer the solid color they had been when she was first transformed. They were a calm amber color with dark black pupils, and the flower birthmark on her right breast was gone... apparently a sign of Kurse's influence on Caroline.
Then she noticed something.
"Hey look!" Amethyst spoke.
Darla and Julie looked up from their tears to see Jensen and Kaylee's statue begin to crack open, just like the Japanese statues had when Amy and Zelipe freed them. The cracks grew larger until they could see signs of black or reddish brown fur appear beneath the marble.
"They're being freed!" Julie gasped.
"Kurse powered everything," Amethyst said weakly, "made us do nasty things to others and each other... but Kurse was the one who powered it and held it together."
The amethyst colored she wolf then moved forward to catch Jensen and Kaylee as the statue's outer layer broke open, freeing the two of them from the prison that Kurse had put them in. Likely as punishment for Jensen and Kaylee's defiance of the curse. Julie and Darla looked immediately relieved.
"Hopefully, things are going just as well elsewhere," Julie said weakly.
They were then startled by the cracking sounds as two naked humans fell out of the muse statues on the other sides of where Jensen and Kaylee had been.
"It will," Amethyst said, startled that nearly all of her intelligence that she had lost when she became Amethyst had come back, "Everything that happened here was dependent on Kurse keeping it that way, or altering it. If they're free... the Kurse and the curse is dead and everything Kurse did after coming here, even during the battle is reverting to what it was before her arrival."
"Good," Julie spoke, "but we must get our wounded back home. Fran will need to use my skills t put us back together again after all this."
Julie and Darla managed to limp on as Amethyst tried to drag her alphas as carefully as possible toward a spot where Abbey or Alice could begin ferrying the wounded back home. As they went, a glow of light began to emanate from what had become of Fox and Elise and the splintered parts of them began to slowly and painlessly re-merge with one another. After about four minutes, Fox and Elise were Fox and Elise again, and the two lionesses slowly got up.
"Let us never do anything like that again," Fox said.
"Agreed, pride-sister," Elise agreed.
++++++
In Glendale, Gill stood by nervously as Amy and Paul continued to sit in a meditative trance while Trevor sat calmly by. Serenity and Mary nervously looked on.
After a few moments, Amy's eyes slowly opened and the white and red pup gave a pained gasp and collapsed forward.
"Amy!" Serenity spoke and slowly moved forward.
"It is done," Amy said slowly, and sounding completely exhausted, "Kurse is gone... the curse will never gain sentience again... even if something like what has happened in the course of the past week happens again."
"Let's hope nothing like what has happened happens again," Gill spoke, "I've got a pack of wolf people to keep an eye on, make sure they don't ravage the people I protect and a pride of lion people that I may have to do the same for."
"The pack and the pride will do no one any harm, Gill-San," Amy spoke, "we may hunt deer... but not people."
"What about what I felt Kurse doing?" Serenity asked, "it felt like she was sending Transform or Dares out across the country just before she died."
"She did," Amy said sadly, "but on "Big Bad Island" everything Kurse did there is reverting..."
"What about outside of Big Bad Island?" Gill wondered.
"That is different, as some of the new victims were already victims before," Amy spoke, "those that had been cursed before are remaining as whatever Kurse turned them into... thankfully none of it was evil... mostly a blind "try" to do something move as Kurse died."
"We'll need to track them down, can you restore them?" Serenity spoke.
"If you can find them, I might be able to restore their previous forms," Amy nodded, "the question is how. The transformations caused will likely make many hide to keep society from seeing them..."
"Not knowing that the Game has commonly made most "transforms" seem normal," Serenity sighed.
And at that moment, Gill's cellphone rang.
"Yes?" Gill said in a very tired voice.
"Gill? It's me, Frank... well, Fran now, but," came the voice on the other end of the line.
"I know what's happened to you," Gill spoke firmly.
"Okay, I'm calling to give you a warning," Fran spoke, "Kurse made a SECOND Glass, she kidnapped Kaylee when we weren't looking and may come after you and Serenity..."
"Kurse is gone forever," Gill spoke again, "Amy has already confirmed that to us."
"Thank goodness for her," Fran spoke, "thank goodness for her."
"On a side note, when can I expect you and Daryl back?" Gill wondered.
"I don't know," Fran answered weakly, "DARLA and I want to come back... but both Darla and Julie sustained serious wounds in the battle to free Kurse's minions. Abbey has just brought June and Margot back. Both of them look badly torn up. I've instructed her to bring the Pack and the Pride back to the manor. I can treat them here."
"First aid may not..." Gill spoke.
"I know more then first aid," Fran cut him off, "Julie was made to be our pack's doctor... and thanks to her transform and my sister's and mine, we are VERY closely connected. We are to look the same, feel the same, BE the same. So Darla and I have been learning her medical knowledge while Julie's learned our police skills."
"Great," Gill grumbled.
"What was that?" Mary asked not noticing Paul and Trevor come out of their trances.
"Both the Pack and the Pride suffered casualties in the battle," Gill explained to them and Serenity, "I don't think anyone was killed, but there plenty of wounded... and they're all apparently being brought back to the Smith estate so that Fran can treat them for their injuries."
++++++
Lawrence had a splitting headache as he came to. It felt like he had been split in two and lost all sanity. Doing the only thing he could, he threw up then and there as he began to remember what Kurse had made him do as Quartz. He quickly looked himself over to make sure nothing was wrong. Other then his fur, he was bald, and looking into the clear crystal waters near him, his eyes were the color they were before he became Quartz. He then fell over in pain onto his good shoulder, as the one that had been dislocated in the attack on the Hardy home and put back into place by Julie was now dislocated again, thanks to Quartz's vigorous use of an injured limb.
"God..."
"Had nothing to do with what happened here," came a voice he barely remembered.
He looked up to see a she wolf sitting a few feet away from him. Her fur was the same kitchen tile white fur that he did, but she had bright blue eyes, almost the same shade as the triplets. He remembered her, somehow. Cheering him on at soccer games, buying him packets of hot dogs to eat like candy from the grocery store. Letting him playfully nibble on her ears when he was a pup. And then came the day when he was eight and some strange teenager in a trench-coat turned her into a statue of a she-wolf skipping before his eyes.
"Aunt Betty?"
"Yes, Lawrence, it's me," Betty said.
"I'm sorry," Lawrence whimpered, "I'm sorry for what I did to you. It was horrible... unforgivable..."
"And not your fault," Betty told him.
"I feel a duality in my mind..." Lawrence spoke, "me and something... something rather childish..."
"Most of us do," Betty sighed, "Kurse turned you and the wolves here into twins literally made out of gemstones. When we tried to save you, you attacked and then did the same to many of us. Including me. We'll all going to be paying tons for therapy until that child mind either grows up or fades away... thankfully though, it doesn't have control... it's simply there."
"So what stopped us?" Lawrence asked, remembering getting back handed by something large and hard in the back of each of his heads, throwing him nearly fifteen feet through the air.
"Us," a gravely but male voice spoke.
Lawrence turned his head to see Frontdoor, Backdoor, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, and Northeast sitting peacefully on a few natural rocks nearby. The white wolf man didn't know what to say.
"I'm sorry," he didn't say after a few moments.
"Nothing to be sorry for," Frontdoor spoke, "all of it was the curse... even Jensen... to an extent is not fully at fault for what's happened."
"Why did you come?" Betty asked.
"We were told of a great force of evil," Backdoor spoke, "a force that threatened those we protect and those our charges are allied with. We have some resentment for what Jensen has done to us... but hatred brings nothing but further hatred... and besides where will we go as we are? We're stone dragon-wolf hybrids. Even in the places that have been enlarged for the pride, we wouldn't fit... and people will fear us. Most of the people that Kurse brought here from that yacht are huddling around the beach, throwing stones at anyone, including the few uninjured pack or pride members here, and us... though they did us no harm."
"They're only afraid and trying to deal with what Kurse did to them... and us," Betty said weakly.
"Which is why we will guard the pack," Northwest spoke, "it'll be a place where we are expected to be... a place where we can live without being feared and beside pups like Alice, who still wished to be our friend even after everything."
+++++
"Shouldn't you two go through the mirrorverse back home?" Amethyst asked Julie and Darla as Jensen and Kaylee were handed to Alice who took the two Alphas into the mirrorverse through the water's surface tension, "You're both more seriously hurt then they are."
"We are the betas," Darla spoke, "along with our triplet, Fran. Jensen and Kaylee are incapable of leading... so we must take over until they can... or until we are all off of this dreaded island."
"It's starting to look like the paradise it was before Kurse's arrival," Amethyst commented as the ugly twisted trees with strange fruits and had overgrown the island into the dark evil forested place seemingly vanished in shimmers of light and the smaller scattered palm forest returned with he soft tropical plants at their base, but with large amounts of open spaces, particularly near the beach, "the natural beauty makes me feel like singing."
Julie looked over the island again. It was slowly reverting to the paradise the gem wolves had originally described it as when Jensen had sent them to begin setting up the island as a retreat... but in her mind, all Julie could see was the dark forest that Kurse created that radiated Kurse's evil from it.
"Not now, Amethyst," Julie spoke, "I hope to never see this God-forsaken island again."
"Amen, sister," Darla agreed.
"Mommy?" came Abbey's voice as Abbey returned and came out from behind a couple of rocks in the surf. The waves doing no harm to her glass body, "what do we do with her?"
Julie looked over to see Abbey holding the unconscious body of Glass. Unchanged physically. Although the carving of a flower was nowhere on Glass's body.
"Glass?" Julie gasped.
"I managed to knock her out in the mirrorverse when I felt Kurse die and I placed her among the rocks so that she wouldn't get hurt when she reverted..."
"But she hasn't," Darla gasped.
"I wonder why," Julie looked down at her daughter holding the other glass wolf. She wished Fran was there as the three of them could think through almost anything when they were together.
"Maybe they were still in the mirrorverse when Kurse was killed," Amethyst suggested, "Abbey and Samantha should have Alice's powers as well, and with Glass with Abbey... when Kurse died and Kurse's powers were no longer affecting Glass... Abbey's did."
"I..." Abbey gasped in shock, "I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to! She drove me into the mirrorverse."
"We know you didn't, sweetie," Julie spoke, "we know you didn't."
"That may not help us with an angry parent, who is surely among the people that Kurse mutated," Darla said nervously.
"We'll need to bring completely uninjured wolves and lions here," Julie spoke, "Someone less threatening then us. Ulysses, Sarah, and Mary would likely be the best choices."
"Why?" Amethyst asked.
"Ulysses and Mary aren't adults," Darla explained, "they won't carry the sort of predatory aura that we and pride carry... and Sarah is so gentle that they might accept her."
+++++
"I can't believe we did all that," Caroline spoke, once again bald, her eyes back to the color they had been before Kurse first mutated her into Cobalt, the flower birthmark was gone, as well as the construction knowledge she had gained from the other gem wolves. "We attacked our own pack mates. How can they forgive us for what we did?"
"It was Kurse's doing Cobalt..." Opal began.
"My name is Caroline, love," Caroline told him.
"Caroline," Opal nodded, "a lovely name... it was Kurse's doing. You know that. We all could see what that witch did to us..."
"And what she made us do," Caroline finished, "Beatrice will never forgive me when she learns exactly what we did."
"We could run away," Opal suggested, "leave everything behind..."
"No," Caroline sighed, "it's just the guilt talking right now. We're still pack. We must stay together."
Opal slowly nodded, "Do you want to join us when we go back to our day shifts once we get back?"
"No," Caroline shook her head, "that was all part of the brainwashing that came about when we joined the pack and Alpha Female's naming me "fore-wolf"... and I only gained expert knowledge after Kurse mutated me into Cobalt."
Opal took her paw and licked her check in a sign of true affection.
"It's a hard life, anyway," Opal spoke, "One to hard for one as pretty and lovely as you. You deserve to be a model."
"For what? Kibbles and Bits?"
+++++
Felicity sat nervously shuddering as most of the pride gathered in a different section of the island away from where the pack was. Raped by four minotaur men. She was thankful that they hadn't done enough damage to her that she couldn't bear more cubs in the future, but their actions made her shudder and horrified her. She had neutered one of them and left enough claw and bite wounds in another that he broke it off, but she was still shaken by it. Brian was her mate, not them. The only other males that she would even consider allowing inside her were her pride males, and only them... and only if Brian wasn't available.
If it weren't for the fact that they were all curse victims, Felicity wanted to kill them for violating her the way they did.
"We certainly got ourselves into one hell of a mess didn't we," came Brian's voice from behind her.
She turned to see Brian slowly limping toward her. One of his feet had been crushed. He had a scrapping wound from the edge of one of the minotaur's horns running up from his right hip to the start of his reddish mane. And it also looked like one of his shoulders was badly ravaged by the creatures... yet he limped on, checking on the various wounded lions... which in someway was pretty much all of them. Only Elise and Fox had managed to avoid any serious injury... but then they sacrificed themselves to distract the curse. Felicity was eternally thankful that Kurse's death restored them to their normal lioness forms.
"Elise and Fox have spoken with Julie and Darla," Brian said slowly, "they're evacuating us."
"What?" Felicity gasped, "and leave them here?"
"My love, I can't move around well," Brian spoke, "I can barely limp as it is, and some of us are in worse shape. For the most part if it wasn't for Darla and the Pride all fighting together... we'd probably be dead by now."
"But she left..." Felicity began, "Darla abandoned us..."
"I think Kurse did some more cheating while we were preparing," Brian spoke, "I think I caught a glimpse of Kaylee on the top of the hill. They'd turned her into a statue... Jensen was approaching his mate, and Darla ended up with Gary and Bobbi, going through a wall of mundane grizzlies... or were they grizzly sized black bears... to follow him..."
"Like you came to save me," Felicity said weakly.
"You're my mate, Felicity," Brian spoke, "my PRIME mate. If someone else in the Pride wants me... it's fine with me... but only if I have your permission. I still want your love first and foremost."
"You'll always have it," Felicity said as she managed to say, "but why are we evacuating? We've freed the island and these people need to get back to their homes... or wherever they were going."
"But we're all badly hurt in one way or another," Brian spoke, "and from what Elise and Fox have discovered, the Pack actually took the worst of it... fighting their own pack mates and being largely beaten until their gargoyles arrived. All the ones that Kurse altered are back in their original wolf forms now, but they're struggling with what Kurse did. We all need medical attention. "
"But those people..." Felicity commented, "and I can still smell the deer... they've all fled to some point near the center... including two that have a strange scent..."
"They're likely Jack and Marcine," Brian sighed, "the ones Jensen said he had transformed to actually raise their pack's food. Remember, he said he planned to hunt the normal mundane deer, Jack and Marcine were to attract them."
"I suppose we'll end up having to work out some agreement with him to allow us to hunt them as well once they have enough numbers to support us all," Felicity commented, "I doubt that there are any wildebeests in North America besides zoos, and no one in our family has a turn any more, and even if we did..."
"It'd be uncivilized to force it on people," Brian nodded, "but that's a question for another day. And for the moment the people are too frightened of us for us to really help."
"But surely we can explain that we can take them home, Abbey and Alice..."
"We can not," came Abbey's voice from behind her, making them turn to see Abbey holding Glass's unconscious form, "anyone outside of the pack... or like you has your forms locked... becomes like me and my sisters. And while I want more sisters, I can wait for Mommy and Aunties to become pregnant."
"Is that?" Brian asked.
"This is Glass," Abbey said weakly, "One of Kurse's victims... she was altered from whatever Kurse first transformed her into when Abbey and I freed Samantha from Kurse's control into this form... she attacked me and took our fight into the mirrorverse. I managed to knock her out, but I could not get her out before Kurse died... as a result, she is still as she is. My powers negated Kurse's death."
Brian and Felicity looked at the glass pup, who looked incredibly guilty. They remembered strange scenes of them taking Mary to the Smith manor and letting her play with Alice, Abbey, and Samantha Smith, Jensen's daughters by Darla, Fran, and Julie... which gave both of them a short look of puzzlement. Jensen had only become Jensen about a week ago. They shouldn't have memories of the pack always existing. From what Jensen and Kaylee had told them, that wasn't in their transform... but then neither was it in Mary's so they then sighed.
Maybe Kurse's death gave Jensen's pack a real past as wolves, which given their locked forms... it might help the pack transition into society more. Even if they would largely be ignored as naked wolf people, with no past as wolf people, they couldn't do much, other then stay at the manor and live of the Smith family's wealth. Which was partially why Brian and Felicity had worked out a past as lions for the pride. It would allow them to function in society without having to constantly answer questions about WHY they were lions.
++++++
Fran, meanwhile rushed to use Julie's medical skills to the fullest. Samantha had finally relaxed, seemingly sensing Kurse's death, and feeling glad that that evil force was gone. And the shock wave of Kurse's death had many great alterations that were not yet noticed. The damage done by the chimeras in their initial attack was gone, and the manor seemed to enlarge, making it large enough to comfortably house seventy two wolves.
Jensen, Kaylee, Darla, Fran and Julie still had the master bedroom, but there were now several bedrooms with large sturdy beds in them. For five wolves overall, one male and four females per room. Each room, including the master bedroom, had name plaques which listed which wolves slept in each, with the male's name first. Jensen, Zack, Roger, Lawrence, Nick, Jasper, Opal, Yamato, Robert, and Nelson. Their respective mate's names were listed below them. There were some other smaller dens for Ulysses and any males or females that didn't have mates, and there were enough bedrooms for about thirty more people to live rather comfortably, although most were presently unoccupied... and the pup's room had doubled in size with two beds. One for Kaylee and Jensen's pups, and another for Amy and Zelipe.
And to top it off, there was now a full fledged medical wing, in which Fran was now operating to treat wounded wolves and lions as they arrived. It didn't have that many rooms, but was more then capable of taking care of any medical function that might be necessary, from pregnancies and births to injuries and surgery. Fran also noticed a diploma from one of the best medical schools in the state with Julie's name on it. And Fran smiled, knowing her sister would enjoy opening her own private practice for the pack and possibly even for the pride.