Most believe that hunters originated and remain in France; maybe it's because of one family notorious in the circle of hunters around the world, the Argents or maybe—just maybe—it has to do with the fact that in other parts of the world, the hunters circles are so small, their accolades are mere whispers in the world of loud noises of people who don't believe in the supernatural. In Japan, most who are trained to be hunters are resourceful and learn the code of the Samurai, while in other parts of Asia, fight styles are merged with Muy Thai and other forms of martial arts. In Brazil, they infuse the movements of Capoeira into their training, making them agile and limber. In Latin America, their training is a bit more ruthless and sticks to the code that everyone learns, no matter the language and always loosely translated to 'if it isn't human, it must die and if it be a man who is a slave to the moon and becomes a wolf, it mustn't live.'
The Flores bloodline was small, their name changing every new addition to the family. Originally their given names were similar to the Argents, which translated from French means "Silver." The Flores family, originally took on the last name of Plata, translating to English as "Silver" as well. With each new woman born into the family, their names have changed but the rules had not. The men in the family trained to be soldiers and the women trained to be their leaders.
It was an unusually crisp night over in Boston, a place where the quiet was almost never a good thing. Eden Flores, the first child of the Flores hunting family whose roots originated in sunny Puerto Rico before coming to the United States for roughly two generations. At the tender age of fourteen she was exposed to the world she should have known was real. Eden always had a keen sense of understanding, something always felt slightly off about the world she roamed. The woods felt colder, nights a bit more eerie, people she's known forever a bit more unfamiliar on days of change. Her family, the family she though was superiorly average thanks to her construction worker father and nurse of a mother, their public lives the perfect covers for their personal lives.
Eden became the next to follow the rules. At age fifteen she was sworn into a secrecy about her family, trained in weaponry as well as tactics and learning the chain of command in the circle of the family. By the age of sixteen, Eden was unstoppable. The kill count of wolves she's slain was impeccable for someone of her age and size. She stood at a meek five foot three frame, just clawing at over one hundred pounds but slim and slender, her brown hair in waves if not straightened and her brown eyes were the killer. Brown eyes are considered common in this world but hers were welcoming and warm, only to be the last thing you looked into if you were the wrong species and you were ultimately met with your demise behind the chocolate of her eyes.
Most would believe this is where the story ends or begins. It's only the half.
- - -
The scene in front of the teens was one not even the best fiction writer couldn't dream up. Night had fallen, the group of teenagers looking for one friend who had been kidnapped by something no one saw coming in the least suspecting form.
They had prepared for anything and beaten almost everything from psychotic huntresses, rare kanimas, evil older hunters and what they had thought of as their hardest enemies to face, the alpha pack while also trying to defeat an evil Druid known as the Darach. No one saw this coming. Not in a million years and not in their wildest dreams would this have happened. They were supposed to be saving the town, saving their families. People were being killed, sacrificed at the hands of the Darach and they risked their own lives to save the lives of their loved ones.
In sacrificing themselves, they opened the gate to something new, something evil. Its hard to kill something that's lived for hundreds or thousands of years, something that's taken on the figure of someone you know, someone you trust, someone you love. In Japanese folklore, it's known as the Nogitsune; danger and death lies in its path, for the Nogitsune feeds off of chaos, pain and strife. After it had been defeated almost eighty years prior, the sacrifices true alpha Scott McCall, huntress Allison Argent and human Stiles Stilinski had done to save their parents, the beacon opened and the Nogitsune was freed.
But how do you kill something that has taken over the body, the mind, the entity that was trusted and loved? How do you kill something like the Nogitsune, but keep the one it possessed, Stiles Stilinski?
The scene was gruesome, mysterious soldiers known as the Oni who were deemed virtually indestructible were outnumbering the pack. Scott, Stiles—who happened to be himself after some weird moment of him throwing up bandages which contained the Nogitsune happened—, Allison, Field Kitsune Kira Yukimura and beta wolf Issac Lahey had gone to find Lydia Martin, a banshee. Scott and Stiles left to save Lydia, something she detested because of some feeling—a feeling she couldn't pinpoint. As the trio made their way back to the pack, Stiles collapsed and Lydia stayed behind with him.
There was that feeling Lydia often got; it was something like a tremble in her bones that seemed to shake her to the core every time she felt it. It was like something unknown ghosting their fingers across her skin, the touch cold and unwelcoming, it'd send shivers down her spine and the only way to shake it free was to scream. The feeling was unwanted, but the second sh felt it, Lydia felt numb. Her skin felt like pins and needles and for the first time since she's learned she was a banshee, the woman with strawberry blonde spooled for locks of hair screamed in pure pain than warning.
"ALLISON!"
Scott had returned to see the scene unfolding in front of him. Issac was being decimated by the Oni who were stronger and faster than the Beta wolf, Kira having a hard time keeping the black clad warriors at bay. Allison had done the unthinkable, her bow had penetrated the Oni and destroying it. There was a hope for some kind of end in this battle. There was a chill in the air when the unthinkable happened. The sword of the Oni had gone through Allison's stomach, straight through to the other side of her body.
And just like that, the Oni were gone.
The air grew cold and silent, nothing but the sound of heartbeats and jagged breaths dangling in the air as everyone tried to comprehend what happened. Lydia, still with Stiles, just cried as he was still passed out. Issac in shock as he looked over at Allison's body lay limp in Scott's arms as she said he was her first love, that this was perfect and she wasn't in pain. Just as quickly as the scene unfolded, Allison Argent had died.
- - -
"Ma, you don't have to tell me how to survive a hunting mission. I've been doing this with you guys for like a year and a half now..." Eden spoke, pulling over a black tank top that was probably a bit smaller than she'd admit and placing a black jacket over the tank top. Her hair in her usual ponytail, her brown locks always had to be away from her face when in hunting missions. Resting her hand on her mother's shoulder she smiled "...I'm supposed to take on the family business, I think I know how to make it back mami."
The older woman, Daniela, just looked into her daughter's brown orbs that were identical to her father's and smiled softly. "Mi hijta, I just worry okay? One day, your father and I won't be around to see you be more of an amazing hunter."
"You're going to be fine. You raised me, right? I wasn't the easiest person to raise. Plus there's also dad's cooking you had to endure so that kind of also means you're stronger than you think." Eden joked. She hated when her mother or father spoke about death, hunters don't die. In reality, they do die, Eden's not stupid but her parents are hunters and the best hunters in the Latin quarters if the world who came to America, the best hunters on the East Coast. They don't die and they won't until they're all old and gray. Eden's eyes were somber as she looked into her mother's eyes. "This hunting mission isn't too much different than the others we've been in. We go in, find the alpha of the pack, render the betas down to make them back off and make the pack dismember. We've gone over the plan plenty of times—"
"But do you remember what to do if all of that fails?" The male voice boomed behind her, never seeming to age. Eden's father was a bit older, around the age of forty-one but still looked as youthful as when he was twenty-five. Sure his hair started to gray a bit but he still had the same smile she always saw in her parents' wedding picture when he was twenty-two years old.
The Latina sighed, looked down at her feet, her black boots entirely more interesting than the conversation. "...if in a situation where things aren't going to plan, think of yourself in survival mode. Although we are trained, we are not invincible..." she started in a monotone voice, reciting words she's said numerous times before. "...new soldiers can be trained, leaders are bred. It is a victory if at least one of our men or women come home alive."
The woods were quiet as was the ride in the car to their destination. Eden tapped her foot along to the music playing from her iPhone, one of her pre-hunt rituals; the music helped not only calm her nerves but keep her focused like it does to an athlete. Most hunters had vast weaponry training in guns, bows and arrows, daggers and such. Eden took a different route in her training, anything she could get her hands on she wanted to learn. Her favorite weapon beside the Chinese ring daggers happened to be something more natural than any other weapon. Eden always had quick hands, her eye hand coordination was uncanny. The second her hand held onto a large staff, it all made sense for that to be her weapon. Any kind of staff, long, short or even in the form of nunchucks, Eden controlled with such precision.
Once the Flores family exited their car and started to walk into the woods, the petite brunette adjusted the daggers and the nunchucks at the back of her belt that was covered by her jacket.
Everything happened in a flash. Before she knew it, her family was surrounded by betas, eyes of blue and gold surround them. She wasn't sure how or when but the family split up in battle, already breaking one of her new rules while on a hunting mission with her. 'You always stick together, there's strength in numbers and in having people watch your back as much as they watch yours.'
Her eyes found a large branch on the ground; her movements quick and swift as she grabbed the branch and controlling it as if it were a staff. It was just enough distraction as Eden grabbed a ring dagger from behind her back and successfully cut the beta in front of her. She was trained to kill but the mission today wasn't to kill, it was to disband a pack to keep the radar off the Flores family and future packs to come. Adrenaline flowed through her veins like electricity, her eyes moving everywhere to find her mother and father. They were in trouble and she could see it.
Eden felt a sharp pain across her side, hot liquid flowing down her cool skin. Looking down she realized she had been cut, swiped by the claws of a beta. One more blow and she was knocked down. The pain was horrible, it felt like hell. Eden's vision blurred a bit as she laid in pain. Once her vision cleared, she felt paralyzed, couldn't move. The Alpha had arrived, bigger than she anticipated. Her mother, bloodied and bruised, her father in worse condition. Eden knew she had to save her family but she couldn't move, couldn't make a sound.
'...if in a situation where things aren't going to plan, think of yourself in survival mode. Although we are trained, we are not invincible. New soldiers can be trained, leaders are bred. It is a victory if at least one of our men or women come home alive.'
So Eden stayed still, played dead in the leaves and silently sobbed as she watched the pack kill her parents, rip them apart easily as if it were for sport, and leave along their way. She doesn't know how long she laid there, how long she waited until she grabbed her iPhone and called 911, crying and telling them she and her family needed help.
- - -
"Scott, look at me. Look at me..." His voice was stern but you can hear how much he was in pain. Chris Argent didn't see how or when it happened, but he saw his baby girl, Allison, bleeding and dying in Scott's arms. First, his sister Kate and then his own wife, Victoria. Allison wasn't supposed to die, not this young and not now. She was only seventeen. Chris had to be a hunter first, father second. This time, he needed Scott to know the story to tell the police because they'd never believe a story about demonic Oni killing his daughter, a teenage supernatural hunter. "Scott, look at me. You have to remember..."
The problem wasn't remembering or forgetting, it's that Scott couldn't forget what just happened in front of him even if he tried. His eyes remained on the ground, heart beating so loud and so fast in his own ears it was damn near deafening. Scott couldn't bring his brown eyes to meet Chris Argent's grayish-blue ones.
"...you called me first, okay?" Chris started, forming the story for Scott to remember and repeat back to him to say in front of the cops. "Say it. You called me first..."
"I... I called you." Scott replied, eyes still in the ground and too afraid to lift them and see Allison's body still lying there. That was his first love, his friend and love and you don't get another one of those. He's seen dead bodies before, but he's never exactly felt a strong connection to them like he did Allison. This was a different hurt than any physical pain, different from any pain he's felt under the full moon as he shifted.
"Not you. Say Mr. Argent or her dad." Chris corrected with urgency in his voice.
"I called her dad first..." Scott responded, words feeling numb as they left his lips.
"What else? What happened?" Chris asked, hoping Scott remembered what to say.
Scott just paused to breathe and swallow down the tears he knew were coming. "There were two of them..." he spoke, Chris nodding in agreement. "They tried to steal our car." The words were like acid on his tongue, hurting to lie about what happened to the brunette lying dead on the ground, but he had to continue. "They wore masks. One of them had a knife-"
"You think" Argent interrupted, emphasizing the word 'think' in his speech. "Don't get specific Scott. You saw something sharp and metallic, you think it was a knife. What do you say next?" Time was running out and Chris knew deep down inside, Scott was too truthful, too kind and too damn hurt to lie but he needed to do it. "If you get confused what do you always repeat?"
Scott wasn't confused, he was numb and in damn near hysterics but he couldn't show that in front of Chris. "...it just happened so fast."
"That's right..." Chris spoke, watching the young alpha just crumble to pieces in front of his very eyes. "Say it again, Scott! Say it again!"
And just like that, Scott was able to lift his eyes and head from the ground and over to Chris Argent, asking the toughest question he could muster at the moment. "How are you doing this?"
Chris took a second and looked back at Scott, his eyes were hard and if you looked deep enough, full of pain. He couldn't be a father who mourned, not yet and not until the stories were set but when was it okay to be that man? His eyes locked with Scott's before he spoke the words that even made the bile in his stomach rise. "It's what we do." Finally looking back over at where his daughter would be laying lifeless on the ground, Chris swallowed hard. "It's what we do..."
- - -
Eden could see the badge, her head hurting, body sore and heart shattered into a million pieces. She could have saved her family, could have helped them avoid this death they somehow foreshadowed but she didn't. Eden thought selfishly and survived.
The beeping of the heart monitor was annoying the hell out of her, the IV in her hand was sore and so were her stitches on her side. It had been two days since the incident, she had been admitted to the hospital and given a blood transfusion for the blood she lost while waiting for the ambulance. Playing with her fingers, sniffling as she could see everything happening in her head like a vivid nightmare, Eden just felt sick.
"Ma'am?" the young cop spoke. Eden never looked up. "I know this is a difficult time for you and we understand if it's hard for you to recall the facts of the situation, but every little bit of information helps and counts..."
"My family and I were walking through the woods, we always liked it because we felt close to Earth and freedom..." Eden spoke softly, sniffling back tears. "I heard a low growl but thought nothing of it. We were waking back to the car and then I stepped on a branch or a twig or...something and I..."
Eden couldn't breathe, everything felt like it was closing up in her chest. "Relax ma'am, take your time..."
Eden felt the tear slip from her eye. God damn weakness. "I felt a scratch and heard a growl and I tried to run with my parents but I tripped and I fell and I couldn't see much. All I saw were eyes and dark fur. Black? Brown? Dark gray? I don't know it was dark and I couldn't see--my vision blurred and..."
Shit. Specifics. Eden needed to back track.
"I'm sorry" the brunette whispered before looking up at the officer for a small moment in time, shaking her head. "It just happened so fast..."