ECLIPSE
Eclipse was never quite sure which moment in the art of killing was the most anticlimactic.
Was it when her heels clicked ominously against the floor like the countdown to death? Or was it when she swished her weapon in the air? Perhaps, it was when she watched the blood drain from her victims face while they stared at her, who was the goddess of death herself.
Swaying her hips side to side as if she was in a trance-like dance, Eclipse walked into a den of five werewolves.
Pup traffickers who kidnapped little girls and sold them to deranged Alphas. The bounty that was placed on their head came from one such girl who they once sold in the same manner but had now gained power enough to take their lives.
Their scent told her everything she needed to know about the men who will soon die under her blade;
Level Three Shifters. Skilled. Dangerous. But hardly enough to handle her.
Her silhouette alone gave her away. In her partial shift form, ashen-white hair tumbled down her shoulders in waves, half-obscuring her face like a mourning veil. Black leather kissed her skin—long sleeves, sculpted pants, thigh-high boots made for killing, not seduction.
Yet somehow, she managed to do just both.
In the past few years, Eclipse had built enough reputation that her victims instantly knew who she was at first sight. And they all knew her by one name; Arrow.
Some like to call her avenger. Some liked to call her the justice maker. But most? They called her Arrow. Because like a target she had never missed a kill once she sets her eyes on it.
And the same went for the five men who until five seconds ago were having a good laugh around a table filled with drinks and enough meal to feed a small village; all who now stared between her and in the door while they wondered how she had managed to make it in.
Eclipse smiled under the shadows casted by her spilled hair like a veil.
"A… Arrow?" The first man stuttered, staring at her with wide eyes, voice tight with disbelief. Perhaps he was thinking that she was some sort of prop/ A prostitute dressed like one of Vraga's notorious assassins to make for a racy sexual encounter.
Eclipse tilted her head to the side, her Ashen Wolf inching for action, but she suppressed the feral thing. This was a situation that her partial form could handle easily.
"Fine sirs," she drawled, her voice sensual and lethal like smoke curling from a blade, "may I kindly request the honor of claiming your lives?"
That was all the answer they needed for the second man inhaled sharply. The third man began to shift, claws cracking through skin. The fourth unsheathed a curved dagger. The fifth? He hesitated.
Smart boy.
But they were all too slow for her. Way too slow.
A flick of her wrist, and her blade sang the whistle of death as it was drawn—silver and swift. It sank clean into the third man's throat before he could finish transforming. He choked on his blood, dropping mid-shift like a gutted animal.
The room exploded.
The first lunged for her. She turned sideways, gracefully, letting him impale himself on the second exposed blade strapped to her thigh. He didn't even grunt—just collapsed, wide-eyed, confused at how swift death had come for him.
The fourth fought dirty. He aimed for her side. She welcomed it. Spun low, caught his wrist mid-swing, and drove her heel into his knee so hard his leg bent the wrong way. He screamed. She silenced him with a quick, clean slice across the jugular.
The fifth was already bolting.
"Coward," she whispered, almost fondly.
With one fluid motion, she unslung the bow from her back, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. It whistled through the air and the silverhead landed clean—right between his shoulder blades. He stumbled, crashed into the doorframe, and fell, twitching.
Silence fell in the room.
Blood painted the floor in red arcs.
It wasn't yet a minute since she entered the room… and yet it was already over before it began.
She straightened, her pulse calm, her breath even. In an instance, her hair returned to its normal raven black colour—testament to how much control she now had over the Ashen Wolf.
While she didn't deny the appeal of knowing that she had helped certain seven-year-old girl escape the fate of serving as slaves to wicked Alphas, she was getting tired of this affair.
It was five years already, and the man she wanted to kill was still at large, walking the world unscathed like he owned it. Whereas she had been living in the nightmare he submerged her in all the while.
The door opened and Ronan entered. He glanced distastefully at the bodies on the floor and then looked at her.
"I told you I could take care of them." he said.
"Forty percent," She muttered, "it's been four months since the Bloodhound declared that I have a forty percent chance to take his life. Up until now, those numbers haven't moved up one inch."
Ronan stared at her. "You are already impressive enough…." He tried to encourage her.
She approached the fifth body, leaning over it to take out her arrow from the still burning flesh. "Forty percent is the difference between a failed mission and a scarred, burnt face. Or worse, death." She recited mechanically. "The Bloodhound had a sixty percent chance. Forty will not make a dent."
And she intended to make more than a dent when he faced Malric NorthSteed. A hole won't satiate her.
"The weight of the calculations are different and you know that."
"True. But it doesn't make my forty percent any more than what it already is.
He sighed. "I know we have spoken about this before, but why don't you let me go in your steed instead…."
"Have the cleaning crew come." She interrupted him before he would fully resurrect their age long argument at that moment, "I am done here."
Wiping off the blood from the arrow against the dead man's cloth, she tucked it in her quiver, and began to make her way out of the room. Just as she opened the door, she came face to face with Jabber—the man who personally cleaned after her missions.
A toothpick was tucked between his teeth as per usual. His stance relaxed and legs crossed. He was in his late forties, although he liked to dress younger as if he had a point to prove.
"Congratulations Arrow." He said, "that last shot was ecstatic."
"Stalking me now, Jabber?" She questioned, pretending to not have noticed his presence all the while even though she did.
He twirled the toothpick with his tongue, quite amused by an inside joke she wasn't aware of.
"It was a tough mission. Even a Baj would have had difficulties taking them down in five minutes. You did it under one."
"Your point?" She said curtly.
"I am just wondering why the organisation still has not grouped you under the ranks. I would reckon you will be an Ark."
She tilted her head to the side, now amused. "I don't have enough kills to be an Ark."
Two hundred kills was one of the requirements to make the rank an Ark, a number that Eclipse had no desire of dreaming of, talk more of attaining.
It was as insane as the Hollow that made the requirement in the first place. But she had no interest in telling them how to run their business.
"Seeing as you're about to be given the most important mission on earth, I would say you're being too humble." Jabber drawled sarcastically, eying her peculiarly.
"What do you mean?"
"You've been summoned back to the Hollow for the bounty on the Alpha King's head."