Anyone who actually came here from the Warriors comm should probably go.

~2013-2016 (age 18-22); I didn't realise this had been in the pipeline for so long help

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CHAPTER ONE: THE LOSS OF INNOCENCE

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Deep within the suburban landscape, in one house out of the rows and rows of houses that lined the winding streets, stretching all the way into the distance til they were infinitesimal specks on the horizon... lived an Eevee. Eevee was a house Eevee. He lived in a house.

Eevee was a fairly nondescript creature as far as domesticated beasts were concerned; he would wander the neighbourhood every now and again, breaching a radius of three or even four houses, before slinking back home where his owner would give him food and inconsensual tummy rubs. The days passed slowly with these creature comforts, and Eevee, purring with happiness, would fall asleep warm in the light at the windowsill, or burrowed deep in his owner's bed. Yet far too often Eevee would feel a painful tug at his heart, every time he turned to go back home: he wanted to explore! He wanted to be free!

He attempted to broach the conversation with his closest friend and neighbour, Fox the Fennekin.

"See, what I'm saying is... you just get the feelin' there's more to life, don't ya?" Eevee finished, eyes shimmering.

"Not really," Fennekin shrugged.

"Aw, come on! There's just... a whole world out there, man. Mystery! Intrigue! Mystrigue!" Eevee bounded over to the end of his fence, the property cordoned off before a wilderness of thick shrubbery. "Like, we've got this forest, right? We've lived next to a forest this whole time and we've never once been inside! Imagine a life of just you and the land. Being One With Nature! It's what we're made for!"

"You can speak for yourself, I've been in there," Fox yawned. "It's not great. Dirt and plants, couple of bugs."

"Aw, what? Well look, you're doing it wrong," Eevee insisted. He came back to his friend and leaned in worriedly. "Say, I remember just a few weeks ago you were jumping to bark at the postman with me. That Fox wouldn't have been so... lethargic! Have you been alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Fennekin shrugged again, curling up in the grass on his side of the railing. "Unless you mean since the neutering, in which case I'm doing about as well as anyone."

"Since... the neutering?" Eevee now pressed up against the fence with a rattle, paws grasping the metal bars. "When was this? What was this?"

"You don't know what a neutering is? It's basically," Fox said, and then rolled onto his back to show him.

Eevee felt his world grind to a halt as his eyes locked onto the scarred tissue.

"Who... would do this?" he barely croaked out, his stomach starting to churn menacingly.

"Well, everyone's started to have it done to them," Fennekin began, inspecting his claw, "so maybe your owner'll take you in a couple weeks -"

"NO!" Eevee felt himself yell, everything around him ringing cacophonously in his ears, and the sickening churn consuming his entire being. "THEY CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! MY BALLS ARE TOO PRECIOUS!" And as his owner's singing began to float out from the kitchen, Eevee let out a blood-curdling cry, and twisted away to the darkness of the forest.

He didn't think as he desperately squeezed his way under the fencing, or even hear his friend say "okay dude, see you". He didn't consider if this was the right thing to do, or even the smartest direction to go. His mind was simply a swath of white noise, as he popped out the fence into the undergrowth, and ran... and ran... until his head cleared up enough to let him slow to a stop and hyperventilate repeatedly.

He got his breathing steady, then took in the towering thicket around him.

"Well, shit," he said.

He thought he'd try following his pawprints back, but his lightweight step had left no trace on the ground. He also considered becoming One With Nature and letting the spirits guide him, but after a short bout of looking as constipated as possible, he decided that wasn't working.

There was nothing to it, then, but to turn back the other way and hope for the best.

The sun beat down harshly from above the trees. Eevee felt his body and soul weakening as he trekked for minutes, nay, tens of minutes. Finally, parched and trembling, he collapsed on the forest floor.

As conscious thought threatened to leave him, he heared a distant voice say, "Rise, little one."

Eevee, jolted back to awakeness with that rustic voice, summoned the last of his energy to tiredly pull himself up. Standing in front of him was a tall, slender, pitch-black canine, adorned with glowing rings like stars in the night. His thin, tapered ears twitched sagely, as did he swoosh his same-shaped tail. Most of all, his eyes were a deep, lush crimson, staring into him like pools of freshly-murdered blood.

Eevee decided he was in love.

"Who... are you?" he managed, throat dry.

"I am... Shadowkill," Shadowkill said, and in that moment the planets aligned themselves, and birds sung in holy requiem from the treetops. "But that is not important. You are still an Eevee; what tribe do you hail from?"

"Uh," Eevee started, and then said, "Henderson, I guess."

The stranger's eyes flashed. "A citygoer," he suddenly spat, and Eevee felt like hastily assuring him otherwise and getting the hell out of there. "No matter. We will take you in as one of our own."

"Who will?" Eevee blurted in confusion as the Umbreon suddenly moved onwards. The small canine stumbled over himself to keep pace with his interlocutor.

"Why, my tribe," Shadowkill simply replied, not looking back once. "The most feared tribe of them all. The Dark Tribe."

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