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Jamal's head snapped around suddenly, his feral stare locking with Antony's eyes for a moment. There was no glimmer of recognition at all in the look. He stared at her intently as his chest heaved in an attempt to catch his breath and to breath the pain away.... but then he all but let loose a chilling mix of a man's scream and a roar.

He started to stalk forward towards the squirrel woman, his abused body held in a hunched posture as he kept his gaze on her. Again he snarled viciously at her but the noise soon dissolved into a yowl of anguish as his face started to stretch out into the beginnings of a muzzle. His head felt like it was going to explode.

The tiger was growing more and more angry with the pain that continued to radiate down Jamal's body and was becoming paniced at the same time when it wasn't stopping. It wanted out. It needed out NOW.

The situation quickly dissolved into a full-blown predator vs. prey scenario...and it wasn't a game by any stretch of the imagination.

Jamal lunged for her retreating form, missing by a longshot because his muscles ached horribly in complaint at the sudden movements and Antony was much more graceful and fast at the moment than he was. That wasn't going to stop him though. The tiger was pissed and the closest target was the furred woman that was pelting across the village grounds.

He followed her outside, giving another screaming roar at her as he loped forward clumsily, each footstep sending shooting pains over his lower body. Everything about him oozed full-blooded predator despite the fact he was still half-human. In instinct, he was all beast.

Below, Jamal stopped at the base of the tree he had seen her go up, his eyes searching the greenery above for signs of the woman. He grunted and exhaled loudly. All the while the tiger was grabbing a firmer lock on his mind and thus his actions by proxy. The sedatives meant nothing now with his increased metabolism. The anger that had been lost to him for what seemed like weeks was back in full force and the big cat's instincts were taking advantage of it.

Antony could probably hear him circle the tree and continue to growl in frustration, the noises deep and shortened as he sniffed the air at the same time to appraise the situation.

Perhaps the squirrel woman had forgotten, but Jamal had grown rather good at tree climbing and his strengthened claws would only aid him now. Tigers seldom climbed trees, but they would if they felt so inclined. It was apparent that today would be one of those times. She would certainly find this out soon.

Jamal hissed as he stared up into the branches, the scent of fear as thick in the air as the smell of the woman, and set his hands onto the bark of the tree. His claws sunk in as to test the strength of their hold a moment, then were released as Jamal torn his hands away, his eye catching the same low hanging branch that his escaper had used. He was taller than her and so had less trouble getting a grip on the branch. He, however, was not nearly as nimble as she, thus he was very slow at hauling himself upward. Regardless, Antony would hear him coming.

He slowly slithered his way up the tree, grasping clumsily at the rough branches as he hauled his bulk skyward, ears pressed back to his head as far as they were able to protect them. Each breath was a raspy growl.

As he got closer, he could just make out whispy bits of white fur through the greenery and his growls intensified, lips parting in a snarl.

Internally, Jamal was struggling against the instincts that were spinning out of control, horrified at what he was doing yet being unable to stop it. His own anger from the pain of the transformation and the trauma of losing another part of his humanity was only making things worse, but he couldn't seperate his feelings of rage from the tiger's nature. The constant pain was like the jab of a stick through cage bars to the tiger. It needed retaliation.

Jamal gave a hiss as he saw Antony trying to escape and sped up his climbing, just barely reaching the branch she was on when she took her flying leap and appeared to have made it away safely. However, even the tiger was startled when she gave a scream and plummeted to the earth. He peered down the branch to see where she had fallen, but again the branches hid her. The tiger was starting to lose interest in her, thinking she probably had escaped, but there was still the matter of getting OUT of the tree and that was tricky business.

The tiger man started his downward path back to earth and heard the strained shout below, his ears pricking at the noise.

Jamal didn't even get a chance to fully put weight on the foot that managed to touch the grass before he was knocked out. He crumpled into a heap at the foot of the tree with a single rasped grunt.

--Later--

It might have been minutes...it might have been hours...before Jamal rolled fully onto his stomach with a weak groan and attempted to sit up. The furious aching of his entire body jolted him into full conciousness in this simple movement and tears stung bitterly at the corners of his eyes. Laying under a tree for what could have been hours certainly didn't help.

At first he had no immediate memory of what had gone on, only that the tiger was now irritable and desired something to eat. There wasn't pure, outright anger, but there was an overpowering need for him to feed.

He slid into a kneeling position before he got up, wobbling uneasily as the new configuration of joints and bones of his legs threw him off balance. He was working mostly with a man's mind now and this odd posture of walking on his toes instead of the soles of his feet didn't function well with this.

"Wha' da fuh," he slurred, the odd feeling of a partial muzzle and a mouth full of sharp teeth hampering his speech, as he realized he had just woken up on a tree. Why the hell was he outside? His first impulse was to go back to Antony's duplex, which he did, but he paused briefly when he saw the door was thrown open. That was odd, but maybe she was inside?

A quick glance around told him she was not there and even though her scent was all over the place, there was nothing that smelt TOO new. "An'ny?" he called out, just to be sure. That was weird...she never left her door open like that when she left, especially not with Billy around.

He ran a clawed hand across his face, rubbing his chin for a moment before he felt the rough calloused pawpads and dropped his hand away in disgust. He hadn't even seen himself fully yet and wasn't sure if he wanted to. The pale skin he had seen already was enough to make him sick.

He left her duplex in a daze and instinctively headed for the jungle, a vague sense of disturbance lingering just out of reach of his thoughts. Like the tiger knew something he didn't. For now, he'd gather his wits among the trees and come back to the village later in the day.