The girls had voted as a whole that during the next full moon they'd sneak out just before
midnight and on the thirteenth hour (don't ask) use their magic on their familiars to try and
form the link Grissele had with Solome and learn the real names of their friends, forging
their link between Master and Familiar.
"So what kind of magic are we going to use?" Goldwyn asked as the girls entered what
counted as a 'sunday school' in Glendale.
Even the girls were not stupid enough to release totally blind magic at something let alone
their precious familiars. The fact that Goldwyn had her vision of Lucky before the bird was
likely hatched didn't matter a bit to either of them.
"I dunno," Gita admitted, "maybe change their colors for a little while? Maybe make them
younger, would be good practice for us saving other kids from becoming adults."
Goldwyn nodded, that was a sacred and honorable task for them. Many of the parents of
the children they had rescued wondered why they had waited so long to have children and
a year or so later were taking care of a newborn having no idea children they no longer
remembered having were nearby as a doll, a relief, a totem, a statue or statuette, even one
who Gita had turned into a child shaped tree. And of course all the Golden Dear Fawns...
They both knew better than to change them simply into other species of Man... Man, all of
those species, were each just slaves to law.
Golwyn being ten and Gita eleven were in what counted as separate 'classes' if they could
even be called that. At this point, the girls didn't even ASK anymore if someone wanted to
be saved or not, they knew what was better so what did it matter what the people they
were saving thought? They were smarter than the puritans. They avoided doing the entire
town just cause they KNEW their foster father WOULD notice, and Princess had warned
them deeply that they couldn't risk doing such things until they were powerful enough that
no one could oppose their saving of the world.
As a bit of brief review, the teacher in the class did a quick account of the Apple in the
Garden of Eden and a snake (concluded by most now to be the devil in disguise), luring
Adam and Eve to take the apple and leave paradise.
Gita of course in class declared of course, "Snakes aren't bad!"
"This snake was." The teacher said simply.
"And why did they have to leave Eden then anyway?!"
"Cause they broke the one rule that God gave them. Not to Eat from the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil, or Knowledge of All Things."
"Why is having knowledge a bad things-?!"
"Because the more you know, the more aware you are of your world, and the less innocent
you are, and once Adam and Eve were no longer innocent, they could no longer stay in a
place meant for innocence. That is the price of being something more like becoming
adults." Ironically this teacher was being more understanding than some and doing her
best to answer Gita's questions.
Gita however, just saw her as throwing her questions back in her face. "Then everyone
should just STAY children!"
"There is actually a passage about returning to having the faith of a child actually. But
becoming children again in of itself? You can't turn back time or take back your own
choices, if we could, then free will would become meaningless."
'I'll turn back time! I'll take back all the bad choices! Me and my sisters will make
everything right! Everything as it SHOULD BE!' Gita then recklessly using her magic to take
years off the age of the teacher, making some students gasp, the teacher didn't notice, and
Gita's common sense got her attention before the grown woman became a toddler. Of
course, no one had even the slightest idea that Gita could have done this. The teacher
spoke again only to hear her higher voice and look at herself and realize her age had been
cut in half! Gita left the class then, not really caring what happened next as the teacher
and her students broke into a commotion over the strange happening and ignoring the
words of her class mates at how bizarre the sight was.
Hiding Solome in a small bag Grisselle waited for her sisters' lessons to be done for the
day. She noticed two sisters about her age hugging, "See you in three months."
"Right you too."
Gissle didn't even ask what their problem was, because their problem wasn't about to
matter! The sisters' clothes dissolved as one grew older and the other younger until they
were the same age, and their features changed until they were identical twins. They had
time to gasp and point at each other and themselves and would have screamed in alarm if
a wave of peace hadn't washed over their minds then as they stepped on the edge of a
garden held hands and then leaned back from each other and turned to green metal with
little wings that molded from their backs a minute later, both of them having a frozen
laugh on their faces.
"Well done Master. Well done. The speed at which you improve would make many tremble."
+++++++++
That night, all three girls wearing witches cloaks (really their security blankets tied around
their necks like super hero capes), stood in a circle (more like a triangle). The moon was
rising, and the witching hour was nearly upon them where in theory (or at least according
to fairy tales) their magic would be strongest. Various creatures watched them from the
edge of the clearing where they'd logically make tempting targets to any nocturnal
predator looking for an easy kill. With them of course were "Lucky" Solome,
Princess(Herodias), and Daisy (Lilith) held by each witchling.
"Okay girls! Let's do this!" Gita declared.
"This shall be so gay!" Goldwyn laughed.
Glass Marie said, "It had a different meaning back then, moving on."
"Sisters you are gonna love it!" Gissele encouraged, "The link I have with my familiar is
wonderful! I feel like I'm whole in a way I never imagined before!"
The other two nodded, looking very foreword to this.
+++++++++
"Didn't Griselle -lose- Salome, Lucky, whatever, before the end?" Betty asked remember
her time as living crystal twins doing the dance of chaos in Kurse's honor on Big Bad Island
and the feeling of the missing familiar.
"Yes." Glass Marie said smoothing out the folds on her black and red dress, "When they
were women in their late 20s, handing out candy to children. Candy that left children's
minds completely vulnerable to the Infinite Chaos, and drove them utterly and completely
mad like an animal with rabies, they saw this as 'saving them.'
A Jewish Leoman cub named Mal'Akh lost her big sister that way. Mal'akh's dog smelled
something wrong with the women and attacked Gaal. Gaal side stepped the animal who
then in the same trajectory got his jaws on Soleme's neck and broke it... The poor dog's
insides were boiled alive by the vengeful witch less than a minute later. Her sister
however, took the candy that had been dropped and foolishly ate it anyway... You can
guess what happened next.
Twenty years later, as a police officer, Mal'Akh was one of the first victims of the game
when a fellow officer who was an anti-semitist used it to turn her into one of Glendale's
first living art."
Lawrence looked surprised, "?! A WOMAN as a police officer in 1710?!"
Maddex asked in turn, "They HAD police officers in 1720?"
Samantha remembering her time as Glass and thus her time as a part of the curse asked
ideally, "Mal'Akh, was that not the name of one of the Leoman that Penny saved from being
trapped as artwork at the Glendale gallery?"
The little witch answered all the questions in turn, "Being a Leoman, she was begrudgingly
accepted for being effective, and with the extra amount of trouble the game caused during
the first couple generations the police accepted all the help they could get. And 'police' I
guess isn't really the right word, since law enforcement wasn't really centralized or fully
institutionalized at the time, but she was an agent for what counted as law. And yes, that
was the name of one of the people Penny saved, I know because I know everything the
various bits and pieces of the curse knew at the time of Kurse's death, and yes, it is the
same Mal'Akh."
Lilly and Casandra hugged each other at the story of the children the witches had driven
mad, the statues they had a bit of an acceptance given the japanese lupmen's time as living
art, but reduced to nothing but mad dogs was truly frightening to them. Maddex held his
daughters close him two arms and one head each as they shivered. 'I'm beginning to
wonder if my girls should really be hearing all this!' He looked at Samantha, who seemed
to be holding up well. Then again, while the Alphas' oldest children had been as immature
as children would be but smarter than most collage graduates, the Alphas' younger
children were surprisingly almost frighteningly mature at time.
Betty asked trying to divert the subject,"How old were they by this point? 1675 I mean?"
"Gita was six in 1670 when they fled what would become Germany, that makes he eleven
in 1675 when she began attending confirmation classes. Her adopted sister Goldwyn was
around five, and Griselle was four. Marie Cruz was a between Goldwyn and Gita's ages.
Meaning she was also just under eleven when she began blooming early. Gita would be
thirty-six when she died. She would be around sixteen when she and her sisters crossed
the point of no return though their foster father for some time wouldn't stop trying..."
Samantha said, "Goldwyn was supposed to be deformed since birth that half her face
resembled a death's head, I remember that from when I was Glass. But from what you
describe it was a gradual process."
Glass Marie nodded, the shock wave entered the past as well of course, not just the present
or future. "Repairing her birth deformity was actually the first gift her birth father gave her.
But it seemed fate was determined to return her face to how it was at birth one piece at a
time as she stepped away more from what her family taught her... And more her own ideals
and that of her sister that Herodias encouraged her master."
Samantha, being Alice's sister, also pointed out, "And Marie's hair when she started
gathering allies in 1685 was blond, but it was black when Garbiel adopted her."
"Funny story that one," Glass Marie said honestly, "that would have more to do with
'Maurice' needing to ultimately 'go away.' and no one ultimately connecting 'Maurice' with
'Marie' and the power of habits after it was no longer an issue."
Lawrence having been a schoolar before he had let his insecurities make him and Roger
become a muscle builders pointed out another inconsistency, "Cholera came from India
and didn't appear in Spain for over fifty years I'm sure, Marie's parents died in 1669 or
1670. And the symptoms she described 'bleeding in places' sounded more like the good
old black plague! And if Gabriel was to pass for a plague doctor, there's no way he'd
mistake two different diseases for each other. And I'm fairy certain the disease hadn't even
APPEARED YET when Gabriel mentioned it."
Glass Marie wondered how many of those were due to errors of her own memory, or due to
reality repairing itself from the shock-wave released from Kurse's destruction.
++++++++++
Father Mike asked, "So after it goes into the water supply, we bless the entire town, and
hope that kills the game?"
Serenity answered, "It's better than reading from the phone book since we're likely to miss
someone, and if we do this one person at a time we're bound to miss someone and even if
we don't, don't forget there are plenty of people who DON'T want to give up the power the
game gives them and that could turn messy and ugly very fast."
"I understand... I just don't wish all we're making to be gone with the rainwater if it turns
out it doesn't work."
"If we're lucky the cure isn't bound by the same 'five at once only' rule that the game is.
And to be frank? If we're lucky it won't be, because I think deep in my gut, that Glendale
itself, the town, is sick of this curse too, and wants it to end as badly as the people who
live in it do."
"Things don't have hearts."
"Maybe not... but there was been so many object victims over the years that maybe their
souls have pretty much become Glendale..."
"That's a big if."
"Better than fighting house to house and facing someone who'd rather waste their turn
turning one of us into an eggplant than let their chance at using the game go."
++++++++++++++
Jacob said to the lioness, "What about good old fashioned hypnosis?"
"What?"
"Just get a professional to hypnotize you into forgetting the previous worlds."
"That's a bunch of mumbo jumbo and stage magic."
"Actually, hypnosis can work fairly well if the subject is knowing, willing, and has their
guard down. And since hypnosis is actually better at messing up memories rather than
restoring them you'd have a fairly good shoot."
Gill thought about it, if Serenity's scheme worked and they finally killed the game, that
would be the end of it, no more changes to reality related to the game, and this would be
the only life she'd have. However if it didn't work, she'd just be scared and confused when
someone used the game again to twist existence.
Gill said, "Only -after- the game is destroyed."
"Destroyed?"
"A cure to finally wipe it is out is being worked on. If that works, fine, I'll try you silly magic
trick suggestion, though I seriously doubt it'll work! The curse was for me to remember
every change to reality!"
"Did it say how you'd remember him?"
"Huh?"
"Maybe just get hypnotized into thinking they're a dream or fiction, you'd still remember
them but not think of them as real..."
Gill groaned, "Fine, whatever, okay, I'll try it, but again, only AFTER it works that the game
is gone! If I could undo every twist to existence it's done I would."
"I wouldn't Gillie." He said to the lionesses he had known for decades according to his own
memories.
"HOW THE HELL CAN YOU SAY THAT?"
"I don't suppose you ever heard of a game called Final Fantasy Tactics? One of friends of
my son, another cub from the Pride, has it, and once I heard him explaining the game to
his mother. Apparently a sad little boy used a magic book to completely remake the world
into something fantastic. With only the main characters remembering. In spite of a lot of
things being better, the main character wanted the boy to use the book to undo things so
his friends would stop trying to run from reality and actually face their problems."
"Good."
"And that was what the narrative was going for I think. But I always thought, 'isn't reality
what exists?' If something existences, isn't it therefore part of reality? Isn't THIS reality
right now we're in? We're not in a giant VR machine as far I know, and we aren't in a
massive shared dream... we're solid, we're real, we're alive... I'll admit I guess I have it
easier cause if what you say is true Gillie, which I won't say weather I believe it or not, that
since I don't remember how things used to be it's easier for me to cling to what I KNOW
opposed to what I don't... but... is existence right now really so bad? Sure there's criminals,
wars, assaults, injustice, diseases, but most of those are part of free will aren't they? Is the
reality you remember any better or worse than this one? Doesn't it have it's own right to
exist?"
Gillie recounted a historic event.
"You're kidding! That didn't happen before? That's impossible! And this was part of what
turned you into you?"
"No, it was way before this, decades ago, but it's now taught in the history books... "
"I can't imagine the world without that..."
"I can because I lived in a world without it... "
"I'm sorry Gillie..."
"It's... never mind, I need to get used to that name now anyway..." Gillie would have to see
if she was still three-forths native American...
Jacob leaned over and hugged her again, "I don't care about former realities or new
realities if they come after this one. In THIS reality you're my pack mate, and that is a
GOOD THING! And I'll stay -by- that good thing. I'm proud to have you as part of our
Pride..."
"Thanks Jacob..."
+++++++++
"This room... it's normally a lot more crowded isn't it?" Penny asked, having been to the
Wolf Manor before of course. And the dinning room had never been this empty at feeding
time whenever she had been here.
"Yes My Mistress." Umeko said pushing her along holding out her arms long so her breasts
didn't bump the wheel chair. "But with many of your Pride mates, and my Pack mates
injured in battle, and those at their post of being at their side for those who can not help
themselves... you have much more space to yourself My Mistress." Umeko spoke the
obvious performing her duty in her status as Penny's proxy slave to the hilt.
With so many recovering and so many asleep from having been up all night, no one
bothered to take role call. With the Alphas recovering and the Betas indisposed, and and
even the GAMMA healing from battle, and there was no way in hades that Epsilon-Nick
was leaving Epsilon-Nicole's side, everyone turned to Mr. P to hold dinner along with their
guests...