...Donau looked around himself. he felt discouraged.
This wasn't going well. At all.
He had to admit it, he had made a serious mistake: with magic, with any supernatural force, you couldn't just bend rules at will. It wasn't like working with philosophy. In fact, it was those forces who could bend you at their will.
And he had thrown his protegees in a situation where there was no way to 'win'. On this scale, they were bound to be engulfed by something they weren't yet prepared to deal with, easy as that! And the 'reinforcements' he had called would be impaired by the presence of these civilians. And Anubis wasn't experienced enough.
What kind of a fool was I ever!
And it was even too late for him to tilt the balance in their favor...
The rabbit sighed, going back to his natural, monstrous shape. He knew what to do now, and he wouldn't face it wearing a façade!
And it was then that, once again, the sky transformed. Day turned into a field of stars and galaxies, all concurring to the shape of the Dvinity!
"I know what haunts your soul, my beloved."
Donau, holding Anubis to himself as if to cradle the fox, nodded. He knew that the God knew, of course, but he had to speak, if not to release the heavy weight on his heart.
"So many, many years, centuries, waiting for the right moment, for that one and only favor you'd grant to my people if we came to earn it. So you spoke, back then..."
The dragon nodded.
"You could still wait. Walk this road, follow the path fate traced until you and your people are free from the curse..."
"...or abandon it. Walk a new one. One that, perhaps, has no end." Donau rubbed his pupil's cheek.
"Heh, silly time paradoxes. We worked together so many times and yet he had never memories of that. But I do know..." He looked at the cougars.
"And they are not the past I cherish. That is gone. They are the future, the promise I can still keep to all the tribes, not just mine. Heh, what is a little sacrifice now for the future, right?"
Again, the divinity nodded.
"And so it shall be done, beloved, but you also know that a miracle of this magnitude cannot come without a counterbalance. Plus, I cannot retroactively delete what happened so far, just...shift it."
Donau gritted his sharp teeth.
"I know. But you are wisdom incarnated. Fate has many, many roads, and I trust you with choosing the proper one..." he seemed to think about it, for a moment, then,
"No. Not trust. Faith. I have faith in you."
The divinity smiled.
"I know. That is why you were the one I chose for this gift. And so I make this promise to you: Whatever happens now, your people shall not be denied their place back in the tribes."
And then, the Divinity lifted his arm, his fingers ready to snap.
"I'd say 'time to wake up', but you should be sleeping for that." *snap*
SHIFT!
---
"What the--"
It wasn't painful, or shocking, or...unpleasant.
It happened. Just like that.
His sensory inputs assailed him for a moment. He had almost forgotten how it felt to breathe, to smell, to taste, to hear...including his own voice, while he repeated that phrase and touched himself. Perceiving living, furred flesh under his fingers.
"I am alive..." said the one who, a second ago, was known as The Hunter.
And he didn't look happy about it.
---
The telephone was ringing. Madly. No line were being spared, it was like an 8-tone concerto going on and on on...
Richard Spencer didn't even care to turn and look at the thing. he knew that his secretaries were being inundated by requests and demands from...upset customers. To say the least.
Not that he couldn't sympathize with them.
The founder of the resort, the top brass on the island, its formal owner, was still trying to come to terms with what he was looking at from the terrace of his office.
There were a lot, a lot, a lot of question to be answered...
First of all: What was he going to say to the guys at Google Earth?
---
...and for now, only one seemed to have a word for what had happened.
The silence was...unnatural, at a first instance. In movies, people screamed, talked, went to the phones, or just prayed...
But what could you do when, in the blink of an eye, what had been a field of ancient ruin turned into a majestic hall of wood, stone and metal? A hall so big and tall that you could place the Iron Flat in it, with room to spare?
Your mind needed *time* to elaborate a new reality. Simple as that.
And one person among tourists, researchers and...well, everyone else, seemed to have elaborated it in one word.
"CooOOOL!!" said little Reginald, his voice echoing like a long howl in the cavernous, sunlit place.
---
Other words, other sentences, with very different feelings, were being spoken by the entities inside three certain furs…
The spiritual entities that had been the Martians were literally going crazy! <HOME! PLACE! HOME! PLACE! YESYESYESYS! THANKYOU! HOME!> They repeated over and over…before leaving their hosts, flying around the hall like so many will-o’-the-wisps drunken on happiness, adding their own light to the sun’s.
---
Down under the ground, the creature that for centuries had called their place ‘The Nest’, suddenly knew.
The titanoboas hissed their own song of joy.
---
In another underground dwelling, the collective of monsters that had been one of the Four Tribes stopped in their stride. The Shift was like nothing they had experienced since the Curse was put on them!
A mix of joy and fear ran through their hearts and souls: Was this a miracle, or yet a new hope?
---
At Salisgrave Village, Victor was hugging tight his rabbit lover. He could just imagine the shamans going crazy, speaking over the aether, getting the headache of their life.
Far as mere mortals were involved, everyone was already running to the main square. There were decisions to be taken.
---
At Argon Camp, someone was even more surprised, if possible, than the present residents.
The Trickster, his minions, and Captain Shadowclaw were gone.
Replace by someone else.
"Who are you?!" was, the first sentence spoken by...a lion. A lion wearing not a loincloth like his African counterparts, but a dress of red and gold, of the finest silk and metal, adorned with handmade jewelry. Just like the female standing by him, hackles raised, a spear in her paws and in a fighting stance.
---
"GUYS, YOU GOTTA SEE *THIS*!" a voice boomed through the whole speakers' set. It sounded like the voice of god.
And it had the desired effect: the complex that had been a base and now was the circus stood still as holographic projector showed what had just happened.
Shonda's silly mask just fell.
"Well, I'll be..."
---
...and at the resort, the commotion started. Phones buzzed, ringed all as one. To their honor, people didn't get histerical, not for now. But they surely ran out of the building, just to look, while they were speaking loud. And many one person started praying.
Including, in her mind, Lyla.
For, after all, how many times in your life could one see a whole
CITY appear out of nowhere?