Eclipse On Luna

Chapter-6

[Irene Miles’ POV]

Most of the ladies were asleep. But Alana was guarding the door. I sat next to her with Thalia next to me. “Do you really want to get out of here?” I asked them.

“Of course we want to,” Alana said.

“Fight. Every lady here will have to fight for themselves. We have two options. We can escape fighting our way through the soldiers or we will have to fight to survive in the games. In both cases, we need to fight. Since you guys already tried escaping once, the security around these walls would have been tightened. Tell me Alana, while you helped them escape, what do you think you were lacking in?”

Alana gaped in the air in front of her thoughtfully for a few minutes, then said, “many things. First, the ladies weren’t confident enough. They were clumsy and always scared of being found out. Even when I showed them the escape route and asked them to stick to it, some of them acted on their own. Those rash decisions they made alerted the guards, and they caught us. But even when we were caught, there were only ten to fifteen guards. If all of us had united and fought against them, maybe the escape would have been a success. I couldn’t do everything on my own. I am not that powerful. You are right, Miss Assassin. Maybe if the ladies knew how to fight back, we could have escaped.”

Thalia sighed, “I felt that too. But they were desperate. You can’t blame them.”

“I am not blaming them. I am only telling you the flaws in our escape plan. You didn’t even join us in the escape. It could be possible you alerted the guards.” Alana had said something huge. Maybe she didn’t understand where she took that conversation. I needed to put off the spark she had ignited unknowingly before it could set thirty lives ablaze.

“What did you say?” Thalia frowned as she got up. “Why do you think I would do such a filthy thing? Even though I knew it was useless to run away, I didn’t stop any of you. Why do you think I would alert those motherfxckers and get you caught?”

Alana got up as well, “I just said, ‘maybe.’ I didn’t say you did.”

“You can’t accuse someone so easily and assume they did something wrong!”

“There is no need for you to get worked up if you didn’t alert them,” Alana said, stepping closer to Thalia, who also took steps closer to Alana. The atmosphere had become so tense in just a few words and seconds. I got up with a jolt and placed my hand between them.

“Alana, apologise to Thalia this instant,” I said, glaring at Alana.

“But…”

“What proof do you have against her? Did you see her, or did anyone else see her informing the guards?” I asked in a rough tone.

Alana opened her mouth as if she was about to speak something, but she shut her lips again. “I don’t.” She lowered her head. “I am sorry, Thalia. You belong to their pack, so I thought they might have kept some spy between us who helped them know what was going on internally.”

I saw Thalia cool down. She didn’t say she accepted Alana’s apology, but from her face, it seemed she did. She was quite understanding and understood why Alana made that statement. She sat on the chair again with a cumbersome sigh and buried her face in her palm.

“Now, bury this here. Even if there is a spy among us, there is no need for us to not fight against those scums. If each one of us became self-dependent. In the worst case, we can save at least some of us. So we have to become powerful at all costs,” I said.

“Easy for you to say. You could kill those soldiers as if they were nothing, but for naïve people like us who haven’t even lifted a dagger in their entire life. It’s going to be impossible to even think of fighting them,” Thalia said.

“You know, while I was training in combat, I learnt a very important lesson. You go into the battle with the mentality of a winner and you have already won half of the game. The rest needs your physical strength and the sharpness of your sword. Before everything, you and the other ladies have to get this notion out of your head that you are weak. You are strong and before anyone else, you need to know that. You are werewolves, you have wolves inside you. Wolves — the most ferocious beasts in nature. Just because they did not teach you to use them or take them out doesn’t mean you don’t have them. I can’t shift, but I can manifest my wolf’s power in this body. I gained it through training really hard, but I am sure many here can shift in their wolf forms.”

“You are right, Miss Assassin,” Alana said. “I can shift into my wolf. Not a big deal for me because I had to live in forests until now, so it came as a survival mechanism.”

“I can shift too,” Thalia said. “But sometimes my wolf listens to me and sometimes she doesn’t. She is very unreliable and weak. Like me, she is useless, too. Just a burden on everyone.”

“You are not a burden, Thalia.” She peered at me as if this was the first time hearing those words. “But I will ask you only one question and you don’t even have to answer it to me. Answer it for yourself. Are you happy being weak?” I got up and opened the main door of the cottage. “Think about it…” I looked at Alana. “Alana, do me a favour and ask this question to all the other ladies, too. I am going outside to practice. The ladies who are interested in becoming strong can join me. I will be more than happy to train them. I know we don’t have enough time, but we still have time.” I glanced at Thalia and left.

I couldn’t force them to do anything. Staying weak and becoming strong was a choice one had to make for oneself. Others, at most, could guide them or motivate them, but until that will to become strong came from within them, it couldn’t be helped. 

I knew I was strong enough to protect all of them and I would if conditions like that came, but that wouldn’t change a thing. Neither their thoughts, nor their mentality and conditions. They needed to know that the messiah they were waiting to show up and save them had always been within them. All of them hid a beast that could ravage the entire pack only if they believed in themselves. 

I was expecting one to show up — Alana. Wasn’t sure about Thalia and the others. They were all emotionally fragile and mentally abused. Not physically. Physically, they were all strong. The night transitioned into dawn and none of them came. But I had prepared a few weapons from the woods that were available. I got this idea from Alana. Of course, it was impossible to arrange actual swords in a place like that. But something was better than nothing. 

“Miss Assassin!” I heard Alana’s voice and turned around to look at her. All the ladies were there, even Thalia and Niya. I expected a few, but not all of them. But at the same time, I hoped for all of them to show up. “It took a little convincing, but in the situation we are in… we either become strong and kill or we die. We choose the first option.” She said, and the other ladies nodded.

“Ok! I will put everything into training you quickly and efficiently. But before that, let’s come together. It is good that this place is isolated and soldiers visit the cottage at intervals. Let’s gather…” I felt adrenaline pump in my blood. The ladies gathered around me in a circle. “Good. First, how many of you have any combat experience, even one?” I asked and, with Alana, five others raised their hands. I bobbed my head, recognising their faces. “Come closer to me.” They came closer to me, forming a small concentric circle within the larger one. “Now, how many of you can shift into your wolf forms?” I asked everyone. The five ladies, with six more, raised their hands. That was eleven and including me at twelve. I asked them to join the five ladies. The rest of eighteen were completely naïve, with no experience at all. 

I showed them how to use a wooden spear. That would be our weapon. But I also knew it would take no time for the soldiers to cut the spears because of their size, so I taught them how to make shorter ones that they could hide in their dresses. Niya used what I taught her and came up with a finger-lengthed spear, pointed, but deadly when pierced into right veins and arteries. An idea becomes alive when others contribute to it as much or even more than you did. A few of the ladies could find poisonous berries that they could use to paralyse others. Like I said, all of them had some ideas in their heads about how to survive -- the beast I was talking about. But they were hesitating to realise those ideas. When I explained to them it was completely fine to kill to survive, they started opening up. No, it wasn’t easy at all, but their fear and anger towards those scums acted as a catalyst.

A week passed, and we had grown a lot. The most in strategy, confidence and mutual understanding. Alana, Thalia, Niya and I became closer. In that, my mask bothered me a few times, but I hid those malfunctions, saying those were scars. Thalia always squinted her eyes in disbelief, but didn’t dig into it, nor did I. 

More than physical strength, it was their mental strength that amazed me. The ones who couldn’t shift, didn’t even try to shift. We all knew it was impossible to gain that in such a short period. We were practical, rather than being aimlessly hardworking. 

Those ladies had prepared more hidden deadly attacks, needing minimal physical strength. The soldiers who came to deliver food and tried misbehaving became their subjects and practice targets for using paralysing needles, swift spears, and acupressure points that could knock them out.

A group of five ladies became the killers — Alana, Niya, Thalia, Erica and Julie. Erica and Julie were quite good for beginners at their moves. In the practice matches, they were not only slashing with their bodies but also with their minds. 

They learned so quickly that I thought I would have taken uselessly more time to learn those skills. “I always wanted to learn a fighting craft. My brother was sent to a martial arts school. Whenever he came on holidays, he taught me a little, but I always wished I could learn more.” Erica said. She was actually enjoying that hunger she had for combat techniques.

“In my family too, my elder and younger brothers were sent to schools while me and my sisters were taught only enough so that we could read and write our names. Fighting always fascinated me. Once I told my mother that I wanted to go to school too, but she told me to shut up and never say such things again. Especially in front of my father.” Julie said, scrunching her nose.

“No matter what our past was like, from here on, only the stronger version of yourself will be introduced to the world. Elementary education is the right of every individual. One must fight for it.” I said.

“Easy for you to say. But how long can we fight and how much?” Thalia said in an almost inaudible voice. “Fight family, society, government, authorities? They will get us married, then we fight our partners, our in-laws, our children. How long do you think a woman can go on fighting?”

“As long as it takes. Remember, Asena is the mother of all wolves. When she howls, the strongest of the strong wolves bows. Then the Carol pack was ruled by a woman — Luna Eleanor Carol. I bet she struggled more than us to get there and change the stereotype of society. Struggling not only for women’s rights, but also rights for the rogues. Then there is Luna Irene, ruling the Cariezer pack with Alpha Zane Eliezer. We all know and have heard about her powers and how she even beat Zane Eliezer in the championship. First girl to ever take part in the championship. It was never easy. People just keep going regardless and become stronger. And then even the toughest path starts looking easy. Let’s keep going ladies. One day, we will have a better society with equality for all.”

“Keep dreaming of that Utopia. It’s a place that can never exist.” Thalia said, and went back to the cottage. It was twilight, time for soldiers to arrive with the food. All the ladies hid the weapons we created and entered the cottage one by one. 

The games were two days away and all of us were nervous. But one thing was good: none of them were crying and blaming anyone. They were all planning, refining the plans, doing everything they could to make the plans better. That night, Zane’s soldier arrived after a long time with two others. They gave us bread. The other two left while he stayed behind. “This is the last day you will get food. The games will be held tomorrow, so be prepared.” He said and left.