AUTHOR'S NOTE – Alright now, here comes the next chapter! Sorry, it took a little longer than expected. First, my shout out for the reviewers of the last chapter:

Flickerfur, Kovu115, GreatMarta, Bribles

Thank you all so much! I'm always so happy to read your nice reviews! A little note to GreatMarta: Yeah, whiskers probably grow back, I think you're right. But remember that this is fanfiction, and not everything has to be realistic. Normally, lions also have more whiskers than they have in TLK or in fanart & fanfics, don't they? ;) Oh, talking about realism: I found out that leopards actually don't live together in clans. But well, the leopards in this story are no real clan. Like Jamili said, they're some kind of "cult". You'll find out why in this chapter.

Okay now, let's get to it! Remember, Nivio is now a cub about the same age as cub Simba in TLK. Hope you enjoy this chapter. It's gonna be a little scary…

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Chapter Six: The Prophecy of the Leopards

Rubani had been running through the darkness for a long time. Once he had left the jungle behind him, he took a break and put Nivio on the ground. At that, Nivio opened his eyes and looked around sleepily. He was very confused when he couldn't see the tree or the monkeys any more. All he could see was grass all around him and a strange creature smirking at him.

"Who are you?" Nivio asked weakly. "Where are Mommy and Daddy and Salina?"

At that, Rubani chuckled. Apparently, that little lion cub thought Jamili and Chuki where his parents. That thought amused him. "Don't worry," Rubani finally said. "I'll be your Daddy now. At least until I know if you're the one."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see," Rubani answered. "I really hope you are."

With that, Rubani took Nivio by the scruff and started running again. "No, wait!" Nivio protested. "I don't wanna go with you! I want Mommy and Daddy!"

But Rubani wouldn't listen. He kept running through the darkness of the night. Nivio silently cried as he was taken with him. "Mommy… Daddy… why?"

-xXOXx-

A few hours of running and resting later, Rubani had arrived at his home. His clan lived at the foot of a huge mountain, quite a few miles away from the jungle, northeastern of it. There was a stream of water running down from a source high up in the mountain passing by the place where they lived which was surrounded by trees. In contrast to the jungle, those trees weren't very tall and they didn't grow very close to each other. The leopards slept directly at the foot of the mountain, hiding behind large rocks and in gaps inside the rock walls. But their territory was quite big.

By the time Rubani arrived, it was already dawn. The sun had not appeared at the horizon yet, but there was a beautiful red shine contrasting with the deep blue sky already. Rubani lay down in the grass near his pride and waited for them to wake up. Nivio, who was lying beside him, got more and more scared. He was even too scared to move. Somehow, he thought this was a bad dream. The only thing he wished for was to wake up and find himself lying in Jamili's arms, next to Chuki and Salina again. But it didn't happen.

Soon, Rubani noticed the members of his clan wake up one after another. With a proud smile on his face he stood up, cleared his throat and announced: "I, Rubani, have returned to bring our clan a gift. I hope I have found the one, at last. The one who will bring change to our clan."

The others had listened with full attention and excitement. Nivio was just confused and irritated. Somehow, the words he just heard sounded like they had been spoken a thousand times before, like an oath or something similar. But he couldn't think about their meaning, as Rubani suddenly took him by the scruff again and walked closer towards his clan. When he stopped and put Nivio down again, another leopard stepped forward, holding another little cub by the scruff. It was an all black lion cub. Once he stood face to face with Rubani, the other leopard put down the black cub and spoke in the same tone as Rubani: "I, Mkuru, am the current leader of this clan and will prove you wrong. I will prove that this –," he pointed at the black cub, "is the one who will bring change to our clan. Tonight, we will know it."

Before Nivio could get a closer look at the other lion cub, Mkuru walked away with the cub again. But the first thing Nivio noticed was the very scared and frightened look in the other cub's eyes. This really troubled him. He had never seen a creature looking so scared before. Suddenly, he heard a voice and looked up. Another one of the leopards spoke up. It was Akida, and he sounded pretty angry: "Wait a minute, Rubani… I know that lion cub! I've seen it before! You got it from Jamili, didn't you?"

"Actually," Rubani replied calmly, "it was Chuki who gave him to me."

"I can't believe it! It should be me! I should have gotten that cub!"

"Well, Akida, I guess this proves you aren't our born leader. But maybe I am, if this cub is the one."

Akida clenched his teeth. He looked as if he intended to attack Rubani. But then he just hissed: "If I didn't know it was of no use, I'd fight you for him."

Rubani smiled in a content way and said: "Fine. Then I guess it's alright. Please excuse me now, I'm going to show the one around our territory."

With that, Rubani turned around and slowly walked towards the trees. At first, Nivio didn't follow, as he was still too confused. But then, Akida fixed an evil gaze on him and whispered in a threatening voice: "You should belong to me." At that, Nivio gasped and immediately ran after Rubani.

-xXOXx-

After Rubani had shown him their place, without much conversation, he allowed Nivio to walk around on his own, as long as he could still see him. Nivio decided to search for the black lion cub he had seen before. He really wanted to know what this was all about, how that other cub had come to the leopards – and why it had looked so frightened. Nivio couldn't get the image out of his mind. As he wandered around the territory, he noticed how small the clan was. There were six males, including Akida, Rubani and Mkuru, and only one female, as far as he could see. And they were all constantly avoiding each other. How could they live together like that?

Then, he saw Mkuru sitting near the stream, with the little black cub lying next to him. Obviously, Mkuru hadn't allowed the cub to run around on its own. When Nivio wanted to walk towards them, he noticed another leopard approach Mkuru. Nivio got a little closer, lay down in the grass and listened to what they were saying.

"Mkuru, I haven't been given the chance to find the one for a long time. I humbly ask you as the current leader to let me go this time."

Mkuru smiled and nodded. "Alright, Amiri. You get the chance. But remember the law: Return within seven days at the latest. Then, another one will get the chance again."

"Thank you," Amiri bowed and sped away at once.

Nivio couldn't help but feel more and more confused. He really wanted to know what was going on in this clan. Suddenly, a shadow fell upon him, and when he turned around, he saw Rubani standing behind him. Nivio was startled by this, but Rubani soothed him: "Hey, don't be afraid. I just wanted to ask you if you are hungry."

Slowly, Nivio nodded and then followed Rubani to one of the nearest trees. The female he had seen before was sitting there, eating from a zebra. At a closer look, Nivio also noticed a leopard cub with her. Curiously, he approached them. The cub was a female and visibly taller than him, but obviously no adolescent yet. She didn't look at him while she was eating. Nivio shortly looked at the food in confusion, as he had never eaten meat before. As they all were eating from that zebra, he tried a bit and found it not very tasty. But he was hungry enough to eat more, and while he did so, he kept looking at the young leopardess.

After they had finished their meal, Nivio followed her and asked her: "Can you tell me what's going on here?"

Finally, the young leopardess turned to look at him and sighed: "You have no idea how many others have asked me this question before. And every time, my answer is: I can't tell you."

"But why?"

"Because I mustn't. I'm not allowed to tell anyone, so if they hear us, I'll get killed."

"What? Your parents would allow that?"

"Well, perhaps my Mom wouldn't. And my father… Actually… I don't know who my father is. I never knew him. Mom said, she came here with me because my father had died."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that." After a little while, Nivio asked: "What's your name?"

"Enia. And yours?"

"My name is Mbali… I think."

Enia frowned. "You think? Mbali – that's a strange name. It means different. Why would your parents give you a name like this?"

"Well…" Nivio thought a bit. "I am different from my parents. I look totally different, I have more fur, and I walk on four legs, while my parents walked on two legs most of the time."

At that, Enia was very confused. But then, she knew what he probably meant: "I've never seen a lion walk on two legs. The only creatures I know that walk on two legs are monkeys!"

Now, Nivio looked pretty surprised and sad. "What do you mean?"

"I mean they can't be your real parents! Your real parents must be lions, like you are one. So, what happened to your parents?"

"I… don't know…" Suddenly Nivio felt a heavy pain inside his heart, and he started to cry. He couldn't look into Enia's eyes any longer, and so he ran away from her. Near the stream, he lay down to cry. Sure, he had often wondered why Jamili, Chuki and Salina looked so different. But he never thought about the reason why. He never came to think he might have lost his parents. What happened to them? Suddenly, he remembered something, it appeared before his inner eye. It was a gentle face, looking incredibly sad and terrified, moving further and further away from him. He heard a female angsty voice crying: "NOOOO!" It was the face of his mother.

"Mommy…," Nivio sobbed to himself. "Daddy… what happened to you? Why am I all alone? And if my name is not Mbali… what is my name?" But no one could answer him these questions.

-xXOXx-

For the rest of the day, Nivio didn't talk to anyone, not even to Enia. All he could do was lie around and cry and think. He desperately tried to remember his parents, but there was no memory of them at all. Only this one vague image of his mother's face. That night, his first night with the leopards, he lay next to Rubani behind a rock, and he almost couldn't sleep. Once he finally did, he was suddenly startled. Was that a scream? Nivio looked all about him. Rubani was gone. And so were the others. Where were they, in the middle of the night? Nivio got up on his paws and tried to find them.

As he walked further away from the foot of the mountain, he noticed something behind the trees at the horizon. There was a strange kind of glowing. His heart beat fast, his fear grew. But he carefully went on. Suddenly, when he had passed the trees, there was some kind of an abyss. He hadn't seen this large pit the whole day long, not even when Rubani had shown him around the territory. Obviously, he was beyond the borders. But the strange glowing came from down there. And down in that pit, they all were standing: Mkuru with the black lion cub, Rubani, the other males, the female – all but Enia. That glowing came from a fire, around which they were standing. Cautiously, Nivio lay down and looked over the edge of the abyss. At that moment, he heard Mkuru's voice.

"Now is the moment we will find out if I, Mkuru, have found the one," Mkuru spoke to the others. "If he passes the test, he truly is the one who will bring change to our clan. Now, go."

Nivio could not believe his own eyes when he beheld what happened next. The black cub, trembling with fear, slowly stepped towards the large fire. When it looked back at Mkuru with terror in its eyes, Mkuru extended his claws and growled in a threatening way: "Jump!" The cub turned its head back to the fire, gulped, closed its eyes… and jumped as high as it could. But it wasn't high enough…

Terrified, Nivio jumped up and gasped, suppressing a scream. Then suddenly, he felt a paw over his mouth. Enia was standing next to him. "Shhh…," she whispered. "Come back with me and don't make any kind of noise." Carefully, she took her paw off him and then, they ran back to the foot of the mountain, as fast as they could. After they had caught their breath again, Nivio was still too traumatized to talk by what he just saw. Enia couldn't find words for a while, either.

"Others often say our clan is a cult," she finally said. "And I think they are right."

"What… what is a cult?" Nivio asked with an incredible weakness in his voice.

"That's hard to explain. They… believe in things and do things that aren't right. No one can understand this… I think they don't even understand themselves." She paused for a short time and then sighed: "I had to swear by my life never to tell anyone about what they believe. But I want to explain to you what you've seen. You have to promise me you won't tell them I did!"

After Nivio had made his promise, she explained: "A few years ago, six male leopards had met in this territory for the first time. Each of them wanted to own it. So, they started to fight. But there was no winner and no loser. They faught for days, or even for weeks. But then they found out they were all equally strong, no one would ever win or lose, nor would any of them give up. So, they had to find another way to decide a winner. One night, when they wanted to come up with a task, there was a heavy thunderstorm. Suddenly, a flash of lightning hit a lonely tree that was standing in that pit over there. There was a huge fire in that pit, and so they said: The one who can jump over the fire safely will be the owner of the territory. But again, all of them succeeded. At that moment – at least that's what they say – the ghost of another leopard appeared inside that fire. They believed it was the previous owner of the territory. He told them they had to stay together as a clan and find out who was their born leader. The others told him they had been trying for such a long time. At that, the ghost answered: 'If you can't find a leader, another big cat will.' Then came the rain, the fire disappeared and so did the ghost. After that, the six leopards changed their names. From now on, they called themselves Akida, Rubani, Mkuru, Amiri, Chifu and Hakimu. Each name means leader or something similar to it. Now, they tried to find other big cats to join their clan and do the fire test for them. But no adult big cats would join them. One day, one of them found a cheetah cub that had lost its parents. This cub was happy to join their clan. But of course, when it had to do the fire test, it died. And so, they decided just to look for lonely cubs to fulfill their prophecy – for the one."

Nivio was totally shocked by that story, he was even too shocked to cry. How could anyone believe in such terrible things? How could anyone be so cruel? Enia looked away at the trees. Tears welled up in her eyes as she continued: "I don't know how they always make fire, though. I wasn't even supposed to know about their cult, but one night, I watched them. And when they found out, I had to swear not to tell anyone, especially not the other cubs, or they'd kill me. If my mother and I had known about all this, we would have never joined their clan!"

Enia suddenly stopped her sobbing as she noticed the other leopards slowly returning. "Quick, lay down behind that rock again and pretend you're sleeping! They mustn't know we're awake!"

As fast as they could, they lay down at their sleeping spots and closed their eyes. But Nivio opened them once again and whispered: "Enia… you have to get me outta here! Please!"

End of Chapter Six

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DISCLAIMER – As I said, you are allowed to use the names Mbali, Akida, Rubani, Mkuru, Amiri, Chifu and Hakimu without asking me for permission, I do not claim them. But all the other characters' names appearing in this story (except for names appearing in the Lion King movies, of course) belong to me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE – Well now, I hope you liked this chapter. It was harder to write than I thought. I've read many fanfics about lions, cheetahs or leopards being evil tyrants, but I think I've never read about them having cults. So why not? This idea had come to me pretty early while thinking up this story. Okay now, this was a long chapter. I don't know when chapter 7 will be completed, but I hope soon. So, be patient and take care! See you around. :)