UNKNOWN MAN

It was morning the next day and the first thing Eclipse did when she woke up was check if the shifters were there or not. To her surprise, they weren't there. She thought that Jesse would follow through with what he said to have shifters watching her at all times. Little did she know that they were actually there but she couldn't see them.

She went out to greet her granny and Maui but they were still asleep, including Raine. She decided to take a morning walk because she was bored. She left the house quietly. Some meters away from her home, she saw a man who was surrounded by young boys. They seemed to be trying to take his bag from him. That was life in Lucky Springs sometimes. Although it was a peaceful village, over the years, youths that migrated from other villages into Lucky Springs, had made the place unsafe for people.

As she walked closer to the man, she couldn't shake the feeling of connection to this man off. She decided to help him. There were 3 boys in total, about 16 years of age. She still had her expensive necklace from the troop house on. She would trade it for the man to be left alone.

"Hey, please leave him alone, as you can see, He's old enough to be your father. Do you behave this way with your fathers huh?", Eclipse asked, feeling angry because of their behavior towards the unknown man. The 3 boys stopped struggling with the man for his bag which contained God knows what. They turned to look at the insolent fool that dared to interrupt their work. These boys were notorious for taking people's things towards the border of Lucky Springs, but it seems that they decided to try their luck a little bit inside of Lucky Springs and indeed luck smiled upon them for they saw the most beautiful girl they had seen in all their 16 years of living.

They were utterly stunned.

*****

Somewhere not too far from them, 2 young men that could have girls drooling from looking at them alone, were pretending to be interested in some papers but were secretly watching the brawl happening. They were flame gorilla shifters, who were ready to cut the boys in two if they harmed Eclipse as it was a direct order from their Silverback. Although These shifters weren't first levels but third levels, their strength could be compared to that of five hippos. This was how strong the Aquilla flame shifters alone were, not to mention their combined strength with the Aquilla Ice shifters. They would cause the earth if not the universe itself to quake. This was why they called them the "BEASTS OF THE FORBIDDEN FOREST".

*****

One of the boys whistled lustfully. "Damn she's hot". They immediately forgot about their struggle with the old man who was currently looking at Eclipse intently, unknown to her.

"Please, I'd appreciate it if you leave him alone. I understand that you guys need some money so here...", she took out her left hand and upturned it to reveal the necklace in her palm. "you can have this instead. It's worth more than you can imagine"

Now the boys' attention had been diverted again. They really had no sense of what they wanted, girls or money. 'Confused hooligans', Eclipse thought.

"We'd be foolish to turn down such an offer. Fuck off old man, we got better things right in front of us". One of the boys who had blonde hair said. He immediately took the necklace that was offered and was thinking of taking the girl too until they all felt chills running down their spine.

"What was that?", their leader asked looking terrified. "No idea", the other boys replied. This time the leader tried to take Eclipse himself but again, that creepy feeling came accompanied with a slight rumble of the ground which caused all of them including Eclipse to loose their balance a little. All except...the old man.

"Fuck this shit, this place is weird, we gotta get the hell outta here", the leader yelled, and soon, the hooligans were far away with their tails between their legs.

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