ICE CREAM MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER

We settled down at a super fancy café across the road from the Langston. It was so super fancy that the interior was carpeted and there was gold lettering to spell out the café name on everything from the large windows to the napkins.

There were also white tablecloths on the table. It was like nobody would spill chocolate sauce or dribble ice cream if they were eating it at a fancy enough place.

Even the name was fancy - it wasn't even in English. I considered the golden Lycan cursive script on the front of the white menu card when the waitress handed them out to us.

The first word was, "Gold." The second and third were, "Snow? Snowy? Cap/Blanket/Cover?"

Oh, Golden Snow Caps. That was the name of the café. It sounded much better in Lycan, and looked much more artistic with three mountain peaks drawn above the wordings. All in embossed gold print.

Anyway, it was definitely fancy, and probably Lorent-owned.

They also had fresh made waffle cones - and waffle bowls, and just as Fluffy had promised, all kinds of sugared fresh fruit and whipped cream, alongside 24 daily ice-cream flavors. "One for every hour in the day." The menu boasted, but nobody was going to be here 24/7!

Today's special was black-gold and coffee ice-cream. There was no price printed on the menu. I guess it was in the range of Moshiro.

"I'll have whatever's the most expensive." Fluffy decided, "And a coffee black, please."

He smiled at the waitress who immediately flushed red and bowed, "Yes! Thank you so much!"

Which I don't think was what she had meant to say.

"Just a caffe latte for me." Wolfgang said. Luckily, he wasn't smiling. I don't know if the waitress would be able to take both Fluffy and Wolfgang smiling at the same time.

"What would you like my pretty La?" Fluffy asked.

"Don't call me that." I told him. I tried to say it in my most uninterested and matter of fact way. If he knew I hated it, he would surely use that against me.

"Please order anything you like, Princess." Wolfgang generously offered.

I flipped to the waffle page and told the waitress, "I'd like the waffle cone with three scoops: vanilla, earl grey, and macadamia."

"Would you like to try our Duchess Tea Party?" The waitress showed me the page, "It has the same three flavors, an additional scoop of matcha ice-cream, topped with whipped cream and toasted almond slivers.

Ooohhhh... That sounded so good! But it had no waffle.

"Just the waffle cone please." I answered because I always knew what I wanted. At least Sam did. Lala... not so much. Like Lala, the silly girl would probably be staring at her menu worrying if ordering three scoops might make her look greedy.

Sam couldn't care less. It was only Fluffy and Wolfgang anyway, and I would probably never see the waitress again.

"No chocolate chip?" Fluffy asked.

"Chocolate chip is for cookies, muffins, and pancakes." I answered without thinking.

"Ah." Fluffy said, "I fear Pretty Alpha has completely devoured my Pretty La."

"Nonsense. You know we are the same person." At least I knew that. I mean, after living in Lala's shoes for a whole day of school, I felt quite sure Lala, the silly girl, was Sam, the dumb pup. We just manifested differently.

"Pretty La would have ordered a fruit parfait, especially since it's strawberry season." Fluffy wasn't convinced.

"I already had one just now while waiting for you." I brushed it off, "Besides, after eating strawberry parfait at Henry's, it's hard to find something comparable."

Another reason to go back to our original timeline. I highly doubt I could waltz into Henry's home and expect fresh strawberries and cream to appear in this timeline.

"Like, you're still you, right?" I pointed to Fluffy.

"How am I like the sick dog from before?" Fluffy smiled, "Or in your eyes, am I still the same pathetic fool?"

I don't know why, but my heart hurt.

"You were never." I told him, "The Fluffy I knew back then and now is just as shiny and fun and overcomplicated."

"I understood so little back then." Fluffy confessed.

"Yeah, me too." I said, "It's like we lived twice and learned twice as much."

"Then Wolfie must have learned the most since he's so old." Fluffy beamed.

"I am not that old." Wolfgang protested.

"Says the one who didn't order ice-cream." Fluffy told me. I giggled. It was a very Lala expression that I would never had made in my last life.

But I was happy, and safe, and Fluffy was right in front of me. Omo. Where did that come from?

Fluffy smiled, it was his smiling mask though, "Do you still want to hurry back to your Bell?"

Oh right. I forgot about that. The ice cream menu distracted me, but what had it got to do with Bell? But I suppose so, "Yes. Tell me your plan."

I was sure it would be overcomplicated, but I needed to hear it. And we had Wolfgang with us too. Surely we could come up with a workable (simplified) plan together.

"My plan comes with a condition." Fluffy smiled, "But I will tell you the plan first."

Welcome to the twisted mazes of Fluffy's mind! The following is what I understood of Fluffy's plan:

Disclaimer: This plan was thought up before Wolfgang brought up the possibility that Dad was just testing my wolves... Or any of the other things Wolfgang and Fluffy had convinced themselves about my allegedly mastermind Dad.

"But I assure you that this plan is still valid because it proves our loyalty and heart." Fluffy declared, "You may consider it as a plan within a test."

Fluffy had also previously underestimated Dad's love for his adopted children, but he had since readjusted his calculations and now his plan will assume that Dad was going to play out the role of a truly sincere and devoted father (which he was in the first place so I don't know why Fluffy had to make it sound like Dad was role playing.)

The tricky part was to identify Dad's the real objective of our mission.

So far, it would seem that unless Dad was 100% convinced that there was absolutely no way on earth (or heaven or hell) that his son, Kev, could be saved, it would be impossible for him to consider abandoning Kev for any reason, not even the greater good of Lycan kind.

It's ironic that our mission had started off with the objective to keep Kev, I mean Jude out of our Packlands in the first place. Dad who had coldly turned away and left Kev as a baby to die by a random warrior's hand was now literally shifting through timelines to find an alternative to save him.

Unless this was indeed a test, then it was not so much irony than a plot hole on Dad's part.

I said as much but both Fluffy and Wolfgang's faith in Dad was unshakeable. They immediately reasoned that Dad probably used Jude as the test prop because he was the traitor anyway. We were all just pawns in his eyes.

"Alpha Kingsley is really not to be trifled with." Wolfgang noted.

"His enemies all come to a bitter end." Fluffy agreed easily.

Since Dad and Beta Lucas had divulged that they had already gone into the future in this timeline, they probably had already seen Kev's betrayal.

Wolfgang could only marvel at the lengths Dad had gone to set up this test at this point. Even he could not fathom how one could manipulate the mission across the timelines to create such a perfect setup.

That was probably because Dad didn't plan any of this! BTW, I was still not convinced that Dad was testing us.

Anyway, the fact that they had told us about their time traveling activities was an important clue to what we must do to solve this mission.

For example, Fluffy felt certain that just because Dad probably already saw Kev betraying the pack didn't mean that he would easily accept the fact when presented with it. Fluffy didn't believe that they were being totally transparent about all their time traveling activities either. Basically, Fluffy was seriously taking the entire mission as a detective puzzle game of some sort. The annoyingly abstract kind where every loophole is a clue to the creator's real thoughts.

We should expect Dad to demand some kind of solid proof. It had to be so solid that it had to prove that nothing we did between now and the future would change Kev's traitorous ways. And it had to be done in such a way that Dad would also see proof of their loyalty and abilities.

"We need to show him that we understand what he wants and can deliver the results he wants despite the variables surrounding this mission." Fluffy explained.

Only be proving their capabilities and loyalty would Alpha Kingsley see their worth and treasure them as his key strategic pieces.

No, Fluffy. We just need to save Kev, or prove that saving Kev was impossible. Nobody was playing chess.

But of course Wolfgang felt what Fluffy said made a lot of sense. Dad wanting to check the future once more before deciding which timeline to stay in was also an indicator that Kev's fate was definitely a key factor to Dad's final judgement on their performance.

I tried to draw them back to reality, "But if we go check the future, wouldn't we see Kev betray us again? Doesn't that prove he's the traitor?"

I felt quite sure we would since Kev had already set up a training camp for the rogue army. It was pretty much a given.

"Not quite." Fluffy smiled, "It'll prove that Kev could become a traitor, but it doesn't necessarily prove that he would always be one."

So we had to prove that there was no alternative future where Kev did not betray us, or find one and follow that course.

In this mission, there could be more than one outcome.

The best case scenario would be that Harvey betray his Alpha and report the rogue army. If he did, Fluffy would bring Dad to the rogue army camp and they would destroy the whole thing, confront Kev, and Kev accepts whatever penalty the Council (Inclusive of the Lorent Pack) levies on Morning Light.

A bad case scenario would be that Harvey betrays us by keeping Kev's secret. We would just go into the future, see the catastrophe, and Dad would "figure out" that he could still fix it if we stayed. Then Dad would bring Fluffy to the rogue army camp and they would destroy the whole thing, confront Kev, and Kev, instead of accepting it, would decide to fight back and start the civil war prematurely. But that was still better than letting it run its full course, even if it would lead to Morning Light being destroyed by Night Leaf.

I felt my heart clench. That was like handing two bothers a sword each and asking them to kill each other. Morning Light and Night Leaf had always been close. Many of us had family in the other pack. Most of us would have grown up together in our shared school. Heck, we were so close, there were wolves who lived in the other pack just because they liked the location and layout of the apartment! It would be a bloody family war.

The only way to prevent the family war would be the even worse case scenario, where we did not confront Kev, and let things run its course while slowly building our own reserves, separating our wolves, and eventually dealing with the civil war in all its horror.

"What's the worst case scenario?" I asked. Not that I actually wanted to know, but it seemed prudent to be aware of how bad it could get.

"The next Great War." Fluffy smiled.