Wolf's Bane - Act 1

It was a quiet piece of blacktop in the middle of a densely wooded area somewhere just within the town limits of Samhein. The sun was trying to break free from the heavy foliage of the area, but having a tough time doing so early this morning. As the sun was rising, small specks of light beamed their way down towards the pavement below, creating a strange, unnatural world as light and darkness blended together in a world of natural and unnatural. Several broken branches laid over the yellow line dividing the road in two, their leaves broken off and smashed flat down as they found a place to rest. A couple sounds of the forest could be heard off in the distance if one would listen carefully: the chirps of a few crickets, the final hoots of an owl before calling it a day, the small traces of a babbling brook that runs its way through the forest. But soon enough, another more mechanical sound began to break up the peaceful serenity of the scene. It was the sound coming from a large red, white and blue bus flying down the two-lane road, disturbing the perfect peace that a forest could normally offer. The tires clung well to the road that was so peaceful even a minute ago as the motor engine flung gas down its guzzle as it continued to make its way towards its destination. While none of the animals that lived in the forest cared about it, a sign on top of the bus specifically showed that it was heading into Samhein from Denver, which is strange considering how very few from the Rocky Mountains really cared about this peaceful burg near the woods.

As the metallic monster zoomed its way through the woods towards its destination, it carried with only a handful of people that even had the slightest idea of heading into this strange little town. The bus driver was a big black guy with glasses and some stubble emerging around his large face and a chin that pointed downwards towards the rest of his body. He was thinking to himself about how this position kept taking him away from his wife and family, but he knew that he had to do something to provide food on the table and pay the rent on their small little house without having to move in with either of their folks. As he drove with one of his hands, his other hand placed a handkerchief over his sweaty brow as he complained over how warm the machine was...without realizing that he had left the heater on from the cold dark night he drove through. Further back, several other people were lining every few seat on the bus, doing their own thing as they continued moving along. One woman was sitting there quietly trying to get in the last little bit of sleep before arriving in town. A young man was sitting there in anticipation with several bags around him, some of which spilled their way onto his neighboring seat, but no one minded that he did that. Far in the back, a girl with cute brown curls was sitting with several pieces of paper surrounding her, looking them over again and again through huge circular frames obsessively to make sure she was getting all the information she needed off of them. While a few seats up from her, a young Hispanic couple were holding each other hand with passion, staring at each other as lover tend to do. If one looked carefully, they could see the large diamond that gleamed right off her left ring finger. While this was not a bus filled to capacity like a journey to New York or Los Angeles, the travelers heading to Samhein were satisfied with the destination they were heading towards. The sleeping woman was heading to meet her young nieces and nephews who called this town their home. The young man was heading home from college to spend a few days on break with family and friends. The young Hispanic couple had heard of the beauty of the Black Paw Forest and chose to spend the weekend camping out there without a care in the world. And the curly-haired girl...well, she was heading to Samhein for a different reason from all the others....one that many would think was a tad strange.

"Samhein, last stop! All ashore that's going ashore! Thank you for riding..."

The black bus-driver continued to yell from the front that they had arrived at their destined bus terminal, trying at the same time to give consideration to all the passengers that needed to get off all of their belongings before they headed into the town. While most of the passengers was having a pretty easy time getting their things together before departing, the curly haired girl was in a bit of a ruckus at this very moment! While she thought she had all of the papers that she was looking over together in one neat little pile, she had failed to realize that the force of the bus's movement would throw this pile completely on the floor without any warning! Several pages of what appeared to be several articles from a magazine or an internet website found themselves thrown all over the floor at the back of the bus, some of them right-side up with their articles being revealed, others were turned upside-down with their words and pictures in complete reverse of how they were supposed to be! As she watched even the boy with all of his bags starting to move his way towards the front without any problem, the curly-haired girl was crawling on hands and knees near the back of the seat in front of her, trying to reach out a long, thin arm towards another of the pages she needed to complete her collection. When she got a good grasp on the page, she threw the page without concern into a large black backpack she had brought with her. Her circular glasses were staying on edge near the tip of her large nose, threatening to fall off her face at the slightest notion, but somehow deciding to behave for the time being until the girl had finished picking up her pages.

"Hey, aren't you gonna get off at Samhein!" the bus driver yelled as he noticed that she was the last remaining person on the bus. "This is my last stop...unless you want to head back to Denver with my next trip."

"Can you give me a few more minutes please?" the brown-haired girl spoke with a strange cute arrogance in her voice. She sounded like someone that didn't like to be bossed around, yet had this weird innocence that was tough to explain in a girl like her. "I almost have everything I need together. I...oops!"

The girl stopped what she was doing when she heard a strange ripping noise coming from below one of a nice black dress shoe on one of her feet. Turning around to see the shoe that was helping her crawl around, she noticed that it was tearing apart one of the many pages she was trying to collect. It had some text heading down the left side of the page while the right side had a strange blurry black and white picture of some sort of "humanoid animal". The picture on the page seemed much like the classic blurry ones that hunters had taken of Bigfoot, yet this picture seemed more like a human female complete with hair and the appearance of a large chest and developed muscles, only this "human" had something that looked like a muzzle, fur growing all over its body, and what seemed to be a tail. It was easily a cryptozoological being, but nowhere near the description of the famed sasquatch.

"I assume that was one of your pages as well," the bus driver cracked as he watched this comedic play in action. He was in a bit of a hurry to get ready for his return trip, watching the actions of the weird girl was a nice bit of diversionary amusement.

"Ooops, well, at least it was ripped up too bad," the girl said as she tried to move her feet away to look at the damage. Luckily, the picture of the animal-woman hadn't been harmed by her own large feet, but she did slightly rip up some of the text in the article. Nothing that a little bit of tape couldn't fix...if she had tape. Quickly turning her head to the side and back to make sure she wasn't going to destroy any more pages, the girl moved into position and stretched out one of her arms until her fingers clutched the torn page from the bottom, where it was still together in one piece.
Since this was the last page that she needed to complete her collection, she merely continued to hold it in her hands as she slowly started to stand up to pick up her backpack and start heading off the bus. As she approached the front, the bus driver merely smiled at her while speaking politely "Well hopefully I'll see you again when you do head back to Denver."

"Actually, I'm from Cheyenne, but thanks for the complement," the girl said as she smiled and gave off an innocent nod to the side with her eyes closed. Even with how rude the bus driver had been just a few moments ago, she did want to show some sort of respect for taking her this far.


The city of Samhein is considered by one of the top national news magazines to be one of the most modern and most exciting cities to live in today. While not too many knew of its existence as recent as thirty or forty years ago, it was through the discovery of its mineral wealth that the town exploded in population and prosperity. One of the few major factors that lead to how high the city was seen was its abundance of environmental factors, including the nearby Black Paw Forest, known for various species of plant and animal life, as well as an abundance of fresh water from local lakes and rivers. Throw in the lack of pollution-spewing industrial factories that helped build up many of the developed cities of previous times and you could easily see why many young families have chosen to move to this town to make their life.

However, even with all of the beauty and wonder that Samhein offered, this city too had its dirty little secrets that sometimes just couldn't stay hidden. Within the last one or two years, strange attacks have started to occur all throughout town, many of which were done by weird supernatural elements not too many even knew about. If they had known of these problems in the first place, many people would have never moved to this city. And to make matters worse was the sudden rise of mysterious "creatures" running amuck throughout the town. No one knew who these creatures are or where they came from, but many have had theories of what's going on. Some think that Samhein was actually built on an ancient burial ground for some indegeounous temple where shamanic activities had happened at one time and that these creatures were the spirits of the beings formerly worshiped here. Others claim that a mad scientist is conducting weird experiments behind their backs, turning their own people into monsters for his own nefarious plot to take over the world! And still others think that Samhein is just coincidentally attracting all sorts of things to this town, both the good and the bad, and they just merely had to live with it or move away! But whatever it was, these Samhein monsters were just another factor towards the composition of this town. And while most of the mainstream world outside town were ignoring their existence, there were still a couple of people that came here to find out for themselves what the fuss is about.

Sheri Roberts just so happened to be one of those people that wanted to know more about the "monsters" of Samhein...or at least one kind of these monsters. This teen was by no means an expert or knowledgeable in any way, shape or form on supernatural phenomenon, yet there was something that drove her to research this information about this town and gave her the courage to come all the way out to this modern city and do a little personal research. After she had gotten off the local bus terminal, Sheri chose to merely start walking along some street towards the middle of town in search of...something. She really didn't know what she was looking for, but she knew that she would know when she found it. Sheri made her journey through town in a large light-blue long-sleeved shirt that was sown so it looked like it had a pattern of grooves and hills moving up and down throughout the material. The shirt's collar lowered itself down into a V-neck with several buttons that remained open revealing a little bit of her pale tan skin. The V pointed down towards two tiny bumps that looked somewhat like a bust, but were covered by a tight wire bra that was created more of the illusion of a chest than she really had. Her white shirt was accompanied by a really long blue skirt made of a jean-like material that covered up her longer than average legs (even though she was merely 5 ft. 10 in.) all the way down from the bottom of her shirt to where they met up with her nice dressy black shoes. Sheri's back pack with all that she needed for the trip was leaning slightly off one thin shoulder with its zipper slightly open, but not enough for anything she needed to fall out so quickly.

Making her way along a well maintained sidewalk that had no cracks or grooves sticking out of it, Sheri stuck her nose once again at the torn page that she had saved earlier from the wrath of her feet. Her hands were trying to keep the torn page with the picture of the beast woman together while her spectacled eyes kept reading the text over and over again, making sure that every word that she was reading was memorized within her own mind.

Wolf-Creature Seen Again in City Streets

By "Strange" Ataru Deepblue, Samhein Local Messenger

For the third time in two weeks, a humanoid canine creature has been seen running wild and free within the limits of this city. The creature, spotted by several citizens throughout the Samhein area, is just one of several monster sightings that have plagued this town over the last several months. But while many of these other creatures seem to come and go without any idea who or what they are, it is this one canine being that has somehow become a more consistent sighting by the populace in this city.

"I really wish I knew what kind of thing would want to inhabit this town," said one citizen to a Local Messenger reporter who claimed they had a good look at this creature. "We all expect the monsters to go after the biggest of the metropolitan areas. But you never know that they like the newer towns until they actually pop up!"

While most of what people have been saying is rumors, the reports have claimed that this human canine is very wolf-like in structure with a long muzzle and powerful muscles covering its body along with a completely gray furry body and bushy tale. Some believe that this monster also has many human like attributes, such as the ability to walk on two legs and usable hands and feet with digits similar to those of a human. Some even go so far as trying to identify this creature's sex, believing that the huge mounds on her chest are similar to the bust of a female.

"For all we know, it could be a male with just a really large chest," a local authority claimed. "Trying to identify a monster as a female is a useless job if the attributes of males and females differ from animal to animal. For all we know, the male monsters of this species could be the one with the breasts!"

Sightings of the gray wolf-like monster have varied with each and every appearance in within Samhein city limits. The first time the creature appeared, it was near the center of town near the local chemical plant. The second appearance occurred several days later near the campus of Full Moon High School. (It is of particular note that there have been many other creatures claimed to have been seen near this high school, but none of them have been confirmed at this time.) It is unknown what the creature was doing during each of its sightings. However, it was during the third sighting in the suburb of Bon Odori that amateur photographer Felix Schwartzmond sighted the monster and tried to take a picture of it as it leapt away towards the direction of town.

"It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time," Mr. Schwartzmond told the Local Messenger. "When I saw it coming through the air, illuminated by the light of the moon, I took out my camera as fast as I could and just fired right at it. The creature didn't even stop to growl at me or anything. It was as if it had something else on its mind. And when a monster doesn't want to be disturbed, it won't fight back if a couple flashless shots are taken."

Although there have been some sightings of this creature before the recent sightings, Samhein officials have been on higher alert since two monsters rampaged through the streets of New York City back...(continued on next page)


That was all that Sheri's page had to say about the monster. Outside the picture taken by Mr. Schwartzmond which took up the rest of the page, she would have to pull another piece of paper out of her backpack to continue reading the article. But Sheri really didn't want to read any more than what she had in her hand at this moment...mostly because she had to keep the page together until she could get some tape for it. With her hands continuing to try to keep the pages together, the curly haired girl continued to look it over every few seconds, trying to take in each and every word of Mr. Deepblue's reporting. Every few seconds, her eyes drifted towards the so-called gray furred monster, trying to take in as much of it as she possibly could. She particularly looked at the canine muzzle on the things' face, knowing that somewhere in her that this thing was probably more lupine than the reporter made it out to be. She tried to keep her eyes away from the creature's body, but couldn't help take in its powerful figure with every other glance.

"I know I told mom and dad that I just wanted to have some space this weekend, but of course I couldn't tell them the real reason I came here," Sheri said to herself as she continued to look over the picture. The only thing she could really feel at this time was her black shoes hitting the pavement as she continued to read the article. "I know I may be jumping to conclusion, but something tells me that she has to be a werewolf! Boy would it be fun to find one of those things...sure I have to make sure it doesn't tear me to shreds, but I guess that's the risk in..."

WHAM! Without noticing where she was going, Sheri had walked right into a nearby lamp post on the far side of the sidewalk! Her head took most of the impact, with her forehead instantly turning red and feeling extremely sore from what she pulled. Her glasses almost fell off her face, but somehow the size of her nose prevented them from falling off or breaking. Sheri decided to just put that page away back in her backpack after smashing her face, even with its torn condition and its potential to become even more crumbled or shredded in there.

With the page away, Sheri's eyes could better take in where she was going on the streets of Samhein. Although her head was still slightly throbbing for a few seconds, it subsided as the cool air caressed her forehead, the winds massaging her while they also blew her curls behind her head. With better view of her direction, Sheri was able to see the various buildings, trees, roads and even people that lived in this town without too much difficulty. She tried to keep her eye contact away from anyone in particular, trying to keep to herself and make sure that she continues to think about her goal at hand.

"Dang I really should stop doing stuff like that!" she quickly thought to herself as she continued to pace along. "Gotta keep remembering why I'm here. Werewolves...er, wolf-creatures, yeah, that's probably the better way to put it. It doesn't have to be some normal person that turns into a wolf. It could just be a normal wolf-creature that lives back in the woods we went through to get into this town. One that prefers to be a wolf all the time instead of happening to be a human that can turn into a wolf like..." Sheri stopped herself in mid-thought, preventing herself from saying something, then slightly changed the subject without going too far. "Maybe I should just drop the subject until I find that thing."


The next several minutes found Sheri continuing to wander around the town without saying too much about werewolves...or not much else actually. She merely just kept herself quiet as she made her way around town embracing the sights and sounds of this inner city. As she turned in one direction, she saw all sorts of stores and buildings that were pretty typical for a commercial district: a restaurant here, a high-class clothing store there, a few office complexes that were closed for the weekend and had no one even in the park-like atrium where people could meet up, a homeless person sleeping right in front of said office complex. She turned towards the street right next to where she was walking: she saw several minivans pass by in between some economy cars and maybe something similar to a Lexus or Mercedes. She stared up in the sky for a moment: she saw at least one, maybe two buildings towering on top of her, dwarfing the tall girl and giving her some perspective. Sheri had been through this before...sure this wasn't anything like a couple of the places she had been, but Samhein was somewhat familiar to her mind even if it was completely and totally foreign in a couple of other ways. Sure the billboards advertised different radio stations and the street names were different, but there had to be some variation between these cities.

The brown haired girl continued looking around the town, breathing in the fresh air of the uncorrupted town, looking around the familiar but different sights through her glasses-covered eyes, meandering through town with just her sole-covered feet guiding her. She didn't quite know where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there, but there was a weird instinct that kept driving her to move until she found what she was looking for. Sheri couldn't quite put her finger on that instinct...it was just something she had for some time now. It was probably just something similar to a woman's intuition or something as such. Maybe it was...nah, it really couldn't be that, could it? Regardless, whatever this thing was, whether it was some sort of natural movement or something inside of her, it was carrying her down the street towards...something, no matter what it was. With each step she took, with each ruffle of her jean skirt she moved, she kept moving closer and closer to wherever she had to go.

It was about an hour after Sheri had arrived in Samhein and began her meanderings through town when she mysteriously stopped. She had no idea how or why it happened, whether it was something in her instinct or merely something she had felt, but it was like her feet just couldn't move any more. Sure she did try to lift her shoes up so she could continue looking around, but it was as if there was someone, or something, calling her. Well maybe there wasn't anything literally calling her, but there was a conversation going on that just peaked her interest as it traveled through her ears into her mind. Without knowing where she was or how she got there, the brown-haired girl stood still as her ears took in each and every word that was going on.

"A hundred dollars for a measly pair of sandals!? Do you need your head checked, pigtails?"

"Oh come on, Bonnie! They're a special find, possibly even one of a kind! Do you think I'm gonna give up this opportunity for anything?"

"Don't listen to her. I checked the back and there are a ton of these sandals."

"Well...um...I meant one of a kind I haven't tried yet. You know me and sandals, so just let me..."

"I know you and sandals, Wendy, and I already know what’s gonna happen to them. One night out and they'll be completely shredded at the seams! Who cares if they're one dollar or a hundred dollars."

"But look! They have toe straps! One for each toe! I've never worn sandals with toe straps before! Just let me be about my purchases and I'll let you be with yours. I'll even go into the rare book store with you later and let you buy whatever expensive tome you want to get."

"Of course, I'm gonna have to end up paying for it...but its not like I'm complaining."

"You're completely destroying the purpose of the moment, JP! I'm trying to make a point about Bonnie letting me be about what I buy. If I don't care what she gets, then she shouldn't..."

"I don't go and burn books, Wendy, like some post-apocalyptic society. I respect anything and everything I get with whatever my parents give me. While you...you just get the cutest, most expensive things just to destroy them after wearing them one, maybe two times! You are completely and totally against any logic or reason on monetary matters!"

Sheri continued to listen in at the argument between the three voices as she slowly stared up to see where exactly she was. She saw an awning right above her head with the words "Lenny's Shoe Hutch" staring down at her in cursive writing. The symbol looked like some sort of silly drawing of a rabbit wearing four shoes of different varieties between sneakers, dress shoes, heels and sandals, with one on each foot. She knew she should have figured it was a shoe shop when she came here from what the trio was saying inside. But why the heck would her meanderings lead her to some stupid shoe shop? Sure Sheri liked having something nice on her feet, but she never made a big deal about it unlike the cute-sounding female in that store...what was her name again? Wendy? She could perhaps more sympathize with the other girl...Bonnie or whatever it was. Then again, while Sheri did have her own fashion loves and could occasionally understand what the Wendy girl was going through, she usually never cared what anyone said or thought about what she did. It was something that came easily to her thanks to all the crap she had to put up with.

"Well its a little too late to stop me now unless you want to take the receipt out of my hands," the Wendy girl said inside the store as Sheri continued to listen in. "Unless you want to go through my credit card bills in a few weeks."

"Well you burst them up, don't come crying to me that you wasted a hundred dollars on them," the other girl responded back to the more spontaneous female. Sheri really wished she could look inside and at least get a small glimpse at who these two were, but she really wasn't in too much of a hurry to get thrown into this war between friends.

"And when I burst them up, that will be one of the most glorious moments of my fifteen years of life," Wendy responded. "I'll be getting my money's worth from that occasion!"

As the curly haired girl slowly continued to stare, whether or not she was interested or was just completely oblivious and wanting to see who was behind all of this noise, she saw a few figures slowly approach her as they approached the door out of the shoe store. She really couldn't make out who they were, but from how they were bantering, she knew that it probably were those two girls that she had stopped to listen to just a few moments earlier.

"If you want to get your money's worth on something, you could start saving up for college," the softer of the two females said to her compadre as they neared the door. "Or maybe you could get something to get ready for entrance exams. They are coming up quickly and I don't feel easy about you trying to merely get a certain score to go to some party school."

"And what's wrong with a party school!" the one named Wendy replied. "They'll love me there! Spending all night doing who knows what, going out with all the hot guys who are just dying to meet a cutie like me! Sure there's some things we can't tell Havoc about but..."

"Do we really have to go there," the male of the trio said. He had not said too much in between the banter between the two females, but he did know that he could make a comment here or there when he had to.

"Sure, go to a party school with a good nursing scholarship, that's perfect for you," the other girl replied back in her own way. Even though she still sounded soft, she did sound to Sheri that she could put up a fight if she had to. "When one exists outside that cavernous pit in your mind, tell me about it and we'll start studying for it right away."

"You know what, you're right Bonnie," the other girl said back to her friend with something that sounded very cheerful, but maybe with a slight hint of mischief. "Put her there!"

And it was at this moment that everything went completely and horribly wrong. A poor blonde haired girl wearing huge round glasses bursted right out of the shoe shop, running right along due to the momentum given to her by friend! Sheri didn't have too much time to react before the poor girl smashed right into her tall, but very unsteady body, her head pushing through her shirt and colliding with her own midsection and belly button! The push was just enough to make the brown-haired girl lose her footing on the sidewalk, making her slip on the concrete sidewalk and thus making her collapse downwards right onto the ground! She felt a small impact around her stomach as it felt like it was going to burst and maybe a few scratches from the impact of her skin towards the ground, but Sheri couldn't really see or feel anything for a couple seconds.


"Do you think she's alright?"

"What do you think, genius!? Your the one who pushed me into her!"

"Hey, she called me genius! That's the first time Bonnie admits that I'm as smart as her!"

"Wendy you should really be serious. This poor girl collapsed on the ground because of you."

"Well sue me if I don't know my own strength. You and I have a lot more in common than..."

"Do you really want to blurt out everything in public you brat? Why don't you just say out loud in front of these strangers that..."

"Um, I think she's coming to. Careful there girls."

Sheri slowly regained consciousness as she heard the banter of the trio of voices that were previously inside that shoe store some time ago. She knew that some time had passed, but didn't quite know how long she was out. Without too much thought, she slowly opened her eyes to see who exactly was giving off these voices. As she looked, she saw the bodies of two girls staring right down at her with a male body right nearby, standing above both of them. Her vision was really blurry, but she knew that she could sort of make out the female duo. The first girl, kneeling to the left, was the same blonde with glasses that she had seen fly right into her body when she left the store. She was a very cute, yet somewhat studious looking female wearing a short-sleeved pink shirt with a couple of buttons up around a turned down collar. Her hair was very well maintained, smoothed and completely combed and styled somewhat similar to those old "Dutch girl" pics that she had seen somewhere. But the most obvious feature to the blonde's style was, like Sheri's, her oversized circular frames. Similar to Sheri's glasses, which obscured the fact that she had a huge nose, this blonde's glasses seemed to take up most of her face, with one round frame easily covering each of her two blue eyes. She also sort of saw the extent of this girl's blue jeans coming out towards her as she kneeled down on the ground.

The other girl that was staring at her seemed much cuter superficially than the blonde-haired girl, at least from where she was laying. She was a dark brunette haired girl with her hair put up into two cute pigtails held by hair bands with dark violet beads that flung their way down to about the level of her ears. She wore a very tight tank top shirt that accentuated whatever curves she had on top and showed off a slim midsection that was accented by an innie. The brunette was also wearing a pair of jeans, but hers were very form fitting and made even tighter by a black leather belt that wrapped around her body and was held together around the point where the belt met her bellybutton. Although Sheri couldn't see too well from where she was laying, she did notice a plastic bag somewhere behind the other brunette's back, perhaps being the sandals that she had just bought from "Lenny's Shoe Hutch", but she couldn't quite get a good look from where she laid.

"Uh, what the heck happened," was the first thing out of Sheri's mouth as she stared up towards the two girls. She knew that she was on the ground somehow and that her arms and the back of her head felt like they were hurting, but that was it. Slowly she started to try and sit up, feeling a couple weird twitches from her back as it came off the ground and back up into the free air. She almost had a double take seeing the blonde, knowing that she seemed familiar, but mostly because that hair did seem like she saw it before.

"Are you alright, miss?" the blonde in glasses responded back. Her face looked a little nervous as she didn't know what to expect. "I know that seemed a little sudden but my friend never was one for manners."

"I just wanted to have a little fun with my friend, is that all?" the pigtailed brunette responded to the blonde. "Is there anything wrong with showing affection in public? That's how I am!"

"I don't think that what Wendy does is really too affectionate," the male voice behind the girls retorted back. Sheri couldn't get a good look at him without her glasses, but from how he stood, he obviously looked like he was there more or less with them. "Emotional, yes. Sexual, definitely. But full all out affection?"

"Do we have to go there," the blonde responded nervously.

"So then, your name is Wendy?" the curly haired brunette asked. She knew it was really obvious, but she just wanted to make sure.

"Yep, Wendy Campbell at your service!" the other brunette said as she flung herself right towards the sitting Sheri! Spontaneously, the pigtailed brought her arms around the fallen girl's back as she continued to introduce herself with excited vibrancy. "Age: 15. Sign: Aries. Born and raised here in the beautiful town of Samhein. I love rock music and shoes and have a huge weakness for really cute boys! And carrots...I love carrots too! Carrots are just as much a turn on as boys, but you can't really..." As she spoke, Wendy moved her arms down from the shocked Sheri's back towards the middle of her light blue shirt, where she promptly tried to fondle her chest...with very limited success. Sheri extremely embarrassed that this other brunette was doing this, but felt this weird emotional rush going through her...that would have probably taken control of her if it weren't for a well-placed word by the blonde at this moment.

"Do you have to do that in public, you brat? You know you should keep that crap under control or else some one will..."

"Oh, and that complaining thing over there is Bonnie Taylor," Wendy said in response she moved away from caressing the shirt-covered chest and moved several feet away. "Local geek. As long as you don't listen to anything that she says, then you'll do great in this town."

"And what's that supposed to mean!?" Bonnie yelled out in frustration. Her glasses seemed to fog up from how angry she was with how her friend was treating her, but at least she had some sense of humor about it...at least Wendy thought she did.

Sheri felt a bit out of place seeing the interaction between the two girls as such. But as shy as she seemed at first, she somehow began to feel comfortable around the two of them to at least give off a bit of a pleasantry.

"My name is Sheri...Sheri Roberts. I'm actually came here from Wyoming to see what's going on in this town." Not too much said, but she didn't want to reveal her real intentions to these girls. Like any of them would know a thing about monsters. But of course, Wendy's eyes lit up after hearing where she was coming from.

"So your from out west?" the pigtailed girl said, putting her two hands together and enlarging her eyes in some sort of maiden-like position. "Hey, I hear its great out there! All that wide open space with all the nature and the horses and the wolves and..."

"Let's just leave it at that," Bonnie calmly said, returning to her previous composure. Wendy felt that it was rude of her friend to shut her up like this, but a quick glance saw something in the blonde's eyes, making her realize that maybe she was saying a bit too much.

"It's pretty dull out in Wyoming," Sheri replied back. She almost felt a bit nervous with the mentioning of wolves, but with Bonnie preventing Wendy from moving on with her comments, she quickly lost that feeling and regained her own mild mental state. "If you want a state where there's nothing to do but stare up into the deep blue sky and wonder what the heck you are doing here, then you may like it. If your father is pretty much made to go there for his work, you just have to bear with it with as much tolerance as you can possibly exhibit." As she spoke, Sheri slowly looked around for her own pair of glasses silently. She had to get these blurs out of her face and at least see what she was doing before another calamity befell her.

"I hear there's lots of oil out there in that state," replied the male that was with Bonnie and Wendy. He remained far off in the distance compared to where Sheri was, but at least her hearing could perfectly pick up every word he was saying. "Read in Forbes that some company has sent some people out there to get it out of the ground."

"That company is probably the one my dad works for," Sheri confidently said. She sighted her glasses and quickly picked them up to look at them. Making sure that neither side was bent and that her lenses weren't scratched, she put them back on her face and easily witnessed the two girls and even that boy in the background come into view. "I was actually born in Houston, but only moved to Wyoming when my dad got a geological scouting position there some time ago..."

"Well do remember that oil is on the out in this neck of the woods," the male replied. There was a tinge of a southern accent, but it was so invisible that only the most astute ears could hear it. "We've got stuff here that so powerful that it makes a whole day's worth of oil look like..."

Sheri stopped where she was at this moment while listening and looked through her lens-covered eyes at the girls near her. Wendy was listening with what seemed like some sort of intent, but it could have been just her making it seem like she was listening to what she was saying. Bonnie was staring downwards around both her own legs and around the long skirt Sheri was wearing making sure that nothing was seriously injured in the fall. She also finally got a good look at the talking male that was standing nearby: he looked like your typical slick business type with shining brown hair that looked like it was done with pomade, but still looked slightly messy in design. He was also wearing a mismatch of an expensive sports jacket with a t-shirt under it while heading down to an expensive-looking belt that held up a loose pair of blue jeans. Were there the kind of people she was going to meet here in Samhein? Should she just listen to the hospitality they've given her so far and see what happened if she went off with them? And what about her monster hunt: would any of these other teens believe the real reason she came to this town? Heck, if she spent time with them, maybe she would never get the chance to find those things like the wolf-like creature in the article! But was that a good thing? Sheri returned her mind to the slick male's speech before she could be seen as completely out of it.
"...and that's why we're one of the fastest growing cities in North America. So, any questions?"

"I really don't think you should have told her the full story on the town, JP," Bonnie quickly replied towards the male.

"Yeah, why would she want to know your reasons why her dad would be out of a job and why she should move here?" Wendy added. She seemed so bored that she was playing with one of her pigtails, bouncing it up and down with each of JP's long-winded words.

"Well maybe if we treated Miss Sheri to lunch, then perhaps she would be able to listen much better to me," JP replied back. Although there were times that he did seem a bit arrogant, he still had a bit of a knightly side to him.

"Lunch?" said Sheri with a bit of excitement in her voice. She had been meandering for so long that she forgot to pay any attention to the noises inside her stomach telling her that she would die without a proper nutritional refuel. Almost immediately, the curly-haired brunette got herself off the ground, picked up the schoolbag she had with her, and found herself on her feet again. She didn't really feel any pain from the fall, as if it had easily subsided away in the several minutes she had been taking.

"Well at least that's something she listens to," Wendy sarcastically commented as she herself got up to go along with the new plans. "Just as long as JP treats, we'll all go together!"

"Hey, don't mooch off him too much," Bonnie resentfully said as the blonde got herself off the ground and placed her white sneakers back onto the concrete sidewalk. "Why can't we just all pay for ourselves and no one will be for the worst."

"Well I wouldn't mind paying for myself either," Sheri added. She moved her hands around her shirt and skirt, dusting off whatever crud got on her to make sure she was clean enough to head out.

"Doesn't anyone have any respect for my feelings?" Wendy began to whine as the three girls began heading towards JP's direction. "I just spent a hundred dollars on these cute sandals and I deserve a little better treatment. Come on, you believe JP should treat, don't you?" She innocently stared her sweet brown eyes in the direction of Sheri, who was taken aback by how much the flirtatious brunette was trying to get out of her.

"I actually do have a bit for the whole weekend, so I don't mind..."

"OK then, new girl treats!" said Wendy excitably as she jumped up with a nice leap and once again wrapped an arm around the brunette's head. Sheri felt her neck droop and a few of her curls flowing down and touching Wendy's arm. But while she didn't mind what she was doing, she did feel embarrassed by the sudden demand that the friendly girl with the hundred-dollar sandals was up to.

"Just say no to her," Bonnie said as she sighed and closed her eyes while placing one of her hands in the palm of JP's hand. She didn't really know how to handle any of what was going on, but its not like she had any other problems in her life for the moment.


As the quartet of teenagers made their way down the busy city street, none of them suspected that the sky above them had eyes. High above them, on a rooftop several stores down from "Lenny's Shoe Hutch", a solo figure stood upwards into the clear blue sky looking at the street below through a dark pair of binoculars. It was a human female with long red hair of a light, feathery texture that went downwards to a little past her shoulders. She wore a dark green beret that looked cocked to the side of her head obscuring the patch of whatever organization she was a part of. She also wore a dark green shirt that seemed to stick out with an ample-sized bosom, yet obscured by the size of her shirt as well as a buttoned-down camouflage shirt that only had the last several buttons on the bottom done to hold the shirt together. She wore sand color khakis that flung downwards covering up a pair of military-like boots which were completely laced and tied to perfection. Around her waist laid a belt with several items on it, including a walkie-talkie, a canteen and some sort of utility bag in case of emergency.

Quietly, the mysterious military girl continued to watch the street around her, spreading the view of her binoculars back and forth across the street around her. As she looked, she saw all of the life going on in the town below...people coming, people going, people just doing whatever they could to live their lives. But this was nothing that this girl had not seen before. She was looking for anything out of the ordinary...just things that no one would normally suspect someone in the city to be doing. Sure there was that amusing act she witnessed where a short-haired blonde smashed into a curly-haired brunette if only several minutes ago, but if she looked at this sort of thing, this girl knew that her superiors would easily get on her case about it. The feathery red-head was on a mission and had to complete it if she wanted the appreciation of her superiors.

Seeing as nothing was going on in this part of town, the military-like girl put down her binoculars and placed them through a clip back onto her belt. Then, as stealthily as she could, she walked from easy view on the roof towards a chimney-like vent. Her boots felt a tad sticky from walking on the tar-like substance below her, but she did make it in pretty good time. Then, even without too much thought, the girl pulled off her walkie-talkie from her belt and quickly turned it on with her fingers. Placing the receiver over her ear and with the speaker around her mouth and making sure that the antenna didn't hit her beret, the girl quietly pushed a button and began a report with a determined voice:

"This is Wolf Hunter calling Red Fang, come in Red Fang, over."

The sound crackled its way out of the girl's mouth over the silent airwaves to its destination. As she waited for it to complete its journey, the girl let off a slight little smile, hoping that it would get to whom she wanted to speak with. She brushed aside some of her hair with a long finger, making sure that it looked perfect as if she was going out on a date instead of merely making a log. But it was just a couple seconds before a mature, but slightly gruff voice made its way back to the walkie-talkie.

'This is Red Fang...this better be important Wolf Hunter, over."

"It is important," 'Wolf Hunter' said to her cohort. "I've swept over the entire main street sector of Samhein for the last hour and I have yet to find any signs of the one called Lycra. Respond, over."

"Why in the world do you really need to find that failed experiment?" Red Fang said back to her. "The doctor said she was not important for the project. We don't need to find her in order for our duties to be completed, over."

"Call it my own personal instincts taking over, Red Fang," said 'Wolf Hunter'. She had a bit of intimacy in her voice, but the other voice was not receiving what she had to say. "Lycra keeps finding her way in interrupting the doctor's business. You and the others should be taking care of her when she does show up, yet none of you have done so. So I say if I do a pre-emptive strike on wolfie, we don't have to worry about her any more. Over."

"I still believe you are foolish in you actions, Wolf Hunter," the cold voice said. "When Lycra shows up, we deal with her. Nothing more, nothing less. Over."

"But you are completely missing the point," said the female operative. "Its not just about stopping that pesky wolf girl, its about finding out who she really is and how she's connected to all of us. She is bound to be one of the experiments that..."

"We already know that she was one of the experiments that just happened to get away. There is no big loss in losing one or two of them. They'll all eventually meet the same fate in the end...as will you if you keep trying to do things as you're doing." Red Fang did not confirm the end of his side of the conversation, making the redhead a tad upset over how she was being treated by him.

"Now listen here you!" Wolf Hunter responded with anger rising in her voice. "You and the others over there will be thanking me once that wolf is out of the picture! You'll appreciate everything I have done that lead to your final victory! You just don't understand that yet!"

There was an anticipatory silence for the next several seconds as the girl leaned closely towards her walkie-talkie, waiting for the moment that her superior responded to whatever he would say. The device crackled in static for close to thirty seconds as her ear squished itself towards the receiver before the cold voice of Red Fang came through once again with one final response.

"Go ahead and do whatever you want for all I care. If you go out and get yourself killed, that's fine by me. If you get rid of Lycra, that's fine too. But just between you and me, I don't know who is worse: you or that ditzy mink-girl. Maybe someday the two of you should work together in just ruining everything we have worked for before the authorities dissect you for their own means. Over and out."

Wolf Hunter kept her ear to the device as it suddenly went dead with the end of the communication with Red Fang. Under her breath, she said something that sounded like "I'm never working with no stinking mink" before she took one of her own fingers and turned off her own walkie-talkie. Her breath was still a tad heavy from the aggravation she went through with the end of the conversation, but the militarily-dressed girl's resolve was as tough as ever. She slowly started walking away from the vent and back out towards plain view as she stared at the world with her dark green eyes.

"So I'm not gonna get any support from them on this," the feathery redhead thought. "Well that's fine by me. When I come in with the rotting carcass of that wolf in my hands, they're going to love me so much that I'm going to be promoted ahead of that dumb fox! Then we'll see what happens when Red Fang has to take orders from me!" A cute, but semi-crazy chuckle came out from the lips of Wolf Hunter as she continued to think over all of the respect and esteem that she would get when she finished her mission and had taken the one known as Lycra down.