Bab 1087: THERE IS A FUTURE
"The good news..." Beta Lucas reported in all his poignant pauses, "Is that there is a future... Unfortunately... There is… also bad news in all of them."
"Which..." He held up a hand so that no one, especially not Ben, would interrupt him, "Which is expected since nothing is perfect. But... It's a conundrum."
What was?
Altogether, Dad and Beta Lucas traveled back and forth in time 34 times in one morning.
By the second time, it was pretty clear that Kev was beyond saving.
"It's not that I don't emphasize with his compassion for the rogues." Dad said to his clasped hands, "But the power of the Alpha must be wielded surely and justly."
"An Alpha's word is absolute, and his hand is unwavering." Wolfgang kindly quoted.
The other wolves nodded because this was what we had been taught from very young.
Dad was nodding too, but he stopped to ask me "Do you know what that means, Sam?"
Why? Was I the only wolf who wasn't nodding?
"It means that if the pack law says that rogues who trespass must be killed on sight, they must be killed on sight." Dad explained, "If you act decisively, you demonstrate your justice."
"Laws must be enforced. This gives confidence to the wolves who run with you that you have the power to ensure their safety and security as according to the law."
"It also gives fair warning to the wolves who are running against you." Dad continued, "Clear boundary lines, consistently enforced justice... If you are an Alpha who hates bloodshed, then you must be quick and decisive to execute judgement exactly as the law specifies. If you show yourself consistent and strong, even your enemies would think twice before they step out of line, but if you close an eye, or accept a bribe, if you allow your heart to sway or withhold judgement from running it's due course, you might as well put out the welcome mat for your enemies and trample over the hands of your own wolves."
"Sam... And Kai too, I am saying this as your father as well as your alpha." Dad stood up, "It's better that you never become the Alpha, but if it is your fate, never forget you reap what you sow, and whatever you harvest will be food to your whole pack. Whether good fruit or poisoned apples... You will all eat it together at the end of the day."
Not only did Dad sigh a lot more in this timeline, his zen were more than just one liners.
Kai brushed his fringe back and chuffed a little, "Shouldn't you be telling Kev this?"
Yeah, it's not like the two of us were the ones raising a rogue army.
It's not that Dad and Beta Lucas hadn't tried reasoning with Kev! After the first two trips to and from the timeline failed to turn things around, Dad and Beta Lucas decided to give it one more shot. Thrice the charm, right?
Well, not exactly… actually, not at all. They did manage to delay the war by another two decades though, but that was also at the cost of many other good wolves. Kev was the Beta Lorent of this timeline, through a series of rogue raids, he hollowed out our pack of strong wolves and resources little by little.
Dad was most regretful, but the evidence was undeniable, Kev was adamant to go down this path. If they destroyed the rogue army camp, Beta Gerald would take the fall, and Kev would rebuild it. If they thwarted the second camp and exiled Kev, he would join the rogue forces in the Gold Packlands. Since there was no Blue Demon Army that Henry could hire in this timeline to eradicate the rogues on his land, they would eventually set up headquarters there.
In Version 3 of this future, Dad and Fluffy convinced Silver Mountain to deal with their rogue problem early, our pack suffered a rather negative backlash from the general public for taking our anti-rogue sentiments out to the Gold Packlands. It was different from our Original Timeline when Henry was the one who hired us to hunt them. In this timeline, the Young Alpha Henry was studying at Black Forest Academy and was seldom home. He didn't deal with his pack's affairs until he graduated from the Black Forest University. We had to make a lot of gifts and visits to convince his father, Alpha George to make a move - and even then, we had to provide 80% of the warriors AND cover the cost for their war efforts. We got called names like bigoted anti-rogue extremist, ended up pretty broke - and we still had to deal with another two decades of rogue raids where we lost our strongest and bravest wolves.
But it was also by Version 3 of this future that Dad noticed that I was mated to a different wolf in all three alternate futures. Omo.
To be fair, in the first two versions, Bell was dead, so seeing me happily mated and starting my own family was a relief for my Dad. In the third one, Bell was alive and well, but I was with…
"With?" I prompted when the narrative suddenly stopped, "Who was I with?"
Dad cleared his throat and looked away, "The future isn't set in stone… but that is not to say I wasn't grateful."
Because even though our pack suffered long and miserably over the next 30 years, it was a comfort for Dad to know both his daughters were spared when we mated out to far away packs.
"Who was I with?" I demanded.
Beta Lucas cleared his throat too, "That… isn't the point."
Especially since I was with a different guy in every alternate future.
"That makes 34 different guys." Ben pointed out.
"Well… no… some of you were repeated." Beta Lucas admitted.
"What do you mean SOME OF US?" Ben sounded alarm now, "WHO'S US?"
"That's not the point." Beta Lucas tried to brush it off, but it was too late, the psychological damage was done and the guys were side glancing each other as if to gauge the future possibilities.
I know I was the one who asked first, but I pretended I didn't notice. In fact, I pretended I didn't hear any of it. It was very uncomfortable to think of being mated with any one of the guys in this room. No. I didn't hear anything. Nothing happened.
Beta Lucas assured us that they tried to "fix it" so that I would be able to be with Bell. They went to the future (Version 4) to check the results.
"Hoo boy, that turned out… unexpected." Beta Lucas admitted.
Dad and Beta Lucas pulled out all the stops to make it so Bell and I would be engaged.
"We slapped Alpha Lorent with everything we got - to have the both of you betrothed straight after your first shift and then pressured the Lorents with anything and everything we had to make sure that boy understood he had to mate you when you reached 18." Beta Lucas explained. This included several inter-pack contracts for various joint ventures that was very beneficial for the Lorent Pack, but only if Bell mated me within a year from when I turned 18. If he didn't, he would have to forfeit huge profits, cough up penalties, and we'd cut off the Lorent's access to pipped gas and high speed Internet.
"Let's see them go back to cable." Beta Lucas crowed.
Yeah, because I was so desirable a she-wolf that I needed to threaten the man's internet connection before he would agree to mate me.
Anyway, it didn't work out.
"As if Rebel could be forced into anything like that." Fluffy smiled.
Actually, it wasn't Rebel.
"Sam was the one who broke up with him." Beta Lucas shrugged.
Which would have been unbelievable in our Original Timeline, but in this one, I already knew he wasn't my soul mate, so good job me. Don't settle for anyone who wasn't my soulmate!
"The poor alpha was heartbroken. It nearly started another Civil War." Beta Lucas said.
Luckily, Kev returned with yet another rogue army and Alpha Rebel had to put aside his broken heart so that the Lorent Pack and Night Leaf could fight them off together.
This was also when Wolfgang appeared… Dad and Beta Lucas didn't understand it. Every time there was a war, Wolfgang would appear with aid, warriors, and an escape route for me - which made him my mate 29/34 Versions of the future.
Dad raised his brow at Wolfgang who shrugged, "I am a man of my word."
Which explained nothing to anyone who wasn't in the car with us earlier, but a man's word was not to be questioned and Dad nodded in his thinking frown, "I see."
"Hoo, who knew a fire wolf pup would be so cute?" Beta Lucas remembered.
Wait, WHAT FIRE WOLF PUP?
By Version 34 of this future, Dad and Beta Lucas felt they got the general situation as "right" as they could. (Talk about trial and error.)
They discovered the trick by accident. In Version 15, Fluffy and Kev were involved in a terrible accident. Kev died in the crash, Fluffy became wheel chair bound. It was a confusing version -it was also the only version in which Fluffy and I were mated.
"I told you taking Kev out for a drive would do it." Fluffy told us.
"How can you say that?" I snapped at him. So the only way I'd end up with my soul mate here was if he has half paralyzed?
"As long as THAT still works, I don't care for my legs." Fluffy assured us. He was hit from multiple angles for that.
Dad cleared his throat.
Anyway, Beta Lucas felt he should assure us, they fixed that by making sure Rebel was at the scene of the accident to heal Fluffy 's legs. Unfortunately, Rebel wasn't as powerful in this timeline, so Fluffy would always walk with a limp from then on.
By Version 34, they manage actually advert any major war by making a series of seemingly unrelated events take place. The car crash that killed Kev, the Beta Office "accidentally" burning down along with all evidence of Beta Gerald's false involvement with the rogues, etc. It was a very long and exhausting decade of work to pull it altogether, but our Green Packlands was at peace.
Morning Light was wiped out though, but Alpha Kai took in Harvey as a second beta. The Lorents ran under Alpha Charles (Bell's brother) because Bell had died. Bell died in almost every alternative future.
"It wasn't that we didn't try to save him." Beta Lucas said in their defense, "But hoo boy, that troublemaker really likes to vooop!"
Beta Lucas threw a hand in the air as if dunking ball, "He just runs like he can't wait to go over the edge."
"He is quite different from the wolf we used to know." Dad said.
The Bell in this timeline was arrogant, bad tempered, paranoid, ungrateful, and in Beta Lucas' opinion, the most entitled Lorent prick he had ever met.
"So what's different?" Ben smirked.
By the 24th round, Beta Lucas was fed up enough to wash his hands off the Lorent Alpha, "To hell with him."
If he wasn't trying to steal the Warlock's flame, he was trying to assassinate the Vampire Queen. Twice he died in a car crash (a separate incident from Fluffy and Kev's car crash).
Actually, how the Original Bell did not die doing the things he did in our Original Timeline was a miracle.
"He's much more powerful in our previous timeline." Ki seemed to understand, "The Alpha Rebel now neither had to survive the fight cages nor shared in the Alpha Princess' compounded powers and serendipitous opportunities.
Everyone nodded like that totally explained it.
Anyway, Bell was dead in the 34th rendition of this Timeline's future. Dad and Beta Lucas had done everything within their power to protect/rescue/keep him out of trouble, but he managed anyway by overdosing on some poisons while trying to secretly train his poison resistance skill.
"What a dumb skill." I said.
But Bell in this timeline was very paranoid, so training his resistance to poisons had seemed like a good idea to him.
Anyway, when Dad and Beta Lucas returned to the future for the 34th time, it was a time of peace and Lala happened to be visiting with her family.
Wait, Lala was me right?
"It turns out that fire wolves are surprisingly cute as pups." Beta Lucas remembered.
"Why are we back to the fire wolf pup?" Ben groaned.
"I wonder whose pup that would be?" Fluffy asked in his usual smiling mask.
"Huh." Ben chuffed, "Guess who?"
"Ah..." Beta Lucas scratched his head and lied, "Forget what I said."
I don't think that was possible. It wasn't like Beta Lucas was helping matters. He went on and one about how cute the little guy was, how he looked just like an angel with his head of blond curls… he was the cutest fire breathing angel you'd ever see.
"Hoo man, It's the first time I saw a puppy burp a fireball." Beta Lucas couldn't contain it, "But that's to be expected from the first fire wolf alpha in the plains."
He was SO PROUD.
"Hn." Dad said from behind his desk. His expression was weird though... Like he ate something too sweet and was trying to keep a straight face.
"Oh right," and Beta Lucas remembered something important, "Sam isn't a blue wolf. She's a pure black wolf like her Dad here."
"Something as important as that," Ben scolded, "You could've mentioned earlier, Dad."
Wait, what?
"What kind of black wolf?" I asked.
Beta Lucas shrugged, "A beautiful black she-wolf, just like your Mum."
My mum was a white wolf.
"Wait, like not even an Alpha wolf?" I don't know about you, but that was the last straw.
Omo. Just shoot me.
"Well, so much for starting your own pack." Ben shrugged.
"Shut up, Ben!" I yelled because this was all wrong!
"What's wrong with such a life?" Dad mused, "It's not bad."
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone