Still, another Great Illumination wouldn't and couldn't happen anytime soon, what with the eight used Fire Wing Harnesses having disappeared after their wearers' sacrifices; according to the Phoenix, they'd likely been teleported to random locations around the world that even the Fire Tribes weren't aware of. That left most of the southern tribes intimidated by the mountain dwellers. At least the Tigers and Leopards had southern allies in the form of the Phoenix and Vultures, respectively, but the Rhinos had no such luck; thus they'd begun a soft migration, moving both living quarters and mining operations further south in the six years following the war. The deep quarry that was their main headquarters had already been in the rocky and mostly flat land on the Iron Mountains' southeast foot, but by now they'd moved almost entirely into that region, all but abandoning the eastern third of the Iron Mountains that was once their territory (the western third of the mountain range being occupied by the Tigers and Leopards, and the now vacant middle third having been the Sabertooth-Mammoth territory), as well as generally shifting from the culture of the mountain tribes to that of the inland. In doing so, the Rhinos disassociated themselves from the Iron Mountains, ideally alleviating any fear or distrust of them the southern tribes may have developed. The felines, on the other hand, remained in their northwestern valleys, and while the Tigers were content in the Orange and Black City, the Leopards had ever so slightly expanded out of the Valley of Balance. Leodus knew that he needed to tread carefully in doing this, since building mountaintop outposts (let alone ones with landing pads for aircraft) would likely awaken still-recent memories of the Sabertooths' air raids in the southerners' minds. However, it was necessary for the Leopards to have eyes in more places, as the search for Logos and the traitors behind the Rupture Incident was still ongoing (but the former fugitive may have slain the latter group by now, Leodus mused, if he was the leader of the Ice Hunters; and if the Ice Hunters had indeed taken out the miners, as Valum suggested). Though these were only theories at the moment, educated guesses, even. "...Yet we still don't know if the shadows watching us here are the Ice Hunters, Your Grace," the Commander pointed out, in response to Leodus' earlier proposition. "True," Leodus replied, "though their white pelts--if most of the Hunters are Arctic-born, as I suspect--would explain how they're able to effectively conceal themselves, even when you've spotted them from a distance; they ought to blend into the snow." "Aye," the Commander agreed, "but the snow isn't doing them many favors at this elevation, and at this time of year, Majesty. Were we in the Arctic, they could hide beneath that deep white sea for their entire lives, but here, the snow's up to their ankles at most." The Commander frowned.
"Nay, it's the shadows they hide beneath. Shadows are an ally to any who choose to slither in the dark, no matter how light their pelts are." Leodus nodded gravely, thankful for the Commander's counsel. Before he could reply, however, he heard a familiar voice yelling his name. Both men dashed to the east-facing window from which the sound came, and the Leopard King, trained to be observant, immediately noticed three things: first, the guard who'd been standing sentry on the bridge, and whose duty it was to sound the war horn in case of a sudden attack, was nowhere to be found, vanished along with his horn; second, the guard who'd been on patrol around the cliff on which the east tower was built lay still on that cliff, a circular sheen of ice covering his right wrist where his hand had once been, and what looked like strips of ice across his neck and upper chest. The final observation Leodus made was his mother; her lab coat tattered, her fur ruffled, and her red left eye visible in the rare absence of her monocle, as she ran across the bridge, forgoing the practice of addressing the King by a title in her clearly rattled state. "...LEODUS, LEODUS! SUBJE--LOGOS HAS RETURNED."
***
Minutes earlier... As she heard--and felt--the battle raging beneath her feet, Leia found that her mind was calm, but her body wasn't; her hand trembled when she lifted the orb of fire chi, and for a second she thought she might drop it. After raising an eyebrow expectantly, as if silently judging her arm, she successfully slotted the orb into her harness. The surge of power as the orange aura erupted toward the ceiling, which would appear wildly volatile to an outside observer, ironically brought the tremor in her limbs under control. At fifty-six years of age, the Director of Leopard Intelligence knew she was long past her peak in terms of combat ability, but chi of any kind could make an older fighter move as if they were ten years younger--temporarily, at least. Leia looked out the arched window at the west tower, considered shouting to Leodus and the Outpost Commander for reinforcements, and dismissed the idea, knowing they wouldn't hear her from there, even with her voice amplified by chi. The most logical course of action to both ensure her own survival, and alert the Leopards in the neighboring tower of the attack, would be to cut through the attackers and run out of the east tower; that was easier said than done, especially since these attackers, who Leia still had yet to see, were clearly formidable enough to have kept the east tower's entire regiment occupied, regardless of their numbers. I'd best tread carefully, she thought, deciding that capturing the attackers alive with her powers was also a viable strategy, if it could be done.
Should the attackers fall here (despite certainly needing to be punished for their unwarranted assault on a Leopard Tribe outpost) it could mean the beginning of a war with whatever tribe–or tribes–they'd come from, regardless of whether the leaders of said tribes had condoned the attackers' actions. Leia did not, could not, care about any beings in the world but herself (she'd oft studied the intriguing concept of caring about others, in an attempt to 'learn' such a thing, but alas, the way her mind was wired prevented her from deriving any meaning from the subject beyond pure, rather dull data), but she did 'care' about the Leopard Tribe and the political stability of Chima as a whole, as an extension of caring about herself; the larger in scale and closer in distance to the Leopards a war was, the more likely it was to affect Leia, her research, and possibly cost her life. She did not ‘care’ about the Leopards, no, but she was loyal to them, as loyal to her tribe as anyone. It was a loyalty born from gratitude to the Leopards, for bringing her into existence, allowing her to go on existing, and granting her the means to continue her work (be it as a scientist or an agent), the one thing that gave Leia a feeling that could perhaps be constituted as joy. The doctor took the monocle from her left eye, neatly wrapped its chain about it, and slid it into a pocket of her lab coat. As she walked toward the stairwell that would lead down from the tower’s first floor and into the midst of the battle, Leia kept her left eye closed, preparing to hold it open for an extended period of time in order to use her ocular power–but upon reaching the bottom of the short stairway and getting her first glimpse of the battle, Leia’s left eye shot open involuntarily. It was a sight she hadn’t expected: an adolescent-looking bear with all-white fur, currently using what looked like a blue drill to block downward sword slashes from two outpost soldiers; two halves of a leopard, both frozen at the waist; another soldier laying face down just a few feet in front of Leia, his head completely enveloped in ice; and a white leopard who looked to be in his thirties, with some sort of arm-mounted gauntlets, glowing blue eyes, and his snout curled up into a self-righteous grin.
No sooner had Iceclaw smiled, than the expression vanished from his face as he saw a newly arrived leopard several feet in front of him. There was no time to think, no time to pause, as he instantly, deliberately widened his eyes to stare into the eyes of Leia–but she stared back, at the exact same moment. Or perhaps it was a fraction of a second earlier, Iceclaw realized, as he felt his body go stiff.
Iceclaw had known, ever since Leia had taken him (or, at the time, Logos) by surprise and paralyzed him during his and Leodus’ escape all those years ago, that two beings with the ocular paralysis ability did not cancel each other out when staring directly at one another; nor did both beings’ respective power activate simultaneously, for if that were the case, the white leopard would’ve instantly countered the ocular attack with one of his own (for what little good that would’ve done), both then and now. It appeared that, despite how unnatural these powers seemed, nature itself prevented two of its users from ever locking one another into a perpetual stalemate; only one would fall victim to paralysis at a time. With his now sluggish jaw muscles, Iceclaw made his closest approximation of an open-mouthed grimace, and ground out a single word: "Kid!" He couldn't see it, with his eyes locked on his opponent's and immobile, but he could imagine Icestrike throwing off the two Leopards and charging toward Leia. The doctor had no choice but to turn to her left, breaking her hold on Iceclaw in order to instead paralyze the roaring white bear (Iceclaw subsequently and swiftly began his own charge toward Leia). However, Iceclaw had warned Icestrike and the other Hunters about the ocular power, even using it on them whilst sparring, to train them to counter it. Icestrike had already turned his eyes to the right as he charged, averting his gaze from Leia's (and allowing him to keep an eye on the two soldiers he'd been in a standoff with, as they got to their feet). Of course, Icestrike's aim with the Rupture Drill would be far too inaccurate for a stab while he was literally looking away from his opponent, but Iceclaw could tell that the boy knew this, as Icestrike turned his right arm sidelong in front of his chest, so that the length of the Rupture Drill would slam against Leia's torso. It did so, and the doctor let out a wheezing breath as she went crashing into the wall to the left of the stairway. Iceclaw grinned, got close enough to reach his old enemy, and made an arcing slash with his right arm. Icestrike, however, needed to duck down himself to avoid being caught in the deadly slash, which in turn caused his short-lived hold on Leia to loosen; the woman slid down just in time to keep her head on her shoulders, as the Rupture Claw raked against the wall, creating deep ravines in the stone that were filled with small rivers of ice a half second later. Leia immediately transitioned from her slide down against the wall into a dash to her right--but Iceclaw had seen this coming, which was why he'd been keeping his left arm to his side and at the ready during his charge. He laughed in pure ecstasy as he brought his left Rupture Claw around to Leia's face, knowing that his oldest enemy would meet her end in a matter of seconds.
Leia was fast enough, likely thanks to the power of chi, to halt her dash and desperately rear her head up above the sweeping strike, but Iceclaw knew that wouldn't save her; it'd simply cause the icy knives to impale her torso rather than her face. Or so he thought. Iceclaw gaped in astonishment as the crystalline blades of the Rupture Claw, sharpened to perfection, not only bounced off of Leia’s Phoenix armor as if they were made of rubber, but also left no semblance of ice in their wake. He then finally noticed that the orb in her harness was orange, and that she had an orange-red glow about her rather than a blue one. "Fire chi!" he snarled, then roared to Icestrike, "Can't freeze or cut the Phoenix armor! Go for her head--!" Leia turned and barreled into him then, with a head ram that would've impaled his chest had she been a rhino, knocking the wind out of the snow leopard as Icestrike had done to her a minute prior. Iceclaw went flying and slammed into the opposite wall, sinking to the floor. He saw stars for a moment, including a long 'constellation' that was, in fact, a leopard sword outlined by a blue chi glow. The Ice Hunter leader realized this in time to dash to his left and mostly avoid the vertical slash, but he felt the blade's piercing sting on the edge of his right ear, and inhaled in pain. Still blinking the stars out of his eyes, he stood, whirled and slashed with his left Rupture Claw, but the skilled soldier (whom Iceclaw now realized was one of the two who'd been in a standoff with Icestrike earlier) intercepted the attack with his sword, causing it to become stuck between two of the four Rupture blades on the gauntlet. As leopard and snow leopard alike struggled to untangle themselves, the latter made to strike the former in the chest with his other Rupture Claw, but the soldier reached under and grabbed Iceclaw's right wrist with his left paw, stopping the glowing blue blades inches from his chest. Iceclaw grunted in irritation and glanced to his left to see Icestrike, at the northern end of the room, once again blade-locked with the other leopard soldier. What is this, their specialty?? he thought in angered bewilderment. "S--Sub--Subject #001?" Iceclaw heard Leia sputter, as she struggled to remain standing and held a hand to her forehead where she'd rammed him. "How DARE you call me tha--!?" the white leopard started, but stopped mid-outrage. Wait, it's a good thing she didn't call me Logos, he reflected, feeling his other self's annoyance at this, for if she had... "Sh-should we have asked Icedawn for reinforcements??" Icestrike suddenly called out, now ducking and dodging sword swings from his larger and more experienced opponent. Iceclaw's eyes widened slowly. "Ice...dawn?" Leia repeated, glancing at the white bear. "You...you FOOLISH CHILD!" Iceclaw roared. "Oh scat, I'm sorry!" Icestrike cried, realizing now what he'd done.
"Director!" the leopard in the standoff with Iceclaw called. "Get yourself to safety and inform His Majesty of this! Hurry!" Leia nodded dizzily and dashed down the stairs without another word. "NO!" the snow leopard roared again, turning to slam his forehead into his opponent's. The leopard stumbled backward, dropping his sword and letting go of Iceclaw's right wrist. The Ice Hunter turned to the stairwell as fast as he could (which wasn't especially fast, given that his head spun and motes of light filled his vision once again), only to find that his oldest enemy, who he'd been so incredibly close to slaying, was long out of reach.
Twenty long years had passed since Leodus had seen Logos, and his outlaw brother was making quite the entrance...though one more horrific than exciting. No sooner had Leodus burst out the door of the west tower, propelled down the stairs by the fire chi he'd plugged, than he saw a leopard similarly burst through a window of the east tower. The soldier went flying, his arms flailing in vain as he plummeted into the gap between the mountains. First his head struck the parapet of the stone bridge (his arms subsequently ceased their movement), and then he disappeared into the waterfall beneath the bridge with a splash. Leodus couldn't remember the name of the soldier as he processed what he'd just seen, but he recognized him. I knew that man, the Leopard King thought numbly. He told me yesterday about how his son had started walking recently. Why...did you do that, Logos? Leodus supposed he wouldn't get a definitive answer to that question, as he saw the white leopard dash out the doorway of the east tower, with the same feral eyes he'd had back then. The Hunter eyes, Leodus thought pointedly as he saw an equally (if not more so) white bear emerge through the battered doorway. As I suspected... Both Ice Hunters looked to be trailing Leia, who by now had made it over the west end of the bridge, skidding to a halt in the thin layer of snow before she could barrel into her son. Leodus put a hand on Leia's shoulder to steady her, but kept his eyes on Logos. "Watch out for...the powers," Leia said breathlessly, and the Leopard King nodded, not needing to be told what two powers she was referring to; the paralyzing stare, and the ice blasts from the Rupture weapons that Valum had informed him of. At least Leodus possessed the former ability himself. Would that I could possess the latter as well, he thought wearily, eyeing the crystalline blue blades protruding from Logos' glove-like devices. "Rest," Leodus ordered, as he gently moved Leia aside and stepped onto the bridge, drawing his sword. It was an old style of blade from at least a couple generations back, wielded by Leodus' father and his father before him; it didn't possess a central "battery" component, the reinforced glass tube that would directly absorb and channel extra chi energy, like on the Lions' Valious or the Crocodiles' Vengious, but the orange outline from Leodus' fire chi still spread from his body over the length of the blade nonetheless. The greatsword wouldn't be launching any projectile bursts of fire, or casting long whips of flame across a battlefield with a flick of his wrist, but it'd still help to protect Leodus from being frozen. Hopefully. "LOGOS!" the Leopard King roared at last. The equally abrupt and loud yell, juxtaposed by Leodus' calm and slow stride across the bridge, had its intended effect: the snow leopard stopped dead in his tracks halfway across the bridge, standing motionless...too motionless, Leodus thought.
He was as confused as he was suspicious. It was as though Logos had become a statue...until his face began to twitch. Is this some trick? Leodus thought, hesitating in his march and remaining halfway across the bridge. Was his brother actually locked into a bizarre "stunned" state, or was he pretending to be, in order to goad the Leopard King into coming closer, and falling victim to a sudden and brutal strike? Either he's truly disoriented, or he's tricking me into thinking he is. Which is it--? And then Leodus had his answer; the snow leopard's entire body seemed to twitch, his fur rippled like a wave, and he charged, roaring, "My name is Iceclaw!"
Iceclaw felt Logos pulling, trying to regain control. Not now. You'll leave us vulnerable to attack, you fool. Unlike Leia, Leodus had called the snow leopard "Logos", causing Logos to briefly regain control of their shared body; Iceclaw had just barely won out in the ensuing power struggle, before Logos could do something idiotic like surrendering to Leodus. This "activation" of the Craven Prince’s personality was an irritating effect that Iceclaw usually didn’t have to deal with, since he’d never told anyone his original name after leaving the Golden City… Well, anyone, except for… "Log–!" Leodus suddenly began to utter that cursed name again. "STOP!" Iceclaw blurted out as he closed the distance between them with a leap, bringing the Rupture Claws to bear. Leodus’ two-handed greatsword easily blocked the deadly "hug", but became lodged between the blades of the Rupture Claws, like that of the leopard Iceclaw had thrown out the window a minute earlier. What are you trying to do, kill him?! Logos said in his mind. Iceclaw, he’s our brother! Only a half-brother, Iceclaw retorted weakly, as he struggled to untangle his blades with Leodus’. I can’t deal with this right now; seriously, you’re going to get us killed if you keep distracting– Our own flesh and blood, Logos continued deliberately, and our only friend for all those years– "He’s a traitor who sided with Leia, and usurped me, the Crown Prince, of my rightful place as Leopard King!" Iceclaw roared. It took the small cloud formed from his breath in the cold air for him to realize he’d said that out loud. "Who are you talking to, Logos?" Leodus asked just as the last word was leaving his opponent’s mouth. The Ice Hunter leader went rigid again, as Logos’ consciousness boiled back to the surface, like a scalding wave Iceclaw struggled to force down. No, no, no! Leodus pulled his greatsword back with both arms, wrenching it free from the Rupture Claws as the white leopard’s arms fell limply to his sides. "Leo…dus…" Logos was speaking now, forcing out every word, "It’s…me…Lo–urg! St-stop..Iceclaw!" "So, Leia suspected correctly," Leodus’ tone went cold and analytical as he looked his paralyzed opponent up and down, "you did develop some manner of mental disorder on that day."
Disorder?? Iceclaw asked as he attempted desperately to retake control. What’s he talking abou–? “He’s talking about you!” Logos snarled, deliberately saying it out loud. He kept his eyes on Leodus. “Listen, brother; I don’t have much time–!” Indeed he didn't, as Icestrike ran around the snow leopard's right on the wide bridge, flinging himself at Leodus.
The white bear appeared so quickly that Leodus almost didn’t have time to block his attack. Dashing at the Leopard King from Leodus’ left, the bear brought his right arm in a tight arc, simultaneously turning his baton on its swivel joint so as to aim for the leopard’s left armpit. Leodus, already having been holding his sword guardedly with its point in front of his left foot, brought it up in time to deflect the even sharper point of the baton. As he did so, however, he saw that the baton’s end was a crystalline drill…and its spinning didn’t stop. Around and around it went, digging into the well-forged metal of the greatsword as Leodus gaped in astonishment. He quickly wrenched the sword down and jumped backward a foot, just as the white bear was reaching his left hand up, clearly having tried to grab Leodus’ neck. With his full weight forward, the bear stumbled for a moment but quickly righted himself, standing straight up and glaring at the Leopard King; it was then, when he got a better look at his opponent, that Leodus noticed how young the bear was. He looked younger than both Logos and Leodus had been when they broke out of “confinement”, but had the same vicious and vindictive eyes as the former. “Why…are you with him?” Leodus asked, surprised to find himself taken aback by his opponent’s age. Are the Ice Hunters employing child soldiers, or is he the only one? “Why do you fight us, boy?” “The name’s Icestrike!” the white bear snarled dramatically as he pounced; Leodus parried the subsequent drill strike, but received another gash on his sword in the process. “And what would be the point of telling you why, when you’re about to kick the bucket anyway?!” This kid doesn’t mince words… Leodus thought. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with another teenager waxing poetic about his “justice”, like Logos had back then. While on the subject, Leodus glanced over Icestrike’s shoulder extremely briefly, and from what he could see, his half-brother was still locked into a paralyzed stalemate between the two or more personalities he apparently held within. The Leopard King’s eyes shot back to his immediate adversary in time to see another piercing strike coming. This time, Leodus feinted a parry, only to stop his sword an inch to the left of the drill, lean his head back to dodge the attack, and then swing his blade in a fast and tight zig-zag; right to left, slamming into the connection point between the now-obviously Rupture-forged drill and the baton. The extra power from Leodus’ fire chi made a strike from this distance hit much harder than it normally would have.
Despite that, the drill remained firmly in place rather than being cleanly sliced off, though Icestrike was disoriented by this unexpected sequence, stumbling to his right from the force of the weapons’ collision. Leodus, who’d been prepared for this outcome, used this opportune time frame to bring his sword up in a much wider arc, to his right and then curving down…on a trajectory with the kid’s barely-armored left ankle. For a brief moment during the swing, however, Leodus’ reflexes slowed–No, that’s impossible with chi plugged–he realized; in fact, he’d hesitated, allowing Icestrike time to see the attack and hop over the sweeping blade. Even during the heat of battle, Leodus was having reservations about crippling a child. He generally disagreed with Leia’s assertions that morality was subjective, since he’d been intuitively disturbed by the aftermath of Logos’ rampage twenty years ago; angered by the hypocrisy of the now defunct Leopard Ruling Council when they’d had him swear to be an honest ruler; and now his “conscience”, as it was commonly referred to, was causing him hesitation during a fight. Perhaps it had been since the beginning of the battle, in fact; Leodus now realized that he hadn’t used magic attacks at all, against either Logos or Icestrike. Electrocuting them with the lightning-like attack could prove fatal, he thought as he parried another drill stab from Icestrike that chipped away at his sword, but then, might be it could effectively counter their Rupture weapon powers… And then he had it; a way to incapacitate at least one opponent without causing severe injury. Leodus activated his ocular powers just as Icestrike was pushing forward, having taken the offensive. The white bear’s eyes became unmoving as Leodus stared into them, as did his body. Unlike Logos, whose wrist-mounted gauntlets remained on his arms during the bizarre and stalemated mental battle with himself, Icestrike had simply been holding the handle of his drill baton. It slipped from his paralyzed hand and clattered to the surface of the bridge, in the corner next to the parapet; or at least, Leodus assumed that was where it landed, based on what he heard. His eyes were still laser-focused on his adversary’s. “Leia, Commander–both of you!” Leodus roared as his eyes remained fixed on Icestrike’s, unable to pick up the drill baton without breaking the gaze. “I need backup! Confiscate that weapon and paralyze Lo–!” Leodus felt a literal wave of anger smash into his body then, throwing him back to the west end of the bridge as his cut-up greatsword went flying through the air, disappearing in the mountain mist. That was the last he ever saw of the ill-fated weapon.
Iceclaw panted in exhaustion and relief, having won the battle of control with Logos just in time to stop Leodus from repeating that accursed name. The distance that Icestrike had put between the two Leopards during his onslaught was too great for Iceclaw to surmount in that one second, but it was enough time to let out a chi-enhanced roar that both cut Leodus off mid-sentence and disarmed him. It also unavoidably knocked Icestrike flat on his face, and sent the Rupture Drill skidding farther along the bridge. Iceclaw hauled the young Hunter to his feet while looking intently ahead. Leodus lay close to the end of the bridge, dazed. Of Leia, there was no sign, making Iceclaw immediately suspicious. He’d been completely focused on the fight with Leodus, and hadn’t seen her go into the west tower of the outpost…he did, however, see someone coming out of it: a heavily-armored leopard, likely the Commander that Leodus had just called upon. Iceclaw grinned as his eyes fell on the blue orb in the Commander’s bulky harness. Chi, not of the fire variety. He lashed out with a blast from his left Rupture Claw, hurling the ice at the Commander before he could get from land to bridge, and freezing him over even as he tried to dodge. All that armor on, yet it can’t protect you from being frozen, Iceclaw thought in satisfaction, just as Icestrike dashed forward, picking up the Rupture Drill on his way to the downed Leodus. “No, Icestrike, stop–!” Iceclaw cautioned. Icestrike had already proven reckless during the battle with Leodus, walking straight into the Leopard King’s ocular paralysis despite having been forewarned about it by his leader…not to mention, Iceclaw was now thinking about Leia’s dubious absence. The order came too late, as Icestrike fell upon Leodus and was about to make an end of it with his rapidly spinning drill…and then things happened somewhat as Iceclaw suspected they would: Leia dashed out from behind a rock, ran onto the bridge, and skidded in front of Leodus using the last of her fire chi energy. There was a loud ting sound, followed immediately by a series of crackling noises, and as Iceclaw looked over Icestrike’s shoulder from afar, he saw what happened. Leia’s monocle, cupped precisely perpendicular to her chi harness in her C-shaped hand, had been the last line of defense against the tip of the Rupture Drill; and though it was now a mosaic of cracks that appeared seconds away from shattering into a hundred tiny pieces, it remained intact for the time being. Icestrike had released the trigger on his baton, stopping the drill as he gaped at the sight. “Quadruple-reinforced glass,” Leia muttered by way of explanation, just before Icestrike looked up, and was frozen in place by the gaze of her left eye.
Leia let out a breath as she steadily maintained the paralysis, her plan having just barely worked. “Leodus,” Leia called, as she heard him using the parapet to pull himself to his feet behind her, “you handle the other–”
No sooner had the last word left her mouth, than Leodus screamed, "LOOK OUT–!" The warning came too late–though perhaps it would’ve been futile regardless, as she later thought back on the event–and Leia looked up to find Subject #001, Logos, Iceclaw, whatever his name was, leaping straight over the white bear and delivering a wide slash with his left claw gauntlet… As Leia fell to her side, she realized blandly that her field of view had shrunken. Then the pain erupted like an active volcano, so great that she almost passed out, but she held on, screaming with her mouth closed as she clenched her fangs and narrowed her remaining eye. Leia's monocle shattered on the bridge surface to her immediate right, and pieces of the thick glass nicked her, but most were crunched under her Phoenix armor. In a daze, she groped around in her coat pocket and pulled out the small objects she’d kept within. "That’ll take care of your powers," she heard her assailant say with satisfaction, and she looked up to see the snow leopard staring straight ahead, likely having immediately caught Leodus in his ocular paralysis. "Now, Icestrike," he continued, "there’s no time to lose! Hurry and kill Leia–" He stopped short as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the silver spheres ringed by an orange glow that Leia had in her right hand. As she pulled the pins and tossed the three fire chi "grenades" into a feeble roll that went a couple of feet, beneath Icestrike's legs, Leia observed a change in Iceclaw's expression. In that moment, it morphed from a look of extreme satisfaction into one of surprise and fear; not unexpected given the circumstances, but there was something beyond just primal fear for his own well-being, some indescribable mix of sadness, dread, desperation and confusion, and his ensuing actions reflected that. First, Iceclaw's head shot up, and rather than resuming his broken paralysis of Leodus, he blasted the Leopard King with another chi-enhanced roar; this one sent Leodus flying off of the bridge, and into a roll through the patches of thin snow on the west cliff face. Immediately after this, the snow leopard pivoted on his heels and, using what was likely the last of his chi energy, launched himself up and forward, tackling Icestrike and taking them both in a very brief flight through the air. The Ice Hunters didn't go as far as Leodus, landing on the bridge several feet away from where the "grenades" had stopped their roll. Lastly, Iceclaw snapped his head back, and, still holding Icestrike's neck tightly behind his elbow as if he meant to choke the bear, desperately scrambled farther back on hands and feet, not bothering to stand in those last seconds before detonation, the crazed expression still on his face. How fascinating, Leia thought, as she turned and began crawling as far to the west as she could.
Iceclaw's clear obsession with saving both Leodus and Icestrike, rather than reflexively picking one or the other (or neither, if the most basic self-preservation instincts had won out), almost seemed to imply that "part" of his mind wanted to save the former, whilst another "part" wanted to save the latter. If only I could study him, Leia thought, but then, perhaps I'll get the chance if I survive this. She couldn't help smiling, imagining the confused faces of Iceclaw and Icestrike behind her, as they realized that the fire chi "grenades" hadn't detonated yet. Indeed, "bomb" was probably a more fitting term for them; though they were seemingly activated the same way grenades were, they'd begin an inaudible countdown to their detonation, rather than igniting immediately. This was by design, of course. Leia had invented these bombs after studying grenades (another infamous invention to come out of the Sabertooth Tiger–Lion War), specifically to scare attackers into putting more distance between them in anticipation of an immediate explosion, only to be caught off-guard by a delayed one; perfect for a situation such as this. Well, almost perfect. The bridge will be destroyed, but it seems this outpost was doomed anyway. Leia needed to either send the terrorists plummeting into the river below, or trap them on the western mountain (depending on whether or not they made it off the bridge in time), while Leodus remained safely on its eastern neighbor. I can't let them kill Leodus. He is the ultimate Leopard King, the culmination of years of work... They only posed a threat to him because he seemed to be holding back. Of course... There is no way the perfect warrior and leader could be slain by a couple criminals...no way-- She was almost to the west cliff face when she heard the explosion; felt embers rain onto her lab coat and burn through it, sizzling ineffectively against the back of her Phoenix armor. She realized that her one-handed crawl, as she held her other hand over the place where her left eye had been, was now futile, as the stone bridge crumbled away beneath her.
Leodus pushed himself to his feet and watched, dumbfounded, as the center of the bridge exploded. In a chain reaction, the separated halves of the supposedly mighty structure both cracked and shattered, much like Leia's monocle moments ago. On the western half of the crumbling mess, Leia seemed to give up her crawl before plummeting along with it into the mountain mist below, where she disappeared from view. All the while, Leodus stumbled to the edge of the cliff face, but he couldn't get to her in time. Though his view of the east was obscured by the smoke from the blast, he did catch a glimpse of Logos and Icestrike. Unlike Leia, they continued to desperately claw at the crumbling stone, yet their fate was the same as hers. That fate, beyond the fall into the river that ran between the mountains, was completely unknown to Leodus.
-last edited on Jan 16, 2024 22:00:28 GMT by The J
Post by The J on Jan 16, 2024 21:59:45 GMT
Chapter 22
The aptly named Forest of the Falling Leaves was laying down a shower of colors that afternoon. The core of the vast Gorilla Jungle, it was located directly east of the now mostly destroyed Silverback Meadow, and the Gorilla Headquarters sat in its center. Valum walked next to Aether through the rain of leaves, both out of general politeness to non-fliers, and to rest his wings after his battle with Icewing. The final duel with the Ice Hunter had concluded only a few minutes prior, and took that much time, but Valum's body ached as if he'd just gone through an hour of exercise. The fight had been an intense one, indeed... No, it's not just the fight, he realized, it's the chi orb I'd swallowed. Most beings aren't supposed to use multiple chi orbs at once, are they? He thought about Icescale, who'd inadvertently given him the idea to swallow a second orb, and wondered if the white crocodile was presently experiencing the same fatigue. At least I'll no longer have to compensate in that way when fighting the Ice Hunters. He looked down at the Rupture Blade now hanging from his belt, then up at Aether as he talked. "I'd scarcely been a man grown in the final year of the Sabertooth Tiger–Lion War," the albino gorilla began, "and I lost my remaining parent in the crossfire." "I'm sorry," Valum replied sympathetically. His own mother had passed away when he was still young, so he hadn't truly known her. "My relationship with my father had been much stronger than with my mother," Aether admitted, "but then, maybe that made it all the worse. Anyway, after that devastating conflict, I’d hoped that the Gorillas would form an alliance with at least one other tribe; should anyone wage a war like that on us in the future, the losses will be even greater. However, His Majesty went in the opposite direction in response to the war, taking on a borderline isolationist stance. For the most part, the only time we interact with other tribes is when we're receiving our monthly chi supply from the Lions, and even then, we get it via a shipment right to our doorstep, like during the war." Valum could hear the frustration in Aether's voice, though the gorilla may have been trying to hide it. "For what it's worth, that could just be for the convenience factor," he pointed out. "Many tribe leaders have switched to shipments, that they no longer need to break away from their duties or send one of their top lieutenants across Chima once a month."Despite the tradition of tribe representatives traveling to Lion City for their chi having withstood hundreds of years, the Lions had begun discreetly sending wagons of chi to the tribes every month during the war, out of necessity; Lion territory was a legitimately unsafe place to travel to at the time, and though the chi shipments were oft raided by the Sabertooths (incidentally eliminating the last shreds of sympathy most tribes had for their cause), the new practice had been adopted en mass after the war.
"Oh, I wasn't aware that it became a common practice," Aether replied, "probably because of our lack of contact with other tribes; go figure. Of course, there are Gorillas in support of this. King Guernica is beloved by the populace for the anti-war stance he's had throughout his long reign; I hear that they're wanting to build a new city in the east and name it after him. Many see isolationism as his desire to protect us from conflict taken to its logical conclusion. I'd have to disagree..." Valum's thoughts returned to the practice of chi shipments. Thinking on it, one of the last times he'd gone to Lion City for chi was several months before the war began; that fateful day Aeon Gulikovsky had first brought up the Elemental Rupture to Valum and his father. "About the Rupture crystals..." he began, hoping to discuss this as they entered the Gorillas' capitol city. A far cry from the Vultures' or Leopards' cities, this consisted mostly of large huts built atop (or hanging from) tree branches, though many construction projects were observably underway on the ground; despite their isolation, the Gorillas' were ironically bringing their city layout more in line with that of the other tribes. "Ah yes, you must be wondering why I want to destroy them." Aether glanced around with a casual expression, but any nearby townspeople were out of earshot. "I abhor the rogue Leopards who slayed our loved ones as much as you and Icewing, but unlike the latter, I've always looked at the full picture of the event. Sure, perhaps those miners were scum who would've eventually made a shocking betrayal regardless, and yet...the circumstances that led to our fathers' untimely ends would've never occurred, had it not been for the existence of the Elemental Rupture." "I never really thought of it that way," Valum mused. "No wait, I have had that thought; but only in passing." "Meanwhile, the thought's been living in my head for the past decade." Aether chuckled, with more bitterness than humor. "I mean, really; if not for that wretched place and the corrupting power it produces, our fathers would've lived to see another day. I'm not excusing the actions of those Leopards, but there's a reason we call it the 'Rupture Incident', right?" "Corrupting?" Valum zeroed in on the word, looking down at the Rupture Blade and the makeshift attachment he'd made to his belt with one of the jungle's many vines. (The jagged shape of the crystalline sword, more large than long, made it unable to fit into his sheath; and Icewing's custom sheath must've burned off her belt during her flaming fall in the Iron Mountains.) "You're--you'll be...the exception that proves the rule," Aether replied quickly, following his gaze, "probably--I mean, definitely, Your Majesty. But you can't deny the horror that unfolded was inexorably tied to the mine and its resource; as is the continuing terrorism of the Ice Hunters."
