Live your own life, for you will die your own death

It was time had been a long time coming it felt like ages. He could feel his nerves coming to life and refusing to quiet themselves. It was the moon. It was the challenge it was the fact this moment felt like the razor of fate hanging over his head. He didn’t have Estelle. He didn’t have his city not truly. He had this moment and the camps in the 'You.'

Once he did away with the whelp. He would be king well and truly. He knew he would do a better job. He was blind to the emotions of anyone but himself the feelings that would show dissension. He knew that was a key he needed but not how. Those traitors had been waiting for something different and here he was to be laid low and destroyed. But if he didn’t do something different he would be in the same place in a few weeks, years, or hell minutes.

He had to find his way through it why couldn’t they just appreciate what he did for them and what they could do for him. Why did people have to make things so hard?

The Vindexes just wanted out. The job was nearing its completion and they couldn’t be happier. It was time. The challenge would be over the Rex would take his position and New Orleans would be in their rearview mirror. It was wired that any of them agreed on anything but the job but the place was filled with ghosts and worse. It was interesting that the only thing they hoped was for this to be over.

It was one of the easiest jobs they’d been on and yet it was far more stressful it was if fate itself was hanging in the wings waiting to pounce and devour them. Having spoken to each other it was agreed they would part ways as soon as possible and try to not think on their success rate. It was statistically likely the next job they all worked together would end badly. They hoped it wouldn’t be this one but were braced for that outcome. They each found various vantage points around the Venatorious to stash a drop piece and make themselves as comfortable as possible to hold off the call of the moon as long as possible otherwise it would be down to tooth and claw.

Aminta packed her things and had seriously considered leaving. But part of her wanted to make sure Pepper was if not fine at least as best as she could make her. It was wired she’d spent these few years worrying about herself. Now here she was willing to stick her neck out for not only someone else but a series of someone’s most of whom she didn’t bother to get to know.



So when Pepper had asked her to leave she’d really considered it but didn’t have the words to explain that no, no she wouldn’t leave yet and planned on killing Eric if she could if he won. She even considered what if anything she could do once she shifted to stack the deck in her favor. In the end it would be her breaking the rules. Lionesses never fought males for dominance. Lionesses were their own within the Pride protected by the males but never in competition with them. So she’d break a rule that would have a few people angry enough to be out for her blood. It wouldn’t be the first time.



Throwing her things together for a quick escape she dressed while Pepper was out and made her way to the holy. She rested there and watched Tibs arrive then Eric and the others slowly make their way here. She could read the stress on their faces. They carried the look of fear excitement and the blood lust that came with the call of the moon. One way or another these lions would become a Pride tonight. Either in having had enough of Eric and striking him down if he won or celebrating Tibs win.



As she spotted Pepper climbing a nearby long hanging branch Pepper snuck towards her. She never had a sister before or even any females she was close to aside from Sasha. SO as wired as it was she just felt better being near Pepper. “Hey,” She said with a smirk then smile as if they were at the back of some boring class instead of at a fight that would end in someone’s death.

Tibs threw off his shirt he knew the Pride that was developing didn’t all support him because of him. He knew that a lot of them supported solely because he offered them an option to Eric. They saw him as the other guy not necessarily the better guy. He wasn’t sure that they were wrong and that made the job as Rex so much harder. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things these days but he was sure that he would inflict such grievous injuries to Eric would pray for death.

“Life itself is a series of challenges, large, small they come in every shape and size. But how we face the challenges of each day says more about us than anything or anyone else in the world. People like Eric become negative and panic. He panics and lashes out. He attempts to control every facet of everything that comes his way, through violence. All the while unable to admit that he doesn't have control over anything. Because his mind is unfocused. His confusion complicates things and even small challenges become big problems that need bigger and more violent actions to control. He reacts emotionally to situations. Because of the cowardice in his heart and his emotionality, he is undependable and unable to take appropriate action. He is meat. He is weak mentally nose-blind and my offering to you as your new leader. Tonight we as a Pride will feast on his bones and gain strength from all that he wasted taking the only good he can provide sustenance to fill our stomachs.”

Limbering up he stepped into the natural circle formed from the years this place had sat unnoticed by most and those who did who provided the blood of the vanquished.

" Maybe more," Aminta said with a smirk and shrug. She whooped that tibs was not all show and no go. He was big and had scars but that didn’t mean he had the killers will to finish the deal. She knew if Eric got the upper hand he not only had it he enjoyed it. That was the real difference between them. Eric would bend like bamboo snapping back to his old evil self. She was afraid that Tibs was too good to be true. Too god to be allowed to live by fate. She would never speak it out loud but she felt in her bones that Tibs wasn’t long for the world. He was too good. He was to unyielding he was born out of time.



Shaking her head as the feeling just wouldn’t leave her alone. She gasped as Eric launched himself at Tibs. She caught sight of Mutton chop as Pepper called him flinched like he was ready to join in. Of everyone besides the two of them he was the only one who she felt really cared. She couldn’t place why but that was what she got from him. He cared and probably shouldn’t. She heard the others talking about him being some big guy in Chicago. With everything she heard about that city she wondered why he was even here. To keep from screaming or worse she folded her hands in her lap thinking better of it she held them between her thighs.

As most of the Pride had shifted and all of those Eric had brought with him the vindexes each shifted knowing this would be settled with tooth and claw. They interspersed themselves around the two combatants. Mixing with the rank and file. If they had to jump in it would be easier from their spread positions. The growls and yells issuing from the gathered lions making a chorus of blood. If one were to judge in the now Eric would be winning the challenge. If he did their jobs would be in staying alive long enough to leave. He would be the Rex and could order the others to attempt to kill them. That wouldn’t be the worse.

If he declared them rogues it would be worse that would mean the other clans would be able to get their jollies off and let a little blood lust loose. It was not anyone’s idea of a good vacation. It would be worse for them as they were in truth rogues to this city. And The master of the City was known as something of an old school Vampires rule Master. The only sitting Master who refused but the European Council and the American one.

Tibs had never started a fight. Though perhaps this was the exception if one were to look at things through the right viewpoint. But as point of fact he had never been the one to throw the first punch, fire the first bullet. He had never been that sort of man. He was however the sort of man to finish things. Finish them decisively was what he had always been about. Unlike most lion and most men in the forces he didn’t like combat. He fought not for the rush of victory nor the bloodlust which threatened to consume one’s soul. He fought each and every time so that he wouldn’t have to fight ever again. He wanted to no needed to win not just the fight he was in but every fight that might come after.

It was why the Rex of San Diego wanted him demanded his service. Unlike other lycanthropes lions were built on the notion might made right. Dominate or be dominated. He couldn’t get behind that ideal. He could however get behind the notion that no one would dominate him. So as Eric leaped throwing his sizable bulk at him Tibs didn’t see a man so much as an ideal he would destroy.

Shifting mid strike was a new move he’d not had the pleasure of proving foolish but he would. Fighting the urge that most would have of getting away from the raking claws Tibs stepped in turning as he moved. It minimized the surface area Eric had access to as well as rammed his shoulder into the solar plexus of the lion before him. Eric was strong but he was a brawler. Tibs was a surgeon.

Using his leverage, he lifted catching the flailing right foreleg stepping around as he sent Eric further into the air. As he was shifted I the air meant in lion form he was standing nearly completely bipedal. Mistake after mistake on his part. Using the now useless limb in his grip Tibs began working in earnest.. Eric was stronger than he’d let on. Gliding in keeping the limb immobilized and controlling Eric’s spin Tibs cranked up torque the limb out of its socket. Lions were not made to bend that way. Firing a ballistic flurry with his good right hand he immediately tripped the off balance lion.

As he fell Tibs was there before he could right himself. Taking the hind leg. Stomping down on the left he raised the right as if it were the largest wishbone in the world. He felt the scrapes and scratches Eric landed in his flailing and instead of slowing him down it sped him along. HE was reward by a gratifying snap and knew the fight was all but over.