Lawrence had to object, "The witches were hung, not burned, and wood was bloody
expensive back then, so it wasn't like they could just throw it around tra-la-la. And
burning witches is what they did in EUROPE, and in some countries still burn a dummy of a
witch as part of the festivities. Hanging was how they killed witches in Colonies."
"Their bodies were burned after they were dead, hoping that would end the Game, no such
luck."
And Betty said, "And wouldn't everyone have dehydrated to death if everyone was just
unconscious for the witches' trial long enough to proceed with due process that Marie Cruz
was dead set on using, not to mention the wandering predators, the SHEER ACCIDENTS
that would happen from people fall over like zombies when holding a cutting knife or
riding a horse!"
Marie-Eliza nodded, "I didn't say it somehow SAVED LIVES. If they had remained conscious
they likely would have recovered their wits much faster, and could have likely helped Marie
some of them that were closest to their previous selves before the witches remade them.
Like I said, Joella, Ben's family, the former mob, and the like were unique individuals, not
merely robots." Marie-Eliza added, 'It's the same reason why some of the gem twins had to
go BACK to being twins, and they were only separated for a few hours... these children,
family, and pride, had been alive for months, rooting their place in existence. Much like the
game itself, they existed independently of them.'
"Those witches were wrong," Maddex's heads said together since they were wired to the
same brain and thus didn't have independent Egos like Joy and Ingrid. "Dragons scales are
tough, really tough, but they CAN'T survive swimming in molten lava anymore than a a
lupman in the best equipment in existence today could."
"The witches had never seen a volcano, and everything they knew about dragons was
hearsay or folk tales, leaving Europe when so young, they hadn't had time to really learn or
meet dragons themselves to stamp out myth from the truth."
++++++++
1689 August 10th 1:11 PM
"ENOUGH!!!" Gaal whose name mean abomination roared. It was enough to make even Lilith
shudder. Her sisters looked at her. "YOU THINK TWO HUMANS AND A DRAGON AND A
FELMAN CAN DEFEAT A COVEN OF WITCHES, AN ARMY FAMILIARS, AND A PRIDE OF
LEOMANS-?! YOU-ARE-MIS-STAKEN!!!"
Outside, Marie Cruz felt a shudder, and in her gut, and in her eye that saw without seeing,
she knew were about to get very bad.
"What we -create-," Gaal hissed along with Lilith, "WE CAN ALSO DESTROY!" Gaal swore,
having the most lucid thought she had in years no matter how brief.
Marie Cruz's sixth sense screamed a warning, "LINUS! GET AWAY FROM THE CANNON!"
Marie Cruz rolled away from the weapon and Linus who still had a firm grip on it so it
couldn't be stolen from him. He dropped it. That wasn't a mistake. The mistake wasn't
getting as far as he could away from it and not laying on the ground with his hands over
his hears and his mouth open like Marie did. But Linus didn't have a sixth sense, it didn't
give the precious two second start warning Marie Cruz had been given.
As the cannon started to glow, Linus had just enough time to take one step away, and turn
his head and bright up his hands. And the cannon exploded. Deafening.
Meanwhile, the discarded Cannons around Kathrine and others still around the witches'
grounds turned into giant serpents, all programmed to protect the witches' holdings and
kill all intruders on sight. Kathrine harsh lessons from the Roman Lupmans was the only
that saved her from being bitten in the leg and recieving an amount of poison that would
have dissolved her bones and killed her in minutes it was so potent.
Marie turned to check on the teammate she had different historic and philosophical
viewpoints on, and made a small gasp in horror when Linus looked at her. A lesson man
would have, should have been, screaming in the purest agony. Where Linus' hands had
been were now mangled stumps.
Linus looked at his hands, staggered to his feet and grunted, "I do believe we had best
hurry."
Gaal then sent a SHOCKWAVE of adrenaline and electric force through her knocked out
pride and familiars, FORCING THEM AWAKE! Only the dead, stayed dead. That was the
power had never achieved, in spite of being perhaps the most powerful in existence.
Dawn awakened with a headache, but awake, aware, and able to fight... like the familiars
and Hercules and Earl as they too rose awake... of course Hercules was still trapped under
a super heavy door... but he was able to lift it up enough for the familiars to get out from
underneath him.
In one fell swoop, Gaal by her lonesome had undone a large chunk of the Hunter's progress
and advantage. And the Hell was not over yet.
Drago make the perfectly rational assumption that Twilight would be a slow moving brute
with no reaction time or agility.
However... of the witches' creations 'perfectly rational' is the last thing he should have
expected.
Drago's assumption had been wrong. Twilight was not some poor animal whose traits had
piled on top of each other going beyond what their musculature was intended for... her
body, bone structure, the shape of her muscles, the way her muscles connected, her
internal organs, her lungs, her nervous system... ALL OF IT... had been remade to make her
body a perfect killing machine.
Twilight did a foreword flip, and landed on all four of her hands, and with one strong PUSH
of her super human strength, she propelled herself right at Draco, her feet making contact,
cutting scales, and knocking the wind out of him and him out of the air. They landed
together, Draco just managing to avoid him wings from suffering a second damage.
Draco was no soldier, no warrior, in spite of what his ancestors boasted, battle prowess
was learned, not born, he had been in only the battle with the witches, and the THINGS
That Would Not Be Spoken Of during the trip the New World and the encounter with the
lupman ship captain that was settled without the need to set anything on fire.
And Draco in this twisted turn of events... for one moment, forgot the most basic rule of
breathing fire. Never ever try to breath fire in close range combat, no matter what.
Twilight reacted as fast as Lioness would, and clamped on Draco's jaw like he was an
crocodiles. And the flames back-washed. If he had been human, his lungs would have
been burned alive and he would have suffocated. Instead, he only coughed blood as a
reflex in his throat saved him. He took out the daggers... and Twilight upper arms grabbed
his forearms... while the lower arms grabbed the daggers, and crushed them ignoring the
pain. Draco kicked her in the knees, then the stomach, then the chest, and then the faces.
She didn't let go. He clawed at her hands, she didn't let go.
Finally he banged his head against hers and then her other one... leaving his dizzy but free
and back pedaled from her as her she held her heads for a few seconds.
Kathrine having beheaded a giant snake that tried to bite her in the face and didn't make
the mistake of back into Draco, knowing that that was the LAST THING they needed, least
the child familiar's attention was finally united in one target rather than two.
Then things got worse.
The children were insane, not stupid, and were childish, not mindless. And they had a very
deadly weapon children were legendary for: imagination.
Gloria shouted, "ICE!!!" But it wasn't at Kathrine or Draco, it was at the sky... and sleet
began to fall, a rain and snow mix began to cover the battle field... it might have slowed
down the cold blooded snakes some... but it also put out all of Draco's fires (it was not an
oil-fire)... and rendered it nearly impossible for him to fly, and effectively useless for him
to maneuver if he somehow got air born.
'If we fight this as a war of attrition we're going to lose, badly,' Marie Cruz thought, 'If we
treat this as a typical military battle we're going to lose, badly. The witches are the only
targets that matter... the more time we waste on their guardians and protectors, the more
we making accomplishing our real goal impossible... '
"Can you tell where the witches are with that dead eye of yours?" Linus asked, his mind
still going in spite of everything, holding his musket with his arms and doing the trigger
with his teeth if need be.
"... Yes... the amount of power they're putting out now, it's easy... I can tell where they
are... they aren't near any of the windows... which would made things easier ... I think...
inner most room... second floor." It SCARED Marie Cruz that her second sight was had
managed to increase in ability since the battle began... the witch grounds were practically
over-saturated with Mana.
The two hunters entered through the front door, only to be confronted by the child
familiars and leomans that had been knocked out before, but now fully awake and ready
for round two.
Linus, with two missing hands, looked at Marie Cruz calmly and said, "I do believe this is
where you and I part ways Miss Cruz, The Lord Willing, You and I shall meet again both in
this world and the next. Please be a dear and lay the witches to rest before I end up torn
limb from limb or end up something TOO unnatural please? Thank you. May The Lord Be
With You." He said in a perfectly calm and friendly voice. Then snarled and ran with his
musket held in his arms ramming the baronet halfway into Earl's stomach before he caught
up with his hands and Linus then kicked him knocking both away.
Dawn leapt onto Marie Cruz, knocking the wind out of her, the larger, stronger, faster, and
more reaction quick lioness pressing her attack cutting at Marie's flesh. But Marie was used
to pain, and stabbed Dawn in the joints of her arms and knocked her off her for a few
seconds. She felt the child familiars on her, pressing their will against Running Bear's
charm. Marie Cruz tabbed into her sixth sense, and threw them off course for a precious
minute before the child familiars (including a blond Lupman with very long hair) adjusted
for it.
Marie LEAPT at the stair case, landing on a protect door they had blasted off and onto the
broken stairs. That was when she heard a herculean roar, and saw the strongest Leoman
she had ever seen lift the heavy armored door above his head with equally herculean effort
and THREW IT AT HER!
Marie Cruz avoided the might projectile that would have smash her in two. But it did
smash the upper part of the staircase thought... causing the frame leading downstairs to
collapse along with part of the roof. None of the smashed material reached the
downstairs... However.
Marie Cruz saw that she was now totally cut off from downstairs, and downstairs was now
cut off from her and the witches.
Marie Cruz sighed, and took out the bowie knife she had edged with the bones of the dead
witch, and took out of her bag a skull. Marie Cruz knew she was damned to Hell, she might
as well, make use of forbidden tools for the higher cause then. "Help me find them." Marie
Cruz said holding the skull AND her crucifix in the the other hand and traveled in the
effective maze that was the second floor letting her second sight and the higher powers
lead her to the Coven of Chaos.
+++++++
"So it was just her against the witches at the end." Maddex's heads observed.
"Yes.... meanwhile, one by one, as the child familiars abandoned the original scheme to
turn the hunters into mud, her friends were changed into things that were not her friends.
Linus being in a closed space would go down first, and turned into a an armless, legless
female Venus sculpture on a pedestal.
Kathrine would end up being mass tackled by the lionesses in a horde. She had managed
to disembowel the first two who tried. She was able to out maneuver and squeeze out less
enough, but was so distracted she didn't notice the child familiars invade her mind and
turn her into a naked perky, and docile female child by the time she squeezed out. The
witches never had the chance to expose her mind to the infinite chaos so she survived the
transformation quite sane.
For Draco, with his speed, determination, and natural resistance he lasted the longest, they
turned into a forelegs purple dragon with the IQ of a dog.
Marie Cruz felt all of this... but she pressed on... The witches being in the minds of all
their slaves micromanaging their attacks at this point had left them distraction to their own
bodies' safety, and this oversight gave Marie Cruz the advantage she needed, as well as the
combination of Running Bear's charm, her sixth sense, and the shock of seeing their
mother's skull DEFLECT a spell meant to atomize her. Enabled Marie Cruz to send a
dagger into Gaal's frontal lob.
This shock wave caused reality to -snap back- on the most recent changes done through
the witches magic, meaning within the last hour or so, meaning those to Marie Cruz'
companions making them completely alive and whole and sane and most importantly,
themselves...
However since Linus' hands hadn't been technically destroyed by magic in of itself, they
didn't grow back.
Sister Kathrine was so happy it was over she didn't wait to get her clothes back on when
she hugged Marie a few minutes later.
Father Draco made putting his clothes back on his FIRST priority and made a point to never
EVER speak of his short time having four legs like the dread feral dragons of legend with
the brain of a pet.
Linus meanwhile at once did some first aid on their former enemies, saving the lives of
some, using medical supplies he had on him using his teeth and toes!"
"And Twilight?" Betty asked.
"She was a special case, since they she had made her changes willing to herself. She
remained as she was... when the Big Bad Wolf Pack too Francis and Julianna for their own...
she demanded she be allowed to go with them as their overseer... she actually found love...
the result of witch married one of the silver twins' descendants eventually. Who was
Marthas' ancestor..."
Marie-Eliza didn't blame them for not believing that last part.. after all... Marie-Eliza
herself found it amazing how she was a product of a lupman father and a human mother..
but it seemed all the species of Man could interbred in some sort or another...
"And the rest of the twisting that the witches had done to Glendale?"
"Like I said, anything that hadn't found a root in existence Joella and her fellow 'orphans'
would vanish once the witches were dead. Like the vast majority of age regressions and
changes to the animals and houses and plants. Rosa and Monica were saddened that the
end of the witches didn't let them age at a normal rate. But that is all in the future... now
Marie Cruz began to make her way through the maze of the witches' grounds second floor,
and to the room that served as the Chosen of Chaos' inner chamber. The witches still
having no idea that the blades she carried were made from their own grandmother."
+++++++++
Present Day, Present Time
Sydney felt like a thief for not announcing herself as she stepped into the manor that
afternoon. The gargoyles didn't attack her, after all, she was one of the pack, she was no
criminal, they had no reason to block her or harm her.
Sydney slowly snuck towards the manor, not sure why she was sneaking. She saw Alpha
Kaylee still had the same taste in art and entertainment of the fountain was anything to go
by.
She entered the front doors, the lavender she-wolf there staring at the three giant entry
way statues didn't look at her or seem to notice her.
"Hello?"
The lavender she-wolf (Sydney was pretty sure her name was Sarah) turned to her and
said, "Hello... Sydney?... long time no see... come to help out?"
"Er, maybe... what were you doing?"
"Just checking out the statues, something about them has been bothering me since this
morning... "
The statues meanwhile conversed among themselves, asking their Monkey Prince if he was
behind this somehow... be he assured his two mate he was now.
"Wrong? What?"
"I dunno... it's just, seeing them incomplete like that feels more wrong than normal
somehow..."
Sydney looked, and felt the same gut feeling Sarah did. "I think I know what you mean."