Lonesome Dove Fan Fiction ❯ The Lion King: The Freak ❯ Chapter 8: Counterassassins I: Intermediate Goals ( Chapter 8 )

The Lion King: The Freak
Chapter 8: Counterassassins I: Intermediate Goals

(This chapter, I will be keeping backstory to a minimum.)

Kovu watched his family, his entire universe leave for over an hour. He state there, motionless, tears spilling down from his eyes, tainting his dark fur blacker.

Simba was right. The darkness imprinted upon his heart by a hard life with his mother; the calculating, cruel, kill-or-don't-profit mindset had not completely left him. Maybe one day, it would. Or maybe it never would.

“Young one,” said Rafiki, standing next to the dark lion, “I have seen many tings in my life. But nevah once did Old Rafiki tink dat a lion brought up in de Outlands, much less a son of Zira could have any light in his heart.”

“But you do. And though you may still have de residue of your mother's darkness upon your soul... dere is much hope fah you. Come,” the mandrill said, clapping Kovu on the shoulder, “help me wit poor Banzai.”

The dark lion closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating. Rafiki... the wise shaman who had done nothing but good for his entire life... if anyone could repair Kovu's blackened heart, it was him.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked the mandrill.

Rafiki just grinned.

“Many, many tings you will need to do to tread upon de good path of life again. But for now... make sure dat dis hyena's belly does not split open...”

As the shaman spoke, one of the stitches in Banzai's fur broke. Then another. And then, all at once... his entire abdomen ripped open, his entrails barely retaining their integrity, but exposing his guts to the environment.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Rafiki, moving fast, but not as fast as Kovu to work on fixing the artificial bonds.

Nightfall.

The counterassassins had reached the far edges of the Outlands. Almost everyone was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Nala had been crying almost the entire way, about the sudden, unforeseen betrayal of her mother. But at least she had Simba's shoulder to cry on.

The young lioness sniffed back a tear, lamenting her mate's malicious actions alone. But then she gave in, and she wept silently, feeling as if half her heart was missing. She was walking several yards to the left of the group, and everyone knew that her pain was her own... and she had to deal with it alone. Everyone but one.

“You'll need to be emotionally stable to survive outside of the Pride Lands,” said the li-tigon, moving up next to her, but not so much as glancing at her.

Kiara sniffled.

“I know... but... Kovu... he's not here with me.”

“You wouldn't understand,” she said flatly, “when you love someone, and then love you back, when they're not with you... it's terrible.”

“He may not be with you now. But he will be, some day.”

“When I'm far, far away from both you and him.”

“You're right—I don't understand. After all... my mother, I think that she loved me. But I didn't learn that I should love her back until long after she was dead. I don't know how I'd feel if I could have some sort of... mutual love. But that will never happen,” Freak stated, as emotionless as always.

Kiara gasped. Ever since she was born he'd been loved, every second of every day. And even though her father was a bit too controlling at times, she was still loved, and she always, always loved back.

“You don't know that!” she said, loud enough to turn heads; heads which quickly turned forwards again.

“You haven't met many others... there must be someone out there for you.”

But the li-tigon simply shook his head.

“There isn't. I am, after all, a freak. Don't ever forget that. ...One day,” he conceded, “I may find someone that I care about. Maybe. Probably not. But they'll never care for me back,” he bared his teeth to Kiara, and she recognized his characteristic grin; an expression that was as hollow as his heart.

“Because... I'm a freak. And I don't know how to do anything... but survive.”

“But I can do that well.”

“We're stopping here for tonight,” said the li-tigon, slumping over without any more ado at the side of a tree.

By now, there was only a few hundred meters of desert buffering the Jungle and the Outlands. The sand kept Jungle dwellers from entering the Outlands, except for Freak, of course. And from where he sat... the li-tigon could tell that something in the Jungle had changed from when he last saw it.

“I'll have to be careful. But at least I have the others to help me. No... they'll be useless in the Jungle, all of them. I'll have to take care of myself and them.”

“Families, friends... they're troublesome. I'm best off alone.”

Ed, Shenzi and T had been walking next to each another, though in front of the lions and behind Freak for the majority of the day's journey. Together, they'd come to accept the possibility that Usiku and Banzai might both die, but had resigned themselves to the fact that Rafiki knew what he was doing, and Uvuli's love for her father would keep at least the black hyena alive.

The three former Shadow Landers saw that their leader, yes, their leader, ever since the group had left the Pride Lands, was resting by himself. As he'd always done. Though Freak may have slept in the den with the other lions during his stay in the Pride Lands, he was never closer than five yards to any lion or lioness. The hyenas slept in a different den, not quite as spacious, but every bit as comfortable and homely.

Ed grinned at Freak, passing him to position himself at the li-tigon's feet, in between him and the not so distant Jungle. Shenzi and T cuddled next to each another, near to Freak, who felt neither affection nor distaste for the two hyenas. He knew that it was for warmth, and nothing more. But that wasn't entirely true.

“Yeah, it might be physic'ly warmer near Freak,” thought Shenzi, looking at her adoptive little sister once before closing her eyes.

“But he needs another kind of warmth...”

The night passed peacefully. Kiara, Nala, and Simba were huddled together at the foot of another tree, and clumps of lionesses were all over the Outlands for several dozen yards in any direction.

Throughout the course of the night, T, Shenzi, and Ed came to be holding each other and Freak, above, next to, and underneath him. But the li-tigon was in the exact same posture that he'd slumped to the ground in, and still felt nothing for any of the three hyenas. Moving carefully so as to not wake them, he slid out of their collective grasp and shook himself, licking his paws for a moment.

As he looked at the three practical siblings, the corners of his lips twitched for a second. And then he was gone, bounding northwards fast, but still making no noise that was audible to anyone present...

About an hour later, Simba woke up. Nala and Kiara's eyes flickered open as well, but the smile from the Lion King told them to have another few minutes. The two lionesses smiled back, Nala briefly nuzzling her mate's paw before joining her daughter in sleep.

The tan lion looked around for his cousin. He knew that Freak had slept in the company of the three hyenas next to a tree.. but when he walked over to that tree, all he saw was the hyenas... and a set of footprints heading back to the north and pointedly not returning.

“No... he's gone. Why would he do such a thing?”

Simba could think of no logical reason why the pragmatic li-tigon would want to leave them. Like Freak himself had said, Saliti was a threat. The Lion King growled loudly in dismay, wondering what he'd tell everyone...

“Be careful, Simba. You might wake them,” said Freak.

Jerking his head over to his cousin who was approaching from the northeast, the tan lion could see that the li-tigon was dragging no less than five zebras to the area by the scruffs of their necks.

It made no sense at all. The Outlands were desolate, a harsh landscape, topped only by the Shadow Lands. Finding a lone zebra was a rare enough thing... but finding and successfully hunting five, and then dragging all of them back for presumably miles?

“How—” started Simba, before he was cut off by the li-tigon.

“I hurt this one,” Freak said, tapping a mangled zebra with his paw, its flesh torn to shreds, “and it neighed for some time. These four others came after they decided that I wasn't there. But I was, and it was easy to kill them,” he explained, licking a bloody paw clean.

“Easy,” thought Simba, with a grin.

“Should we wake them up, now?” asked Freak, but the tan lion quirked an eyebrow at that.

“Cousin, you are the leader of this voyage. The decision is yours to make.”

“Perhaps,” said the li-tigon, “but I see you as my second-in-command and will continue to do so... until you return to the Pride Lands.”

“...He said, you, not we. Could it be... does he intend to leave us?”

Simba thought onto the short time his cousin had spent with the pride. He'd been utterly cold and self-serving at first, with only the tiniest glimmer of hope for his hollow soul. But now, though little had changed with the li-tigon's harsh demeanor... the tan lion was fairly sure that Freak cared about them, even though there was all evidence to the contrary.

“I'll try to convince him... on this mission, that he is always welcome in the Pride Lands. He is family, after all... and even if he doesn't want a pride of his own, he can be part of ours.”

But externally, the Lion King only grinned slightly, and roared. Not as loudly as he might, but loud enough to wake everyone present up effectively.

No one groaned or complained. They all knew that such worthless actions had no place in such a dangerous mission, and that the only way anyone would live is if they placed full confidence in the abilities and decisions of their leaders.

“What's for breakfast?” Kiara and T said simultaneously, then snickered at each another.

The two beings were different in species and in age. But that didn't matter. They had spent some time with one another since the latter's repatriation, so to speak, into the Pride Lands, and each had found that the other was practically identical to herself.

“This,” said Freak simply, tapping the five zebras, seeing the Pride Landers's eyes go wide.

The meal wasn't large enough to fill any stomach to capacity. But it would keep them strong and healthy, and capable of moving fast. And at this stage in the mission, nothing was more valuable than speed.

As he ate with his subordinates, the li-tigon pondered.

“Usiku told me, once... he's the best assassin in jungle environments. The Bloody Shadows may be vaguely similar to the jungle that I know,but he told me that they're very, very different. I am stronger than when he tracked me... if we can get into the Jungle and lock it down from any attack, which I think we can... it will be the perfect training ground. If we're careful. There are parts of it, devoid of sentient animals. It might take weeks, months, or even a year. But one day... we will be ready to make the Shadows bleed.”

Freak waited until everyone was finished eating before walking towards the center of the group. He felt no stage fright, so to speak; because the li-tigon only saw speaking as a path to survival and nothing more. And if it meant that he would survive, there was nothing that he wouldn't do.

“The Jungle is different from the Pride Lands. One does not need to crouch in the grass to become invisible. There are many ways, so many ways, to render oneself invisible, unsmellable, and inaudible.”

“But it's not all good.”

“There are hazards... plants that if touched can make you sick or even paralyze you. Insects as long as your lower leg, with pincers poisonous enough to kill you if you so much as sniff their crushed components. Now, I will have it easier, because I was born in the Jungle, and quickly became indoctrinated against many of the poisons there. But you all may not be so lucky... I expect all of you to spend at least a week completely sick. None will die; I've learned some healing techniques from monkeys that I can use to keep you alive. But to become strong enough to throw off your body's weaknesses to disease or poison... is something you'll all have to do alone.”

“Let's go,” the li-tigon said, and without saying another word, walked into the short, sandy buffer, headed straight for the Jungle... and trouble, like always.

“Run away, Simba. ...Run. Run away, and never return.”

The dark, raven-haired lion looked at the tan cub, forcing himself to be foreboding and ominous.

Simba only looked at his uncle, his father's lifeless body, and then scampered away.

Scar didn't need to look, listen or smell to know that his three most trusted supporters were closing in on him. Forcing himself to hold a stony, slightly satisfied but overall apathetic expression, he spoke two words.

“Kill him.”

With a snarl the three hyenas dashed after the helpless cub. It was only after the dark lion heard the chase take itself far, far from his position that he allowed his face to sag into what his heart felt: utter hopelessness and guilt.

Pathetically, Scar walked over to Mufasa's body. But he didn't dare touch his big brother; even in death, the tan, muscular body evoked so much fear and respect out of him that the dark lion didn't dare harm it.

But doing the duty of both a younger brother and a devoted subject, Scar forgot his fear, and carefully, lovingly straightened the frayed whiskers of the great, freshly-deceased King. He shifted Mufasa's limbs so that the lion looked peaceful, at least, and carefully dusted his brother's clammy form free of dirt.

Then, the distant, pained, terrorized shriek of Simba unlocked everything that the dark lion had been hiding from everyone, including himself; short the too few times he was with Chukizo. Scar suddenly found himself crying, and his hot tears seared across his face, as if trying to punish him in their own small way for the act that he'd just done.

“No... it's... for the best. It feel so, so, terribly wrong. But if it gives my mate a place to live at last, and offers my friends safety for the first time since the days of Father... if it brings the Pride Lands into a prosperous age after a few years of hardship... it's... worth it,” the dark lion thought, but nothing could prevent him from feeling the worst he'd ever felt in his life; a thousand times worse than the times his brother had beaten, humiliated, or abused him.

“Why? It's... necessary,” the dark lion thought, but nothing could comfort him.

“If it helps Chukizo, Banzai, Ed, and Shenzi... maybe it's worth it.”

Maybe not.

“Wow,” gaped Nala, but a look from her mate quieted her instantly.

Truth be told, the Lion King was terrified. They'd taken perhaps five steps into the Jungle. But already, the thick trees felt like they were going to press in against him; denying him air and an escape, confining him within their clutches forever.

“It's okay, Daddy... you worry-wart,” said Kiara nuzzling her father once, earning a strained grin.

“Shh,” said Freak flatly, and instantly, the Pride went silent.

“Ed, Shenzi, T,” the li-tigon said, and the hyenas bounded up to his side, remaining silent

“You three have some experience in the Jungle. I want you to travel together, and scout out the area around us for about half a mile. Come back as soon as you're done, and if you get into trouble, howl. I won't be far. Go.”

With that, the three hyenas nodded, T perhaps smiling a bit at Freak's expressionless face before bounding off out of sight.

Remaining silent and motionless, adding that much more uncertainty to the already anxious Pride Land lions, the li-tigon was keeping track of the three hyenas through smell and sound alone. After five minutes when they changed direction to scope out another part of the Jungle, he nodded confidently.

“I have been getting stronger.”

“Okay,” he said, suddenly turning, and causing a few lionesses to jump, “I think this part of the Jungle's secure. For now. So there are a few things you need to know...”

Half an hour later, the hyenas returned to see that the Pride was paying undivided attention to Freak's every word. The three hadn't missed much that they didn't already know, mostly the li-tigon was explaining basic concealment and survival techniques, as well as what plants and insects to avoid.

“The best way to hide yourself in the Jungle... is to become one with the environment. Allow your heart to pulse alongside every other animal's, your breathing to be one with nature. At that stage, you are no different from the nearest tree, or leaf, or plant...”

Demonstrating, the li-tigon stepped into a nearby bush. He crouched, and right before the lions's and hyenas's eyes, vanished. Ed whimpered, and jabbered something. But Banzai wasn't around to translate... Shenzi merely cuffed him on the shoulder, telling him to calm down, which the psychotic hyena shortly did.

“It's not easy,” said Freak, emerging from behind the group, much to their surprise, “but with practice, it can be done. For instance... Vitani, you try,” the li-tigon said.

He knew that the ex-Outlander, Zira's former lieutenant must have truly amazing concealment skills; backing that up was the fact that when he'd spied on the events between the Outlanders and the Pride Landers, she was always the hardest one to find. If anyone could replicate what Freak had just done, it was her. Even so, the li-tigon's hopes were not high. He expected her to be able to hide herself from the rest of the lions, maybe the hyenas; but Freak was certain he'd be able to detect her with little difficulty.

The skinny, even gaunt lioness blinked, confused. The li-tigon had never spoken to her before; indeed, his conversations seemed to be restricted to only Simba and occasionally the hyenas. But the Lion King and his family looked at her meaningfully, then the hyenas joined him, and soon the entire group of Pride Landers were encouraging her.

Vitani shrugged in resignation, smiling at Freak for a heartbeat before his rock-like expression deterred her from doing so, and took a deep breath as she climbed behind the same bush.

“Become one with the environment.”

She found herself swaying, slightly, in perfect time with the gentle, warm, humid breezes that cooled the Jungle from time to time.

“Allow your heart to pulse alongside every other animal's.”

There were two minuscule lizards next to Vitani's paw. Feeling the loose, wet ground, she managed to detect the minute vibrations that indicated their heartbeats, and adjusted her own so that it was unrecognizable in the busy, disgusting, vitally alive Jungle.

“...your breathing to be one with nature...”

The lioness stopped holding her breath, and started taking long, slow breaths of air, sucking and gently expelling it from her lungs, the moisture in her jaw mixing perfectly with the hot, wet air of the Jungle.

Freak's advice ended there. But Vitani was smart... and she continued to obliterate herself from the awareness of anything that happened to be watching.

She altered the angle of her muzzle, breathing just so; so that she either breathed in her own scent or dispersed it beyond recognition to anything, even at close range. Vitani carefully moved her paws, slowly and gradually, building up the moist dirt underneath them so that the minute vibrations caused by her heart and breathing would be dampened to any sort of ground-crawling threat.

Freak was impressed, to be sure, when he noticed that the lioness was going so far as changing her breathing to do so in time with the warm, sporadic breezes of the Jungle. But the li-tigon could still detect her, barely. Then, suddenly, her already faint signal became weaker, weaker, until finally, he couldn't detect her at all.

Growling suddenly in confusion, he hopped over to the bush, looking for the lioness. But he couldn't see her, and still wasn't getting even the slightest reading from her even with combined efforts of all of his formidable senses.

“Damn... where did she go?” Freak asked himself, and the rest of the Pride rallied around him to search for her; to them, both cats had eradicated their presences equally as well.

“I'm right here,” said a small voice from right underneath the li-tigon.

And all at once, Vitani came into view as if out of nowhere. She looked up at Freak with something like a smirk on her face, though one could tell that her satisfaction overcame any feelings of spite.

The li-tigon bared his teeth in a genuine grin, something that he only did on rare occasions. It still looked more threatening than friendly... but he was getting there. The lioness found herself smiling back, genuinely happy to be considered so impressive by such a dangerous predator.

But Freak's expression was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and Vitani found herself getting to her feet with even more interest in the li-tigon than the vague curiosity all felt towards him. The li-tigon, of course, was as analytical and pragmatic as ever.

“She is good... a valuable addition to this... temporary alliance.”

Freak nodded once to Vitani, then turned back to the rest of the Pride Landers.

“If she can do it so quickly... you should all be able to do it soon enough.”

“But for now, I'll need to show you where we'll be staying in our off hours.”

“There won't be many of those.”

The li-tigon suddenly hopped into the treetops, taking advantage of his tiger mentality, and poked his furred head out of cover, looking around...

Freak landed back on the ground, softly, and started walking to the southeast... towards his cave. No one needed him to say a word to understand that they were to follow him.

Again, Simba was awed by his cousin's physical abilities. All of the Pride Landers were exhausted from the long, tiring walk through the unfriendly Jungle, though none dared to say a word. Even the ex-Outlanders, toughened up by their harsh lives, seemed ready to collapse. Kiara was worst off, though, and Nala and the Lion King occasionally had to lend her a shoulder to lean on.

“Maybe I shouldn't have pampered her so much,” the tan lion thought, panting as his daughter shifted her weight onto him again.

“Cousin... how much longer?” Simba asked.

“It's not far...” said the li-tigon, and indeed, within seconds, he broke free of the treeline into the mud and short bushes that preceded the entrance to his cave.

Though the rock structure wasn't large, barely big enough for ten lions to comfortably fit in... there was something about it. Freak had explored other caves in the area, and some of them were big enough to accommodate herds of elephants. He'd never gone far, however... he always felt, for some reason, threatened when he went into a large cave.

But the li-tigon had noticed that he could tell a cave's approximate size and even composition by tapping it with his claws. And once, when he'd done so in his own cave just out of curiosity, he'd been astounded to realize that behind a thick wall of rock... there was another part to the cave, much larger; maybe even an opening to some sort of underground network of caves...

“How are we all sapossed ta fit in there?” asked Shenzi.

Freak gestured for Simba, Sarabi, Nala, Vitani, Shenzi, Ed, and a few other strong lionesses to enter with him. Before the others could misinterpret his actions, he spoke to them.

“The Jungle will not remain devoid of sentience for long... but there are none here strong enough to detect you without you detecting them first. Kill any who notice you, because if our presence is given away, we might as well be kill ourselves.”

Without another word, the li-tigon ducked into the cave, followed by the selected Pride Landers, and paced against the far end of his home for a moment... the wall.

“Um... Freak? What are these?” Nala said in a tone of fearful curiosity.

The li-tigon followed her gaze, and realized what the Queen was looking at.

“The big one is Mother. The little one is sister,” Freak said simply, before looking back at the wall.

He had an idea... something he'd seen a monkey do once; something that confused him utterly until just recently.

Freak was only a cub then. He was stalking a strange-looking monkey, but now knew that the primate's blue face-paints indicated that he was a shaman. The li-tigon had intended to follow the male to his mate, then kill her for her milk.

But he growled in frustration when he saw that the shaman was heading towards a large group of monkeys... there was no hope of killing a female and escaping. Freak was about to leave the area, when curiosity got the best of him.

The li-tigon watched as the entire group of monkeys bowed in deference to the shaman. The blue painted monkey howled, his voice ululating, vibrating the air in such a way that his call was amplified a thousand times over...

Freak nearly fell to the ground, clutching at his ears with his paws to keep from going deaf. The monkeys, however, did not have senses as sharp as the li-tigon's, and merely joined in his howl with their own.

Then, the shaman jumped into a tree, and started to beat on a thick branch. This confused Freak greatly. Surely the monkey knew that his scrawny arms didn't have the muscles to propel his fists hard enough to do any real damage to the branch?

But rather than trying to break it outright, the shaman hit it very quickly, though not hard. He was doing little more than shaking it... when his blows came at just the right rate, the entire tree started to vibrate.

Before the vibrations could subside, the shaman suddenly hit the branch with all of his strength, and the branch cracked once through its thickest part, and broke off, falling to the ground with a thud. The monkeys erupted into approving shouts, and the cub took his chance to leave.

Freak looked on in complete awe, and marked the shaman as a high threat then and there. The li-tigon had absolutely no idea how that monkey had broken the branch... but he didn't care. A being that powerful was a very high threat indeed.

A week later, the monkey clan finally gave up on their search for the shaman. They all knew that there was a predator in the Jungle, but before they'd always been able to find remains, at least. But this time, there were none. Not a trace.

The li-tigon had, after all, taken a great deal to shove the monkey face down into the nearby waterhole and drown him there, rendering whatever power he had over the elements useless. The heavy rock was tied to the shaman's ankle with a length of vine... give it another week, and the monkeys would have their remains.

“He was vibrating it at just the right frequency to cause it to weaken internally. And then, a well-placed hit easily destroyed it. A rock wall will be harder, but I am fast enough to do it... and then, the others can break it when I get it right.”

“Get next to the wall. On my signal, strike it as hard as you can,” Freak said in a voice that did not allow for question.

The Pride Landers looked at each another a bit, but shrugged, complying with his seemingly ridiculous order. Once he saw that everyone else was ready, the li-tigon looked back outside once more to make sure that the rest of the Pride Landers were okay. And then, he got on his back two legs, and beat the rock wall.

Faster and faster his strikes got, until the bones in his paws seemed ready to shatter first. But then, Freak could feel the entire wall vibrating just so, shaking the whole cave, making his companions look around in fear.

“Do it,” he said, his paws throbbing in pain.

The Pride Landers hesitated, thinking that it was useless to hit such a barrier.. But a roar from Simba rallied them, and closing their eyes, the lions and hyenas struck as one—

The wall shattered into a pile of broken rock. Freak landed cleanly on all four feet, paws still sore from whacking the stone barrier. He ignored the incredulous looks given to him by the Pride Landers that he'd taken into the cave, as well as those by the ones out of it. He merely growled slightly, reminding them to tend to their duties.

Freak blinked once in awe at the sight that met his eyes. There was a huge cavern, dark and foreboding, yet easily adaptable to the purposes of a den. There was a lake in the middle, but the li-tigon didn't dare swim in it—he could smell that there were some minerals, or chemicals, or something in it that wouldn't agree with his fur. But even with the huge lake taking up easily seventy percent of the cavern, there was more than enough room for the entire pride to comfortably sleep in. Stalagmites and stalactites jutted from the floor and ceiling, as if guarding dry stone from the lake...

Freak carefully sniffed at the water. He could smell nothing that indicated the presence of another animal... but he'd have to be careful nonetheless. But there was no option. Either he'd have to conceal the whole pride in the cave, or he'd have to deal with the near certainty of a sentient running across them and escaping while they slept. The trip hadn't really tired the li-tigon, but beating down the wall... that put him through his paces, and everyone else seemed about ready to collapse.

(Author's Note: I just realized, I have stayed awake for 29 hrs straight, or 17 hrs of sleep in a period of 72 hrs. LAN parties FTW.)

“Everyone, inside,” said the li-tigon, and the Pride Landers happily complied, many not even bothering to look for a comfortable place to sleep before slumping over on the hard ground.

Freak slept in his customary spot, next to his mother and sister or their bones, anyway, and the hyenas huddled up not far from him, along with the royal family. Kiara sadly thought of Kovu before she allowed sleep to take her, though everyone else feel into dark unconsciousness without any preamble.

All was silent in the cave, save for the slight sounds of lion and hyena breathing. Freak's home was situated in such a way that the surrounding dirt wouldn't carry any vibrations he made it in into the Jungle at all, so the counterassassins were safe... from any threat in the Jungle.

The horrible mollusk writhed in the watery tunnel complex that extended for untold miles in all directions. Grotesquely, its many arms pulsated against the walls that encircled its massive body.

It held onto the walls, dragging itself along by utilizing its suckers; its siphon had been torn apart, along with many other parts of its body, in a fight with a much larger member of its species. It wasn't in good shape—two arms missing, one dangling uselessly behind it, with enough sucker-scars on its mantle to look like a honeycomb pattern of some sort.

Food had taken it out of its barren old territory... right into the clutches of the much larger, older, and stronger one. And now, food was taking it to new territory again. Just like always.

Underground caves, especially aquatic ones, are even more unexplored and mysterious than the bottom of the sea. And this creature was completely secretive. No animal had ever seen it and lived, and the same held true for its brethren, all of them, and had been so for centuries. They went from fact to myth, then from myth to legend, and then slowly passed out of the realm of believability...

But it needed to feed. Soon. That was believable.

The tunnel ahead turned upwards, and on the last fringes of its strength, the creature pulled itself up, exploding out of the water, into a large cavern...

Freak's ear twitched. He was dreaming, something that he did not commonly do.

The li-tigon was alone, sitting on Pride Rock, looking in apathy at the carnage below. His family and all those that he knew were being torn apart in front of him, by all manner of creatures, many of which Freak had fought throughout his life. They seemed to be holding back the assailants... holding them back from Pride Rock, away from Freak.

“They aren't threatening me, but they will. I can't fight them all. If I leave now, I can escape.”

The li-tigon found himself on his feet, dashing for a secret escape that was built into the lion den. But he abruptly stopped in his tracks, and turned. He heard a voice, a familiar voice scream in agony, and looked over the edge of the large structure to see baby Uvuli being torn apart by a group of crows, Usiku unable to help her, busy in combat with an alligator. The sight of someone so innocent attacked in front of him evoked an emotion the li-tigon had never felt before... anger.

Roaring terribly, he darted across the battlefield, slicing apart enemies on his way until he stood over Uvuli, daring the crows to come through him to get to the baby hyena. Foolishly, they did, and seconds later, the ground around the littered with bloody feathers and fragile bones.

“Thanks, Freak...” said the smallish, black hyena.

The li-tigon merely nodded, feeling one of his grins touch his face, before running off to help his... friends.

Suddenly, everything changed.

Freak was at the edge of the Jungle, where it nearly met the Pride Lands. He could see, in the distance, a lion approaching from the north...

Strangely, the li-tigon didn't feel threatened in the slightest, and felt neither the desire to hide, try to intimidate the lion, or pre-emptively kill it.

But the closer it got, the more Freak realized that it looked like him... down to the scar on its eyelid.

Finally, the brown lion stopped, sitting down at the edge of the Pride Lands, the sand buffer between father and son only twenty feet across at this point.

“Hello, my son,” Scar said, looking at the li-tigon, content happiness on his face.

The li-tigon nodded, as if analyzing the dark cat.

“Father... you're dead. How are you speaking to me?” Freak asked.

“Ah, yes... no one's ever taught you... well, my son, the Great Kings of the Past never truly leave the realm of the living. They flow through their loved ones, guiding their actions and helping them, even in their darkest hours...

“Then where were you when I needed you?” the li-tigon callously interrupted.

“...Because, my son, I am not a Great King. It was not to be, I have accepted it. My actions benefited your mother, this is true. But the cost... was great. Too great. I have been granted, at the request of my brother, the ability to speak with you. Others may as well, in coming days.”

“We can't tell you anything that you don't know. But we can help you, in... other ways. So, my son... is there anything you want to know? Or anything you want to talk about?”

Freak slowly shook his head, not understanding.

“Nothing?” asked Scar.

The li-tigon thought before speaking.

“Am I bad, Father?”

Scar tilted his head, questioningly. A soft desert breeze tossed his black mane to the side.

“Others express the desire to have mates. Families. Friends. They care about each another. I don't. And I don't understand why they do.”

But the dark lion only laughed, and said, “Be honest with yourself, my son. You do care about others, I am sure of that. I was allowed to speak with you, because of what you just dreamed... you could have escaped without harm. But you chose not to. You care, I think, more than you know. And some day, soon, you will show this. I hope.”

“...Good people draw a circle around them, and place inside it their mate and their cubs. Great people draw larger circles, including their siblings, parents, and other relations. But some people... have circles that include many. My son, you have never laid a paw on another when you didn't have to, and you always did what you could to ease the suffering, even of those that betray or curse you. Without knowing it, you have drawn a very large circle... one that includes every son or daughter of the Circle of Life. You might not have any great affections for any individual or group, but I believe there is something about you, my son, that allows you to care for all...”

Freak sat there, not quite knowing what to think. No one had ever shown or told him that there was hope for his hollow soul... until he met Simba, his cousin.

“Leaving the Jungle was smart” the li-tigon said, and his father nodded at that.

There was a long pause.

“Father... are you lying to me?” Freak asked.

But Scar laughed again.

“Does it matter?” the dark lion said, before vanishing.

“Were you lying?” asked Chukizo, nudging her mate with her nose as he returned.

“Perhaps... yes, I was,” said Scar with a sigh, slumping to the ground, “but he does need at least one person to tell him that there's still hope for him.”

“But he might have seen through it. You heard what he said at the end...”

“Well... you should be able to speak with him in a few days. Maybe you can get through to him,” Scar said, patting his mate's head.

“We'll see,” said the tigon, favoring the dark lion with a purr.

“I suppose we shall...”

(To kill her or not? ...We'll see what happens. Also, I'm aware that the next part is probably biologically inaccurate.)

Sarabi was sleeping calmly. Though she was an old lioness, she was as rugged as any Outlander; always keeping herself in prime physical condition and going out on every single hunt, except for the day that she'd given birth to Simba.

Despite the wrinkles in her now dull tan form, she was ten times deadlier than she looked. Maybe even more so than fighters like Vitani, Kovu, or Nala, and certainly more than her pampered grand-daughter.

(note, for this part, I pulled on my poor little kitten's foot to see how he reacted)

She felt something wrap around her foot and pull it, as if testing her strength. Still half asleep, she pulled back, feeling the force pulling on her become greater and greater...

Suddenly, with a shriek that turned into a roar, Sarabi was yanked high into the air, dangling there for a microsecond, clawing furiously at the tentacle that was bonded to her foot, before plunging into the icy, foreboding water with enough force to slam the air out of her lungs.

In an instant, every Pride Lander was on his or her feet, Freak quickest of them all.

“Mom?” whimpered Nala; no one had actually seen what had happened to the former Queen.

Tentatively, following her mother's scent, the matriarch trotted to the edge of her lake.

“Get back!” the li-tigon suddenly said, dashing to stand in between his relative and the water faster than blinking.

Incredibly, Sarabi emerged from the lake, gasping, literally pulling herself from death's door—she was still being dragged inexorably below the strangely calm water's surface. Nala, Kiara, Simba, and several other lions in the ex-Queen's immediate vicinity piled onto her , but they were only delaying the inevitable.

Freak forced himself to stay calm , and think. Within a second, he came to his conclusion.

“Everyone, follow me!” he roared authoritatively.

“I have to know my enemy,” the li-tigon thought, pausing only to exert his massive bite force onto the muscled tentacle tip, biting through it with difficulty.

Then, he dived into the lake, the rest of his force following with an almost imperceptible second of hesitation. The freezing cold water hit Freak like a sledgehammer, but not nearly as hard as the terrifying sight of his enemy.

The animal was gigantic; its body alone was the size of an elephants. Like horrible, moribund vines, its pasty limbs extended for over sixty feet... and from the tough, sinewy texture of the practical tip of its tentacle, Freak knew that fighting it would be difficult.

“But I have to try. She'll die otherwise. Maybe... my circle is large.”

Even though the animal was nearly dead... it was still more than a match for even over a dozen fit lions and three hyenas. But Freak knew that small animals could always find a larger one's weak point. It happened daily—cornered meerkats attacking their eyes of their aggressors, badgers going in for low blows...

And the li-tigon had spotted this animal's weak point.

Its siphon, though dead in the water, offered direct access to to the inside of the mollusk's mantle. Freak did not know this on an academic level. But he saw an opening that reminded him of an ear, and knew that it could be exploited to get to... a larger animal's brain.

Not caring that he might run out of air, the li-tigon darted into the siphon before his enemy could do anything about it. The rest of the Pride Landers attempted to follow him, but before they could, the opening shut off as the mollusk stopped paying attention to anything but the terrible pain in its mantle.

Its many arms writhed, grasping at its own body, tearing chunks of its own flesh out. Seeing Freak's plan, the Pride Landers attacked the mantle as best they could, now and again getting torn off by the mollusc's painful suckers.

Suddenly, the li-tigon was ripped from inside his enemy's mantle, thrown so hard that he hit the stone tunnel with a thud that was heard above water. He slowly floated down, down, down... and the Pride Landers he'd taken with him into the lake were still attacking the mollusk.

He was about to sink out of sight when the entire royal family caught him, lifting him upwards. Freak was on the very last reserves of his air, blacked out from the impact, but managed to open an eye—

The water was red with blood now, and the mollusc's feeble attempts to fend off the Pride Landers's ferocious attacks became more and more sporadic. Finally, they stopped altogether, and it slowly started to sink into the depths.

“It's wrong to waste,” thought the li-tigon.

He allowed the royal family to take him to the surface, and by now he'd shaken himself out of the impact. The rest of the Pride Landers joined him shortly after, none, not even Sarabi, were seriously injured. They chuckled at one another, some could even swear they saw the beginnings of a smile touch Freak's features.

“Let's get it,” the li-tigon suddenly said, diving again, before the giant corpse could be lost...

“So you see, my little abomination, there is hope for him,” Scar said, smiling at the tigon.

“Yes... I'm so glad that our son might yet be able to find people that care for him, that he cares for...”

“Maybe he already has.”

Chukizo nodded at that.

“Perhaps. We'll see,” she said, looking back down at the incredible scene unfolding below.

The animal was bigger than an elephant. In the water, it was easy to lift, being that its body density was not so different from water itself. But getting it to a position on land where it wouldn't slip back into the lake...

It took hours, and it was dawn by the time the Pride Landers were finished. But thankfully, Jungle insects seemed put off by the meat, and refused to touch it. It wouldn't spoil easily.

Warily, Freak took a bite out of the strange, stringy meat. He'd had fish before, on rare occasions, there were lakes large enough to support marine life in parts of the Jungle far from his cave. But this mollusk was something new entirely.

The Pride Landers, exhausted, but awake out of fear of another attack, looked at him to see his verdict.

The li-tigon grinned in his terrifying way, and plunged into the mollusk, tearing out, with difficulty, a large hunk of its flesh, chewing it and gulping it down. The rest of the counterassassins joined him without hesitation. It had been a long night...

“Before we even go to the Bloody Shadows... we'll all need to learn to live, fight, and remain invisible in the Jungle. ...They'll all need to become stronger than I am now. And I'll need to become so much stronger that it will reduce how I am now to the level of a cub.”

“Eat well... we won't be having any more food for a week...”

Two months later...

The counterassassins had indeed become stronger.

Vitani was hiding in the roots of a tree. She was behind tracked by the rest of the Pride Landers. Things were complicated by the fact that all had to remain undetected by every other being in the Jungle. But the ex-Outlander could tell that they were coming for her... after all, they needed to remain invisible to the rest of the Jungle, and not her.

She sighed, slightly; completely imperceptible to even the colony of ants that thought she was nothing more than a pile of dirt. But that was her mistake.

“Found you,” said a voice from above her, and she looked up to the see the li-tigon looking down at her.

Even then, the two were invisible to everything; everything but the rest of the Pride Landers.

The rest of the counterassassins darted through the trees and across, as if ghostly, some even traveling directly through congregations of prey animals. They'd been changed, in both psychology and physiology.

Simba, who used to be a big, nearly barrel-chested lion, was now as slim and lithely built as Freak. Kiara, who the li-tigon had had to take a lot of personal interest in was now easily as deadly as he had been. Sarabi, though old, had virtually stopped aging due to being forced into the best shape of her life. The hyenas were all roughly at the same level of ferocity, stronger and deadlier than Usiku had been, but without the black hyena's tank-like physique.

Yes, these deadly warriors were worth at least five of the Bloody Shadows's best assassins. But there were hardly twenty of them. And the Shadows were hundreds strong. There was no back-up coming, and they'd be on unfamiliar ground.

But there was still a large chance of success. Freak, at least, knew that Saliti had to be a coward, and would retreat at the first sign of danger to himself. And if the Assassin Lord wasn't there to rally his troops, the Shadows would fall easily.

The li-tigon wasn't very worried about what might happen after that. Sure, the assassins would try to scatter. But he expected that they'd be easy to track down, and that he'd be able to exterminate them from the face of the Earth within weeks.

What Freak did worry about was any children the Bloody Shadows might have. Cubs were never threats, and neither the li-tigon nor the Pride Landers would law a paw on a non-threat. Little did the counterassassins know... the Shadows had shed blood before.

The female hyena cried, cuddling the stillborn cub.

“Be silent, woman,” Saliti growled, taking a threatening step towards one of his many mates.

“You monster... can't you see that the Great Spirits are punishing us for your misdeeds? Ever since you came to power... and killed every single cub in this land... we have not had a single birth.”

“And the diseases... famines... floods... droughts... Saliti, curse you, stop doing this!” she said.

The cruel leader merely growled, and struck her with such force that every bone on the left side of her face broke.

“Do with her what you will,” he said, nodding towards his starving henchmen.

For the next ten minutes, only terrible screams, ripping and breaking sounds were heard.

“My boys like their meat fresh... still alive,” Saliti thought, with a terrible smile, as he turned to the body of his own son with hunger in his eyes: even the Assassin Lord hadn't been able to eat well for a few days now.

And recently birthed flesh is tender.

“Maisha, where are you?” called Chukizo, looking around for her daughter.

“Boo!” said the baby li-tigon, hoping out at her mother suddenly.

“Oof!” said the tigon, pretending to fall over at the force of the little one's pounce.

“Got you, Mom!” Maisha said with a giggle, batting the tigon with her minuscule paws.

“Yes... come on, look at your brother. Isn't he so brave? Look, he's leading all of them into the Bloody Shadows...”

“Wow...” the li-tigon, Freak's sister, gasped, “you can do it, big brother?”

“He's not really your big brother,” said Scar, yawning as he walked over to take a look, “he's exactly as old as you are.”

Maisha stuck out her tongue at her father, earning her a finger wagged in her direction.

“I'm going to have to teach you a lesson,” the dark lion said, suddenly chasing his daughter around and around Chukizo.

Further off, Dhaifu, Jinga, and Ziwi were lounging around their father. The regal tiger was nothing like the way he was when he died; his fur no longer hung off of his bones and he wasn't battered and bruised like he had been on the ship.

“...and that, my sons, is how the blue jackal perished. Never, ever abandon your friends, no matter how special you think you are,” Shere Kahn said, telling the three a story that had been passed down in his family for generations.

“I'll have to tell my grandson that sometime soon,” he noted to himself, before looking down, but not at Freak.

“Samehe,” he whispered, “how good of a being you are to forgive me for what I did...”

Scar had by now caught Maisha, and was tumbling around with her on the soft ground.

“Dad... we're pals, right?” the baby li-tigon asked with a giggle, finding that she'd come out on top, pinning the dark lion to the ground.

“Yes...” Scar said, smiling without sarcasm, a rare enough thing, “you, me, your mother... and your brother... we're all pals...”

Chukizo looked over, surprised to see that her mate was tearing up. The tigon was about to go and comfort him, when it hit her, too...

“My poor son... he's never really had parents. And we've only started to guide him now... my poor, poor, son...”

Things were about to get too emotional for CIA.al-Mujahid to write about when suddenly, Mufasa came running up.

“Scar, brother... Chukizo... want to play tag?”

The counterassassins were making their way southwards. They planned to do it in two days, but things were going well. They were even stronger than they thought, and as always, they remained completely invisible to the Jungle at large...

Freak knew that the Bloody Shadows had eyes, but was confident that with effort his small army could travel undetected. The li-tigon was at the head of the group, the royal family and the hyenas immediately behind him, the rest of the Pride Land lionesses fanned out to make sure they went unnoticed. They'd had, during their training, some close calls...

But all in all, it was successful. More prey animals were taken, this was true, but Freak had the counterassassins hunt carefully: no one area suffered unrecoverable losses. The Jungle as a whole would take some time to get back to its previous level of fauna, but such fluctuations were natural.

Still, Freak knew there were many things... many things that he didn't know.

“I still don't understand love. But I think that I care about my friends. And I know that they care about me. But there are other things I must understand. Healing. And swimming... that animal couldn't have been unique. Nothing is. Nothing but me; and I'm a freak. When I was in that lake... I saw that it was underground. And I heard things... big things... miles away. Maybe even Under the Pride Lands, the Bloody Shadows, the Desert, the Grass Lands to the east... they could go anywhere. I need to learn to swim, a thousand times better than I can.”

“But for now, I'll have to make the Shadows bleed. And then, only after the assassins can't threaten me any more... then, I'll make my circle bigger.”

“But the Shadows need to bleed. Now.”

Tanga had left the Bloody Shadows as a young lion.

And now he returned old.

The only feline assassin of the Bloody Shadows had gone on a very touchy, very secret mission under the orders of Damu... so secret that he didn't even fully understand it, and could explain only so much to Saliti. But even though he'd done his best, the obstinate hyena wasn't allowing him to see his loved one.

“Curse you, student of Kivuli! It's been years since I saw her! Do you understand me? YEARS!” Tanga roared in anguish, his heart had broken every day he spent without Msafiri.

The Assassin Lord smiled, and moved a finger. That's all it took.

Tanga, a powerful, deadly assassin... or at least, that's what he used to be, found himself pinned to the ground by Saliti's cruel henchmen.

“Great Spirits... send someone... anyone... to free the Bloody Shadows...”