The Lion King: The Freak

Chapter 28: Battles and Wars IV: The Breaking Point

She had her prey—or, more accurately, her hostage. The strange, young feline in Kishindo's jaws was very alive, just unconscious—she couldn't take that sharp whack the lioness gave the back of her head. Without even whimpering, Kochai was out cold and defenseless.

Kishindo had her time to shine at last.

With a scream of mirth and aggression so wild that it hurt her throat, the lioness rose from the acres of tall, tanned grass that concealed her. Her sharp, grizzled features had changed, over the past months, but there was still no mistaking the hateful lioness's face.

Imagine, now, the shock Simba experienced. Then, imagine the satisfaction Kishindo got as she watched that cold wave of confused terror wash over the lion as he recognized what was going on—and who was responsible for it.

The red-maned lion's emotions were briefly replaced, though, with at least the pretense of calm comprehension and steeled anger. He turned toward Kishindo and hunched up his shoulders to make himself look as big and threatening as possible, ready to fight.

"Zira," he said coldly. "You survived."

"You sound surprised," Kishindo replied, snickering malevolently as allies and family flocked to Simba's side. Careful to not betray her intentions by looking over them too obviously, the lioness saw that her son was nowhere to be seen.

She began to walk backward, slowly, claws still extended and at her hostage's neck. Her foes began to move forward as well, but Kishindo warned them not to try to flank her by growling once, curtly, when an unfamiliar hyena at her ten o'clock position took one step in the wrong direction.

"What do you want?" Simba asked. He didn't dare take his eyes off Kishindo for a second; hopefully, everyone would know better than to try anything with her. They were fast and powerful warriors, but Kishindo was no pushover. Any hostage-rescue mission at this stage would end in disaster. "Just leave her and get out of here… and you won't be harmed."

"You're not in a position to make any demands, you fool," Kishindo snarled—at that, Simba palatably flinched and stopped in his tracks, watching as a trickle of blood began to make its way through Kochai's fur.

He turned, briefly, and glanced at Kiara with a questioning expression—where was Kovu? Everyone else was there at his side, but Kovu… where was he?

Kishindo was in charge; this was shown not only by the manner in which everyone was focused on her but by the manner in which she guided their actions without letting them know about it. No one in the group had mastered situational awareness to the degree that Freak had—they weren't anywhere near as smart as he was, and they never would be.

"What do you want?" Simba asked curtly. He spoke in a halting manner that told Kishindo that he was trying to think a way out of his situation, but it was alright. She'd considered everything she had to.

"I want you and my cute little son," the lioness said. "Dead, if you couldn't already guess." The malevolent, pleased gleam in her eye was a direct result of the slight jolt she saw in the lion's.

"I can't bargain with you like this," Simba said. "It's against our laws… I'm no longer the alpha of this pride."

Now, that took Kishindo off-guard, but it changed nothing. She simply snarled, and trailed her claws through the kitten's cheek. That vicious act made the fur on several Pride Landers' necks stand on end; clearly, the young female was very important to all of them. Maybe she was a false God of theirs or something—who knew?

"So who's your new cult-leader? Kovu?" Kishindo asked bluntly. "I should have trusted my instincts and killed that thing when he was freshly born."

"It's not Kovu," said a Methuselah of lion with a wild mane and slim build. "It's… someone whose mother tried to kill him when he was freshly born."

"Enough," Kishindo hissed, cutting short the few transient smiles that echoed through the group. "Kovu's not here—no matter. Simba, you're coming with me; if any of the rest of you take another step… Lolita gets it."

She let the threat hang, for a moment, before starting to move again. "I mean it," she added, quietly, almost tempting the horde to budge, to lean forward to hear her. "Don't move a muscle."

Simba looked around—that was all it took. The Pride Landers scarcely batted an eyelid as their ex-leader—supposedly—began to follow Kishindo, never getting closer than twenty yards.

Slowly, the two lions and little Kochai disappeared over the horizon, and Tanga suggested that they resume their posts and pray for the best. Hopefully, Simba would find a way to kill Zira and save Kochai, and hopefully, they wouldn't need his leadership while they remained vigilant at the border, keeping any evil out with the full force of their willpower and their physical beings.

Kiara closed her eyes, briefly. Kovu was out hunting, hopefully on his way back he'd pick up his mother's scent and guess what had happened. If he messed up in the slightest, though, Kochai would die. Maybe it was just better to hope that he noticed nothing.

"Gonna kill me?"

Those three words echoed around in Freak's head as he stood over his downed enemy, bleeding heavily and exhausted. His healing factor had burned out by the end of the fight; now, he was on his own. The li-tigon hurt more than he ever had in his life, but Kifo couldn't be much better. A hundred cuts were visible on his pale, limp form. Their depth into his flesh was proportional to how deeply Freak had slashed into him when he'd been eight feet taller rather than six; when he'd been six hundred pounds rather than a hundred and fifty.

The li-tigon's face was carefully neutral, but the manner in which he held his paw, claws extended, over his twin's face was most decidedly not. Kifo breathed heavily, struggling to look up at his foe—he was not successful; he was too weak. He coughed, once, so that a wide swath of blood dyed his neck and chest red.

"If you're gonna do it, you better do it fast. I'm gonna heal soon enough, and when I do, you'll be sorry you were ever born," Kifo growled, still defiant, still threatening, still millimeters from death—literally. Freak had set the points of his claws against the human's neck.

The li-tigon knew what he ought to do; he knew that if he failed to do it it might very well be that Kifo got up off the ground, regained his strength and form and arms and killed him. For his part, Freak wasn't exactly doing very well—if the fight was going to end in a manner of his choosing, it would have to end soon.

He now knew why he had never been able to conceive of himself killing his twin—it was something that he simply could not do. He could beat Kifo into a bloodied heap on the ground and he could take that weak, defenseless neck into his paw—but he couldn't perform the last, slight twitch required to separate the demon from existence.

Kifo's breathing had calmed; his chest slowly rose and fell, pumping oxygen and power through his form. Like scabs, blackish patches of scales and fur began to cover his skin; muscle inflated his body rapidly. But Freak still couldn't kill him, even when he began to laugh, holding his knife with a gradually steadying hand.

The li-tigon's mind raced, but he couldn't think of a way out of this one. He couldn't kill Kifo, but he couldn't allow the fight to continue—and yet, the more he delayed, the more likely it became that Kifo's weak attempts to get to his feet would succeed.

Now, the demon had the approximate build of a professional martial artist, and things weren't slowing down in the slightest. Slightly hampered by Freak's paw, rapidly shrinking in proportion to his own size, he began to laugh at his twin's cowardice and inability to kill.

The li-tigon closed his eyes for a second, looked away, then hissed—that shut Kifo up long enough to allow the demon to hear what he said next.

"Brother, you've done wrong. This is enough." With that final word, he released the demon… and then struck him across the face hard enough to throw Kifo to the ground, blasting every non-human part of him off, into the dust—except for his knife.

Kifo very nearly blacked out… but he managed to stagger to his feet a moment later, nothing more than a human with a knife and an armored set of pants several sizes too big for him. Looking at his arms, boney and frail with scarcely a sliver of flesh on them, Kifo became so furious that he couldn't see and simply screamed, red-faced—and in a final display of defiance and outrage, he rushed toward his enemy.

Freak simply stood, as strong and insurmountable as Pride Rock itself and stared into Kifo's eyes with all the intensity of his determination to end the threat he posed. The human kept running, for a moment—then he tripped, fell, and came to an unconscious stop inches from the li-tigon's feet.

Face inscrutable, Freak looked down at his twin, his enemy, his brother, the demon, the human Kifo. He could no longer harm anything or anyone in the Pride Lands… so what was Freak's next move?

Kishindo led Simba far from the northwestern frontiers of the Pride Lands. Although the red-maned lion had over an hour to figure out what was going on, he couldn't tell what the lioness had in mind—was she going to take him on a tour of the Outlands to show him the wretched poverty he'd forced her and her followers to live in? That seemed unlikely. If those were Kishindo's plans, she'd have been monologue the entire walk.

But she hadn't said a word.

Perhaps, like Simba, she knew that the more she said the more likely she was to give away something that she would do better not to. Or perhaps she was just savoring being in control of things for a chance in silence. The lion didn't know, and that was his problem in the first place.

Kochai had been well and truly knocked out, but Simba knew that she was still very alive. This hostage situation was different from the one Simba had already been in despite superficial similarities—Freak had taken a hostage to survive. Kishindo had taken a hostage, it seemed, to get Simba to kill himself or something. Her next actions were not predictable.

They were in the Outlands, by then, but only by a few hundred yards. The disparity between that territory and Simba's home was dichotomic, and he would have felt guilty for condemning even Zira to an existence in it if she wasn't holding Kochai's life in her paws, literally.

"So tell me, Zira," Simba said, finally, "what have you been doing ever since you half-drowned… what was it, eight months ago?"

"I've been doing," she replied curtly, "many things, unlike you. Now, be quiet. We're almost there."

"Where's 'there'?" Simba wanted to ask, but he knew not to push the lioness too much. His expression simply darkened as he realized—they were coming to what looked like a large lake with a placid yet ominous surface.

What was Kishindo doing; what did she mean by walking toward an outcropping of rock looking over the green, murky body of water? Surely, she didn't intend to pitch Kochai in?... although, if she did, that would be very good for Simba. The shock of plunging into water would wake the kitten up, and she'd have no trouble in swimming to shore even if she was still seeing stars from the blow she'd taken.

With that in mind, Simba forced his breath to quicken, slightly, after giving a very convincing rendition of a cut-short gasp. He couldn't read Kishindo's body language well enough to know whether or not his trick had worked, but he'd have to hope for the best.

Then he took note of a fact that threw a major wrench into his plans. The lake was still and seemingly lifeless because the larger, more active aquatic life-forms that dominated most other bodies of water in that part of the Land of the Spirits were prevented from existing by a very active population of crocodiles.

"Don't you dare," Simba said suddenly, finally realizing what Kishindo was about to do. "Zira, I'm begging you—leave her out of this. She's a harmless child."

The lioness laughed, once, long and shrill—but she didn't throw Kochai over. That was the one thing that kept Simba on a hair-trigger; the one thing that kept him from going over and crushing the vicious female into a pulp.

"I told you not to bring anyone else," Kishindo said. And, just like that, as Simba watched, she set Kochai's limp, unconscious form down on the rock… and then, briefly, shoved her off.

Simba watched as the cruel lioness laughed, even as he lunged forward, to save Kochai—something happened then, however, that he did not anticipate.

"Simba, take her! I'll get Kochai."

Kovu said that, and the red-maned lion looked just in time to see the dark male feint, distracting his mother from an unexpected angle before diving out of view, hitting the water almost exactly as the tigress kitten did. Simba gritted his teeth and focused his attention, entirely, on Kishindo—she'd adopted a fighting stance that he was unfamiliar with, he realized, and coursing with malice so pure that he smelled it in the air.

This would not be an easy fight, he realized, and that was without him having to ignore Kovu and Kochai's plight in order to prevail.

It was time to rock and roll.

The Black Army's Master used that exact wording when he mobilized his troops, bringing them out of a trance-like state into dynamic, rapid motion. Not requiring a second to acclimate themselves to consciousness, they began to run.

Although they weren't stealthy by any reasonable standard, the Black Army moved with a sort of precision and care that it rarely employed. Instead of mowing down foliage with their rifles to announce their presence and clear their path, they didn't fire a single round and ran around large elements of the environment instead of through them.

Shah was leading the band of killers, of course; armed significantly more heavily than they were and greater in size and power as well, the rest of the Black Army formed up in a rough phalanx around them, trailing soot and decay wherever they were.

They left the Jungle in minutes, and, shortly, were all but sprinting across the narrow, somewhat deadened buffer zone between it and the Pride Lands. Their Master urged them to hurry up, because the brief interval that he'd cleared for them to enter without detection would be over in a second—

They made it. All of them. Despite the powerful protections Simba, Rafiki, and Roderik had placed on the Pride Lands, they'd made it, and that fact made their Master smirk in twisted pleasure and satisfaction. He lost a great deal of control over his shock troops, but it didn't matter—they knew their mission, and they knew what their rewards would be when they completed it.

The Black Army collectively paused, stumbling, as they regained significant control of their bodies for the first time since they'd died. Their Master looked on, for a minute, before taking his attention elsewhere, to another meeting with his more autonomous servants and another campaign he was preparing to fight. The Black Army fighters shared very little between them—not race, not gender, not language—but they shared devotion to him, prowess in combat, and the deep, dark desire to finish off who had been a thorn in their Master's side for far, far too long.

They'd been shown, and had resultantly memorized, blurred, sketchy images of the freak warrior dating from his birth to his exile, and even some rare, smuggled footage of his adventures in the subcontinent. They knew what he looked like, what he fought like, and they even had a good handle on what he thought like—and they knew that between them, they had more than enough power to cleanly wipe him off the face of the map and then exfiltrate before the Pride Landers could swoop in and take them down.

As the Black Army fighters paused, briefly, enjoying the simple pleasures of controlling their hands, and the firearms attached to them, Shah remained the exception, looking to the northeast. He couldn't see their target, but, he knew, the freak was out there. Out there, and weakened from his fight with Kifo… or vice versa. It didn't matter. The survivor of the battle had to be wiped out.

"We're going to do this quickly," Shah said, turning around to address his subordinates. "Quickly, and cleanly. I don't want the fighting to take ten minutes—we have to be gone in fifteen. We're just going to run up, pump the mark's body full of bullets until he's nothing more than shredded flesh and blood on the ground—and then we're going to go. Understand? Samja?"

Perhaps not all of the fighters had an excellent grasp on English, especially not the accented variant that Shah spoke. They got the gist of it well enough, though, and collectively nodded—the Black leader nodded back, and turned again.

"I feel… like I did when I saw my brother the last time. There may be something going on that I have not prepared for…" He paused, briefly, recalling that his last oversight had resulted in him being blasted molecule from molecule.

Shah shook his head; this was no time to stop and think. It was time to move. And, beginning to chant their Master's dark, unholy name, the Black Army began to run, again, toward a distant but nearing speck on the horizon…

Freak recalled that the first time he'd carried someone—Uvuli—he had known, instinctively, how to gently clutch the scruff of her neck in his teeth without injuring her. Despite having lived a life in complete solitude, a life without seeing another predator carry a child in that manner once—he'd known how to transport her without hurting her.

He didn't mean to get sentimental after such a relatively insignificant memory, but it happened regardless. The li-tigon smiled, content that he'd be able to return to Uvuli alive—not in separate, bloody pieces.

Though, of course, she might be somewhat put off by the fact that he would bring home something of a pest with him: Kifo.

The human was very unconscious and quite safe, splayed across Freak's back. Ostensibly, he would remain so for quite some time—the blow he'd been dealt and the exertion he'd undergone were more than enough to put him out for the better part of a full day. Hopefully, in that time, Rafiki and Roderik would figure out some way to help him…

Freak felt strangely sure that they would. He'd shaken Kifo to his core, literally—and now, all the human required was building up. He was, and always had been a shell of a being presumably since he was very, very young. It would take time, of course, but Kifo's case was not a lost one.

He was making his way, alone, except for his unconscious twin, across a vast expanse of open land. This was where the majority of the pride's hunting took place; though, at the moment, he detected no prey animals for quite a ways. The Sun was before him, and he walked toward it, unaware of quite how majestic he looked, carrying his fallen but not lost brother across the bare plain toward, hopefully, repentance and recovery.

The li-tigon was hopeful, very hopeful, and remained so until the first bullet was fired.

Out of sheer luck—sheer luck, not the actions of the Spirits—he was not hit. But the shot was so close that he heard as well as felt it racing past him; the conical metal projectile trailed a tornado of turbulent air that raked across the li-tigon's mane.

Getting shot at had almost become one of Freak's hobbies, of late; he knew exactly what was going on not just due to the extensive, life-saving training he'd received from Raj but due to the recent showdown with Shah and his gang, and the even more recent war with his own twin.

Hopefully, all that experience would be enough to let him fight and win against the distant, approaching band of monsters that had attacked him. Freak saw them approaching quickly from the south, and stood his ground—pausing only to set Kifo down, some dozen yards away, before watching, stoically, as he was approached.

The li-tigon was aware that despite the fight he'd just been part of, he wasn't remotely fatigued or drained—he'd been running most of the encounter on the collected energy of the Land he was protecting, adrenaline, and months of preparation. For this one, though, he'd have no advantages—just his mind and body. That was all.

And it might not be enough.

As the Black Army approached, Freak realized just how difficult of a fight he had before him. Granted, he was maned and strong and fast and brilliant—but the vicious drones that were approaching him were, on average, over six and a half feet tall with blackened marks all over their bodies, marking them as the property of their Master. Freak saw, horribly, that dehumanizing them as walking guns was very fair, because their firearms were built into their flesh. Raj would have drooled over the modern pieces of technology melded with organic being, but Freak saw them for what they were.

"You're disgusting," the li-tigon said, mostly to himself, as the Black Army slowed, still seventy five yards off. "And sad. Who are you… what are you, and who are you fighting for?... You're not like Kifo, or someone would have seen you coming…"

Or, perhaps, the Pride Landers were in an even more desperate position than they realized. Regardless, Freak's objectives did not change. These monsters, whatever they were, were a threat to him at the very least—more likely, their intentions were much, much bigger than him. They'd initiated aggressions and were still actively engaging him… they had to be destroyed.

As the bony, massive fighters got closer, Freak blinked—and leaned forward, slightly; the standard combat initiation procedures that he'd spent a lifetime perfecting running themselves automatically. He knew the relative homogeneity of the land; he knew the soil texture; he knew all environmental conditions and their variability—and he also knew that in an open theater like this, he'd have a very, very hard time not getting shot. What he didn't know was how on Earth that smell—that smell —could have found its way into the Pride Lands.

But as the Black Army got closer, Freak noted that one fighter, the vanguard, in fact, was significantly bigger than his followers. And, with paradoxically growing calm and trepidation, the li-tigon nodded—there was no mistaking that mockery of a handsome, angled face. Well, there was… but not for him. This wasn't Raj.

"Shah."

"In the flesh," the Black leader replied, finally slowing his run to a walk, some twenty yards from the li-tigon. He didn't have to tell the rest of the Army to spread out and flank; they were already doing it on their own. In an environment like this, Shah noted, with a cold sense of satisfaction, they'd gun down their enemy without even needing to aim.

"You've changed since we last met."

"Impressed?" the ex-human replied, giving his muscled frame a sort of jolt, showing off the unnatural vascularity of his build.

"That's not the word I'm looking for."

Freak had guts to talk that way to a being that looked the way Shah did. Like the rest of the Black Army, his abdomen simply did not exist—it tapered down to his spinal column, giving him the appearance of a body that had been torn apart and then reattached, sans the belly area. That wasn't all, though.

He was armed with a heavy-barreled variant of an FN MAG, a powerful, rapid-fire machinegun that could and had been used to cut living beings in half at over a hundred yards. It was melded into his right hand, yes—but he didn't have to reload, ever. A constant belt of ammunition flowed, horribly, out of an area behind his shoulder, somewhere near his deltoid. The linked rounds were somewhat bloody and darkened, so it could be inferred that, perhaps, they came directly from whatever approximation of a heart the fighter had.

"So you defeated Kifo," Shah said, slowly, maliciously reaching behind his back to draw a jagged sort of machete from a pouch within his own flesh. "That's interesting. You don't look very damaged—was it easy?"

Freak didn't answer. Instead, he looked to his left, then his right, quite aware of how impossibly fast he'd have to move to avoid being torn apart by a torrent of gunfire. He was going to be injured, he knew, and there was nothing he could do to prevent that. He could win—probably—but preventing himself from getting shot to death or at least to the point that he'd bleed out in a desperate struggle to get help… he didn't know if he could do that.

The li-tigon realized that he was adopting a defeatist attitude, and gritted his teeth the slightest amount. His mind drifted, for an instant, to the vicious fights he'd got into before he was old enough to realize that there existed a world outside of the Jungle. The Black Army was going to be hard to fight, but he'd taken on stauncher opposition before. These half-dead drones were just another threat.

"I wonder," Shah continued, taking care to check the chamber of his machinegun—of his arm—and level it, outstretched, at the feline, "when I kill you, what will happen? There is a Heaven and Hell, to be sure, but only people can go to them. Maybe you'll just end, you fucking freak."

Years had passed, as well as any number of skin-thickening experiences. But Freak couldn't help but wince, the slightest amount, as he was reminded of his unnatural nature. He didn't dwell on it for long, though—he focused on his friends, and his desire to see them again.

And Kifo. And his desire to heal him—somehow.

It was unclear who moved first, but it really didn't matter. Freak leaped forward and Shah opened fire, or Shah opened fire and Freak leaped forward. A vicious, constant line of machinegun fire tracked the li-tigon as he rose into the air, but Freak was fast—and Shah wasn't a great shot. Tracers were launched into the air, coming, at best, within several feet of their target, and by the time Freak was getting close enough that even Shah couldn't miss, he was close enough to strike.

Annoyingly, Freak had had to jump fairly high to dodge the heavy .308 bullets that were launched in his direction; he couldn't bring Shah to the ground. What he could do, however, was lightly strike with his forepaws—left, then right—then, after mostly sailing over the Black leader's head, strike out with his hind legs, knocking Shah forward rapidly enough to make him stumble and fall.

Then, the rest of the Black Army opened up.

Freak hit the ground with only two bullets in him; neither of them more than a pinprick against his nearly six hundred pound body. He noticed that he'd been hit, to be sure, but he simply had bigger concerns than the two bullets in him.

On either side, Shah was flanked by a half dozen of his Master's finest: marvelous specimens of human prowess and strength in life, they were now simply terrifying in post-life. With spiked bits of bone extending from their bodies in random locations, they looked painful to touch—and that was without the burned, blackened scabs that covered their skin

They weren't that scary, though, Freak thought with a grim sense of determination as he killed his momentum and flipped over, feeling several torrents of gunfire slice through the space that he'd occupied a second before—they could be defeated. They were too angry and clumsy and overpowered to control themselves; Freak would be able to beat them if he was quick and careful and didn't give them a chance to get used to how he fought.

With that in mind, the li-tigon dodged to one side, knowing that it would be at least a few seconds before Shah was able to pick himself off the ground and fight back. In that time, somebody was gonna get a-hurt real bad.

Freak sidestepped, once, before lowering his shoulder and racing forward. He sprinted forward in a simple charge, taking advantage of the fact that each Black fighter's transformation had left them muscled, yes, but with little real mass. Within a meter of his first target, he jumped again, slightly, wrapping one foreleg around the ex-human's waist and running one three legs.

The li-tigon tucked his head to the side and barreled through the rest of the Black Army on the side he'd targeted, knocking them out of the way with stunning ease. He felt several bones break, and knew that he'd done well.

Freak had little time before the other half of the Black Army would begin to fire arm, deciding to shoot through their pinned comrade to get at him—but it would have to be enough. Digging his claws into the former human's back, just next to his spine, he pulled, almost hard enough to rip the fighter's entire backbone out.

As a result, Freak was straddling his enemy, having thrown him to the ground. Before the rest of the Army could react to what he'd done, he'd torn up the grounded fighter's chest, and quickly, brutally finished him off by reaching through the shattered, weakened bones of his chest and ripped out a few purplish organs with his jaws.

He was a second too slow, though—because then, Shah and the rest of the Army managed to knock him off his enemy by drilling him with a painful burst to the upper chest.

The li-tigon gasped but that didn't slow his escape; he dived forward and left his enemy to writhe, briefly, before falling still in bloody death. His paws were blackened and burning, but he ignored it—he had to take out the rest of the Army.

This was a job made easy by simply running in a manner that put the large, struggling fighters that he'd downed but not killed between himself and the active gunmen of the Black Army. Clearly, they had learned very little about the danger of so-called friendly fire, or they had unconsciously relied on their Master to treat them as a single unit even then—because, in a moment, Freak's enemies' numbers had been halved.

With a unwontedly cocky smile on his face, the li-tigon continued to move, ignoring the pain in his chest. He could do this.

By the time Kovu was in the water, Kochai had been under for several seconds and was the object of several large crocodiles' hunger. What would make things difficult, at least, was the fact that the kitten had not been jolted to her senses—Kishindo had struck her so hard that even the basic reflexes that would have brought her back had been put out of commission.

She was alive, though. And that's what made Kovu forget about his own safety and dive.

A cabal of the loathsome reptilians had been swimming underwater, idly, when Kochai was thrown almost directly into their midst. After a second of surprise, they broke formation and lazily made their way toward the sinking but fresh meal, slitted eyes glittering with primal hate.

Kovu was no great swimmer, but he did what he could. He managed—barely—to throw himself between the first bite and Kochai's hapless form.

Getting bitten by an aquatic predator that could have taken him at extreme close range on land was no joke. Kovu gritted his teeth as he felt a dozen of the crocodile's misaligned, yellowed teeth pop through his fur, entering his flesh—the damage wasn't serious, though, because he'd been smart and taken the bite in such a way that the crocodile couldn't roll or otherwise rip his foreleg off.

It thrashed around a little, of course, but Kovu was too big to be manhandled. With that in mind, he reached back, into the gullet of the crocodile itself, extended his claws, and tore a long, debilitating gash across the roof of the monster's mouth. Furious red blood twisted into the lake, and the beast let go—without waiting a second to see if it would come back, Kovu went for Kochai.

She'd touched the bottom of the lake for the first time, bouncing, slightly, with the normal force suddenly applied to her feet, when Kovu was on her, swimming quickly. She still wasn't waking up, and that was bad. Going comatose underwater was a good way to end up brain dead—or just dead.

The dark lion had almost reached Kochai when another crocodile struck him from above, and this time, Kovu hadn't been prepared. The only thing that prevented his head from being enveloped in those vicious, powerful jaws was his mane. The thick, protective fur took the brunt of the bite, but Kovu was still yanked off course; he was still delayed, and that was the one thing that neither he nor Kochai could afford.

Kovu was running out of air and fighting in an environment that he had scarcely even entered in his life, and Kochai still wasn't waking up. Even if Simba was winning the fight against Kishindo, it was likely that both the dark lion and the tigress would be seriously injured or worse.

To avoid being charged again, the Black Army spread out into a rough double-layered firing squad. Those at front knelt, firing from the hip and those behind them stayed on their feet, spraying gunfire from outstretched "hands" or from the shoulder.

Attacking such a formation with a frontal rush would be suicidal; Freak had to change tactics. He adjusted his course and dived to the side, rolling, flinching as a slew of bullets ate up the air just next to him.

At least the ground was conducive to quick changes in velocity. Unlike the Pride Lands' northwest, where loose sandy dominated, there was grass here, and the soil was wet and thick and Freak could get his claws into it.

Divots were blown out of that moist, dense soil, inches from Freak's position. The li-tigon ignored it, though—he had to be constantly on the offensive to win this fight.

As he ran, Freak strafed, crossing his paws in a manner that would have tripped almost anyone else. He moved around the Black Army almost as if he was circling them; in fact, he was looking for a weak point to exploit and he estimated that the rear of the group would be easy to attack.

What the li-tigon had not considered was how strong and fast Shah was once sufficiently pissed off.

Freak saw a blur and tried to dodge, but there was no time. The Black leader was on him before he could so much as raise a paw in defiance. The li-tigon could do nothing to prevent Shah from striking him, then, across the jaw, with enough force to launch him into the air.

He tasted blood but recovered quickly, tossing his hindquarters to one side so that he would land on his feet. Shah tried to raise his machinegun to fire, standing perpendicular to the li-tigon—but Freak was too fast. He was injured, sure, but not in such a way that he was prevented from moving and fighting.

To be sure, the li-tigon's offensive capabilities were largely decreased. He wouldn't have time to fix his jaw; he'd have to accept the fact that it was dislocated for now. His claws and paws were just as good of weapons, and Freak could make do with them. He'd have to.

Shah was nearly able to shoot him, but now that Freak was locked onto the Black leader, he was faster. The li-tigon dodged to the side, and, in a heartbeat, was within yards of the machine-gunner, close enough to strike.

Instead of pinning him down and going for the kill, immediately, Freak noted that Shah had taken one of his weapons. He was only reciprocating.

The heat and roar of the thirty-cal was intense, particularly when the li-tigon's head drifted just next to its muzzle—spent casings struck and bounced off his form, leaving behind slightly singed patches of fur. Freak jumped up, slightly, reaching out a precisely the right moment, not to strike or claw Shah—but instead, to get the upper half of his foreleg between the Black leader's flesh and the belt of ammunition emanating from within.

Once Freak felt his paw enter that slight crevice, he turned, arcing his paw forward. Effectively and literally, Shah's ammunition supply was cut short as the belt was severed, causing several rounds to come free, spinning in lazy circles through the air as they fell.

Apparently, the ex-human weapons were as much a part of his body as his own blood. Shah screamed, then, even as he tried to reach around with his lithe, boney hand to try to slip the belt of ammunition back into his machinegun—Freak ignored him again, and took advantage of the fact that the rest of the Black Army had had to cease fire while their leader attacked unilaterally.

The li-tigon charged them directly, knowing that they wouldn't dare to fire when their bullets might go past or through him to strike Shah. They saw this quickly, however, and began to disperse to take him from the sides, pressing the triggers of their rifles and not letting go when their leader was out of danger.

Freak knew that he would have a difficult time beating the Black Army if he allowed them to split up and move around, fighting as autonomous units—he'd have to herd them together to take them down, otherwise they'd just sacrifice one of their own and gun him down from long range.

With that in mind, the li-tigon moved quickly to circle around the Black fighters that had peeled right, running too fast to be hit. He feinted, repeatedly, playing a very dangerous game—the more he ran around without actually attacking, the more likely the Black Army was to get lucky and put a bullet in a place that he'd really feel.

Freak maintained that tactic for a moment, however, until the Black fighters that he was harassing had unconsciously fallen back, close enough to one another that he could attack with decreased risk and some guarantee of success.

The li-tigon dived low, then, taking out the ex-humans' legs. They broke like toothpicks against his might, shattered beyond all reasonable hopes of repair—at least, they would have been if they couldn't bind themselves together and heal in moments.

At least Freak had a few seconds to kill them, or try to, while the rest of the Army tried to pick a shot on him without damaging their comrades.

The li-tigon truly felt the lack of a working pair of jaws, then; he was unable to yank firearms or heads off the Black Army nearly as effectively as he'd have liked to. His alternative wasn't idea, but still fairly beneficial—Freak sliced through the connective tissue at one fighter's elbow with a vicious three-claw strike, grabbed his MG36 in his paw and pushed forward, pressing against the fighter's chin.

As a result, that fighter lost his entire forearm and his weapon along with it before Freak was forced to jump away as another downed fighter began to shoot, screaming something in a North Germanic language that the li-tigon did not understand. He briefly considered taking out that fighter, as well, but moved on to the task of rounding up the other half of the Black Army, leaving Shah helpless save for the five rounds he still had belted into his machinegun.

The Black fighters seemed to realize what he was doing; rather than backpedalling in response to his vicious faux-assaults, they stood their ground and fired at him from close range. Freak took a bullet to the bicep—and that made him realize he needed to switch things up a little.

How he would do that seemed obvious, once the li-tigon realized that Shah was still swearing loudly and trying to reload his weapon. The Black leader had gotten a finger on a link of ammunition and was actually starting to pull when Freak attacked.

Five thirty caliber rounds are no laughing matter, but Shah didn't have the cool-headed marksmanship skills needed to bring the powerful cat down on demand. In the pretense of calm, he raised his weapon to his shoulder and fired five single shots—but it was useless. Freak had him again.

As the li-tigon carried him toward his subordinates, Shah had an idea, this time, of how to retaliate. His left hand, once a working appendage, solidified into a pointed, conical sort of stabbing implement. Made with hate, he plunged into his attacker over and over and over again, swearing as the tip of the blade grazed off of Freak's thick fur and muscle and flesh—then, though, Shah found a weak spot and sunk his spear, his hand, deep into the li-tigon's back.

His response was a cry of pain, but even as Shah ground that vicious blade around he did not feel himself slow down. Freak didn't stop, didn't throw his enemy away—he just gritted his teeth and snarled and kept running.

For once, it was Shah's turn to feel a helpless mix of fear, outrage, and confusion. He shouted out, "What are you?" and tried again to get the li-tigon to release him. "What kind of a freak are you?"

The answer, it seemed, was the kind that would beat the Black Army without assistance of any kind.

Freak selected his second target, then, and tackled a North African Black fighter with Shah on his shoulder. The three of them fell down, together, but the li-tigon muscle his way to the top and managed to take out a chunk of flesh at the African's neck—not quite killing him, but severely injuring him at least.

Shah still had his hand in the li-tigon, but Freak ignored it for the moment and struck the Black leader's chest, twice—hard. He felt something give, and knew that he'd cracked or broken Shah's ribs. For now, that was good enough.

The ex-human cursed him as a coward for not finishing the job then and there, but in his life, the li-tigon had been called far, far worse. He left Shah severely injured and pinned under his even worse-off comrade—both of them were alive, but, hopefully, that would not be true for much longer.

Simba had to hand it to Kishindo—she fought like a lioness half her age, but retained all the ferocity of a female that had done nothing but accumulated rage and hate for the better part of a lifetime. She was fast and seemed to think things out several moves ahead of him; the red-maned lion struggled to defend himself, incapable of mounting an offensive that lasted longer than a swipe or two.

Quickly, the fight moved away from the cliff edge; Simba was too busy trying to keep up to ask himself why. His snarling, merciless adversary was forcing him into the wide-open plains that covered much of the Pride Lands' most fertile areas—although he didn't know it, she was doing it simply to clinch her victory. Without any significant environmental elements to turn to in absolute desperation, Kishindo was eliminating the variable of luck, one that had never fallen in her favor. This battle would be a simple contest of skills; Simba would not be able to prevail.

For a second, Kishindo fell back, tensing her muscles and circling somewhat, quickly checking herself and her foe for injuries. She was all right—he was too, but he was breathing decidedly more heavily than she was. After allowing the lull to go on just long enough to make Simba unconsciously lower his guard the slightest amount, Kishindo attacked on what her footwork had said was an off beat—unprepared for the sudden assault, Simba had to take a palatable step back.

"You're PATHETIC," she shrieked, chaining up a series of alternating claw-strikes that left a jagged, bloody cut across the unprotected flesh on Simba's muzzle. "Miserable. How you defeated Scar, I'll never know. It doesn't matter—when I'm finished with you, all anyone will ever say of you is that you made a big mistake the day you decided to oppose me."

The former Lion King did not reply. He knew better than to let Kishindo's words get to him; besides, when she was monologuing he saw how he might defeat her speed and agility—with a move he'd seen Freak implement several times to stunning effect. The lioness was quick to dodge and parry, but some brute-force maneuvers she could not evade.

Simba darted forward at the precise second that Kishindo was in the middle of a prolonged attack—he took the brunt of her painful and not insignificant blows to the toughest parts of his body while he smashed his tough skull into hers. Instead of striking through Kishindo, he stopped, abruptly, transferring every Newton-meter of momentum he'd held to her. And, since the lioness weighed a lot less than he did, there was nothing she could do to prevent herself from going flying.

Mentally, the red-maned lion thanked his cousin, holding his position before slowly standing in a calm, assertive stance, head canted at his enemy—Kishindo looked at him, outraged and confused and concerned all at once, and Simba had known that he'd imitated Freak nearly to a tee. But there was one more thing that he had to do…

"Are you threatening me?" he asked, seriously. "Don't threaten me. I'll kill you. I can do it, and I will do it. Don't threaten me." He said all that in a flat, monotone voice—or at least, to the best of his ability. By the end of his brief tribute to the li-tigon, Simba was snickering at the throbbing veins visible all over Kishindo's bloodied face. He'd dealt a palatable blow, and perhaps he'd done a little something for his morale as well.

The lioness said something then far less creative and entertaining to dream up in response. Simba's ears flattened and he winced, but he didn't say anything else. He'd had his fun; now it was time to get his head back into the game and fight to win. Kochai and Kovu's struggle was still far from decided, and, if possible, Simba wanted to give them a hand—and to do that, he'd need to defeat the snarling, foamy-at-the-mouth lioness before him.

Kovu broke free of the three or four crocodiles attacking him. But not without serious injury.

He hadn't killed or even significantly hurt any of the vicious reptiles—he'd just gotten them to back off long enough for him to grab a breath of air at the surface and then dive. The dark lion couldn't see well, because blood—his blood—mixed with sediment and swirled around in the water, becoming a dirty dark brown cloud that was difficult to visually penetrate.

He knew where Kochai was, though, because he'd taken note of the exact formation of the lakebed around her when he'd been able to see her. Image his horror, then, when he came to that exact spot… and did not find the kitten.

Desperately, Kovu searched—he knew it wouldn't be long before the leviathans sharing the lake with him got brave again and attacked. He was running out of time, but Kochai's plight was far, far more desperate…

He saw her, then, in the worst position imaginable.

Moments before, Kochai had been held in the mouth of a lioness. Now, she was held in the mouth of a crocodile.

It was almost like the beast was savoring her, or the fear it saw in Kovu when it drifted by some thirty yards away, lazily clutching his small morsel with an almost taunting glare in its cold, merciless eye. Whatever it was, it made the dark lion roar a hot stream of angry bubbles and propel himself forward—he had to save Kochai, injuries and risks be damned.

Kovu's actions really were selfless. He did not know how vital it was that Kochai lived—all he was doing was attempting to save her without any ulterior motives at heart. Though he hadn't known the young tigress for very long, he had come to love her, as had every other lion in the Pride.

The crocodiles attacked again, but this time, he was ready for them. He knew their weak points and he knew how to minimize the injuries their crushing bites inflicted—he tucked his limbs in when they attacked and waited until they bared the ribbed scales covering their underbellies to him. Then, he lashed out with deep, cutting claws, gouging out non-trivial amounts of tissue in the process.

Fighting back in such a manner was quite effective, it seemed, and Kovu was out of danger after just a few seconds of struggling. Unfortunately, in the process, he'd lost Kochai.

The lone reptile that had taken her was nowhere to be seen, and the dark lion very nearly panicked as, in desperation, he made his way to the vector the crocodile had seemingly traveled along. He followed a weakly projected path drawn by its motion—and, out of pure luck, Kovu found the one he was looking for.

But it no longer had Kochai in its mouth.

It took Kovu a sickeningly long second to realize what that meant. The beast had consumed her—or was in the process of doing just that. But there was still a chance that she might be saved, and that slight hope made the dark lion swim faster than he ever had before in his life and mount the crocodile's back.

The aquatic predator thrashed and did all it could to throw him off, but Kovu held on with all four of his limbs, winding them tightly around its thick, powerful form. As the beast's rough back scales bruised Kovu's belly, the dark lion saw a collection of dark shapes gathering in the water all around him—in a moment, he wouldn't be fighting just one croc.

A source of hope, though, was the thought that above the water, Simba was beating his mother once and for all. Another was the fact that the disturbing lump he felt just below the crocodile's gullet was struggling—Kochai was alive and literally kicking. Kovu gritted his teeth, then, and dug his claws into his enemy's flesh. He pulled rapidly, but precisely, making a gaping but precise wound.

And a second later, Kochai had escaped. The impromptu Cesarean had been successful.

Kovu released the dying animal in his arms, then, and made brief eye contact with the tigress kitten. How she'd managed to hold her breath so long would remain a mystery to the dark lion for the rest of his life—but she wasn't going to be able to maintain that feat for much longer. Even as Kochai looked around to assess the situation, she was visibly struggling, flinching, only barely resisting the urge to sprint for the surface immediately.

Desperately, Kovu looked up, down, left, right, and several other directions for an escape. But they'd been in the water for far too long; they'd stirred the pot far too much, even in comparison to shock jockeys like Smerconish, Beck, and Maddow. Crocodiles had poured in from every attached body of water within some hundred yards—there were so many of them that they blotted out the Sun, circling around Kovu and Kochai in a giant, living sphere.

There was no legitimate reason why Kovu couldn't think of an escape—there had to be a way out of this, he just wasn't able to see it. He'd have to open his eyes soon, though, or—ah. Ah…

He hadn't been able to think of a way out of this situation because there wasn't a way out of it, not for the both of them.

Kovu looked at Kochai for what felt like a long moment although only a second or so passed as their enemies almost danced around them, very occasionally parting to allow a brief, refracted ray of sunlight down into the water. She was innocent, he realized, and beautiful—not like him, dark and full of sin. He was mated, though… she was just a cub. Letting the crocodiles fight over her while escaped, really, wouldn't be that bad—and no one would ever, ever know that he'd done it.

The real depth of the moral battle Kovu faced, just then, could not be fully appreciated—there wasn't enough time, but perhaps that was best. The dark lion wasn't sure what he'd decided quite yet, but he was sure that he had just a little more time. Time enough to touch Kochai for the last time and to hold her and to wish that he was above water so he could say that no matter what would happen next, he did not hate her.

Freak's unmarred eye was bruised almost shut, and he was bleeding—severely.

His adversaries were doing just as bad as he was, though, or worse. So, technically, he'd won.

In separate parts, the Black Army lay strewn about the southern Pride Lands. The li-tigon had carefully, methodically killed all of them, some in rather brutal manners—all but one. And that one survivor was Shah.

The li-tigon hauled himself toward his enemy. He'd been shot repeatedly in the legs, and it would take him some time to recover from the massive fresh damage that had been done to him—but it was alright. He was alive, and, in moments, Shah no longer would be.

For his part, the Black leader was clawing at the ground, crawling away. As he tried to escape the Pride Lands, he disintegrated rapidly; the dark armor and weapons that defined him falling away into nothingness. But he was still alive, at least for the moment.

Freak coughed, and tried to hurry up. He nearly fainted, but clung to consciousness with sheer willpower—and hope. The Sun was setting to the west, his right, but the li-tigon felt that a new day had dawned on his home. Kovu was defeated, the Black Army was minutes from complete obliteration…

And yet, the li-tigon did not feel that all was well. A few very important questions remained… and until they were answered, Freak knew that he wouldn't be able to rest. A few questions he'd formed only recently—for example, he wanted to know about Kovu, and, just as importantly, how he came to be. Other questions, though, had been in the shadows of Freak's memory ever since birth, at least in one case. One of his earliest memories… it just didn't add up with everything else he'd ever seen or been told in his life.

Freak shook his head and stumbled forward—finally, he was on Shah, and he knew that this was an enemy he could kill. Shah was no twin of his—he was an evil enemy warlord whose life had been defined by violence and terror. His stain was out of place on the somewhat wet, verdant grass beneath him.

With that in mind, the li-tigon turn his enemy over with a paw, an exertion that nearly made him pass out. Shah laughed, then, and Freak froze, seeing why.

The Black leader coughed up wisps of blood that evaporated into smoke and then nothingness as he looked up at the li-tigon with a defiance not unlike the final emotion his brother had had, though Freak didn't know this for certain, of course. Shah was holding a large-bore revolver—and had managed to level it at Freak's head. In his state, at that range… there was nothing the li-tigon could do to prevent his brains from being blown out.

Shah's jaw quivered; he was trying to speak. Freak tried to run or attack or dodge—but he was too exhausted. It was all he could do to remain upright and motionless, staring down at his enemy dumbly. Was he really going to die?... no motivation gave him the wings he needed, just then. He was too injured, too exhausted…

The ex-human's lips parted, shaking, and he managed to laughed, tiredly—he knew his own fate, but throwing the li-tigon's own sudden death in his face was just too fun, too cruel of an opportunity to let pass. Slowly, his finger tightened on the trigger.

A second later, the gun went off.

The bullet struck Freak, a centimeter from permanently injuring him and an inch from killing him. It streaked along the side of his face—don't misunderstand. It didn't graze him; it did real flesh damage by tearing the li-tigon's fur apart and drawing a bloody red line from his jaw to his ear. It neatly punched a hole through the thin sliver of black and white and orange and tan flesh at the tuft of his ear, in fact, displacing a pressure wave intense enough to send a dull, loud buzzing echoing inside Freak's head.

Out of exhaustion and injury alike, the li-tigon fell aside. In the process, he landed partially on his jaw, causing a jolt of pain so intense that it made him twitch to run through him. He was not dead, but only just—and Shah hadn't missed. His aim had been disrupted…

With rapidly blurring vision, Freak watched as a thin, pale figure stood over Shah's decaying form. His savior—was it his mother? She had pale fur, right?... or perhaps it was Sarabi, or Nala, or Asal? They were all fair-furred…

But none of them were bipedal. And none of them could hold or manipulate knives, not like the pale man before him was—finally, the li-tigon got it. He wasn't being saved by an angel, his savior was not sent by the Spirits and he came from some place other than Heaven.

Regardless—Kifo was saving him, there was no doubt about that. He'd kicked Shah's gun aside and then disarmed him; now, he was resting his knee on the ex-human's chest, pinning him as he neatly sliced through the Hindustani's throat—then stood up, watching as the Black leader, like the army he had headed, vanished into nothing more than a darkened patch on the ground.

Freak tried to get up, but he realized that he really had nothing left. He'd worked himself to exhaustion, and it was only through years of practicing transcending the limits of his body that he was able to keep himself from passing out, immediately. He breathed, slowly, painfully aware that the long he went without fixing his jaw the harder and more painful it would be to relocate it—but he couldn't do more than twitch, at best.

Not even as Kifo stood, turned, and walked toward the li-tigon with an inscrutable expression on his face. He knelt and Freak struggled to hear what he said next, but he was too tired. With the most dangerous being anyone had ever conceived not five feet from him, the li-tigon finally fell into unconsciousness.

Kochai would have been confused, then, if she wasn't scared out of her mind. As far as she could tell, she'd somehow teleported from some five yards away from Simba into a tight, somewhat acidic environment that she'd clawed her way out of with Kovu's help—then, she'd found herself in a dirty lake absolutely packed with crocodiles, one of which was slowly falling away with its underbelly torn to shreds.

Then, she'd realized exactly what the confined space that she'd escaped from was.

She was running out of air and the fact that Kovu grabbed her, suddenly, and squeezed her tightly did not help that fact. She squirmed, somewhat, not wanting the dirt and who knew what sort of miniature animal life to be pressed into her fur—despite being seconds from running out of air and one wrong move from getting swarmed by dozens of vicious crocs, she was still a meticulous, nearly OCD feline.

Kochai looked around, desperately; she wasn't quite as quick to realize that there was no escape as Kovu had been. She was actually looking away when the dark lion darted forward, preemptively attacking the largest crocodile of the bunch—a twenty foot monster with scars indicating that its life had been one of violence and aggression.

The very motion of the water was changed, then, by the amount of activity that resulted. Kovu and the beast fought and the rest of the crocodiles dived in as well in a sort of feeding frenzy, blinded by lust-like hunger to the point that, at least for the time being, Kochai was ignored. She stared at the carnage in front of her for a split second before she realized what was happening: Kovu was sacrificing himself for her.

She knew that she was too small, too weak to fend for herself against opposition like this much less bail out who she'd come to look upon as yet another big brother. She had to leave, immediately, if Kovu's death wasn't going to be in vain.

Blood exploded into the water; the crocodiles had their meal. Kochai had to swim directly through the solution; there was too much hemoglobin and plasma for the water to dilute into nothingness immediately. The water smelled and tasted like Kovu—that was what made her hesitate, just long enough for two or three ravenous beasts that weren't immediately able to get a scrap of flesh to notice her.

Kochai saw that some crocodiles had broken off of whatever remained of Kovu and swam as fast as she possibly could, racing for the surface, air, safety, escape. She was not a coward, but she knew when to cut her losses and run—and she knew when to honor brothers' dying wishes.

Kishindo was too fast for Simba. She wasn't nearly as big, but it didn't matter—she was fluid and dynamic and although the single serious blow she'd taken from him had significantly hurt her, she couldn't be touched. Simba found himself wishing that he'd saved his trump card for the end; now Kishindo knew the one way he might possibly injure her.

And she'd prepared for another bone-crushing headbutt by avoiding direct attacks to the lion's well-padded body. Instead, she attacked his weapons—she'd dance in and if he didn't raise a paw in defense, she'd get him right across the bridge of the snout. And when he did raise a paw in self defense, she'd go for that too quickly to be stopped. Thusly, Simba's forelegs were soon covered in deep cuts and bite-marks, some of them bleeding heavily and quite serious—it hurt to stand on all fours, and worst of all, the red-maned feline knew exactly what was happening.

Kishindo had been patient for over a lifetime; she had just enough patience left to fight a battle of attrition. While it was true that it would be satisfying to take risks and go for flesh-splitting bites to Simba's body, she recognize how much stronger and better protected from such attacks the lion was. She intended on slicing his forelegs to shreds, and then tearing out his hamstrings to immobilize the former Pride leader—then, she'd finally have her revenge.

For now, though, there was a lot of bloody work to do. That kind of worked for her.

The lioness found herself getting overexcited, and took a breather for a moment—that was enough to get her heartrate down, just in case Simba landed a serious blow. She didn't want to bleed out like her enemy would; a few seconds of simply circling and pacing weren't enough for Simba to relax. They weren't enough for Kishindo, either, but she'd never be able to rest until she finally took the goal she'd been striving toward for years: Simba's life.

The temptation to start monologuing again was nearly unbearable; Kishindo could have spent hours, literally, detailing exactly how much and why she hated her enemy. Before she succumbed to that deadly desire, though, the lioness attacked again with renewed vigor and speed—she wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible so that she could go and help the crocodiles finish off whatever remained of her boy.

A trio of claw strikes—low then middle then high—knocked Simba's thickened foreleg aside, then drew dark gashes across the unprotected flesh near his elbow. Kishindo was annoyed by his almost legendary mane; back in the old days when Scar's death was still fresh on everyone's memory she and several other Outlanders had found out just how impenetrably tough that auburn fur was in a botched ambush in far south.

Now, though, Simba's mane wouldn't save him. Nothing would. She was finally in control of things, and, finally, his damned lionesses wouldn't be around to save him.

Smiling cruelly the entire time, Kishindo began to rack up injuries of increasing severity. Simba's flesh was shredded—let him make his slight advances, it didn't matter if she had to back up as long as she could continue to attack. He wasn't so overwhelmingly huge that he could simply eat everything she did to him. Soon enough, she knew, he'd collapse out of exhaustion or injury and that would be the end of him.

By then, the Pride leader was barely able to support himself on his forelegs. His face was coated by a shining layer of blood and it was hard for him to see, but he had seen that Kishindo had fallen into her strategy too deeply—her devotion to weakening him and then finishing him within minimal risk was too great. By being dynamic to the point that Simba could maneuver her to any significant degree and failing to take into account the risks he was willing to take, she'd put herself in a great deal of danger.

They were fighting near where things had started, some five yards from the cliff that Kochai had been tossed off of. At this point, Simba couldn't move his forelegs at all without a great deal of pain, and even then, he could barely get them to twitch the way he wanted to. He was running out of time…

Panting, he looked at Kishindo with desperation—then, he looked past her. This was his home, this land of sprawling savannah and forest and, yes, lakes sometimes overfilled with near-sentient predators that could take apart lions in single combat in their element. She was a threat to it and had been ever since she'd joined Scar's fanatic legion, all those years ago.

Simba was not the Lion King, but in this case, that fact was helpful. His life wasn't as necessary; to protect his home, he could sacrifice it without too much worry.

With that in mind, the red-maned lion lowered his shoulder and charged. Kishindo saw it coming and tried to dance out of the way—but there wasn't enough room. Somehow, the former King managed to grab her in his forelegs, racing forward with lower body strength alone carrying him, and her… clean off the edge of the cliff.

She screamed in midair, and Simba did not know why. He didn't know that the one thing she hadn't been able to change in the past months was her fear of water.

Now they saw why they had been stationed in the northwest: there was something going on in the Forbidden Island, and it made the dark day when Kifo was created look like nothing.

A hot, reddish blast tore the sky and Earth apart with a sonic roar, one so loud that it hurt the Pride Landers to hear it. It really was a terrifying experience, even in the safest region in the Land of the Spirits—the discharge of power that caused that display was simply excess energy bled off into an evil celebration.

Rafiki and Roderik stood at the vanguard of the Pride Lands' troops. They chanted, rapidly, working against the steady flow of darkness that threatened to break down the barriers they'd already erected—and they were somewhat successful. As the sky darkened and storm clouds gathered over the Forbidden Island, things got several degrees colder in the Pride Lands themselves and that was the excuse some of the toughest felines the world had ever seen used to shiver.

They did what they were told, though. After all, Freak had ordered them not to move from their positions until he came for them or things got so bad that the only hope for life to continue was to run halfway across Africa. He was brave enough to confront an inner demon, physically; they would therefore be brave enough to trust his judgment.

The mandrill shaman knew what was going to happen next, regardless of how Freak's personal fight was going. Clutching his staff for support, he shared a glance and brief smile with Roderik despite the gravity of their situation: Kifo would be neither the last nor the most powerful force the Pride Lands would have to face. Hopefully, Freak had won and lived and was even then making his way, triumphant, to the northwest—but all of that might not matter in the slightest, because they might all be crushed by the new force that was being created in the Forbidden Island.

The failure of the previous generations to tie up the loose ends that had set the state for a series of showdowns like this was blatant, but, annoyingly, the Spirits themselves couldn't see what was going on in their creation. It would be some time yet before anyone in the sky was able to see their sons and daughters on the ground.

With a jolt of effort, he was able to get past the cartilaginous resistance that kept the li-tigon's jaw from its socket. It didn't help that he was now back in a body that couldn't benchpress two hundred, much less the five thousand plus that his demonic form could—but he managed. If there was one thing that hadn't changed ever since he'd been knocked out of his body just minutes ago, it was his unshakeable will to accomplish what he wanted to.

Now, though, Kifo wasn't sure what to do. Exhausted, he sat down next to the only other living being for some miles and tried to tie his pants a little tighter so they came close to fitting his waist—he was unsuccessful, so he just shrugged and held up his knife.

Looking at his metallic reflection in the blade, Kifo took note of a few interesting facts. He was very pale in complexion and hair; his eyes were prominently blue and he was slim, although not frail. The hot African Sun would have burned him to a crisp if it wasn't for the ubiquitous clouds overhead—for them, he was somewhat grateful.

He couldn't remember his name, and he wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Kifo put his knife away and wondered whether he ought to go to try to help Kishindo until he realized that he had no idea where she was, he couldn't conceivably help her in combat, and he didn't particularly want to anyway. What he did want… well, he didn't quite know. He wanted to go back to Times Square—at least, he thought he did. For now, though, he didn't know what to do with himself but wait. Maybe when Freak regained consciousness, something interesting would happen.

Until then, Kifo could only sit and try not to think about things too much. Idly, he flexed his unfamiliar, weak human fingers and wondered what would become of him. Was he going to die here, in a continent unfamiliar to him now that he had to deal with it without the protection of assault rifles, armor, and several hundred pounds of solid muscle?... that seemed likely. After all, he had no money and no other way to get back to New York.

Strangely, the idea of meeting his end here was not that repugnant. No, Kifo thought, as he looked around, this environment was somewhat more pleasing to the senses than the cramped urban existence that had been his for most of his life. He had no delusions about finding a reason to exist here—but, hopefully, his suicide wouldn't be ruined again by another fall into another strange land. Hopefully, he'd be able to rest in peace for once.

It was a strange thing to not quite wish for death but to accept it with a vague sense of longing although not to the point that he would hasten his own demise. Such apathy, unfortunately, largely defined Kifo—he could sit and wait for Freak to get up until he starved to death or something came to kill him, it wouldn't matter.

Of course, he had a number of questions for Freak… who he was, how he knew that he, Kifo, was coming, and why he'd elected to fight him instead of running—and for that matter, who the living skeletons that had just been wiped out were.

Those questions were significant. But what Kifo was most curious about was why on Earth Freak had disabled him instead of killing him. Mercy was a concept that Kifo understood but had never employed—but he simply couldn't understand why anyone acting in any semblance of self-preservation would take the chance of leaving a demon like he had been alive.

Simba and Kishindo crashed into the water as one unit—she was on the bottom, and that meant that she took the brunt of the collision. Simba had the time and wit to take in a deep breath and hold it; whereas the lioness's oxygen was crushed from her lungs.

As soon as they were under, Kishindo began to struggle. Simba had released her by then and had started to race toward shore, shocked by how much activity was going on—there had to be dozens of crocodiles, and, hopefully, she'd distract them long enough to give his escape cover.

The last Simba saw of Scar's last living cultist, she was sinking to the bottom of the lake, flailing and panicking—she didn't know how to swim, although that might not have mattered. Five specimens that had to weigh nearly a ton on average were trailing her and closing, rapidly, mouths open and hungry for flesh.

Simba turned away. He wanted to make sure that Kishindo would never threaten anyone again, but he had to focus on getting out before he could do that.

The former Lion King noted, uneasily, that he'd seen neither Kovu nor Kochai when he'd been falling—that didn't imply that neither of them had escaped, necessarily. He very easily could have missed either or both of them on the banks of the lake, far from danger, or they could simply have gotten out in the few beleaguered seconds when he was in the water but disoriented.

In an almost but not quite panicked manner, Simba swam as fast as he could, relying mostly on his hind legs for power—Kishindo certainly had hurt him, but a brief look around suggested that if he hurried, he'd be left alone. The crocodiles seemed to recognize that they'd have enough food without trying to fight with a much bigger and much more powerful cat like him.

Without too much difficulty, Simba got out of the water. Panting and injured, he nearly collapsed at the very edge before dragging himself farther away, just in case—then, he did collapse. Chest heaving, the former Lion King struggled to get to his feet—he needed to find Kovu and Kochai… no, Kovu or Kochai. Even he couldn't be hopeful enough to honestly believe for any amount of time that both of them had lived and weren't with him the second he was out of the water.

He didn't have to blindly speculate about who had survived for long. A familiar tap-tapping of light paws approached him—and a second later, Simba was caught in some painful median between sadness that Kovu had died and relief that Kochai had survived. He felt her look him over for serious injuries and then rub her countenance against his neck, crying about how Kovu had been killed.

Tiredly, Simba managed to twitch a foreleg around Kochai, loosely holding her while he tried to give her words of calm and comfort. All the while, he couldn't help but think about how incredible it was that a mother and her son had been killed in the same moment, in the same area, by the same means—he was fairly certain that this had fulfilled another of his great-grandfather's prophecies. Now, his daughter had no mate; there was no possible way to continue the bloodline that had kept the Pride Lands safe for generations—err, now that he thought about it, maybe it was time for a regime change.

Freak wouldn't be King for long, though; Simba knew this. That was good, because Simba also had the sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't be able to produce offspring, especially not with Uvuli. Kiara would have to find someone else… or their next leader would have to be unrelated.

Now wasn't the time to think of the future, though—everyone's short-term survival was in severe jeopardy. A reasonable responsible leader would have done his absolute best to get up and get back to the northeast, and Simba certainly did his best—but he was too injured, too tired. Soon, he allowed himself to pass out with Kochai safely under his arm. It wouldn't be long before he'd recover, he knew, and despite their complete failure to help anyone for several months, he trusted the Spirits to keep them both safe.

After all, two had just died. There was no way they could let things get worse than that.

Freak's life was based on change. He'd been pulled across continents, and he'd now spent the majority of his life on the move without a set home for more than a few months at a time. He was always able to tell where he was when he got up—and who he was with. These two articles of knowledge had been constants in his life.

Therefore, he was rather shaken when he regained consciousness and couldn't immediately recognize his location, nor the human some yards away from him. The li-tigon got to his feet in a single, deft move and entered a passive-defensive stance, ready to react to anything—but the strange human just looked at him, not reacting in the slightest to the sudden movement.

And then, Freak remembered where he was. He remembered what he had been doing and he realized that he was looking Kifo right in the eye.

Without firearms and with a physique that could only be called diminutive, Kifo was decidedly less threatening than he had been just hours ago. Freak found himself circling the human, ready to attack and kill—but Kifo just looked at the li-tigon. His only weapon was his blade, and the weak, somewhat unfamiliar manner in which he held it suggested that even if he did try to attack, he wouldn't get very far.

After a few moments, Freak stopped circling his enemy. He simply sat and watched and thought for what felt like a very long time. He had any number of questions in mind, but only one on his lips—

His face fell, then, as he looked to the northwest. Something very, very serious was going on, and it had put Kifo on his knees, hissing in pain. Freak thought, briefly, as a cold blast of wind threw his mane into an angry mess—then, he nodded, and started to move, darting to within ten feet of Kifo in the process.

Some twenty feet later, though, the li-tigon stopped and turned, facing his twin over his shoulder. He didn't need to say a word; he just needed to meet the eyes that were so strikingly similar to Asal's and jerk his head.

A moment after that, the most unlikely duo possible was making its way to the northwest. Kifo had a splitting headache that made him run half bent over in pain, but he kept up, following Freak's lead. He didn't notice it, but as they moved, he began to change, slowly, so that by the time they were halfway to their destination Kifo was of somewhat larger dimensions than he had been originally.