Pearl hadn't seen the fist coming for her face, nor Jasper coming, so when everything coalesced into one dramatic scene, she reared back in surprise, her own anger completely forgotten in the midst of madness that radiated off Jasper. It was honestly terrifying seeing someone who could break you into pieces actually act like she was going to. She doubted this was the extent Jasper had shown those kids teasing Mala, but Pearl could understand now why they all immediately had stopped their fooling around. And when Jasper went further to grab the woman's throat, and squeeze, Pearl was starting to ease out of her shock. Shay deserved a little pain coming her way, but not by Jasper's hand; it wasn't her fault Shay was there on their lawn. The woman moved forward to attempt easing Jasper, only for Shay to blurt out about her debt. Pearl stared hard at her. Just how much was this woman going to give away about a personal life that wasn't her own anymore? Pearl was even going to intervene, but Jasper took care of that as well, crushing her ex-girlfriend's throat and dropping her like garbage after threatening her life.<br/><br/>Shay was fearing for her life at this point and despite how wounded her pride was, her self preservation won out and she finally managed to get her feet under her and leave Jasper and Pearl be, for now. Clearly this situation needed to be approached a different way, perhaps when the gorilla wasn't around and that runt was missing. In all her bitter resentment, Shay had already begun plotting something in retaliation.<br/><br/>Once Shay was out of sight, Pearl glanced over at Jasper and shivered softly. She had so much rage inside of her. There had to be a reason Jasper was so quick to anger in such a way, regardless of Mala. Clearly everyone under this household had their demons. Pearl slowly approached Jasper, letting herself be seen out of the woman's peripheral so as, hopefully, not to spook her. "Jasper..." she whispered softly, leaning a little to see the expression on the front of the mother's face before resting a hand on her forearm. It was such a drastic difference between the Jasper she'd woken up to a week or two ago and the Jasper that stood in front of her; the woman could intimidate a statue into crying. "Jasper..." she spoke a bit more firmly, hoping Mala's mother wasn't the type to slip into a blind rage, "It's Pearl. Honey, I need you to respond to me and stop making that face. You're going to scare me." Pearl was already scared, but not enough to run away. Jasper surely knew who she was, right? The smaller woman's hand gripped tighter at the thick forearm. She was also worried about Mala and if her ex-girlfriend's words had affected the child poorly, but first thing was first. Pearl would never forgive herself, or Shay, if that child got hurt because of her stupid actions. Already, she was planning on just moving back to her place. There was no way she was going to burden these two with a crazy ex, one she hadn't even realized was so crazy. It was weird that now that they were broken up was when Shay decided to finally give a crap about her again. "I think maybe this was all a mistake. I didn't know she was going to react that way. Jasper, had I known she'd bring any threat to your household, I would not have agreed to move in..." Pearl couldn't stop herself from apologizing as she winced softly, glancing down at the broken skin of her knuckles. She had to admit it felt amazing to have done such a worthy punch; but the causes for such violence were never admirable ones.