CHAPTER 205: AIDEN’S CONCERNS

AIDEN POV

The shadow army’s attack hit us like a wall of pure darkness, but I barely felt the impact. All I could focus on was the terrible sight of baby Hope’s golden light flickering and dying in Caleb’s arms.

"No, no, no," I whispered, pushing myself up from where the blast had knocked me down. "She can’t lose hope. Not now."

Around me, the arena filled with screams as pack members scattered from the approaching shadow versions. Shadow-Aiden laughed with my voice but twisted with evil. Shadow-Brock flexed muscles that looked wrong somehow. Shadow-Luna sneered at our Luna with pure hate.

But worst of all was watching Hope’s light turn from gold to silver to dark. The baby who was meant to save everyone was giving up because her first attempt to heal had failed.

As Alpha, protecting my pack was everything to me. But saving Hope felt even more important than that. She wasn’t just any baby - she was the key to solving all the dimensional problems that had been tearing apart reality. If she fell to darkness now, what would happen to everyone?

"Luna!" I shouted to our pack’s real Luna, not the shadow version. "The family bond - can you strengthen it from your end?"

"I’m trying," Luna called back, her diplomatic training keeping her calm even as chaos broke around us. "But something’s blocking it. The shadows are feeding off Hope’s sadness."

I watched Caleb desperately trying to comfort the crying baby while Lily held tight to both of them through their link. The sight of my younger brother’s fear made my Alpha instincts roar to life. Caleb was the smart one, the one who always had plans. If he looked scared, things were really bad.

"Think, Aiden," I mumbled to myself. "What would a good Alpha do?"

That’s when Shadow-Aiden stepped right in front of me, grinning with my face.

"You want to know what a good Alpha does?" Shadow-Aiden said. "A good Alpha accepts that some people can’t be saved. A good Alpha sacrifices the weak to protect the strong."

"You’re wrong," I shot back, avoiding his dark energy blast. "A good Alpha protects everyone, especially the ones who can’t protect themselves."

"Even when protecting them dooms your whole pack?" Shadow-Aiden laughed. "Look around you, fool. Your precious Hope is about to become the very evil you’re fighting against. She’ll destroy everything you love."

The words hit me like ice because part of me wondered if he was right. What if trying to save Hope ended up making things worse? What if my role as Alpha meant making impossible choices?

But then I looked at baby Hope again. Even as her light faded, she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. She was just sad because she wanted to help and couldn’t. That wasn’t bad - that was the most innocent thing in the world.

"Brock!" I yelled to my twin brother who was fighting three shadow dogs at once. "Remember when we were kids and you got scared during thunderstorms?"

Brock stopped in his fighting, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You’d crawl into my bed and I’d tell you stories until you fell asleep," I continued, escaping another attack from my shadow self. "What did I always tell you about being afraid?"

Understanding dawned in Brock’s eyes. "That being afraid doesn’t make you weak - it makes you careful."

"Right!" I grinned, even as I fought for my life. "Hope isn’t becoming bad because she’s weak. She’s becoming sad because she cares too much!"

Through their family bond, I felt Luna, Lily, and Caleb suddenly understand what I was getting at. Hope didn’t need to stop feeling sad about failing to save the shadow forms. She needed to know that trying and failing was still better than not trying at all.

"Hope, sweetie," I called out, my Alpha voice carrying across the chaos. "It’s okay to be sad when you can’t help everyone. That’s what makes you good, not what makes you bad."

The baby’s crying slowed a little, her gray light flashing with tiny sparks of gold.

Shadow-Aiden snarled. "Sentiment won’t save you when reality collapses!"

But I kept talking to Hope, using the same gentle voice I’d used with pack pups for years. "Even Alphas can’t protect everyone all the time. But we keep trying anyway because that’s what love means."

Hope’s light began to brighten again, reacting to the truth in my words. The shadow army seemed to sense this change because they all turned toward us with identical looks of rage.

"She’s fighting back," Caleb said with wonder. "Hope is choosing light over darkness."

That’s when everything went horribly wrong.

Instead of attacking us, Shadow-Elder Iris raised her hands and started chanting in a language I didn’t recognize. The other shadow versions joined her, their voices making a sound that made my bones ache.

"What are they doing?" Luna asked, fear creeping into her diplomatic cool.

Elder Iris appeared beside us, her face pale with fear. "They’re not trying to corrupt Hope anymore," she whispered. "They’re trying to tear open a permanent rift between dimensions."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means they’re going to flood our reality with infinite versions of themselves," Elder Iris explained. "Shadow-Aiden, Shadow-Brock, Shadow-Luna - but not just from one dark world. From every possible dark realm that exists."

The chanting grew louder, and cracks started appearing in the air around us. Through the cracks, I could see glimpses of other worlds - some where the pack was destroyed, some where Hope had never been born, some where darkness ruled everything.

"How many versions are there?" I asked, already fearing the answer.

Elder Iris’s voice shook. "Infinite. Every choice that was never made, every road that was never taken, every possibility where evil won instead of good."

Baby Hope’s light flared brighter in reaction to the threat, but I could feel through the family bond that she was still just a baby. Even with all her power, how could one infant fight against endless versions of evil?

Shadow-Aiden looked directly at me through the growing dimensional tears. "Did you really think one little Alpha could protect anyone from this?" he laughed. "In thirty seconds, every dark option in existence will pour into your world. Your pack, your family, your precious Hope - all of it will be devoured by endless shadow."

The cracks in reality spread. Through them, I saw thousands - no, millions - of shadow versions of everyone I’d ever known, all preparing to invade our world at once.

And worst of all, I saw Shadow-Hope among them - a version of the baby where her sadness had won, where her power served darkness instead of light.

"Everyone hold on," I shouted as the dimensional barriers began to fully collapse. "We’re about to face every nightmare that was never supposed to exist."