THE UNEXPECTED TWISTS IN FATE

20+ YEARS AGO, INCIDENT 0, CONTINUED

"How can I know you will not kill my son!" Miriam cried tearfully.

"If you go in there, both you and your son will perish!" The young Alpha Mike (with a head still full of hair) told her.

"Promise me." Miriam begged, "Promise you won't kill him."

{Fluffy is in position.} Fluffy reported cheerfully, {Target is in range.}

{Hold your fire.} Dad answered more calmly than I felt.

"I promise I won't kill him. I will treat him like my own son" Alpha Mike said.

{Lie} Boo said, in case I didn't catch that.

He cast a fugitive glance at the howling dark woods on our end, "Be a good girl and come back with me now. I'll give you anything you want. Just come back. It's dangerous out here tonight."

Mimi hesitated, it was just for a moment. If not for the presence of warrior wolves being crazy in the dark woods, she would have run in long ago. If only she could make sense of their positions! Then she might have been able to guess their hunt direction, but the howling continued without any change in formation.

What sounded like the start of serious and intense hunt was now beginning to sound weirdly off. If this was a hunt, why were none of the warriors moving at all? Instead, they sounded like they were just standing around howling non stop and for no reason... sort of like wolves on TV.

Real wolves NEVER howled for no reason.

{Stop howling.} I ordered, {It's starting to sound fake.}

{Yah man,} Beta Lucas realized, {And we're going to alert the patrols.}

I felt quite sure we had already done that. It's just a matter of time before the warriors arrive to investigate it.

The moment the howling stopped, the woods went dead silent. Nothing moved, not even a cricket.

"They're onto us." Alpha Mike feared the worst, "Miriam..."

Miriam must have thought the same, the only thing more dangerous than a howling wolves were a silent ones. Howling meant they sensed prey near, silence was before the pounce.

She hugged the bundle closer to her and backed away from the Green Packland border. Alpha Mike took the chance to grab her. He covered her face with a handkerchief, I could smell some kind of disinfectant maybe? It was very faint from where I was.

Miriam fell back into his arms, the bundle falling out of her arms and onto the forest ground. A baby started crying.

Alpha Mike kicked the baby over to the nearest warrior, "Kill it quick, it's gonna lead the barbarian packs over."

And then he carried Miriam away.

{Target 1 is out of range.} Fluffy reported, {Target 2 is in range.}

{Leave it. Let Mike's man deal with it.} Dad said.

{But...} I know it was Jude, future traitor of our Packlands, but he was only a baby. He hadn't done anything yet.

{Someone's coming.} Ben warned.

{It's Harry.} Dad realized, {Is he on patrol?}

Gamma Harry's voice carried through the silent woods, "Very suspicious! I know I heard wolves here... But now I smell hotdogs... I feel a bit hungry."

OMO. Were we going to be outed because of hotdogs?

{Hoo boy, return to camp ASAP!} Beta Lucas instructed.

{Fluff. Report.} Harvey was reluctant to leave any loose ends.

{Target 2 is with warrior. I can do them both.} Fluffy offered.

{Leave it. They haven't crossed into our land.} Dad decided.

So we rushed back to camp. I was quite sure Gamma Harry would have tracked the hotdog to our camp and was half expecting to see him waiting for us, but for some reason, we reached our camp and managed to pack up and leave before being found out.

We returned to our entry point safely.

"Hoo boy! That was close." Beta Lucas said, "But we did it. Mission accomplished."

Yeah, I guess we did keep Mimi and Jude from entering our Packlands.

"Prepare the cats. Let's get back to our time line." Dad said.

"Wait!" Fluffy raised his hand, "I have a request."

"What request?" Dad asked.

"In about 10 years, I would be stolen from the Mountains, and very likely passed through these same lands before being sold to the vampires." Fluffy said.

I guess it made sense. The Green Packlands and Warlock lands were the wilderness surrounding the Colored Mountains.

"If there is a chance, please try to rescue me." Fluffy asked.

"Let's go back to our timeline first." Dad said, "We'll work it out from there."

Which meant that Dad was agreeable. Boo was also very agreeable to this request, in fact, my lucky sense of direction suddenly kicked in again.

"There's no time like the present!" I announced, "And we have two cats. Dad, let me take Peony and my wolves, save little Fluffy, and meet you and Beta Lucas back at our original timeline."

"I'm very lucky. I'll hunt down those rogues that stole him for sure!" I promised.

"Does it have to be right now?" Dad asked. I guess it was going counter to his systematic progressive method.

But I couldn't ignore the lucky sense of direction, "I don't feel like this can wait."

My lucky sense of direction felt almost desperate to run. It was as if I might never get this chance again, "It's now or never Dad."

And I wanted to save Fluffy, from whatever he had suffered, "I need to do this for Fluffy."

Dad was frowning, but he said, "Fine, but we will go together."

"Yes! Dad's the best!" I can't deny that I had always wanted Dad to treat me like a real warrior, but this time, I'm glad he never stopped seeing me as his daughter. Even though he would treat me like I was just his puppy, the things I could get away with were suddenly glaringly obvious in this mission. I grinned and took over the mission, "Follow me, it should be up this way!"

We ran into the dark woods, I still didn't recognize where I was going, but it didn't matter anymore because I could recognise my lucky sense of direction. I was feeling relieved more than anything that it was working again.

We didn't run far, just up to the other stretch of border. At wherever felt like the right place, I called out, "Perri, open the time gates here. Now! Let's go!"

I realized the moment I stepped into the portal that Time Gates, would you believe it, were also a kind of casting. Magic that didn't involve words but did require you to be at the right place at the right time to step through to where you want to be when you want to be there.

Yeah, I think Alpha Gunter was right. I was some kind of genius when it came to figuring out magic.