SEVEN BILLION SOULS — MEETING & ORIENTATION [08/03]

[emil]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; padding: 10px; height: auto; overflow: auto;"][div style="width: 400px; padding: 0px; line-height: 14px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"]stop, stop, stop... no one do anything.

at the command, prestige moved to get away from the lioness, though his movements were caught up when she jumped, causing him to be flung across the room. he hit the floor with a thump and rolled. it hurt like a bitch, but he got up, heaving his body from the marble tile and looking up just in time to see the beast coming straight for him.

before he could even move she was on top of him. pres slammed to the floor with a breathless wheeze beneath the lioness's weight, feeling something break almost immediately. he cried out through gritted teeth and frantically reached up, attempting to claw at her leg to be released, but it was no use. more cracks erupted from his rib cage and prestige dropped his head to the floor, huffing, trying desperately to get air in. the room blurred, grew darker, and in the back of his mind the adviser knew what was going to become of him.

i'm going to die.

fear set in. he didn't want to die, but with each passing moment, he came closer to it. another crack, another howl of pain. he struggled weakly, knowing full well it wouldn't get him anywhere, but a scared, dying animal would do anything to get out of a situation like this. he glanced around the room, watching the horrified faces of the rosebloods. prestige, the pitiful adviser, dying in front of their eyes. what a dignified death. he ground his teeth together and dug his claws in further at the pain.

the tuxedo felt another rib crush, felt it puncture something. blood sputtered from his mouth. he convulsed beneath the lioness's paw and let out a last weak cry, legs kicking out feebly for a few moments, until finally his body fell limp. prestige's head lolled to the side, glazed and lifeless eyes settling upon sola.

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

She had cried out too late for it to be of any use against the initial strike. That moment of hesitation and not knowing what to do? Would quickly become a precursor for how useless anything she could ever say would be in this situation. For so long she had kept silent and never spoken about anything really related to 'what she wanted' as most would call it. Now, she had lost her chance for the words she spoke to ever have meaning, especially right now. Some cats? Could talk anyone out of anything and amend bridges like it was second nature, right now, Jiyu would have given almost anything to be able to be one of those cats. However, nothing could change her nature as a killer and now she had to watch as Deborah started making the moves that would put the lioness on the same path she walked, a path Jiyu wouldn't even wish on her own worst enemy. The toll a path of letting one's emotions entirely lead their actions? Was a fool's errand that never ended well, the one time she let her emotions lead, well she could remember that it had cost her and she was just now getting everything back.

'I'm not here to kill you' that was the thing that may have actually hurt, that Deborah was so far gone she believed that Jiyu thought it was her own life in danger, that it was herself she was worried for. The calico had never been that kind. She couldn't think anymore for a second because all she could feel was the crack of lightning she had missed, a small spark hitting the calico due to her inability to take her eyes off the lioness. She couldn't go through Deborah, could she? It was against everything she had ever been taught about love by the very cat she was going to do it to protect, at least in everyone's eyes. Jiyu also had another motive for what she was considering doing, and it was protecting Deborah. What was she supposed to do? The calico didn't even know what she was doing as her limbs moved again, easily seeing that Sola had been thrown into the lightning and was likely very affected by it to some extent.

Empty optics filled with something but no one could tell what the emotion exactly was, not warped as Jiyu's emotions happened to be, but it had been years since this had last been seen, her stoic mask shattering in public.

"Deborah." honey dripped from her voice and she didn't quite know why the voice she was born with before she had gone through the trauma of being alive had come back. "All you ever wanted." she laughed though it was fragmented and eerie with the sweetness of it. "And it's moments away." the lioness would have her, everything the other female wanted would be done in moments. The calico moved again, but this time she seemed to charge Sola, as if she was joining in the attack, driven to insanity by whatever was going on, by watching the other torture pres. Was she going to try to take out everything she loved before Deborah could? The look in her eyes said she may very well, or that she had switched sides.

Sola would see the look Jiyu gave enemies, old friend charging at her very leader, pouncing with claws extended. No matter what happened? This was the path she had chosen, her front paws extended and jaws opened wide, hind legs coming up as well with her leap.

Only the jump suddenly seemed longer than necessary to reach Sola, it had looked as if she had turned on her group for her own blood until the very second of her attack when the tears started to fall.

Jiyu's target had been Deborah all along, most notably the thin skin between her jugular bones, the veins running along the chin of the lioness and any other thin skin she could hit. Whatever happened, she had her claws out, her sabered fangs bared, this was something she would never be able to take back. She would never be able to win this fight, no matter what she did she would lose.