Isaac is being shocked by a pretty African American woman.  He is bloodied and barely conscious, and she is half leading, half carrying him. His neck is wounded, and she shares that Werewolf can use their claws to share memories. When Isaac states that he remembers nothing, she adds that they can also steal them that way. She tells Isaac to hold on before they get on a motorcycle. The motorcycle speeds through the night in an urban area. Isaac is still barely conscious before he begins to hear something, which alerts him. Someone’s following them, on foot. It’s another Werewolf with claws and teeth bared. A second Werewolf appears and the girl speeds up the bike. The Werewolf are twins. They claw at the bike, causing it to swerve dangerously. Red eyes are seen, revealing that the werewolves are alphas.

 

The girl stops the bike in front of a wall. She reminds Isaac to hold on before starting the bike toward the alphas before jerking away from them sharply. The bike crashes through a window into a warehouse, and Isaac passes out. He falls off the bike, causing them to crash. The twin alphas enter the warehouse through the gaping hole in the window and mold themselves into one much larger werewolf as Isaac watches. Isaac attempts to army crawl (must be a Hale pack thing), and the girl tells him to get down before shooting with some type of stun gun. The electric shock forces the alphas to separate, but by the time the lights of the stun gun stops flashing the alphas are gone.

 

TITLE SEQUENCE

 

Stiles and Scott are in a tattoo parlor downtown. Scott wants a tattoo of two bands around his arm. Stiles is trying to figure out what Scott’s trying to accomplish. Stiles faints because he doesn’t do well with needles. In the car, Scott comments that the tattoo is burning before removing the gauze and seeing that the tattoo is healing until it disappears. 

 

Allison and Lydia are driving together and discuss dating. Apparently, Allison spent the summer in France but did not date. Jackson was taught how to function in society by Derek before the Whittemore family moved to London. Apparently, the girls have a double date planned.

 

The Jeep pulls up next to them at a stoplight, and Scott is mesmerized by Allison, who he’s forced himself not to interact with over the summer. The light’s red, and both Scott and Allison try to get their drivers to run the light. Once Stiles attempts to talk to the girls, Lydia drives away anyway because it’s a country road and no one’s coming. Once the light’s green, Scott and Stiles continue on. Stiles, fed up with Scott bothering him, stops the car in the middle of the road, and Lydia stops as well, thinking something might be wrong. They continue to discuss what to do before a deer hits Lydia’s windshield, antlers first. Scott and Stiles get out of the car to check on the girls. Lydia thinks that the deer looked crazy before it hit the car, and Scott contradicts with “scared,” putting his hand against it to confirm. It’s a nearly full moon.

 

Isaac is wheeled into the ER on a stretcher, and Melissa approaches him, asking about why he’s not healing. Isaac tells her to check on the girl, who’s apparently worse. The girl says she has to find someone, tell him something, the alpha. Melissa asks about Derek, but she’s forced to leave the girl before she hears an answer, which is that the girl is looking for “McCall, Scott McCall.”

 

Scott is doing pull-ups in his room while reading The Call of the Wild. There’s a notification on his computer, and he sees a word-of-the-day email for “ephemeral.” He remarks that his tattoo was ephemeral.

 

Chris Argent enters his daughter’s room, worried about her after the accident. Chris tells her that she could skip the first day of school, or the first week, but Allison says she wants to go because she promised Lydia she’d drive her. Allison seems near tears as she hugs her father.

 

Stiles is researching deer accidents as the Sheriff tries to get him to go to school. The Sheriff physically pulls him away from the computer.

 

As Lydia gets ready for school there’s a boy in her bed, shirtless. He asks about going on a date, and she’s not feeling it. He then asks about more sex, and she doesn’t seem convinced about that either as she grabs her bag and walks out.

 

Scott pulls up to the school on his new dirt bike. He sees other motorcycles in the parking lot, two matching ones. Scott tells Stiles that he wants to ask Derek about tattooing since he obviously got the triskele to stick. Stiles comments that Derek probably has bigger things to worry about, gesturing at missing persons posters of Boyd and Erica. Scott just makes a face before eavesdropping on their reinstated principal, who just found Gerard’s hemicorporectomy sword in his office.

 

Lydia comments on the new freshmen, and Allison tells her it’s okay to be single. Lydia essentially tells her that she’s projecting. Lydia states that she doesn’t want a boyfriend, she wants a distraction. At that point, two twins with motorcycle helmets in hand walk in. It’s the alpha twins. 

 

Melissa checks Isaac’s slowly healing wounds. Isaac was scheduled for surgery because his injuries were so bad, and she doesn’t know how to explain the fact that he now only has a few cuts that are comparatively minor, especially when deputies are in the hospital investigating the case. Isaac suggests calling Derek, but Derek’s not answering his phone. Isaac tells her to call Scott next. 

 

The Sheriff asks Melissa if there’s some way she can talk to the girl, and Melissa tells him no because she’s highly sedated. We see that she’s taken apart the IV and is emptying the sedative to make it look like it’s been administered. The Sheriff asks that Melissa calls when she’s awake again.

 

Allison and Lydia walk into class and the only seat available ends up being in front of Scott. Allison asks to sit there and Scott very awkwardly allows her to accept it. Stiles gives him a sarcastic thumbs-up. Every phone in the class goes off at once, and they realize their English teacher has text messaged them a passage from the first book they’re going to read in class. She tells them it’s the last text they are to get in her class and tells everyone to turn their phones off and put them away.

 

Melissa tries to call Scott and she doesn’t answer. Another nurse goes to see Isaac and puts a hypodermic needle of something into his IV. Isaac realizes that something’s up and sees that her toenails are sharpened into claws just before he passes out, but he sees her red alpha eyes first.

 

Allison passes Scott a note in class saying “Can we talk?”. The principal walks into the class, and Scott is called up by their new teacher. She tells them that his mom has called him to leave but warns him about missing a bunch of school again this year. He reassures her that his resolution for a better academic year will not be ephemeral. The teacher is a little confused, but impressed. 

 

Stiles notices a bandage on Lydia’s ankle and asks about it. Apparently, her dog, Prada, bit her. Stiles asks if she’s ever been bitten before and suggests that there’s some kind of trend in the animals acting weird, like something bad coming. Lydia’s not convinced, but then a bird hits the window and dies. The teacher goes to the window and sees hundreds of birds coming toward the window. The birds shatter it. She tells her students to get down. In the aftermath, all the students are okay save for minor injuries.

 

Melissa tells Scott that she was hoping not to bring Scott into the new Werewolf drama because he had been doing so well over the summer. She tells Scott where Isaac is and we see the girl walking out. A blind man enters the elevator with Scott. 

 

Isaac is currently being prepped for surgery. A nurse pulls up the gauze, revealing that Isaac is healed. Everyone’s generally confused. The blind man asks Scott to help him out of the elevator.

 

The surgeon yells at his staff to get Isaac out since he doesn’t need surgery. A nurse with claws pushes Isaac’s gurney out and takes him to a back hallway where he’s put in a wheelchair. 

 

Scott is walking around the hospital looking for Isaac when he spots Isaac’s nurse taking him into an elevator. Scott slides his claws out and runs at the elevator, barely making it in. Both wolves shift, and Isaac’s nurse is another alpha. Isaac remains passed out in the elevator. Scott and the alpha fight, and the alpha gets a hand around Scott’s throat. He says to Scott, “Don’t you know what you’re dealing with? I’m an alpha,” but before Scott can react Derek appears, putting his claws in the alpha nurse’s back and stating that he is also an alpha before throwing the nurse out of the elevator. Derek looks down at Scott and asks, “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Scott is not amused.

 

In the destroyed English classroom, Stiles notices their teacher, Ms. Blake, looking shaken, and goes to talk to her, picking a feather out of her hair. Chris Argent has appeared, and he’s talking to Allison. The Sheriff sees them talking and approaches, asking if Chris had any insight. Chris pretends to be confused before the Sheriff adds that he knows Chris is an experienced hunter, although he assumes Chris hunts animals. Chris states that he’s stopped hunting.

 

Derek walks into the old Hale House carrying Isaac and Scott enters behind him, on the phone with Stiles. Scott tells Stiles to meet him there. Scott asks if Derek is still living at the Hale House, and Derek states that he’s not, but he’s looking for something there that could help Isaac. Scott asks about the other alpha and Derek’s response is, “Rival pack. It’s my problem. Now, go home. Go back to being a teenager.” Derek finds what he’s looking for. It appears to be wolfsbane. Scott tells Derek that there’s one way that he could repay the favor Derek owes him for having showed up to try to help Isaac.

 

The girl is now dressed in civilian clothes and approaches Allison and Lydia, asking for Scott. She doesn’t say much but makes a point to leave matching marks on both Allison and Lydia’s wrists. Apparently, over the summer Chris and Allison agreed that the only way they were staying in Beacon Hills was if they stayed out of the supernatural business.

 

While talking with the Sheriff, Deaton reveals that strange things are happing with the animals at the clinic as well, and that the animals are doing these things to themselves.

 

Derek switches to alpha vision and can see the ink of Scott’s tattoo. It is unclear what an alpha's vision allows them to see, as the show doesn't elaborate. Stiles stands by watching them. He asks Scott what it means. Scott says that he doesn’t know, leading Derek to ask why it’s so important to him. Scott discusses how the word “tattoo” actually means “open wound” in Samoan, and he knew he wanted to get a tattoo when he was eighteen, but now he’s deciding to get one earlier as a reward for giving Allison space all summer even though the whole situation still hurts; still feels like an open wound. Derek seems vaguely satisfied by this answer. Derek warns Scott that this will be the worst pain he’s ever felt before flicking on a blowtorch.

 

Stiles decides that's his cue to leave, but Derek makes him stay to help hold Scott down. He does so, and Derek starts to trace the tattoo with the blow torch. Scott is seen beginning to shift in reaction to the pain as the screen fades to black. It is not explained how a blowtorch would be helpful in making a tattoo remain permanent on a werewolf since burns do heal with time.

 

Scott comes to, covered in sweat, with his tattoo fully formed. Derek and Stiles are both watching. Scott and Stiles leave with Scott commenting on how it’s nice to have something so permanent when everything’s seemed pretty ephemeral since he got bitten. Apparently, Scott’s earlier studying was for the upcoming PSAT.

 

Scott asks about the door being painted red on the way out. Derek tells him to go home, and it’s obvious that he’s attempting to cover something up. Scott claws at the door, and Derek considers stopping him before deciding against it. Once enough of the paint is scratched off the alpha pack symbol is revealed. It's similar to the triskele on Derek's back but it has hard lines and is formed primarily of triangles.

 

The girl is in the locker room when the twin alphas, the alpha with the sharped toenails, the nurse Alpha, and one more enter the locker room.

 

Scott realizes that the angular triskele is a pack symbol, and Derek reveals that there is an alpha pack as the girl in the locker room fights them. She has impressive martial arts skills, but she isn’t a match for five alphas.

 

Stiles asks how multiple alphas even work as a pack, and Derek says that there’s a leader named Deucalion.

 

In the locker room, we see that Deucalion is the blind man who was in the elevator with Scott earlier in the episode. 

 

Derek decides to go ahead and tell Scott that he, along with Isaac and Peter, have spent the last four months trying to get Erica and Boyd from the alpha pack. Scott asks how you would even fight an alpha pack, and Derek replies “With all the help I can get.” Before Scott can respond Isaac comes to and asks about the girl. Derek doesn’t know who he’s talking about. 

 

Deucalion uses his hand to create a mental picture of the girl. She tells him that he’s afraid of the teenage boy, implying that Scott is a threat. Deucalion replies that he is a potential threat, but he’s planning on having someone else take care of that threat for him, and the girl realizes that he means Derek before Deucalion kills her.

 

Lydia and Allison are discussing paint colors. When they are each holding a swatch up to the wall next to each other they realize that the marks the girl left are identical, just reflected. The mark is identical to a symbol on the floor of a dark cold building. In that building are Boyd and one other person.