Of course, the idea of transferring a soul into a body it hadn't been born into let alone had
meant to be in the first place, had not been looked well upon by... well, -many- religions
(many who loathed to admit they agreed with others).
Ironically, it was he gargoyles themselves that were abhorrent to do this, since the new
gargoyles kept their original memories, personalities, and loyalties: many 'natural'
gargoyles consider these 'false gargoyles' to be 'impure' and a threat to the gargoyle
consistency that the living stone creatures took so much pride in. And saw the
introductions of creatures who were not directly cloned from a previous gargoyle as
horrendously unnatural. So the ritual of transferring souls into a gargoyle body had been
a -very- great taboo among gargoyles, being about as welcome as pedophiles were
among humans.
When the terrible purge of the Knight Templar had begun as a pretense to cease the
Templar's assets, some had actually come to the stone creatures imploring membership...
They were now safely hidden among the statuary of the Vatican, centuries later, the secret
line of defense of the heart of an entire faith.
'Though personally,' Marie Cruz thought in the late sixteen hundreds, standing what
would be reorganized one day into the Holy Office staring out at the silent ever watchful
guardians, 'I wonder if they even still remember being humans after all this time...'
Marie was relatively good at what she did, if you didn't count her glaring handicap of
missing an eye. The blond inquesitor didn't mind, she had often been able to see things
with that lost eye that others couldn't.
And of course, there was the small fact she was a woman: and thus was both officially --
unoffical--, below the radar, and considered totally -expendable.-
The Inquisition had been established in name to root out people who were taking the
message and creed of their theology and twisting it to mean what they wished it to mean,
but in practice seemed to only be directed towards people with attractive holdings that
the king then took into his own hands.
She also could sense that the Inquisition in it's current incarnation was coming to it's
close.
"The Inquisition and it's courts do not recognize, nor humor the superstitious belief in the
existence of witchcraft or sorcerery!" The Council of the Suprema had told her to her face
on a Tuesday afternoon (since that was normally when they were closed and not in
session), "And we will not grant resources to such a ridiculous fantastic quest!"
Marie Cruz had seen that one coming. her other eye had shown her. It was hard to
convince the Council of the Suprema when the corpse of what had torn out her eye had
turned to dust when the sunlight hit it.
Marie Cruz did have one advantage in that she wasn't married, which meant her own
resources didn't belong to a husband instead of her. So if she was lucky she'd be able to
catch a boat to the new world and to the small town of Glendale. The Council of the
Suprema couldn't accuse her of abandoning her post if she didn't officially exist.
'If I'm to kill three witches set on turning a small town into a hole of insane creatures that
will not even be called human... I'm going to need some friends.'
She had five years. Five short years to find allies and to travel to a small town named
Glendale in the new world.
+++
Betty asked the obvious question, "So this Marie Cruz was one of the five witch hunters
who came to Glendale?"
Marie the wolf sighed, wolves didn't have last name after all, they were supposed to be
connected purely to their pack. "If you want to call her as such, yes. Though she'd have
hated to be called such. She, like the Inquisition, knew the vast majority of witch hunters
were superstitious paranoids."
Lawrence asked the more obvious question, "If she knew what was going to happen in
Glendale, why didn't she go there at once when the witches were still just little girls?"
"She had no idea where Glendale was. Second sight doesn't work like that. She just knew
when the witches would start reeking havoc, and the name of the town and what land
mass it would be on. Plus she knew she'd end up an insane cow-woman thing creature if
she came alone. Gaal, Gamorrah, and Galgatha would become powerful and terrible
indeed."
"Came we get back to the little girls?" Casandra asked. "They were cute!"
Lilly said sounding interested, "So this Marie Cruz, did she really hunt vampires?"
Marie shrugged, "I don't think I'll tell you. Since it's not the point. I'll apologized, that I
skipped somewhat ahead. Let me backtrack back to the girls. Marie Cruz and her
companions don't appear until the end of the three girls and their friend's story."
'It would be so much easier if this was just Kaylee's dream... but in spite of what some
pathetic, self-important, arrogant, god-complex, commanding, pig-headed, small, petty,
blind, egotistical, deluded souls think, this is no illusion upon either Kaylee or Jensen's....'
+++++++
Zack laying down, his titan like body a gashed and broken mess, turned his head at the
pearl colored she wolf changing his bedpan, "Beautiful you should stop, get some rest."
Pearl was dirty with blood, her fur was unkept, and she looked so tired.
"No, it's okay, I'm the only part of our circle that isn't hurt... it's my responsibility..."
"You called Isabelle Hope, Hope Grace, and Grace Isabelle..." Zack pointed out.
"It's, it's nothing handsome, it was just a mistake."
It was common knowledge among the pack that Grace, Hope, and Isabelle were except for
their hair styles and fur color were exact replicas of Kaylee. Some joked they must have
been quadruplets in a former life. Then it was harshly pointed out by Kaylee that they
were quadruplets, FRATERNAL quadruplets... and no, their different fur colors were NOT a
dye job.
Kaylee's parents suddenly remembered having four cubs instead of one, and three families
in Glendale suddenly felt like they had forgotten something, -someone-, very very -very-
important, but for they couldn't remember who for the lives of them.
"A mistake where you got your sister-wives mixed up. PLEASE Pearl," Zack implored,
"Don't make yourself sick. Zelipe doesn't need both his parents to worry about... "
"But you..."
"Julie and Roger is taking a nap too, don't worry about us. We'll be fine for a few hours..."
"Just go already." June managed to say very harshly and almost imposing in spite of having
a broken tail and a fractured hip and a several new lines of claw marks down her back.
"Alright." Pearl nodded and wandered off out of the medical wing, she only got as far as
the giant statue in entry way before she laid beside it and fell asleep. No one saw or
perceived the statue changing position so Pearl was lying more comfortably.
++++++
An elderly woman in a wheelchair in a nursing home watched her soup operas not really
paying attention to the plot, it just being noise to drown out the silence. When few spoke
to her, it was to talk about her great ancestors had helped found Glendale. Few ever
listened.
Mrs. Glen heard the phone ring.
Daring to hope the old woman picked it up on her own (in spite of what some of the
nurses thought. It was her family! To be precise her great granddaughter. Having outlived
her son and daughter in law had been something no woman should have to endure.
"Penny!" mrs. Glen shouted, "How's my favorite little lion girl!"
"Uh... I'm fine great-granny... it's just... well... " Reality hadn't adjusted yet for Penny's
injuries, and being away from the others, reality hadn't gotten to rewriting her memories
yet, so she was still unsure of being called female and a lion as if nothing had changed.
"Well, do you remember... Kirk?"
"That wonderful man who got turned into a statue? What about it?"
"I, er, that is... he's alive again, and she says, I mean he says that he wants us to be
married as soon as --" She stopped before saying she was in a wheelchair for a month. "-
-as soon as we're able."
"OH DEAR THAT'S WONDERFUL!" Mrs. Glen nearly had a heart attack.
"Great-Granny! Be careful! You don't want to tax yourself!"
"Oh don't be so down dear! I know how devastated you were when you lost Kirk! How did
you save him? Who saved him?"
Penny said, "Uh, kind of a long story, I'd ... er, rather tell you in person."
"...Sounds like there are some things you aren't sure of. I'll be sure to ask you about that."
"Yes Great-Granny."
"I'll be over to your place--"
"What? I mean, great-granny I'm kinda at Kirk's parents home."
"Oh I remember where that is, I'll be over soon enough."
"But great-granny you shouldn't-"
"Let me worry about that dear, I'm so happy for you." The old woman put the phone down,
a lot more strength in her arms than a moment ago.
She began to wheel out of her room, then slowly stepped out of the chair should should
never have been able to walk out of again, and took a few steps.
Fur as white as snow covered her entire body, her white hair becoming just fur leaving her
bald as her round ears moved to the top of her head. Her eyes a brownish red. Her hands
and feet became thick paws identical. Her face twisted into a muzzle as her teeth became
dedicated for tearing apart meant. Look near identical to any other lioness.
A plum tail snaked out of her dress even as it dissolved around her like the wheel chair
behind her. Naked except for her fur. The lioness walked down the hall hunching over and
waving at the other residents who waved back.
Then her hips and shoulders rearranged, and she calmly got on all fours, her body suited
for the task perfectly. Tribal tattoos appeared on her 'shoulders' and hind quarters. And
she grew, becoming twice the size of any mundane lioness. There was no grayness in her
fur. And her body was built to last.
"Excuse me." She said calmly to two senior citizens playing cards who were in her way.
They quickly but calmly got of the way for her.
"Good day Mother Glen." Said the nurse at the front counter nodding at the beast walk
right past her.
"Good day dearie." Replied Mother Glen.
No one screamed or ran or called animal control as Mother Glen left the nursing home on
her own. She was after all the eldest of the Pride like Mr. P was the eldest of the Pack.
++++++++++
Julie pointed at the violet single wolf, "Okay, Sasha, you, Terri and Sandi work with the
pride with me and Jasmine. They're more mangled than our pack mates are."
Darla said to the other single wolf, "Trinity, Sunny, Luna, you'll work with me on our pack
mates. Be sure to help Akane, Umeko, and Eri with Chiyoye and Yamato when they ask."
"Aren't you forgetting someone?"
"How we can we help Doctor?"
Julie and Darla turned as one and opened their muzzle happily (as did Fran in her sleep)
and hugged the two tri-sheeva wolves.
"JOY! INGRID! You're -you- again!" The triplet said together.
"Yes we are." Nodded Joy's three heads. "And we're reporting for duty doctor!"
"We need your help more than ever!" Julie said, "Joy you'll work with me! Ingird, follow
Darla's instructions!"
"Yes Doctor!" The two nurse wolves replied.
"So how was it having only one head?" Terri just HAD to ask. Sandi elbowed Terri in
response.
Joy however said after a moment of contemplation, "Crowded."
Julie was glade to see her two nurses. The time separated from Fran and Darla during her
time at medical school had been pure and absolute torture. The link between the triplets
defied all medical science, and even spiritualists were left scratching their heads. But it
was very real all the same, and being pulled apart was like having two thirds of her soul
missing. Many other twins were didn't like how the triplets encouraged certain
stereotypes, but the triplets were proud of what they were. They were parts of a whole,
they completed each other, and it was a greater comforting sense of unity that rivaled that
of their unity with the pack.
And she had been denied that at medical collage. She had starved it off for a short time by
sheer will power, but her grade slowly nose dived as her psyche couldn't coup. The
psychologists were of no help in the least. She didn't WANT to be independent from her
sisters as they suggested. She loved being part of them as they were a part of her. To feel
the same, to think the same, to look the same, to be the same.
Elise had been sent to the principle's office a decade before for punching out a boy who
had called the triplets 'borg.'
She had been close to calling it quits and taking a correspondence course, or suffer a
complete nervous break down when the two tri-sheeva wolves had chosen out of random
compassion to comfort her one night.
They had been a piece of medical marvel to Julie (as all sheeva wolves were) but what had
really kept her had been that they acted as good stop gaps for Fran and Darla. Not to say
that she replaced her sisters, but for a while seeing the two near identical wolves with
three of nearly everything had been a comforting placebo.
Of course Julie had to later apologize for 'using' them, but the sisters had told her that
they were glade to be of service... Julie didn't want to think about what her life might have
been like if she had never met her two favorite nurses.
++++++++
With the gallery wolves at Big Bad Island being sent aid the teen wolves in the long
overdue task of returning the herd to the estate, no one saw the three statues in the
gallery become flesh and blood again.
"This should be good." Nelson said.
"Yes indeed." Leslie answered.
"Hope so." Helen added.
The three walked down past Kira, who they waved at.
The beheld the fountain. And without hesitation or a second thought they began to step
into the center.
"Ar you sure about this?" Helen asked.
"The Dare and Transform protects us remember?" Nelson said, "There's nothing to worry
about."
The three stood back to back, their tails intertwining and their rear cheeks pushing against
each other. Then they were marble like the fountain, their bodies fused with it. In the
name of good taste, the open that the water come out of the wolves was their mouths that
went into the bastion below.
Tatuli turned and looked at the fountain and said, "I always thought that the statues on
that fountain looked really cool."
"You and stone statues." The reddish black Nneli said.
"You and glass statues." Tatuli retorted.
"Come on sisters." Mbili said getting between them. "Play nice."
Moja and Tano ignored them and shouted loudly to the amethyst colored she-wolf and her
wards.
"HEY!!!! Lions rule! Wolves drool!"
"NANE!" The three all said together.
"Got their attention didn't it?"
"Oh yeah!" Shouted Giselle nearly on the other side of the front yard.
"Kids, noise." Amethyst said.
"Oh right." The gold furred twin answered meekly.
"We challenge ye to battle!" Shouted Nane.
"What short of battle?"
"You name it! We beat you at it!"
The seven other cubs there groaned. Her three sisters wondering how they shared
identical genetic material.
++++
"Why do I remember? And not the rest of my family?" Kathy wondered of the lion boy who
had turned her into a cat girl and the chaos storm caused by a mysterious thing called
'Kurse'. "Or I just remember for now? I hope I get to thank the kid before I forget then...
He said his name was Trevor right? There can't be that many little boys who are leomen in
Glendale right?... " Kathy began to write a letter.
++++
Chester meanwhile.. had found the meat locker unguarded for once, and began to pig
out...