SP: Crunch

This couldn't be happening. The sight of her queen and mate charging through the grass with snarls in their throats had lifted Vita's heart like an eagle in flight. Maybe this monster had been able to best her, but three of Mwanzo's finest? They would feast upon his very bones for what he'd done. The innocence he'd torn from the plains of the earth.

Blood spilled forth from all parties and yet the brute still didn't fall, beating them back with strength that seemed never-ending. Still, he had to die sometime... Surely it was inevitable that even he would die!! A heavy paw across the side of her head sent Vita reeling to the dirt where not even the strictest of training could bid her rise. A daze fell upon the lioness, buzzing and bleak in her ears as her eyes wearily tracked the battle raging before her. A body already bruised and bleeding from her attempt at vengeance refused to obey any attempts to return strength to Vita's limbs, leaving her prone and paralyzed to watch as Bashiri and Tombo fought. For her.

Something deep inside Vita broke as she saw Bashiri thrown aside and struck true. Fangs sank deep to tear and crush her throat, leaving her gagging and gasping in a painful and slow death. All of her adult life had been spent protecting the lioness and her family. While cool and distant with the pride, Vita and the former queen had enjoyed a level of friendship that she hadn't expected from her lipard charge.

And yet she laid dying.

Fear and horror rose like a foreboding serpentine mass within Vita's throat, choking her of her roar as she lunged up to try and rise. Muscles weak with already-spent adrenaline trembled and failed, dumping her on her jaw more than once as she struggled to rise. Tombo was alone now fighting this monster that had already slain the queen they'd served for years, and she... She could only watch.

Vita came to understand what was happening almost before it did, the comprehension striking her in the chest with a painful clench and a whisper of a prayer. Tombo's head struck the ground and his gaze found hers, unfocused and vacant as it was with shock. A heavy paw came down upon it, almost cradling for a moment.

_{Please, gods, no,}

Despite her failing body Vita strained and struggled to lurch forward as Tombo cried out for her, her name repeating on his lips. She managed to lift her upper body just enough to crawl, to start to drag herself to him as he reached for her and struggled.

Then there was only the wet, sick sound of a creaking crack drowned in a cut-off scream. Vita was left staring at the broken head of her husband, into what had once been his eyes and now laid splattered across the paw of his murderer.

Vita's eyes stayed fixed upon the last pinpricks of fading orange as a savage wail rent the silence.


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_{ducks into my bunker}

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+10 horns

Erebus and Bashiri belong to

Tombo belongs to