After bidding the Wyes and Waynes goodbye and receiving their thanks several times in a
row Madam Serenity bid fair well to the Glen's residence. Since they had been transformed
only the day before, few had if any had 'realized' their fellow Pride members were missing.
'I hate to turn down a free home cooked meal like that, but if this misadventure had taught
me anything, is that Kurse's 'mutate the world' scheme failed to scare the stupid out of
people and it's only a matter of time before someone else uses the game. Hmmm... Only
one of them before technically had the game... from whatever the source... whoever gave it
to that punk. But now logically all four of them would have turns at the game right? ... At
least they're not likely to abuse it given the deposition all the lion people seemed
programmed with.
Dangit I should have asked more questions about who did the game to them in this
timeline... but wouldn't that person just be a scapegoat that reality had chosen? ... I just
hope that the cure works, or besides some screwing with the DNA of the planet's
population, this entire disaster has been effectively pointless. And I'm sick of pointless
things.'
++++++++++++
Looking through an imported book that the Big Bad Wolf Pack had bought over the
internet, Amy seemed completely engrossed in it.
Zelipe finally looked up from Harry Potter and asked, "What are you looking for Amy?"
"Just checking a translation on the names of the Lupmans aspects of the two gods that the
pack weren't able yet to commission. It would be best to know their names ahead of time."
"Isn't it funny how the Monkey Prince looks kinda like Alpha Jensen?"
"I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be Alpha Jensen's father. The statues were
commissioned when Alpha Jensen was still a pup, so it wouldn't make much sense to be
him."
"I guess..."
"Here we go... interesting. So that's who it is." Amy observed causing a tiny ripple in fate.
+++++++++
1689 August 10th 10:17 AM
The fairies from their observation spot saw the four smoking holes in the ring of American
Boxing Trees that surrounded Glendale like a noose. The American Boxing Trees were, of
course, unable to uproot themselves, and thus couldn't close the gap, nor could they
pursue the ones who had slain their fellows.
Maria and her group, for their part, knew they could not waste the bombs, the effort, or
the precious time to destroy every single boxing tree around Glendale. After all, they were
not the hunters targets, the witches were.
As Monica, Rosa, Mal'Akh soon after, and the Silver Twin, did their best to herd the
entranced and mind fog addled towns folk into their homes, and out of the way to leave
the hunters with one less danger to dance and one less ring of innocents to kill through to
get to the true enemy, the five hunters came from their four different directions towards
the witches house... it was hardly at the center of town, having been selected for it's out of
the way location, so the hunters had different lengths of travel to get to it.
"At least all the colors are nice." Kathrine said looking at the rainbow colored grass,
flowers, and various plants and domesticated animals. The houses were rather bright too...
in short they were the kinds of colors that Felman as a cultural rule loved. "There no way
I'm so much as touching one of those giants pears though... they'd turn me into a frog or
something I'm sure of it... the flowers sure have nice scents though... " It felt very weird to
hear so much about this town for months and finally setting foot in it only to find it devoid
of people with only some odd animals looking at her funny.
"Are these animals the people?" Kathrine asked with dread but she saw children looking
fearfully through a window. Kathrine by reaction alone waved at them, they threw a rock at
her that her experience with the spear deflected with ease.
She saw scared leomans in the windows looking at her who looked colored like felmans,
many resembling the 'greatest of the great' cast of having fur of every color, Kathrine felt
humbled by being near them even if she knew no leoman cub could ever logically have fur
that color. Right?
'These flower sure give off a strong scent.' Kathrine thought feeling slightly dizzy from the
summer heat.
North, Draco burned everything in his path. Taking this as the logical measure to insure
that the witches thought an army was coming their way and making as much noise as
possible to add to this. Brightly colored grass and plants burned not spreading as fast or
far as the hungry dragon fire should have. He left a trail of grayish rainbow colored ashes
in his way.
Dragons could not breath fire infinitely, hardly, but they were not limited to breathing fire
once a day like some misconceptions believed. All the same, the fire burned the flowers
around him and the pollen the same any anything else.
The fighting trees no longer an issue, Linus march like a solider at war towards were
Mal'Akh's information instruct him the witches grounds were. He of course avoided the
rings of mushroom. He knew that 'fairy rings' were supposed to be just fairy tales... but
given what he had heard of the witches, he couldn't put it past them to make these fairy
rings very much effective. His eyes on the rings he ignored the rainbow colored flowers at
his feet and their scent slowly getting stronger and stronger.
++++++++
"I've seen the wizard of Oz." Betty crossed her arms.
Lawrence nodded the same having seen it with his parents.
"So have we." Casandra and Lilly spoke.
"I know I watched it with you." Maddex's heads said.
"So have we!" Abbey spoke up for the blond pups.
"I didn't let my Marie see it." Eliza said, "I felt it was too scary for her."
Marie-Eliza grimly nodded, "You conjecture is correct, the next line of defense wasn't the
ring of thorns, or the entranced town folk. The flowers scent was a protective barrier all it's
own. The irony is that the chaos-coven never intended them as such, it was a natural side
effect of the nature of their creation and growth. Otherwise the coven would have
marched out and killed the hunters when the hunters were left astray by the flowers.
Everyone in Glendale by this point was either too entranced by the witches or out of the
flowers' 'target age range' to be effected by it... "
"But Running Bear's pendants should have protected them." Maddex's right head said, his
left head looking confused and upset.
"The flowers were CREATED by magic, and were maintained purely by magic, and couldn't
survive without mana running through their stems and roots, but the flowers in of
themselves, in particular their pollen, were closer to the middle-ground of alchemy than
pure magic."
++++++++
Gargoyle and Inquisitor came through Glendale from the south, going through the wild
flowers and grass the covered nearly everything. They didn't even look at the fruits and
didn't come within five feet of the fairy rings.
After crossing into the Glendale town limits, Vatican noticed Marie Cruz's steps became
smaller and slower. For a fearful second he wondered if she was getting younger (as sweet
as that fantasy was, Vatican had a duty to serve). But no, Marie looked much the same,
except her long cloak and jacket were marked with the pollen from the flowers.
Vatican of course didn't smell a thing, he was living stone, he had no sense of smell or
taste, these alien sensations were barely comprehensible to him, only vaguely comparable
by thinking about how different rocks and stones were composed differently. His nostrils
themselves were purely for show and went nowhere.
He noticed Marie's eye was dilated to where it looked like a doll's. Her mouth hung open
slightly.
"Mutt? Papa? ... " Marie whispered at thin air.
"Marie?" She didn't seem to hear him.
Marie stopped dead in her tracks, and feel to her knees.
"You're alive! I'm so happy! Is this paradise? I have so much to tell you!"
The gargoyle looked as his charge began to ramble on happily speaking to phantoms.
"MARIE!" Vatican snarled and shook her. She blinked her eye, but she remained somewhere
else. "Was that thunder papa?"
"MARIE! Listen to my voice! IT'S ME! VATICAN!"
"All the children were found alive? That's wonderful papa! And Abraham repents
everything he's done, and Zoey has agreed to be friends with Kathrine? That's good to
hear. Gita! Goldwyn! Griselle! It's great to see you! Let's go play!"
"STOP IT INQUISITOR!" The stone beast roared louder in her face causing wind as the back
of his dead end throat vibrated like a speaker box.
Marie shuddered again. "Papa, is something wrong?"
"YOUR FATHER IS DEAD MARIE! SO IS MUTT! ZOEY IS BACK AT THE VATICAN! THE TURK IS
DEAD! THOSE CHILDREN ARE NEVER EVER COMING BACK! MARIE LISTEN TO ME!"
Marie, like a puppet, slowly and awkwardly covered her eye, and with her other hand slowly
reached out and touched Vatican's face.
"The... THE MASKED CROW AGAIN! Why are you here? Are you.. why are... that can't be
but... but it's... I'm.. please... can I see you without your mask just once?... My Lord
You're-!!!.... Vatican?"
"Yes Marie?" He hoped.
"I don't think what I'm seeing with one of my eyes is real... I have to trust my other eye
until I feel I can trust the other one... please... can you lead me?"
"Yes Marie... I will... " He also reached inside the cloak, tore off a piece of Marie's clothing
and covered her nose and face and slowly led her out of the field of dangerous flowers. His
alarm rising as he thought of the others.
+++++++++++
"The greatest of the great colors really fit you Kathrine." Lucky Star said smiling at her
sister.
"Thank you Mary." Kathrine smiled and nodded.
Rachel put an arm around Kathrine's shoulder, "So Marie, could you tell me again how you
got the Roman Lupman's to wear clothes, Became the First Female Pope for Ten Days, and
converted the turks to christianity."
"Oh if you must hear it again." The rainbow colored Kathrine smiled and leaned back in the
solid gold chair.
Zoey dressed as a maid asked eagerly, "Can I read you one of my poems? It dedicated to
you."
"Another one? I guess that's alright."
Lucky Star smiled, "We also have some suitors lined up for you this afternoon, we told you
the Pope would make an exception for you..."
"Yes you did." Kathrine smiled and nodded.
the baby kitten Josephine reached for her.
"Ah, you want auntie to hold you?" Lucky said handing Josephine to Kathrine.
Kathrine looked at her cute face when the infant suddenly grew giant fangs and chomped
Kathrine in the leg.
"YEAOH!!!!!" Kathrine screamed as she sat up in the field of flowers finding a leoman cub
she didn't recognize with her fangs in Kathrine's bleeding flesh.
"Who are you?" Kathrine asked first.
"My name is Rosa Glen of the Glendale Pride. Who are you? What Pride do you belong to? I
found you laying on your side with eye centers opened wide enough I could have stuck my
paw through drooling down one side of your face."
Kathrine felt her face and indeed felt drool from her own mouth. 'I hope Marie never finds
out about this.' Kathrine thought.
On the east side of Glendale meanwhile Linus stood waving like a tree in the field of
flowers his eyes wide and his mouth open slightly.