Claws met claws in a spray of sparks, the scrape of keratin on keratin shrieking through the ruined throne room. Sous pivoted on the ball of her foot, her heel whipping up to catch Pamoen under the chin, but the younger Omega rolled with the blow, flipping backward to land in a crouch as Xeno's teeth snapped shut where Sous' thigh had been a heartbeat before.
Sous ducked low, her wings flapping out to sweep Xeno's legs from under him even as she caught Pamoen's wrist mid-strike, twisting hard enough to hear cartilage pop.
Pamoen's snarl never reached her lips, she drove her forehead into Sous' nose...
CRACK!
...following through with a knee to the gut that sent the Alpha stumbling back into Xeno's waiting claws.
Blood arced through the fractured light as Sous twisted away at the last second, leaving strips of her jacket fluttering from Xeno's talons. She hit the marble rolling, came up with a handful of shattered stained glass hurled at Pamoen's eyes, the younger Omega batted the shards aside with a forearm, the edges drawing thin red lines across her flesh.
Pamoen lunged low while Xeno went high, their movements synchronized like wolves who'd hunted together for years. Sous barely sidestepped the double attack, feeling Xeno's claws graze her ribs as she pivoted into a brutal elbow strike that sent Pamoen sprawling.
Before Sous could press the advantage, Xeno's teeth sank into her thigh, not deep, but enough to make her gasp, and she twisted, using his grip to flip him over her shoulder.
SLAM!
He hit the marble hard, claws scrabbling for purchase, but Pamoen was already airborne, a silver blur, her knee driving down toward Sous' spine. The Alpha barely rolled clear, feeling the impact vibrate through the floor beneath her as Pamoen's strike cratered the stone.
The snarls of exertion, the whistle of claws cutting air, the crack of bone meeting bone. Sous twisted mid-fall, her heel snapping upward to catch Xeno's jaw as he lunged again, sending him reeling back with a spray of saliva and blood.
Pamoen's forearm smashed across Sous' temple, stars exploded behind her eyelids, but instinct drove her elbow back blindly, connecting with a stomach. The whoosh of expelled breath told her it was Pamoen.
Xeno's claws raked down Sous' spine, fabric and skin parting in wet ribbons. She spun into the pain, her own talons catching him across the ribs, too shallow, he twisted away with a hiss.
Pamoen came in low, a whirlwind of knees and elbows, striking like a meteor shower, compact, relentless impacts that forced Sous back step by step.
The Alpha's heel caught on rubble, her balance wavered, and Xeno seized the opening, his forearm crushed against her windpipe, slamming her into a fractured column. Plaster dust rained as the structure groaned.
BAM!
The throne room's acoustics turned the gunshot into a thunderclap, vibrating through shattered stained glass still clinging to fractured window frames. Pamoen's head snapped toward the sound mid-lunge, her pupils contracting to pinpricks as plaster dust sifted downward in lazy spirals from the new bullet hole in the ceiling.
Sous and Xeno also turned.
"Shadow!" Sous called out as she watched Shadow point the gun at Xeno.
Sous ran to him, holding the gun up, the shot gun. "Don't! He's my son!" She yelled. "They're my kids, both of them!"
Shadow lowered the gun. "Both?" Sous nodded her head, a long story.
"I don't wanna hurt them. They're my babies," she whispered to the elderly Omega, but her babies didn't care. Shadow's eyes became wide as the two headed straight toward him and Sous.
Sous stepped in front of Shadow, taking claws to her shoulders as Xeno vaulted over her, his talons outstretched toward Shadow's throat.
The old Omega barely dodged, but Pamoen's knee caught him in the ribs, sending him crashing into the remnants of a shattered pew. Wood splintered as Shadow slid through the wreckage, coughing blood.
Sous roared, not words but pure sound, a guttural eruption that rattled loose shards of stained glass from their frames. Her claws found Xeno's flank, sinking deep enough to scrape bone, but the younger Omega twisted away with a wet tearing sound, leaving strips of his own flesh dangling from her talons.
SSPPPHH!
Blood sprayed in rhythmic arcs as his heart hammered, painting fractured sunlight crimson.
Xeno's claws hooked under Sous' ribs before she could recover, lifting her bodily into the air, muscles tore audibly as she contorted mid-flight, her knee pistoning upward to shatter his nose in an explosion of cartilage fragments.
They hit the ground together, rolling through shattered glass that embedded itself in their flanks like grotesque jewels.
Pamoen's foot came down where Sous' throat had been, the marble cratering with the force of her stomp; Sous caught the next kick against her forearm, bones creaking under the impact as she twisted and sank her teeth into Pamoen's calf until iron flooded her tongue.
Xeno's claws found Sous' wing, not the delicate membrane but the joint where bone met sinew.
POP!
She rolled into the pain, her own talons raking upward through Xeno's thigh, splitting muscle like overripe fruit.
Pamoen's claws scraped across Sous' collarbone in a spray of sparks, too shallow, but the follow-up knee drove the Alpha's head into marble with a wet crack.
Sous' vision swam red as she clamped her jaws around Pamoen's wrist, feeling the ulna bend dangerously beneath her teeth while her free hand found Xeno's throat, thumb digging deep enough to feel carotid pulse hammering against her claw.
She looked at her children-
BANG!
Blood poured from Xeno's mouth onto the floor, a hole bigger than a fist on the size of his back where Shadow shot him. His blood sprayed onto Sous and she stared wide eye at her son while life slowly began to seep from his body.
She let go of Pamoen who fell to the ground with a soft thud while Sous hugged her son, holding onto him tightly.
Shadow watched on, placing his shotgun back into its holster.