19 years later…

A dark haired young man lay on his bed gazing up at the ceiling, which happened to be made of wood. The young man was on the verge of leaving his teenage years behind, but still held some teenage qualities about him. He lived his whole life with his mother and his cousin Clare inside the place called Rootcore inside the forest next to the town of Briarwood, California. The young man, Bowen, had no memory of his father, Leanbow. All his mother told him was that Leanbow loved him very much, and died when he was just a baby when the forces of the Underworld attacked the forest, killing him, Clare's mother Niella, and his father's apprentice, Daggeron, who was supposedly more like Bowen's uncle. Not a single day went by that Bowen didn't think about what his life would be like if the Underworld never attacked.

"Bowen!" his mother yelled from downstairs pulling him out of his daydream.

He didn't move right away or make any acknowledgement of ever hearing his mother. He turned over onto his side and stared out the window towards the direction of Briarwood. He had only been there a few times in his life, the last time being just a few months ago. He would stand in the shadows and watch the non-believers go by. The non-believers of magic that was. He couldn't believe that no one in the town believed that magic even exists, for the forest, if one were to ever venture into it held a mysterious world full of mystical creatures and magic. He would try to look for people his own age, like a red-haired boy whose name from what he could gather was Chip, and his two girl friends, he wasn't sure of the girl's names, Vida and Megan, or something like that? When he was there last time, another boy had joined them, who had a really interesting way of talking. Xander? Was that his name? For some weird reason, Bowen felt drawn to them, but never had the nerve to approach them. He never mentioned it to his mother or his cousin.

At that moment, said cousin barged into his room. "Bowen, your mother has been calling you for the past ten minutes, and she's not happy," Clare quickly said, talking to her cousin's back.

Bowen turned around, and looked at his cousin with a blank stare. "Bowen your scaring me," Clare said.

"Wait, what?" he said, returning to reality.

Clare shook her head, "Just come on," she said.

Both cousins reached the end of the hallway when they were greeted by a woman dressed in pure white, who currently had her arms crossed and wasn't looking too happy. "Bowen…" she said angrily.

He looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry, mom…"

"Didn't you hear me yelling at you for the past ten minutes?" Udonna asked.

"I..well…I…" Bowen said very timidly, never looking up from the ground.

Udonna just looked at her son. There was something up with him, of course he had always been shy, but to ignore her like that? That was not her son, and that was definitely not Leanbow's son. "Bowen, what am I going to do with you?" she asked.

During that time Clare had snuck her away around her aunt, and went to the table in the center of the room that had the five symbols on it. She had always wanted to know what the symbols meant, but the question had simply never came up. She always thought it was weird that Udonna was training her as a sorceress just like her, but she was training her son to go on a totally different path that Clare couldn't see. Sure she taught Bowen spells, but she always had him out back or in the meadow training for a distant battle. In the midst of her curiosity, the earth began to shake below them. Clare held onto the table for dear life. Meanwhile behind her, Bowen fell into his mother's arms and they both fell against the wall. As quickly as it began, it was over. Things were knocked off shelves, but what was the most interesting was the book entitled the Xenotome. It somehow made its way from the bookshelf to the table right in front of her, and made itself a stand to lay on.

"Udonna, Bowen, take a look at this," Clare exclaimed.

"What is it child?" Udonna asked, walking over to the Xenotome, Bowen on her heels.

She gasped as the book opened, and words appeared written in the ancient language that Bowen never showed any desire to learn as much as Udonna pushed. "The forces of the Underworld…" she whispered as she began to read.

Udonna turned towards her son, "Bowen, I want you to go into Briarwood. There you will find four people who seem to be hiding magic within themselves. They will probably be oblivious, I want you to use any means necessary and bring them here."

"But Mom," Bowen began…

"Don't you but Mom me, Bowen. Go. Now. The fate of this world and that world depends on you to do this."

He nodded and ran out the door, waving his red wand around him in the process to make his clothes look normal to those he was about to visit. He got to his broom, and changed it into a motorcycle which he in recent years seemed to develop an affinity towards, and rode towards Briarwood to hand four strangers their destinies…