Sorry about the 2 day delay, I'm working on this as quickly as I can. This chapter is the humanization of the Hunt from the original Judgement, and because it is rather difficult to humanize a group of teenage lions hunting, I've made a few changes here. Like quite a few. Anyway, a few people were complaining that they were waiting for this story and weren't notified of the release. Honestly...Am I expected to tell each individual reviewer of MHV3 that this is up? Come on people! Use your initiative.
Vitani825: I'm not AUing the Lion King canon...I'm doing it to my own, which would only work in my human universe. Thanks anyway :)
Scarstorm2000: Indeed...I feel heart felt sorrow for your shift button and/or caps lock. You should the original Judgement, it'll blow you away :)
Jonny2b: The good old USSR. My version of the Pridelands kind of takes the place of the USA during the cold war. To answer the question, 25 degrees C is exactly 77 degrees F.
Scbenson2001: If you wanted the notification earlier, you should make an account, so that way you would know if I had uploaded something. You could just add me to alerts/faves and you would get an email when I upload, or I could send across a PM supposing I can be bothered.
Carrie Wolfe: Perhaps you should remove the onions from under your desk if you cry so much? If you think this is sad, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Read the original Judgement, then you can get an idea of what's coming.
Cheers: JJZ-109
CHAPTER 3. THE SNEAK-OUT
Again the mist cleared, and Scar was unsurprised to find that they were in Prideland City again, but this time they were indoors. They were inside the palace itself, and inside the main corridor of the Royal family's living quarters. Scar fought the urge to enter all of the individual rooms, to see all those familiar faces. He resisted, whatever he was meant to be shown, it was here, and it would do no good to dwell on the past.
Despite the fact that was exactly what he and his two companions were physically doing.
It was night time, and the corridor was very dark, but Scar had no problem seeing the door to his old bedroom swing open slowly, and a the tall, thin figure of a teen wearing all black crept out. As he watched, the teen tiptoed down the hallway and entered another room a few doors down, slowly pushing the door open and stepping ever so slowly inside, trying to make as little noise as possible.
The teen saw the bed he was looking for and found what looked like the figure of his brother lying underneath his covers. Of course he would forget. He crept up alongside the bed and stripped the blanket off, but to his surprise he found only a series of pillows and a basketball to look like a head. A quiet sound then startled him.
"Psst...Taka, in here dumbass." The teen voice of Mufasa hissed and Taka spun around to see Mufasa's closet door open.
Mufasa was hiding in the closet, holding a bottle of vodka in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other. Taka rolled his eyes and yanked his brother out of the closet.
"Why is this so pressingly urgent?" Mufasa whispered.
"It's simple. We have ourselves some fun before school starts up again." Taka replied as quietly as possible.
He then began rifling through the things in Mufasa's drawers before he finally found what he was looking for; the stolen emergency keys.
"Is that it? Why do we have to do this at night, and why is the alcohol necessary? Surely we can still..." Mufasa argued but Taka shut him by by gesturing to keep it down.
"Quit complaining. Just think - we won't be able to do this for another year, and its not like we're the only ones in our year that have had a bit to drink before. We'll have fun, I promise you." Taka said and started leading him out the door, and down the corridor.
"And why did I have to hold it all?"
"Because you have the biggest closet."
The two of them slowed down as they passed Ahadi and Uru's room, and held their breath as they snuck past. Mufasa wiped the sweat from his forehead and did his best to prevent the bottles he carried from clanging together.
The two fourteen year olds crept past the kitchen, and as they went Mufasa checked the date on their calendar just to be sure.
2nd of December, 1963. It was the right day all right.
They carried on, and Mufasa stopped in front of the elevator, and pointed to it. Taka shook his head and mouthed the word no before motioning for Mufasa to follow him. He did so, and they found themselves at the entrance to the emergency stairwell. Taka drew the keys and quickly began trying the many different access keys there were, and Mufasa sweated anxiously. Ahadi could wander out any minute and catch them. Not to mention the rustling of the keys was loud, and could wake someone.
Taka eventually found the right keys and quickly opened the door.
"Come on..."
He then shut it as quickly as he could without making a noise and locked it behind them. They then started jogging down the endless flights of stairs.
Exhausted, they finally reached the bottom and were completely out of breath. They took a short moment to sit at the bottom of the huge stairwell and take a little rest, before they continued on. Taka stopped panting and held up a finger in front of his mouth to tell Mufasa to stay quiet.
He slowly pushed the door open a fraction, and assessed what he was up against. He looked out at the palace lobby before him. The receptionist was fast asleep on his desk, and two more armed security guards groggily leant up against pillars. There was also one more guard pacing in front of the main doors. Taka shut the door and thought up a plan. His mind was his advantage.
He then pushed the door open slowly again, and crawled out into the lobby. He then scurried behind a pot plant, and hunched himself together so that none of his body was visible from in front of it. He then slowly rotated himself, and stuck a hand into the plant, to pull out a small stone pebble. He peaked over the plane again, and saw his target; a coffee mug on the receptionist's desk. If he could hit it, it would be loud enough to cause a distraction.
He waited until the guard at the far side of the lobby turned around, before standing up a little and pelting the stone at the cup.
DONG...SMASH!
The cup was hit directly and the force of the impact sent it rolling off the desk and onto the marble floor, where it shattered into a mixture of ceramic and latte coffee. Taka punched the air in success. The receptionist awoke in a fright, and looked down to see the mess on the floor. The other guards had heard it too, and their attention was turned towards the desk.
"What the hell is going on over there?" The guard by the doors shouted out, and walked over to see the cause of the commotion.
"Jesus Christ, what a mess..." The guard commented and knelt down next to the desk.
Meanwhile, Mufasa had pushed the door open a crack and was watching, Taka held up a hand to signal for him to wait a moment.
"Hey guys, give me a hand to clean this up before it stains!" The guard yelled out and the remaining two guards walked over to him.
"What the hell were you doing Chuck? Who leaves a coffee cup right next to the edge of your desk?" One guard asked the receptionist, not impressed.
"I didn't! I was sleeping and I swear I left the mug next to the stapler...something must've knocked it." The guard insisted.
"Yeah, right. It was your imagination."
As the four of them knelt down to start cleaning up the mess, Taka turned to Mufasa and flicked his head in the direction of the door. Mufasa nodded and scrambled out of his cover, and as a pair they both advanced towards the doors in a slow, crouched stance, watching the guards as they went. Taka held the door open and Mufasa snuck out. The door then closed gently behind them.
"Hey Chuck, I think I just found the cause of your mug's mysterious falling."
"What?"
"Look...a rock. Someone must've thrown it from that direction for it to knock the cup off this way."
As one, the guards and the receptionist looked out to the emergency stairwell door, and the pot plant next to it. All four of them walked over, and checked behind the pot plant...only to find nothing.
Outside, Mufasa and Taka crept through the shadows of the garden, mostly sticking to the cover of trees, bushes and so on. They stopped in a patch of foliage and Taka turned to Mufasa.
"Mufasa brother...we...are the very definition...of stealth." Taka said with a smile and held up a hand.
Mufasa slapped him a high five.
"Right on."
The rest of the midnight escape was simple, largely due to the fact that Ahadi still hadn't approved of the new plans for electric fencing. He had been too caught up in the tension of The Cold War and all this business with some Asian place called 'Vietnam' that all the little domestic problems had almost been completely forgotten about. But supposing Taka and Mufasa got caught, then he might reconsider. But Taka didn't plan to get caught, and knew that this would would probably be his last chance to sneak out before the electric fence was placed regardless.
They walked on casually and soon reached a distance that was far enough away from the palace they could dump their make-shift 'disguises'. They removed all the black gloves, hats and balaclavas that they had worn out of the palace, to reveal jeans and and tight black leather 'thunderbird' jackets on top of equally tight white shirts. They both had their hair slickly combed back. They were meeting up with their three friends; whom all were girls. And at fourteen years of age, in the early '60s, impressing the lasses was what it was all about. Printed in silver on the back of their jackets was a custom logo that read 'Taylor Bros' along with the image of a lion's head wearing sunglasses.
"So where are we going?"
"Carroscir Stadium." Scar replied, with a grin
"The stadium? Why there?" Mufasa asked.
"Because its quiet, there's plenty of food we can knick, and nobody would look for us there."
"But there's a game on the weekend..."
"So we clean up after ourselves so nobody will ever know. Are you done complaining?"
"And the girls know where this is?" Mufasa raised an eyebrow
"Yeah."
The two walked on for around half an hour, through the deserted streets of Prideland City by night. They finally reached the border between the suburbs of Charlton and East Side, where the stadium was. The stadium pretty much represented the boundary between the best and worst of the city. On one side, was the metro area, including the royal grounds, main business district, and so on. On the other, there stood a suburb that was slowly descending into a worse state. It had been the direction that the Germans had attacked from during WW2, and still hadn't recovered yet. There were still some skeletal remains of old buildings, and Axis refugee camps that hadn't been shut down yet. Other than that, the area was mostly industrial, and was coincidentally cast in the shadow of the mountain.
They finally reached the huge Carroscir Stadium, and walked inside anxiously. Mufasa looked up and read the sign. Carroscir Stadium - The Home of Prideland City 'Blues' Football Club. Prideland City FC's logo was printed in large green and blue above the entrance, which they so casually strolled in as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Like expected, the stadium was deserted. There were just endless rows of plastic green seats and the Soccer field in the middle. They walked back around the perimeter of the stadium, looking for the girls or maybe some decent food stand. They were about to give up, when suddenly Taka heard footsteps behind him. He spun around, to face Sarafina Kelly, Sarabi Montenegro and Zira Blackburn.
He sighed in relief, and when the girls saw him, they rushed up and hugged him and Mufasa in delight.
"Oh Taka, Mufasa...you guys look great!" Sarabi complimented them and wrapped an arm around Mufasa.
"So do you guys." Taka said and hugged Zira and Sarafina at once.
"I was afraid you guys wouldn't make it." Taka told them and Zira rolled her eyes.
"Of course we would. What about you guys with all those guards and stuff?" Zira raised an eyebrow.
Taka just rolled his eyes thinking about how dim those guards had been, and how fixated they were by a simple smashed coffee mug. He changed the subject.
"Did you guys bring some chow?" Mufasa asked and Sarabi nodded, before revealing two bags of chocolates and a box of pizza.
"Yeah, did you guys bring the stuff?"
"Yes...we did. Against my better judgment." Mufasa sighed, and lifted the beer and vodka.
"Oh loosen up tight-ass." Sarabi snapped at him.
"Was that a compliment?" Mufasa grinned.
Sarabi gave him a friendly slap and smiled.
"Okay then...let's have ourselves some fun!" Taka almost yelled and popped open a bottle of beer, despite the fact that they was only fourteen. But hell, they were teenagers right?
They moved off into an undercover section of stadium seating and took seats.
How's it going? A little uneventful I know, and take note of Carroscir Stadium. That place will have major significance later on in the story. (*Hint) And yes, Mufasa's comment I DID make up. If it happened to have appeared in another film/novel or whatever then oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Next chapter: Humanization of 'The Feast', then we meet some old friends of ours.
This has been JJZ-109, and as always...Have a nice day.