Mfalme Hafi

Disclaimer: I do not own Lion King

Summary: A King Does Not Die. Things are rarely as simple as they seem. King Scar was ressurected soon after his death and now continues his plans for the Pride Lands, and beyond, in secret. With the aide of individuals far more dangerous than hyenas, Scar sets out to leave his mark on all of Africa. Scar-centric, and Scar is indeed prepared.

Regular Speak

Thoughts and Flashback

Demonic or Animalistic Speak

Demonic or Animalistic Thoughts

The rain had come. For the first time in months, the rain had come. It was as if the storm had come solely to bear witness to the climactic battle between the Scarred King and the Runaway Prince and brought with it a great gift of sky water for the victor of this grand struggle. And as the hyenas scattered from Pride Rock and the flames of war were washed away, none of the lionesses noticed a lone serpent slithering around the side of their great landmark.

He was twenty feet long in length, his scales a near perfect black with patches of dark blue, wavy stripes that would only stand out significantly in the light of day. This lone predator moved through the lands without fear of the hungry hyenas that might still be lingering or the starving lionesses waiting for their-hopefully new-king to emerge and take his rightful place now.

"Ma-jo-ka," A slow and deep voice called, seemingly emphasizing every syllable of the name. The green eyes of the snake turned to a nearby rock, spotting a palm-nut vulture sitting on a nearby rock, looking down at the snake with its black wings folded against its white body, "The King, is dead?" He asked solemnly.

The pupils of the snake dilated for a brief moment as he hissed out a reply, "For now, Jizicho," He answered coldly, his voice raspy and strained. He turned away and continued his path to the watering hole, the bird of prey humming before taking flight and gliding alongside his slithering compatriot.

Before the current rain, the land was bone dry, even the great watering holes. Now, at the very bottom, a small pool was forming, not even three feet across yet, "It seems, we're not, too late," Jizicho observed as he landed on the skull of a long dead lioness, one that had probably died in the water before the son of Mufasa was even born.

"We're still cutting it close," Majoka noted, his tail twitching in distaste as he looked at the converging liquids, "Did Kasamla get me what I needed?" He asked evenly.

"What, do you think, I am standing on?" Jizicho asked with an amused smirk on his beak as he flapped his wings, pulling the lioness skull off the lake bed and exposing a small pile of various items: leaves, fruits, roots, and even a bone of...something bigger than a rat but smaller than a warthog.

The limbless one zipped to the stash like any viper would, using his tail to sort through them with great scrutiny. His nostrils flared unnoticeably as he finished his inspection, "This'll do, if only barely," He muttered grimly.

"Does this not, have to be, precise?" Jizicho asked with a cocked head.

Majoka ignored the vulture for a moment as he picked the rib bone in his mouth while his tail crushed a large hagenia leaf and a calabash fruit together until the leaf was covered in mush. As he sat the pulp down behind him, he stabbed a small kiwano plant with the bone. He removed the bone before he tossed the horned fruit into the pool, now nearing four feet across, as the sickly green juices of the flora oozed to the surface.

The serpent paused to observe the pool before turning to the avian. "Only if you're a novice or an amateur. For a true studier and master of such things, there is a significant margin for error to work within," He answered knowingly. "All one must know is how to compensate for complications."

"You sound like the King, Ma-jo-ka," Jizicho mused idly as the reptile picked up a baobab root with his tail and started mixing the fruity paste over the leaf.

"No, Ji-zi-cho. The King, sounds like me," Majoka corrected with a smirk, imitating the vulture's speech pattern.

"...Do not, mock, my accent," Jizicho said with a small glare as he watched the mystic work his ways. "...The King, seems to be, doing well," Jizicho commented curiously as he looked to the pool.

Majoka paused in mind stir before looking into the pool again, thick lines of green waving and stirring about in the raindrops of the pool, "He appears to be having a family reunion," Majoka informed with a smirk, "I only hope he wraps it up in time," He added on, the vulture nodding absently as he watched the pool idly.

Meanwhile

"Well, if this isn't just poetic," Scar said in a cool and sarcastic tone, before he even get a good look at his surroundings. He stood in a realm of night, a void of blackness with stars innumerable painting the blackness in all directions with their light. Before him stood Mufasa, as proud and kingly as he ever did, a soft glow about him as he stared below them. If Scar had taken note of his own appearance, he would have seen that his own form was the same as it had been in life, except his green eyes were brighter and his black mane seemed fuller and wavier, moving almost on its own.

The dark lion glanced downward, following Mufasa's gaze and saw through the emptiness as Simba prepared to climb Pride Rock and officially take his place as king. He snorted as he continued his original point, "The prince takes oh-so righteous revenge on his murderous uncle and usurps the throne from him, as his uncle did from the prince's father. And with that, everything amazingly goes back to how it always was, just how his father and grandfather wanted," Scar mused dryly.

"...I see death has changed you little, Brother," Mufasa commented with a tired sigh.

"Oh come now, Mufasa, do take credit where it is due," Scar said with a smirk. "After all, I'm no fool. Simba was full grown and well fed. Wherever he had been hiding, he obviously had no intentions of returning until now. He didn't know I killed you when he arrived and Nala obviously didn't know that Simba thought it was his own fault. Something else prompted him to return. Still, I might have been willing to believe that Nala just...convinced him, honestly, if that Mandrill hadn't shown up," Scar monolouged with an eye roll.

"We merely reminded Simba of who he really is," Mufasa said evenly.

"Please, spare me the act," Scar said, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation, "You guilt tripped a traumatized lion into avenging you rather than enjoying whatever paradise he made for himself- for murdering you or for how I handled being King, I don't know why. And frankly, I don't care," Scar added evenly.

"...What happened to you, Scar?" Mufasa asked sadly.

"Which part?" Scar retorted coldly.

"The part where you led the land to ruin," Mufasa answered patiently, "When you murdered me and my son escaped...I was content, Scar, to sit back and see how you would rule, to let you be King rather than drag my son back into this, to make him dirty his claws with his uncle's blood," He admitted, shaking his head in disappointment, "For a time...I actually believed you could have united the Hyenas and the Lions, that you could have been a great king. But towards the end...you gave me no choice."

"Ahh, that," Scar mused with a frown. "I'll follow my own advice and take credit where it is due. I did play some paw in that debacle. If not for...that acting up, I could have dealt with that drought and the famine much better," He admitted before glaring at Mufasa, who looked confused and surprised, "Though I find it just a TINY bit strange, Brother, that the rain chose to come precisely when your son chose to challenge me. Tell me, would the rain have ever come if I had won that little battle? Or do you and the Great Kings just like to make things dramatic?" He asked, angry yet curious.

"Even we cannot command the weather, Scar," Mufasa answered evenly, "But we can predict and influence it."

"Ahh, I see. You just timed this little event and made it seem more climatic and meaningful than it really was." Scar acknowledged thoughtfully. "Tell me, Mufasa, why are you here? Come to throw me to whatever dark edge of the heavens I belong in?" Scar asked mockingly.

"I came here hoping that death might have helped my brother remember who he was," Mufasa said with a glare.

"Who I was, Mufasa? Ohh, trust me I never forgot who I was!" Scar said with a snarl, "Unwanted, Trash! That was who your brother was, Mufasa! That is what our father named me, what our mother was forced to call me!" He spat as he marched up to Mufasa, who leaned back lightly but stood firm, "You think I regret this scar, this wound? You think I hated Ahadi for THIS? Ha! This Scar was the one good thing that Oathbreaker ever gave me: A chance to be known by another name, to be more than the dirt beneath your feet! I'd rather be a Scar, an eternal reminder, than trash to be thrown away in disgust!" He retorted before taking on an even and calm tone, "But I wouldn't expect YOUto understand that, being named King from birth."

Mufasa looked on, a mixture of slight shock at the outburst and sorrow over the words in it, "...It was never about the throne, was it?" He realized with a sigh.

"No, it was, just not at first. It was more about proving a point, once upon a time," Scar admitted, his eyes subtly moving to look behind Mufasa. "Hello, Ahadi," He greeted tonelessly as Mufasa turned around in surprise to see their father- the black mane dampening the glow his golden body generated as his blood red eyes regarded his offspring calmly.

"Mufasa," he greeted with a nod, who scowled at his father's presence, glaring lightly at Scar before addressing him, "...Ta-," The moment the name touched his lips, Scar leapt at to his father, roaring in mid jump as he bit onto the shocked Ahadi's face, his teeth in the snout as his left paw tried to swipe at the head and eyes. The long dead monarch roared as he flung his head back and swung the back of his paw at Scar as hard as he could, dislodging his wrathful son.

Scar retreated ever so slightly to examine his handiwork. There was no blood, only an ethereal white smoke flowing out of the rapidly-healing wounds. But in Ahadi's eyes, Scar saw something that made him smirk: Pain. There was anger and outrage, snarling at the surface, but there was also pain, "I would have waited an eternity for this," Scar said with a sadistic grin, his mane seeming to flare, for lack of a better word.

"Scar, that's enough! You cannot kill the dead," Mufasa scolded as his father and brother started to circle each other.

"Ohhh, I know that, Mufasa, but how can I resist? A chance to have the Great Ahadi lay low before all the Great Kings," Scar said with a chuckle as he eyed the lion that scarred him so long ago.

"I thought you had learned not to challenge me in a fight of claws and fangs, Runt," Ahadi growled out mockingly.

"Ohh, in life, I wouldn't have. But in death? Where the dead can feel pain, and where muscle no longer counts for so much?" Scar asked with his own mocking tone, coy and smooth, "Where you and I are finally on a level playing feel, Father?"

And in that instant, Scar saw just a twinge of uncertainty in Ahadi's red eyes. And it was in that instant that Scar pounced.

Meanwhile

Jizicho squinted his eyes as the rain and the wind started to pick up even more. If he opened his wings, he was sure he'd be blown away, "Ma-jo-ka?" He called over the wind to his reptilian ally.

The python said nothing. Or rather, he couldn't, for his jaw was now wide open as he started to grunt and hack, a lump making its way up his body. With a sickening hurl, he spat out...a mouse. A little rodent that was barely alive, a third of its fur burned from the stomach acid. It laid there, unmoving sans its rapid panting, placed on the mush-covered leaf. Using his mouth, Majoka quickly wrapped the leaf around the tiny mammal until it was completely covered by the flora.

With that done, Majoka used his mouth to stab the rib bone into the leaf and through the mouse. As the small blood supply began to seep from the rodent's body, the snake pulled up and threw the sacrifice into the pool of water, a flash of green erupting from it. The serpent paused to judge the size of the pool, finding it at over five feet across now. With a nod to himself, he quickly began to slither around the pool until he made a perfect circle, the water just a few inches short of reaching him and his tail just in reach of his head.

With a grimace, he grasped his own tail with his own mouth and rapidly began to slither in a circle, slowly forming an indent. As he did, the blue patches of scales on his back alit with a green, fire-like glow. Jizicho observed the event play out in fascination, watching as the green of the fruit and the blood of the mouse started to take shape, the shape of a green eyed lion with a body of blood. Jizicho raised an eyebrow at that...until Majoka came to an abrupt halt.

The black of his scales literally bled away into the pool, revealing their true pale color, and the green faded to reveal the snake's brown eyes. The green lights on his back remained as the blackness that once accompanied his scales formed a dark mane in the image of the pool. All too eerily, the serpent once more circled the pool...but in reverse.

Meanwhile

Mufasa roared as he forcibly came between the two combatants, having had enough of this pointless fighting- even if he agreed that Scar deserved those few minutes. Both black-maned lions were covered in cuts and bites, green mist coming from Scar's wounds, but Ahadi had the more life threatening ones- if they weren't already dead-mostly because Scar had spent many of his attacks on tearing at their father's face, "Are you quite finished?" Mufasa asked scoldingly to his brother.

Scar laughed, out right laughed, as he sat in a more relaxed pose, "Yes, yes, I've had my fill, Brother. I have to admit, that felt even more therapeutic then I ever dreamed it would have." He admitted with a smirk as their father growled.

"You miserable kin-killer," Ahadi growled venomously, "I should-"

"Father! That's enough!" Mufasa roared lightly, "Of all the people with the right to antagonize Scar, you are the last of them!" He reminded before rounding on his brother, "And yo-!..." He paused, looking on in surprise as Scar's form started to turn into mist, getting less solid by the second.

"Hmm, looks like my time is up," Scar mused with a distasteful scowl at his family, "Well, this has been thrilling, but as you may not know, I'm not quite done yet with living, Brother. I'll be sure to give your son your regards, if I don't end up sending him off to you." He taunted cruelly as he vanished, leaving the spiritual realm with a haunting chuckle, like the distant rumbling of thunder. In his wake, he left a shocked Ahadi and Mufasa, the latter feeling a growing dread in his heart for his son...

Meanwhile

Majoka's spinning came to an end as the green lights faded, revealing his still-dark blue scales, far more visible against his pale ones. The serpent sighed in exhaustion as he slithered away from the pool, the storm finally calming down. Jizicho waited patiently on the other side of the pool from Majoka, a stillness coming over the area as even the wind seem to die down in suspense.

From the center of the pool, a tuff of black fur emerged. Slowly, it moved forward and rose to reveal the face of Scar, walking with a familiar, neutral frown on his face as he stepped out of the pool at his height, showing his uninjured form. In fact...

"Your Majesty, you look...well," Jizicho greeted with a bow, looking over the form of a lion that looked a good deal younger than Scar should have been, like he had just entered his prime rather than heading to the end of it.

"Yes, we can thank the hyenas for that bonus," Scar mused with a grimance, rolling a few of his joints testingly, before smirking as he turned to the serpent, "But you have my thanks, Majoka. As skilled as you are, I was worried that you wouldn't have been able to pull this off," He praised gratefully as he glanced in the direction of Pride Rock.

"I almost didn't. If I hadn't tethered your soul to me, I wouldn't have been able to pull you back so easily," Majoka admitted with a scowl as he looked over the now-younger Scar, "Still, this was one of the more beneficial solutions to your...problem," He added on offhandedly.

"Sire, what now?" Jizicho cut in curiously, "Should I, retrieve Zira, and your loyalists?"

"No," Scar answered simply, "We have other things to deal with, and I'd like to keep Simba as preoccupied as possible. And if Simba is anything like his father and grandfather, he'll do the worst thing he can do in this situation: He'll banish them to the outlands. And Zira, being so devoted to me and now to revenge, will be unable to bring herself to leave, giving Simba a constant threat to keep an eye on," He explained.

"Careful, King," Majoka cautioned sternly, "Your body is still new to your spirit. Stressing it now would be most unwise."

"All the more reason to let everyone believe I'm no longer among the living. For now, let us leave these lands and make plans for us to join up with the others," He ordered as he turned away from Pride Rock, to the east. From ruler of dozens of skilled lionesses and hundreds of loyal hyenas, to being King of only a handful of creatures. And yet, Scar never felt more confident i

n his predicament, his future...

...He paused as he saw the lioness skull near the pool that had granted him renewed life.

"We used that to hide the ingredients, Scar," Majoka explained at his unreadable look.

Scar said not a word as he placed a paw on the skull...and crushed it without warning. The python and the vulture shared a curious look, but followed as their ruler began the trek out of the Pride Lands. Where they were going, they had a few guesses, but they were content with just following for now.

End of Chapter

There we are, my first TLK fic. I'll be honest, I've had ideas for Scar fics for ages, but haven't brought myself to flesh them out. Where, here's this- Scar being revived by his own mystic/shaman, because the only thing wrong with canon Scar is that they down played his intellegence once he kills Mufasa. And I doubed Scar trusted Rifiki.

Anyway, Scar is back from the Dead, and had a talk with his brother and father. Yeah, I don't follow the Six New Adventure things as canon, minus Scar's birthname- what little I've read of it on the wikis makes Scar seems like he was bad since cubhood. And there is no way that his scar was made by a buffalo. Kovu's looks just like his and he go it from a lion(ess). So its more logical that the scar came from a big cat of somekind, if not a lion. And as I don't follow Six New Adventures, I lean more towards the old idea of Ahadi giving him the scar. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people portraying him in a better light, but come on! He named one child Unwanted/Trash and the other King- yes, Mufasa means King, if you don't know. That makes it very clear how he feels about each child. And if Uru named him Taka, its even worse.

Okay, rant over. Still, yeah, Scar talks to Mufasa- who, yes, was okay with Scar ruling before it went down hill- and outright tries to maul Ahadi. Now he's back, witha bit more youth on his side, and has some of his non-lioness followers with him, and apparently has more, and is out to do...something. What is unclear, but its clear that he actually planned for something like this happening. In fact, he doesn't even seemed angry any more about losing the Pride Lands.

A few Questions to Ponder: What is Scar planning? What "acted up" during the drought? Who is Kasamla? Better question is, what's the story with Majoka and Jizicho? What other tricks does he and his allies have up their paws/talons/tail? And what was with crushing the Lioness skull? Are there any more side effects to the ritual?

PS A pet peave of mine for the TLK fandom is that whenever Scar 'redeeems himself', he goes back to calling himself Taka. I'm sorry, but there is no way Scar would go back to being named Trash.