Three years after the Warrior Trials, something unexpected happens. A group of rogue werewolves from outside the pack system attacks a remote compound that trains young warriors. Three warriors are killed.
The Alpha King calls an emergency council meeting. Sage, Raven, and I are all invited to attend.
"This is a new kind of threat," the Alpha King explains to us. "These wolves don't belong to any pack. They reject the entire system. They call themselves the Free Ones, and they believe that all pack structure should be destroyed."
"What do they want?" I ask.
"Chaos," Raven says. She seems troubled. "They want the pack system to fall, which would leave everyone vulnerable."
Over the next few weeks, there are more attacks. A training facility is burned down. A council member is killed. Food supplies are poisoned at another compound.
We realize that the Free Ones are more organized and dangerous than anyone initially thought.
"This is bigger than just attacks," Sage says during one of our planning meetings. "They're trying to destabilize the entire system. If they succeed, if the packs actually fall apart, it won't be freedom. It'll be chaos and death."
The Alpha King creates a special task force to deal with the threat. Sage and I are part of it, along with several other Elite Warriors.
We start tracking the Free Ones. Learning about their structure and leadership. Discovering who they are and what they believe.
What we find surprises us.
The leader of the Free Ones is someone from my original pack. A warrior named Dex who was rejected from training because his family wasn't ranked high enough. He's spent years gathering followers who feel the same way—rejected by the system, angry at the inequality, ready to burn it all down.
"He has a point," Kira says when we're planning how to handle this. "The system does hurt people. It does reject people based on status instead of ability."
"But his answer is wrong," Raven says. "Complete destruction isn't reform. It's just destruction."
"So what do we do?" I ask.
"We stop them," Sage says. "And then we use this as a catalyst to push through more changes."
What follows is a series of operations to shut down the Free Ones. We track their cells. We capture their members. We learn their plans and stop them before they can execute.
But it's dangerous. During one operation, I'm badly injured. A rogue wolf gets me across the side, and the wound is deep. I nearly bleed out before Raven can get me to medical help.
While I'm recovering, Sage comes to see me every day. She sits with me while I heal. She tells me about the operations I missed. She makes sure I know that the work is continuing even though I'm not there.
"This is bigger than the trials," Sage says one day. "This is the real test of whether change can actually stick."
"Will it?" I ask.
"I don't know," Sage admits. "A lot depends on what happens next. On how we handle Dex and his followers. If we're too harsh, we validate his message. If we're too lenient, more people will join him."
When I'm finally cleared to return to work, I meet with Dex in a secure facility. He's chained and guarded, but he's not intimidated.
"You," he says when he sees me. "The Beta's daughter who became a champion. You're exactly what I'm talking about. You had to leave everything to become something. That's not freedom. That's just different slavery."
"Maybe," I say. "But at least I had a choice."
"Did you?" Dex asks. "Or were you forced into it because your father was a coward?"
"Both are probably true," I say. "But I'm here because I chose to be. You're attacking innocent people because you're hurt."
"I'm attacking a system that hurt me and everyone like me," Dex says.
The conversation doesn't go anywhere productive. But it does help me understand what we're dealing with. It's not just anger. It's a legitimate frustration with a system that hasn't changed fast enough.
The Alpha King decides to hold a trial for Dex and his followers, but not a normal trial. A public trial, where the evidence is presented to everyone.
"The people need to understand what the Free Ones were doing," the Alpha King explains. "They need to see that while their complaints about the system are valid, the solution was wrong."
During the trial, we present evidence of the attacks. We show the death toll. We show how the Free Ones were targeting not just the system but innocent people caught in the middle.
But we also allow Dex to speak. To explain his grievances. To tell his story.
"I was told my whole life that I wasn't good enough," Dex says from the stand. "Not because I wasn't skilled. Not because I wasn't strong. But because my family wasn't ranked high enough. And when I tried to fight that system, I was destroyed. So I decided to destroy the system first."
The crowd is silent. Many of them have felt what Dex felt. Many of them have been rejected or hurt by the hierarchy.
But the Elite Warriors who died in the attacks were real people with families. And that matters too.
The Alpha King delivers the sentence: Dex and the other leaders of the Free Ones will be imprisoned. But their followers—the people who were recruited and convinced to join—will be given a choice. They can renounce the Free Ones and work to reform the system from within, or they can choose exile.
"Change has to happen," the Alpha King says to the public. "But it has to happen through people working together, not through violence and destruction."
What happens next surprises everyone.
Hundreds of former Free Ones members decide to stay and work on reform. They become voices for change within the system. They work with warriors like Sage and me to push for better policies and more opportunities for people who would have been rejected by the old system.
It's slow. It's imperfect. But it's working.
A year after Dex's trial, we can see the results. More people from lower-ranked families are being allowed into training programs. More women are becoming warriors. More opportunities are opening up for people who were previously shut out.
One day, a young wolf comes to me for training. He's from a lower-ranked family, and his pack didn't want to let him train. But he came to the Alpha King's compound anyway.
"Why?" I ask him.
"Because of you," he says. "You didn't belong in the system. You were rejected. But you fought anyway. You showed everyone that where you come from doesn't determine what you can become."
That's when I understand the real impact of what Sage and I did. We didn't just change the rules. We changed what people believe is possible.
That night, I talk to Sage about it.
"Do you think it's sustainable?" she asks. "Can we actually keep pushing for change, or is this just a moment that will pass?"
"I think it depends on us," I say. "As long as there are people willing to fight for it, it can be sustainable."
"Then I'm willing to keep fighting," Sage says. "For as long as it takes."
We seal that with a handshake and a look that means we're in this together, whatever comes next.