Battle in the Throne Room

Aiyue had received word from her sister that their father had learned of their deception and as a result he had hired the same ship and crew to bring himself and Diayu to The Emperor's rooms at The Tether as quickly as he could manage. Aiyue held the parchment in her hands, the folds were now so frail and fragile because she'd read the letter at least a dozen times since it had been placed in her hands. She knew that she needed to tell The Emperor and Empress that her father was coming and he would not be in a joyful mood, but she was too worried about her sister's well being. She thought she could handle things on her own. She was completely wrong. When they finally docked and word had gotten to her that they were coming to the rooms, she'd asked the few servants she had made friends with to ensure that both heads of the family were not near the throne room for as long as possible; even though she knew this was a huge thing to ask for and would likely only get her punished by one or both of them in the end. Aiyue stood before the thrones when she heard her father's loud screams. "Do You know who I am!" He was certainly snarling in the guards' faces just on the other side of the door. "I demand you let me in that room at once!" To the single guard that had been ordered to follow Aiyue around, she simply nodded, signalling that he could let her father and sister into the throne room now. As her eyes met her father's for a brief moment, she instantly felt guilt and shame, but those feelings only intensified above seeing her sister's face; covered in bruises, her eye swollen shut and her lip split and blood still running down her chin. It was at this moment that Aiyue knew she was no match for her father. She looked at one of the guards that had been manning the doors and asked him simply to bring the Emperor and Empress, and quickly. Until that time she ran to her sister's side and whispered softly how sorry she was.

Emperor squinted as a servant full of a bullshit story came up to him flagging him over with some news of an improper notary on one of the shipments. Grumbling the mastiff snatched the missive and went to his office to correct the error. Applying the wax seal and signature to the page and shooing the servant away. Though the servant then insisted he should have some tea to calm his nerves. Eyes narrowing but he nodded and sat and would sip over the brewed oolong. Until there was a clamber at the doors. There were many doors within the suite but the ruckus came from the communal room which also doubled as the entrance and bled towards the main hallway. Then a distant banging and crash as whatever it was slammed through and into the throne room. This is about when an out of breath guard scrambled to the mastiff with word of the retired General intruder and that Aiyue was alone in the room trying to speak to him. A rumbling growl seething from his chest as he quickly made way into the room using the hidden back passages. Entering from the side in a abrupt snap and crackle of his Imperial silk garments. "You dare break into my home? You have no doubtedly lost your senses Bingwen." Speaking the retired General's first name as a sign of his utterly lost respect for the dragon. "Leave now...or you will not be leaving at all." A snort as his brows wrinkled and his eyes enlighten with the fuming rage of a furnace.

Aiyue: Bingwen glared at his daughters. He was about to kick Aiyue away from Diayu when Emperor walked into the throne room and spoke his first name. His own orange eyes, much like Aiyue's, burned as they stared at the mastiff. "You dare to house one of my daughters without my permission!" If he was not going to be shown respect, he would not be giving respect in return. His daughters had learned that was how he worked long ago. "I did not break in. I have come to retrieve my child. Assuming you have not lain with her and tainted her purity. I had a very high offer for her before this one decided to go behind my back!" He spat as he threw Diayu at the Emperor's feet, causing the girls to cry as they were now separated. Aiyue looked up at Emperor, her eyes beginning to tear, "Please, Shèngshàng, I know what my sister and I did was wrong, but we did it because we believed you would help us, or me at the very least." Shakily, the young Kirin rose from where she and her sister had huddled together, "He had beat us, as children. And then it turned more... sinister. The man that he was going to marry me off to would have down the same thing." She now knelt before Emperor, her hands picking at the flowers on her hanfu. "I will take whatever punishment you deem fit, Shèngshàng, but please do not allow him to hurt my sister anymore. She did what she thought was going to save my life, putting her own in greater danger by doing so."

Emperor looked over the battered, thrown sister and the babbling Aiyue. "Be silent." He snapped towards Aiyue. There was no time for him to care about her sob story. A story he had already heard twice now. Once from the kirin and another time when he spoke to Ankha. And he did remember too what he had promised her. That honor must be restored and justice served. Eyes shifting towards the bestial ex-General. "You have lost your respect when you found it a good option to kill your own wife. Now you stand before me with lies spilling from your lips. She was not pure upon arrival. You have already seeded her." The mastiff was not going to play into his games. A heated snort. The mastiff moving towards the center of the room. His stance widening. A gesture given to the guard standing around. "Seal the exits...my offer of mercy has gone ignored...and now Bingwen, you will not be leaving."

Aiyue shuddered when the Emperor barked at her to be silent, but nodded in compliance anyway. She crawled slowly to her sister's side, pulling her against her tightly, seeking the same comfort she had as a child. The exalted General looked between his daughters and the Emperor. "You think I did what?!" He now took steps toward Aiyue, pulling her up by her horn. "You lied to him! You lied to everyone in this dynasty to make them feel sorry for you! I never touched you, you little whore!" He threw her to the ground now much like he did to Daiyu. Aiyue looked at her father and snarled, her nostrils flared and for the first time ever, smoke bellowed from her muzzle. "You dare call me a liar when you had your way with me the very night you had mother killed! You devil spawn still grows within me! I am lucky that Shèngshàng has not deemed me to die as of yet!" She yelled, tears rolling down her cheeks. She spun around, her back to her father. "Shèngshàng, all I ask is that you make it as painful as you possibly can. It is the least he deserves. After that, if it is the Emperor's wish that my sister and I leave the court, I will arrange transport to our grandparents." She bowed low, showing her complete obedience and submission to the mastiff before her and then walked over to her sister's side once more.

Emperor paused for a moment when the General so declared his innocence in such a concern way. After all at one time the mastiff had trusted the man to have his back in battle. It was not such a simple thing to negate such a connection. Eyes shifted between the discorded family with an irritated twitch of his brows. "You had better not be lying to me girl. When this is all over Ankha insisted you be brought to a medic for testing. I believe that so even moreso now. Unless you have been tested already...then I will need the reports from the doctor." He hadn't known about a baby. Only that the father had sullied her. This was all news to him and now he was even more shocked and appalled. "I should simply cull your entire line and be done with this foul headache." Venom spilling into his gutteral tones. As the Generals back was somewhat turned to him as he went to grip Aiyue's horn and shake her the mastiff seemed to glide over the floor with a hot aura surrounding him. A stern fist engulfed in a fiery aura aimmed solidly towards the beast's ribcage, seeking to knock him back into the stone tables.

Aiyue: Bingwen had not anticipated an attack while his back was turned to Emperor. In truth, he'd have thought that the large mastiff would have fought him more like a man. The General truly saw nothing wrong with what he'd done to his daughters. Aiyue and Diayu hugged each other tightly, hiding their faces in each other's hair. Bingwen groaned loudly when the fiery fist made contact with his rib cage was surely bruised and he had curled around Emperor's fist before withdrawing himself. The large dragon man blew smoke from his nose, angered that his bratty bitch daughters had turned his once employer against him like this. "You would truly take the word of young girls over a member of your court for years?! Girls you hardly knew existed before the elder came to begging for help?" He scoffed at the hilarity of it before he called upon the earth of the plants in the room to throw a solid dirt ball clear at Emperor's head. He growled louder when the ball missed completely.

Emperor dipped his head to the side as a large chunk of summoned dirt was thrown at him and slammed into the wall crumpling debris over his throne chair. He would have fought him face to face if he saw the brute as a man anymore. He was simply an animal in which needed to be put down. "Oh and you will then tell me that you are innocent and did not commit matricide? Why on earth would these girls go to such lengths to rid themselves of you?...If it was not any truth to your madness?" A clawed hand just grazing at the man's arm as he shifted to put some distance between them. His Imperial robes tossed to the side and a hand delved into the pockets to pull free a scroll he kept on his person. "As far as I am concerned you have killed an innocent upon my soil...Your home after all sits within my province. A gifted land for your service..and yet you taint it with the blood of your wife. That is reason enough to call a warrant for your death sentence...and I am here now and such deliver."

Aiyue: The blow just grazed Bingwen's arm as he too stepped back from Emperor. Again, Bingwen called upon the resources available to him; he pulled all the dirt from every plant in the room, spinning his hands above his head before throwing the large rock like object at Emperor. "Where do you think she gained her power? Her mother was a nothing unicorn that was useless save for bedding and baring children." The large dragon snarled loudly once more, stepping close to his daughters, ready to pull them from the room and the Tether all together; thinking he'd beaten the mastiff. He should have known better though.

Emperor was about to go whip open the scroll but before he could get it open the large side pillar began to shift...then lift off the ground completely. He attempted to leap to the side but his older body was not incredibly swift. The giant dragon column breaking over his back and buried in under the rubble. The General trying to collect the girls to drag them away. Though he'd find a guard standing by the door cutting off his path. A spear jabbing at him. Dealing with that the mastiff shifted underneath the pile of stone.

Ankha's return to the suites should have been peaceful, it should have been her being greeted by slaves and servants ready to fetch anything the Empress desired. But no. The clamor of a battle sends tremors through the floor and this draws Ankha towards its source. Guards have already convened there and with her skirts billowing ominously, the jackal swipes a sword from her personal attendant with a snarl. The General, deterred at the point of a spear would also be facing the furious expression carved on the Egyptian's face. "Take one more step and I will turn you to cinders," and to emphasize her threat? A blaze of fire sparks in her free hand, fed by an ancient glyph she conjured.

Aiyue: The girls screamed in horror and shook at the pillar falling on Emperor. Before their father could even reach them, both girls darted to the pile of rubble and began trying to dig the mastiff out. "Aiyue, use your powers!" Diayu yelled at her sister, who had clearly forgotten she'd even had powers in the heat of the moment. With the girls clearly deciding their fate, Bingwen scoffed once more, "So be it! If you make it through this, you are dead to me!" He yelled at them before rushing toward the door. The guard with the spear jutting toward him stood no chance, the earth dragon snapped his clawed fingers and a sinkhole appeared, sucking the guard down to his midsection as he darted for the exit and his freedom. But it was Ankha that had him stopping his in tracks. He cursed low under his breath. Had she not appeared when she did, he would have had a clear escape.

Emperor seemed unmoving underneath the rocks. The distractions gave him the necessary time to regain his composure. That the sisters seemed so desperate to rouse him proved to him their devotion to see him victorious. The Imperial rose pulling open the scroll with a gravelly boom calling out the name to summon the dragon's spirit. "Panlong!" This scroll was an unusually colorful one in which was not of his typical arsenal but the one he had just recently finished and so was the one currently on hand. A rainbow dragon shaped aura leapt from the billowing parchment. Soaring across the room and wrapping the dragon General up. Squeezing him like a vicious anaconda serpent. Leeching away at his chi energy. The mastiff putting a hand on Aiyue's shoulder to stabilize himself. He looked heavily scuffed. The white linen of his martial robes in tatters and sullied with a mixture of dirt and blood. His eyes shifting to Ankha. Giving her a nod. Emperor was well aware she could handle herself on her own but there was a pang of caution expressed in his eyes.

Ankha isnt certain what had transpired for such chaos to have erupted but she recognized the old General from previous reports, both official and discreet. But he had apparently caused harm to her mate and their Household, which alone was enough to spark the woman's protective and violent instincts. The Guard swallowed by the earth warrants only a second of concern but she's still fixed on Bingwen, the hundreds of tattoo's enscribed on her flesh emitting a faint, otherwordly glow as she channeled her magic. The cry of Emperor distracts her and a rainbow dragon snares the old General, with Ankha's gaze diverting to her disheveled husband. Another jolt of fury in the jackal's demeanor, "I will see your soul devoured by Ammut," she hissed at Bingwen. The rune in her hand flared like a miniature sun and it leaped at the constricted dragon, blazing until it melted his very scales and turned his eyes and heart to crisp embers.

Aiyue: Bingwen turned when he heard the large mastiff call out the name of some spirit and then cried out in pain when that very spirit wrapped itself around him and sucked his very life chi from him. He wriggled against the thing, trying his best to get free, but it was no use. With the crack to the ribs and now the Empress before him, Bingwen knew he was done for. "This... Is... Your... Doing... Aiyue." He grunted out between attempts to get free from the coils of the spirit dragon. The dragon withered up into crisp ash before his daughters' very eyes and Aiyue had to run from the room to save herself the embarrassment of vomiting in front of the Emperor and Empress. Diayu just stood there, stoic as if nothing had happened, as if she were craved of marble. "Thank you Shèngshàng and Empress. My sister and I will make our leave now if that is what is wished of us."

Emperor surveys as the General is gripped within the tangle of dragon coils and Ankha taking advantage to light the man on fire. Smoldering and cooking his flesh and scales. The mastiff presses his fingers together and gestures outward and up and the dragon responds. Blinding into a bright light that shoots through the General's neck severing his head from his shoulders. The hunk of smoking cranium thudding and rolling over the ground. Promptly the mastiff passes out and the dragon dissolves into a fizzle of light and then nothing. The chambers left in mayhem, scattered rock and pebbles...scorch marks and blood.