At first, the battle went as well as they were hoping. The creatures abruptly paid attention to the group as they stepped cautiously through the door. The monitor lizard shifted to face them, the slons all opened their eyes from where they’d appeared to be sleeping, and a hiss here or there proved their supposition that there were snakes hiding out in the area around the tree.

Leading the pride, Leo opened his jaws and let out an ear-shatteringly loud Roar. Since it was directed at the enemies ahead of them, his own pride wasn’t badly affected. If anything, the reverse since hopefully most of them would have gained the Inspired buff. It was a pity that he couldn’t choose who would get it. He would have definitely put as many on the female as he could if it were possible.

The reactions of the creatures inside were gratifying. There was an immediate exodus of skittering and slithering creatures from the area directly in front of him, proving that it wasn’t just snakes hidden around the area, but some of the smaller lizards too.

The large monitor lizard that was not Leo’s target in the upcoming fight took several steps back, its body language changing to fearful, though the lion doubted that that made it any less dangerous: a cornered lizard was an aggressive one.

As for Leo’s actual targets, the slon disappeared up into the tree which, while a predictable response, meant that he didn’t know exactly where they were. That was a little annoying.

Giving a twitch of his tail – clad in irritating metal – Leo signalled the pride to leap forwards.

Leo bounded forwards too, covering ground quickly even without using any of his Abilities. A hiss rose from ahead of him and his next move was a seamless Pounce. Landing directly on top of the snake, his weight immediately crushed the creature, a death notification rising in front of his eyes.

Irritated with the interruption that was still only half-legible to his eyes, he focussed for just a moment on blocking any others from coming up even as he continued moving forwards.

A small lizard was the next prey to fall, followed by two more snakes. One managed to bite him as he fell upon it, the wound barely noticeable except for the quick loss of health points over the next few seconds. He ignored the reduction: it wasn’t worth returning to the back to receive a cure from the other male. It would be gone within a few seconds.

‘Interesting,’ Leo heard his brother muse. ‘I can choose to see the notifications even when you’ve actively turned them off.’ He ignored the comment – he needed to focus on the battle even if Dominic didn’t.

A moment later, he was at the base of the tree. The large lizard there prepared to strike, but it wasn’t the lion’s target.

Leaping to the side, Leo avoided both the lizard’s first lunge and its follow-up tail strike. He was tempted to take advantage of the monitor’s relative vulnerability and strike at it now, but was reminded of his true targets by a blow from above. The impact took out a chunk of his health – and due to the venom still running through him, it wasn’t immediately replaced.

‘Good strategy – have ranged defenders harry those attacking the boss. See, this is why we need more ranged creatures,' Dominic commented in the background.

Gathering power in his hindquarters, Leo sprung into the tree. It was tall and he wasn’t quite able to make the lowest branch. Striking out, he dug his claws into the trunk and pulled up even as he beat downwards with his wings. The combination was enough to propel him the rest of the distance. He hated to admit it when his brother was right, but in this case, he’d made a good decision to get the wings.

Landing on the lowest branch, he was immediately aware of an attacker striking at his hindquarters. Leaping forwards instinctively, he felt only a faint sting as the slon’s Gouge-powered strike cut a thin line in his coat.

One leap turned into a second as he felt something come for him from above. The impact was less damaging this time, and hit him on his hip instead of his head. Spotting that the slon which had attacked his hindquarters before was approaching again, Leo whirled around.

After all his brother’s practice fighting in the trees – no doubt influenced by his primate origins – Leo found that his body was moving more fluidly. Adding in the knowledge from his new Ability of exactly where the branch was under his paws just aided in that further.

Snapping at the slon, he caught its shoulder and dug his canines into it. The sloth-like creature made an oddly quiet noise of pain but couldn’t free itself from his teeth, only worsening the wound as it tried.

‘Use Venomous Bite!’ urged Dominic. This time, it was actually both relevant and a good suggestion, so Leo paid attention to it.

Pumping their newly gained venom into the creature took only a thought, and he saw its health bar start draining away. Adding a bit of stamina to Crushing Bite only made it empty faster.

But not fast enough. Standing still, Leo was a target of the other three slons.

One crept up behind him as he felt two approach him from above.

About to whirl around and attack the creature behind, an idea struck him. It was more of his brother’s style, but Leo decided to do it anyway.

Leaping up, the lion reached the branch a body-length above his head, on which the two slons sat. They both held objects within one of their paws, obviously intending to drop them on him again.

With a still-alive slon held between his jaws as the last of its life ran out with its blood, his main weapon, his bite, was occupied. However, Dominic’s suggestion to try out one new Ability had given him an idea.

Activating Tail Strike made his body start moving in a very unfamiliar way. He felt his tail curve in the opposite direction he was intending on moving in, his nose automatically turning towards the tip of the metal covering his tail. And then, in a split-second, his body uncurled with explosive power.

The momentum was enough to completely obliterate the slon…and send Leo falling from the branch.

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He grabbed onto the branch below, coming nose to nose with the slon he’d left there while he attacked above.

Note to self, he grumbled mentally. Don’t do that in a tree.

‘Did you see what it did to that slon though?’ his brother asked, sounding impressed. Leo ignored him. The slon in front of him swiped at his nose – its strike landing since he had no room to dodge.

The slon in his mouth had died so Leo just absorbed its body, lunging through the golden cloud to sink its teeth into the slon before him. The creature tried to avoid his attack, but it was just too close to him. His teeth sank deeply into its soft body and he immediately started pumping in venom and covering it with acid from under his tongue.

‘Good to know we can use those simultaneously,’ commented Leo’s most annoying brother.

Pulling himself back up onto the branch above, the lion suffered through another hard impact on his head from the single remaining slon. Growling angrily, he leapt up at the sloth-like creature.

Frustratingly, as he reached the branch it was sitting on, it slid underneath the branch, avoiding his first attack.

Unfortunately for it, it hadn’t taken into account that what goes up must come down. On his way back past, he reached out with both paws and dug his claws in. It was neither enhanced by an Ability nor a particularly good strike, but his weight was enough to drag it away from its paw-hold.

They fell. Leo released his prey to land back on the branch below, Sure Feet and Spatial Awareness making it so that he only slipped a little as he landed with all four feet back on the tree limb.

The slon wasn’t so lucky. With a quiet wail, it plummeted through thin air to the ground.

Which, Leo abruptly realised, was covered with a thick green fog.

‘What’s happening?’ he demanded in the Pride chat.

‘Are you done? We need help,’ answered Fang just as Sekhmet also answered with a grim feeling of being pressed.

‘I’m done. What’s the problem?’ Leo demanded again, now impatient.

‘Big lizard breathes out poison,’ explained Sekhmet. ‘We can’t get close – health drops too fast.’

‘That’s not good,’ commented Dominic with concern. ‘Can’t Lionel help?’

‘Too much,’ was Lionel’s succinct response, the lion never one for more words than necessary.

‘It’s thickest near the big enemy,’ added Procyon. ‘It’s not too bad on the outskirts, but the cloud obscures our view of the smaller creatures too. They don’t appear to be affected by the poison.’

‘Not surprising,’ sighed Dominic. Then, continuing privately to Leo, ‘We’ve got the advantage of range here. Obviously the poison cloud is heavier than air as we’re not getting any of it up here.’

‘Acid Bite, then?’ Leo checked.

‘Acid Bite,’ Dominic confirmed.

‘All of you stay to the sides. Kill as many of the small lizards and snakes as possible. Male who heals, you keep healing my pride,’ Leo ordered curtly. A faint hint of a snarl came across from Fang, but no one argued.

Positioning himself over the big lizard was a matter of jumping between branches, occasionally aided a little by his wings when there was enough space to deploy them. Despite being surrounded by the thick green cloud, the big lizard was still obvious in his position. Above it, Leo crouched, working his tongue to produce as big a ball of acid as he could.

Letting it drop on the lizard’s long neck, he immediately started gathering another ball.

The lizard didn’t seem to notice the first ball. By the time the second arrived, though, it was getting uncomfortable as the acid burned the top layers of its scales away. The second just hastened the dissolution as fresh acid replaced that which had already been used.

By the time the third ball was dropping, the area covered by the acid was starting to look red and bloody as the corrosive liquid had eaten a hole in the lizard’s defences. By this point the lizard was aware that something was wrong, but it didn’t seem to realise that the threat was coming from above.

‘No one ever looks up,’ commented Dominic with a hint of glee in his voice. ‘Maybe Pounce would work if it doesn’t realise where we are.’

‘Go down there?’ Leo asked with a mixture of scorn and uncertainty as he prepared and spat his fourth acid ball, gravity increasing his range nicely. ‘We don’t want to die either.’

‘With our health and regeneration? It’s unlikely,’ Dominic dismissed. ‘Besides I’m not suggesting we stay down there. Jump, lay on the damage, then leap back up here. If it’s not dead, we can repeat.’

‘Fine,’ Leo agreed reluctantly. He definitely didn’t want to jump into that sea of poison below, but it was true that he was probably the only one who could deal with the lizard now.

‘Remember to use Airborne – it will make our impact harder. And hold your breath!’ Leo’s brother added as he prepared to leap.

They were good points; though Leo didn’t respond, he did arrange his wings to take part in the action, while taking several deep breaths in preparation.

A moment later, he launched himself from the branch. Leaping off the branch straight down, he curved his wings so that they were helping guide his flight directly towards the big lizard.

Mentally activating Airborne to its current maximum of +5% to his weight, he added stamina to Quick Strike, speeding him up almost too much: he only just managed to get his claws in position before he struck the lizard.

Leo had decided to go all in on this strike, hoping that Pounce would work, even if it wasn’t a traditional ‘pounce’. Dialling up Powerful Swipe to its maximum, he also added the extra stamina for a chance at Gouge. Due to him using his wings as part of the strike, his bonus from Feathered Wings should also be added to it.

It all went very fast. In the first split-second, he dragged his claws down as soon as he impacted the lizard. The next impact was with his teeth, and he immediately bit down hard, throwing stamina into Crushing Bite and injecting venom. Just to top it off, he had filled his mouth with acid, bearing through the pain of it eating away at his mouth tissues again and again so that the lizard would have it all at once.

Frankly, it was overkill.

The lizard’s body caved in at his first impact, his claws sinking deeply into its flesh, tearing massive gouges. His bite sank right through to the lizard’s spine and bit through it with barely as much effort as it took to bite through the slon’s belly.

His momentum sent them rolling across the ground; by the time they stopped, the lizard was dead.