He knew exactly what to do.

Raising his paws as she started out of her throne, Tarrin touched the Weave. The power of the Goddess flooded into him, but it met a dam, a controlling force in his anger, a power that forced it to conform to his will. Conscious mind and the Cat joined to a common purpose, Tarrin raised his paws as they exploded with Magelight, raised them over his head as his entire body limned over, and then he quickly levelled them in Shiika's general direction. A sudden, awed hush fell over the thousands of people around him, around them, but he didn't even notice them. He levelled his paws at the Imperial couple, and wove together that chaotic mix of Fire, Water, Air, and Divine flows, with only token flows of the other Spheres to give his weave the power of High Sorcery. He wove it together with a stunning speed, knowing it so well, and then released it from his paws.

A white-hot bar of pure, raw magical power issued forth from his outstretched paws in time with a sudden fierce scream from his mouth, and it sizzled across the empty air that separated him from them. Shiika saw it coming, flinching away from its magical power. But she was not its target.

Zarthas Arakis, Emperor of Arak, never saw it coming. So intent was he on the gladitorial match below, he only looked up in time to stare his own demise in the face. Tarrin's magical attack struck him dead in the face, and it incinerated everying from the chest up. The blast of magical fury lasted but a heartbeat, but when it faded, there was a hole in the back of Emperor Arakis' throne big enough for a child to crawl through. There was a hole in the wall leading all the way to the exterior of the arena behind it, and the blast of magical power had extended nearly two longspans from the arena before dissipating, flying into the sky at an angle that did not bring it into contact with any other buildings. His severed forearms, the rest of the arms vaporized by the intense magical attack, still laid upon the arms of his throne, twitching spasmodically, and the remaining parts of his body quivered for just a moment before slumping slowly to the side. The bodies of two of his guards, each missing portions of their heads, dropped to the floor behind the throne, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now she couldn't command the Legions. They only listened to the Emperor. The Empress was nothing but a pretty plaything hanging on his arm. Without her puppet, she could no longer command the official aspects of her Empire.

You bastard! he heard her voice, but inside his own mind. Just like the Goddess! Do you have any idea what you've done?

"It's called revenge, Shiika!" he shouted, in a voice magically augmented so she could clearly hear it over the sudden loud din, as the spectators realized that this strange inhuman creature had just assassinated the Emperor of Yar Arak. Tarrin reached away from him as the power within suddenly issued forth from him in the form of pure flows, twisting together into groups of seven as they left him. Those that made contact with strands held fast, and he yanked on them to form new strands. They shuddered into existence, and he suddenly sat within a spider's web of power, a web that would fuel his weaves until he no longer had the strength to control them. "Now let your subjects see what you really are!"

Clapping his paws together, Tarrin quickly wove together the weave of pure Air of which he was so fond, the shockwave that had proven so devastating. The reddish glow formed in front of him immediately, and in his rage, he all but ripped the power from the Weave to create it. It solidified in a shocking amount of time, the disorganized reddish aura turning solid before him, before Shiika could even completely step away from her throne. He knew what he was about to do. He knew what it would do, and what it would mean. But he did not care. A million Arakites weren't worth even one of his friends. And if had to raze the city to the ground to get them back, then so be it. They were all that mattered.

With a cold, ugly snarl of hatred, Tarrin released it with a sharp snapping motion of his paws.

The coherent reddish glow shuddered, then suddenly exploded with unimaginable force. It raced in a straight line away from him, expanding in all four directions as it moved, lancing through the air at supersonic speed. In the blink of an eye, the shockwave was nearly forty spans across and sixty spans high, just barely going over the heads of the two astounded gladiators on the sand below, scouring away the sand of the arena floor when it made contact with it. When it impacted the far side of the arena, it was nearly twenty spans wider than the Imperial balcony, and those spectators sitting in proximity to the Emperor were caught in the power of the spell.

The entire back section of the stadium shuddered only once, and then was destroyed by the power of Tarrin's weave. Hundreds-thousands-of hapless spectators simply vanished in the titanic force generated by the weave, rending their bodies into pieces so tiny that they were all but annihilated. The stone of the arena shattered, and was sent flying away from him, forming a killing hail of debris that rained down on the buildings, streets, and citizens that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A BOOM, louder than anything those lucky enough to survive the weave had ever heard before, thundered across the city, knocking nearly everyone still alive from their feet as if the sound had substance and force. A sudden wind whipped across the half-scoured field, drawing the dust of the destruction away from Tarrin, air that rushed in to replace what was sucked out as the shockwave passed by.

And now those that survived had seen the Empress wiped out. If she appeared again, they would know that she could not possibly be human.

Tarrin lowered his paws, his expression an emotionless, stony mask. He had just crossed a line that he hoped he would never have to cross. He had just slaughtered innocents. Children. People whose lives never had to cross his own. People who did not deserve to be sacrificed in the name of his own rage.

And he did not care.

They meant nothing to him when compared to the lives and safety of his sister, of his friends, of his bond-child. If it would forever blacken his soul, then so be it. At least his family and friends would be alive.

And that was all that mattered.

Shiika was certainly either buried in the rubble, or seriously at a disadvantage. He had stripped her of her ability to bring the Empire down on him, and he had seriously undermined her position in Dala Yar Arak, with one simple attack on the Imperial family. She wouldn't be able to interfere with him until he was well inside her Palace. He would find his friends, even if he had to bring her Palace to the ground in the process.

For a moment, there was an eerie silence. There was only the sound of rocks raining down on the city beyond the gaping hole that had been ripped into the arena, a hole that had destroyed an entire end of its oval construction. The remaining sections of the arena creaked and crumbled ominously under the stunned crowd, the entire building threatening to collapse after the loss of its back end. The spectators did not run. Most of them did not make a sound. They just stared at the Were-cat in stupified awe. And when he finally moved, they all came to their senses.

In a sudden roar, the crowd began to stampede for the exits, to escape the crumbling arena before the rest of it collapsed.

Weaving together another spell of pure Air, Tarrin formed a bridge of solid air before him, weaving it with High Sorcery so it would last several moments after he stopped maintaining it. It extended from just before him all the way over the mangled stone ruin that had been the back wall of the arena, touching the ground nearly five hundred spans into the grassy park that surrounded the shattered stadium. A park strewn with large pieces of torn stone. That done, he cut himself off from the Weave, barely feeling the powerful backlash it caused within him, so utterly was he still consumed by his anger and his need to pay Shiika back for what she did to him.