Lonesome Dove Fan Fiction ❯ The Lion King: The Freak ❯ Chapter 7: Betrayals and Betrayals ( Chapter 7 )

The Lion King: The Freak
Chapter 7: Betrayals and Betrayals

(I've just realized that Simba and Chukizo would be in the Jungle at roughly the same time. But Simba is in the northwest, whereas Chukizo is in the far east, just above the Dark Zone. It would make sense for them to not come into contact, especially since there are no sentient animals in Simba's area but Timon and Pumba.

We will, for the first time, see another level to Chukizo's mother.)

Simba growled.

How he wanted to sink his claws into that zebra, kill it, tear it open, and consume it on the spot.

But he couldn't.

“You want to live with us, you have to eat like us.”

Timon's words carried an implicit warning: attack another animal, ever, and you're out. And the tan juvenile was well aware of the fact that he couldn't possibly survive on his own. Not yet. He was too young.

Trying to remove temptation from his path, he turned and started to walk away.

Suddenly, the young lion heard the clatter of hooves behind him, and dodged to the side as the zebra thundered past him.

Confused, he looked behind him, and saw a hyena. Growling at the malice his heart still felt to the dog-like beings, Simba considered attacking.

But he thought better of it.

Despite the deep, deep gashes all over the charcoal gray hyena's body, the lion knew that he'd lose any fight with him instantly. Better to just wait it out... and watch as the animal died of its injuries.

But then logic and sympathy showed their ugly face in Simba. He did not recognize this hyena; it was not part of the foursome that had tried to kill his father. He was different... not even from the Pride Lands or Outlands, but from somewhere much different...

And he was injured. Despite his parentage, specifically his father, it seemed as if his mother's side had won out after all. So Simba suddenly ran over to the hyena, as the latter growled in surprise.

“Get away, or I'll kill you,” he threatened, though the lion couldn't miss the obvious pain in his voice.

“Calm down, you're hurt! I want to help,” the tan lion explained, but the hyena didn't back down.

Regardless, Simba moved towards him anyway. It earned him a swipe across the face that cut three gashes into his cheek. But the hyena was so close to bleeding to death... there was no strength behind the attack at all. He managed to stay on his feet for another minute, but collapsed in a heap of bloody fur and terrible wounds.

“Not good,” thought Simba, then the skills taught to him by Rafiki before he could remember it kicked in.

Two hours later, the hyena should have been dead. And not just a little dead. Way dead. Any normal being that had taken such serious wounds would be, but an assassin of the Bloody Shadows can take more than one hit and live. And that's nothing to their leader, who himself was little more than a legend.

The gigantic hyena seethed at the pain all over his body. The assignment had been difficult: take down the matriarch elephant of a gigantic herd. Oh, he'd done so... but he'd been compromised by a high-flying bird, a friend of the elephants. They'd turned on him, and he managed to escape.

Sort of.

Even as Damu, leader of the Bloody Shadows ran across the dark savanna, he knew that his injuries were more than serious.

They were fatal.

But he wasn't upset. He'd managed to severely injure another elephant with him, as well, and as the hyena licked his muzzle, he found, with a start, that elephant meat was uncommonly succulent. Though the herd was fifty strong, they were incapable of capturing him or killing him on the spot

And that was to be expected.

Damu had trained since birth. His first meal, his first real meal, not the milk that his mother gave, was the flesh of his brothers and sisters. They had been powerful beings... and by consuming them, he would be that much stronger.

But even such a hyena has his limits. And going up against the combined efforts of a herd of elephants very nearly brought him there.

Oh, he'd escaped, of course, but what was in question was his survival after the mission. And being that he'd known how to kill since practically his birth... Damu knew that he was as good as dead.

The hyena felt the will to live leave him, and after a long while to a plush seat of jungle shrubbery

“Heaven, eh. Who'd have known that I qualify?” thought the dark hyena, as he manged to open his eyes.

“Don't move,” growled Simba through clenched teeth.

The juvenile had to keep his teeth shut in order to tie the herbal leaves around Damu's many horrific wounds. Though the denizens of the Bloody Shadows knew how to do many things... healing was not among their talents.

“What are you doing?” Damu growled, but then flinched as pain shot through his body when he attempted to budge.

“I said, don't move, you idiot! Do you want to die?”

“...”

The dark hyena didn't know what to do. He'd never really been spoken down to for his entire life, and now this little kitty was ordering him around? If he was in any sort of fighting condition... Simba's entrails would be splattered all over the Jungle floor.

“This'll hurt...” Simba said.

The lion was going to try a radical procedure, one that Rafiki was just working on the last he heard. It had a low chance of success, especially when attempted by such an amateur in the art of medicine. But if now was the time for risky measures, now was it. Damu would certainly die otherwise.

Suddenly, the juvenile threw a reactive, secret combination of herbs and other plants all over the hyena. He'd spent almost an hour finding them, even in the rich, diverse Jungle, and longer still preparing the Assassin Lord, as well as mixing his herbs in just the right manner...

The hyena howled, as his body caught fire. Literally. Simba hadn't made the combination perfectly, and now he could only watch in horror as the acrid smell of burned fur filled the air. But slowly... the flames died down.

Damu coughed, and slowly, shakily stood. The lion felt a brief moment of elation, before he was lifted off the ground and pinned to a tree; sharp, yellowed teeth not millimeters from his exposed neck.

“What did you do that for, cub? Answer!” the dark hyena commanded.

“Please...” Simba choked, “I was only helping you! You'd have died if I didn—”

“Shut up,” Damu growled, and the lion abruptly stopped talking, but didn't look away.

“Who are you?” the hyena demanded.

“Simba.”

“Where are you from? Where's your pride?”

“I was from the Pride Lands. My father... King Mufasa... he was killed by my uncle Scar,” the lion sniffled a bit at the mention of the terrible event.

“Why did you help me?” Damu asked.

“Because...” Simba suddenly chuckled, looking incredibly like the old mandrill or his distant relative, “you looked like you needed care.”

The sight of the youngster laughing, even in such a terribly situation made Damu believe that his intentions were benevolent. After all, he only knew of one lion that had the guts to kill for his own welfare besides acts of predation. This Scar fellow, whoever he was... could be an interesting character. Too bad that Simba was the one who'd helped him...

Damu suddenly growled, but released the young lion. After turning away, facing the Jungle at large, the dark hyena spoke.

“I am Damu, leader of the Bloody Shadows... the Assassin Lord. I am...” he growled, “indebted to you, Simba, son of Mufasa. Hence... I shall not kill you, and your lands will forever remain unmarred by the hand of the Bloody Shadows, even if you do not live there now.”

He suddenly turned, glaring at the juvenile.

“However, if you EVER tell a soul of the nature of this arrangement... I shall consider my debt paid and will kill you immediately. If you must talk of it... say that it was... a business agreement, of sorts.”

Damu shuddered. Never had he ever dreamed that another being would ever, ever help him. Things like that just weren't done in the Bloody Shadows. If he was less cynical, he might have felt thankful to Simba.

“And now, I take my leave of you. Remember... tell no one, young lion. I do savor the meat of another predator.”

With a laugh, the dark hyena suddenly ran off into the distance, apparently fully healed from his injuries. Simba stared after him for a minute, but then turned away, shaking his head.

“Man... life in this Jungle keeps getting better and better...” he grumbled, feeling bitter of the situation hat he'd been thrust into.

However, in his mind, his words took on a whole different connotation as he saw Timon and Pumba come running towards him, talking excitedly about a logful of untouched grubs.

“Keeps getting better and better,” he thought, and with a laugh, took off towards his two greatest friends in the world.

Msafiri had been with the Desert Pride for a little over a year at the time. Though she was a foreigner and had arrived on the same day as the disaster with the tiger, who was by now nothing more than a dried skeleton and a whole mess of bad memories, she had been assimilated into the pride rather easily.

But one thing her heart still longed for... was a mate.

However, the Desert Pride had a shortage of males. And though there were now six male cubs, they were all still practically newborns. Anyway, three of them were abominations: Ziwi, the deaf, Dhaifu, the weakling, and Jinga, the retard; and Msafiri did have a sense of... cleanliness.

Besides the alpha, there were two other males, but both were mated to lionesses too beautiful for Msafiri to compete with. Though the latter hunted much better than the rest of them, owing to her solitary lifestyle prior to coming to Africa, the males didn't see that. All they saw was what their carnal desires showed them.

The lioness sighed.

“Mother always said that there's someone out there for everyone.”

She peeked over the sand dune, then promptly withdrew her head, grinning.

There was a good-sized gazelle herd there, and if she played her cards right, she could get away and come back later, with the rest of the lionesses. Though it would be child's play for her to take down a gazelle, there was only so much meat on the animals. It would be smarter to wait... after all, such good fortune did not come to the Desert often.

She slowly backed away, then started to sneak back towards the den. But off in the distance, something caught her eye.

“Who is it?” she thought.

But the other lion was too far away to identify. Msafiri couldn't possibly tell who it was, not at this distance, but some of the lionesses in the Pride, especially the pampered, beautiful ones, did not have the presence of mind to maximize such rare opportunities.

“You fool!” she thought.

No doubt, when Msafiri reported this stupidity, her friend, Samehe, de facto leader of the hunters, would have more than a word or two to say. And in the harsh months that her freakish cubs seemed to have brought with them into the Desert, she was often in a tensed-up state of anger; the mere existence of her cubs notwithstanding.

“Damn!”

The stupid lioness was now lowering herself, obviously preparing to pounce on a gazelle. Though she would be successful, well, hopefully, such actions would be very, very bad for the pride at large.

Msafiri was about a hundred yards from the lioness by now, approaching from the rear. It would be ridiculously hard to restrain her without the herd noticing... but she had to try...

Incredibly, just as the other was about to spring out of cover, Msafiri managed to get on top of her and pin her struggling form to the ground. In a strange twist of fate, the little amount of noise that they did make was enough to make the cautious gazelle move about five hundred yards off—out of earshot, but still easily catchable later.

As the Asiatic heard the muffled thuds of a thousand hooves moving across the sand at a slow pace, she was almost overcome with a sense of relief. So strong was her sudden emotion that she forgot her opponent.

The other cat suddenly freed himself, and in a sudden move, their positions were reversed. It was then that Msafiri noticed that the mysterious lion was neither of her pride... nor female.

He was a strong, tough lion, with many a hard-earned battle scar on his long, slender frame that barely stood out against the hot Desert sand. Even in her current position, literally underneath the soles of his paws, the lioness was somehow curious, fearful, and just a little aroused, all at once.

She was about to speak, but he growled and snapped his jaws.

“What was that for? You have no reason to attack me! My target was not among your pride, lioness of the Desert”

“...I'm sorry.”

At that, the lion hit her across the face.

“That doesn't help me any. You scared away the gazelles, and no amount of sorrow will bring them back.”

“No! They didn't go far. They're probably only two dunes away.”

The lion glared at her, and uttered one cold word.

“Stay.”

It didn't even occur to Msafiri to try to move as he got off of her to go and search for the prey. Only five minutes later, he walked back, carrying a plump gazelle in his jaws. He dropped it in front of him, and without any pretense, started eating then and there.

“You've alerted the herd. They're fleeing as we speak. My pride will not eat well today,” Msafiri hollowly commented.

“Tough,” was all the nomadic lion said as he threw his head back to swallow a particularly large hunk of flesh.

It wasn't long before he'd eaten his fill, leaving about a quarter of the animal untouched. Then, the nomad moved back to Msafiri.

“Now... who are you? You're not from around here, I can see,” he said, analyzing the lioness.

“My name is Msafiri. I come from a land far off... I've only been here a year.”

“And you?” she added as an afterthought.

The lion quirked an eyebrow and growled at the unwelcome question, but answered it anyway.

“They call me Tanga. I do not know of my parentage, but as far back as I can remember, I have grown up in the paws of the Bloody Shadows. I owe my life to them, completing every mission I'm told to with haste. That's why I'm passing through here...”

Tanga's voice trailed off. He'd said too much... and would now have to kill Msafiri. And though he'd killed many times, he'd always done so on an assignment or in an act of predation. To kill someone for a fault of his own... was something that he'd hoped never to do.

So it was with an expression of gray dismay that he walked towards the Asiatic lioness, extending his claws as he did so. Understandably, she hopped to her feet, backing away.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eying his razor sharp digits.

“I'm sorry,” mumbled the lion, before suddenly roaring and leaping into the air.

He was far too fast for Msafiri to do anything but whimper and closer her eyes. But when she opened them again, she wasn't dead. The Asiatic found herself staring at Tanga's feet, and when she looked up, the expression on his face could only be described as conflicted.

“I don't want to hurt you...” he managed to say, slowly retracting his claws.

Eyes shimmering, threatening to spill tears at any moment, the lioness stood, and nuzzled Tanga on the neck. Being that he'd grown up among hyenas, he'd scarcely met other big cats before and even those few interactions had always ended with the death of the other. Being touched like this... was a totally intoxicating experience for him.

But he found that he liked it, a lot, and nuzzled her back. Like the case of Chukizo and Scar, it wasn't long before the tender motions turned into something more...

Tanga laid down beside Msafiri, looking at her angled, hard, but to him absolutely beautiful face. He reached out a paw to stroke her. She noticed, grinned, and started to like his digits clean. The lion purred in pleasure, but spoke with a hint of pain in his voice.

“Msafiri... I'm no father. And the Bloody Shadows; they're my home. I can't stay....”

But the lioness only snuggled against his paw, enjoying his presence while she could.

“That's alright. I love you the way you are; I wouldn't ask you to change for anything. My mother... raised me alone. I want to follow in her footsteps, and do the same. We were made for each other... but we both need our space.”

A tear leaked from the corner of Tanga's eyes at her words.

“Yeah,” he rasped, wrapping an arm around her, holding her close.

“But not forever. When our children no longer need me... I will join you in the Bloody Shadows, my love. Until then, you will be in my heart and mind every day.”

“Like Mother.”

The lion nodded, rolling to his feet. He had to leave, and he couldn't bear any painful farewells.

So all he said was, “Until next time, my mate,” before disappearing over the next dune.

Msafiri had done everything. Announced her decision to the Pride, waited for months until the best season to travel arrived, plotted out the quickest route to the Bloody Shadows, and had every oasis, danger, every inch of the land between her and where her mate was waiting.

The lioness knew better than to try to get to the Jungle. The sheer cliff that separated it from the Desert was all but unclimbable, she'd seen that the day that they'd pursued Chukizo...

Her expression darkened. No doubt that by now, more than a full month since the little freak had been driven from the Desert, Chukizo was dead. No animal that grew up in a desert could possibly be expected to live in the Jungle, especially not a cub that had just barely begun to eat meat.

And it was stupid to even try to cross over the volcanic mountain ranges to the west of the Jungle. Besides the obvious dangers of lava and pyroclastic death from the sky, there was nothing to eat, and it was more than a two-week journey on foot through ridiculously complex terrain. To try to cross the mountains... was suicide.

Getting through the hills to the northwestern part of the Desert would be no cakewalk either. That's why Msafiri had recently overeaten: two whole gazelles. Normally, such indulgence was reserved for the alphas and their mates, but this time, an exception was made: at the request of Samehe.

Msafiri sighed. Her friend had always been at her side through thick and thin. She'd held her paw during birth, she'd convinced the pride to allow her in... even though the Asiatic was the older one, she often found herself thinking of Samehe as an older sister.

She heard the soft tap-tap of paws entering the cool den, and turned to see her friend enter, a sad smile on her muzzle.

“Msafiri... I can understand why you'd want to leave. But... I stayed here, even though this land cursed me with four freaks, one of which might still be alive, for all we know.”

The Asiatic closed her eyes, tasting bitterness in her mouth. Only two things could bring out the dark side of Samehe: her dead or estranged cubs, and anything that wasn't in the pride's best interests.

“Samehe, you know I can't stay. I can hardly imagine the pain you felt when you found that you were pregnant. But the pain I feel every day at waking up to a world without my precious son... I can't bear it. I'm not as strong as you.”

“...I'll agree with that,” said the younger lioness, and with a playful growl, launched herself onto Msafiri.

The two tumbled around for a moment, giggling, batting each other around, both knowing that neither would come to harm. They rolled around all over the floor of the den, never with one having a clear advantage over the other. Eventually, however, the call of fur and moving paws slowed, then halted.

“Msafiri... we're pals, aren't we?” asked Samehe, finding that this time she was the one who come out on the bottom.

“Mm-hmm... right,” said Msafiri, ruffling the head-fur of the other lioness.

Samehe suddenly started to quietly cry. It was not something that anyone had seen her ever do before; not even during the birth of her cubs had she shed a tear.

“I don't know what I'm gonna do. We've been together for so long... I can't imagine life without you...” she sobbed.

Shocked, Msafiri felt herself starting to cry as well. But she wrapped her arms around the other lioness, hugging her; this time, she was the big sister.

“Hush... it's okay.”

Samehe made a few more sobs, then calmed, allowing herself to be held one last time. Around such a compassionate being... she could feel some of her friend's benevolence rub off on her.

“Msafiri... are we... bad? I mean... exiling Chukizo was one thing. But the others... I allowed Ziwi to die in front of me, though I could have protected him. Dhaifu, he was the only one that we I couldn't have saved... but I could have eased his passing. Instead... I watched him slowly starve to death, and never once did I allow him to take my own milk. And Jinga,” she shuddered, “I enjoyed his pleas at the time. But now... I can hear them in my dreams,” she ended, disgusted.

“I... they had nothing to do... with the way they were brought into this world. But I treated them like it was their fault. Chukizo, if I had shown her love... maybe, just maybe... she wouldn't have done what she did.”

Msafiri thought before speaking in a stern tone.

“Samehe... she's responsible for her own actions. Of course, if we treated her differently, she would have grown up differently... but she was an abomination. A freak of nature. Could we really be expected to love trash like that? It's generous of us to have even kept her. But to love her? ...That's...” the Asiatic didn't have the words.

“But... maybe. Maybe things could have been different.”

Msafiri shook her head.

“Fate is fate, and fate, like life, is cruel. No matter how hard we try, we can't change what will be.”

The lioness sighed. Must she really leave on a note like that?

“Samehe... put it out of your mind. It's too late, anyway. They're all dead,” she ended hollowly.

The younger lioness nodded, almost sadly, as her friend walked out of the cave, starting her long journey to the Bloody Shadows.

“Good-bye, old friend,” Msafiri said, “I probably won't see you again. But maybe, somehow... I'll speak to you. Somehow.”

Samehe nodded, willing herself not to cry, and watched for over an hour as the one so close to her that they may as well have been sisters finally disappeared over the edge of a far away sand dune.

She looked to the sky, thinking.

“Maybe...”

The Asiatic lioness sighed as she finally made it through the Lower Plains. The pride that lived there was strange, to say the least. Living in virtual isolation for generations, they'd started to inbreed, and now there were few lions left without some easily noticeable disability.

They'd welcomed her, of course, seeing her as a new source of blood that might breathe life back into their pride. But they'd dismissed her just as quick when they found out that she was already mated, and would not be staying in their lands for any amount of time. She'd passed through the Lower Plains in less than two weeks, and was glad to leave it behind.

Now, she was at the virtual doorstep of the Bloody Shadows. Though there was no official boundary between said land and the Lower Plains, the lioness could tell when she stepped over the unspoken one.

All at once, it was like a spotlight had been pointed right at her. She looked all around, listened hard, and sniffed the air, but could detect nothing with her normal senses. It was only the icy chill that you get when you're being watched...

Suddenly, she heard the softest pitter-patter of rapidly approaching steps, and turned as fast as she could. But it was too late.

The lioness was knocked off her feet and held down by three heavily-built hyenas—guard dogs, of sorts.

“Don't move, stranger. Try to escape, and we'll eat you,” one said, and from the chuckles and growls of assent from his comrades, Msafiri knew better than to try otherwise.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here? ...Bear in mind that if we don't like your answer, well, it won't be pretty.”

“My name is Msafiri. I am the mate of Tanga, an assassin of the Bloody Shadows.”

The impatient barking and growling stopped at that. Again, it was silent, and the lioness felt her assailants stop restraining her. Getting up, the Asiatic looked at the leader, tilting her head to the side.

“Tanga, huh... you'd better come with us. Saliti... he'll want to see you.”

“Saliti?” Msafiri thought to herself.

But she knew better than to speak. Though she could only see the three hyenas... she could feel the eyes of dozens upon her, as if the Shadows themselves were alive.

She was brought before the new Assassin Lord, Saliti of the Bloody Shadows. This hyena was younger and less heavily built than Damu, but the same exact shade. Muscles were tight under his skinny form, and he exuded confidence with every move.

“Msafiri of the Desert, formerly of the far-off land of India... your mate is no longer with us.”

The lioness swore. Had her whole trip been a waste of time? But she managed a small bow.

“Then where is he, my lord?”

“Dead,” came the curt answer.

“What?” Msafiri gasped.

She'd only managed to deal with the death of her son, barely, by the thought that she'd be able to rejoin Tanga that much sooner. But now with him gone...

The lioness stumbled to the floor, sobbing into her paws. Courteously, Saliti waited a few minutes before speaking again.

“He died on a mission, fighting for the betterment of the Bloody Shadows till he could fight no longer. He was a great soldier. Hence... I will grant you, his mate, a favor.”

“But there is a condition.”

“We will do what you want... as long as there is a conceivable profit in it for the Bloody Shadows. For instance, if an animal offends you, he will soon end up dead, our bellies filled with his meat. Do you understand?”

The lioness managed to nod, but couldn't imagine why she'd need such a force... for any reason.

“To contact us, you merely need to go to any body of water near a forest, stare at the nearest raven you see for ten seconds, and speak, “Shadows shed no blood. He'll relay what you say after that to us... Then, we will come to you.”

“And now, Msafiri of the Desert, our discussion is closed. You may travel through our lands without fear of assault. But I don't imagine that a lion like yourself would find them very appealing,” he said with a harsh smile.

“...Tanga loved his home. And I will too.”

“No matter how much you're watching me.”

Saliti grinned.

“A wise answer. Now... leave,” he said coldly, “I have work to do.”

Msafiri was a bit miffed at his condescending tone, but knew that if she dared try anything, she'd be dead. And, in hindsight, his “favor” was nothing more than allowing her to mark out a meal for the Bloody Shadows. Well, she wouldn't do that easily.

So the lioness bowed, and left the Assassin Lord without further ado. It was another two weeks until she left the area... but indeed, for two weeks, she'd felt that every single move she made was watched, recorded, analyzed. Msafiri left the Bloody Shadows with no regrets... but she always remembered that shadows shed no blood.

On the day that Scar's cruel rule finally ended with his life, the Pride Lands were a rush of activity. The hyenas had left on their own accord, knowing that they were no longer welcome. They went to the Southwest, preferring the barely inhabitable Outlands to the truly hostile Shadow Lands of the northwest.

When Msafiri entered on that same day, she walked in on a clandestine meeting, taking place at the border between the Outlands and Pride Lands. All of the attendees were lionesses... rather angry, harsh-looking lionesses.

The Asiatic had the presence of mind to avoid their attention, and listened in.

“Sisters,” said one, a scrawny light-tan lioness that she'd later find out to be Zira, “Scar's rule was the greatest time that the Pride Lands have ever seen. It's too bad... that he sent us on a hunting trip when the attack took place. It's the fault of that usurper Sarabi: she couldn't hunt properly as we do, squeezing the land dry of every herd that dares set hoof within range of our claws.”

“And now, we are to accept Simba, the son of the horrid Mufasa, so righteously overthrown by Scar as our new King? Simba, who abandoned the Pride Lands years ago, only to come back and demand a seat at the throne, taking advantage of the heretic Sarabi and her followers?”

By now, her voice had risen into an angry roar, one that was answered in kind by the ten or so lionesses that were gathered around her.

“Tomorrow... we shall strike him down. His mate, Nala, will not protect him, not from our combined efforts. In the end, we shall be victorious, and carry the rule of Scar on, even after his death!”

“Oh no,” thought Msafiri.

Backing away in the same, stealthy manner that she'd used to sneak up on Tanga so long ago, the Asiatic managed to escape without being noticed.

“I've got to warn this Simba, wherever he is.”

Msafiri rushed off into the distance, her heart set upon protecting someone that she didn't even know. After all... it's not like Simba was a tiger.

“...and then she said that tomorrow... they're going to kill you.”

Msafiri had been taken to Simba by the loyal lionesses, who happened to be out hunting at the time. They'd of course been cautious of the newcomer, but at her urging had listened to her and brought her to Pride Rock.

The Asiatic had refused to speak with them alone, knowing that the traitors might have placed a spy among the loyalists. If she'd tried to convince the lionesses... she could have been forced out by the urgings of the spy.

“...I see,” was all Simba said.

The Lion King doubted that this newcomer was lying—there was simply no motive. And he hadn't missed the way that Zira had volunteered all of her 'friends' to go hunting, after coming back from an excursion that Scar had planned.

“You're welcome to stay with us tonight. Tomorrow... we'll test Zira and her followers. I will walk out of Pride Rock to the water hole, apparently alone. However, the rest of you will be at the water hole already. If they try to ambush me... we will do what's necessary.”

Simba closed his eyes, and after a moment, opened them again, looking at Msafiri.

“I hope you're not lying.”

Simba walked alone to the water hole. Earlier that morning, Zira and her friends had again volunteered to go 'hunting', and the Lion King had allowed them to. After they'd left, he quickly ordered the loyal lionesses to get to the waterhole ASAP, being sure to impress upon them the importance of not being seen.

Another two hours later, he got up and walked to the water hole alone. And sure enough, he could feel danger thick in the air, ignoring it, until suddenly, nearly ten traitors, all lionesses, attached him at once.

He'd resisted conservatively, mostly avoiding harm while he waited for the loyalists to come and back him up...

With a roar, Sarabi, Nala, and more than a dozen of the others bounded up, catching Zira and her comrades totally by surprise. And at this point... logic was not yet trumped by malice in the rebellious lioness's heart.

Swearing revenge, Zira had ordered her troops to cease their attack. It was then that Simba forever banished the group to the Outlands forever, under pain of death, despite the knowledge that the traitors had at least three cubs among their ranks; cubs too young to understand the decisions of their parents...

Back at Pride Rock, Msafiri was inducted into the pride with much happiness. Everybody knew that if she hadn't gone out of her way to do what she did, then Simba would be dead, and the way of Scar could very easily be brought back onto the land by the next male... Zira's son, whose father was unknown...

Out of the whole pride, however, only Msafiri was the one who still wondered if there might still be a spy among the loyalists.

Msafiri withdrew from Freak.

There was no mistaking it. He was the spitting image of that tiger that she'd seen on the boat, and later, near death on the Desert beach. The Asiatic didn't know how she felt about that. On the one paw... if she'd helped the tiger out on the boat, then things would be totally different. But on the other paw... he was still a tiger. The lioness closed her eyes, thinking back to what she'd said to Samehe.

“Fate is fate, and fate, like life, is cruel. No matter how hard we try, we can't change what will be.”

“Yes. That makes sense. That one... was an enemy tiger. After what my family suffered due to the actions of beings like him... my hatred towards his kind is just. As is my hatred towards this freak, for being the son of the one who murdered my son.”

The Asiatic managed to cover her feelings with a sad smile.

“Simba's right, you know. We should all let go of the past...”

“How can I let go of my son?”

“...so that we can move on together to a peaceful future.”

Though the lions, hyenas, and even Usiku of the Bloody Shadows seemed to agree, Freak's distrusting expression didn't change.

“Damn it... he knows.”

But the others seemed to write this little oversight off as part of the li-tigon's nature. After all, he was a freak, and couldn't be expected to have normal feelings.

Much to Freak's dismay, the lionesses suddenly started to crowd around him, sniffing him, checking him out. He felt claustrophobic, almost choked, though no cat ever got closer than five feet to him. It was all he could do to prevent himself from running away immediately. And it made sense. Every time another animal had gotten close to him, they'd been threatening him; the sole exception was Chukizo.

“Everyone is a threat,” Freak thought, not lowering his guard for a second.

Msafiri held her smile even as everyone else crowded around the li-tigon. She knew that the hyenas, at least, were watching her, and now that they were subjects of the Pride Lands, they might well report any abnormalities to Simba, Nala, Kiara, or Kovu.

But the black hyena caught her interest. She thought back to her time in the Bloody Shadows...

“Saliti... since when has he been the leader of the Bloody Shadows? I heard that it was Damu,” Msafiri said to her escorts.

“The Assassin Lord is the student of Kivuli of the Bloody Shadows. He's been our leader for...” the lead hyena glanced at his comrades, and though Msafiri couldn't see how they signaled the answer to him, he spoke up again after not even a second.

“... two years now. Ever since he... heh... killed and ate his father, Damu.”

The Asiatic only nodded at that. What more could she expect from assassins? But still, she wondered about how the traditions of the Bloody Shadows worked.

“And what would happen if he was overthrown by someone else? Would his debts pass on to the next leader?”

The leader shook his head.

“No. Though the Bloody Shadows takes on the debts of its leader, those debts are nullified with a change of leadership.”

“...I see.”

“So... there's no way to tell if the Assassin Lord has changed again. I can't ask or even inform Usiku. They told me that cubs weren't allowed to leave the Bloody Shadows,it's how they insure the loyalty of the assassins. It could very well be... that this Usiku is a rogue, or worse.”

“When I inform Saliti of his location, that's all the more he'll be willing to help me...”

The lionesses continued to crowd around the li-tigon, getting closer and closer, until they noticed that his body language quite obviously said he did not want them to. So, they slowly backed away, though still looked at Freak curiously.

“Ahem... so, we'll need food for one more today,” said Simba, instantly regaining the undivided attention of the pride.

“As always, I'll be here after patrolling the lands. ...Cousin, where are you going?” asked the Lion King, curious when Freak started to move away.

The li-tigon looked at Simba strangely.

“If I don't hunt, I won't eat,” he said simply.

“Haha... no, that's not how it works in a pride. We men don't hunt, that's for the females. Our job is to make sure that the lands are secure.”

“...Secure from what?”

“Oh, you know... rogues, assassins, enemy prides... things like that.”

“So, you don't hunt at all?” asked Freak, bewildered.

“That's right.”

Freak seemed to think for a moment. Then, he called to the lionesses.

“It's my first day under your hospitality. I will hunt,” he said.

It was neither a command nor suggestion, it was a statement of what was going to happen. The lionesses looked at Simba for approval, who nodded, despite the unintentional rudeness that Freak had just shown him.

The li-tigon was about to leave, when he glanced at Simba and asked one question.

“Simba... are there any animals that you have agreements of peace with at this time?”

Freak knew that if he broke some kind of treaty with a resident of the Pride Land, that wouldn't bode well. But thankfully, the Lion King shook his head.

“No... all animals in the Pride Lands are fair game. But cousin!” Simba called, as Freak started to walk away, “Don't bite off more than you can chew.”

The li-tigon recognized that expression as an attempt at humor. He then tried to do something he'd never tried before, something he'd never imagined he'd need to do. Lips quivering, he bared his teeth. But it wasn't a snarl. It was Freak's equivalent of... a grin.

Understanding Simba's pleasantly surprised expression as a signal that the Lion King did not interpret his actions as a threat, Freak ran too fast for any lion to catch him.

Simba chuckled, and looked at the famished hyenas. Usiku himself hadn't eaten as well as he normally would; seeing as how he had to track the li-tigon. Uvuli was the only hyena in the group that actually looked properly fed. And seeing the baby female play with her father brought warm feelings to the lion's heart..

He surveyed his land, while speaking.

“You four are now equal subjects of the Pride Lands. And as such... you are welcome to whatever my cousin brings down.”

Simba smiled at the hyenas's collective gasp.

“I've got a feeling it's going to be a lot,” he thought, as the lionesses walked back into the den, Nala nuzzling him as she did so.

Freak was a great hunter by any measure. But even he had yet to bring down one animal.

The li-tigon had seen them, of course, from time to time. But up until now, he did not consider himself strong enough to try to hunt one.

“But fighting against all the hyenas after running that far, staying undetected by Kiara and Kovu... none of them will be a match for me.”

“Not if I'm smart.”

Elephants are a rare treat for lions. But even then, it takes quite a bit of teamwork and coordination to separate a calf from its mother and then kill it. But Freak didn't have his eye on a calf. He had his eye on a strong, fat male.

“If I kill him, that's enough meat to feed all for days.”

The herd had spread apart a bit, so that they could all eat in peace. The bull, he was towards the center of the group. And Freak knew better than to hope that if he killed the bull, the rest of the herd would leave him alone.

“I don't understand it. They can't help dead animals. Why attack?”

But the li-tigon shook his head out of the clouds. There were many things he didn't understand, and this was just another one of them.

Freak had an idea. He'd seen the curiosity of elephants before, and knew that they'd travel for miles, just to watch a rat go about his business. And the li-tigon's tail was just about the size and shape of a rat...

The elephant saw something flicker out from behind a bush. He blinked, but didn't see it again for a second, so he went back to grazing upon the tender grass of the Pride Lands.

There it was again! The strange object stayed in view for a second longer, then disappeared. But now the elephant was interested. He searched around for it, prodding at the bush. But nothing was there. None of the other elephants seemed to notice it, and there wasn't the slightest cause for alarm.

Again! Several meters away now. The male walked towards it, this time, lifting up the entire bush with his trunk. But still, there was nothing.

Now it was farther away. The elephant thundered towards it, getting a few humored glances from his herd. But they saw no danger, so just chuckled, and looked back at their food. No one noticed that little by little, he was being led away from the herd to the southwest... to the dry brambles of the Outlands...

An hour later, the bull was gasping for breath. He'd followed the strange object obsessively, failing to realize that he was totally out of sight from his herd. He hadn't even understood that by going straight through the waterhole, he'd thrown off his scent trail sufficiently that they wouldn't be able to find him...

The Hell of it was, he was no closer to his goal. The striped thingy would disappear and reappear on its own accord, each time forcing the elephant to run a little faster than before, tiring him out bit by bit.

“Where is that damn thing?” the male thought, looking around in frustration.

Suddenly, hearing a roar, he turned around. The fact that he was utterly alone, out of earshot and sight of his herd finally dawned on him. He grinded his teeth, and started to back away from the roar.

“Just one lion. I can fight it off easily,” he thought, smirking.

But suddenly, the roar was answered by a chorus of others. They were all different in tone and position...

“A whole pride, eh... should be a challenge. But it takes that many of them to take a calf. They're no match for m—“

The bull felt a prick. That's all. Just a prick. Not a horrible slash that makes your entire body want to go numb from the pain; a prick, like what one would feel from a thumbtack.

“What was that?” he said out loud, looking around.

“A bee?”

Suddenly, the bull felt terribly weak, and fell to one knee. As he did, he felt something warm and wet spill all over his gray legs, and looked down.

“Blood...?”

But it didn't quite register with him that he was dying. He was unable to think clearly from the massive blood loss. The elephant died painlessly, even as more and more blood gushed from the relatively small wound directly on his jugular.

A few minutes later, when all of the blood had left the bull and his slow, heavy breathing had finally ceased, Freak stepped out of his hiding place, his paws already an inch in the thick red liquid. The li-tigon lowered his head and tasted it, drinking it like water.

“Good... it's safe. It would be a terribly waste if we couldn't eat it.”

Ventriloquism was another little something that Freak had learned in the Jungle. He'd watched how a lemur had manipulated his vocal chords to make his voice sound different, as well as changing where it seemed to come from. On a whim, the li-tigon had practiced and then perfected it, knowing that it might prove a useful trick to have up his sleeve.

Apparently, he was right.

The li-tigon walked over to see that the elephants eyes were already closed. Then, he turned and left, headed for Pride Rock, leaving only bloody footprints and a dead beast behind...

Usiku was among his fellow hyenas. He'd lowered his guard around them, even allowing his daughter to play with the four, especially T. He knew, however, that despite the latter's preferred disposition, she was a hardened killer; and knew to do what was necessary. Life, after all, had been cruel to her.

“So you see... when Damu was overthrown by Saliti, the student of my father, I knew that my own days in the Bloody Shadows were numbered. In recent years... he's ordered us to take on worse and worse assignments. Before, there was a code of honor... we weren't to kill those that had never done wrong in their lives. Even my so-called father believed in this. But Saliti's rule has changed all that. I've known comrades that killed mothers in birth... for no crime at all besides justified acts of predation.”

Ed scratched his head, and jabbered to Banzai, the only one capable of understanding him. But the other hyena nodded, and looked at the assassin.

“But that don't make sense at all! I mean... you were gonna kill Freak... but he didn' do nuthin' but what he had to. If what you just said is true, man... you're a hypocrite.”

Usiku shook his head.

“That's different. Rules don't apply to him... he's a freak,” the black hyena explained, looking at the other four for support.

He got it, kind of. During the time the former Shadow Landers had spent with Simba, he'd discussed many things with them. And slowly... they'd begun to accept that Freak's story had to be true. And if it was... they had no justifiable quarrel with him.

That didn't mean, of course, that they didn't dislike him. No, there was still plenty of bitterness there. But they could live with him and work with him without constantly planning his death, maybe; though they'd likely never be true friends with the li-tigon. If, of course, the latter was even capable of friendship.

“So... in the end, whyja leave da Bloody Shadows?” asked Shenzi.

Though she'd never admit it to a soul, the assassin... interested her. He was older than her by a bit, but not so much that they were in different generations. And he was as hard and tough as she was. Even more.

Usiku closed his eyes, and then opened them, looking at his daughter. She was rolling around at the mouth of the cave, pawing gently at a butterfly.

“That would be of her mother's doing.”

“I did it... so that Uvuli could live safely.”

“You see... to ensure the loyalty of his assassins, Saliti took many hostage. My daughter... she was next on his list, seeing as how I'd expressed my discontent with his manner of rule more than once. I came home one day to see her carried away in the jaws of two of his henchmen. I caught up with them... and, well, let's just say that what I did makes that blood bath in the Shadow Lands look like cub's play,” he said darkly.

“I had to leave then. I've been able to easily avoid detection by most other animals. The assassins, and Freak, however... they're a bit different. It was nearly suicidal... but that mountain range to the southwest of here? Well, it's not quite as impassable as they make it out to be. Not if you're smart.”

“And desperate.”

“But what happens,” asked T, “if they find out where you are?”

Usiku was silent for a moment.

“Well then... I expect you to hide my daughter while I hold them off. Say that she died at the paws of the freak. But she must survive. For Uvuli, I'm willing to die.”

“I'd have died for Ahali, too.”

The hyenas nodded in silence at that. Despite his incredibly rough exterior, they were all starting to see that Usiku was just another being like them... trying to do what's best for his family.

Simba was reclining in the den, Nala at his side, Kiara and Kovu a bit farther off.

“I wonder what he's going to bring back for us,” the cream-colored lioness said, resting her head, on the Lion King's paw.

“Me too,” piped up Kovu, “but do you think it's safe? He seems like exactly the kind of guy that would poison it.”

Simba growled at that, but could see the logic in the statement.

“We'll allow him to take the first bite; and hope that it's not some Jungle herb that he's acquired a resistance to.”

Kovu seemed to like that idea, and the dark lion went back to napping with Kiara.

A few minutes later, a voice was heard from the mouth of the den.

“Actually... I haven't brought back anything at all.”

The lionesses perked up at that, but relaxed when they saw that it was 'only' Freak.

“How on Earth did he hear us?” thought Simba, Nala, and Kovu all at once.

But the li-tigon's stony expression gave nothing away. Nala groaned.

“You mean you didn't get anything?” she said; dismayed at the way her hopes of not hunting for that day had been dashed away.

Freak shook his head.

“I did... but I couldn't bring it back,” he answered.

The lionesses all quirked their eyebrows at that, but after a moment of thinking...

“No way...”

“Wait... did you kill an elephant?”

Now the li-tigon tilted his head.

“I don't understand what an elephant is.”

Then, he turned.

“It's far away... we should get moving,” he said simply, before hopping down from the tip of Pride Rock to the ground thirty feet below.

Simba shook his head, smiling.

“Banzai, Ed, Shenzi, T, Usiku... we'll have to go to the kill,” he called, seeing the hyenas quickly emerge from their den, bowing.

“Hey, King Simba—what did he get? I love antelope,” said T, licking her lips.

The Lion King shrugged.

“I don't know; he didn't tell us. But if he couldn't bring it back here... well, let's just wait and see what it is.”

“It's not much farther,” said Freak, from about twenty yards ahead of the Pride Landers.

The smell of blood was rank in the air. And Nala, the head of the hunters now that Sarabi was a little too old to take on the same challenges as the other lionesses, recognized it quickly.

“Oh, Gods...” she whispered, as the gigantic corpse came into view.

“What is it? Can you not eat it?” the li-tigon asked, a hint of guilt in his voice.

“No, no... we can eat it just fine,” said Kiara, not noticing that the hyenas next to her were drooling in anticipation, being that they all hadn't really eaten for... years.

“But... how the Hell did you take down an elephant, alone? And that too, a bull?”

“It wasn't hard. I lured him away from the herd with the tip of my tail,” Freak said, demonstrating.

He moved from one bush to another, and though the lions and hyenas were in a nearly open field, they never caught a glimpse of him at all except for when he wanted them to.

“And then,” he said, emerging from their rear and causing them to jump a little, “I imitated all of your roars by... I think it's called throwing my voice. He thought I was coming from the north, but I came from his rear. After that, I just opened this,” Freak said, pointing at the single wound on the elephant's jugular.

“Heh... there's no way that's true,” said Kovu, scoffing.

Freak looked at him strangely.

“How else could I have done it?”

“Well... I dunno that. But throwing your voice in front of the elephant when you were behind him? That's just... come on, you can't expect us to believe that,” the dark lion said, looking around to see that his pride seemed to agree.

“It's not hard,” said a voice from behind Kovu.

Growling, the young male turned. But no one was there.

“Just takes practice,” said a voice from his left.

The dark lion turned again, but again, no one was there.

“It's useful in rare circumstances,” said a voice to Kovu's right.

He roared a little, turned faster than ever, and tripped over his own feet. Kiara giggled, and the dark lion felt a pang of jealously run through him.

“So you see how it can be used to confuse a creature,” said Freak, walking a bit closer to Kovu.

The dark lion suddenly jumped to his feet, roaring, and the li-tigon froze in his tracks.

“Why are you—”

“ENOUGH!” roared Kovu, then got into a stance that clearly showed his intentions to fight.

But Freak didn't react.

“Your King has guaranteed my safety. I have done you no wrong... and we're family,” he said, trailing off.

“Why do you hate me?”

Kovu growled, but felt a heavy paw on his shoulder.

“He's right, you know,” said Simba, looking down at his son-in-law with disappointment in his eyes.

“He took you hostage... because he had no other option. We all know that we would have killed him any other way. Kovu... it's time to forgive and forget. And like my cousin said,” Simba refused to call him a freak, “we are family. Why do you hate him?”

The dark lion's eyes tightened, and for the first time in his life, he looked at Simba with anger that was his alone, and not his mother's.

“Because he's a FREAK!” Kovu yelled, and ran off before anyone could stop him.

“Kovu!” said Kiara, making to follow him.

“No, Kiara,” Simba said, almost sadly, “he needs... time alone.”

The lioness sadly turned her attention back to the elephant; as she did, she noticed that it was all the hyenas could do to prevent themselves from leaping onto it. She managed a smile, despite herself.

“Well, cousin... traditionally, the one who kills the prey takes the first bite,” said Simba, looking at the li-tigon.

Freak was look at the ground, with something very close to sadness in his eyes.

“Help yourselves. I... don't feel hungry,” he said, and even faster than Kovu, he ran from the scene.

The family, now two short, looked sadly after the li-tigon. But a whimper from Uvuli turned their attention back to their fellow Pride Landers.

“Well... he said help yourselves... so why don't you go on and—”

The hyenas needed no more urging. Banzai, Ed, Shenzi, T, and then the baby all pounced onto the elephant and started to tear into it. Usiku gave a smile to the lions, then jerked his eyes skywards.

“What are you gonna do?” he seemed to say, before he joined his brethren, albeit at a more reserved rate.

The lions all chuckled, and it wasn't long at all before they were all eating, side by side, of the li-tigon's incredible kill...

Only Freak had noticed that somehow, Msafiri had managed to sneak off. He'd thought that she was going to do her business, so to speak, and hadn't said a word.

Oh, she was going to do business, all right... but she wasn't taking a piss.

“How the Hell did the Outlanders survive here?” Msafiri thought.

She'd left the Pride en-route to the kill, and was no poking around in the dead forests of the area, looking for a puddle, a stream, anything. She knew that this might be her only real chance to contact the Saliti, the Assassin Lord.

Finally, the Asiatic came upon a small lake. It had seemed like it had taken her forever... she'd gotten used to the lush plains of the Pride Lands; and forgotten the true thirst that everyone felt in the Desert.

Sure enough, there was a raven there. The harsh-looking black bird stared at Msafiri, and the lioness counted to ten as she stared back.

Then, she spoke.

“Shadows shed no blood.”

The raven nodded once to show that he understood. Then, the Asiatic continued.

“There's a big cat here in the Pride Lands... a freak. His mother was Chukizo of the Jungle, and his father was Scar of the Pride Lands. His maternal grandparents were an Indian tiger, and Samehe of the Desert. His paternal grandparents were Ahadi and Uru, both of the Pride Lands. His is under protection... of the lions. But any animal that stands between Freak and death are... expendable,” Msafiri said harshly.

The raven nodded again, then fluttered off, leaving only a sooty residue and some loose feathers behind. The lioness smirked.

“Soon, my son... you will be avenged.”

“Expendable?” thought Kovu with a start, as he backed away, careful to remain undetected by Msafiri.

“That's not good... I've gotta tell Simba!” the dark lion suddenly started to run as he moved out of the lioness's earshot.

“Wait...” he thought, slowing down, then stopping.

“When the assassins come... I'll tell the freak that we'll fight them on two fronts. Then, I'll tell the others that Freak escaped, and wanted them to as well...”

“Yeah... that could work. That damn freak'll be gone, and we'll all be better off without him.”

“I'll have to be careful... but it could work...”

Strangely, Freak, Msafiri, and Kovu all arrived back at the elephant at the same exact time. The latter two smiled at the former horribly, but the li-tigon didn't understand their expressions. So, he just started eating the meat, and after a minute, the other two did as well.

The lions and hyenas didn't even noticed, such was their attention to their meal. Even Usiku had forgotten a good deal of his professionalism. But he never forgot his daughter, and every few seconds, made sure that she was eating well, and not choking on an odd bone or something.

Eventually, the feast ended, with a good third of the elephant remaining. All of the lions and hyenas had eaten their fill and much more, but still, there was much left over.

Freak noticed this.

“Should I not have killed him? There's a lot of wasted meat...”

Usiku grinned at him, slightly.

“I remember... I once killed a wildebeest for my mate. We both ate a lot of it, but there was still some left. I felt bad about wasting it... but then she told me that the only thing that mattered... was the fact that I did it for her.”

The assassin no longer cared about keeping his life a secret. In the short time that he'd spent with the hyenas, the black hyena felt the thick walls of his training slowly wither away, and could now open himself up a little.

“I wonder if Freak will ever be able to open up.” (I'll leave it up to the reader to decide who's thinking that.)

The li-tigon considered Usiku's words. He seemed to agree, and nodded, licking his muzzle clean of blood.

“Just seems like a waste...”

Several weeks later, the Outlands were quiet. Nothing was there; nothing could live there. Even the lone raven that often perched on the moribund trees was nowhere to be seen.

In the depths of the dark, dry forest, a pair of green eyes appeared, lit up by the few remaining rays of sunlight that peeked over the horizon and into the harsh, dehydrated foliage. A few seconds later, another pair of eyes appeared. Then another. Then another.

There was a long pause, and then a hyena stepped out of the treeline. But it wasn't a hyena like Banzai, Ed, Shenzi, T, or even Usiku or Uvuli. It was a bit scrawnier than the tank-like black hyena; a charcoal shade of gray with occasional black spots.

“It's okay, Maumbu. There's no one here.”

The rest of the twenty or so hyenas stepped out. There were both males and females, but seemed to be part of six distinct age groups. More or less, they were identical in both appearance and in the passive sense of malicious purpose that seemed to flow through their veins in the stead of blood.

“Umbu... did you catch scent of the elephant blood again?” called a younger male to an older female.

She sniffed in deeply.

“Yes, Umbu. It's only a few miles away. I don't smell anyone else... Umbu, do you see anything?” she asked another female.

This hyena peered all around the harsh, threatening Outlands. It was a moment before she spoke.

“No... we are alone. And the elephant... it is indeed quite close. There's enough of it left to fill our stomachs before we commence the mission.”

“Okay, Maumbu... let's go,” said yet another hyena, this one a male, and the group took off at a jog towards the elephant.

(A/N: Umbu is Swahili for sibling, and Maumbu is the plural of that. Yeah... they're all brothers and sisters, albeit from different litters.)

It was about half-an-hour until Maumbu reached the elephant carcass. It was rotting and it stank, but there was still a good quarter or so left. Not a single other predator had touched it; being that now there were none in the terrible Outlands. That isn't to say that flies and other pests hadn't done a number on it; oh no. In fact, most of the flesh was overridden with maggots to the point where Maumba couldn't take a bite without feeling the little grubs toss and turn in its mouth.

But Maumbu didn't care. In its cubhood, it had eaten things in far, far worse condition. This rotting elephant... in comparison, it was tasty.

Finally, all of the hyenas finished eating. The scout of the group looked over at one of his sisters, seeing that her muzzle was bloody. Courteously, he licked her clean, and the older female sighed at him in that irritated fondness that siblings hold for one another.

“Umbu... shall we attack now?”

The strategist seemed to meditate for a moment.

“Yes,” he abruptly said, “the Shadows call for blood.”

With its distinctive howl that had gained it both respect and fear under Saliti's rein over the Bloody Shadows, Maumbu made for Pride Rock...

(My first feeble attempt at romance. It's cheesy, I know. But meh... gotta switch things up now and then. Step out of my comfort zone.)

Chukizo's ears were perked up in anticipation. She'd counted down the days until Scar's next visit. She'd woken up extra early that morning, killing a zebra just for herself and her mate, then taken it back to the cave. After that, she'd thoroughly bathed herself, ignoring the yells and jeers and disgust of the Jungle inhabitants for 'fouling the water with her filth'. As always, they shut up when she gave them her best tigon roar, and went running for cover.

“Damn cowards,” she thought, smirking on the outside, though the pain she felt at their hateful words was never dulled.

The tigon relaxed in her cave, napping lightly, always on high alert. She hadn't seen the lion for several weeks now.

“It's been too long,” Scar thought, as he quietly made his way to the cave.

The dark lion smelled the distinctive odor of a zebra and its blood, mingling with another one that made his heart ache, fully remembering how much he'd missed Chukizo. Forgetting that he'd never successfully surprised her before, Scar suddenly grinned, and stealthily prowled along the Jungle floor into his little abomination's cave.

The tigon's ears and nose twitched, and she instantly, silently got to her feet. A rare smile brightened up her rugged features.

“He knows he'll never be able to do it...” she thought, sighing, though she remained smiling widely.

Looking around the cave, Scar saw that Chukizo was nowhere to be found. But the the dark lion heard a soft whoosh, and felt his mate tackle him from the top. The two wrestled for a second, growling happily, batting at each other with their paws, even nipping; but of course, the tigon ended up on top.

“Pinned ya,” Chukizo purred, leaning down to give the dark lion a lick on the nose.

“Hey—let me up,” Scar said, struggling to get free despite the wide, unusual grin on his face.

The tigon did so, and the lion flipped to his feet. Instantly, the two nuzzled. They had the whole day together, and both knew that they were going to make it count. Eyes filled with tears, they both looked at each another lovingly, hating how they had to remain apart for so long.

“It's okay,” Scar said, giving the tigon a friendly head butt, “my little abomination,”he ended on a slightly more upbeat note.

Chukizo laughed suddenly, and nuzzled her mate's head. The two remained like that for a long time, just enjoying the company of the other.

“Chukizo... would you like to play tag?” asked the dark lion eventually, completely out of blue.

The tigon tilted her head at the strange request.

“...okay...” she said, her confusion showing.

Scar gave her a toothy grin.

“You see... I had no one that would play with me. In the entirety of my life, I have never played a game with another lion,” he ended on a bitter note.

Chukizo nuzzled him, and Scar felt his bitterness melt away.

“Come on... don't be like that on our day together. If you really want to, Scar... you're it!” the tigon suddenly said, batting the lion with a paw as she hopped away.

The dark lion's expression was one of pleasant surprise for a second, then mischievous determination took over. With a growl, he leaped after her, chasing her deep into the Jungle...

Two hours later, the two cats were tumbling down a hill-side. Scar had been able to catch Chukizo a fair few times, despite her obvious advantage in her home turf, so to speak.

“When she finally comes to the Pride Lands... I'll be able to win definitively,” the dark lion thought, wrestling with his mate.

Suddenly, he changed tactics from trying to pin or just bat her around. Taking advantage of his scrawny, dexterous fingers, Scar tickled Chukizo on the sides. She suddenly giggled like a cub, uselessly trying to bat away the lion's impending victory. But he didn't let up, and continued to make her laugh in mirth until she could barely breath.

Incredibly, despite all that effort, Scar ended up on the bottom again. Both cats were gasping for breath, Chukizo still laughing gently; the sound of which was music to the lion's ears. With his paw, he stroked her muscled but very feminine foreleg, then her neck. She nuzzled his paw, and purred, closing her eyes as she rested her head against it.

“I love you, Chukizo,” Scar said, scratching behind the tigon's ears with an extended claw.

“I love you too, Scar,” the female said, and lowered herself down to her mate...

Mufasa and Taka were reaching the end of their cubhood. The former was taken out every day by Ahadi, and the latter generally had no expectations or responsibilities placed onto him. Mostly, he was expected to stay out of the way.

“We're going out now. Don't do anything stupid,” Uru said, and without another word, left Pride Rock with all of the other lionesses; the hunting trip commencing.

The juvenile was alone.

There were some other cubs in the pride, but they never played with him. Off in the distance, he could see them playing with each another. The one time that he'd asked to join him, they'd shrugged him off like he was a piece of trash.

Taka, after all... it meant trash.

Alone, he went down to the waterhole to get a drink.

Alone.

So alone.

Besides his brother, he had not a friend in the world. There were few enough lions that could even stand his presence; his father was not among them.

Taka sighed, bending his head down to lap up some water. At least Mufasa was there for him.

But recently, even that had changed. The tan lion had been spending so much time around his father that Ahadi's distaste for Taka seemed to have rubbed off on him. Though they'd still lounge around together from time to time, those times were getting scarcer and scarcer. Taka couldn't help but wonder when they'd stop altogether.

Everyone else was ecstatic, of course. Mufasa was rapidly becoming a good future King, they said. So strong and wise, they said.

Taka agreed, of course... but he could feel the small, meager bit of attention he used slowly leave him completely. Nowadays, it was a rare treat for another to even acknowledge that he was alive.

“It's okay...” he sighed, “Once Muffy's king, he'll finally have time to play. Maybe he can even get other people to be nice to me,” the dark lion thought, brightening up a little at that; but inside, he knew that no matter how hard he tried, Mufasa would never have any time for him.

Taka bent his head down and started to lap up some of the cool, clear water, feeling it quench his thirst...

All at once, there were three strangled yelps, and as the dark lion quickly looked up, he saw three hyenas running from a very enraged mother hawk. Taka put his considerable mind to the test, and looked around for her nest. And there it was, high up in a tree, the baby hawk looking down at the scene with wide eyes.

The solution seemed obvious, though in hindsight, Taka didn't know what made him care. He picked up a pebble in his paw and hefted it up at the nest, striking it, and making the baby squeal in fear. At that, the mother broke off of her attack and flew back up to the nest, glaring at the three hyenas, almost asking them to try something again.

But the three cubs just stuck out their tongues at her in unison, then turned to look at Taka with respect in their eyes.

Now, the dark lion had of course seen the only other predators in the Pride Lands, of course, though never up close. Though the hyena leaders met with their King Ahadi now and again, Taka had never been invited to the meetings; though Mufasa had. And this was the first time that he'd ever seen cubs his age... cubs that seemed to actually accept him.

“Hey, dude...” said the female and apparent leader of the trio, “that was pretty cool of you.”

“Yeah man... awesome,” said one of the two males with a smile.

The other male just laughed crazily and nodded. Taka felt like asking if something was wrong with him; but then remembered the pain he always felt at being told that something was wrong with him.

“You fools,” he muttered, “what did you do to her?” he said, jerking his head at the hawk.

The hyena cubs even chuckled at that, and despite himself, Taka felt a smile touch his lips.

“Nuthin' much... just tried ta bean her with a fruit as she was comin' at a mouse,” the female answered, much to the snickers of both of her companions.

“Hey, do you think... I could play with you?” Taka asked.

“Well, I dunno...” answered the female, “what do you think, Banzai? Ed? He's a lion cub... gonna be a load stronger 'n' faster than us,” she said, slightly jealous.

Ed jabbered for a few seconds, and nodding, the other male spoke up.

“Yeah... Banzai and me both agree. You're in, but we can't play against each other. It just ain't fair,” the coherent hyena pup looked back at the hawk.

“Seems like she wants a round two,” he suggested, hefting another pear in his paw; indeed, a loud TSEER was heard in the distance.

Shenzi snickered, and picked up two fruits, tossing one to Taka.

“Catch!” she playfully called, and all four tossed their projectiles at the avian, watching her squawk and flutter uselessly.

But that didn't last long. The mother hawk managed to regain her footing and race towards the cubs. Taka shot away fast, of course, but saw that his friends were in trouble of being speared by her sharp talons. So he paused, and when they and the raptor came towards him, he thrust a pawful of dirt into her face, blinding her and causing her to fall.

The hyenas ran on, laughing, and Taka joined them, trotting along at their pace. It was the start of a beautiful, rare relationship; ultimately, one doomed to utter failure.

Mufasa was worn out after a full day of training. He slumped into the den, collapsing instantly; not even the praise offered to him from all directions could stall his exhaustion.

The tan lion couldn't even play anymore, that's how much his father made him work. But Mufasa couldn't blame his father; he was only trying to make his son as good of a King as possible, when the time came.

His eyes narrowed when Taka practically waltzed into the den. The little punk... he had no obligations, no responsibilities, nothing. Taka didn't even have to hunt, and could play all day for all anyone cared. For the first time in his life, Mufasa felt... jealous. And the worst bit of it was that he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

The dark cub plunked down besides his brother. He too was sweating, though not quite as profusely as the future King.

“Hello, Muffy. How was your day?” Taka kindly asked.

“My day...”

With a growl, and right in front of everyone, the tan cub suddenly smashed his brother across the face, nearly knocking him out.

“Let me tell you how it is, you pathetic little bastard. I worked from dawn, learning everything, training,even fighting with Father. See,” he said with a harsh laugh, “being King's not all good. You've got to work hard... but I guess you wouldn't know a thing about that, would you?” Mufasa spat onto Taka's cowering form, earning an approving nod from his father.

“I don't think I've ever asserted my dominance over him in front of everyone... and Father says that the best Kings rule their lands through intimidation. If I can utterly crush the spirit of Taka, who might one day challenge me... then that will show everyone that I am always the dominant one; the strongest, the greatest, the wisest King ever.”

With a roar, the tan cub placed his heavy paws onto Taka's back and forced him into the ground, batting him around in a less-than-brotherly manner. The rest of the Pride just nodded, some with unconcealed smirks on their faces at Taka's obvious humiliation. The blows didn't even let up when he yelped in pain, only when Mufasa was too physically exhausted to continue.

“He's still my brother. And he will... make a great King,” the dark lion thought, forcing himself not to cry, even as his entire body was consumed in fiery agony, “and I'm still his bodyguard.”

(WARNING: here is an EXTEMELY, EXTREMELY, EXTREMLY disturbing description of brutal, sadistic torture and violence. Don't read it if you don't think you can handle it.)

Jinga grinned.

He might not be the smartest tigon ever... but he knew how to have fun, and raise the spirits of his brother and sister. Even since the death of Ziwi, they'd been rather depressed. So had he, but he didn't show it much.

“Ziwi wouldn't want me to be sad for him,” he thought, and kept what little capacity his mind had on remembering only the good times he'd shared with his brother.

The cub was now playing hide and seek with Chukizo and Dhaifu. It had taken him quite some time to understand how to play the game properly. He'd spent weeks and weeks watching the other cubs as well as his three siblings play, then practicing, and now for the first time he was the seeker.

But the li-tigon cub wasn't having much luck. He'd strayed far from where his siblings had hidden, distracted by a butterfly. By the time he realized this, he was far off track and knew that it would take him longer still to find one of his two playmates.

But Jinga didn't care. He was playing with his siblings; it didn't matter if he won or lost. The feeling of being wanted and involved was enough for him...

Suddenly, a great blow struck him from the side, and the cub felt himself blacking out as something picked him up by the scruff of the neck and carried him far to the south, to the very fringes of the strange forest that all Desert dwellers avoided.

A long time later, Jinga slowly blinked, clearing his eyes as he stood up. Instantly, he was terrified. He was in some terrible swamp, and all around him wer the sounds of strange creatures. But what scared him the most was the lioness that sat right in front of him.

The tigon had often been told by his siblings to stay away from her; that she was dangerous. And the cub had seen this particular lioness hurt all of them, especially Chukizo more than once. So he slowly tried to back away from her, turning around and hastily trotting away.

But a terrible swipe of sharp claws ran down the full length of his back, making him freeze and then drop in agony. There wasn't any nerve damage, but the fiery wounds on his back rendering Jinga nearly incapable of moving nonetheless.

Jinga hardly had time to yelp in pain, before two muscled arms wrapped around his neck, choking him. The tigon gasped for breath, pulling, then clawing at the vice around him, but did him no good at all.

He was nearly dead before he was dropped to the ground. Gulping down air greedily, he stumbled to his feet and looked at the lioness in fear.

“Please... don't hurt me,” he begged, still panting for breath.

But Samehe just growled, and launched herself at her son again. The cub didn't have any time to dodge before she grabbed him bodily, and thrust him into the disgusting bog.

Jinga struggled but did nothing but inhale water. He choked in the greenish slime, creating one Helluva fuss, but doing nothing to release him. In fact, his struggles only attracted the attention of three or four small crocodiles. Instinctively, the cub fought harder than ever...

Out of Samehe's own desires, he was raised from the bog. The lioness punched him in the gut with her paw, bringing some of the water out of him. But it wasn't to help him, oh no... she only wanted to prolong his suffering.

The lioness battered away at her son's stomach, only egged on by his pathetic whimpers and pleas. It wasn't long at all before most of his vital organs were practically liquefied, his ribs broken. But incredibly, the tigon wasn't dead.

“Heh... look at you, you freak. You can't run, can't hide, can't fight back... you can only take your punishment like the abomination you are, you little bastard,” Samehe spat onto Jinga, then reached down and bit his fur, ripping half his skin off of his body, exposing his flesh to the elements.

The ripping sound wasn't heard over Jinga's shriek of agony, as his own own organs began to spill out of him, unable to even hold their own shape.

“Wow, that's the first time that I've ever seen flies lay eggs into a still-living animal,” the lioness said with some kind of sadistic wonder.

Jinga looked down, and with a disgusted cry of terror saw that indeed flies were already starting to eat into and lay their eggs into his exposed abdomen.

“Please...” he begged, not quite comprehending that Samehe would never help him.

“Shut up,” the lioness growled, striking him in the face, claws extended; so that she not only tore half the fur off of his head but she also speared one eyeball, savagely ripping it out of its socket then allowing it to bounce away along the swamp floor.

Jinga screamed, but knew that it would do him no good. Pathetically, one paw covering his empty socket, he rolled over and tried to crawl away. But he had not the strength to do it, and in fact the rest of his organs, now nothing more than fly-infested gore slid out of him, landing on the ground with a sickening splotch.

But the pain only intensified. The tigon felt something break free, and after a second, his body registered mind-numbing waves of pain rolling up from his left hind leg... or lack thereof.

Samehe had ripped it off in her jaws, twisting it o the side so it dislocated, then tore it away, ripping apart tendons, muscles, nerves. The lioness threw the disembodied limb to the crocodiles, laughing as Jinga sobbed, both watching it get broken apart and swallowed down, even as the reptilians looked on, hungry for more.

The lioness reached up through the cub's now abdominal cavity, grunting at his weak struggles, feeling around in his chest... then she pulled out his heart, lungs, and other remaining vitals, killing Jinga in the most painful, humiliating manner possible. The cub's eyes remained open, his face twisted into an expression of unspeakable pain, his organs and most of his skin missing, flies already rotting his body.

Samehe then reached down, cutting off Jinga's genitals with her claws, then shoving them into his open mouth. After that, the lioness walked over him, and began to defecate onto his lifeless form, nothing but rage etched across her harsh features.

“Fucking freak,” she grunted, as a particularly large glob of feces landed on the cub's face.

(Sorry, guys. But life is cruel, just like Samehe)

The lioness grinned terribly. Dhaifu was dying, and no matter how hard Chukizo tried to comfort him, it did him no good. Milk did not fill his belly anymore, and he could not eat meat. Though Chukizo had managed to keep her sickly brother alive for a few days by chewing up meat and dropping it down his throat...

But almost intentionally, the pride had had to hunt farther and farther from the den. Dhaifu was too sickly to travel, and Chukizo couldn't carry much meat with her. His death was totally unavoidable, and the only being in the world that gave a damn was his sister.

She was crying and hugging him, begging him to not leave her alone. Samehe could understand that; the lioness at least had a pride that cared for her, Chukizo would well and truly be alone when her freak of a brother left the world.

But there was nothing anyone could do at this stage. Dhaifu breathed his last, stomach not growling in exactly the same manner his father had died, though his last actions were slightly more benevolent.

“Chukizo,” he said, giving a sad, small smile to his sister, the compassionate, loving, caring friend that had stayed with him throughout his entire life, his entire sickness, “find love.”

Dhaifu coughed once, his tongue flopping out of his mouth, then slowly faded away; life snuffed out just as slowly and horribly as his father before him. Samehe noticed this, and walked over to viciously slap his dead form across the ground. But Chukizo stepped in front of her paw, taking the blow for her brother, sliding across the den floor.

“Well look at that,” the lioness said hatefully, “freaks always look out for one another,” she sneered, then slammed her paw onto Dhaifu with enough force to crack his chest.

Freak was alone, patrolling the southwestern edge of the Pride Lands. Since his arrival, he'd insisted upon doing his fair share of work. Now with three males in the pride, Simba, himself, and Kovu, they could each cover one sector of the land quite efficiently, and no one had ever felt safer.

But the li-tigon knew, better than anyone, that peace could never last. In fact, in his opinion peace was only the signal of a brief intermission between hardship, and he felt that the Pride Lands were long overdue for violence.

Suddenly, he froze. He could smell contacts coming from the Outlands... but he couldn't be sure. They were even better than Usiku at hiding their presence, and only a sudden, almost miraculous shift in the wind had alerted Freak to them.

But they were about twenty hyenas, give or take a couple. Freak growled, but knew better than try to engage them. He back off to the northeast, seeing that Kovu was coming to tell him that patrolling was done. The dark lion had been a little more... civil... towards Freak, but the li-tigon for some reason felt that it was a front.

Incredibly, a hyena sprang out of the grass right at him, and Freak had barely a heartbeat to dodge out of the way.

“Kovu!” he called, as the rest near-dozen closed in on him, surrounding him from all directions, growling, “Brother... help me!” he said, as Maumbu attacked.

These Bloody Shadow assassins were tough customers; not at all like the starving Shadow Landers that Freak had massacred. They didn't go down with a single blow or claw, and fought in a manner that the li-tigon wasn't used to. Without back-up... he would almost certainly die.

But the lion only laughed cruelly, and ran off. Freak's expression didn't change... but it was one more affront against his soul, as well as the intrinsic grain in him that told him that others could be trusted.

“Everyone is a threat,” the li-tigon thought, fighting off the yet undefeated force alone.

Kovu sneaked away from the scene, smiling darkly to himself as he went. Hardly hesitating to abandon Freak to his death, the lion stalked away. But he was both confused and worried to see that the Pride Land hyenas... were heading right towards the fray.

“If they get involved... things could get complicated,” he thought.

Suddenly, the implications of his failure to help Freak and the possibility of him actually surviving with the aid of the other Pride Landers hit him. Panicking, Kovu ran, staying unnoticed by everyone but Freak... and one other.

“Hey, man, you smell somethin'?” asked Banzai, speaking to Ed.

The psychotic hyena sniffed, then nodded. He looked to Shenzi and T, and the two females smelled he air as well.

“Yeah,” said Shenzi, looking strangely at T, “smells like hyenas, kind of.”

T looked confused at the scent.

“They don't smell like my clan. They smell sort of like the way... Usiku did,” she said, and all four of the former Outlanders looked at the black hyena.

He growled, then spoke.

“Uvuli's in the den... these, my friends, are assassins of the Bloody Shadows. I do not know who they are, precisely... but they cannot be allowed to enter our lands unchallenged,” over the course of the few weeks he'd been in the Pride Lands, Usiku felt a sense of camaraderie, even belonging amongst both the lions and the hyenas.

He'd even stopped hating Freak. They say, after all, that a father cannot hate a being that is kind to his daughter unconditionally...

Freak was up with the sun.

He didn't normally wake up at dawn; after all, the high mountains that surrounded the valley in which the Jungle was located did not offer a view of the rising sun. But here in the Pride Lands, he'd recently taken to watching the slow peek of the sun over the horizon; its powerful beams warming and lighting up the plains, bringing life to the Pride Lands, chasing away the darkness of the night.

He heard a growl behind him, and turned instantly. But it was only Uvuli.

“Not a threat, incapable of harming me,” he thought, then turned away, unaware that he was being watched by Usiku.

“Go ahead and do it, you freak. Hurt my daughter, so that I can give you the death that you deserve...”

But the li-tigon didn't react as the baby hyena playfully bumped into his leg. He glanced at her, confused, but that's about it.

Smiling as she picked herself up, Uvuli growled playfully and gripped Freak's leg in her teeth.

At that, the li-tigon twitched; apparently, her teeth and jaws weren't quite as useless as they looked. But still, he didn't nothing.

“Come on, play with me,” Uvuli said.

Usiku blinked at that. His daughter normally only spoke to him in private, and even then, it wasn't much.

The li-tigon looked at her, then spoke.

“...What do I do?” he asked naively.

“Well, it's like fighting. But don't hurt me, and I won't hurt you. It's fun... try it,” she said, smiling, backing up, then pouncing at Freak.

The li-tigon moved out of the way, but not nearly as fast as he could have. But instead of allowing Uvuli to crash to the rocky ground, he caught her in his paws and gently tossed her into the air, even as she pressed her attack. Usiku turned away, frustrated, but then looked back in absolute confusion at the expression he was seeing on Freak's face.

A smile.

Freak was losing. Not badly, but losing anyway. He hadn't been able to take down any of the hyenas, and though he hadn't taken any serious hits yet, the li-tigon knew it wouldn't be long.

Suddenly, there was an another group of growls and yips, and Freak cursed, thinking that his assailants were bringing back-up. But the assassins suddenly jumped and some of them turned to confront the five grown hyenas, one of them a former assassin himself.

“You!” a male Umbu said, glaring at the black hyena.

“Traitor...” another growled, closing in as one half of Maumbu kept the pressure on Freak.

“To deny that bastard... the one who overthrew his own father, under the tutelage of my own... to come home after a long, hard mission to find that my mate was killed at his paws, and then to run so that my daughter could live, if just a little longer,” Usiku had still kept some of his cool, even in his rage, “and you, the ones that do the bidding of Saliti, you dare call ME the traitor?!” he launched himself at Maumbu, with the four other Pride Land hyenas.

The two waves of flesh colliding in a cacophony of barking, growling; the occasional yip and the horrible sound of fur and meat tainting the lands with blood for ever.

Sarafina had led a strange life.

Up until the rise of Scar, she'd managed to maintain friendships with both Zira and Sarabi; seemingly two opposite ends of the spectrum. But after the dark lion had made it clear that his regime was one of terror and hardship, she'd stuck with the loyalists.

But every now and then, Sarabi would feel some small voice nagging at her; telling her to not trust her best friend. And it did make sense, sort of. Zira could be seen berating Sarafina more than the others; though they always seemed to be alone when that happened. And a few strange incidents; nothing big, but all in one way or another involving Sarafina had left more than a shadow of suspicion in Sarabi's mind.

The tan lioness was now returning to Pride Rock. She'd seen Kovu ignore Freak's cry for help, and also the Pride Land hyenas attack the li-tigon. She cared not for Freak, but the sleeping giant was now filled with a terrible resolve. Her time had come at last.

“Kovu will probably think of some way to keep Simba away from the fight. He might say there's another invasion, and that Freak's already trying to repel one front and is doing fine.”

She grinned.

“And that damned shaman, Rafiki, he's out of the picture. If I can somehow nudge the situation so that Simba gets isolated, maybe with Kovu or that daughter of mine... it will be child's play to kill him. I don't have that many years left in me... it's now or never.”

And so the aging lioness, nearly as old as Msarfiri, Sarabi; around the same age as Samehe set off towards Pride Rock at a pace that would have impressed any runner, though she remained hidden enough to approach in silence...

The old mandrill sighed, as he began the journey home from the Jungle. Apparently, a monkey a bit like him, Mganga had chosen to forget the way of compassion that Rafiki had taught him, and dedicated the past years of his life only to revenge... revenge on a predator that had only done as nature dictated. But then, suddenly, the monkey had vanished without a trace.

“De way dat I live... it is truly a miracle. One would tink dat in de place dat I grew up, I would become like de monstahs dat always surrounded me. It was incredible day even wit de aid of my Muddah and Faddah dat I was able to escape... as far as I know, dat land, de mountain wit terrible forest all around it still has no healer or shaman.”

Rafiki sighed, then chuckled before returning to his thoughts. He was moving into the Outlands now, and would be back home perhaps by the end of the night.

“Journeying tru de Lowah Plains, den cutting tru de Desaht, den going to de East past de Jungle to de Nort and de mountain ranges... only to reach de Falme Kindakindaki, a land not much bettah dan de land of my birt... at least dere, my skills were used. They kept me safe, but I was never welcomed. My heart, it told me to go to de Nort. I wonder what would have happened to me if I did not see Guedado and Kimitri dat day...”

But the mandrill shook his head, and chuckled again.

“Who would have taut dat old Rafiki of de Bloody Shadows would evah be a proud membah of de Pride Lands?”

“Simba!” said Kovu, with unembellished gasps, “there's an attack. From the Outlands!”

“What?!” the lead male growled, racing off towards the South, lionesses perking up.

“No!” the dark lion said suddenly, and Simba turned.

“Freak and the hyenas there. They're taking care of them,” he said with a grin that Kiara could swear was fake, “but there's another one... it's a two-pronged invasion, Freak said when he sent me here. He said they're coming from... the Shadow Lands! That's it! They have to be stopped! Come on!”

Sarafina slunk into the area unnoticed, sneering at Kovu's poor acting. She called upon her finely-honed skills, and gasped for breath, panting as she felt all eyes on her.

“Sarabi,” she said, gulping in air as she looked to her friend, “I was going to check the wildebeest to the Northwest. There were hyenas, so many of them that they covered the hills like attacking ants cover a nest. I got away unnoticed, but they're coming, Sarabi! Simba, Nala, Kiara... we have to do something,” she said.

Now the alpha male was lost. Kovu's strange mannerisms seemed... fake, somehow, but Simba couldn't imagine why his son-in-law would act that way. And though Nala had forced him to cease his investigations into her mother, Simba had always had at least one set of eyes on her until recently. They'd always come back to tell him that her stories checked out... but for some reason, the tan lion always felt that she was just biding her time. However... all this time had passed without incident.

“It really is time to forgive and forget,” he thought, then roared, calling the attention of all the fighters of the Pride Lands.

Several minutes later, a gaggle of cheetahs, a family of predatory birds, a band of rock-wielding monkeys and of course every singe lioness in the Pride had gathered. Simba smiled at the other cats; they lived a life separate from the lions, but for the past years, they'd always been upstanding citizens of the Pride Lands... and loyal warriors.

“Warriors of the Pride Lands... our lands are threatened by a hostile force to the North West. They are hyenas... not our brothers and sisters formerly of the Outlands; but a destructive clan bent solely on the domination of our lands,” the tan lion said.

Simba was fabricating half of it, but from the size and descriptions of the force given to him he did not think it was unwarranted. And from the agreeing roars from the lions, the jeering hisses of the cheetahs, the shrieks of the hawks, and the angry calls of the monkeys... the tan lion felt rather secure about his public speaking skills.

“We've fought off stronger forces together, friends... let's move!” he called, and in a rush, led the charging force towards the Outlands.

Msafiri, Kovu, and Sarafina all had to try to hide their feelings. One was hiding a malicious sneer. One was hiding guilt. And the other was only trying to not let her bloodthirsty desires overtake her.

A long time later, the Pride Landers collected at a rendezvous point. They'd scoured the Northwest part of their territory endlessly... but no one had found hide or hair of any attacks. No one even smelled anything unfamiliar. Worst of all, Msafiri was missing.

“Maybe she's been captured. This could have been a diversion,” Nala offered, and some seemed to agree.

Simba didn't know what to think. If it was a diversion... they'd left Pride Rock totally unattended. And if the invaders took that, they could hold off the lions very easily. But that didn't explain Msafiri's absence...

“What should we do, Sire?” somebody asked.

But the Lion King had no answers.

Msafiri was moving towards the Outlands as fast as her aging body could go. She was extremely old... it was a wonder that she'd survived the weeks between the arrival of Freak and the arrival of his assassins. But the Asiatic lioness had kept herself going out of pure spite, determined to see the li-tigon die a painful, terrible death.

Finally, she heard the decrescendo yelps and cries of an ending battle. Msafiri could contain her joy no longer, and shouted out loud.

“Wait! I want to see the Freak bleed!” she called, bounding over one last hill.

But the li-tigon was nowhere to be seen. There were only the corpses of about twenty charcoal grey hyenas, some cleanly killed, some horribly mangled. Off to the side were the half-conscious but probably alive Pride Land hyenas. So poor was their condition that the lioness's calls didn't register. Usiku seemed to perk up for a second, but fell to the ground, unconscious. Th rest of the Pride Land hyenas soon followed suit.

“No... how could he have esca—”

The Asiatic heard nothing. She had no warning. The first thing that she noticed was that she had somehow teleported twenty feet. Then, the pain in her side registered, and she shrieked in agony, trying to curl up but stopping; the pain of having all of her ribs broken at once was too great.

She heard a growl, and managed to tilt her head, and her blurring vision told her that Freak was approaching her, as emotionless as he always was.

“I should have killed you that day,” the li-tigon said, opening his jaws, and moving to grab the Asiatic around the neck, intending to kill her instantly; despite her non-prey status.

“She's a threat, and she'll die anyway. Leaving her here... is both cruel and dangerous.”

Msafiri coughed, spitting blood onto Freak's face. He growled at that, and was about to snap her neck when she spoke.

“Hey... freak... do you know... that your grandmother may still be alive?” the li-tigon paused at that; curious at the possibility of having more family.

“She lives... in the Desert, to the South of the Jungle,” Msafiri gasped, nearly expiring then and there.

“Samehe... was my friend. I left her... to leave the pain that your mother... the abomination... Chukizo... caused me by killing my son,” she said, tears starting to flow down her cheeks.

“Save it,” Freak thought, but said nothing.

“And do you know how your grandmother gave birth to Chukizo? No, I suppose you don't. Well... your grandfather, a tiger... raped her! Took her body for his own purposes when she was scarcely out of cubhood. How does it feel to know that such perverse blood runs in your veins, FREAK?!”

“Grandmother's blood also runs in my veins. As does Mother's, and Father's.”

“I always wanted to see her again, one last time,” said Msafiri, coughing once in the grip of the other cat's teeth, “but... fate has not allowed for me to do so. If you ever get the chance, Freak... go to the Desert... I'm sure that old Granny Samehe will have more than one thing to say to you!”

With one last laugh, the Asiatic collapsed, dead. Her eyes were halfway open, but the li-tigon couldn't bring himself to close them. He gave a sad glance to the hyenas that had nearly, or had indeed died to protect him. They were well beyond his care.. but maybe, just maybe, Simba could do something for them.

He saw one male's chest heave. Banzai's... that poor being had taken a terrible, terrible slash to the gut that had exposed his organs. And that wasn't all... Maumbu had pressed its advantage, chewing into the male's stomach even as he screamed in agony. It was only due to Ed's speedy action, action that had given him a terrible cut across the shoulder that had saved him... for the moment. Usiku was worse than Shenzi or T, but for all Freak could tell... they might all have been dying in front of his eyes.

With an unfamiliar jolt of panic, the li-tigon set off, he knew not in what direction. The only thing that was on his mind was the possibility of saving... his friends.

“Dammit... I don't... let's stay here. They might be delaying,” Simba offered, unsure of what else to say.

Kovu nodded at that readily, almost too readily. Kiara looked at him oddly, as did Simba, but the latter was distracted when his wife nuzzled him.

“Don't worry...” Nala said, “I'm sure Msafiri's okay.”

“It's not just Msafiri I'm worried about,” the Lion King said, thinking of his cousin, “and we've also missed the hyenas...”

The dark lion seemed to be on the verge of saying something to his mate, who was talking to him as if she knew something was up. But suddenly, in a blur, he was removed from her side, held to the ground by Freak.

“Cousin!” said Simba, hardly registering what the li-tigon seemed on the verge of doing to his son-in-law, “you survived the invasion,” the Lion King finished, registering that Freak's arms were holding the dark lion's head, nearly breaking his neck or strangling him, take your pick.

“I did. No thanks to this bastard,” he said, his normal monotone taking on an ominous edge.

“He saw that I was being attacked. And he did nothing. Except for laughing. He did that, and then ran. I don't know what lies he's been feeding you... but those hyenas were here to kill me, and only me. At the request of Msafiri,” he guessed, almost sure due to the lioness's actions at the battle scene.

There was a collective gasp. Everyone was paying undivided attention to Freak... and Sarafina saw her first, last, and only chance.

Nala saw a flicker of movement behind her and turned, barely having time to utter, “Mother?” before she realized that the old lioness's claws were headed straight for the Lion King's neck.

There was a roar, and several things happened all at once. A crack was heard, and the next time anyone saw Kovu they could swear he was dead from a broken neck. Simba stumbled forward, roaring in pain, bleeding from the back. Freak had somehow managed to move nearly twenty feet in the blink of an eye, viciously striking Sarafina's face with his powerful paw... and sharp claw.

The old lioness was strong, that much was certain. Freak had not meant to kill her; he'd not used near his full strength. But the speed at which he'd moved combined with the mass of his paw left no possible outcome but Sarafina's broken skull...

Nala and Kiara both ran to the dead lioness's side, crying, though neither did a thing to Freak. The li-tigon sat there, an expression very much like shock on his face, terrified at what he'd done by accident.

“Am I... bad? Death follows me everywhere. Even when I try to avoid it. Maybe I am more than a freak. Maybe I am... an abomination.”

Everything was a blur around him for the next few minutes. The lions checking Sarafina's body, crying over it. Then Kovu's body, realizing that he was only temporarily paralyzed. All the time, the li-tigon felt something... something in him... it felt like the passing down of something to him from an ancestor.

Father... father was speaking to him. Friends... friends in danger. Loyal friends. In danger...

“The hyenas.”

Somehow, he'd spoken out loud. The words came from his lips, but sounded like they'd been spoken by a stranger.

“The hyenas?”

Freak's eyes widened, and he suddenly spoke with a sense of urgency in his voice.

“They're injured! Usiku and Banzai... I think they might be dead.”

“Dad's... dead?” said a small voice from behind the lions.

The baby hyena crept up, quivering. No one had really heard her speak before, except Freak, Usiku, and occasionally the other hyenas.

“Uvuli, I thought I told you to stay in Pride Rock,” said Kiara with a disapproving stare.

But the hyena just shrugged.

“Dad always said that he might be killed one day, for leaving the Bloody Shadows. But I never thought that it might be today. It always felt like something that could happen tomorrow...”

Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

“Freak, is he really dead?”

The li-tigon had no feelings to speak of. Not of his own, anyway. But through living such a harsh, brutal, and utterly cold and solitary life, if there was one thing Freak was it was sympathetic. He walked over to Uvuli, and held her up by the scruff of the neck, rather like he was the day so long ago that he took her hostage.

“Not yet he's not,” Freak managed to grunt, setting off to the South.

With hardly a heartbeat of hesitation, everyone else followed. The only ones that were left behind were Sarafina, who was dead and already forgotten, and Kovu, who was still living but in the process of being forgotten.

“Wait...” the dark lion said, raising a paw before he collapsed into nightmare-ridden unconsciousness.

“Well, what do we have here?” said the mandrill shaman out loud, concern audible in his voice.

He smelled blood, and lots of it. Something terrible had happened, not too far to the north.

“Old Rafiki can still help dem, if dey are still alive dat is...” he said under his breath, running for the hyenas as fast as he could.

The mandrill reached the blood bath, hardly pausing as he did. In his early days in the Bloody Shadows, he'd seen far, far worse. Now, Rafiki did not know that the Shadow Land hyenas were welcomed back into the Pride Lands during his absence. Nor did he even know who Usiku was, though he looked mighty familiar, like a face the primate had all but forgotten...

But Rafiki just treated them as best he could, selflessly, as Mganga had to the same group minus one so long ago. The far more experienced and talented shaman (life in the Falme Kindakindaki was not without strife and much of it, after all) got them all to stable conditions. Barely.

T, Shenzi, and Ed... he wasn't so worried about them. He couldn't use some of his more effective herbs being that they'd been laying around for so long until he reached them, but even so, Rafiki was fairly certain that they'd soon make full recoveries.

Usiku was bad, though. The black hyena... who did he look like?

“He is de spitting image of Lord Kivuli of de Bloody Shadows,” Rafiki said out loud in wonder.

The mandrill had forgiven the horrible living demon that had killed his parents and eaten them in front of him... or at least he thought he had. But seeing what looked like practically the same being, that brought up hate and fear that one can only get from nearly a lifetime of constantly lamenting the loss of ones guardians and protectors... one's parents.

But Rafiki too a deep breath, and allowed the mercy and pity of the heavens to flow through him, purifying his mind and soul. For a second, he could swear he felt a presence or several of them; though they did not seem to be searching for him...

He continued his work, patching up the terrible wounds all over the black hyena's back, before looking at Banzai gravely.

The mandrill was tempted to mercy-kill the poor hyena right there. Though Ed seemed to have gone through more than a little trouble to save his practical brother, that didn't really change things. His gut was wide open, and infection was already setting in. But that wasn't the worst of it. Some of his internals were missing, and frantically, Rafiki was able to find bits and pieces of them, getting them together, molding them into near-whole, nearly working shadows of what they once were.

But barely, incredibly... even Banzai might live. But... it would not be a nice existence. He would likely be unable to move far or fast. Ever. He would have trouble digesting food and might well die of starvation inevitably. The only thing that could help him now... was the divine.

“Dey say dat de Great Kings of de Past look down on us always. But I wonder if poor Banzai here, being a much-hated enemy of de Pride Lands for so long... Mufasa, my old friend... I do not know if you can forgive him. Even from heaven.”

“They're not far,” Freak called, from far ahead of the lions.

“How... can... that... boy... run... so... fast... after... fighting... such... a... hard... battle...” panted Sarabi, though the old lioness was moving fast for both her age and for suddenly having to face the betrayal of her life-long friend.

“I... can't... answer... that... ...I'd... pop... a... lung...” Kiara managed to reply, earning a laugh from her mother and a smile from her grandmother.

“Daddy, daddy!” said Uvuli, as Freak let her down.

The li-tigon barely registered that a mandrill shaman, not unlike Mganga was tending to the hyenas. He merely wrote Rafiki off as a non-threat... though to be fair, some of the old primate's herbs, particularly those that he still kept from his days in the Bloody Shadows and the Falme Kindakindaki could be used in manners other than... medical ones.

“Rafiki, you're back,” panted Simba, as he approached the mandrill and the fallen warriors.

“Will they... be okay?” someone asked.

But the shaman only shook his head sadly.

“Dese tree... dey should be okay in time. But dis dark one, and dis one... I cannot say if dey will evah totally heal. Or even survive.”

The baby hyena cradled her father's head in her minuscule paws, crying softly. Freak stood next to Banzai with sadness and guilt on his face, almost. Everyone else... was just too shocked to speak.

After a while, T, Ed, and Shenzi came to. They limped to their feet, and gathered around the fallen males. Usiku was still breathing, barely. Banzai was also, but both hyenas were still somewhere between life and death.

Eventually, Kovu managed to drag himself to the group, fighting off his temporary paralysis. When he did get there, no one acknowledged him. Even when he sat next to Kiara and nuzzled her, smiling at her sadly, his mate left him to sit next to the li-tigon, who was every now and then making sure that Banzai was still breathing...

Suddenly, both male hyenas gasped for breath. Banzai tried to rise, but Freak gently held him down, shaking his head. Usiku knew better than that, and only moved his paws to hold his daughter as she cried in joy...

“So... dey will live. But dey will be unable to hunt or move much for very long time. I will need to tend to dem every day...” Rafiki said.

Banzai coughed once, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

“Dat's alright,” said Shenzi, looking at the injured males sadly, “It's better ta live injured for some time wit da hope of getting' better than ta not live at all.”

T nodded once, and added, “They fought well enough to earn it... many times over.”

Ed nodded vigorously, the sound of something shaking around in his skull was heard, bringing a brief, tired, but much needed chuckle to the face of more than one animal.

Freak turned away for a moment, looking to the south, back at the Jungle. Past the Jungle was the waterfall, then the Desert. To the northwest of there, the Lower Plains, and then to the north... the Bloody Shadows. Traveling directly through the southwestern edges of the Shadow Lands and Outlands, over the vast lake was out of the question... there was an island there, unreachable except for by non-sentient fliers, and that island was more of a mystery than the High Mountains to the north of the Pride Lands, the Wet Forest to the South of the Desert... or the Bloody Shadows themselves.

“They fought and almost died... for me. They weren't even my family. Unlike him,” the li-tigon thought, balefully thinking of Kovu.

“And even the hyenas... they killed Scar, my father, for only a moment of disloyalty brought about by absolute desperation. I can't be around them... any of them...”

“Everyone is a threat,” Freak said, standing up, gaining the attention of everyone present, “and I can no longer trust any of you.”

The li-tigon started to walk off to the south, as the entire pride and the five conscious hyenas looked after him; only Rafiki kept his mind where it needed to be.

“Wait,” said Kovu, and the li-tigon paused, glaring at the dark lion, “where are you going?”

“...Back to the Jungle. Then... to the Bloody Shadows. Saliti will not tolerate a failed mission...” Freak said, remembering what Usiku had told him about his previous home in the aftermath of the fight.

“They will never stop trying to kill me. So I have to kill them first. And I can't stop at the Assassin Lord. I will have to destroy each and every assassin that lifts a paw at me...”

The black hyena got to his feet, barely.

“I'm behind you, comrade. Saliti will find out about my existence... and that of Uvuli. He will attack us, as well... unless I strike first.”

But the li-tigon shook his head at, strangely, the same assassin that had been ordered to kill him, and the only being that he could come remotely close to trusting in the group.

“You're almost dead... and if you come with me, you will be a liability; if you even survive the journey to the Jungle. You will have to stay here... your daughter needs you.”

Usiku fell at that, feeling useless. But the black hyena knew the truth in Freak's words... and nodded.

“But we're goin' with you. Ain't no way we're gonna stay behind and let you go out there alone,” said Shenzi, speaking for herself, T, and Ed.

Both other hyenas nodded, looking at the li-tigon in such away that he knew it would be useless to even try to refuse.

“...” Freak didn't respond verbally, he merely jerked his head for them to walk alongside him.

Several seconds later, he was stopped again by a word from Simba.

“Wait... we're coming too,” the Lion King said, referring to his entire pride.

“The Pride Lands will be fine with the cheetahs defending it, at least for some time. And as long as this Saliti exists, he is a threat to all of us. If we leave the Pride Lands... he'll be the one waiting for an invasion, not us.”

Freak again didn't respond, but gradually, seemed to accept the lions... though he didn't trust them, not for a second. They say that trust, once lost, was hard nigh impossible to regain. And the li-tigon had nearly died by placing trust into his “family”, in particular, one lion...

“But what about me?” asked Kovu in a small voice.

“I'm not having him with me,” said Freak with a growl that became an angry roar.

The tan lion glared at his son-in-law, making the dark lion want to crawl under a rock and hide. He'd had only a few happy months with his new family... and now, even they wouldn't accept him.

“No... and Usiku and Banzai can't hunt, not for quite some time. Kovu,” Simba ordered, “you are going to stay here. Rafiki will help you get back onto the right path, from which you have strayed. Apparently, the darkness left on your heart by Zira has not left yet. I have hope for you, son, but you are not coming with us. Not until Banzai and Usiku have healed.”

“But that could be months!”

Kovu knew better than to argue, so tearfully, he bowed his head, and spoke, looking at the ground.

“Yes... my King,” he said sadly, and for once, Simba didn't remind him that he preferred to be addressed by his name.

“Father trusted the hyenas... and they killed him because he betrayed them. If I don't betray these three, they will help me. But my family... I don't even know what they did to Father to make him hate them so much,” Freak thought, walking off to the south.

“Simba,” he said gruffly, “you may be the King of the Pride Lands. And I respect that. But the moment we leave your territory... I am the leader of this... mission,” he stated.

The Pride Landers gasped, waiting to see how their King would take this sudden usurp of power. But Simba knew that Freak was both a better fighter... and better in the Jungle, and whatever strange environment the Bloody Shadows were.

The tan lion nodded, and spoke.

“Acceptable. But being a leader... is not all easy. Our future is in your paws, cousin... we don't know what awaits us, and you'll have to prepare us for everything.”

The li-tigon continued to walk on, thinking. He'd trained for more than one battle in the Jungle, and with other lions, opportunities to increase any kind of imaginable skill were practically limitless. The presence of hyenas in the force allowed the possibility of spying and surveillance... Freak could do this.

“... I shall, Simba... I shall. And when we do strike back... the Shadows will shed blood.”