TRICK 12: LITTLE ALPHA GHOST FINALLY WAKES UP

27 FEBRUARY, SATURDAY, LUNCH TIME

The Ceremony of the Departed finally drew to a close. Owen had recovered somewhat and he was able to join Fluffy in thanking everyone for the comfort of their presence and friendship during our time of grieving. The family and friends of the Departed were invited to remain in the hall to collect the ashes and meet with Alpha Kingsley and his Luna privately.

And then it's as if I were watching a particularly intense movie and it was over and the credits started rolling before I was ready to leave.

Our distinguished guests from outside Night Leaf and Morning Light were cordially invited to a lunch reception held at the Langston in Gate City. We are all touched by their overwhelming and generous support. Alpha Kingsley would like to extend his thanks and hospitality during their stay here.

The rest of us wolves were reminded to leave in a calm and orderly fashion (just like we would if it were an emergency.). We were also invited to drop by at the stalls outside in support of the efforts of the Warriors Welfare Committee in raising funds for the families of the departed. Some of our warriors have also prepared special activities to help with the fund raising efforts. We were all encouraged to show our solidarity in standing behind our warriors.

Night Forest had sent their warriors in wolf form to mourn with the fire as per Night Forest tradition, so we should not be alarmed to see black wolves about the grounds of the Memorial Hall. We'd also like to thank the Lorent Pack for the beautiful wreaths to mark the occasion, as well as the Snow Moon Kingdom for the protection of their snow shields during this time of mourning. In times like these, we are only too grateful for our FAMILY.

Fluffy had put emphasis on "family." And then proceeded to pour tea, I mean, explain - just in case anyone in the hall was unaware, that the Night Forest Pack was Alpha Kingsley's home pack, the Young Alpha Lorent was betrothed to Alpha Kingsley's eldest daughter, our Alpha Princess, and the Crowned Prince River of the Snow Moon Kingdom was betrothed to Alpha Kingsley's second daughter.

So much for Savy and River's engagement being kept private until they were older.

The media people in my wing were definitely stirred by this new fresh brew. As if on cue, warriors appeared to usher the media out for a closed door media conference. I could see that across the hall in the VVVIP wing, our distinguished guests were being shown out too.

Seeing the hall emptied out , I popped out too - outside it was bright, like stepping out of a movie theatre... I blinked, and found myself just floating there a little dazed.

There were Night Forest wolves all around the back of the ceremonial hall. I guess they were the wolves who had howled when the fire roared just now. I had never seen so many black wolves together before. The one leading them looked suspiciously like Beta Lucas or Ben, large and black with emerald eyes, but I noticed on a second glance that he was smaller - Oscar. It was Ben's cousin, the bubble bath loving Oscar. Sorry, but I'm never going to forget that he took bubble baths, no thanks to Estella and Esmeralda's stories about him.

Going around, I found the tents and stalls set up in the field adjacent to the Ceremonial Hall. Oh! I jumped back at the sight of a family taking a photo at a booth. That's right! I better be careful not to get caught on camera. I carefully dropped down to the ground and slipped around the booths. This way, if I were accidentally caught on camera, at least I'd just look like someone walking around in her pajamas. Yeah. I'd totally blend in.

Anyway, there were a lot of interesting stalls. The first one was a family picture booth. There were some hot drinks and snacks being sold. Teacher S.O's hotdog stand was up selling hotdogs for any amount of donation. Somewhere in the center was the main attraction though - a fight ring!

It was a betting stall, with Ink and Barry manning it, "Come place your bets or challenge our Captain in the ring. Big prize money! All proceeds to good cause!"

Beta Gerald, our admin beta was in the ring with Stephan! I drifted over, cheating a little by floating over the tall guy in front of me. Hank was refereeing, he blew on his whistle and the two wolves circled a little. Stephan attacked, but he was obviously holding back. Still, each move was well timed and precisely executed. As expected from the captain of my underground army! Beta Gerald barely dodged the first blow. He got kicked down, but he got up again.

"You're holding back, Captain." Beta Gerald chided.

Of course he was! Stephan was the kind of wolf who wouldn't go all out on his elder - especially since you were barely able to dodge his moves from the onset.

But then Beta Gerald said, "Might I suggest you go all out from here on? It would be a pity if I won too easily."

And then Beta Gerald signaled for Stephan to come again. Stephan did, a little faster this time, but he obviously pulled back his punches - which was his downfall. For some reason, even though Stephan had sped up his movements, Beta Gerald was suddenly able to dodge them all, AND after dodging, position himself such that he could catch Stephan's punch and throw him.

"You held back, Captain." Beta Gerald said with his usual mild mannered smile.

Wow. So much for being the "admin beta." I guess you really couldn't judge a book by its cover. But now that I thought about it, Beta Gerald was the Beta who held up the fort after Alpha Daniel's passing. It couldn't be that Gamma Endo did all the fighting (although I admit, I had assumed so.)

"How did he do that?" I heard Ben's voice. I turned to find Ben and Harvey watching just beside the tall guy in front of me.

"It's our bloodline skill." Harvey told Ben, "Predictive Mediation."

Right, Harvey had always been a strong fighter. Many of the guys say the undisputed champion from Morning Light.

"How come I've never seen you do that?" Ben asked.

Harvey pursed his lips, "It's a skill that only becomes useful after you've gained a certain amount of experience in the battlefield. Actually, not just for battlefields or fighting, the skill has a broad spectrum of applications."

"But it's power is limited by your experience?" Ben asked.

Harvey shrugged, "Yes, my experience in the specific related field I want to apply the skill to."

"Bummer for you." Ben shrugged too, "Sounds like the kind of annoying bloodline that requires long periods of hard work to develop. I hate that kind of thing the most."

Harvey produced a wry smile, "We can't all power punch our way through life."

But that's not the reason why Ben hated your kind of bloodline skill, Harvey! Ben had ever told me, its this kind of bloodline skill that was the most powerful "end game."

"What's end game?" I asked, because I wasn't a computer game geek like Ben was.

"It's like at the start of the game, some skills are fast to level and easy to use, but there are some skill sets that are slow like hell to level up, but by the later stages of the game, you'd find the power of the slow going skill start to exceed the fast leveling ones, and by the end of the game, it really overpowers all the other skills." Ben had explained.

After that, I had hoped that I'd inherit a bloodline skill that was like that. A slow leveling one which seemed totally useless at the beginning, but would one day grow to become an ultimate skill. Let's see, I got dream travelling - but this skill was supposed to get me killed before I even had pups, so I guess it wasn't the kind that needed decades to develop. I also had blades for hair, but this skill fit very perfectly in the fast-leveling quick success type of skill. What else? Oh, I did have Dad's catalyst power!

But I had no experience and it was already working too well. I pretty much completed what everyone estimated to take a few years in less than three months. Even the rogue war was over. I wasn't even inaugurated as young alpha yet. So I don't think the catalyst power was the kind that needed experience and time to develop. It just happened upon contact like some kind of accidental chemical reaction.

Oh! Gift of insight! Of all my skills, this was my most useless one.

Except that I had evolved again recently and merged it with my dream traveling powers. So now I could not just eavesdrop on other people's mindlink channels, I can also dream travel in ghost form to spy on people.

And every now and then randomly know something. Like right now.

WAIT! WTH! So I wasn't a ghost? I was just dream traveling and using my "gift of insight" at the same time?

What kind of "gift of insight" was this? It was more like the "gift of being the ultimate busy-body!"

Dumbest gift ever.

But this was it. This was the skill that might just become my end game move.

It's terribly unfair. Ben's got the one punch dream, I've got the crazy hair.

Harvey's got the predictive mediation skill, I've got the "gift of insight."

Even Ki's got rad healing abilities while I had rad trouble-making abilities with all that catalyst stuff going on.

I sulked and drifted off to the side of the field meaning to find space for a private pity session, but it was was cut short and I promptly forgot my sulk when I saw the stall by the open side of the field. It was selling MY WATER BOMBS!

Jonah and the rest of my usual gang were busy at the stall. Basically, you could pay for a waterbomb, and someone will throw it at you so that you'd be stained blue in keeping with the tradition of grieving for the departed warriors.

"Look, if you want it on your face, you have to stop turning away Dean!" Tim yelled sounding like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Don't use your hands to block it!" Shannon chipped in, or you're just going to end up with blue hands!"

There was a long line of warriors and boys waiting for in line.

Ben! It had to be Ben! Only Ben could get people to pay to have water bombs thrown in their faces. My water bombs at that! Which meant that the location of my base had been compromised. Drat!

Oh well, and now that people actually WANT to have water bombs thrown in their faces, I suppose it wouldn't be any fun throwing it at them any longer.

"I want one too!" I heard a familiar voice demand. I turned to see the pink beanie blond holding hands with Sabre.

"You can't. Only boys do that." Sabre told her friend.

"Yeah, only boys would be stupid enough to." Lizzy rolled her eyes and muttered to Savy.

In the end the girls started their own stand made from some of the dye water. They drew lines on the little girls' cheeks to imitate war paint, but they turned out to look like blue whiskers.

"Oh cute! They look like kittens now!" Jessica commented on passing.

Taylor and Sabre started mewing and soon there was a short line of little girls and a few boys who wanted blue whiskers too.

"But its only because I'm a tiger." Drake told Savy.

"How scary!" Savy nodded agreeably.

Oh well... I found myself drifting alone on the sidelines watching everyone have fun without me. I was so transparent that even the snow fell through me like I wasn't there. I think I had fun being a ghost, but I'm ready to just be Sam again, even if things got hard or complicated or painful. I think as long as I could keep running together with everyone, I'll be okay.

{The dead will remain dead, but those who live still live.}

Ha! Don't you love how Lycan quotes liked to state the obvious like it was something deep? Hahaha.

Yeah, I know. I get it. They're dead. It's over. But I was the alpha of the living. I need to return to the living.

And now that I knew I was dream traveling, I also knew how to go back to my body. I woke up.

I was in my room, sitting on my bed, in my own body, feeling like I was starving - and no one was home! Oh wait... Bell was here.

{Mate! ~ ❤️ }

I threw off my blanket and headed down to the living room (rabbit print silk pajamas and all).

{Mate! ~ ❤️ }

Luckily I heard their voices along the corridor and stopped myself. It would be kind of awkward to show up in my PJs in front of Alpha Gunter. Should I head back upstairs and change? Maybe into something cute. You know, because Mate! ~ ❤️

But at this moment Alpha Gunter spoke, or maybe he was speaking all along, but I only noticed now, "You do not seem to understand, young Tyger, it is not the black curse, but the ability to grant wishes that becomes the curse the Tyger must bear."

Say, what?

I couldn't quite make out what Bell said. His voice was too low, too deep. I love the sound of it! ~ ❤️

"If you come with me, young Tyger." Alpha Gunter said then, "I can show you how not to become the hunters' trophy."

I held my breath. Oh no! They're going to come out and find me eavesdropping on them in my rabbit pajamas!

But no one came out of the room. I waited a full minute before realizing that my impending doom would not fall on me. On the contrary, the whole house fell completely silent and I realized I was home, alone, for real this time. MATE WAS GONE!!!!

I looked into the living room. They were both gone.

I could smell them. I even knew which couch Bell was sitting on. I touched it - it was still warm from his body heat - just a little, so he was sitting here, but not for very long. He was here, but now he was gone. I looked around the empty room and then out through the glass doors even though I felt quite sure I would have heard them leave if they had opened the door.

How very mysterious!