The teenage leoman was a elder sibling of one of the boys that Trevor had called a day
before announcing his 'return from the dead.' The boy had in turn transformed his
parents, and his siblings who as a healthy family loved each other.
The siblings had gone to public school as the pride did opposed to the pack that home
schooled it's pups. The parents had gone to work as if nothing had changed, and as far as
reality was concerned, nothing had.
Felmans and dragons also preferred public education, not having the numbers for a mass
education system of their own. As for Gargoyles, while hardly stupid, their size and a
nature made education the responsibility of the previous gargoyles nearly by default, and
hadn't changed in two thousand years.
The leoman at work would hardly transform all their coworkers, hardly any of them, but
the ones who they saw, and who saw them, as genuine friends who bound went far beyond
where their paycheck came from, the cascade effect would continue to spread.
The siblings at school transformed their dearest friends and high school sweethearts, who
had gone on that afternoon to transform their families as well. Some of whom were
transformed in the middle of a heated argument -the love being there beneath the
surface- the arguments quickly dying out the moment the changes were complete. And
their siblings would change, who would then change their friends, and so the cycle would
continue apparently ad infinitum.
And the number of leoman within Glendale continued to rise. And as the light shinned
brighter, the shadows became ever more dark by contrast.
The teenage male leoman calmly walked down the street. He politely ignored the looks a
few teenage and middle aged human woman gave his 'package', knowing they were furries
at heart, people who insisted they were another species on the inside and desperately
scoured Glendale for a turn at the game to transform themselves (not thinking how they'd
be totally at the Asker's -likely a total stranger- mercy), 'Can't they accept they're beautiful
and unique already the way they are?' The teenage leoman thought to himself.
He was so distracted by his own daily introspection however that he bumped right into
someone, who was nearly knocked off their feet.
The teenage leoman immediately stopped and looked down to help who had stumbled
into.
The human teenager's outfit looked like a cliche gang member outfit from a video game,
orange vest with garish symbol on the back, equally garish tattoos, leather pants with
chains, and Nikes painted black.
The punk looked as if he had permanent hemorrhoids and kidney stones. His expression
was mean enough to scare a bear. He was short, had an amazingly thin neck, his jaw was
huge in comparison, and had his black hair in a mohawk.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" The teenage leoman said.
Bobby's mother had been Cursed to be a nudist (weather she liked it or not), she had in
turn cursed her son to always remember his homework, and Bobby had given Bart and
Jenny a harmless Dare on the promise of making him a lupman afterwards, and had then
left the boy with nothing as they went on to fulfill their scheme (and a harsh talking to by
his mother of using the game so recklessly and acknowledging herself that she hadn't
thought how her son would in turn use the game).
The double standard between Human, Felman, and Dragon nudity, and that of Gargoyle,
Lupman, and Leoman was simply one of those double-standards that always existed in
civilization in one form or another that enabled culture to function. Dragons, being
walking furnaces, wore what they did to dissipate body heat.
Bobby's mother however was questioning it now. Bobby's mother had done her best to
work at home, clothes teleporting off her the milisecond it was on her (she was scared to
think what she'd do when winter came). And have her grocery's delivered. But then came
the day that was her elderly grandmother's birthday, and the store she had ordered the
ingredients from was out.
After exhausting her option, she had no choice but to go down to the market. Of course
she got stared, of course she did her best to avoid being spotted by the police least she be
arrested for public exposure.
She made a pathetic attempt to 'sneak' into the market, get what she needed, and run like
Hades back to her home.
The punk knew none of this, he just saw a naked woman who didn't look all that bad and
who was the right species. In typical teenage logic he didn't even look at her face to see the
worry and humiliation and instead only look at her torso.
He had blocked her path, he touched her. She slapped him. He punched back. She
screamed. Nobody either came to her aid or seem to notice.
Except for one old man who moved with a limp with gloved hands (if one looked closely
one saw flippers instead of hands and feet). The punk proved to be stronger than he
looked and took the woman's counter attacks, after all, this woman clearly wanted this, or
she wouldn't be not dressed like this.
The old man said, "Erad ro morfnart?"
The punk ignored the crazy old cook. Then the old man took out the tape recorder and
replayed his own voice backwards, "Transform or Dare?"
The punk still ignored him only distracted for a second. But Bobby's mother took that
chance to knee the punk between the legs.
"Mih ot od em ekil uoy dluow tahw, htob steg eh?" The old man said and then played the
tape backward again.
"He gets both, what would you like me to do to him?"
The face of Bobby's mother darkened.
In the present the punk looked up at the leoman.
Of course the teenager leoman in spite of being a year younger was easily a head taller
than the squat human teen in front of him.
That huge lionhood, the well meaning and genuine smile, the genetic disposition to
working for the Man, taller, stronger, more popular with the girls... in short, everything the
punk hated.
"TRANSFORM OR DARE?!"
"T-transform?!" The leoman teen gasped out in shock and surprise.
"Dang! Was hoping you'd take too long and get both and dare you to dare me to laugh at
you! Oh well!" The punk grinned. The aura of protective fate that prevent an exchange of
the game from being interrupted or interfered with was in full effect. The punk spoke with
fake sweetness, "You're gonna Transform into a lovely lovin' lady lioness love doll! Best
quality! Never needin' repairs! And you're gonna love every moment of it! It's all yer gonna
think about! And you're gonna be for just me, me me me!"
A loophole allowed the Punk's game to go through, the nature of the 'plague' only
protected the leoman's species from being changed, nothing more.
No longer feeling threatened, the punk simply went on and on in his rant, desperately
needing more than one kind of outlet, the leoman teen of course having no clue whathe
was talking about, "That beotch cursed me so I can't never get a thrill while touching or
interacting with the flesh or breath or fur or hair of another person. No nothing! She cursed
it so I could only get a thrill from -things!- She made me a freak! And then she kicked me
again in the knees just so I'd be in too much pain to throw the game back in her back!"
Few people if ever, actually tried to do the 'I dare you never to use the game' and these
never worked, the game would not allow itself to die, or be trapped, and people who died
with turns meant that turn only floated about until it found someone with a level of spite
that reminded it of the three witches who had dared the leader of the hunters to kill her
best friend.
The leoman teen took a step back, he didn't get far. He fell over backwards. His body
stiffened first of course. His skin became a super-smooth material, as his fur fused with
his skin becoming the tan color his fur had been.
His beautiful mane pulled back into his body, as like part of a balloon at the same time
breasts larger than any leoman would actually have ballooned out of his best. His fanged
vanished. His internal organs turned to air. His joints became adjustable as his body moved
on it's own into a neutral eagle pose. His ears became just pieces of material, his eyes
became painted, just like his noise, but his sense somehow remained.
Then his lionhood pulled into itself and inverted, while his rear and mouth became
shallower, and in a matter of moments were all completely identical. His fingers and toes
fused together and his claws vanished too. His tail became a ropy thing with a tuff of fake
fur on the end. A huge open mouth smile formed on the doll's face as it gently rocked
back and forth on the side walk.
In his mind he thought, 'NO! I'm a leoman! My name is Leon! I'm a person! I love my family!
I'm a leoman! My name is Leonana! I'm a person! I love my boyfriend! YES! I don't need a
name. I'm an leoman-love-doll. I love my owner! I love him so so much! I hope he uses me
soon! I love him soon!'
"Mine, all mine." Said the punk. He took the leoman love doll that had been a person a
second ago and no one tried to stop him. The punk made his way back to the rundown
apartment he called home and undoing the dozen locks came inside and laid the love doll
on the bed. Undressing himself at once he plunged himself into his new prize. Filling her
with bliss at being used by her master who she loved, the only thing she loved.
The punk went on with this for hours, the only outlet he had for his lusts, the only place he
could have release the only place he found his pleasure. Caressing and hugging the doll, in
the depth of his depraved and empty soul, in his twisted and warped mind, he muttered
out, "I love you babe." And somewhere in there, a tiny, tinny spark of affection, a
microscopic amount... The punk was already naked, and didn't notice the tail starting to
grow out of his rear.
+++++++++
With their loved ones currently boarded up, no one questioned the two quadruplets staying
at Big Bad Estate in the mean time. Just as the Betas didn't question where their daughters
were when they didn't show up for dinner. And no one questions where one of the Omegas
was, let alone Lawrence or one of the former gallery wolves who turned out to be his aunt.
Just as no one questioned where the gold and silver she wolf statues with clocks in their
bellies next to the thinker Kira statue had appeared mere minutes after Luna and Sunny's
shift ended for the day/night.
Umeko of course had her bags packed for relocating to the house that Penny would be
staying with her family.
Dinner was a solemn event. After so much chaos, damage, and confusion and revelation. It
was all anyone could do was to hold onto their sanity as they ate and hope things fixed
themselves in the end.
+++++++++
1689
Lark. Jimmy. Rosalie. Rouge with curls. Canary (yellow hair cut short save for a bang that
fell over one eye). Oceana (orange hair that was shoulder length). Becky (blue hair that fell
straight to her naked rear). Oliver (green hair with curls). Violet done in a long braid that
weld around her body almost. Irine (Indigo hair that done up in a series of braids in a more
sane imitation of Gomorrah's illogical mess of hair braids).
With their loyal leoman bodyguards, these children, some naked, some in fancy clothes,
some in simple cloth tunic, moved in a spiral pattern away from the witches house, leaving
flowers the color of their hair or rainbow swirls in their wake. And Glendale bloomed,
ruining crops and destroying roads.
Having relocated Kathrine, Vatican, and Draco, and carving some bones into deadly tools of
the sight of some of her two fellow church companions Marie finally had some time for idle
thoughts. As she looked at the tragic sight of her loyal protector, she worried how they'd
find a female gargoyle to transfer his spirit in the new world. This made Marie think,
'Why do male Gargoyles exist? What purpose do they serve?' Marie had not thought much
about the private lives of gargoyles, what purpose did the males serve? What was their
purpose?
Marie didn't know the first thing about evolution, but she did believe everything existed for
a purpose. So she wondered. What was the purpose of the male gargoyle?
Then she turned her attention on Linus who was standing guard with his trusty, very well
maintained and carefully loaded and managed musket.
'How much can I actually trust him?' Marie Cruz thought of the fifth member of her team.
'He readily agreed to be on our side a lot faster than any person with common sense
should have. He knew a lot more than he should have. He figured things out a lot faster
than anyone should have, and practically jumped to conclusion that all happened to be
perfectly right... There is a lot more to Linus than meets the eye... and I need to know what
before the finale... heh, I guess you and I are alike that way Draco...'
That was when Marie's sixth sense blared with an alarm bell. Marie had felt it getting
stronger since they had begun to rest up, like there was more of something for it to use...
whatever the case, Marie felt 'Death' coming closer to them, for that was the mark what
was coming carried, death for her and her friends.
Marie looked at her broken and pathetic teammates, and gestures for Linus to follow her,
side by side.
++++++++++
As Marie and Linus walked back into the camp that was being used as a recovery site,
Kathrine of course looked up at her best friend. Linus resisted the urge to shudder.
Linus had never seen a felman injured like this before, but he did his best not to stare. It
did not cease to amaze him how different felman looked without their fur. They didn't look
human, even less so. Then again, half of Kathrine's fur HAD been -burned- away. Weather
she'd grow fur on that side of her body again was anyone's guess.
"Marie? What happened out there? What was that noise?"
Marie shook her head and smiled, "It was nothing Kathrine, don't worry about it." Marie
Cruz silently added bearing false witness to one of her many, many sins.
Marie-Eliza pointed at chair looking to be designed by Pablo Picasso, "Lilly and Casandra,
would you please look over there, and not hear a single thing we saw until we touch you
on the shoulders. And you won't ask what part of the story you missed."
"Okay." The twins said together in an entranced tone and moved like dolls looking straight
at the chair smiling.
"What did you do-?!" Maddex's heads snarled clearly upset by this. The twins didn't react
to their father's outburst at all and kept on smiling and staring at the chair.
Marie-Eliza wasn't phased, "You don't want them to hear this next part, and if we hide a
part of the story from them they'd only try their hardest to fine out what it was they
missed...
Maddex was quickly mollified, remembering what he had said before.
"Maybe then, if that is the case with Cansandra and Lilly, then perhaps, I, and my cousins
Abbey and Samantha should not hear this part as well." Alice said. Alice wasn't sure if she
counted as innocent, and Samantha likely counted even less after her time as glass, but
Abbey had always been the most ideal of the three glass pups.
"If that is your wish."
"It is." Alice said. Abbey also nodded. Samantha however said, "I'll listen."
Alice and Abbey looked at her. Another divergence that made them not the identical
triplets that their mothers were, another division in the sense of unity they tried to share
like their mothers had.
Marie-Eliza ended the conflict, "Alice, Abbey, please look that way and don't hear what we
saw until we touch you on the shoulder and you won't ask what part of the story you
missed."
"Very well as you wish." Alice nodded.
"Whao kay." Abbey replied.
The two moved their heads doll like and simply looked at the same chair smiling.
"An orange haired girl named Meranda. And a leoman named Frank. Frank was good with
the two leoman cubs in the Witch's Pride as was it's nickname. Meranda was prone to
making silly noises at random times, something that most found amusing. She was curious
as a cat and as intrusive in personal space as a dog. Of course for the witch's commune,
this was all considered perfectly acceptable behavior.
++++
1689
"You two are our righteous avengers!" The three witches told the two. Meranda wearing a
dark magenta dress with few ruffles. The two stood perfectly side by side at attempt
looking at the witches like they were their entire world.
The three witches continued in unison, a symbol of their unifying anger. Lilith and Herodias
lay nearby cheering their masters on.
"They have grave robbed our grandmother! They have threatened our new world of
freedom and equality! They were spared but now they die! Together the two of you will
annihilate them!"
The two smiled and nodded. Meranda took Frank's paw and they turned around and happily
walked out of the cabin ignoring the children at play and the leoman at work and the
mundane cats at their feet.
the interspecieness of sight caused many a puritan to glare, but no one said anything, no
one dared say anything, somewhere in their subconscious knowing not to challenge this.
The two smiling and holding hands, soon were almost skipping along. They pass through
Glendale and it's ever growing stranger plant life and through the protective ring of tree
guardians that now circled the town except for the roads going in and out but parted for
them.
The two went precisely as the crow flies where Joella had seen the grave robber and her
friends.
But before getting there, they found the grave robber and one of her friends, the middle
aged man with the musket.
"Hello." Meranda said, "You and your friends have been very very naughty. And you need to
be punished like naughty people need to be. Do you want to be statues, fairies, gold deer,
or mud?"
The middle age man fired. The bullet bounced off an invisible wall and went in the exact
direction it came from, and went into the barrel of the musket, damaging it, (it would take
time to repair).
"I guess you wanna be mud then." Meranda said as her eyes glowed commanding the
bones in the grave robber and middle aged man to turn to goo.
The grave robber threw some knives... they cut a tree branch above them, it hit the two
hard, and then it was on fire. Frank shielded Meranda. Who turned her eyes towards the
grave robber. "MUD! MUD! MUD!"
The last thing Meranda saw alive was another white throwing knife headed straight at her.
"Meranda's parents were told-"
"Wait wait wait! You mean Meranda's foster parents right? Because Meranda was one of the
former raiders right? Right?" Betty said with an unsure and scared look on her face.
"No.... Meranda was one of the girls who had taken the candy, and was taken from her
parents to be put under the direct care of the witches... her parents were told that she had
been mauled by a bear."
"No..." Betty said.
"Would it really have made you feel better if -another- innocent child had died instead of
that innocent child?"
"No no it wouldn't it's just, if she had been one of the former raiders, then no one would
have grieved her outside of her circle of friends."
Marie Eliza looked incredulous, "And that's supposed to have made it BETTER-?! No one to
grieve her-?! No one to say goodbye?! At least Meranda's parents gave her a proper
funeral!"
Betty was shocked and belittled by Marie-Eliza's reaction. But said, "No.... no it wouldn't be
better."
Lawrence and Meddex's heads looked at each other, realizing they had been thinking the
same thing as Betty.
Samantha stayed silent hearing at the loss of life. Maddex touched the shoulders of his
two daughters while Samantha touched the shoulders of Alice and Abbey. They continued
listening to the story without a peep of curiosity.
"Marie Cruz of course wanted to do the second battle with the witches alone, not wanting
to see any more of her teammates hurt and wanting to save on time. Thankfully they were
able to convince her this was suicide and convinced her to wait until the others could join
her in battle months later in the early fall."
+++++++++
"Still alive I see." Marie knew that voice.
"Yes I am Goldwyn." She replied, she wasn't surprised when she found herself in an open
open field this time.
On Marie's side was a Ancient Dragon sized black crow in a raven's mask nesting, along
with mutt as a puppy chasing his own tail.
The field was covered in tall green grass.
There were several classic paintings floating in midair, one had Kathrine as the 'Birth of
Venus', other paintings showed Zoey, Marie's teammates, all as the character of interest in
various other masterworks.
Of course there would be a giant glowing cross.
On the other side was series of black twisted thorn covered in rainbow colored flowers and
statues of two middle aged people, and four elderly people, and one crow or raven.
There was also some fairy statues but they were smashed. There also a statue of Marie as a
child, also smashed. Of course there was Herodias and Lilith among the thorns and brightly
colored flowers.
Finally a solid gold statue of the girl who had warned Marie and the other to proceed no
further in their quest, her statue had to be about three times or more to scale.
What divided the two sides wasn't a river anymore, but a graveyard. On the tomb stones
were names of people Marie Cruz had killed in her line of duty, and the names on the
tomb stones were of people the witches had remade into something not themselves.
"My name is not Goldwyn! It is Gogatha, Dog of God."
"... You'll always be Goldwyn to me, Bride of Satan."
"You call me a bride of Satan, yet I've spent my life liberating people and bringing them
happiness! And you? You've spent your life killing anyone who doesn't agree with your
point of view!"
"And you're saying you're better?"
"Of course! I and my sisters don't kill people! We liberate them! We make them into
something that's free of the cursed world of adults!" The adult woman said old enough to
be Joella's mother.
"And you think that's somehow NOT killing?"
"We remake them! We reuse them! The number of lives remains constant!"
"You end one life to bring another life into the world? That's necromancy!"
"You are IGNORANT! You just eat up whatever is fed you! And you didn't need to be this
way! You have the gift inside you! You could have been one of us! We could have had the
world ALREADY FREE by now! Everyone who is unhappy and in pain at this moment in time
is YOUR FAULT!!!"
Marie took a step back, and breathed in deep, and replied, "I am a killer. I have been since
the night I lost this eye. I could make no claims to being a child after that night. I've killed
children who are completely of no choice over what they are or what they are doing. And I
haven't been able to improve in that regard one bit, my solution when it was them or me
was still to save my own sinful hide. ... I won't be arrogant enough to claim I am a needed
evil. But you are an evil that needs to be stopped!"
"You call a totally free world evil?!"
"Where one's own choices are completely meaningless for there is no way to predict what'll
happen next so therefore it is no different from gambling with no way to tell the outcome
of one choice from another? To make free will completely pointless? By making everyone
think what you want them to think Goldwyn?"
"It would be kind and peaceful! And little girls wouldn't have to say goodbye to their
friends because they were pretending to be a boy and suddenly had to grow up and
couldn't be that anymore! And no one would have to say goodbye to their parents ever
again!"
Marie fell silent and looked at her feet, her body limb.
"The Lord said that the last enemy to be defeated would be death... "
Golgatha grinned.
"BUT YOU ARE NOT GOD GOLDWYN! To enforce the law is DIFFERENT from passing
JUDGEMENT on the VALUE of a person! You have no right to decide what a 'perfect world'
would be! Let alone a free one!"
Golgtha was flabbergasted.
"GET OUT OF MY DREAMS!"
A wall appeared between the two.
++++++
When Marie awoke, she beheld her teammates, Vatican, Kathrine, her family. Kathrine and
Draco were asleep. Vatican didn't sleep. And Linus was sleeping with one eye open. That
made Marie shudder. Her sixth sense may have told her she'd meet a fifth teammate in the
new world, it didn't say she could trust him. All the same, "I promise," She said lowly, "None
of you will suffer from my mistakes again."
Marie leaned back and looked at the stars in the sky. 'Recovery is going to be a long and
hard road.'