Chapter 98 The Price of Power

Chapter 98 The Price of Power
One week after the timeline manipulation

The feeding was different now. When Nexus latched on, I felt the pull of her hunger but not the drain of my life force. My evolved cells produced energy as fast as she consumed it, a perfect symbiosis between mother and dimensional anchor daughter.

But other problems were emerging.

"She's too powerful," Rory said quietly, watching Nexus play with her toys—if you could call making them exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously 'playing.' "Her growth isn't slowing down. If anything, it's accelerating."

She was right. Nexus now looked like a six-month-old despite being only five weeks old. Her vocabulary had expanded to include concepts that shouldn't exist in any human language, and her casual manipulation of reality was becoming dangerous.

"Look, Mama!" Nexus said proudly, holding up her stuffed wolf. The toy was cycling through different versions of itself—plush, real, shadow, light, existing, not existing—all simultaneously.

"That's wonderful, sweetheart, but remember what we said about keeping things in one dimension?"

"Boring," Nexus pouted, but the wolf solidified back into normal plush.

Mason entered the nursery with Thomas and Dr. Chen, their expressions grim.

"We need to talk," Mason said. "Privately."

I kissed Nexus's forehead and left her with Rory, following the others to the secure conference room. The moment the door sealed, Mason pulled up dimensional readings that made my blood run cold.

"She's destabilizing local reality," Thomas said bluntly. "Every day she grows stronger, the area of effect expands. At this rate, within a month, she'll be warping reality for miles around."

"She's five weeks old," I protested. "She doesn't understand—"

"That's exactly the problem," Dr. Chen interrupted. "She has the power to reshape reality but the emotional regulation of an infant. What happens when she has a tantrum? When she gets scared or angry?"

I knew the answer. We'd seen glimpses already—Nexus's crying could shatter dimensional barriers, her laughter could create probability cascades, her anger...we hadn't seen her truly angry yet, and I prayed we never would.

"The other packs are getting nervous," Thomas added reluctantly. "They're asking questions about containment, about contingencies if she loses control."

"She's a baby," Mason growled, his eyes flashing. "Not a weapon to be contained."

"She's both," Webb said, materializing. "And that's the paradox we must navigate. She needs to grow into her power, but her power is growing faster than her ability to control it."

"What are you suggesting?" I asked, though I dreaded the answer.

"Dimensional isolation," Dr. Chen said. "Create a pocket dimension where Nexus can exist without affecting baseline reality. She could grow, learn, develop control without risk."

"You want to exile our daughter?" Mason's voice was dangerously low.

"Not exile. Protect. Her and everyone else."

"For how long?" I asked.

"Until she can control her abilities. Years, possibly."

"No." The word came out harder than I intended. "We're not isolating her. She needs connection, family, pack. That's what makes her who she is."

"Then what do you suggest?" Thomas asked.

Before I could answer, alarms started blaring. Not the standard security alerts—these were dimensional breach warnings.

"Speaking of tantrums," Webb said ominously.

We rushed back to the nursery to find Rory backed against the wall, probability streams swirling chaotically around her as she tried to contain what was happening. Nexus stood in the center of the room—stood, despite being five weeks old—her eyes blazing with power and tears streaming down her face.

"Where Mama go?" she demanded, and her voice echoed through dimensions. "Mama leave Nexus! Everyone always leaving!"

"I'm here, sweetheart," I said, stepping forward despite the dimensional distortion around her. "Mama's right here."

"Mama talking secrets. Talking about Nexus. Nexus heard through the walls, through the dimensions." Her vocabulary shifted between baby talk and advanced concepts, her emotional state affecting her linguistic ability. "They want Nexus gone. Everyone afraid of Nexus."

My heart broke. She'd heard everything, understood enough to be hurt and scared.

"No one wants you gone," I said, dropping to my knees in front of her. "We're trying to figure out how to help you, how to keep everyone safe."

"Nexus is danger," she said, her voice small. "Nexus hurts people. Hurt Mama."

"You also healed Mama. You and Rory together. You're not dangerous, baby. You're powerful. There's a difference."

"No difference!" The walls rippled with her anguish. "Power hurts! Nexus hurts!"

That's when I realized the true problem. It wasn't just that Nexus couldn't control her power—it was that she was becoming afraid of it. And fear in someone who could reshape reality was catastrophic.

"Mason," I said quietly. "We need to show her."

He understood immediately. Together, we shifted into our wolf forms, letting our own power flow freely. The transformation was smooth, controlled, a demonstration of power serving purpose.

Nexus watched with wide eyes as we shifted back.

"Power isn't good or bad," I told her. "It's a tool. We learn to use it, to control it, to make it serve love instead of fear."

"But Nexus power too big," she whispered.

"Then we'll teach you to make it smaller when you need to, bigger when you need to. Like breathing—in and out, expand and contract."

Rory stepped forward, her own power shimmering around her. "Want to try something, little sister? A game?"

Nexus nodded hesitantly.

"I'll show you probability paths, but this time, you don't look ahead. You just look at now. This moment. Can you do that?"

"Try," Nexus said.

What followed was the strangest training session I'd ever witnessed. Rory created probability bubbles—small, contained spaces where cause and effect were visible—and Nexus practiced affecting them without destroying them. It was like teaching a hurricane to be a breeze.

But it was working. Slowly, painfully, with many failures, Nexus began to understand the concept of restraint.

"Like holding breath," she said after successfully maintaining a single reality for thirty seconds. "Not natural, but possible."

"Exactly," Rory praised. "And the more you practice, the easier it becomes."

But even as we celebrated this small victory, I could see the strain it put on Nexus. She was fighting her own nature, constraining power that wanted to expand infinitely. By the end of the session, she was exhausted, curled in my arms like the infant she technically was.

"Tired, Mama," she mumbled. "Being small is hard."

"I know, baby. But you're doing so well."

"Tomorrow, bigger?" she asked hopefully.

"Tomorrow, we practice both. Big and small, controlled and free. Balance."

She fell asleep, and I carried her to her specially reinforced crib—the only furniture that could withstand her unconscious dimensional shifts.

"It's not sustainable," Mason said quietly once she was settled. "Asking her to constantly restrain herself—it's like asking the sun not to shine."

"Then we find another way," I said. "We adapt our world to her, not the other way around."

"The pack won't accept that. The network won't accept that."

"Then we make them understand. She's not just a powerful child—she's the future. The bridge between what we are and what we're becoming."

But even as I said it, I felt the weight of the challenge. How do you raise a child who could unmake reality with a nightmare? How do you teach morality to someone who could rewrite the rules of existence?

"One day at a time," Mason said, reading my thoughts through our bond. "We've faced impossible odds before."

"Not like this," I admitted. "This isn't an enemy we can fight. It's our daughter, growing too fast, too powerful, too aware."

"And too loved to fail," he added, pulling me close. "Whatever comes, we face it as a family."