EASY AS PIE

"Why was the prisoner armed?" Wolfgang demanded.

Ben sighed because now he had to explain how the day before, Mimi had visited her son and baked his favorite pie.

"The dagger was baked inside the pie." Professor Hotstuff immediately deduced it, "Why didn't anyone check it?"

"It's not like anyone could taste test it, Hotstuff." Jax was quick to defend the pie, "That's a pie baked by his mama, it'll be too mean to poke it and break the crust."

I'm couldn't decide if I were happy or worried that my warriors were such considerate guys.

"Use the metal detector... Isn't that part of the security protocol for gifts?" Wolfgang wasn't going to back down so easily.

"Oh." Jax said. Because I guess we did have a metal detector? And we did have a security protocol? I honestly had no idea what went down in the dungeons.

Ben did though, "They did, but the pie tin was metal, so the guards allowed it."

He looked extremely regretful.

"Oh." Said Jax again.

Mimi had exhausted every avenue she could think of to save her son. All but one. She had a single treasure, an ex-boyfriend once gifted her with a treasure. A resurrection spell that was kept in a yellowed folded leaf.

Why did that sound alarmingly familiar? It was like the resurrection thingie Beta Lorent gave to Roy and Ruby... O.o Did Mimi ever date... no way, right?

Her plan was for Jude to kill himself. The moment she sensed her son's link cut off, she would rush straight down to the Alpha's office to beg for her son's dead body. She believed Alpha Kingsley will at least allow her to bury her only son.

Once she got Jude's body home to Alpha Mike's pack, she would use the spell to resurrect Jude, and they would bury an empty coffin. Oh what a plan! I had to hand it to Mimi. It was truly a plan of lycan legendary dramas.

"Surely, they'd know we would realize their betrayal sooner or later." Wolfgang wasn't impressed even a little by the dramatic scale of the plot.

Ben shrugged, "I suppose they were just going to hush it up and hope Alpha Kingsley graciously overlooks it. You know how the Minor packs are."

Was I the only one who was shocked at Mimi's daring? Like what if the resurrection spell didn't work? What if it was an expired spell like the one Ruby used? Was her son's life really worth angering the whole Green Packlands for? It wasn't just Night Leaf, you know, the Lorents were even more furious. If I didn't know better, I would have thought they were blaming every rogue attack they had suffered on Jude (and not their own Beta Lorent.)

Anyway, Jude was too cowardly to follow Mimi's plan (This was solely Ben's interpretation.) So instead of stabbing himself, he put up an act. Ben didn't think he meant to actually stab Neil, Jude hadn't expected his old friend to "turn against him" and try to stop him when the gates were unlocked.

"Hm" Neil's deep crevices caved into even deeper lines, "It's a dilemma. On one hand, Jude had saved my life several times… but I'm a Night Leaf Warrior now."

"You were off duty." Jax pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm still a Night Leaf Warrior." Neil said.

"You two seriously have to discuss this now?" Ben raised a brow at them.

"Continue, Beta." Wolfgang waved his hand regally. I don't think he meant to… sometimes Wolfgang forgets he's standing among barbarian wolves.

Anyway, the moment Jude produced a weapon, the guards panicked. Because they didn't think they could reach Jude in time, they mindlinked Neil and unlocked Jude's cell remotely - which was exactly what Jude had hoped for.

Except instead of helping Jude escape, Neil tried to hold Jude down. Jude, sensing the guards approaching, stabbed Neil and somehow managed to snag Neil's keycard and escape through the back door.

How did he know about the back door?

Anyway, emergency protocols were activated, the guards and patrols all converged to hunt the escaped prisoner, the pack was put in Orange Alert, and still Jude got away.

How did Jude get away?

Back in the DC, Jax was alerted by the emergency announcements and although he was sulking and pacing the B2 hallway outside the DC, he went back in only to find Neil's body abandoned and bleeding inside Jude's cell.

He tried in vain to pull Neil's hulking frame out, but he weighed a ton of bricks. Ron growled at him to just mindlink for medical help.

"He'll bleed to death. Don't you have a medical center in this building? Or a Lorent Healer sucking up around here?" So I knew that under the rough exterior, Ron wasn't a bad guy.

Jax decided to mindlink Ki to help. Ki had always bailed them out when they were in trouble before.

BUT Ki was attending Bell the the moment.

"So unlucky!" Jax bemoaned.

Bell found out and Chi-Ka-Boomed. He was so furious at Jude's escape that he killed Neil on the spot. Like totally irrevocably killed. Like cursed fumes and blue fire killed. Like Chi-ka-boomed killed. Like Bell hadn't chi-ka-boomed like this since that one time at the Underground when someone let Ruby into his room while he was sleeping.

Ki mindlinked Ben who dragged me down to stop Bell's melt down. They were sure there was going to be a death toll.

But the moment I appeared, Bell simply retreated through his portal, and that was all. Just Neil.

"You were THIS CLOSE though." Ben told Jax. If Sam had reached a second later, you'd be with Neil now."

"Oh goddess." Jax said, "My hair's standing. Neil, buddy… I love you, man, but I don't want to go to hell with you."

"Same, same." Neil sighed, resigned to his fate, "Give me a bit of peace and quiet."

Technically, this was just a story since none of it happened yet.

All that was left was a charred and blackened cell.

I was super mad a Bell and chi-ka-boomed when I realized what Bell had done to Neil. Ben and Ki had to call Harvey and a few of more Special Team wolves to to deal with ME. (Opps).

And in the confusion of multiple chi-ka-booms, Jude escaped.

Later on, Cobra and EJ tracked Jude to Alpha Mike's territory. We sent Gamma Harry and Owen to politely request for the surrender of Alpha Jude, but Alpha Mike's pack would not hand Jude over.

"It's a bluff." Fluffy smiled, "If we mobilized our army, we'd see Jude staked at their village gate."

"That's what you said then too." Ben smirked, but unfortunately (or fortunately), Dad was in charge, so no army was mobilized. Gamma Michaels sent some legal documents on behalf of the angry Lorent population.

That same night, Jude died.

Alpha Mike accused us of crossing territories and assassinating his step son. We denied it. Technically, it really wasn't us (Night Leaf). It was Laru and Leon - so Jude was assassinated by the Tyger King from the Colored Mountains. Not us.

But we couldn't say this because no one would believe us. Most of the continent didn't quite believe in the Colored Mountains or the existence of Tygers, much less a Tyger king. (Boy, were they going to be surprised when Bell invaded the plains later on!)

Anyway, our pack relations with the other packs got rocky after that. The High Council was not impressed at how we lost a prisoner and then assassinated him before he stood trial in front of the High Court Tribunal. They gave Dad a lot of trouble for it.

The rest of the world painted our future Moon Bell pack as a big bully.

"We mustn't let this happen." Wolfgang said, "Neil, you must never enter Jude's cell."

"You don't have to tell me twice." Neil agreed.

"Just let him kill himself." Jax nodded.

"That wouldn't be necessary, I will alert the guards and Gammas on duty. No dagger will reach Jude's hand." Ki decided.

"Or pie. Let's just smash the pie." Jax had suddenly begun to take an aggressive stance against pies.

That seemed easy enough to fix. Easy as pie even. Haha.

I felt pretty encouraged. If Neil's death (and all the other complicated political backlash Dad had to deal with) could be adverted so easily, it seemed to reason that there could be other serious problems that might be just as easily avoided.

"How did you lose your eye?" I asked next. I mean, since we were going to fix up the future, we might as well fix everything. You know, maybe making Ben wear protective eyewear would do the trick.

"You want to save my eye too?" Ben smirked.