Chapter Fifty Six

*Ariya*


I grabbed Ivan’s face and kissed him, “You’re a genius!”
Ivan stared at me in wonder, “Not sure what I did this time, but thank you?”
“Seriously!” I giggled, “We don’t have to take every hit to the face. We can duck. I’ve been so stressed about us taking every hit that I didn’t even think about dodging.”
Ivan cocked his head to the side, “I’m listening.”
“We don’t need to figure out an individual plan for every problem. We need to flip it around. What are all the problems that could come up. If you can see ahead and see the potential problems we can make a plan that will weave our way through them.”
“Isn’t that pretty much the same thing?”
“No. By handling one problem at a time we are causing more issues. If we look at the big picture we can see what all could happen and see what path we need to take. It’s like Boss said, focusing on just the one thing in front of you can blind you to the possibilities around you.”
“Ok…so what do we do now then? I’m guessing we’re not running through this all blindly.”
“We just need to list out every problem. The biggest problem is you and I don’t have all of our memories so we don’t know all the details of everything.”
Ivan paused for a minute, thinking, “I think you need to reach out to Keo and let him know your idea so that they can do the same. They have all the pieces. Well maybe not all the pieces but more pieces than you and I might have. They might be able to come up with other potential problems that we wouldn’t be able to see.”
“I agree. If we’re running around in the maze, they’ve climbed to the top of the maze. They can see a bit more than we can but they’re still not able to see everything.”
Ivan smiled at me and hugged me tightly. I nestled my head in his chest taking a deep breath. This was one of my favorite places to be so far.
*Keo* I sent the link out.
*Ari? Is everything ok?* Keo asked me.
*Yes and no. Ivan is with me and we might have figured out that we’re both looking at this wrong.*
*Oh? How so?*
*We need to stop looking at just the runner.*
*What?* Keo laughed.
*Sorry. It was something Boss said. We’re trying to solve each problem one at a time but we need to see all the problems before we start trying to come up with a solution. We need to take a step back and see the bigger picture here.*
*So just lay out every problem we could possibly run into?*
*Yes. Though it might give us all some anxiety. I wish we had something we could write on over here but we’ll do our best to try to make sure we come up with more than one solution on our side.*
*Writing is a good idea. We can always burn it later.*
*Or you can use a whiteboard and erase it.* I laughed.
*I mean I guess that works too. Maybe I wanted to burn something* Keo laughed.
I laughed, *Keo, you guys might have different answers than us. You might know more than we do. We don’t have all the pieces.*
*Don’t worry. Just figure out what you can and we can adjust the plan as needed. You guys will ultimately have all the information. We are only going to be able to work with what we knew from before.*
*Sounds good! I’ll reach out later tonight.*
*Until then!* Keo said.
Once again, Keo severed the connection and Drake pushed within a second and locked the memory.
“All good?” Ivan asked me.
“Yup.” I grinned up at him.
“Time for us to get to work then. First roadblock I see is me needing to shift and soon.” Ivan said.
“I agree, but right after that we’re looking at you being able to shift back and how long before you can shift back.”
“Next is the possible issue of my hair changing.”
“Also if you are in wolf form and someone like Boss comes around what that will do to your memory.” I said.
“Another issue we are going to come up on is me needing to shift at least every month.” Ivan mentioned.
“What if you’re being followed?” I asked.
“Another issue to add to the list.”
“We’re also going to have to figure something out for you when you’re Justin.” I mentioned.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, if you don’t have any memory as Justin of what happens when you are actually you, does that mean that it’s just a loss of time when you’re Justin?”
Ivan’s eyes went wide, “I’m not sure. That’s not going to be good if it is that way and it’s not like you can ask me as Justin. We might need to fix this lock on my mind.”
“I don’t know how they’ll fix the lock. You being you is knowing that you’re an original Navi wolf. As Justin you don’t remember any of that stuff. I don’t know how we can fix that.”
“We’ll figure something out. Or maybe Drake will.”
“Can you remember anything when you are Justin?” I asked him.
“Yes, I can remember everything from when I’m Justin.” Ivan told me.
“We can figure it out then. What happened when you went to talk to Boss. You had to tell him I had a memory but you weren’t going to know what all really happened when we were talking.”
Ivan was lost in thought for a moment, “That’s not totally true. I remembered leaving the room and my memory of what went on going away but it didn’t all go away. It was like only specific things disappeared. Like my memory of being me. My memory of being a wolf. That stuff disappeared but it didn’t freak me out. It was like I knew that it was absent to protect me. But I didn’t know what it was that was missing because it was gone.”
“Do you think when you’re Justin that it is going to cause an issue?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“No, I don’t think so. Remember, as Justin I still had feelings for you. I still feel like I need to protect you. Because of that I don’t think I’ll do anything when I’m Justin. I still have the feeling that something is missing but I’m not stressed about it. Instead it’s like I now feel like I’m being protected. Besides, it's probably a better thing now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well as Justin I was still getting affectionate with you and that could have gotten me in trouble big time if I had been questioned. But now that stuff is locked.” Ivan explained.
“I think I found another problem…”
“What’s that?”
“What if they use a Switch to try to read everyone? Including you? Will what happened when Keo was questioned happen with you?”
Ivan’s eyes got wide, “That happened with Keo because he’s a blood born Navi. I don’t know if that’s how it works for an original Navi wolf but I wouldn’t be surprised if it works the same…”
I asked the question that I was dreading the answer to, “Ivan…what if you shift and you can’t shift back for some reason?”