AND THE TOWER CAME TUMBLING DOWN

26 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, WARLOCK TIME

We started climbing the stairs. Yes, I realised how dumb that was. We've been suffering one annoying loop after another for an extended period of time in this goddess forsaken corner of the continent, and I still hadn't learned my lesson - at least not immediately.

In my defense, I needed time to update my betas and climbing an endless flight of identical steps gave me the opportunity to do just that.

"The connection is s*** here." Ben complained when he failed to receive new email. It was his automatic response to me mentioning the report.

"What was Jude thinking?" Ki sighed under his breath, "This really isn't something Alpha Kingsley can overlook as a young pack's mischief anymore."

Apparently, my dad did that a lot when it came to Jude and his Asphalt pack. As long as no one was seriously hurt and they apologized and paid the required compensations to the injured parties, Dad would simply chalk it up to Jude being a young unmated alpha.

One of the reasons why the guys at the Asphalt Moon Pack respected Dad so much was because he was the only "big guy" who'd stand up for them.

"Your Luna and I ran with them during his most rebellious years. Most of the wolves were orphans or runaways. Mimi called us her lost boys ." Ki smiled his gentle smile as he remembeed, "It can be said that while Mimi was our Wendy and the mother we never had, Alpha King was the cool dad. He was a big deal, the only point of authority that Jude's gang would bow their heads to."

Ki remembered one such occasion when Jude and his pack was hauled up in front of the council (again.)

Most of the other packs would rather the Asphalt Moon be disbanded. It's like a hotbed of hooligans and bikers.

"This isn't the first time." Alpha James spoke as the first chair of the council, "Under Jude's leadership, their pack has been sparking one incident after another."

"They started it!" Jude's boys yelled and pointed rude fingers at the other Minor Pack involved.

"Young wolves fight." Dad shrugged.

"Alpha Kingsley, surely you don't mean to allow this pack of miscreants to continue their lawless behaviour!" One of the alphas protested.

"It was technically lawless." Dad allowed, "Technically, but the other party provoked it and no one was seriously injured, and nothing was damaged beyond repair."

"They are a public nuisance, Alpha Kingsley!" Another minor alpha had exclaimed.

"True. But young wolves often are. They will outgrow it and settle down with their mates eventually." Dad had soothed it over.

"Not again, Kingsley." Alpha James groaned, "You can't keep shielding those boys..."

"Fine." Dad agreed, "Go ahead and prosecute them. Two counts of disturbing the peace. Eight counts of disorderly conduct. 3 counts of voluntarily causing hurt. And what else was it?"

"Abusing a public servant." An Alpha and his Beta with matching black eyes reminded my dad. Jude and gang had punched both eyes in the other Pack's wolves and they were called the Panda pack for a while.

Dad looked momentarily amused at the Alpha Panda.

"Alpha Lorent and Alpha Kingsley! I implore you to to grant our pack justice! Jude and his gang had caused us grievous hurt." Alpha Panda said.

"Grievous hurt to your pride, yes." Dad answered, "But as I've said, I will allow it, but let him with no sin be the first to cast the stone. If you have not, in your youth broken any of the above rules, you may take Jude and his boys into custody."

"Does... Does that mean you do not intend to imprison them at Night Leaf Alpha Kingsley?" Alpha James asked.

"My dungeons are for the likes of rogues and serial hunters." Dad shrugged, "Not hotblooded young wolves who's only real crime is running recklessly and responding foolishly to taunts."

"And it's not like I've never done the same." Dad added, "I'll leave it to the rest of you."

"You always side the garbage in our society." Alpha James said, "Our Green Packlands would be nothing but landfill of trash if this goes on."

"Have you never heard of recycling, Alpha Lorent?" Dad answered.

When Dad was younger, he used to talk a lot more. When Dad was younger... It was hard for me to imagine my Dad's younger self.

So they slapped Alpha Jude and his Asphalt Moon Pack off with another fine and corrective work order.

The Panda Pack (*not it real name) was furious, but what could they do? Now that Alpha Kingsley had made his stand, it's not like any of the other Minor Packs would stick out their necks to oppose it. The Lorent Alpha too... Although the Lorents were the top pack in the Green Packlands, Alpha James would never oppose Alpha Kingsley directly. Most of the Minor Alphas understood it as a political position to secure the Packland's peace and prosperity. It was very well known that Alpha Lorent did not like getting his hands dirty.

But Ki felt it was more to it, "Alpha Lorent had ever said the Night Leaf Alpha was stubborn and frustrating to work with, but he respected Alpha Kingsley's sense of justice and strength of character. Furthermore, Alpha Lorent had long accepted Alpha Kingsley as a great visionary."

I suppose recycling was a new concept back in the day...

But honestly, I barely recognized my Dad in any of these stories. It was like hearing him out in battle this morning. For all I knew, my Dad could be the opposite of batman - serious, dark, and speaking only zen one liners as my Alpha Batdad in the day, and then running into battle as a chivalrous smiling cool dude. No wait, according to Roy, Beta Lucas was the cool one. Dad was hot. And very popular.

I wonder what happened to that guy? Was it me? O.o! Was my being born the reason he put away his motorbike, hotness, and daring back-chats?

"That Jude dude..." Ben chuffed, "What a snake in the grass! After all our Alpha had done for him too. When I get back, I'm going to..."

"To kill him?" I asked. I mean, Ben's threat so far against the warlock had been rather limited in nature.

"...break his bones and make him crawl in the grass like the snake he is." Ben cracked his knuckles, "It's one thing to mess with me, it's another to betray my alpha."

Okay...

"Dad had always said Alpha Kingsley treated Jude like his own son." Ben told me.

I know, Dad had once mentioned that Jude reminded him of his younger self. I heard him say it to mum. At the time, I had assumed it was because Jude and his gang rode around in motorbikes the way Dad used to do too.

"I'm relieved that Ruby is finally dead." Ki added then, "Although it saddened me that it had to be like this. Ruby... She wasn't always this way. Once upon a time, she had been a pillar of support for me and many others like me. The strongest, most beautiful woman I had ever met."

It was rare for Ki to speak so honestly, or to speak anything voluntarily about his past.

"Yeah." I nodded, "When I first met her at the underground, I thought she was really cool."

I thought she was exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up, red lipstick and all. But for some reason, I couldn't admit this out loud. The thought of growing up to be like Ruby... I felt a shiver run down my spine and shook my head to clear out the image of her face and how one eye was loose and the skin sagged like it was about to melt off.

I wondered when did she she change from strong and beautiful to undead and crazy. I would very much have liked to know the exact point in her life that she had misstepped. Mostly so that I would not make the same mistake one day.

Because heck, I was still young. You'd never know. One young and reckless hot alpha became Nigh Leaf's strong and wise Alpha (my Dad), and another became a snake in the grass (Jude).

By now, we were just sitting on the steps talking. We had climbed high up enough to not be able to see anything else below or above us. Just endless stairs.

"By the way, you do realize we are in another one of the Warlock's enchanted treadmills again, right?" Ben asked.

"Of course I know that!" I retorted back.

"Right... Just checking." Ben smirked. Then he got up, "Okay, what now, Sam? I mean, I'll follow you wherever, but I don't think you're planning to climb these stairs infinitely."

That... That is... Well, that's true. If we kept climbing, we'd just be climbing forever. Why did I even start climbing?

I looked around. Ben could punch the enchantment and break it, but where exactly should he punch? This wasn't a trap shaped in a straightforward path like the earlier ones. It was spiralled and looked a bit more complicated. If Ben broke below us, would all the stairs collapse and cause us to fall? If Ben punched upwards, would he break the Warlock's floor and cause the rocks to avalanche over us? What if River and Wilhelm fell through the hole we made?

I guess, due to safety constraints, the safest bet was to punch along the sides. Once we broke the enchantment, we can climb any of the real stairs and get to the top.

Minimal structural damage would be good, since we were inside the building and all.

"Let's punch out the sides of this enchantment and go meet the warlock now." I decided.

"Finally!" Ben approved and pulled up his sleeves, "Alright! Dog, guard Sam. I'm going to bust us out of here."

Aw man, Ben's one punch power was so admirable! I'm jealous!

Ben drew his fist back, and then his eyes caught mine. He smirked, "Watch this, Sam."

I'm not sure if it was because Ben was showing off, but he punched and there was a shattering sound around us. The enchantment broke like a million shards of light, and then there was a deep rumbling sound, almost like a gyaara, but I looked up and realized the rock wall of the tower had busted a hole the size of a truck - I kid you not. The tower was about to fall over.

"Ben! The other wall!" I cried out as the tower creaked and started to lean to the side. This would be a timber moment if the Warlock's Tower was a tree.

Ben punched the other side, but the tower rocked in a really unsteady way, so he tried to balance it out by punching all the other walls around. The tower creaked and groaned, like a mountain falling over in slow motion, and then it dropped and crashed downwards around us.

My hair immediately zinged alive and encased my two betas and I in a steel blue cocoon. We just froze there, our bodies pressed together like in a packed train.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked, and then I tried to joke, "I didn't accidentally slice off anything, right?"

"Just my arm." Ben deadpanned.

Stoopid! If I had more space, I would have punch him on that allegedly missing arm.

And then another loud crashing sound from all around us and within our steel cocoon, we tumbled and slammed against each other like clothes in a dryer. It was really surprising because I was quite sure we were already packed like sardines in a can from the start - I had imagined a large rock falling on us and needed a thicker shell more than a roomier one.

"Grab on!" Ben yelled. I realized Ki was glowing as the both of them grabbed me to cushion me. Maybe we would be able to squeeze more commuters in the trains at peak hours if we picked up the train and shook it.

I tightened the cocoon around us so none of us would end up with all our bones broken. Somehow, this situation reminded me of the egg dropping game we played at Lycan Study Group. My hair was the straw, my betas the balled newspaper, and I was the egg.

When the trembling around us stopped, and every thing quietened and stilled completely, my hair released us and slipped back into its usual length again.

Ki and Ben dropped off from my side. I sat stunned while the two guys lay on either side of me. We were... on the Warlock's front lawn?

There was sky - was it a real sky? It looked so real, the clouds. It felt real, the grass under me... It even smelled real. We were back outside the tower. Or what became of it.

The tower itself was broken in two. The bottom half remained where it was, it's top sprouting the tropical canopy from the second floor.

The rest of the tower stood crooked, stabbed into what used to be the Warlock's front lawn. , but only three floors up.

"I think we might have overdid it." I admitted.

"You think?" Ben smirked. He looked way to pleased with himself.

I got up and dusted off. Ki had stopped glowing. That would mean we were all well enough, or he was out of juice.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked.

The two guys got up and dusted off.

"We're just peachy." Ki smiled brightly at me.

"Yeah, peachy." Ben deadpanned.

Hahaha. "Alright my peaches. Let's go meet the Warlock."

Again. Yes. Never give up!