BEFORE THE CRITICAL INCIDENT STRESS DEBRIEF

17 FEBRUARY, WEDNESDAY, AFTERNOON

A CIS Debrief turned out to stand for "Critical Incident Stress Debrief." Apparently, whenever some thing happened that threatened the security or safety of the humans present, organizations were supposed to conduct a CIS debrief to help the humans cope with the mental truama.

Humans were very susceptible to truamatic stress. Critical incidents included assaults on peers, hostage-takings, the suicide or murder of a co- worker, accidents causing bodily harm or death, as well as airplane crashes or natural disasters including floods, fires and tornadoes... and sinkholes.

I'm glad wolves didn't need this kind of thing. I imagined we'd be holding CIS debriefs multiple times a day if we had humans running with us. Nevermind that they ran like turtles, we'd be spending half the day debriefing their stress levels down.

That being said, I was quite curious about this CIS debrief. I wondered how Principal Laura was going to convince everyone a sinkhole had appeared and destroyed the computer lab on the third floor. Furthermore, everyone present was safe and did not have their memory altered in anyway even though no two student would be able to describe what happened in any detail whatsoever.

She was going to jump SO MANY loopholes in her explanations, if her actions matched her words, she'd be doing acrobatics!

So I sat down on the nearest chair to wait for Madam Principal to return. The humans continued to just stand there staring blanking. The lights were on, but nobody was home, you know?

The others picked up fallen chairs and collected their things to join me. Oh! My stuff! I got up and headed to my table... Or what used to be my table. I found my bag on the floor, my file a few feet away, and then a small cloth pouch, which wasn't mine, but felt like it belonged to me. Weird.

"This isn't mine, right?" I asked, showing the pouch to the others.

"Oh!" Jasmine's hand flew to the front pouch of her bag. The zipper had been left open when she took out her phone earlier, "Urm... That's mine, Sam."

I wanted to open the pouch, I can't explain why, maybe it was just curiosity which prompted me. The pouch was soft and pink, with purple embroidery of butterflies. It looked like it was hand made. Actually, it looked exactly as I imagined it would, IF Jasmine's mum really had put the lock of my hair in it and given it to Jasmine as a lucky charm.

I returned the small pouch to her hand.

"Thanks for finding it, Sam." Jasmine smiled, she put it back in her bag, "My mum said I should always carry this in my school bag. It's kind of like my lucky charm."

Oh. That was a coincidence.

Ki and Pete arrived next with Neil, Jax, and another two dark red jacketed warriors at their heel.

The moment they neared the door, Henry waved, "You two. Stand guard at the door."

The two red warriors bowed, "Yes, Alpha." and took their positions.

Ki and Pete entered with a bow, "Yo, Princess. Good afternoon, Alpha Henry."

Even Pete. This "Yo, Princess" thing was spreading like a plague.

Jax and Neil gave a hasty bow, and then Jax let out a low whistle, "Would you look at that!"

"It was a sinkhole." I said meekly, (not me.) But the newcomers were right now examining the two rows of unmoving humans.

"Huh! What kind of sinkhole does that?" Neil chuffed.

Yeah, I'd like to see Madam Principal explain how the sinkhole did that too.

Jax waved his hand in front of one of them, "It's like the lights are home, but nobody's home, y'know?"

Yes. We know.

"Good thing you're here, Ki. Check Sam first. I think she was wiped." Henry decided to take charge.

"I was not!" I flared.

But Ki was in front of me glowing, his warm hand on my forehead. Not fair! Why was Henry in charge?

{I was not wiped. What are you doing?} I mindlinked my beta.

{Pardon me, goddess. I'm attempting to restore your memory. This will only take a moment.}

Now I was surprised.

{You can do that?}

{To a limited extent, due to the restorative nature of my healing, I can reverse brain function and restore memory if it is a superficial and recent wipe.}

I see. It sounded complicated, this healing thing.

Wait, reversing brain function sounded like something I would prefer to avoid. Especially since I wasn't wiped. I shook my head under his hand, {No, no, Ki. I was just messing with Henry. I wasn't wiped at all.}

Don't do anything weird to my brain!

Ki removed his hand with a gentle smile, {Understood, goddess.}

Aloud he announced, "Thank the goddess, you are unharmed. May I have your permission to see to the others?"

Huh? I nodded. And then I watched Ki cordially check on everyone.

Maybe it was because I knew Ki better now, but he didn't fool me one bit. Despite his calm demeanor, his wolf was freaking out. In fact, if I ranked the stress level of every wolf in the room, Ki was atm at #1, just overtaking Fluffly by a hair.

This was really ironic because they were also the only two wolves smiling.

Perhaps they should attend the CIS debrief later too. Maybe I should take notes from Madam Principal. It appeared that former fightdogs suffered from Critical Incident Stress too. Or rather, Vampire Incident Stress. So it's more like we needed VIS Debriefs. I blame the vamps. They were so troublesome.

The third really stressed-out wolf was EJ who was at this moment being tended to by Ki.

"You shouldn't have stayed on with your foot broken like that." Ki admonished in his gentle glow.

"But Beta! I don't want to miss school!" EJ's theatrics were on at full blast. I should bring him with me to theater practice one day, but not today. It would be best we didn't show up today. We were way past late and I would rather not have to face Mr Devon's theatrics on top of everything else today. I had my limits.

"You had no idea how scary it was, Beta!" EJ continued waving his hands up wildly while sitting on the last unbroken table in the room with his foot propped up for Ki to heal.

"I can imagine." Ki demurred.

"No, no, beta. It was at least ten times worse than you can imagine!" EJ was adamant.

Ki's mouth pressed in a straight line.

No, no, Ki. Don't listen to that brat! It wasn't that bad.

"She was like grrr and phssss-KA-bhOOOOMPPHHH!!!" EJ pulled at his own red floppy hair, "I thought I was going to die!"

Wait, me? I was NOT the scary thing just now. It wasn't even Maria, because I could handle her, or at least Boo seemed to think so. The real danger was the old vamp, Lord Kosan, but thankfully, he wasn't looking for trouble.

But EJ was determined to deny Lord Kosan's existence, "She was like a monster... like, like..."

"The Kraken?" I offered hopefully.

"I was going for man-eating vine." EJ admitted.

Oh. I suppose... if my hair was green, maybe. But my hair was dark blue!

"I was the Kraken, not a plant." I insisted, and demonstrated it, my hair turning into its blade-form and flaring up, "See, Kraken. From now on, I'm calling this the Kraken move."

"You can do that on purpose?" Henry realized.

The other wolves in my school pack all took a step back.

I let my hair settle back and beamed proudly, "Yep, I can control it better now."

"As opposed to before when you couldn't." Henry was sharp enough to catch on, but I didn't let it get to me. I've suddenly leveled up again, or rather, I've leveled up my control over my powers. I've also stumbled onto a new personal epiphany.

All my life, I wanted to be powerful because I was the alpha. But I didn't need any more power - my alpha wolf was already powerful beyond anything I've ever imagined. So my real power wasn't what I could produce, but what I could control. The moment I got home, preferably in a hot bubble bath, I would have to rethink my training plan. I had been going about it all wrong.

Look at Lord Kosan. I'm not sure about his power level, but I knew he was dangerous because of the level of control he exhibited over his flame.

And me... it was ironic. Growing up I wanted to be super powerful, but once I shifted I was always suppressing my wolf, when what I needed was, just as the control technique Dad had taught me from the very beginning focused on, I needed to control my wolf power.

"Her luna is even scarier." Neil informed my friends."When he Chi-Ka-Booms, its like an atomic bomb."

"Oh yeah... he used to do that a lot too." Jax added, "We called him the death god because grown warriors would just drop like flies to the ground."

"The Kraken is a hundred times worse than the death god!" EJ argued, "Like at least with the death god, death is immediate - you don't even see it coming!"

Which, as much as I hate to admit, sounded scarier to me than the Kraken.

"I can recommend a good insurance plan." Henry offered wryly.

Don't recommend useless things like that! Tell me what insurance plan would cover Alpha tantrums?

"Ooooh... How to I get one of those?" EJ was all shiny-eyed at that.

"I have a good one." Neil told him, "It even covers costs for private healer consultations, not just hospital and general medical fees."

"Yes, the terms are sometimes even more important than the payout amounts." Marcus agreed.

"I totally don't understand this! Beta can you help me buy one? I have some money now right? Is it enough?" EJ scrunched up his face and scratched his head.

Apparently, fight dogs didn't have bank accounts - or anything in their name, really. Some of them didn't even have real names. But thanks to my betas and the Underground Army administration, each warrior now had their own IDs, and personal bank account where their warrior salary would be deposited into.

But I digress. I'm always getting distracted like this. But for EJ, I got the feeling he was purposely being sidetracked. This entire conversation, and all the ones before that, were just a distraction from the real issue. I guess different wolves coped with VIS differently. Some kept smiling like they were okay, others changed the subject.

"Just now," I said, because I was the Alpha, and the Alpha always went first in a face of fear, "That was scary." And it's scary to be the first to admit that I was scared in front of everyone, but I was the Alpha, I could take it, "I was lucky that things worked out, but I had to wing it knowing that if anything went wrong..."

I struggled to find the right words, "I didn't want the humans to die."

"What about the wolves?" Marcus tried to joke again, another one of those half jokes. We all handled our fears differently.

"You guys didn't have to worry. Maria would not have been able to hurt you in front of me." I turned to look Fluffy straight in the eyes, "I told you, it'll be okay. You guys need to trust your Alpha more."

Nobody said anything at first, and then EJ burst out, "I was so scared too. I was sure we were going to die!"

Ki and Fluffy did not take off their masks either, but Ki said, "As expected of our Alpha Princess, to be so fearlessly selfless in the face of such grave danger."

He was missing the point. But wth, I guess it was too much to expect my wolves to suddenly decide to admit they were scared. It seems strong warrior wolves were not just prone to being afraid of things like ghosts. They also fear admitting they were scared. I could understand that. I was the same. I didn't like to admit my weaknesses. I didn't want to look weak.

But now I also realize its okay to be scared, especially if you were the Kraken.

And then Fluffy stopped smiling and spoke, his wolf in a rare show of honesty, "Even so, pretty alpha. Please pay heed to your life. Know that for every wolf you saved, there is a life that will lose all meaning without you."

Wait what? I opened my mouth and shut it soundlessly. WTH was that?

And then Fluffly smiled, his pretty smile again, "If you go, who would give us ice cream and take us to fun places like school? Who would protect us from our scary luna and betas?"

"Oh no!" EJ slapped his cheeks with both hands, "Not our scary luna!!!"

"I told you her luna is scarier." Neil said.

"Chi-ka-boom!" Jax reminded us in a staged whisper.

Ki smiled, like a flower meeting the sun again, "So next time, just sacrifice one of these idiots. No one would miss them."

And then the guys laughed like it was a funny joke.

You know what? Just forget it.

I smiled widely at my wolves. {Mine}

And they were going to eat plenty of ice cream, and be as educated as they want. Because I was their Alpha, and I will protect their happiness.