Another title of this Chapter: Trouble Maker

***

The snow leopard moved like a released arrow the moment it found open ground.

Tony sat on its back with both hands locked around the base of its ears, leaning forward, knees pressed hard into its sides.

For a brief moment, it was actually working.

Then the Academy gates came into view— and with them, the crowd.

Servants, outer disciples, visitors waiting for entry, all stood in line.

The moment the snow leopard saw standing humans staring directly back at it, something primal fired in its brain.

It wanted out. Now...

The leopard twisted hard left, trying to break away from the gate entirely and bolt back toward the treeline. Tony’s grip tightened on its ears and yanked hard— steering its head back forward like a pair of bicycle handles.

"Straight!!" he barked. "Go straight!!"

The leopard let out a furious snarl and fought the direction, legs scrambling sideways, but Tony held the ears with everything he had and the animal’s body had no choice but to follow its head. It barrelled forward— straight toward the gate, straight toward the crowd.

The people at the gate still weren’t running.

"Is that... is that a snow leopard?!"

"Did he bring that ghost from the forest?! I never saw him with a pet before?!"

"It’s fine, it’s fine... it must be tamed, tamed beasts don’t attack people..."

They stood and watched, curious and surprised but not yet afraid. A tamed beast was not an unusual sight at the academy. Disciples rode all kinds of animals. The logical conclusion was that Tony had simply acquired a mount from somewhere.

The logical conclusion was wrong.

The leopard directly jumped on the crowd and Tony’s grip slipped for a second. The animal launched itself directly into the middle of the gathered-people.

Chaos erupted like in a bomb blast.

"IT’S WILD... RUN!! RUN!!"

"GET OUT OF THE WAY... MOVE!!"

"SOMEONE CALL THE SENIOR DISCIPLES!!"

The crowd exploded in every direction. People scrambled over each-other, dropping bags, knocking over the people beside them, sprinting for the nearest wall or doorway or any structure that put something solid between them and the leopard.

The leopard, suddenly surrounded by screaming, running humans, panicked further... spinning and lunging, looking for a way out, finding only more people in every direction it turned.

The more it thrashed, the more people scattered in front of it. The more people scattered, the more it chased the movement, instinct overriding everything else.

Tony was still on its back through all of this, barely.

"Behave!!" he shouted, slamming a fist into the top of the leopard’s skull.

The leopard ignored him completely and made a sharp lunge toward the left.

A heavyset man who had been too slow to run stumbled and went down directly in the leopard’s path, landing on his hands and knees with a loud, terrified wail.

"Save me!! Save me!! Please don’t eat me!!" he screamed, arms over his head, face pressed to the ground. "I’M NOT TASTY!! I SWEAR I’M NOT TASTY!!"

The leopard’s front paw came down as it landed over him— claws catching the back of his trousers and raking clean across before Tony hauled its head sideways and redirected it away from the man.

The man lay flat on the ground for a full three seconds after the leopard had already passed, still not moving, still wailing.

"My— my backside!! It got my backside!! I’m bleeding!! I’M BLEEDING!!"

"You’re fine!!" Tony shouted back over his shoulder, already twenty meters away and accelerating.

The man’s howling faded behind him as Tony finally wrestled the leopard through the gate and onto the inner mountain path, leaving the chaos of the entrance area behind.

***

The mountain path is the strong ground of snow leopard.

It was simply running now because running was the only option left— and as it ran, it started testing. Every time it spotted a figure on the path ahead, it angled toward them deliberately, hoping that if it caused enough destruction, Tony would finally decide this wasn’t worth the trouble and let go.

A young disciple walking up the path with a basket of herbs looked up, saw what was coming, and dropped everything.

"WHAT IN THE...!!!"

"GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!!"

Tony yanked the ears left. The leopard ran past the disciple with a meter to spare, close enough that the wind from its movement sent the disciple’s robes flapping.

"Sorry!!" Tony called back, not sounding particularly sorry.

Two outer disciples sparring on a flat section of the path dove in opposite directions as the leopard bore down on them.

"IS THAT TONY CLARK?!"

"WHY IS HE ON A LEOPARD?! WHY IS IT NOT TAMED?!"

"IT IS NOT TAMED?!!"

Tony didn’t answer. He was busy.

"Every time you aim at someone... I will punch your head. You want to test how many times I can do it?!" Tony said through gritted teeth.

The leopard snarled again. But it stopped angling toward people.

For about thirty seconds.

Tony could see the Healing Tower now... He leaned down closer to the leopard’s ear.

"Listen to me," he said, lower now, calmer. "You’re not getting away. I’m not letting go. You’ve tried every trick you have and I’m still here." He felt the animal’s breathing under him. "Stop fighting me and I will stop hitting you. That’s the deal. It’s a good deal. Take it."

The leopard ran on in furious silence without any hint of obedience.

The Healing Tower entrance came up ahead.

The line outside the Healing Tower stretched long and quiet. Wealthy patients, most of them with covered faces, standing in the patient discipline that came with knowing exactly how rare the treatment they were waiting for was.

Nobody complained. Nobody pushed. You did not complain when you were waiting to see a Rank Seven doctor.

Then the screaming started at the gate.

It was distant at first— just noise, the kind that could be anything. But it grew fast, and with it came the sound of running feet and the particular quality of shouting that meant something was coming and it was not friendly.

Then suddenly Tony appeared before them, who was charging straight towards them.

That was enough.

The entire patient queue dissolved in seconds... dignified people suddenly sprinting in every direction, robes flying, hats lost, bags abandoned on the ground.

People who had waited three days for their appointment slot dove behind pillars and stone benches without a second thought.

A woman who had been standing patiently at the front of the queue for six hours threw herself flat behind a decorative garden rock and refused to move.

"WHAT IS THAT THING?!"

"IS IT WILD?! IT SOUNDS WILD!!"

"DON’T LET IT NEAR ME... I JUST HAD SURGERY!!"