Despite our being distracted by marshmallows and rain clouds, we managed to conclude the meeting and draw some solid guidelines from everything. I have included my notes - which only contained the interesting points.
Firstly, the Time Gates were now out of bounds. They were clearly unstable due to the multiple incisions we had created. Incisions being the word Wolfgang had used to call the rips we made in the fabric of time. Beta Lucas felt it was a very good word and used it repeatedly at every opportunity throughout the meeting after that. This irritated Ben a lot, so it gave me great pleasure to say "incision" whenever I could too, just to annoy Ben more. Hahaha. Fun.
Oh right, no one was allowed to use the Time Gates until it stabilized again.
Secondly, although I have never met Jude in this timeline, Dad and Beta Lucas had tracked him down, discretely of course. Mimi was taken back as Alpha Mike's luna and believed her son to be dead since that fateful night, but instead of killing the baby, the soldier had abandoned it in the woods. Team 2 (which was led by Dad2 and Sam2) sent Fluffy2 out of the packlands to dispose of the baby - alive. They repeatedly and clearly and specifically instructed Fluffy not to kill it, either on purpose or by accident.
I didn't feel Fluffy was our best man for the job, but the others were rather satisfied with Fluffy's report. He had carried the baby out to Alpha Mike's closest warring neighbor and left the baby alpha pup at the door of the poorest omega family he could find.
Fluffy smiled gleefully at the seed of drama he had planted and how it had grown.
Orphaned by a rogue attack on his pack when he was just a pup and angered by the social injustice of his pack, an omega pup named Pip turned the tables when he shifted into an Alpha Wolf on his 15th birthday. From that day forth, Pip set out to seek vengence for the death of his poor omega parents and right the wrongs of those above him. In doing so, he had set his pack on the path of civil war, and to this day, Pip remained the head of the rebels in the Grey Packlands, raiding and attacking the established packs there.
"Hoo boy, he has become a menace." Beta Lucas shook his head.
And who set this menace up in the Grey Packlands?
One day, Alpha Mike's beloved daughter was traveling to her engagement ceremony with another pack's young alpha. She was the peace treaty for their two packs to stop warring - at least until they could deal with the other packs and the rebel pests.
As fate would have it, her convoy was attack by rogues, when a dashing and handsome young alpha rescued her. She had only heard her father curse the rebel leader whenever the rebels caused problems in her packlands, so she had not expected him to be quite so dashing and handsome.
Pip too was convinced that this innocent maiden he had rescued was meant to be his princess - never mind that she was not his soul mate. He was already past 20 and had been waiting for such a lovely princess befitting his heroism.
"Wait…" I was confused, "But if Pip is Jude, and the princess is Alpha Mike and his Luna's daughter… then…"
Fluffy's smile lit up with glee, "'Someone should tell them one day."
Oh no.
Thirdly, I was a genius. Even Ben was convinced of it now.
My betas had opened and accessed all the Dan Lion material that Ben and his descendants had collected over the years. It started with a book, "The Story of Dan Lion" which became quite the best seller.
Dan Lion was quite surprised at the success of this book. In truth, he had never thought himself to be an author. Credit was always given to Beta Ben, who had encouraged him VERY STRONGLY to write and publish his first book. Beta Ben even took the trouble to tweak the code for The Yellow Brick Road project to launch an entire digital platform to publish the novel for Dan.
The Story of Dan Lion was Dan Lion's first book. A biography so popular that it was printed in a physical book, and then reprinted multiple times for years to come.
Over time, the digital reading app became the largest library in the world and contained not just Dan Lion's books, but also every other book from lore from ancient lycan times to modern romances and comic books.
Dan Lion turned out to be a very prolific writer. After his first book, he wrote a few more novels, and many articles on a broad range of topics from the study of Moon Bell's social economic success to the commentary of political and historical factors that had solidified Moon Bell's position as #1. (All without the mention of cats).
He was known to be close to the academic greats such as Prof Chimay, who personally forwarded most, if not all, of his novels. He was also a known as a peacemaker and lover of cats. A true master diplomat, he traveled to many parts of the world later in his life. The tales of his travel were intricately detailed in a digital book containing photos and videos of some of the most marvelous travel experiences. It was said that one would broaden and deepen the mind simply by reading this book.
Dan Lion was also very popular on fan fiction. This was due to a series of dramas - where Dan Lion's character was always played by a pretty-faced charming young man - usually someone from the hottest boy band of the season who was trying to break into acting.
Anyway, the Ben of the future didn't know which book I wanted, so he collected everything to send back to me. Over time, he realized what I was doing. I was truly a genius. He was so impressed that he actually wrote a lengthy note to himself so that he "won't f*** up".
The Yellow Brick Road Project had always be only the first half of my genius plan. Dan Lion's writings was the second. Combined, it would give us a road map to creating the most prosperous and powerful pack in the continent.
Ben handed me the hard copy of The Story of Dan Lion, "Here. This is your copy."
He had already connected the hard disks (which were technological marvels in themselves and Ben had plans to rig them into the Yellow Brick Road's hardware) to his super computer and was running the datamining software (which he had developed to mine intel from Bra's pack earlier) to extract and organize as much of the information as possible.
Ben had totally geeked out. Like, he even forgot to use his usual monotone to say all this. I guess that was what true love did to you - even if your true love was hardware and programing.
And lastly, Bell came.
Mate! ~ ❤
Perhaps one might consider the unannounced appearance of his cursed portal a distraction from our meeting. Certainly, he expected that ALL our attention should be directed to him the moment he entered the room, and fixated on him for the duration he was with us, my mate was arrogant like that.
But to me, he was perfect. Better than marshmallows, bigger than storm clouds. From his side-swept hair to the light Lorent suit, from his scent of salted caramel and the arrogance carved in his face. He was the main point of my entire meeting - even though the meeting had nothing to do with him in the first place.
Because Mate! ~ ❤
I guess you could call him the perfect distraction, or the perfect conclusion. No matter which it was, he was definitely perfect and he was definitely MINE. Now, how to make him MINE?