AN: Okay's here's part two of two.
"What do you mean?" Penny asked leaning towards Amy as best as she could with having a
pair of useless legs.
"it's much faster to show you rather than tell you, I'll be right back Penny-San!" Amy
bowed and ran back into the house, Penny given a clear view of Amy's brush like tail
swinging over her butt. 'I guess I'm going to have to get used to that... or not if I've been
seeing naked people with fur my whole life of course I won't think it's weird... no one else
is ...'
That was when it hit Penny... 'DANGIT! Now if I want something I need to roar at Kirk or
drag myself across the lawn!!' Penny hissed to herself. At least from what Penny smelled,
the home owners and guests didn't use the front lawn as a bathroom... so things could
have been worse...
With little other choice, and with technically not needing anything at the moment, Penny
watched the game between the pups... 'Those giant bust statues are so tacky and sexist.. I
guess when you're rich you can afford to be tacky and sexist.' Penny might have fainted if
she had learned it was the very straight heterosexual Alpha Female of the Big Bad Wolf
pack who had 'ordered and commissioned' the fountain heads as an obvious tribute to her
anime fetish.
In spite of being perhaps the most normal cub there, Mary was proving to be quite the
little commando though Nane and And Gretchen were still avoiding anything other than
half-hearted pot shots at each other like supposedly 'opposing' AI characters in a game
where all the AI targeted the human regardless of it supposedly being a free for all and
when unable to do so mulled about like slugs.
The pups for the most part were being forced to play defensively now, being careful to
avoid falling for another kamikaze attack, and had basically taken the fountain as their
base, the statues strangely providing seemingly good cover, almost as if the statues were
blocking for them. This forced the cubs to rely on the hose to refill, slower, and only one
at a time.
Saba and Paula's wresting match was well underway with Kirk watching... Paula actually
somehow managing to use her smaller size to a slight advantage, of course, Saba just had
more experience.
Amy came out of the mansion, her almost glowing white fur now covered in dust and her
red brush stroke marks looking like blood smears due to the dirt covering her now. Amy
came straight to Penny to see what she was holding.
"You want to have a tea party with me?" Penny blinked in surprise.
"No Penny-San, I want you to use your power to free this man."
"What... you.. you're, you're kidding!" Penny stared at the ancient teapot.
"I am not. This man was once the chief of police in nineteen-thirty-five. That was when
in the original timeline the Great Uncle of Jennifer Smith, Jesse Smith, used Transform or
Dare, to turn the current chief of police into an antique tea pot that was worth a small
fortune and sold it off to sustain the Smiths through the depression after their shares
deflated on the stark market crash a week after some of Glendale's population got the idea
of getting ride of the curse by simply wasting turns outside of Glendale..."
"You have to be joking." Penny shook her head, 'Why am I even still surprised anymore?'
"Please stop saying that Penny-San. Jesse Smith would go on to become Glendale's chief of
police, the truth of what he had done wouldn't be discovered until some time after
nineteen-seventy-eight, after Jesse Smith died of old age... "
"And what about this timeline?" Penny had to ask.
"Much the same sadly... the Big Bad Wolf pack member Gamma-Jesse used the game, got
a small treasure that was once a human being, and got money for it to keep the Pack's
earnings afloat until the end of the Great Depression. No one found out what he had done
until he was dead and in the ground. And the teapot had found it's way back into the
Pack's possession. It's been remembered then forgotten and repeat ever since then Penny-
San."
"And no thought to try and cure the poor person to see if he was still alive?"
"An antique tea-pot can't answer answer 'transform or dare' so the 'one minute if you
DON'T' answer opposed to 'CAN'T' answer applied... same with the art victims over the
years..."
"So once either of us use our power, the man becomes a person again instead of a tea
pot?"
"He's a person right now, he just can't speak to us. But yes, he'll be flesh and blood again.
But he'll also have always been either a part of the Pride or the Pack from 1935."
Penny thought, "...Maybe it would be better if he became part of the Pack... right now the
Pride and Pack are at peace with each other... if someone from the Pack turned someone
from the Pride into something just for money... it might have sparked a blood feud."
"And if he had been a member of the Pack, that means he was betrayed by a member of
his own family."
"Dammit, if only we could ASK HIM what HE wants..."
"We can assume, safely, for the moment, he doesn't want to remain a teapot until it's
smashed, gather dust in the attic or basement..."
"So you want me to use my power, and I want you to use your power..."
"Yes."
"And if we used it at once?"
".... That might open so big a can of worms that reality might finally decide we're all not
worth keeping and just forget any of us ever existed."
"I can't help but think it would be interesting."
"And we both know the saying about 'interesting times.'"
Penny just nodded. "And the other statue victims scattred across Glendale who never
made it to the gallery or were shipped out of Glendale? What about them?"
"..They are yours... they'll be part of the pack... I won't fight over people's lives... The Pride
will enable them to keep more of their original lives.. It is better that way."
Penny thought about it, "Yes it is..."
Amy then shifted the topic away from the game victim she was holding in her hands, "SO
if you want the memories gone, why have you written it all down?"
"Why have you?"
"Because even if it's brushed off as a fictionalization of events, people like our friends and
family deserve to know what sacrifices where made in saving the world."
"There are no other curses are there? Are they? No sleeping time bombs waiting to warp
the planet into slaves or maniacs are there?"
"No."
"That's a relief."
"Thouhg.. if the game has been directing into itself and eating up all the magic in this
immediate corner of the cosmos to sustain itself and make true all it's twists to reality...
the curse's death will let magic naturally return to the planet."
"That's bad."
"Actually, it's rather natural to how things are in most of the rest of the universe, magic's a
natural part of creation. Most simply are ignorant of that: Due to Glendale's curse eating it
all up for itself over three hundred years."
"I see."
"Don't worry, it'll be gradual, there will be time for culture and people to adapt." 'Much like
the one thousand year Leoman shift, IF it even happens.'
"How can you be so sure?"
"I just am."
"And we're still left with the teapot whose a person who needs their life back."
"Yes."
"So everyone in the pack and pride know what Gamma-Jesse did?"
"More or less. The young children of course don't know, I'm not -supposed- to know. The
police in this timeline know, and so do all the adult Pack and Pride members... but we do
have one thing on our side."
"And that is?"
"The 'Anthropic Principle' Penny-San."
"I didn't major in philosophy."
"It's not precisely philosophy. It's states that the conditions for sentient life in the universe
must exist because we exist. In other words, BECAUSE the Cubs and Pubs are playing a
PEACEFUL FRIENDLY GAME right now, and Pack and Pride are looking after each other after
a battle they joined together to fight without a second thought, that must mean they ARE
at peace with each other and DO have good relations with each other. And the simple fact
for reality it would simpler to keep the Pack and Pride at peace than start a blood feud."
"I see.... and being part of my pride, means the man gets to keep more of his life?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Hand me him."
Amy placed the antique teapot into Penny out stretched paws. And in the shade of the
crabapple tree, her disable legs laying on the grass, the sun setting, and the stars coming
out, Penny stroked the teapot speaking her chant.
"You are a Leoman, a part of the Pride, you always been a Leoman, you have always been
part of the Pride, will always be a Leoman, will always be part of the Pride, you are not
human, were never human, could never be human."
Amy meanwhile thought of the first verse of the 1939 nursery rhythm, [i] <i> "I'm a little
teapot,
Short and stout,
Here is my handle,
Here is my spout,
When I get all steamed up,
Hear me shout,
Tip me over and pour me out!" [/i] </i>
The teapot's color began changing from porcelain white and pink to copper, and grew
large, Penny quickly put it down and dragged herself away from it taking her notes with
her. The handle broke off at the bottom and stretched out, the spout closed off and
moved upwards, the opening of the kettle closed and the inside began to fill in and three
extensions grew from below the teapot's body as it tilted over on the grass. The teapot
grew larger, and larger, and larger, the clay clearly now flesh with bone within it and
copper fur covering it. The semi-spherical shape of the pot squished and stretched out,
the grip of the teapot's lid growing larger, with a brass colored mane surrounding the
head. The teapot grew from the size of a teddy bear, then a child, then a grown human
being, then a full adult Lupman and just kept on growing! The spout and handle now had
fingers, with retractable claws on the end. The two extensions of the base had now paws
and claws of their own, while tail began to wish about. Penny say a split appear on the
bottom of the teapot's base and immediately knew what it was as the Leoman lay face
down in the grass as his muzzle pushed out of the teapot grip along his ears, eyes, and
other features. Penny watched as his muscled form like being sculpted from an ever
growing mass of clay from the flex of his haunches and the small of his back, 'He's so hot!'
Penny thought, thought about what she thought, and realized there was no dang point in
even pretending to fight anymore and just went with it.
Still growing and forming, Amy began to push on his side, to pathetically unspectacular
results, "Penny-San help me turn him over, he is -your- Pride after all..."
Penny simply nodded and using the strength in her arms helped Penny turn him over and
she got a good look at his sheath before looking at his chiseled like muscular chest and
finally his face framed by brass colored mane.
'Kirk's still nicer though.' Penny thought.
His chest rose and fell, he opened his eyes, yellow like many leoman's, and gasped out,
tasting the air, "Are.... you the one who saved me?.... Am I, is this a dream? Am I dead?"
"Yes. No. No."
"Thank you... "
"Can you move?"
"It's been so long, I haven't needed to... since.. since that day.." He croaked out
remembering how his vocal cords worked.
"Your muscles shouldn't be atrophied," Amy said, "You just need to -use- them."
The copper lion man nodded, and before Penny's eyes with what seemed Herculean effort
like a toddler learning how to walking, he sat up, breathing in deep, feeling his lungs
inflate.. "I'd long since given up hole... how long, how long?"
Penny whispered in his ear.
The lion man gasped, "I knew, but I didn't want to believe, then again, I had given up... "
'This club isn't for everyone.' Kira commented from her view at the fountain.
'In particular for those -forced- into it.' Helen said.
'We were.' Nelson/Nessie pointed out.
'But we came back by choice.' Michelle said.
'Well if he finds the modern world too much he'll find his way to us.' Kira said. 'And if he
doesn't, well, I'm sure the other Leomans won't mind another 'time traveller' in the Pride.'
Penny finally roared out, "GRANDMOTHER! THERE'S SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO MEET YOU!"
The great white lioness strutted foreword, wondering what the sudden drama was. She
saw the tired looking male sitting next to Penny. She didn't recognize him at once, but
something about the leoman was familiar... something long ago for the older than old
lioness who had live far longer than the human being she had never been lived. Was she
or was she not on four legs yet? She couldn't remember precisely...
"Y-you..." The leoman said in surprise and shock seeing the giant lioness coming towards
him, "Are you, is you really--"
Mother Glen herself however was being shocked herself, "You.. impossible... what-is-your
name?!"
"G-Gillian."
"Gillian What?"
"Gillian II Daleson!"
"Gill! My GIll is that you?"
"...Marilyn?"
"It's Mother Glen now, legally on my ID...But-but-but-what happened? Why are you--"
"Penny's power freed him." Penny said simply.
Mother Glen instantly began to nuzzle the uber pale beige lioness, "OH PENNY! You
wonderful! Wonderful girl!" Mother Glen licked her like she was still a kitten. Mother then
went back to nuzzling Gillian who was partially a limp doll under her show of affection.
'Looks like that one won't be joining us any time soon.' Helen observed.
'Oh well, plenty of other fish in the sea.' Kira mentally shrugged the statues silently
grinning.
Penny and Amy both breathed a sigh of relief when nothing changed regarding the Pack
and Pride's good relationship, that was the last complication anyone needed.
++++++++++
At the home of the police chief of Glendale, the three fourths Native American turned in
his sleep. So many of his men were now women who went around naked except for their
badges and equipment belts and were nine feet tall covered in fur! And of course, per the
rules of the stupid game, nobody but him, and Serenity and whoever else even realized
human beings were supposed to be the only sentient life on the planet!
"There's times I wish this stupid curse -didn't- make it so-ugh." 'No matter how many
times reality gets screwed with, I remember perfectly how it was and I don't get a bit of a
clue how to live in the new version.' Gill noticed the room seemed to be getting bright
and raised his hand thinking it was impossible since the sun had finally gone down...
Gill saw the copper colored fur growing on his hand, he only had one response to this, "Oh
fudge."
Gill sat up, felt some weight on his chest, looked down, and said, "Double fudge."
+++++++++
"Are you worried?" Madam Serenity asked in the alchemy lab beneath the church drinking
a cub of coffee.
"About what?" Father Mike asked holding a fask with his monkey's tail.
"With reality altering around the people turn into lions, wolves, cat people, statue
monsters, and -dragons- doesn't that mean you and your brother might end up being
born the way you are instead of being victims of the curse?"
Father Paul stopped what he was doing and Judas looked up from where he was watching.
Father Paul decidedly did NOT want to end up just a fancy trained Orangutan, he had
trouble enough being accepted as a person.
"I'll admit," Father Mike said, "It is a horrid possibility, but I am not worried."
"Why?" Father Paul, Madam Serenity and Judas all said together in their respect means of
'speaking.'
"Anthropic Principle."
"Refresh my memory to what that is." The detective/fortune teller/alchemist/retired police
officer asked.
"Myself and my brother are still victims of the curse. And if we had not been victims of the
curse, then we would have not have been in a position to finally accept it's existence as
my Exorcist father did, and thus discover, translate, and create the cure. If we had not
been victims of the curse. In short, my brother and I HAVE to be victims of the curse, or
we would not be here creating amounts of the cure here with you, but we are, so
therefore, we have to be curse victims."
Madam Serenity after years dealing with the game wasn't sure how to deal with that kind
of answer, but if Father Mike was right, then at least they could focus on the cure, and if
he was wrong, best they focus on completing their task before reality got around to them
either way...
+++++++++
Rick admitted it. Rick had wanted to start over as a little girl, it was an ideal for him.
Something thought impossible that he yearned for. And as Kurse twisted things, he had
hoped she'd grant that wish. Instead he was turned into a thing of pure absolute violence.
And then Kurse was no more... and he was a man again, a human being... He hoped
beyond hope even as he romanced Marie's mother that some lingering effect of the magic
would make his wish come true. He even tried to 'Transform or Dare' himself in the mirror
to no effect. He was still an adult male, not some idealized age and gender that resembled
a female child.
But he had to be a man and accept that. And he was going to be a father now, a man of
responsibility, someone Marie and her mother were going to need! Weather he liked it or
not, he had to leave such fantasies behind. HIs family was going to need him. And Marie
needed him more than he needed to alter himself. And though Marie he;'d in a way have
his wish as she lived her life with him and he'd be there to experience it with her.
++++++++
"Amy... will Yomato accept me just saying we were both idiots and we're even?" Penny
asked as Mother Glen and Gillian caught up.
"Never. Your mistakes are not his mistakes. That's like that. He'll demand that any
compensation must be your decision and come purely from you." 'He's as harsh to himself
as he is towards others... ' Amy remembered the fiasco when it brought up that Amy -
might- have been Yomato's child like some horrid soap opera! Yomato had been VERY
harsh on those who had soiled on his honor.'
"And if I give him a slap on the wrist?"
"He'll either think you're joking or insulting him."
"Gotcha... " Penny thought for a minute and drudged up what little she knew about
Japanese culture, "Tell him that until he heels, one of his she-wolves is to be with me as
my arms and legs until I heal, and if he heals before I do, he'll take over the position
himself until I walk again, at which point, the debt is wiped clean. Will he accept that?"
Amy nodded, "Yes, he will."
"Good... " Realistically Penny was perfectly happy with Kirk being with her, but she didn't
want the lupman Yomato to kill himself over what in this timeline had been just stupidity
on both sides...
"I'll tell him at once... the sooner it's done, the sooner he'll stop contemplating Seppuku."
"I'm glade..."
Amy bowed and rushed into the house, taking a glance at her pink furred brother, who
seemed to be finding his inner courage with help from Pence. Amy smiled, 'She was a
wonderful wife. He'll make a great man one day.'
+++++++++
"It was a good thing for the witchling that the Pack did not come to Glendale all that
often, otherwise the two pack members they had harmed might recognize Goldwyn as the
girl who had been trespass on their property and had attacked a pack member... "
"And they didn't look for her afterwards?" Betty asked. "Why?"
"Princess did a fair job of covering their scent on their way back. And they ultimately
concluded that predators had beaten them to the punch lacking anything remotely
resembling another logical theory."
Samantha said, "Didn't think of magic or simple tricks to cover their scent?"
"They did, but again, Princess was able to keep Goldwyn from being noticed, and the
wolves didn't really both looking all that hard in the praying town, and remember, the girls
were slowly building one layer of enchantment on top of another on local authorities to
make themselves and their activities invisible to them."
Lilly asked the obvious question sitting with her father, "What happened next?"
"They went back to their studies, both mundane and arcane. Joseph, of course DID teach
Goldwyn about using her sixth sense. Losing an eye was, of course, an even worse
condition than it was then. He knew she had to learn to compensate with her sixth sense
from her loss of perception and decreased range of vision."
"Did half of her face really look like a skull?" Casandra had to ask.
"Not yet. By the time that happened, she was firmly Gogatha rather than Goldwyn. But
before any of that happened, both of Goldwyn's sisters had to find their familiars. Gita
would find hers first. Griselle would meet hers exactly a year later. In that time, all would
practice their magic and learn about the real world, and become more convinced their idea
was the right idea with every word they read... they even hated the rule you had to start a
new line when writing whenever you quoted a character."
Everyone looked at each other at that one.
"Turning evil and bad grammar..." Maddex noted.
"And Marie, I mean Marie Cruz? She'd go through much the same I take it?" Lawrence said,
noticing the parallels between Goldwyn and Marie's life events.
"Her sixth sense would be more self taught, not having a prophet most of the time to
teach her, and it would develop differently, as different as Marie was from Goldwyn."
++++++++
"It was now 1674, and the blond Gita the eldest was now ten years old. Girls enter
puberty faster than boys, and Gita was closing in on the age where she'd enter the flux
between child and woman. The black haired Goldwyn had begun to grow her hair longer so
as to cover her lost eye. But at the same time, she over the last year now moved with
almost the same sureness as if she had both.
"The family had dared enter the market at Glendale for much needed supplies. Griselle
found another drunkard, and turned him into a nice perfectly happy cloth girl dolly, and in
retrospect did the same to his wife and child who Goldwyn had pointed out were nearby.
The girls had become a warped clean up crew of sorts, anyone who didn't find a job quick
enough to came to Glendale found themselves the subject of the girls' 'compassion.' The
dollies would spend their happily little existences until wear and tear released their spirits
in the arms of children in the praying town. The locals had also noticed children were
growing a little bit slower than they should be. Subjects of Gita's peaceful and careful
experiments (not wanting a repeat of Joella) in trying to prevent children from growing up.
One failed experience made a child age backwards and they had quickly turned him and
his mother into a pregnant fertility totem to prevent him from de-aging back into an
separate egg and sperm. The father became a happy teddy bear that through a spell of
fate would never be far from the totem.
"Traveling through the town was a small caravan of relatively exotic animals. Most of them
at an age that was illogical for them to be separated from the parents, most of those
wouldn't survive long, and naturally, this business by the same virtue wouldn't last long if
it continued to sell short lived products. Where most of them came from was anyone's
guess, and most of the people in Glendale wanted absolute nothing with the men who
owned the tiny caravan and hoped he did what little business he and his men had here and
moved along!
"Of course the girls were curious, and so was Running-Bear, though he could see that
many of the animals were unhappy, he knew if he did anything, he would be punished and
the animal would still be miserable.
"The caravan owner introduced himself as "Victor, seller of anything that moves." Though
even he admitted he wasn't sure where some of the animal came from, having traded
handlers at least twice by the time he bought them.
Princess looked at the small collection of oddly colored and patterned cats, looking at
them with a 'I'm on the other side of these bars and you're not!' expression that her
master didn't see.
Gita looked at the animals, looking for something she knew not what. She went from one
small cage to the next. Until at last she saw a snake... it was big, but at the same time it
looked somehow young in spite looking like it was eat a garden snake whole. She looked
at it, and the one year old boa looked back. It's scales were all red. This alone made the
puritans not want to get near it, much like Princess and her black fur.
"Who are you?" Gita whispered, she had seen this snake before, it was smaller then.
She didn't react all that strangely when the snake spoke back to her, "You may call me
what you wish, but you must also tell me my true name..."
Gita looked back at Princess and Goldwyn, she knew Goldwyn was close to figuring out
Princess' real name, using her sixth sense to find it. Gita looked back at the snake, "Okay,
I'll call you... Daisy until I know what your real name is..." The snake whose true name was
Lilith bowed it head, "As you wish, I'll stay with you if you wish to know my true name."
Gita stood up and pointed at the cage, "I want this one."
The man looked at the girl, then at Running-Bear, who looked at Gita, the man explained
the price.
"That's impossible." It was easily more than Running-Bear could afford.
"But she wants to be with me!"
"Too bad." Said Victor, "You can't pay, can't have her, them's the rules."
That word alone made Gita's blood boil.
With their foster father right there however, they had to be patient. The girls hated that
even more.
The girls had it down to a routine now of one of them distracting their foster father with
princess running interference while the other two went about their charity work.
Gita and Griselle made their way back to the market, and met with Victor again at once.
"Give me Daisy, she's my friend."
The large bald mustached Victor looked surprisingly sympathetic, "Too bad kid, look, I
went to a lot of trouble moving these animals and feeding them and looking after them
and buying them in the first place, it's not fair for me to just give them to you, I gotta eat
too ya know."
"Yes... you do... it's not fair you need to do all this to eat it seems..." Gita called upon the
infinite chaos, actually reaching into the cage and touching Daisy.
Victor was paralyzed, he couldn't move, scream, or shout, only think and maybe move his
eyeballs. He felt his clothes turn to dust, he saw the world getting smaller, he felt the fur
covering his entire body, he felt his fingers fusing together... and he felt his manhood of
which he was quite proud invert on itself and things inside him changed... When the
paralysis ended he suddenly was on all fours. He, she, looked at the children very scared.
"Run along now, Veronica..." Said Griselle kindly... "You'll find lots of friends..."
The feeling of being exposed and helpless becoming overwhelming Victor fled the scary
humans. Victor's men came looking for their loyal boss a couple minutes later and soon
Midge, Betty, and Nacy and a freed slave now named Abungu... By the time Swift-Hoof's
Herd found the new scared and confused doe fawns, the had wandered too close to the
Wolf Estate, and Abungu had her neck torn out and her heart eaten by a pub making their
first pub as their passage into becoming a man. The witchlings knew none of them, as far
as they were concerned they had saved five poor people from the world of adults and
rules.
After failing to find the keys and finally breaking the lock, Gita reached out her arm and
look the baby boa up her arm without fear. "Welcome home Daisy."
"Yes my master." The snake replied.
Princess made a note to indoctrinate 'Daisy' about the glorious destiny their masters were
set for. The girls absent-mindedly left the rest of the caged animals to their fates.
"How did you get that snake?" Of course their foster father asked.
Gita produced a simple lie about Victor having a change of heart and simply giving it to
them.
The blond Griselle pouted in her room that night at the unfairness of it, both her sisters
now had their special friend except her.
"Don't worry." Gita promised her sister, "I'm sure you'll find your familiar in no time." It
would be precisely another year until the crow whose true name was Solome would come
in contact with it's master Griselle.