"Just zombies?" Maddex asked, covering his daughters ears, remembering a story from Martha that Giselle and Gretchen had once gotten up in the middle of the night and caught several of the teen wolves watching a late night horror movie. The two had nightmares for a week, straight. "What about the Leoman bodyguard?"
"He was instructed to protect the child familiar, not to engage Marie and Linus," Marie answered, "and besides, if he had, Marie and Linus would have died there. Remember that the witches had extended the protective geass around everyone that was connected to them. Joella, themselves, the surviving familiars Lilith and Herodias, and those they had transformed, primarily the child familiars, but the Leomen they had made to serve them fell under the same category."
"So if he had attacked...?" Alice began.
"The geass would have protected the leoman from anything Marie or Linus could throw at them before they could have done anything in regards to digging up Balthilde's bones," Marie explained, "and the raising of the other buried bones would not have been necessary."
"Why didn't they do that?" Samantha wondered, "It seems like it was certainly the smarter thing to do then to play around with..." she shuddered, "...zombies."
"You're assuming they had a basic understanding of military strategy and tactics, which really if you're going to take over the world and are facing opposition is really how you need to approach things. Even if the methods are different, you have to be willing to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and be willing to make sacrifices..."
Marie paused in her explanation, "and the witches weren't Napoleon. Not even close to that level of strategic planning. They wanted to create their "perfect" anarchy, so they essentially "advanced" directly toward that goal. Marie Cruz would learn from the mistakes made when they first arrived "in" Glendale. The witches never really learned from their mistakes."
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Meanwhile, across town a young Leoman cub returned to a middle class home that wasn't too far from Wolf Manor. She was young Sarah Tye. She was a good friend of Sabrina, Elaine, and Natasha and the other female cubs at Glendale's elementary school, and had unknowingly joined the pride at lunch after sitting down with the three lion girls. It was a sign that the transformation powers of mutual love, which seemed to exist in every Leoman were continuing, but since Leoman rarely, if ever, noticed those powers working, young Sarah's interactions with her parents and what DIDN'T happen wasn't picked up.
When the school day ended, the children and cubs in the building went home with their folks. Now, for Trevor, Sabrina, and the boys that Trevor had earlier called on the phone didn't transform their parents then, as their parents were already Leomen. Marie would lick the nose of each of her cubs as they got into her vehicle. But for many of the new leomen cubs who had been transformed during the school day, they did transform their parents, as the love between parents and children was firmly there. But for Sarah Tye, that didn't happen.
In the original time-line, young Sarah was born to a couple that looked toward having children as more of a business investment rather then the loving union between parents. However, given that Sarah was now a Leoman, that explanation could no longer work. While Marie-Eliza gave theoretical proof that the various species of "man" could interbreed with each other, at least one of Sarah's parents would have to be a Leoman in order for that to work, but neither of them changed. To correct for this, and unknown to them, reality began to rearrange how two humans ended up raising a Leoman cub.
As reality altered, it changed the biological capabilities of Sarah's "parents". They were now sterile and could not have have children of their own, but still found that they needed a "child" to advance in society. Mostly from a jealousy of Alpha-Jensen and his family, four wives and seven children. But, being human, society would not tolerate Sarah Tye's father taking more then one wife, so they turned to adoption.
Adoption turned to be rather difficult. Particularly as their self-imposed work schedule made it difficult. Their boss, a young Leoman who's wife who had just had a cub, Sarah, had even urged that they take it easy, especially if they were looking to adopt children, so they could do the necessary "homework" to go through the adoption process.
Then came the opportunity that would bring the animosity of the Pride against Sarah Tye's adoptive parents. Her biological parents had offered to help her adoptive parents with some pointers on how to go through the adoption process when a nearby gas line exploded in flames, engulfing the home. Sarah Tye's adoptive parents, Gilbert and Marsha Tye got out easily, but her biological parents did not. Selflessly moving to save their cub, they ended up having toss Sarah out a window before being consumed in the fire. The then one year old Sarah was caught by Gilbert Tye and held tightly as the three of them watched in horror as the the two adult leomen and their home was burned to the ground, with the two adult leomen in it. The cause of the gas leak was never discovered.
Gilbert and Marsha Tye's actions in the immediate aftermath then set them at odds with the pride. It was extremely rare that both parents of a Leoman cub were killed, and when it happened, it was usually a chance occurrence. When this happened, the orphan cubs were usually adopted by some other member of the Pride. Marie and the mothers of Elaine, Natasha, and even Felicity and Mother Glen had tried to explain this to Gilbert and Marsha, who had started to go through the adoption process with Sarah as there were no surviving documents that said who would raise Sarah in case of the death of both parents.
The resulting legal battle lasted for many months. Alpha-Kaylee, representing the Pride's interests, did her best to try and give the Pride custody of Sarah Tye, but without any such mention of custody written in the will of her biological parents, Gilbert and Marsha ended up winning the battle. Sarah, meanwhile, never really understood what the whole fight was about. Gilbert and Marsha had taken care of her immediately after her parents were killed and had been willing to raise her. At the time to a one year old, that was all that mattered.
However, Gilbert and Marsha Tye's raising of her was still a society based drive to appear successful. And so as Sarah grew from toddler into her elementary school years and befriended Marie's eldest child, Sabrina, the love she felt toward Gilbert and Marsha was never really returned. And as a result, Sarah Tye never transformed her adoptive parents.
"Come on now, Sarah," Marsha urged her, "You need to eat your greens."
Being a carnivore that she was, Sarah only cringed at having to eat peas, while clutching her tail at the same time. She wondered if letting Mary talk to them about what mundane lions, wolves, Leoman, and Lupman ate would change their minds about eating peas.
+++++++++
"Those thieves will pay!" Golgotha cursed as they finally had the time to make it to cemetery to find the entire place a mess.
The bodies that the witches through their child familiar now lay scattered and in pieces, some with visible signs that they had been shot. The only body that wasn't there, was their grandmother's... and in fact her grave was the cleanest of all the ones there.
"But what would grave robbers want with Grandma?" Gomorrah asked, "she had no money to steal."
"The dog," Golgotha growled, referring to Marie Cruz, "she strikes at us to take away the only one who loved us and for who we're doing everything for... and now we can't even bring her back."
"We should have made sure she was dead," Gaal grumbled.
"She will die, sisters," Golgotha swore, "for desecrating our grandmother's grave she WILL die... and Grandma will cheer us for avenging her!"
++++++++++
"I'd doubt that," Maddex commented, "From what you've said about Balthilde, I doubt she'd support what her grandchildren were doing and if she were alive, I'd be tempted to say she would have sided with Marie Cruz, if only to try and save them from themselves."
"Remember that in the fantasy world the witches were living in by that time, whatever they did was "good" no matter what it was," Marie answered, "they had lost all concept of right and wrong, which Marie Cruz knew and knew why they had to be stopped."