Pay The Price For Your Betrayal

"You.

Did.

WHAT?!" Shock was written all over Angel's scruffy blonde features, completely eclipsing the look of disgust she had a moment ago been throwing at Mooch, as she stared from Scamp, to Patch, and back to Scamp again. For his part, the grey pup remained momentarily silent, still coming to terms with just how bad the empty hole that had been an eye socket looked. Angel suddenly felt uncharacteristically weak at the knees at the thought. "You could have been killed!" she exploded angrily, rounding on Patch, azure eye still wide. She hadn't gone to all that trouble to get him out of the Outlands just for him to go wandering straight in among the other army that wanted his blood. How could he do that to her? "Patch..."

"He only did it to win your trust so he can hurt you again!" Scamp, it seemed, still couldn't bare to see her showing concern for Patch. The mutt was on his feet, maw pulled back into a desperate grimace as though he thought this was the only chance he'd get to save her from some terrible fate. There was no question, judging by the look in his eyes, that Scamp actually believed the words he was saying, which worried Angel. If he got desperate enough to attack Patch... the pomeranian wasn't sure she'd be able to stop him, and with Mooch and Vitani to back him up, Patch would be dead meat. Fear for his life drove her to step even closer to Patch, until they were touching.

Scamp looked on desperately. He had to help Angel see... he couldn't let the spotted traitior hurt her again. Because he would, Scamp had no doubt about it. People didn't just change like that. "Tani! Pin him! We'll make him tell the truth!" he barked across the clearing to his girlfriend.

Vitani looked from Scamp to Patch and back to Scamp again. Despite what Angel may have assumed, she wasn't out for Patch's blood, the dalmatian was in very little danger...at worst she would probably take a swip at him but she definately wasn't going to kill the pup. She would never forgive him for murdering Scamp...but he had returned him to life again, so he was no longer on her personal hit list.

She had heard Scamp's yell to pin Patch but the young lioness didn't move. She retuned her gaze to the dalmatian and gave him a glare.

"I'd start talking if I were you, I might just be tempted to do what Scamp says only with a lot more pain for you." she warned him. With any luck a threat would be all they needed to get Patch to confess his true reasons for bringing Scamp back from the Great Kings. She refused to believe he'd done it out of good will or even just to please Angel, there had to be another reason why he had resurrected Scamp.

"I already told you, I did it because I regretted what I did before! Why else would I have risked my neck by going into the Pridelands?" Patch asked. He couldn't make sense of it. If he'd really wanted to hurt Angel, he'd have done it a long time ago. It didn't look like Vitani wanted to actually try to kill him... yet. Maybe it was a good thing. Of course, there was still Mooch. Whatever he was going to do was all up to chance. Despite that, Patch decided to continue trying to convince them that what he had said was true.

"If I'd meant to hurt Angel, I wouldn't have tried to help her when she lost her eye. I'd have just let Dixie keep tearing her apart if I'd really wanted to hurt her. But I didn't do that." he said. Sure he had been afraid when she had initially shown up, thinking she was some human that somehow had reminded him of Angel, but when she'd been in trouble he'd allowed himself to be seen a traitor again by coming to stop Dixie. "Why would I have gone into the Pridelands if I'd only meant to hurt her? I could have just left it at telling Angel what was going through my head that night when... well, we all know what happened." he said.

"I wanted to bring Scamp back because I care about Angel. I... I thought it'd make her happy if Scamp got another chance."

"You're the reason he was dead in the first place!"

Vitani couldn't help her outburst. Patch had been the reason that everything had went so badly wrong after Scamp died. He was the reason that Angel had become a killer and had to even go into the Outlands in the first place. Did he really think that bringing Scamp back would make everything go away? Did he really think that Scamp's life could change the mess he had created. As much as she loved Scamp, he couldn't repair the damage that Patch had caused.

"You killed him! Everything that happen was your fault! What makes you think that everyone would just forgive you? Have you any idea what any of us has been through? Did Angel even tell you what had happened back at the Pridelands whilst you were away playing buddies with Outlanders?"

It was taking every ounce of Angel's self control, and then some, to keep a straight face, never mind keeping her emotions in check. She was both furious with and loved Patch all the more for what he'd risked on her behalf, and even though Angel was probably in general one of the most untrusting of those present, she had no doubt at all that Patch was telling the truth. "Why couldn't you have told me in a more private setting?" she ground through her teeth, looking at Patch just out of the corner of her eye as she struggled to watch all three of the others at once.

As Vitani errupted with her burst of anger, Angel leapt over Patch, placing herself squarely between the lioness and the puppy, azure eye meeting dual sapphire ones. "No-one said that," she returned, only with difficulty keeping her voice level and not bothering to address Vitani's questions of what she'd told Patch or not. "Neither of us is expecting to be forgiven." Maybe what Patch had done was a start for his eventual making amends, but that would be all it was as far as the world in general was concerned; she knew it, and was sure Patch knew it too. "If we had been, do you think we'd still be hiding out here?"

A sideways glance revealed that Scamp had taken up restless pacing as he watched, clearly feeling a little betrayed that Vitani hadn't made the move he'd instructed her to. Angel pressed even closer to Patch to make him less of a target, and Scamp whirled in frustration to face Mooch, seemingly asking the sheepdog to intervene again.

Shot down AND now drama was cutting in on his flirting time with Angel? He caught Scamp's look, nodded and waltzed beside Angel, a cocky look on his face. Obviously his body was positioned so he couldn't see that grotesque gaping hole that used to be her lovely blue eye. He pressed his cheek against her's and grinned. To distract Angel was his job so Scamp could get Patch to confess. Not that he'd ignored the conversation but he was more focused on doing what he was told. Especially if it meant more close time with the pom-mix. "D'aww, you don't have to hide out here, Angel," Mooch said slickly, "Dump the zero and get with a hero. That's me of course." His yellow eyes blinked in Patch's direction. He wanted to fight the dal so bad it killed him but Scamp had given him a job to do. He walked to the other side of her and bumped Patch with his rear as he pressed his big nose against Angel's petite one.

"Come on, Angel, Patch is a murdering traitor," he mused, "I'm a prince. A PRINCE babe. How's about that?" His eyes narrowed. "Your little chew toy over there KILLED Scamp. Killed him dead. He may have brought him back but that was only to get on your good side. Stick with me and you'll never get hurt again." Eyes half closed in a seductive sleepy look.

( completely missed that you'd replied here, sorry Mooch ^^")

"He's right, Angel!" Scamp cut in on Angel's other side, practically stepping on Patch's face to put himself closer to his half-sister than the dalmatian was. It left him staring into her empty right eyehole, but the scruffy mutt fought valliently not to let that bother him. "Patch is just going to hurt you again - we'll even make him confess for you!" Thanks to Mooch, the situation was getting back under Scamp's control again, and for that he was grateful.

"Just come back with us, Angel; it'll make everything better," he placed a paw on her shoulder, trying to use it to guide her away from Patch, although as the small canine refused to be moved, it just slid off, brushing her collarless neck in passing instead.

---

Angel was starting to feel out of her depth here. Hell if she'd let it show, but the pomeranian was having trouble enough thinking clearly as she struggled to comprehend Scamp still being alive at all, when she needed all her wits about her to deal with both him and Mooch. The girl scowled at both of them, glaring particularly hard at the sheepdog. "If that's supposed to impress me, you don't know me at all," she retorted sharply to his boasts about being a prince, pulling away from the physical contact with him. Buster had been a self-proclaimed king, and she hadn't been any more impressed by that title than Mooch's.

She couldn't bring herself to speak to Scamp at all just yet, still reeling from the fact that he was alive again. Shaking her head in discomfort, she instead turned to the pup Scamp seemed to be trying to use as a footstool. "Patch, let's get out of here. I don't want to deal with this right now."

Patch had to struggle for a good couple of moments before he was in any good position to make good on Angel's suggestion. He hadn't liked it at all that Scamp had decided to use him as a footstool, but starting a fight over it wasn't going to accomplish any good. If anything it would just provoke a full blown battle between the little group... and that was the last thing Patch wanted. So he conceded and stepped closer to Angel, nodding in agreement with her statement before looking toward Vitani again to answer her statements he'd seemed to ignore.

"I didn't think anyone would forgive me, nor did I expect anyone to do so." Patch stated. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd wanted Angel to forgive him to some degree, or at least wanted to try and make things right with her, but after leaving the Pridelands he'd just sort of forgotten that and gone on with what was left of his life. It was more complicated than he had initially thought. He thought he was doing a fairly good job of explaining it despite that. Maybe. Okay, if he was being honest he had no idea if he was explaining coherently or not by that point.

"I guess what it comes down to is that I wanted to make things right. Scamp's back with you again and I've been staying out of the way of the heroes since leaving the Outlands. What more do you want?" he asked. He'd done well to avoid the heroes for the most part (baring the one time he'd snuck into the Pridelands before bringing Scamp back to try and retrieve medical supplies to help an injured Leroy), so what more could they ask for?

"We WANT you to leave Angel alone and go die in a lava filled pit at the foot of a volcano." Mooch was growing irritated. His advances were being ignored by the pom and Patch was whining and complaining ruining his mojo. He snarled, fur bristling on his back and huffing loudly. "Alright, I've had just about enough." Mooch sneered, biting the air near Patch and whipping his head towards the pom-mix again.

"You're obviously brainwashed," Mooch said, lowering his head to Angel's side, giving her a deer-like nudge as if he had antlers to push her away from Patch. “Move it and we’ll get Rafiki or someone to unbrainwash you. Then you’ll see I’m perfect for you, not that spotted little rat.” Mooch was started to grow irritated. It wasn’t so much that he liked Angel THAT much. His infatuation with her was mostly stemming from physical teenage hormones. No, what was causing Mooch to act this way was his fragile ego. Youth’d had countless girl after girl taken away from him and he was beginning to feel insecure. Angel was going to at least admit he was attractive. It was like a dog-deer hybrid stood before her as he bared fangs but pushed against her with his imaginary set of horns.

“You belong with us, Angel baby,” he said, “Me, Scamp & Tani. Not this creepo.”

Angel finally snapped. She whipped around to face Mooch, her maw pulled back into a snarl that didn't do her pretty features any justice at all as she trod towards him, looking intimidating enough with that expression and her missing eye that the sheepdog should at least back up a few steps. "You don't have any say over me," she growled, Mooch becoming nothing more than a handy target for her to unload every ounce of frustration she'd been feeling onto. "You don't own me. I'm not going to become your girl, and I don't belong with any of you. The heroes don't have any place for murderers."

For the briefest of moments, a flash of uncertainly drifted across her face, and she took a moment to glance back at Patch. "Maybe I don't belong with him, either. But this choice was mine to make, not yours... and I made it."

---

Scamp siezed his chance.

Angel may have been forcing Mooch into retreat, or at least it looked like that from his angle, but in doing so, she was leaving Patch exposed. Scamp wasn't really one for needless violence, but as far as he was concerned, the only way Angel would see that she was wrong would be if they forced a confession out of Patch, and since it didn't look like Vitani was going to take advantage of the opening...

Scamp leapt, aiming to land with all four paws astride the dalmatian's back, which if successful, would force Patch's face back down into the dirt where - in his mind - it belonged. Regardless of whether he managed that or made a mess of it, the grey-furred mutt siezed the back of Patch's collar in his maw, and yanked on it forcefully, hard enough that he was sure the leather strap must have been digging into the other male's throat.

"Tell Angel that you're only trying to win her trust to make it easier to hurt her again!" he managed to force out through clenched teeth as he continued trying to strangle the spotted canine. "Tell her!"

Patch had been so distracted by what Mooch and Angel had been saying that he had almost forgotten Scamp's presence entirely. He kept his attention focused on the two currently speaking, getting ready to tell Angel they should just go, when all of a sudden he felt something slam into him and knock him face down into the dirt beneath him. Patch tried to struggle, tried to get to his paws, but his left leg, the one Angel had injured so long ago, made it far too difficult to take Scamp's weight properly and he was forced to stay on the ground.

Suddenly, it felt as though he was being robbed of his air. He felt his collar digging in to his neck and it was beginning to cut off his ability to breathe properly. A sort of choking sound was the first thing that came from within him after Scamp made his demand. It was a bad time to try and ask Angel for help, clearly, so he had to struggle on his own against Scamp and try one last time to convince him he'd been telling the truth the whole time.

"I... told... you. I didn't... want... to hurt... her. Wanted... to... make... amends."

Vitani had gone silent after Angel's rebuke, simply watching Scamp and Mooch's unsuccessful attempts to convince Angel to abandon Patch. She had to cringe somewhat at Mooch's attempts at flirting, she contemplated telling him to cut it out because it obviously wasn't working but she held her tongue.

However, she didn't expect Scamp to rush past her and grab Patch.

The lioness watched as Scamo grabbed Patch's collar, strangling the other pup, and demanding that he confess despite Patch's denials. This wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"Scamp!" Vitani moved to the two pups and attempted to seperate them "Scamp! He won't be able to confess to anything if he can't breathe!" she told him firmly.

"Aw whatever, you kooky chick," Mooch said waving a paw at her, "Fine, don't see how awesome I am. But see what a fraud Patch is. This is a WAR, sweetheart. Everyone's a murderer. INCLUDING your boyfriend here. He sat idly by while my brother got killed, killed Scamp himself and joined the villains for no reason other than he had his fur in a bunch over the heroes not trusting him. Now what? If he were a real hero, he'd have come back and tried to fight for us."

Ears pinned back as he gave a snarl towards Angel, fur bristling. Oh yes, he saw the grey furred pup tackle the spotted one but there was no way he was going to interfere. And he wasn't going to let the prissy golden furred pom do so either.

Blocking her path, he turned over his shoulder at Tani. "Let Scamp do what he wants, Tani," he quipped, "For petes sake, he's looking into the eyes of the pup who murdered him." He then turned his pale yellow gaze on Angel again. "Take a step, see what happens," he challenged.

"You're right." Angel glared into Mooch's eyes with her own single one, too distracted by and angry at Mooch's words to even notice Scamp throttling Patch at that moment. "Everyone is a murderer," she repeated. "Including me. I'm just as much a traitor as Patch is... or maybe Vitani didn't tell you that I was the one who almost killed her?" She shook her head, disgusted with how far she'd fallen to have committed the crime of attacking an ally. "Me and Patch are two of a kind. Murdering traitors who know we'll never be able to attone for what we've done. Who better for me than him?"

"Angel, that's not true!" Scamp's maw had opened far enough to release Patch's collar at his shock over what his half-sister was saying. "No-one could blame you, you were mad from grief, that was dif-"

"Don't give me that, Scamp." Angel's voice sounded older than Scamp remembered it, as though everything she'd suffered throughout the war was forcing years onto her prematurely. "I'm not proud of it, but I knew exactly what I was doing when I left 'Tani for dead." The fact that Vitani had been found before she could actually die was beside the point. "There can't be redemption for me any more than there can be for Patch."

With his collar free from Scamp's grasp, Patch was able to breathe once more while Angel and Scamp discussed the finer points of how he and she were both traitors and murderers. Patch remembered when Louie had been murdered. He was positive Angel had been behind that, as the orangutan's killer had written a message for him in blood. If there was no redemption for Patch, then Angel had a point as well. How could she be redeemed when it seemed she was just as bad as he was?

"She's right." he finally managed to say. "Neither of us is going to be welcome with the heroes, especially after everything that's happened. Surely you all know that." Patch said. He hadn't known that Vitani had been almost killed by Angel, but if the lioness had gotten to tell the others what had happened then he doubted anyone would be thrilled to see her in camp again. It just went without saying that he couldn't go back. Patch doubted that even his own mother would want him back by that point.