Inside>Out! Ch4 A New Start - Lions' POV
The leopard and the lion stood for a few moments, studying each other. At some point, an unofficial start signal was exchanged between their eyes, and they started cricling. He appeared to be outmatched, but the leopard made the first move. He made an upward-angled thrush for the lion's neck with his thin but elegant saber.
Gloan the lion easliy moved his body aside and let the sword pass his left arm. He defended by swinging his left axe upward to knock away the leopard's sword. He followed up with a strong downward strike, aiming for the leopard's sword arm.
The leopard sidestepped, and dealt a glancing cut to Gloan's right side.
Nearly unaffected, Gloan spun in a half-circle to use his left axe to slash at the leopard. He expected the first attack to be avoided, and it was; the leopard had taken a step backward. But in the same spinning motion, Gloan took a step forward with his right foot and made another downward slash.
The leopard barely managed to parry the harsh blow with his saber, a weapon not suited to defeat heavy weapons such as axes. Moving inside, he delivered a sharp knee to the stomach of the lion. Gloan flinched, if only slightly; it was enough of an opporunity for the leopard to elbow him in the face. He staggered back, the leopard following with a thrust towards the face of his opponent.
But Gloan was prepared for this. He blocked the thrusting saber by crossing his axes, catching a small portion of the sword in their grip. "Got you." The sword tip was caught under the curves the axes made as the connected to their handles. Gloan pulled his axes apart; the pressure applied in opposing directions broke the tip of the sword, subtracting apporxiately a paw's length from the blade.
Shock and rage spread across the leopard's face as he saw his champion saber shattered. He reached to his belt for the scabbard, which had an emergency release snap to it.
Seeing his chance, Gloan pressed the attack. He slashed with his right, his left, his right again, then both in unison. The first few attacks were dodged as the leopard's backstepping. The last was parried by his broken saber. After attempting to push each other backward during their clash, the two combatants separated.
Gloan was on his guard, ready to re-engage. What he hadn't noticed though, was that the leopard was now standing where he had been only minutes before. Rather than attack him, the leopard hesitated. Instead he turned on his heel, and buried his sword in the chest of the younger lion who had accompanied Gloan into battle. The younger gasped, and fell to the ground cluthcing his chest as the leopard withdrew the sword.
A mighty roar escaped from the older lion. A roar of anger and hatred and mourning. As he charged in, nearly blinded by his tears, the leopard pulled his scabbard from his belt wielding it as a secondary sword. He dodged Gloan's double slash, and then inflicted a light cut on Gloan's neck using the bladed tip of his scabbard.
The effect was almost instant. Gloan reared his axe for another strike, but then he stopped. His eyes dilated, and his arm fell limply at his side. He dropped to his knees, shoulders shaking as he struggled to lift them. It was a muscle relaxant. Gloan was almost paralyzed. The leopard slashed him relentlessly across the chest, as if attempting to bleed him dry. The last thing he saw was leopard's broken saber piercing his neck. He blacked out, and departed for a world beyond.
The leopard reattached his scabbard to his sword belt, gathered his men and turned to pursue the two girls who had fled during the conflict. The younger lion however, crawled on all fours over to the corpse of his mentor. He removed Gloan's red cloak, and exchanged it for his own green one. He covered Gloan's corpse with, blood soaking it through and pooling around it. Tears ran down the young lion's cheeks as he donned the bloody, red cloak. He laid his master's axes in a crossed formation on the corpse. He returned to the shack in which they had lived together, gathered some meager provisions in a satchel, and brought some firewood outside. He built a pyre around his master, and lit it. He stared into it's flames for a few minutes, and then left the ruined village behind.