You call those Knights?

On Saturday evening, Irma was told that Mr. Vywin was waiting for her once again.

She entered the ritual room.

"Hey, Irma! Look at you, you've become so pretty I don't regret having you as my big sister for a moment. If you didn't have such a cruel personality, there'd be men lining up to take you out."

The atmosphere in the room instantly chilled below the freezing point. Irma glared at Gaude and said: "Little Gaude. Is that something a young man should say to a lady?"

She was simply doing what was necessary to get the best possible results. Perhaps there were moments when she had to put on a tough front, but it ended up making things better.

"I'm sure you didn't call me here just to piss me off, right?"

Suddenly, Gaude's voice became cold and professional, a sure sign that jokes were over for now. Irma wasn't sure if the change in Gaude's voice had always been there, but it definitely helped her to get into the right mindset.

"I've summoned you for another session. This time, I want you to try and transform into the Werewolf form. Simply imagine the form you want to take and then will your body into it."

Irma tried to do exactly that. She imagined the shape of one of the Werewolves she had seen. She then imagined her own body becoming that shape.

She felt strange, partly due to going through it in a seated position.

"Perhaps you should try it on all fours like the usual transformation takes place. Try and incorporate the feeling of your first time into it.", Gaude's voice came from the side.

Irma tried that too. She wanted to always have access to the power her other form offered. She wanted to be ready to use it once they caught wind of Greyback.

Irma got on all fours and tried to feel the tension she had felt only a week ago. The moment she thought she had a grasp of it, she stretched. She felt some changes happening, but it wasn't enough. Somehow, she knew that she hadn't reached the full Werewolf state.

She tried to keep going but felt like she had run out of something, like she was lacking something she would need to complete the transformation.

"That's enough for now. It looks like you've gotten halfway there. It's an excellent result for the first time."

Irma walked to the mirror to see the changes for herself. She had pointy tufts of hair on her head and her own ears had become pointy. Her nose had flattened somewhat, and her lips had thinned. She noticed two needle-sharp canines poking out of her mouth.

She opened her mouth and to her surprise, it was filled with even more needle-sharp teeth. She looked at her hands and feet next. Her fingers and toes seemed longer and thicker. Her nails had grown by at least an inch.

"Alright, Irma, let me get a good look at you."

He rose up and walked a circle around her. Irma had, without a doubt, become much taller.

He commented what he saw in a monotone voice: "Joint positioning is identical to the base form. No fur emergence is visible. Some elongation of skeletal structure is present. Pseudo-lupine ears have formed from hair."

Gaude looked at her for a while longer and spoke: "I would like to test out those pseudo-ears of yours, if you'll allow me."

Without daring to look up, she walked close to him and said: "I think that should be fine since you already touched my ears while I was transformed."

Truthfully, Irma was afraid of her body's reaction – previously, it had been very strong.

Gaude lifted his hand and touched the hair that were sticking up.

"What do you feel?", Gaude asked.

Irma had to think for a while before she responded: "It's like you're touching my ears but not touching me at the same time."

Gaude took a while before responding, too. He said: "Focus on the connection with your wolf and tell me what your wolf feels."

This time, it didn't take long for her to answer: "My wolf feels that you're definitely touching her ears."

Gaude had another thing in mind to try out: "Now focus away from your wolf, try to block the sensations of your wolf out for a moment."

Irma's eyes widened in realization. She said: "I can feel my hair being forced down, but I feel nothing from my ears."

Gaude took a moment to think before saying: "I think the Werewolf curse adds another astral body to everyone that has been afflicted and the Skinwalker ritual allows the two forms to communicate with each other.

I believe that in fully transformed state, the wolf side is fully manifested while the human remains as active as always. That is the extent regular Werewolves can reach, either on or off, so to speak, and that only during a full moon, except of course that their human consciousness is completely drowned out by the wolf's instinctual behavior."

Irma had returned to her usual armchair, she had a feeling that these few strokes of her head would lead to a long lecture.

She was right, as Gaude continued: "I suspect that the Werewolf was originally created as a weapon of war, in an attempt to combine the ferocity of the wolves and the intelligence of humans, however, the creator failed to account for the fact of two astral bodies being created that didn't know how to communicate with each other.

The result was instead a beast that was ferocious with a strong compulsion to slaughter any human it saw. It is also possible that they were that way by design and used as shock troopers in packs."

Irma seemed to catch on to what Gaude was going to say next, as she said: "And this is where the Skinwalker ritual comes into play?"

He replied: "Yes, exactly. The American natives have always strived to live in harmony with nature and each goes on a quest to find their own spirit animal upon reaching adulthood. The ritual to enter their own mindscape was probably present long before the first appearance of Werewolves.

They already had all the knowledge they needed to connect with their wolf. When America was being subjugated by the white people, they most likely used a few packs of Werewolves for that purpose.

Most likely the tribes that were attacked by the Werewolves had survivors that soon connected with the wolf within and joined into a single tribe that was able to stay ahead of any armies thanks to being able to partially transform at any time.

As you saw yourself during our visit, they are quite capable of completely transforming into Wolves, meaning that there must be another step involved, perhaps somehow suppressing the human astral body completely. A person capable of going through such a transformation is usually known as an Animagus."

Irma seemed surprised by the revelations that Gaude had reached with a bit of reasoning. She asked: "Do you want me to try and go through the full transformation, then?"

"Eventually, yes. At the very least as proof of principle. You see, so far, Werewolves have been unable to become Animagi. I think the cause may be that missing link between the inner animal, wolf in this case, and the person."

"As for right now, we'll measure your combat capabilities in your base state and in this half-transformation. Perhaps we can also perform a test in the full transformation for comparison. For now, try to return to your base state."

Irma tried to do exactly that. She closed her eyes once again and imagined herself as she had been before it all started.

Gaude looked at her for a while, then spoke: "You know, you could've left your eye color at blue. Didn't you like it?"

"I just didn't realize I would return completely to the way I imagined." She said a little embarrassedly.

He then took out a pair of what looked like metal claws attached to leather straps.

"These are your training claws. Just fasten them around your wrists and practice with them from now on. That way you'll be in your absolute peak form once you transform, and you can wear the combat version of these while in your human form.

I've stored the ritual disc and the meditation herbs into the cupboard. When you have time, guide your pack to connect with their wolves, just as you once did. I would like them all to be at least combat-capable during the next full moon.

Oh, and I think that since you are quite far along with the process, I can put in a good word with Mistle. You should get an all-clear to rejoin the society within a few hours."

Naturally, Irma wasn't the only one that got a practice weapon. Gaude's order had finally come through and there were a few crates of medieval-looking armor and weapons waiting to be distributed.

When Gaude was considering the weapons he should arm his purely human forces with, he had briefly considered firearms. Yet, he quickly discovered that a bullet simply wasn't big enough to fit a meaningful runic enchantment onto, not to mention that it would take a long time to carve a magazine full of them. As for enchanting a gun only?

It was quite obvious that the anti-projectile charms that had first been invented to repel arrows and crossbow bolts worked just as well on .50 caliber rounds, no matter what muzzle velocity they achieved.

However, cold weapons, instead, could be carved with rune clusters or even entire arrays, making it possible to add anti-magic properties, improve cutting power with both severing charms and charms to increase the mass of the blade without it being large and unwieldy and even many more properties, such as soldered-on strips of silver to maximize damage to Werewolves and so on.

As to why Gaude wanted the magical properties carved into the metal? Any enchantments cast with a wand could be removed with relative ease through the casting of a spell tailored for that purpose while those carved into the metal were of a more permanent nature, unless you were willing to dish out high premiums to have Goblin-crafted weapons.

Gaude wasn't one of those people with more Galleons than he knew what to do with, at least when it came to his liquid assets, and so he had instead ordered something much cheaper and given them to his Runecarving team.

In the end, there were two general types of weapons: those meant for practice, with dull edges and the enchantments on them limited to Unbreaking and weight increase, and the second type, those fine-tuned for dealing maximum damage in skilled hands.

The armor, meanwhile, was just one type – the one that would be worn on duty. Training was to be done without any armor, only with clothes enchanted to mitigate blows.

The armors, had quite a few functions carved unto them in the form of runic arrays: Imperturbable and Unbreakable charm, anti-apparition (not applicable to house elf apparition), anti-portkey, and anti-projectile wards. In other words, there was no escaping and no calling in reinforcements unless the enemy's forces included house-elves as a means of deployment. In addition, the armor was very difficult to break through and even if you did, it would reassume its undamaged state over time, unless the other charms gobbled up all the magic injected into the armor by both the magic gathering rune cluster and a few Wardstones.

Finally, there was an extra function: a very short-range invisibilty charm that created a bubble of invisibility with a three-foot radius around the wearer. It was coupled with a pair of shades enchanted with re-visibility, making the troops able to see each other. The invisibility was an extra function in the regard that it could be toggled on and off, different from the other charms that would react to an outside stimulus.

During testing it turned out, however, that the invisibility wasn't quite as perfect as Gaude had hoped: it would wear off when doing something that drew attention to oneself, such as attacking someone or making very loud noise.

Gaude decided that he'd also paint runic arrays onto the claws and hands of the Werewolves with blood ink to increase their combative capabilities. He hoped they'd not lose the arrays when engaging in bloody combat.

---

The following Sunday

After they were done with the morning lineup, Irma walked to Captain Ross and spoke: "I'll be taking leave for today, personal reasons."

"Care to elaborate?", Carter asked.

"I'll be taking a look at what's become of the orphanage I worked in while I was absent."

Irma wasn't all that worried. After all, Adelaide was still there. She trusted Adelaide as she had been like a mother to her. Part of the reason why she had chosen to work in the orphanage had been to help her.

She could've taken the bus, but she decided to go on foot instead. While the training area had its own lawn, wind and trees, it had all felt artificial somehow. There was no sky, just solid rock overhead.

After a change of clothes, she set out for a 6-mile walk. She didn't want to show up in a one-piece elastane bodysuit. She found even the thought to be inappropriate due to the clothing's clinging nature.

She hadn't noticed it before, but the streets were quite dirty. There was garbage on the ground, just piled up on the streets, waiting for the dustmen to pick it up.

Certainly, it wasn't even close to what had happened in the winter. The streets had been lined with trash back then, with the union on strike.

It was still early, a bit past 6 AM, but people were already starting to gather on the streets, filing in every which way. She picked up the pace into a light jog. For the people on the street, it seemed more like she was sprinting with her life on the line.

An hour later, she had made it back to the place she had called her home until just a bit over a month ago.

She could hear an argument from the street.

"You can't just increase the rent like that, we agreed on nine hundred and fifty pounds!", Adelaide's voice exclaimed.

"You can blame that slut of yours, what's her name again?", came a gruff man's voice. Irma remembered him; he was the one who she had given a proper slap on the face. Donald something, their landlord.

The man had deserved it too, back then. The man had come to ask for rent early and 'given her the choice' to substitute for the rent with her own body.

Irma stepped inside at that point. Not much had changed while she had been away.

Still the creamy green wallpaper with waterlilies that some of the kids had managed to draw on when nobody was looking, the creaky floorboards with worn paint and the ceiling that had blackened above the stove.

The children were all huddled up, afraid of the shouting going on across the room from them.

There they were, standing in the middle of the room. Donald, an incredibly fat man with a greasy face, whose belly draped over the hem of his pants, and Adelaide, a motherly woman with a few more streaks of gray hair than she remembered her having.

The man noticed her only when she had gotten right beside him.

"Have you reconsidered?", he asked, licking his lips.

"Reconsidered what exactly?", Irma asked dangerously.

"Giving me a taste of that body of yours, of course. I'd be willing to make a small concession and lower the rent if you'd be willing to do that.", he spoke. He had been reaching his hand towards Irma's chest while speaking.

Irma suddenly grabbed his hand, faster than he could react. She applied a pressure until his bones creaked.

"That's the only taste you'll get, you pig. Now take your money and get out!", she exclaimed, shoving a wad of cash into the man's sweaty palm. She had counted out exactly twelve hundred pounds the moment she heard the argument.

The man rushed out the door, his belly and face shaking to the rhythm of his footsteps.

"Oh, Irma, what have you done!", Adelaide complained. "You know he'll just come back with those goons of his, and there's nobody here that can stop him!"

"Let them come. We'll see how they'll like what'll happen to them.", Irma spoke, with a wolfish grin taking root on her face.

"What are you on about?", Adelaide asked. "Let me have a good look at you."

After doing just that, she exclaimed: "You poor thing, what have they done to you? Dear heavens Irma, you're all skin and bones! No matter what job they've got you on, they shouldn't let a girl starve like that! At least you're still in one piece, when Mr. Vywin said you had been attacked and had to be taken in for treatment and observation, I was afraid something horrible had happened to you! Now, let me make something for you to eat!"

"Mum, I'm quite alright, I'm still stuffed with breakfast!", Irma complained. She always called her mum when she was getting too motherly on her.

Adelaide had a sure way of making sure that all her kids had eaten properly. She pressed her palm on Irma's stomach, only to stop abruptly and exclaim with wide eyes: "Dear lord, you're rock solid! Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes! I'm perfectly fine. It's just the training all day long.", Irma explained.

Adelaide looked at her disbelievingly, then said: "Training all day long? What for? They better not be thinking of having you do something dangerous or they'll be getting an earful from me!"

She continued: "That Mr. Vywin never said what your special talent was, just said you've been taken for special training and you'd be keeping the country safe. Now tell me all about it."

Irma took a while to get her thoughts in order, about how much she could tell without putting anyone in danger or risking her own memories. Then she spoke: "It turns out I can get stronger very quickly. The rest is classified information."

"Can't you tell your own mother about it at least?", Adelaide asked. She had only ever used the mother card when she wanted something from her, but Irma loved her, nonetheless.

"I'm afraid not, mum.", Irma replied. "Classified means I can't tell anyone without a special permission."

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, even though the door was still open after Donald had rushed out.

"Come in, it's open!", Irma shouted.

Soon, a man walked through the front door and removed his shoes, before stepping closer to them. Both the women knew who that was.

"Mr. Vywin, what are you doing here?", Irma exclaimed.

Gaude spoke: "Ah, Irma. What a pleasant surprise to find you here.

You see, I was out on business when I saw a man drop this and say something about needing a very long vacation very far away from here. Since it had your name as the owner of the property and Mr. Ross informed me of your itinerary for today, I deemed it appropriate to deliver it here.", he said and handed Irma a piece of paper.

She took a look at for a moment before exclaiming: "It's the deed to the house! Thank you so much, Mr. Vywin!"

Irma just hugged 'Charles' right there, while Gaude didn't seem to care much about staying in the orphanage, he at least seemed to care enough to help them out.

Gaude replied: "You're like a sister to my boy, no thanks is necessary. All I did was pick up a piece of paper."

Irma suspected that there was much more to it than he claimed. She at least suspected that he had used some special methods to obtain the deed.

Adelaide had come out of her daze by that point and took an interrogatory tone: "Now young man, you tell me what you've been doing to my poor Irma! And what's so special about her talent that it's all classified information?"

Even though the Charles Vywin look seemed to be in his late fifties, Adelaide was still a decade older, and for some reason had decided to remind him of his relatively young age.

Gaude wasn't phased by the lady's outburst, he explained: "I could tell you all about it, but I'm afraid you'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for it and we'd have to take you into protective custody. Naturally, the kids here wouldn't be privy to that treatment."

Adelaide's eyes widened at that and her mouth formed a frown. She hadn't expected an answer like that but wasn't willing to pry further.

Instead, she asked: "What of little Peter, have you found him? The police only say that it's being handled by the proper authorities."

"Unfortunately, we haven't found any trace of Peter nor the man that took him. There's a task force working day and night, looking for the perpetrator. Now, I'm afraid I'm running late for business, so I'll have to depart from your lovely company.", he said.

Once Gaude had taken his leave, Adelaide asked Irma: "Is he single?"