By Breech Loader
Breech: Yeah, chapter two is now up. How Ed went nuts and how he survived and how Banzai got so close to Shenzi. No sex yet, but some awkwardness. I'm not sure, as I said before, that there will be sex. You know how it is.
This chapter has also been edited slightly thanks to the small edits in the first chapter – that it was King Ahadi, not two anonymous lionesses, that knocked Ed's sanity out.
Chapter Two: The Knocking
Banzai looked down at his brother, unconscious on the floor of the den. His mother Nuha was cleaning his injuries while his father Mosi stood guard at the entrance to the den.
"Oh, my little Ed..." Nuha moaned, cleaning his injuries; his bleeding ears and gashed leg.
"Damn those lions!" Mosi snarled from the entrance, "Stealing our hunts then calling us poachers! They probably call this 'justice'! If they weren't twice our size I'd rip 'em all apart and..." his muttering settled into a growling, angry sound.
"Mom, is he gonna be okay?" Banzai asked, "He just jumped at Ahadi and that bastard slammed him straight into a rock..." he shook his head to keep himself from crying. His mother and father always scolded him if he cried, whether sad, angry or in pain.
"I don't know..." Nuha nudged her other son with her nose, "Come on Ed... wake up... Won't you wake up for mommy?"
Ed gurgled slightly and shifted. Banzai gave a sigh of relief. He had almost been worried his brother wouldn't wake up at all, "Ed? Are you okay?" he asked his brother.
Ed gurgled again, looking around at the familiar faces – although something was wrong. He knew them, but he didn't know their names. And his head hurt. A lot. His eyes weren't focused, and his tongue lolled; not that he was even aware of it. There was somebody inside his head. They were... laughing? Laughing at something... not him, but something must be funny or they wouldn't be laughing, right?
He started to laugh, normally at first – at least, normally for a hyena - puzzling the hyenas around him, and then it degenerated into something else. He hauled himself to his paws and limped out of the cave, ignoring the adult female's order to come back. He continued to laugh as he staggered, the sound becoming less funny and more and more frighteningly insane.
Nuha and Mosi watched from the den, gaping in a combination of confusion and horror as Ed limped away, laughing and cackling so hard that he was half-choking on his own voice.
Banzai rushed after him, "Ed! Ed, wait up!"
His injured brother stopped and turned to look at him, tongue lolling, eyes just barely focusing on him. Thank the gods! He still recognised his own name at least. The laughter receded mostly, and he gurgled slightly in response. It was taking all of his concentration to not join in with the laughter inside his head.
"Ed?" Banzai grimaced, looking deep into his brother's eyes, "Are you... in there?" he asked.
"Guh..." Ed managed to hear the words and the question past the laughter that tried to drown out everything else. He nodded enthusiastically.
"I sure hope you know what I'm saying..." he muttered, "Come on, let's get back to the den... you still look like a mess."
Limping slightly, Ed followed him, but when they got back, both Nuha and Mosi were both standing in the entrance. Banzai looked at his parents, puzzled.
"Banzai, you can come in but Ed..." Mosi stopped, uncomfortable.
"My little baby... my Ed..." Nuha looked ready to burst into tears, "A demon in his head..."
Banzai looked at his brother; tongue lolling, eyes only partially focused. At his mother's words he gave a choking laugh, as if he barely understood what she was saying, "But it's not his fault!" he shouted angrily, "It was that stinkin' Ahadi!"
"I know, Banzai, but..." Mosi grimaced, "Look at him! He's lost his mind! He won't be able to hunt if he can't keep his voice down. He's a liability to whoever tries to take care of him. He probably won't make it past maturation, and we can't look after him forever. "
"Well I can!" Banzai barked, "I'm grown up enough to take care of anybody I want and me and Ed and Shenzi and Fisadi brought down a wildebeest today! If you kick him out, you kick me out! Got that?!"
He didn't wait for an answer, but turned and ran, with Ed in rapid pursuit. And he didn't look back either. He was scared that he might cry. Their own parents had just kicked them out. It had to happen eventually but not today and not just because Ed had hit his head.
Banzai skidded to a halt, having reached the border of the Elephant Graveyard. He looked at the Pride Lands, full of those lions who thought they ran the joint, got lazy and stole their kills, and... and...
He started to scream in rage, uttering every curse he knew and more at those lions. Beside him, Ed didn't fully understand why his new friend Banzai was so angry... but he joined in anyway, laughing as he screamed, making it a screeching, crazed cackle of insanity.
Which only made Banzai angrier.
Shenzi snuffled into her paws, "I feel like it's all my fault," she told her mother, "I didn't think of my limits and then Ed barged in and got hurt and we lost the meat and he could have been killed..."
Kiruu nodded, "It was a hard way to learn such an important lesson, sweetie," the aging hyena told her daughter, "It's not your fault really. You're still young; you couldn't possibly take on King Ahadi, even if he is aging now, and you couldn't have known Ed would be so silly as to try."
"I feel like it's my fault though," Shenzi replied, "I was in charge; I should have done something-"
"Shenzi baby, if you really feel bad... maybe you should go talk to Banzai and Ed about this?" Kiruu suggested, "See if they blame you."
Shenzi sagged. Mother was right, as always, "I'll try," she replied, "Not that it will change anything..."
She trotted out of the den and started to look for Banzai or Ed. When she heard Banzai screaming and cursing in the distance, she headed in that direction. As she grew closer she could also hear deranged laughter as well, which seemed very out of place. As she topped the ridge, she saw Banzai furiously screaming obscenities at the Pride Lands. Next to him Ed was laughing senselessly, which only seemed to infuriate Banzai further.
Shenzi was about to just leave them to it, when she realised something; she was acting scared of Banzai! That was just stupid; she was already bigger and stronger and smarter than him. She straightened up – as best as any hyena could – and stepped forward.
"You finished there?" she asked Banzai, who was panting slightly.
He jumped and turned to see the princess standing next to him, "Damn! I mean, yeah. I mean, no. I mean, uh..."
"You're pretty pissed, huh?" Shenzi asked him.
"Yeah..." Banzai started to growl.
Shenzi looked across at Ed, who was still giggling a little, "What's wrong with him?" she asked. She still didn't know Banzai or Ed that well, after all.
"You know how Ahadi knocked his head against a rock?" Banzai growled, "Now... something's wrong with his head. I don't know what. Something... bad. I think he's gone totally out of his mind."
"Huh," Shenzi nodded. It wasn't hard to believe. Ed had turned to look at her, drooling slightly. He looked... well, okay, not stupid, but... like he wasn't really absorbing what he was seeing. Like the whole world was now just a puppet show put on for him.
"And my mom and pop are real old-fashioned; they think he's got a demon in his head," Banzai sneered, "So they threw him out. So I walked out too. I'm big enough to take care of myself," he snapped, "And Ed too, if I have to."
"You're gonna take care of Ed?" Shenzi asked, surprised.
"He's my brother," Banzai replied, "We'll both be mature in a few months. Like you..." he swallowed and started to blush.
Next to him, Ed giggled and got a quick smack in the ribs for it.
"Oh yeah," Shenzi didn't seem to notice him blushing, "There was something else I came to say. I'm... sorry," she muttered, almost too softly to hear.
"Why are you sorry?" Banzai asked, "It's not your fault. It's that dipshit Ahadi who should be sorry! He stole our kill and then knocked Ed against a rock!"
"Well, uh... if your mom and pop aren't gonna be teaching you to hunt and stuff," Shenzi rubbed her hunch, "My mom gives me a lot of special training, you know, preparation for the whole 'you're gonna be running the pack' shit... maybe I could give you both some tips? Some training time?"
Banzai stopped mid-rant and looked sideways at her. Special time with Shenzi? "That... that would be cool," he said finally, "If I could just get my claws into one lion..." he growled angrily.
"Think with your brains, not your muscles, hun," Shenzi told him quickly, "You? Take on a lion? I couldn't take on a lion. MOM couldn't take on a lion. Hell, it'd take almost a dozen hyenas to take on one lion..."
"I don't CARE!" Banzai snarled, and turned his back on her to glare at the Pride Lands again, which was a more than slightly infuriating move, "I'm gonna take on a lion and when I'm done with him, it's gonna take a dozen couriers to take him back to Pride Rock, 'cus he's gonna be in a dozen PIECES!"
"Well, seeing as I'm clearly the only sane person here," Shenzi glanced at the drooling Ed, "I suppose I'd better be there when it's time to say 'I told you so'."
She trotted calmly after Banzai, who was practically inviting lions to jump out and maul him a bit. She looked behind her at the Graveyard, where Ed was sitting on the top of the skull, tongue lolling as he stared at nothing. Well at least she didn't have to take care of him too.
"It's not MY fault that King Ahadi showed up, dad!" Fisadi whined, "I was really getting to her, I could tell. It was gonna be awesomeness; you shoulda seen those two losers looking at me!"
"You had a perfect opportunity to walk her back to her den and do some comforting and you just threw it away and let Kiruu do the job!" Chukizi snarled, "Do you know all the grovelling I had to do to Kiruu to get you into that practice hunt?" he picked up his son's ear, "Hello? HELLO-OOOO!" he shouted in there, "Anything in there? From now on, any opportunity you get to hit on her, you take. Got it?"
"Why bother anyway?" Fisadi growled, "I'm only ever gonna be Second In Command at best. Besides, you just want me to do it so I can crush her emotionally. I don't even CARE-"
"Don't you get it?" Chukizi snarled, "Once she's crushed emotionally, she can be crushed physically! Once she's down and out, you get your power, I get a decent son, and those uppity females get what's coming to them."
"But Kiruu will go nuts if I hurt her!" Fisadi protested, "And thanks for the support dad, but I like my insides to stay on the inside."
"Leave Kiruu to me," Chukizi told him.
"How?" Fisadi asked, "You never explain how. Kiruu could kick your tail from Algeria to Zambia. And don't pretend she's too old for that 'cus you're getting old too and-"
He received a cuff around the ear, "I don't intend to fight her," Chukizi replied sharply, "There are smarter ways to destroy somebody. I want you to remember that... because when this pack is rid of Kiruu, you won't be the only one courting the new matriarch."
Breech: Chapter complete. Read and review. It'll get more interesting than ever really soon.