A/N: Well, I'm finally back. I know this is an incredibly short chapter considering it's been over two weeks since the last update, but the alternative was having one ridiculously long (like over 10,000 words) chapter in a couple days. I figured you'd rather have the short one now. I promise the next chapter (which is definitely a good one) will be finished and posted by Tuesday at the latest.

Chapter 10: The River

Sajini

I had thought this moment would never come.

It was bad enough that I had let that scrawny little runt of a cub beat me at my own game, bad enough that I had let both him and his insolent brat of a girlfriend escape with hardly a scratch. But then Scar told me to wait one more night before attacking. He told me to allow the force to rest a bit before heading out on the hunt again. He told me to be patient.

I don't do "patient".

Still, it wasn't like I had much of a choice. Like it or not, Simba had already beaten me once, and without backup it would surely happen again and again until he finally decided to kill me. Then again, he might not even want to raise a claw against anyone after our lion-to-hyena up on the summit. My lips pulled back into a smile at the memory of his eyes widening in horror as he gaped back at the bloody corpse of Kipele. I had played him like a drum, and in just two minutes I managed to beat him down without even touching him. All it took were a few creative names and a good grip on his girlfriend's neck. Funny how often that works.

Needless to say, I wasn't worried about our chances of capturing both Simba and all of his traitorous pals that had decided to run off the same night. At full ranks, we outnumbered the cubs at least twenty-five to one, and every hyena under my command was a ruthless killer who would show no mercy to any creature on earth, child or not. Not only that, I had done a bit of weaseling and convinced a few of Scar's new "recruits" to come out with us. After the younger cubs had left, a few of the older ones had approached Scar and asked to join his army, apparently with the hope that declaring their allegiance to the king would save them from his eventual wrath. A nice thought, but it was obvious to anyone with half an ounce of gray matter rattling around in their skull that most of them were just sucking up to Scar in a desperate attempt to save their skins. Only a couple of them had any real loyalty to the King that I could see, but he still allowed all of them a place in his hierarchy. Against my own advice, I might add.

That was one of the annoying things about Scar: give him a compliment and he'd melt right into your paws. And then, of course, there was the fact that our so-called king was about as capable a ruler as the rock he slept on. His response to any concern raised by myself or one of my soldiers (if he bothered to respond at all) was always some variant of "go talk to the lionesses." It was blatantly clear that he loathed even sharing a continent with hyenas, but it didn't really bother me. I didn't like him much either.

Despite all that, Scar and I still had a strange kind of respect for each other. He needed me to keep the hyenas under control, and I needed him to keep the lionesses hunting so we didn't starve. It was an uneasy relationship but a necessary one, and one that eventually earned me what can only be described as Scar's trust, or at least the closest thing to trust that anyone would ever get from the surly potentate.

But what am I doing rambling on about the state of the monarchy? At the moment, politics should've been the last thing on my mind. Now wasn't the time to analyze my oh-so-wonderful relationship with Scar the Magnificent.

Now was the time for battle.

As I stepped out of the shadowy den onto the promontory of Pride Rock, I thought back to when I had first been granted the position of Sheikh Mosi, less than a month before Scar took control of the Pridelands. With all the pomp and circumstance, I just knew that my first act as war chief would be to lead my people into the greatest war in our history, where we would emerge victorious over our heavily outmatched enemy. My name would be one of legend, the first word of the lips of every future warrior and the last on the breath of every fallen one.

Flash forward to today, where I was waiting in the wings to send out my troops for the first time, just like I had dreamed so long ago. They were ready, they were willing, and they were undoubtedly able. It would've been perfect, had our target been a lion pride or a rival hyena pack or even a couple of bull elephants. Hell, I would've settled for a pissed off rhino. But no such luck. My first opportunity to command the largest force of hyenas this side of Africa would be focused on the destruction of less than a dozen runaway lion cubs. I swear, if one more hyena even thought the words "you have to start somewhere", I was gonna rip someone's throat out.

After receiving a curt nod from Scar, I continued up the sloping promontory, keeping my stride straight and powerful until I reached the very end of the rocky point. The grasslands fanning out beneath the sharp lookout point were covered with a teeming mass of jabbering black canines, making the Pridelands look like an angry black ocean. Giant bonfires peppered the crowd at random intervals, and I grinned at the sight of the raging infernos. Those lions thought they were so clever with their silky tan coats and fluffy manes, but who had figured out how to set fallen branches alight by sticking them into the geysers that penetrated the mountainous terrain we called home? Who had discovered how easy it was to stay warm during the winter months when you had a roaring fire to huddle around? Furthermore, who had been the first rightful rulers of the Pridelands before Mohatu decided to waltz in and ruin everything? There was no denying it; save for their size and inordinate amount of luck, the lions were clearly the inferior race. Someday, I'd prove that once and for all…but not now. Not until I was sure we couldn't lose. Come to think of it, killing off most of the next generation would help that cause quite a bit. Maybe this wasn't such a useless endeavor after all.

Most of the throng laid out beneath the promontory didn't even notice my presence atop the craggy peak, which was exactly the way I wanted it. Filled with newfound confidence thanks to my epiphany about my first military undertaking, I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with just an ordinary speech. I wanted to make an entrance.

I was their leader; it was time to show it.

"Brothers and sisters!" I called out into the frenzied night air. In an instant, every eye in the clearing craned their necks upward and focused on a single black dot: me. I tried to hide an excited shiver. There's nothing on this earth quite like having the complete attention of a seemingly endless crush of vicious warriors. I'd been waiting for this moment my whole life.

"We are gathered here tonight to defend our all-powerful leader and his kingdom from the vile threat that besieges it!" I continued, trying to pack as much feeling as possible into every syllable. Sure, "our all-powerful leader" was pushing it a bit, but it wasn't like anyone else knew that. Besides, I had to keep up appearances for the dark-furred feline that I knew was watching somewhere.

"Not two nights ago, the nephew of our most gracious king, Scar, stole into our home with no provocation, released one of our most contemptuous prisoners, and murdered in cold blood one of our own kin! Brother Kipele sleeps forevermore because of this repulsive usurper of Scar himself!" I paused for a moment as the thunderous jeers and cries for revenge of my comrades grew to a deafening volume.

I'm glad they're enjoying this, I grumbled inside my head as I swept my gaze across the shadowy mob. Any more tripe about our "gracious king", and I'm gonna blow chunks all over this rock.

Gradually, the noise dulled enough so I could hear my own thoughts again, and I let a grim smile push its way through my lips. Now came the fun part.

"Now tell me, my brothers," I shouted. "Will we allow such treachery in our homeland?"

"No!" the horde replied with one voice.

"Will we hunt down the criminals responsible for these atrocities?"

"Yes!"

I let my villainous leer grow bigger. "And, when we succeed in bringing these terrorists to their knees, will we garner the strength to exercise the eternal power of our race, to bring death upon those who dare to bring death upon us?"

"YEAH!"

The crowd, already adrenalized even before I began speaking, dissolved into a frenzied mass of snapping teeth and feverish howls. My job was almost done. All that was left was to officially send them out.

I screamed the last sentence of my address at a volume louder than even I knew I was capable of reaching. "Now go, my family, and do not rest until each and every one of the defecting traitors lies dead beneath our claws!"

Without even a millisecond of hesitation, the hyena army (my hyena army!) dispersed into the grasslands, countless groups of soldiers splitting off in every direction. Even without my help, the troops had organized themselves into two or three-man teams, each evenly balanced with a mix of speed, strength, and stealth. Just one more reason why hyenas were better than lions: it would take a lion pride hours to assemble such efficient squads, and we had done the same thing a hundred times over in less than a minute, all while sprinting away at breakneck speed.

Hugely contented with the results of my speech, I strutted back down into the darkness of the den with a spring in my step. As the echoing battle cries of my soldiers began to fade into the distance, a lean brown lion melted out of the shadows of the den with his equally skinny mate trailing close behind.

"Not too bad for my first time, huh, Scar?" I said, unable to stop a cocky grin from spreading across my face. "I give those cubs twenty minutes before we got all of 'em strung up by their tails."

"I doubt it," the brown lion replied, his passive gaze focused on the grasslands behind me.

I growled deep in my throat and locked my eyes onto Scar so they wouldn't roll upward. Would it kill this guy to be optimistic just once?

"But our entire force searches for them as we speak!" I muttered slowly, managing to keep a somewhat level voice. "Mufasa himself couldn't outrun them!"

"Oh, he won't need to outrun them," Scar said with a bemused voice. "If he can return from the dead to mock me and torture my dreams, he can surely avoid a few hyenas."

I turned around quickly so Scar didn't catch a glimpse of the disgusted sneer stretching across my face. For the briefest of seconds, I understood exactly how Simba felt.

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Simba

"Tama?" I said quietly to the brown cub staring off into the distance from just outside the river cave clearing. "Everyone else is going to bed…what are you doing out here?"

"I don't know…I think something's happening at Pride Rock," he replied in a puzzled voice. "Something big."

I sat down next to my best friend and squinted off into the horizon. "What makes you say that?"

Tama raised a claw and pointed out in front of him. "Look at that weird glow over there. I think it's coming from Pride Rock, but I can't figure out what it is."

"You don't think it's just the sun?"

"The sun should've set hours ago. This is something else."

I sighed and glanced past Tama's gesturing forepaw. Now that he mentioned it, I could just barely make out a dull glimmer peeking over the far edge of the grasslands. Not only that, I thought I could hear a low buzz coming from the direction of the glow, like a giant swarm of bees humming as they wheeled around their hive.

Suddenly, the buzz got louder and louder, until it had morphed into a dull roar. I saw Tama's eyes widen, and I knew he had heard the shift too.

"What was that?" he whispered. I shook my head and stared at the glow again, desperate to make out something in the dim twilight. But it was too far away. I couldn't see a…

Did the horizon just move?

I took an involuntarily step back as the skyline twitched again. Something was moving towards us, something that looked like an immense black wave in the world's largest ocean. The buzz was even louder now, so much that I realized it wasn't a buzz at all. Bees didn't bark. Or snarl. Or laugh.

Tama and I turned to look at each other, both of our eyes the size of the full moon overhead. There was no need to say a word, but we spoke anyway.

"Hyenas," we both whispered at the same time. We couldn't stay here any longer. We had to warn the others and get out of here now.

Tama and I practically flew back to the caves, and by the time we finally broke through the barrier of grass surrounding the clearing my heart was pounding loud enough in my ears to drown out the hushed sounds of the approaching mob. The other cubs had no problems hearing the far-off barks, though, and my heart sank as I saw the various stages of panic spilling out onto the faces of the Pridelanders. Some of them, like Usiku and Tani, looked ready to fight, but the others looked like they were a couple minutes away from breaking down entirely. Even Tama looked a little sick to his stomach, but his eyes might as well have been set in stone. At least he wasn't going to flip out on me.

Nala was by my side before I even got a chance to catch my breath. "Simba, where were you guys?" she said with a worried look. "What's happ-"

"Hyenas," I panted, cutting off the end of her sentence. "They're coming. A lot of them." I turned to face the other cubs. "Too many to fight off."

Needless to say, that news went over like a ton of boulders. The bays of the advancing hyenas were quickly drowned out as everyone started talking at once. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, still trying to get my wind back after my sprint through the Pridelands. Whatever happened, I couldn't keep scaring them like this. There had to be a way to get them moving while keeping them calm, just like there had to be a place we could go after we started moving. I just needed to find both happy mediums. Thankfully, Tama was a little bit of help with the former issue.

"Hey, everyone just calm down, all right?" he said in a commanding voice, quieting the rest of the cubs a little. "We're gonna be fine. They still don't even know we're here."

"But they will pretty quick if we don't do something about it," Usiku added, for once adopting a completely serious tone. "Which begs the question: what are we going to do about it?"

"Should we fight?" Tani asked, noisily tapping his claws against the ground as he spoke.

"No," I answered quickly. "The hyenas probably outnumber us at least ten to one. We wouldn't stand a chance."

"What if we just went after one group at a time?" Tama proposed. "Hyenas hunt in packs just like lions. Maybe if we ambushed them one at a time, we could be in and out before they even know we're there."

I was about to answer when I heard a shaky cough come from behind me. All of the Pridelanders' heads swiveled along with mine to the source of the noise, which turned out to be a quietly crying Jua. Absolute terror was written all over the pale cub's face, and Usiku wasted no time in padding up to his younger sister's side and wrapping a foreleg around her.

"Ssh, ssh, it's okay, Star…they're not gonna get you," he murmured in a comforting voice I hadn't even known he possessed. "I won't let 'em."

As Jua buried her head in Usiku's shoulder, I turned back to face Tama. "We can't do that. We're not in any shape to fight right now," I said, stating the obvious as Tama nodded with a grim look.

"Maybe we can outrun them…" Nala said nervously.

"For a little while, maybe, but sooner or later they'd catch us," Tama replied with the same glum expression still on his face. "Most likely sooner, given the state we're in."

"Then what are we supposed to do?!" Nala shouted back, all of her self-control melting away as the full hopelessness of the situation began to sink in.

"We'll hide in the caves," I said in a confident tone that I'm sure was as transparent as the shaky grin I gave Nala. "There must be dozens of secret passages in there."

"That's not gonna work," Afya said, speaking up for the first time. "You're the only one that knows how to get around in there, and it's pitch-black. If we get separated, we'll never find our way out again."

I grit my teeth and bit my tongue to keep from screaming. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. Walking into those caves right now would probably be as much of a death sentence as trying to fight off the whole hyena army. We couldn't risk that, which meant that we were utterly trapped. Aside from the caves, there was nothing but open grassland for miles around. The hyenas wouldn't even have to break a sweat to sniff us out, but I wasn't planning on telling the others that. The last thing they had was hope, and I couldn't bear to take that away.

"All right," I finally said. "We're just gonna have to take our chances in the grasslands. Everyone stick close together and be ready to run."

The rest of the Pridelanders immediately shuffled together into a tight group, none of them looking particularly pleased about my decision. Then again, I would've have pretty surprised if they had.

I led the group to the edge of the clearing, where I stopped and took one last look at the outcropping of rock that had served as my home for the last nine months. For some reason, I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn't be returning for a long time. The harsh baying of a hyena brought me back to reality. We had to go. I glanced over at the rest of my pride. Nine anxious faces stared back at me.

Nine faces. Great. Just great.

"Where's Kima?" I asked the other cubs. Leave it to Kima to run off at a time like this, I thought as the rest of the Pridelanders fruitlessly looked for the scrawny beige cub.

"Right here," a disembodied voice replied. I swept over the clearing once again, but couldn't see the brown-furred cub anywhere. Where was he?

"I'm up here," the voice said, answering my unspoken question. Looking up, I could just barely make out Kima perched on a branch near the top of the same tree I had first seen him in. He was camouflaged so well by the thick branches and leaves that he was almost indiscernible from the ground.

"You guys go ahead," Kima continued as I squinted up at him. "I'm staying here. They'll never find me in this tree."

"Kima…" I said with a small smile. I should have known he'd be up in a tree somewhere, but then again it was nearly impossible to see him hidden between the bright green leaves even now. When Kima climbed up into the canopy, it was like he had turned invisible.

Invisible. He was invisible in the trees.

We would all be invisible in the trees.

"You're a genius," I said giddily, finishing the sentence I had started a moment before.

"I am?" Kima replied, looking just as confused as the rest of the Pridelanders.

"Come on down," I continued, a broad grin stretching out across my face. "I've got a better idea about where to hide." As Kima jumped down from the tree, Afya's eyes lit up, obviously having come to the same conclusion I had. The other cubs, however, still looked utterly baffled by my newfound confidence.

"Simba, what are you talking about?" Nala asked with a furrowed brow. "Where are we going to hide?"

"In plain sight," I answered with a laugh as I strutted out into the savanna. Once again, Kima had saved us. Not only had he shown me how we could hide from the hyenas, but he'd also given me an idea about where. I just hoped I could find the acacia forest again.

Boy, Kima just keeps saving everyone else's butts, doesn't he? He's definitely one of my favorite characters...but not my main favorite. My main favorite character gets to have the next two chapters focus on him and his backstory. I think I've already said who he is, or at the very least I've dropped a bunch of hints. In any case, you'll find out in a couple days! R&R (as always), and watch out for a quick update!