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William stood before his parents questioning them on what happened to him last night. He could not recall how he had gotten into bed and the things that he could remember from last night were dim. When he tried to remember what eluded him, memories flashed by in his head, just out of his reach. Perhaps his parents could help him make sense of those flashes.

Yet the answer that his parents gave made Will have more questions than answers. They stated that he came in last night escorted by his friends last night and nothing uneventful happened. In truth they were more concerned that the party responsible for the policeman attack seemed to have claimed some more victims. More bodies that had been torn apart brutally had been discovered in the area. Investigations were still in progress and there was still the same rhetoric blaming everything on the poor, the homeless, the disaffected youth of the day, Satanists, gangs, illegal aliens and basically all the scapegoats that society prefers to blame. Still the police maintained that it was only a single individual responsible.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Lee warned William not to stay out late anymore. Things were getting even more worrisome than before with this maniac on the loose. William gave his courteous thanks like a dutiful son and turned to go back into his room. However on the way there his head span with the inconsistency of what his parents told him and his own half remembered experiences. His small bedroom faced away from the street and painted a soft cold blue with forest green highlights. It was a rather unusual color scheme that his friends commented on once but it gave him a measure of peace to drown in the turmoil he felt. On the windowsill was a small miniature tree, a gift from his best friend Jeran. Outside of the window in the dying night that was being pushed away by the rising sun was a sliver of the crescent moon gazing down as long she could upon the city of New York.

There he made a decision to call someone, anyone of his friends and ask the truth of what happened last night. He reached over to the phone that was installed in his room when he paused over the receiver. 'Should I call them?' William thought as he took in the information his parents gave him. His friends could give him answers to what happened last night. Yet the chance of that actually happening was slim to none as Will thought further.

They had changed that night, and not in the common term of not being the person that one remembers. That his friends were something supernatural wasn't something that should be happening in reality. In any case the boy questioned asking his friends for confirmation about last night because the very concept seemed ridiculous. Just what was he supposed to say? "Hey guys did you turn into werewolves last night? Because I have hazy memories of you doing that and no idea of how I got to sleep without screaming."

No, even if William could ask the question, it would be nearly a given that any answer would sound false. What Will had seen couldn't be discarded as a delusion the further he thought about the events. The sensations engraved in his mind were too clear and sharp to be anything else but honest reality. But now that Will decided that the events he remembered were true even more questions popped up. And the implications that came with each question were disturbing.

He saw his friends turn into raging beast men that dived into combat spitting with fury and instinct. Did his friends know that they could do that and if so how long? Will's train of thought went down darker paths. Why wouldn't they know if they could shape change? Was their friendship actually real? Did Jeran, John and Ophois actually know each other before Jeran befriended William? What were those monsters that his friends fought? Why did Jeran actually become his friend? Was there a reason for why the three werewolves brought him into their little group? All these questions came with terrifying guesses and swirled around the human's head. Each of his thoughts led to a dark conclusion to each line of inquiry, every supposed answer leaving him sadder and more alone. "Were the ones I knew and cared about a lie?" His gaze went down to his hands curled into fists and shaking slightly. "Did they ever think that I was their friend? Or maybe, was I only ever prey to them?" Will's head was flushed, aching with intensity and burning streaks began to appear at the corner of his eyes.

Who could blame him for coming to such a conclusion? Just before his eyes his friends turned into majestic werewolves but one had to keep in mind that werewolves always in stories and myths were dangerous, wild and weren't human. That William was the only person among the group that didn't change there just aggravated and confirmed this situation in his mind. Of course being a teenager in the midst of puberty, that emotional chemical rollercoaster didn't help matters in any way. Shivering and hugging himself at the sudden cold enveloping him, he questioned. "Am I all alone now?"

He wished that the darkness that seemed to surround his heart would just vanish and he was suddenly surprised when his entire room was suffused with sunlight, pure and gold like the solstice noon. Will was even more shocked that a voice called out from behind "No you are not my dear child." Will turned around to face the window and saw standing there were two women, one dressed in green with red hair and the other utterly clothed in silver. They bowed and said together "And we welcome you, Prince of the Earth."

---

Meanwhile while this was happening in the bedroom of William. Somewhere else in the state of New York there was a large forest, big enough to be set aside as by the government, corrupt as it was to be a preserve. There deep within it were Ophois, John and Jeran and they were staring at two men that just claimed something completely impossible. One said that the three were werewolves, Garou to be more specific but to the group it was just a ridiculous idea.

"Are you kidding me?" Ophois shot back "Are you high on something? There's no such thing as werewolves." The Middle Eastern sixteen year old had to take a step back as the modernly dressed man who claimed that the kids were werewolves suddenly emitted a presence of barely repressed fury and overwhelming authority.

"Now listen here, pup" The offended man said, his eyes burned with such intensity that Ophois couldn't help but look away. "If werewolves didn't exist then how would you explain what happened to you last night?" Ophois was left shamefaced and the trio all flashed back to the events of last night. Well hopefully they thought it was last night because they had no idea how much time had actually passed. But the truth couldn't be denied by Ophois, Jeran and John, all other possible explanations always hit upon some sort of flaw in their reasoning. The three had to concede that what the man said was true. All the evidence said that they were werewolves.

Yet to Jeran there was something odd about this situation. "Why are we here then? Did you bring us here to kill us? Who are you?" Jeran said. A bit of fear shot up his spine, after all the men in front of the three friends were much too calm if they knew that the three teens could become deadly werewolves. Normal people would be nervous that they were in the presence of monsters, so why weren't these men in front of them panicking?

The man who had spoken the most shook his head. "Nothing could be further than the truth my lad. I am Roger Hamilton and my deed name is Flickers through Clouds Stargazer Philodox and Sept Leader for the Sept of the Mirror. As for my esteemed colleague, he is Breaks the Fangs, Uktena Theurge and the Caern Warder for the Sept of the Mirror." Jeran repeated his question as to why and where the men had brought them here and just what in the world was Roger talking about? Philodox? Sept Leader? Caern Warder? Those terms meant little to the group of three males.

"A Philodox means that I am a half moon, judge of the ways of Gaia." The man looked up at the fading moon barely sinking below the tree tops. "Why did we bring you here? Well you might as well sit down because it all has to do with what you are and it is a tale worth the telling." Roger said as he took a seat on the carpet of leaves, grass and general forest undergrowth. "As to where we are, this is SterlingForestState Park." Jeran had to raise an eyebrow at that; it was quite a distance from New York City from here. While it was possible to travel from New York City to Sterling Forest Park in less than one night, there was still the question on how they got all of them here in the first place. Roger gestured for the three to take a seat and Breaks the Fangs just left silently to fulfill his duties of which the three boys knew nothing about.

For the group of new Garou, there wasn't much choice but to stick around. After all they were in the middle of a forest with no known way for them to return to civilization. "So talk" John said as the three took a seat on some handy fallen logs that didn't have much in the way of fungus growing on it. "It's not like we can go anywhere else." Like or not the three had to do what this man wanted or else they risked being just another set of pictures on the nation's missing persons report.

Flickers through Clouds nodded and began to speak. Yet when he did so, he changed his demeanor from a normal guy you would find on the street to that of an oral historian of old. Storytellers that relied on memory and poetry to recite the epics and myths that taught things that was and is. Poetry did not follow off his tongue, but the words he spoke were powerful all the same. He spoke of a time when the entire world was at peace. Where harmony reigned and conflict was nonexistent. This golden age where all lived under the love of the world spirit named Gaia. But that period was shattered when one of the greatest of spirits went mad.

The spirit of Order, one of the three forces in the world that maintained the cycles of the universe known as the Weaver ensnared the Wyrm who was the destroyer who returned material back to the creative force of chaos, the Wyld. She in her madness wished to bind all of reality within her webs, calcifying all of reality into cold dead matter. In capturing the Wyrm, it became corrupted through the pain and madness of being unable to fulfill its original duty. The Weaver went and violated the natural order by separating the universe into a world of matter and spirit, each screaming to embrace the other. The Weaver then formed a barrier between the halves known as the Gauntlet, and still she continues to attempt to spin into silence perfection all of reality. As for the Wyrm caught and corrupted it began to turn forward destruction upon Gaia. It was then that Gaia birthed forth the Garou whose sacred duty was to fight the Wyrm and all its allies. To rein in humanity who had been touched by the Weaver.

Yet, and at this Flickers through Clouds' voice grew bitter. The fact was that the Garou were fighting a losing battle, a product of their mistakes. Their enemies' victory was nearly certain. Already much of the earth had been despoiled by Pentex corporations, an insidious group of industries that had sold their souls to the Wyrm. They executed the foul spirit's will upon Gaia and drove humanity further in its debased corruption. As for humanity itself, ages of oppression and culling had led to the humans possessing an instinctual fear of them.

The Garou themselves had brought themselves down in petty squabbling over territory, dwindling resources, authority and pride. The ranks of the Garou were dwindling, as their blood was too potent for them to with their kind. Yet only rarely would their blood take and a child be blessed to be one of Gaia's fangs. Some of them had turned traitor serving the Wyrm. An entire tribe to the Garou nation's shame had been converted to the Wyrm becoming the monstrosities that the boys fought last night, the Black Spiral Dancers. That was what the boys, new Garou would have to face. They were created by Gaia as her warriors and it was their destiny to fight the Wyrm to defend her. From the very moment they emerged from the womb, their fate had been set.

Flickers through Clouds called upon the boys. "Maybe you've dreamed a whispering in your soul, the yearning for something you weren't able to explain?" Catching the look the boys gave each other and noticing a flicker of something within John's eyes the older man, the Garou went on. "You know of it, the calling in your souls to Gaia, feeling her pain, the rage against the injustices done to her. That is the power given to us for her and our curse as well. We don't belong in the worlds of wolf or man, matter or spirit." A look of stunned surprise greeted these words.

"Surely you have felt this feeling all your lives? Of being shunned by other people? Even animals suddenly panicking in your presence?" Roger said. Again the boys exchanged further looks of growing belief. This particular observation however had hit the three males closer than they expected. The statement underlined something that each of them felt. All of them had only each other and Will as friends. Their peers often avoided the boys and the adults often whispered about them. None of the three had pets but had noticed sometimes dogs and other animals were just a big aggressive around them. The Philodox spoke "That is because they feel what you possess in service to Gaia. Rage, the beast within you that allows you to transform between man and wolf. The furious anger within you. It forever separates us from truly belonging. This is the truth. For what lies before you are endless struggles and conflict and the only thing that can be promised to you is that your story will be told forever more."

The man had said his piece and fell back into stillness. The three guys sat there in silence as the weight of what was told began to sink in. There were denials true, mostly from Ophois and John, but they did so half-heartedly. After all how could they deny the fantastic claims of Roger when their own experience with the supernatural would reveal the lie behind any objections to what Roger had said? But there were more personal reasons that warred within those two boys' hearts.

Ophois had only his mother, his father left the family long before he was born. His mother had never spoken to him about werewolves or the Garou. Her mind was constantly finding ways to make ends meet. In fact any sort of talk about Ophois' father never came up in conversation in the Seif household. That Roger had mentioned that they were born to be Garou made him wonder. So how did one become born to become a Garou? Was it passed down by blood? Was the reason why he was Garou, because of his father?

Yet for John the mentions of dreams had him feeling as someone was walking over his grave. While the tan skinned boy had the dreams that were mentioned by Roger, they went much further than that. John's dreams seemed to tell him things that he could have never known on his own. Warnings and information half remembered that the Latino had always disregarded as coincidences. Such as the time when he had suggested that they took the railway instead of the bus having dreamed of being involved in a bus crash. When he had listened to the news that the bus had been involved in an accident he was just thankful he and his friends had taken the train instead. Now he questioned were there more to those dreams?

As for Jeran, what the Philodox told him had confirmed something he had suspected his entire life. That he was born for a greater purpose. Now this wasn't just boastful thinking on the fourth generation British American's part. All throughout his life, he noticed his family subtly guiding him towards some other purpose. Principles of such things as duty and honor were hinted to be things that should be strived towards. In fact there were some members of the De Vere family that he'd always been a little afraid of to tell the truth. Yet his elders had told him to give those members more respect than he had expected. What clinched it for Jeran was the fact that many of the books, old and valuable dealt with werewolves, depicted in a heroic light.

"Where do we begin?" Jeran said. Ophois and John turned to him, mouths open. Those two were still mulling over what Roger had told them but then when they thought about it, Jeran's reaction wasn't a surprise to his friends. The teen had always acted like a stereotypical hero. Diving into fights because of his own sense of justice, that was just how Jeran was. It was after all how he became friends with the three other boys of the group. That led to a decision made by the two friends. They would follow Jeran; he was the leader of their group after all. Roger emitted a sense of content at the boys' decision and spoke the words that signaled their entrance into the world of the Garou. "Very well, your training starts now." Roger said, "From here on out, there's no going back to your previous lives."

---

In returning to Will's room, one would see the boy leaning over the one chair in the room. "So you want me to save the world..." William looked for a trite comment to what the ladies in the room requested of him. "And you're going to leave that to a sixteen year old?" The boy looked back at the two women comfortable in his room.

"It was hardly our decision child." The red haired lady in green, face radiating motherly concern. "You have power now; but it is your decision as to what to do with it. However you will find that you will move to action in the future. That is the nature of the Second Breath you have been given, your Exaltation." Will questioned why him? Why did he receive this power that both of the women told him, which could very well rule the world?

The woman answered. "It began when I met another one of me out traveling in the distance of the Wyld. She saw my plight and sent back to where she came from. From there was sent a spark. A spark of power that defies almost all limits, but it could only be given to those that were human and had the spark of heroism within them." The lady looked towards the listening boy. "You qualified out of all the spiritually dead humans on my flesh, when you chose to stand in front of my child to protect him. Even though you knew you had no chance to survive. You still chose to fight for what you cared for, and you were answered." When Will tried to protest that what he did wasn't special considering all the other feats of heroism that were being done out in the world, he was rebuffed. "True, they have performed acts of bravery much more grand than yours. But you had something that called the Exaltation to you. My child, that shard of power chose you for that potential. And it is that potential with that power that could allow you to alter the world that now is."

The silvery white haired and clothed other woman that was in the room spoke. "And that is why we came to you. Because your friends, they're Garou. Werewolves as you would call them. A mixture of spirit and flesh." She continued on, a hint of something strange within her voice. "They were born to fight in a war with the most foul of spirits, distorted and twisted from its true purpose. But the Garou are fighting a losing war. Without your help the world will fall to the Wyrm and the Garou including your friends will die as well."

Will looked down at his hands, knowing before he was a weak person. He relied on his friends to protect him. So why did he, who was afraid of so much and had difficulty deciding things in his life, now had the power to help his friends? The women had said that it was because of his dive to protect his friends even through the fear that he felt. But was it really? There were others that were so much more qualified than him. Regardless of his self doubts in any case, he came to a decision and his eyes glinted through his glasses like clean steel. "Alright, I'll do it. I'll save the world for my friends. For them, I'll do anything." He'll fight whatever forces stood in his way with the newly bestowed power that he had received. Regardless Will knew that things from here on out would never be the same.