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"Come on, Luke!" Ian called to me. There was blood all over him, soaking his fur; and he had a slight limp.

"What's going on?" I asked, my eyes watery. Confused on what was happening.

"Just keep running," he ordered.

I listened to what he said and just kept running. It was silent for a few moments: no birds chirping in the morning air, and no little creatures scurrying under the bushes. I weaved in between trees until I ran out of breath, forcing me to stop. I looked around me and nobody was there, not even Ian. Where'd he go? "Hello?" I asked quietly, still panting.

There was a loud bang sound and birds fluttered everywhere. There was a scream that sounded a lot like my mom.

"Mom!" I called out. looking around, trying to pinpoint the direction I heard the screaming. It started raining as a second shot came out. My ears flickered; it was to my left. The scream stopped. "Mom!" I called out again. I started running as fast as I can, ignoring the pain in my lungs. I ran north where my house was, but all I found were two humans.

They were both men: one was tall and muscular one with an orange vest donned upon him; he was carrying a double-barreled shotgun. The other one was short, yet muscular with a rifle in both of his hands. There was blood on the floor but there was no body.

The two humans turned to me and instantly aimed their guns at me and shot without warning.

I opened my eyes to darkness, panting. I could feel the soft cushioning of my bed below me. It was all just a dream. What time is it? I thought to myself. I could tell it was still night, the half moon's light shined through the window.

I looked to Ian's bed; we sleep in the same room. He wasn't there.

"Ian?" I called softly. No response. That's odd: Ian always sleeps in. Why is he awake now, and where is he? I looked to my bed. After that nightmare, I'm not going back to sleep, so I might as well investigate where Ian is.

I got out of bed and put a shirt on, ready to go look for Ian. I opened our door and walked out into the hall. Adam and Sarah's room was across the hall, and their door was closed, same with Mom and Dad's. I kept walking down the hall until I passed Grandpa's room. The door was wide open.

I looked into the his room, but he wasn't there. That's odd; maybe Ian and Grandpa are together somewhere. They always seem to hang out with each other a lot. I don't know what they do, but they're always together.

I walked into Grandpa's room. I rarely go in here; he likes his privacy. I was in the middle of the room when I tripped on something and fell; it make a metal clanking noise as I kicked it. "Ow," I moan quietly, trying not to wake anybody up. I slowly got up and turned on the lights. It was blinding at first, I had to cover my eyes, but when they adjusted, I could see in the opened box.

My eyes widened. The box was full of weapons! Not weapons like guns, thankfully, but swords and other melee weapons. What are these doing here? I took a closer look, and there was a short sword, and beneath it was a piece of paper. I grabbed the sword by handle and unsheathed it. The word "Wolfe" was engraved in it. I sheathed the sword and grabbed the paper; it was a note. It read:

Dear Nickolai:

I know this message is coming earlier than it normally does, but you need to check these pictures out. These pictures show you the beggars: one of the poor packs in Lupina. They are dying out; they're starving, as you can see in the pictures. One of my agents over there was killed recently; took out by a government assassin. Something is happening in Lupina; I have no idea what it is but, it isn't good. I think it is time to form the new team we've been talking about. I've been trying to teach Hunter, but he seems to be focused on something else, but I'll keep trying. Also Jupiter has been learning medicine from my wife. She might come along with Hunter; they need each other. I know this all came out of nowhere, but I think we need to hurry. I'm sending a message to Farkas as well to inform us of our plan. He will be waiting for them.

Sincerely,

Winston

I looked to the box to see if I could find those pictures, but there was nothing. What is this letter? Where is it from, and how old is it? I reread the letter again, trying to make sense of it, but I couldn't figure out anything. Who's Winston?

If I was feeling tired at all, I'm definitely awake now. So many questions. Better question: where is Grandpa? It's weird that both him and Ian are gone. I'm going to look for them.

I put the letter in my pocket and held onto the sword as I left Grandpa's room. It can be dangerous outside at night, so I might as well keep the sword just in case.

I silently opened the back door that led to the river. It was nice out, about 50 degrees fahrenheit: a nice cool May night. I stepped out onto the soft grass that I could feel under my feet. I didn't feel the need to put on shoes; I would only be out here for a few minutes.

I looked around the house. Nobody was there. Where could they be? Are they hunting for breakfast. Last I checked, Adam, Sarah, and Dad do that in the morning. It is the middle of the night.

I heard a wolf howling in the distance; it was calling for the midnight hunt. I could smell the water coming from the river, maybe they went to the river for a bath? We bathe in the river, we don't have a bath or shower in our house. But why would they do it late at night?

I started walking towards the river when I caught their scent. Yep, I thought to myself, both of them are definitely together. I started following their trail.

As a got closer, I noticed that I was heading towards one of our camping sites. This is the one we used last year. What are they doing here?

As I kept walking, I could hear the sound of grunting and the occasional metal clashing. Shortly after I could smell a slight tinge of blood. The scent brought the nightmare back to my head. I started running towards Ian and Grandpa's location.

As I approach the camp site, I slowed down, trying to stealthily close the distance between the site and myself, but I'm not very good at stealth. I stepped on some sticks and had trouble pushing through the undergrowth.

Suddenly, it all went quiet. The sounds that sounded like fighting ended. The only noise that could be heard was the faint noise of me having a hard time holding my crouched position behind a bush.

"Who's there?" a voice called. It sounded like Ian, but I didn't move. Better safe than sorry.

The faint sound of footprints could be heard. I looked through the bush to see something running at me. A steel blade was coming down for me!

I closed my eyes and held up my hands quicker than I thought was possible. I forgot that the sword was still in my hands, and that's what blocked the sword from coming down on me. I yelped in surprise at all the power that was put into that one swing.

It was only silent for a few seconds before I heard Ian's voice again. "Luke?" I noticed the feet I could see were backing off.

I heard a sigh coming from someone else. "Get out of there, boy," I heard my grandpa say in an aggravated tone.

I slowly struggled out of the bush to see Grandpa and Ian alone in the opening where we put our tents. They both had swords in their hands. Ian had a cut on one of his arms; it was only bleeding slightly.

"What are you doing out here?" Ian asked me, sheathing his sword. "And why were you hiding like that? I could've cut you!"

"I...I had a nightmare and woke up to see you weren't there," I answered Ian, "so I went out looking for you." I looked to Grandpa and back at Ian. "I thought you guys were under attack."

Ian looked at me with concern in his face, but Grandpa kept his stern face.

"Under attack by what?" Grandpa asked.

I looked to him, he had his arms crossed. He looked angry, but his eyes looked curious and concerned. "Humans..." I said quietly. Now that I think about it, that sounds stupid. We haven't encountered by a human since I was six.

Grandpa laughed. "You must be joking. If we were under attack by humans. You would be able to hear those damned guns from home."

"Yeah.." I felt dumb.

Grandpa stopped laughing and looked at me. "To be fair, you've never heard a gun before, so you wouldn't know how loud they are."

"What are you guys doing out here anyway?" I asked them. "It's the middle of the night."

"Night training," Ian said, getting a glare from Grandpa. Ian flattened his ears.

"Night training? For what?"

Grandpa sighed again. "It's a long story."

"I got time," I countered.

"Grandpa," Ian started, "I think it's time you tell him. I already said no, and you said he was the next best option."

"You're right," Grandpa agreed. He looked to me. "Alright, I was going to tell you this when you were older, but I guess I'll tell you now."

"Back in the fifties, when I was twenty, I was learning martial arts at a dojo with some friends. I had four close friends: Victor Owen, Dante Reddy, Dakota Fitzgerald, and Winston Stewart. We were the best at the dojo according to our sensei; everyday, we would go and train. As the years went by, we kept progressing until I had six black belts and the others had five. I was unofficially the team leader at the time."

"Where is this dojo that you're talking about? I've never seen any other anthro besides us. What happened?" I asked.

"It's something that your parents and I hid from you and the twins. I was planning on telling you when you turned seventeen. There is an anthro civilization in Siberia and there used to be one in the Northwest Territories, they were called the Lupinia Territories but I'll get to that soon."

I was going to ask him more, but I decided to wait, and let him tell his story.

"So, at our black belt last ceremony, I met a beautiful woman named Lilly. I decided to ask her out, and she accepted. She was white with bright amber eyes that melted my heart. I'm getting off topic, now where were we...oh yes! During that ceremony, some Lupin soldiers came to the five of us and tried to recruit us. There was a lot of propaganda going around about some kind of war. I had no idea what they were talking about. My friends said it was up to me, so I kindly rejected. I wanted to use my skill for helping people, not hurting them, and I don't want to join a war I know nothing about.

"Anyway," he continued, "a few years passed and Lilly and I got married. Well, it was more of a double wedding, Dante was getting married to his mate, Carol. A few months after the wedding, the war began."

"What happened," I asked.

"Turns out the was us trying to expand our borders. We had a greedy leader, and the government was very corrupt. We were able to take most of the Northwest Territories, but then we were having a hard time pushing after that. We requested help from the Lupins in SIberia, but they refused to be involved, so the draft started."

"We were put into the assassin program. We were put up to the task of killing the enemy leaders. We killed our first general a month after we joined. It killed their morale and boosted ours. We were able to kill three more until Victor was injured badly. He didn't die, but he was in critical condition."

"We were sent on our next mission, but I refused to leave Victor behind, so we rejected the mission. It was a major setback in the war," he sighed. "Shortly, the United States started getting involved in the war by sending some of their generals and special forces. They would've sent more, but they were caught up with the Soviet Union."

"Our resources were running low, so we had to end the war. The canadian military continued to attack until we were pushed back to the shoreline. There was only enough ships for some of us to escape; Victor went with them. The rest of us covered them until they were safe. They went to Siberia. The ones who were left behind went in hiding. I went to Banff National Park because Lilly wanted to go there, Dante went to Michigan, Dakota went to Wyoming, and Winston took the rest of the survivors and went to Quebec. Winston and I have been keeping touch by sending letters back and forward. He has a group that send from Quebec to Alberta."

"Don't we live in Jasper?" I asked. "You said that you and Lilly went to Banff."

Grandpa frowned. "We...we did go to Banff, but when your dad was thirteen, she was...she..." His eyes started to get watery.

"She was killed by humans who found them," Ian explained gently, looking sad. "They buried her there and moved to Jasper."

Grandpa cleared his tears. "We went to visit Winston for a bit, and Sam met Dawn. We took her with us back to Jasper and they had you four. We've only been caught once, and we killed those humans." He looked up to the sky. "I will never lose my family again."

It was silent for a while. I tried to process all that was explained. I never thought Grandpa went through so much.

"So why are you training Ian?" I asked.

"Times have been tough in Siberia. Winston gets messages from a group of our old friends and their children. They told us that something doesn't feel right and that more soldiers have been recruited recently. Tensions have been rising up and a new faction is rising up that is opposing the government. We don't know if they are the good guys or the bad guys, but something is happening, so I decided I want to reform the team, but with our youth."

"I rejected the offer," Ian explained. "I understand that something bad might happen, but I want to stay here and protect this family. I find that much more important."

"That's why I'm turning to you, Luke," Grandpa explained."Adam and Sarah would never take this seriously, they're too immature," he paionted out. "You out of everybody should understand that."

Adam and Sarah do make fun of me a lot, mostly my weight. You think they'd be more mature at their age.

"Why did you never tell me this before?" I asked Grandpa.

"I never like telling the story. There was many dark times in my life I sometimes try to forget. But I feel that now is a good time to enlighten you on my past. Things are changing in the world, and I need a Wolfe to be a part of that change."

"So you want me to learn how to be an assassin or something?" I asked, skeptical.

"Call it a birthday present," Grandpa laughed.

Oh yeah! How could I forget my own birthday? I'm turning fifteen today!

"Will you accept my offer?" Grandpa asked. "You get to explore the world, and I know you always wanted to do that."

"I don't think I'm in physical condition for this kind of stuff," I said, unsure.

"Don't worry about that. Victor wasn't the thinnest either. There's other methods I can teach you."

I stood there for a while, thinking. Should I do it? It sounds exciting; I can leave this boring place and go on a journey, and meet new people. It sounds fun...and dangerous. Living out in the wild is not easy. There will be many challenges. And does he expect me to be leader? What if I'm not a good leader? So much was going through my head at once. Being tired does not help this at all. You know what?

"I'll give it a try."