(A/N: Between the end of this chapter and the start of the next one there will be a small jump in time. Also, at the end of this chapter there will be the points for listed for all of the competitors so far. Sorry about the delay.)
Nakshi waddled her way over to the outside of the track.
Lenny and Anzi watched her in amusement.
"You look exhausted," said Lenny.
Nakshi acknowledged his statement with a feeble: "Yeah."
"I'm sorry to hear about your king," said Anzi.
Nakshi looked at her, confused. Suddenly, she remembered what had happened. One second, he had been running in their pack, then the next, he had disappeared.
"Oh yeah. . ." she said, then she realized, ". . . oh . . . wait . . . what happened?"
Anzi and Lenny exchanged glances: neither of them had expected this. Neither of them wanted to do this. Thankfully for them, neither of them had to. Nakshi worked it out.
"Maneno . . . is he . . . is he dead?"
Anzi and Lenny exchanged glances again.
"It was Maneno who died, right?" he asked quietly.
Nakshi heard him. She frantically gave one quick glance around the entire track. She couldn't see him. It was true. The king of her pride had died.
"But . . . Maneno . . . wh – h – he was so nice!" Tears swelled up in her eyes. "I can't believe he's gone!"
Anzi bit her lip, before taking a step up to her.
"You know . . . Zoea was my friend. I was distraught . . . but . . . you've just gotta move on," she said as calming as possible.
Nakshi sniffed. "It's great that you mean well. But nobody 'moves on.' Not even the best when their friends die. They just do what they gotta do, but they never let their friend's image leave their mind."
This response silenced both Anzi and Lenny.
"Well . . ." said Lenny, breaking the silence, ". . . I guess you don't have to move on. I mean . . . you are leading, aren't you?"
"Lenny!" exclaimed Anzi angrily, but then she turned back to see Nakshi chuckling.
She sniffed. "Yeah, I guess that's the bright side to it," she replied, "come on, let's move on."
"I thought you were tired?" said Anzi.
"I am, but my pride's on the front stretch. Come on, let's go."
Pumbaa raised the stick up. The silhouette of a bird coming down swooped over them. The savannah was starting to lose its light.
"Zazu!" exclaimed Pumbaa, "you're back!"
Simba and Nala were sitting off just to the side of them. They turned their heads as Zazu landed, and then decided to walk over to him.
"Hi Zazu," said Simba quietly, "how did it go?"
Zazu sighed. "Well, it wasn't too bad. Her father was busy so I didn't speak to him directly." Zazu began brushing his wing with the other. "I feel that it was my responsibility to tell him myself, but the others refused." He sighed again. "Oh well, it stopped me from doing the hard part. I guess that they'll know how to bring it to him best, they know him better than I do."
"Hmm," was Simba's only reply.
A short silence followed, broken by Timon who was sitting the other side of Pumbaa, clicking his fingers.
"Excuse me Zazu. We're the ones with the stick."
Zazu turned around. "And what would you like to know?" he asked, rather snappily.
"Who's leading?" asked Pumbaa, "and where's Sarafina?"
"Let me check," replied Zazu, preparing to fly off.
"You don't know?" asked Timon.
"No . . . I've been gone half the day."
"Oh . . . right."
Timon lied back down as Zazu took off. Simba and Nala returned back to their seats.
Nakshi was leading, and Sarafina was twelfth with twelve points. Those stats didn't last for long though. Ema completed a lap and then brought down an antelope, Uku then, to the crowd's approval, brought down a zebra, Wamariri brought one down two and Guvu was able to successfully utilize his ambush strategy once again, Nakshi and Juni fell asleep in front of their prides on the front stretch, and Rakusa was able to bring one down. Now, Bahati was beginning to size up a zebra, unaware that Sarafina behind him was doing the exact same thing. The crowd's attention, however, was focused across to the other side of the track where Rakusa had just made a run at the antelope, and Wamariri joined him as the prey ran on by.
Wamariri began to get an edge on the lion next to her, and Rakusa knew that minus something extraordinary happening, that antelope was hers. He was about to slow down when he suddenly looked back over at Wamariri again. His front paws were running right alongside Wamariri's back ones. Now, what would Wamariri do to him?
"Woo hoo!" Zazu cheered.
"Shh, Zazu!" whispered Nala. She and Simba had been intense on watching Sarafina, and remaining as silent as possible while she had been approaching Bahati from behind.
Simba looked around and listened. It wasn't just Zazu; everyone was cheering.
"What just happened Zazu?" asked Simba.
"Rakusa just knocked Wamariri over, and now he's about to bring that antelope down! I knew he was a good fellow. First time I saw him he came up to me and said . . ."
"Zazu, could you please . . ." began Nala, but she was then cut off as everyone on the hills began cheering again. Rakusa's move had paid off. He'd brought the antelope down.
Meanwhile, Sarafina heard the cheers echoing around the hills also. Bahati checked over his shoulder just to ensure that the cheer wasn't because someone was beginning to make a run on him. Well . . . not yet it hadn't been. Sarafina and Bahati met each other's gazes, and then with the lioness only a couple of paces behind the lion, they both took off in a sprint.
Not too far in front of the pair was a buffalo, but neither of them really wanted to go to all that extra effort that was required to kill one of those things. They were both after the zebra.
On the other side of the track, Rakusa had gotten up from his kill, and he could now see Wamariri running towards him from where she had fallen. Rakusa checked towards the right. Every animal on the track in front of him was a lion. It obviously wasn't ten points that Wamariri was after.
Sarafina and Bahati were both right on the zebra's heels as they entered the backstretch, but neither could bring him down yet. Doing so would mean the zebra tumbling and then tangling with the other lion, and although they were both competitors, neither wanted to harm the other one. Not this early anyways.
The buffalo had began running, fearing that he himself was going to become the prey, but the two lions ignored him and ran straight on by, still right on the tail of the zebra.
"Excuse me," yelled the lioness angrily, "would you mind explaining to me what the hell just happened?"
"I knocked you over so that I could get the ten points instead of you. It's a competitive sport, Wamariri."
Wamariri growled and then cuffed Rakusa across the face. The crowd reacted with an "Ooo!" followed by a couple of lions shouting out hateful remarks, directed at Wamariri.
"You would have done the same," replied Rakusa, lifting his head back up as if nothing had happened.
Wamariri went to cuff him again but Rakusa was able to grab her arm and slam it down on the ground. Wamariri lifted her other arm out and stuck out her claws, causing Rakusa to rise to his hind feet with his claws ready for the fight as well.
The crowd began to cheer.
The zebra shrieked as it saw that it was now approaching two other lions. Those two being Rakusa and Wamariri. He began to slow down, prepared to run backwards. Though he had been blocking Sarafina's line of sight, Bahati had had a clear view of what was about to happen, and so he had jumped up onto the zebra's back, knowing that with the zebra having slowed down, it would be easier for him to bring it down to the ground.
Unfortunately for Sarafina, having not realized what was going on, she had kept up her speed and was now just in front of the zebra. Bahati landed on its back and the striped animal began to come down. Sarafina took a quick glance back and gasped. It was about to fall right on her! But she'd run too far, the fight between Wamariri and Rakusa was right in front of her, and now she was essentially trapped. The zebra slammed down onto the lioness's back and then pushed her, along with the zebra and Bahati, right into the fight, knocking both Rakusa and Wamariri off their feet.
The crowd cheered. The Pridelanders gasped.
Wamariri and Rakusa quickly got back to their feet. Rakusa had proven himself to be stronger and a better fighter than what Wamariri had thought, so she gave one last snarl to him before turning around and continuing on her way. Rakusa would follow, but first he needed to give her a little space. He looked back over towards where Bahati, Sarafina, and the dead zebra were.
"You okay?" asked Bahati, peeking under the zebra.
"I'm alive aren't I?" responded Sarafina. She looked as if she was in pain though. "Could you please get this thing off me?" she asked.
Bahati did so.
"I'm surprised you didn't go for the buffalo," he said, "you look strong enough."
"If I wanted to play this game that safe I wouldn't have signed up in the first place. Is the zebra off?"
"Yeah. Can you get up?"
"I'll try."
Rakusa turned back around. There was a fair amount of space between him and Wamariri now, and Bahati seemed to have the situation with Sarafina under control. He began to walk on again.
"Ooh, careful!" exclaimed Bahati.
"What's wrong?" asked Sarafina.
"I thought . . . well, no, no, it's fine."
"Is my leg broke?"
"I don't think so."
"I was lucky I was still moving when the zebra fell. If I'd stopped then I'd have had the same fate as what happened to Zoea."
"Doesn't that scare you any?"
Sarafina looked over towards the crowd, where she knew Nala would be sitting. "If I didn't have a daughter it wouldn't."
Bahati chuckled. "I know how you feel. I'm the king of my pride."
Sarafina smiled. "Let's give this walking thing a try then, hmm?" she asked.
The pair of lions began to walk off. Sarafina slowly at first.
"I'd ask for your name," Bahati said, "but I learnt last year that that wasn't such a good idea."
Sarafina shook her head. "I wish I wasn't so sociable. I know virtually all of the competitors' names but I know I shouldn't. I don't like watching someone I know get killed. But that's what I signed up for, and I'm just going to have to put my mourning off until after the event."
"Exactly," responded Bahati. "Is your leg holding up okay?"
"It's not broke," replied Sarafina. "But it needs to rest. My pride's on the front stretch, I'll fall asleep there."
"Sounds like a plan." Bahati yawned. "Well fellow competitor, I'd love to stay and chat but I've got to get busy and win this thing."
Sarafina chuckled. "How many points you got?" she asked.
"Thirty-two now I believe. And you?"
"Thirteen."
"Ah, of course," replied Bahati. "It was your bad luck lap, no wonder you got yourself injured."
Sarafina acknowledged his remark. "Should've brought something extra down last lap. I would've gone straight to twenty-two. Then think, if I'd had gotten that zebra, I'd be beating you by eleven points right now."
"But that's not the way it happened, so with my four healthy legs, I think I'm going to run away now."
"I'd wish you bad luck, but you did get me unstuck from that zebra."
"Okay, well time for me to go now." He began to run off. "Bad luck to you too!"
Now that the Pridelanders had calmed down, Simba knew that he could get back to questioning Nala about the event.
"So Nala," he asked, "what's the highest amount of points ever scored in one of these events?"
Nala pondered it for a minute.
"You know . . . I don't actually know. I know what the lowest winning score was, Guvu pulled it off last year."
"How many?" asked Simba.
"One hundred and eighty-one."
"And the leader only has about thirty or forty right now?"
"Yeah. I think when Rakusa got that antelope down he took the lead, but I don't know what his score is."
"Thirty-six," said Zazu. "I keep up-to-date on his score."
"And my mom's I should hope," joked Nala.
"No, now that's what you're here for, Madam," replied Zazu.
"So there's still a long way to go then," said Simba.
"Well not really," replied Nala. "You see, when it gets down to the final hour or two, or even three, the hunting and killing picks up a lot. That's also when the most fatalities happen though."
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted as the group became distracted by Timon. He had just begun to burst out in laughter, with Pumbaa sitting next to him not as amused.
"You know, it's not really that funny Timon," said Pumbaa.
"Are you kidding? What a loser! Even I could be doing better than her, and I'm a meerkat!"
"Are you guys making fun of Winda?" asked Nala, slightly disgusted.
"She only has six points!" exclaimed Timon. "That's just as good as that dead guy!"
"Well perhaps she's just conserving her energy," protested Nala.
"I doubt it, Queenie. She seemed really disappointed when she looked over at her score compared to all the others a minute ago."
"Well Anzi only has five," said Nala, trying to end the conversation there.
It wasn't really the right thing to say though. Timon was able to stifle his laughter for a moment, but then he fell back into an even greater fit of laughter.
Nala growled.
"And that's fourteen," she suddenly heard a familiar voice call out from below.
The pride turned back down to face Sarafina. They all greeted her with a smile on their face.
"You okay there, Sarafina?" asked Simba.
"Well I got the bad luck lap out of the way," replied Sarafina, lying herself down. "I really wanted to get some good hunting done, but I suppose that with my leg like this, I should at least give it some rest."
None of the Pridelanders protested.
"When do you want us to wake you up?" asked Nala.
Sarafina thought about it for a second. "When the leader's at fifty-two," she replied.
Nala shook her head. "We'll be waking you up before you fall asleep."
"I know," replied Sarafina. "But we both know Nala, the Siku Choka is far from being anything easy." Sarafina gave one last smile, and then laid her head down, hoping to quickly drift off to sleep.
Current standings:
1st: Rakusa: 37 points
2nd: Wamariri: 36 points
3rd: Bahati: 33 points
4th and 5th: Guvu and Uku: 32 points
6th: Nakshi: 29 points
7th: Ema: 28 points
8th: Lenny: 18 points
9th: Juni: 17 points
10th, 11th, and 12th: Sarafina, Shairi, and Tumaini: 14 points
13th and 14th: Maneno (deceased) and Winda: 6 points
15th: Anzi: 5 points
16th: Zoea (deceased): 2 points