"I don't entirely think what reality is doing is removing all traces people have to the game," Serenity said after a few moments as she and Father Michael went for breakfast, Paul had gone to see if he could wear clothing again, "just the parts where one's physical appearance would be connected to it... how in this new reality came to involve you and your brother and the cure, I don't know, but I'd tend to think that something happened that brought Merlin's cure into the picture."
"I'm not sure I understand," Father Michael answered, "If reality is removing all connections, and the wolves and lions, and my brother and I have been as we've always been, and this Jensen has never used the game... what are we fixing?"
"I'm not fully sure," Serenity sighed, "it'll likely be something to figure out, but I'd be pretty sure that something happened to bring the cure into the mix. In the original time-line, this case started with a Julie Butler, hiring me to find her husband, then transformed by Jensen. Jensen had already gotten Julie by the time I met with you to pick up Trever."
"Yes, I remember you saying that they'd got her," Father Michael nodded.
"But not that reality is altering over things, Julie never lost a husband," Serenity explained, "she's been married to Jensen in the new reality, with her husband in the old reality as a pack mate at least, and possibly as a sister now. Because of this, Julie had no reason to hire me at all... yet when I dropped Trever off with his family, his mother asked I was the one helping "Beta-Julie" locate the parents of the "gem-pups"."
"So in one reality you were hired to do one thing, but now that is no longer part of reality, she hired you to do something else?"
Serenity nodded, "Pretty much. How reality has all shifted is something I'll likely be trying to figure out once we have enough of the cure ready."
"So what connections to the game will be left then?" Father Michael asked.
"I don't know for sure," Serenity sighed, "probably some dares and those things that can be easily explained without the game... though that will likely require more investigation later, to find out what."
"Though once the game is dead, that won't matter," Father Michael commented, leaving Serenity to only nod.
++++++
Gillie sighed as she came out of her office. The night had not gone all that well. Somehow being mutated into the pride, how she still didn't know, and becoming female besides. Then meeting Jacob Tyson, who according to the new reality had known her as a her for years, but he did offer an idea on how to deal with her own problem... if that would have to wait until after the game was dead.
Jacob had staid with her until she went back to sleep and managed to relax. Gillie half expected him to still be there when the day started, but she had found only a note. It left Jacob's home address and a short message that he would look into who could do the hypnosis on her, and offered that if she ever needed someone to talk to, he and Marie were there. Gillie had left the note there and quickly set about getting ready for work.
Her refrigerator was full of almost nothing but meat. Some of it was the meats that one would expect, but the vast majority of the meat was labeled "gold deer". That which wasn't meat was some form of diary product or eggs. Gillie didn't have the heart to really investigate what would likely be her sole diet from now on. She cooked, ate, and hurried on her way.
She had found that the station had been altered, just as her house was, and likely the homes (and possibly entire apartment building complexes) where the rest of "the Pride" lived. It was built as though there were leoman or lupman or both officers when the station was built. Which couldn't have really happened, but then Gillie was the only one who understood that.
And as she settled down to do the paperwork connected to the death of Fox and Elise when she picked up the commotion of someone demanding to know where Wanda was. She came out to find a woman talking with desk officer about asking Gillie. Gillie could only sigh, but she did half recognize the woman, she had been Wade Yexus's girlfriend... though how she and Wade were close now was unknown, given that Wade had never existed. She had always been Wanda.
"Gillie!" Tabby called once she noticed her coming out of her office, "please, they won't tell me where Wanda is!"
"They're just being careful," Gillie spoke, "they don't want her to get anymore hurt then she already is."
"But I would never harm my roommate... my friend... she's like a sister, really, even though we're different species," Tabby said, on the verge of tears, "I need to know that she's okay."
Gillie sighed and thought, "if you care about her that much, you won't be different species for much longer... but it's not like I can stop it. Maybe slow it down, but not stop it."
"She's fine, I assure you," Gillie spoke.
"I'm sure," Tabby spoke back, "but I HAVE to see her."
"We also got a letter this morning from Frostville, an overnight delivery apparently," the desk officer reported, "it's addressed to a "Trever, Leoman"."
"Any bomb or drugs in it?"
"No bomb, and Trooper didn't smell anything drug related, though he didn't like something about the letter," the desk officer answered, "makes me wish Fran or Darla hadn't decided to take a few days off. They seem to understand him perfectly."
Gillie only sighed, "I have some paperwork to sort out right now. If you can wait for me to finish it, I can take you to where Wanda is..."
"Thank you!" Tabby cheered and rushed around the front desk to hug Gillie.
"I'll take the letter with me," Gillie then told the desk officer.
"Yes, ma'am," the desk officer then handed the letter to Gillie.
++++++++
"You've mentioned Gita was doing some experiments on how to slow down the aging process," Lawrence commented, "what were these experiments? I hadn't thought that aging could be stopped."
"In theory it could... but that was through the various statue transformations that the witches had so far performed," Marie answered, "but that wasn't really what the witchlings really wanted. Part of it was connected with what happened Joella. While they never admitted that it was Goldwyn's fault that Joella was killed, or put in a position where what happened would happen, they did admit that statues wasn't the best option, as they had to be guarded to insure they weren't smashed. So Gita turned to trying to slow down the aging process... but using magic and knowing nothing about how the aging process works, as genetics as a field didn't really exist back then, would have some strange consequences..."
++++++++
1680
A young copper colored leoman cub trotted through a field to the east of the praying town. Her father wasn't too far away, but he wasn't watching super closely, as there wasn't much that would mess with a leoman without a weapon. A lupman, maybe, but they seemed to stick their estate grounds, and while gruff and militaristic, the cub's parents weren't on bad terms with them.
As the cub pounced... or attempted to pounce on butterflies, she ended up landing the ground in front of a large red boa that had just swallowed a rabbit. The cub leaped up in the air and back to put some distance between her and the snake. It hissed at her.
"Bad snake!" the cub challenged back.
"Daisy isn't bad," came a new voice, "she just had her lunch."
The cub looked up to see a girl about her own age standing there. The cub was startled to see her there and wondered how she never noticed the girl there before.
"Hello," the cub spoke to the girl.
"Hello, I'm Gita," Gita spoke to the cub, "who are you?"
"Rosa Daleson," the cub answered nervously, backing away and looking for her father.
"Don't be afraid," Gita urged, "I don't want to hurt you. I want to help you be good..."
"You mean I'm bad?"
"Not right now," Gita spoke, "but you will be if you grow up to serve laws and rules. I'm trying to prevent that."
Rosa looked back at the girl somewhat puzzled, "by doing what?"
"By trying to see I can get time to stop around you," Gita told her and raised a hand while "Daisy's" eyes glowed as Gita channeled the Infinite Chaos through her.
Rosa looked back nervously and continued to back away as she felt something strange tingle through her entire body... After a few moments, Gita lowered her hand and then turned to pick up "Daisy".
"Thank you for cooperating," Gita told Rosa, "we'll be watching to see how it went..."
+++++++
"Stopping time?" Maddex asked, "Isn't that impossible?"
"Not necessarily," Marie commented, "remember Einstein's theories on traveling at the speed of light. One twin lives eighty years on Earth while the other goes at light speed in a rocket for eighty years, yet when the rocket returns to earth, the twin in it hasn't aged a day while the one on Earth has aged eighty years."
"Yes, but that's because at light speed the twin in the rocket can't feel the effects of time," Lawrence answered, "it doesn't necessarily mean that time stopped."
Marie nodded, "And that is sort of what Gita was trying for. Remove the effects of time on individual people, though the repeated use of these experiments would have some effect on Rosa and through her on those she interacted with..."
++++++
1780 (Flash-forward)
Rosa Daleson shuddered slightly as she thought back on things. It had now been a hundred years to the day that she had her run in with Gita and "Daisy" whom she now remembered as Gaal. She was now well over a hundred years old herself, yet she looked much younger, much fitter then one would assume.
"Great Grandma... are you coming on the hunting trip today, or should I bring you back something?" a feminine voice asked.
Rosa turned to her great granddaughter, Gillie, "No dear. I think I may come along, but I'll talk with one of the Pack members. See if the Revolution hurt their hunting in any way, or if the couple that went off to fight with the Patriots are in good health."
Her great granddaughter nodded and opened the door for Rosa.
++++++
An hour later, Rosa sat politely at a table with the Pack's current Alpha. A black and gold wolf named Bartholomew.
"I wonder why you have this interest in me, madam," Bartholomew spoke in a firm voice.
"Oh come now Bart," Rosa teased, "wouldn't it be nice for the Pack and the Pride to be friends. It'd be better then our present "tolerating" each other."
"What do you mean?"
"Toleration doesn't necessarily imply things are good," Rosa explained, "and it could lead to wars."
"If it has to come, then it has to come," Bartholomew replied.
"It doesn't have to," Rosa urged, "come on Bart, I see you as a friend. Surely it wouldn't hurt for you to see someone other then your pack mates... it..."
Rosa then suddenly tensed in her seat.
"I don't feel well," Rosa spoke and fell forward landing on all fours.
"Rosa!"
"I feel cramped... small..." Rosa panted out as her shoulder blades began to rearrange themselves and her hips began to alter.
"I'll get the doctor!" Bartholomew spoke.
"Don't leave me, my friend!" Rosa nearly roared as her breasts were pulled into a flat copper furred chest.
Bartholomew glanced back at the mutating lioness. The game was already ravaging the two, but no one had used it on Rosa, and Bartholomew didn't want the Pack and the Pride to be on bad terms. The concept of being friends with the pride seemed a bit beyond Bartholomew, but it was something to consider.
"But what can I do to help you?" Bartholomew asked.
"Just hug me, my friend," Rosa repeated and let the male wolf hug her.
Even as he did, she began to feel her body swell larger and larger. It continued until she was twice the size of a mundane lioness, but otherwise looked identical to one.
"Rosa?" Bartholomew asked, feeling a slight "tingle" radiate off of the lioness.
"I feel better now," Rosa spoke.
"But you aren't as you were!" Bartholomew gasped.
"But I'm not pain," Rosa said puzzled, "better then I'd felt in years, actually..."
++++++++
"So Gita's experiments made Rosa become like Mother Glen, the Pride's Matriarch?" Betty asked.
"For Rosa, the transformation was accidental," Marie sighed, "While Gita was somewhat successful in slowing down Rosa's aging process, but it came with the consequence of her reverting back to a quadrupedal stance once she passed a certain age."
"I take it that's why Mother Glen is on four legs now?" Betty then inquired.
"In a way, why both Mother Glen and your Mr. P are quadrupeds now," Marie explained, "the magics Gita used on Rosa only worked by projecting a sort of aura around her. When Rosa became a quadruped, that aura grew stronger and was absorbed by Bartholomew... and nearly everyone she interacted with, both Pack and Pride, and even the humans, absorbed bits and pieces of it. Over time, that magic and the exposure to Rosa's "aura" ended up making the condition genetic. If a Leoman or Lupman lives to be older then a hundred they will revert back into a quadruped. Physical transformations among Humans haven't been noticed, but several have been known to have lived extraordinarily long lives as a result of the exposure."
"So it's like radiation, but without the threat of death and cancer," Lawrence commented.
"In a way," Marie only shrugged, "I can't really think of another analogy at the moment."
"Auntie Julie met a woman who lived for a long time," Samantha commented, "do you think she is a human that's felt the effects of Rosa's aura through time?"
"I'd need to meet the woman to be sure," Marie told her.