[div style="background-color: #292727; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; overflow: auto; width: 500px; height: 340px; padding: 10px;"]Sephiroth probably should have expected some sort of rebellion against his actions.  As he cleaned himself he heard Jailbird’s voice ring through the crowd loudly, and the male cast an impassive eye towards the protesting.  The Pharaoh didn’t pay it much mind until the large feline beast shooed away a child and made his way up to the leader, who looked with a gaze that looked almost sleepy.  Bored.  As things progressed in the group he was becoming a far more cruel and cold creature then he had been when he first joined the group, so he wasn’t exactly concerned with the protest.  Hell, maybe he’d even intensify the next sacrifice to spite.  He was destined for hell anyways according to Jailbird, so might as well go big or go home.

The blow to his legs he half expected.  The lion avoided that with strategic shifts of his limbs away from the smilodon, moving his position to the side as a result.  Sephiroth was about to make a comment, probably one that was snide and self absorbed, but then he vision was filled with the skull of Jailbird and intense pain flaring from his face.

Sephiroth would gasp from the pain and stumble back from the force of the impact, his vison swimming and scattered.  His tongue must’ve been caught by his teeth because he could taste blood in his mouth, and his face burned in pain.  Was his nose broken?  His snout in general?  Some other facial bone?  He couldn’t pinpoint the harshest point of impact from the pain that was making his skull throb.  Mother was screaming in his ears, she had been absent from the meeting until now but now her shrieks of fury and command rang in his ears.  Fight back!  Beat him!  Kill him!  Gods do not tolerate this!  Her voice shrilly echoed in his already painful head, and Sephiroth forced himself to focus.

She was right.  He was god among these creatures.  Their Pharaoh.  He was above them.  He had just demonstrated his might, it was time to put it into practice.

Sephiroth would shake his head, vaguely seeing scarlet drips scatter onto the stone.  There must’ve been some trauma to his nose then, if that was where the blood was coming from.  He turned to face Jailbird, his eyes burning.  They glowed demonically around pupils seeming to slit even more as a result of the insubordination just demonstrated.  His vison cleared and he could see the saber toothed beast clearer, and Sephiroth felt his blood absolutely boil.

Sephiroth would make an impulsive violent movement, lurching foreword in the span of a few heartbeats and aiming to strike [member=2779]JAILBIRD[/member] with an open clawed slap across his face, putting all his muscle and the sharpness of his claws into the blow.

”How dare you.”  The silver maned lion would full on snarl, with more venom and viciousness then he had ever shown in his time here.  His eyes illuminated in a hellish fashion as he bared his fangs like a raging and feral beast, his claws moving across the ground with a scratching sound.  Sephiroth’s sides would heave with his rage, his composure shattering completely and revealing the cruel and vile innards of his collected shell.

”Back down.”  Sephiroth would growl harshly with a toss of his quicksilver mane, muscles hardening underneath his pelt and skin.  ”If not I will maim you in front of everybody here and unravel your mind just like our poor friend here.”  He motioned a claw towards the limp body of the younger lion, whose head was dangling off the edge of the platform and whose body was already cold.  He focused his glowing gaze on the smilodon, unblinking and alien and with an expression that expressed the harm he was capable of.  ”Do not test me, Jailbird.  You will not win.”  Sephiroth’s words were laced with hate and rage that had been bubbling up for a long time and finally had an outlet.

The beast had finally been unleashed it seemed.

Rosemary, never the fighter, looked around to the rest of the members as the fighting continued to devolve into chaos – and found herself pleased to see many that disagreed with the pharaoh's latest stunt. The ocelot, tempted to join Jailbird in the fight, scratched her saltwater crocodile under his chin as she tried to come to a decision quickly. But the witch was no fighter; she hated participating in violence like this, even while her sadism sang in the back of her mind. Part of her screamed to see another death like the young lion’s, but the scream alone told her it was wrong.

Unwilling to make a move that would expose her as treasonous against Sephiroth, the four-eyed witch came to a split-second choice. A sudden, powerful gust of air would suddenly attempt to slam down upon the lion. With a blow that overcommitted, with all his muscle thrown into the fight, she anticipated his paw would swing into the ground and lurch him too far forward – a good opening for Jailbird, if successful. She also doubted anyone would realize she’d done it; she’d openly used her air elemental abilities once in the Typhoon, at least a month ago. And, quite honestly, if she wanted to get involved it’d be far more effective to send her pet to fight for her instead.

[member=2030]sephiroth[/member]

[div style="background-color: #292727; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; overflow: auto; width: 500px; height: 340px; padding: 10px;"]His strike was cancelled out.  Some half-wit in the audience actually stopped him and pushed his attack away.  Sephiroth’s great head would swing to the side and glare at the crowd, mouth open in a parted growl as he scanned the audience.  The culprit didn’t occur to him, and it wasn’t like he had time to pick somebody out of the audience because somebody else was coming towards him.  Mirio was easy to spot with his brighter coat and already known presence at the meeting, so the mad Pharaoh was able to sidestep the retriever’s attack on him.

That did not quell his rage however.  His members were rising up against him, they clearly did not take his power seriously at all.  Sephiroth, needing a new target for his frustration, would swing a paw at [member=2506]MIRIO![/member], full of claws as he aimed a slash across the canine’s chest to knock him aside.  A ferocious snarl accompanied it, as the lion’s eyes burned further.

”And you have no power here.”  Sephiroth’s vicious tone rumbled the chamber, his bloody face crinkled in his intense show of anger, coppery tasting red seeping through his teeth from where his tongue been caught in the crossfire.  ”I am your leader.  You do as I say.  I am..”

Your god!!  Mother was yelling again, trying to put words in his mouth.  You are a god above them!!

”…I am your god.”  There he had finally confirmed the suspicions of those who believed he had a god complex a mile long.  ”I was chosen as Pharaoh, I have power over all of you.  What I say goes.  Without question.”  Sephiroth’s eyes burned with insanity, he had all the rationality of a rabid animal at this point.  ”If you don’t like that, you can leave, Mirio.  You signed up for this…clearly you cannot handle what the Rosebloods truly are.”

The adrenaline was starting to fade and the pain in his face was starting to burn more.  Sephiroth would hiss and turn towards the crowd, claws out and teeth bared and generally looking nothing like the composed ruler he normally came off as.  ”Does anybody else wish to question my authority?  Nothing will change no matter what anybody says, my word is law.”  The male lion was stubborn and volatile and clearly not in a good state of mind.  His pale sides heaved, his eyes were wild, really the only thing still in order about him was his mane.

Mother must’ve been satisfied by the turn of events however, Sephiroth could hear her purring in his ear.  Was this what she meant by him standing about all others?  Him asserting his leadership in front of the whole group?  Him finally declaring himself as a god among them, completing his descent into madness?

The witch stared at the angry lion, more surprised than anyone to see him lurch with the invisible blow of her own air slam. She hardly expected that to work, much less actually prevent the pharaoh’s strike. But the silver-haired male continued his egotistical rant; she saw him go for another blow, proclaiming himself a god. Rosemary’s eyes narrowed, her forked tail flicking behind her; she wanted to act with those fighting against his tyranny, but she couldn’t stand the thought of sending Eri to fight for her. And she knew, if she stepped forward, she would falter quickly.

Plainly, trying to stop him with air elementals failed. But Rosemary held a few other weapons up her sleeve. In the Typhoon, she tormented Caesar by subtly playing with his mind. She even tried to circumvent her mother’s insanity by using her mental manipulations to fix her mother’s mind – though that worked out poorly, that sour experience never stopped Rosemary from trying again.

Hurriedly, she tried to assemble a telepathic link between Sephiroth and herself – enough to allow her to view some of his emotions and him to tap into her surface feelings. If successful, he would be able to feel her uncertainty and desperation for peace. And her disgust at his current egotistical behavior, how he offered such a young sacrifice and thought bloodshed served the gods.

“Any man who must claim himself the leader is no true leader, can’t you see? You need their devotion, not their fear. You need their love.” Rosemary’s telepathic voice seemed distorted and warm, comprised more of emotion than words – and nearly unrecognizable from her true voice. “Why punish them for fearing your actions more than the Ardents? They loathe the sacrifices more than these weak gods - you're sacrificing people to gods weaker than yourself, for what end?” She tried to influence him through an angle that might take hold – while she clearly didn’t approve of his ego, she wasn’t going to try dismantling that now amidst all the chaos.

[div style="background-color: #292727; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; overflow: auto; width: 500px; height: 340px; padding: 10px;"]Sephiroth's mind was in a frenzy at the moment, leaving his defenses lowered and vulnerable.  It was an easy task to get inside of his head, as much as he would hate himself for letting that happen.

He heard another voice in his head, making him freeze up in his raving and pacing like a mad beast.  Sephiroth's expression would drop in some sort of shocked look as he listened.  Somebody new, somebody that wasn't Mother, that was conflicting with his current idea.  He found the voice somewhat alluring, despite his initial fear.  The Pharaoh would take a few steps back, his posture unknowingly to him shrinking back as he looked around him.  Who was it?

Memories came to him, words of stories he had only just rediscovered.  The Gift of the Goddess.  Had the Goddess come to speak to him?  The lion's eyes would widen, and he would step a paw foreword, not seemingly to notice the faint tremble in his limbs.  He was going to speak out in front of everybody, ruin his image even more then it already was...

GET OUT.  Mother's voice came as a scream in his head, no doubt also projected onto the owner of the gentler voice in his head now.  GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT HE'S NOT YOURS.  Sephiroth would curl in on himself again, his paws shifting a he stumbled back from the shrill voice in his head.  He would open his eyes after scrunching them up in agony from both the impending headache and the broken nose he had no doubt suffered.  He would look out at the remaining crowd, who were no doubt confused and disturbed by what they were seeing.

"Meeting dismissed."  Sephiroth's voice came as a breathy response trying desperately to stay steady as he moved to slink off of the platform and cling to the side of the crowd against the wall as he left.  His paws carried him off and out of the room, overwhelmed by how the whole situation had turned out.  It was a disaster, no doubt.

/out