Previously on The Lion Guard: Life In The Pride Lands:
"I just want to get out of here!" He eventually stopped to take a breath before something strange happened. He heard his name being called out by a mysterious voice. "Kopa. Kopa," the voice whispered. Of course he followed it. And it led him to an area now known as Hakuna Matata Falls.
Now:
The whispering eventually stopped. That confused the young cub. Kopa then noticed a strange glowing light coming from behind the waterfall. He walked up a winding path that led behind the falls which brought him upon a strange-looking circular stone attached to the rocky wall. It was covered with strange markings and a very pretty shiny emerald rock in the center.
Just looking at it was seemingly beckoning the child. He got up on his hind legs and leaned on the wall with his front legs, placing his mouth on the strange object and after a few struggles, he managed to pull it out of the wall. The ground suddenly then began to rumble and the emerald started to glow while at the same time releasing green-colored energy which began to swirl as it grew bigger. Kopa's eyes widened when he realized what was happening.
He had only heard about the phenomenon in legends told by Rafiki by a nice nighttime campfire. But he never actually believed it to be real.
He was in the presence of a magical portal of some kind.
And if things couldn't get any weirder than they already were, rocks and broken branches and dead flowers and everything around him began to float. Like, in the freaking air! Once in the freaking air, they would seemingly get sucked through the center of the portal and then vanish without a trace. The prince's entire body would soon be next. The hairs on his body stood up as the young cub felt a weird feeling in his stomach as his legs ascended into the air along with his stomach and then his head promptly after until the entire lion was floating.
"WHAT THE-. HELP! SOMEBODY! ANYBODY! HELP!"
But the cries of the flying cub's cries were useless as everyone in the area had already gone far away or to sleep or they just didn't give a shit. And even if someone "came to the rescue", they wouldn't believe what they were seeing and pass out or something. The entire lower body of Kopa was utterly consumed by the magic of the portal, the sensation feeling as if he was passing through really warm jello. He tried to hold back with his claws, but his chest and soon his head was being overwhelmed by the portal too much that it even broke a claw in the process.
"PLEASE! I HAVE TO GO BACK! HELP!" His head was the only thing that was left of his anything. And before anything else, he yelled one final word.
"DADDY!"
And all that Kopa could now see was endless green. He looked down to see that he was still floating, but as if he was floating in water. Everything around him was as I said, green, but the walls were all jiggly and the floor seemed bottomless. It was like being trapped in an anti-gravity room made of green pudding. The wall to his right began to swirl and the cub couldn't believe what he was seeing: it was a memory.
A memory of the fight that he and his father had just had before he ran off. But he also saw what happened afterward. How much hurt he had caused his dad and how much he had cried before the memory came to a swirly stop as a tear escaped from Kopa's eye.
A feeling then began to grow from his genitals to his stomach to his chest. A feeling of pure pain and a side of tingling that one would feel on a roller coaster.
He was too young for the feeling to be considered "normal" so he automatically knew that something very wrong was happening. But then a bright light coming from under his feet blinded Kopa for a few seconds before he could see that something was happening to him. Some sort of green energy, similar to what created the portal and what it was made of, began absorbing his legs and that's when the pain grew stronger. Like some sort of magic spell. He could feel his legs changing in some way.
And then the energy swirled up to his chest and then his head and then his mind began spinning and he felt lightheaded and then ...darkness.
HONK! HONK! Kopa's eyes fluttered open to a leaf in his face. When he got his full vision restored, it was clear that he was laying in a bush. But why? Something didn't feel right. He tried to stand up only to discover that there was something creepily weird about his body. And no, not in a dirty way. My mind isn't always in the gutter.
The long, furry legs that he once had were not the same. They were short, and all of his furs had disappeared. Instead, there was some sort of light-colored hippo skin on his legs with 5 monkey-like toes also covered in said-skin. His paws had disappeared and his front legs had grown as long as Rafiki's arms with 5 fingers as well and his chest was...well you get the picture. His entire head felt different as proven by the lack of fur on his face but a little tuft left on the top of his head.
The once-was lion cub was completely bare. He could not believe it. What the hell had happened to him? What was he? Where was he!? He was clearly not in the Pride Lands anymore.
The hairs covering his private parts were also gone, exposing them to the whole world. He shrieked when he realized that and tried to hide behind an even bigger leaf when he heard an unfamiliar voice coming from outside of the bush. "If we finish with the kitchen area by tonight, the entire house should be done for you by Saturday, Mrs. Garcia." "Well, I sure hope so. My aunt and I are supposed to see a new movie called Carrie that's in theaters next week." And since walking wasn't an option, he used his long...arms to crawl out of the bush to see a weird looking structure in front of him that looked to be made of a tree and two tall hairless baboons, one male, and one female.
He tried to call out to them, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was some kind of weird shriek. He wasn't capable of talking either apparently.
But the shrill he had made proved useful as it got the two baboons' attention and when they both laid eyes on him, their mouths dropped and they ran up to him immediately. "OH, MY GOD! A BABY!" I mean Kopa knew he was still young but he didn't think others would still take him as a "baby". He preferred the term "young cub".
The female bent down and grabbed him by his ...arms and picked him up from the ground. He, at first, didn't like it but the way she was rubbing his back and rocking him back and forth really felt great and relaxing. When Kopa got close enough, the baboon looked more clear to him. She didn't have any fur as well, and she also had the skin he now had, but a little bit wrinklier. Her lips were drenched in some kind of red liquid, blood he at first thought, and some weird object with clear objects in its holes mounted in a frame that held them in front of her blue eyes, utilizing a bridge over her nose and long sticks which rested over her ears. And she smelled of apples and another weird yet captivating aroma.
"Where did this baby come from?" "I couldn't tell you, Mrs. Garcia. We've never seen this baby even a hundred feet near the construction site. We have no idea where he came from."
Kopa had no idea what the two baboons were conversing about. But for some strange reason, he grew sleepy and had the urge to crawl around on the floor and play with the rocks as he did as an infant. Which I guess he was now. Again. And the fatigue took over his entire body like some kind of parasite and eventually got his eyelids to feel as if he was carrying an elephant in each one. His vision became obscured and before he knew it, he was in a deeper sleep than Sleeping Beauty herself.
When he awakened, not by true love's kiss but by a lot of loud noises, he found himself in some sort of weird blue rectangular shaped chamber and he was in a weird wooden cage with a fluffy white thing against his head and the longest, softest piece of fur that he had ever felt covering his entire body and the majority of the cage as well. Words could still not be formed by him. It was like his tongue was dried out or torn out or something. Small squeals were the only thing his mouth was capable of releasing.
The female baboon ran into the chamber, her entire body covered in some kind of red material that went all the way down to her knees, and picked Kopa up from his cage and did the relaxing back-and-forth rocking again. But he didn't have time to enjoy it; he needed answers to everything. He continuously tried to say something but he couldn't. It really pissed him off at the fact that he couldn't speak. "Are you trying to say your first words?" Kopa tried harder and harder and he FINALLY made progress when he began to pronounce the word "my". The attempted talking widened the baboon's eyes as he continued vigorously attempting to speak to her.
"M-m-m-m-m-m-m-my n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-name i-i-i-i-i-i-i-is K-k-k-k-k-k-k-Kopa," he finally managed to say. But the choice of words was really poor. He could've said anything else like Where am I or What are you but all he said was a formal introduction of himself. "AAAAAAAHH! YOU JUST SPOKE," she shouted as she spun around in circles with Kopa imprisoned in her arms, making him dizzy to the point where he felt like throwing up. "I've never heard a baby say that as their first words, but we all see something new every day." He cringed at the word baby.
"Aah," she sighed with a strangely reassuring affection in her eyes. "Such a special moment. 'My name is Kopa'. Wait," she suddenly said, her eyes beaming with glee and joy. "That is what I'll call you: Kopa. Well, Kopa, I'm sure your mother and father will be thrilled to hear the good news. Wherever they may be. I just can't believe they would dump an adorable and innocent child like you in a dump like where my house is being built," she began to say before Kopa couldn't even listen anymore after he heard the word "father". It got him thinking about his own. What he must be feeling now that his son was nowhere to be found. How much he missed him. How much he loved him. And that triggered his waterworks and a couple of whimpers as well. "Aw. Don't you cry, little one. We'll get you back to your parents as soon as the police find them. But look on the bright side: until then, you get to stay here with me," she squealed all happily and excitedly and it actually began to cheer him up a little.
It even got him to start giggling once she started giving him kisses on his neck.
"No matter what, I promise you: I will never stop loving you, and caring for you." Kopa's head nuzzled in the cups of one of her breasts as he started to adjust to the idea of staying with this baboon for a while. And he felt something that he had only felt with his parents: love. Somehow, he cared for her as much as she cared for him. And she cared for him A LOT. And for the longest time, it was always Kopa and the baboon named Mrs. Garcia.
Over the years, as Kopa grew and prospered, he had learned a lot about where he was. And what he was. He was somewhere called "El Paso". Whatever that meant. But he learned that it was a city in the United States. And after he learned what that meant, things went smoothly. He clearly wasn't in the Pride Lands anymore. And when he learned to talk, which was when he was about six years old (I know it was a little late) he tried to tell Mrs. Garcia, who was called a "human", about where he actually came from and who his father was, and then he ended up seeing the same man in white named Mr. Aria over and over again. He constantly told him that the Pride Lands weren't real when he clearly knew that they were.
He also saw a woman in white sometimes about "a weird birthmark" when Kopa knew that they were spots on his legs from his lion form; the only things that stuck from his original body. But other than that, his life as a "human" was great. Every snowy season, all of Mrs. Garcia's human family members, like Auntie Latsy and Uncle Hector who he secretly favored the most, came over to celebrate him in something called a birthday. And a few weeks after, the whole family would celebrate something called Christmas where everyone received gifts that seemed useless to a lion, but he adjusted and was grateful for whatever he was given. There were also a bunch of other things that he and Mrs. Garcia would celebrate every year like Thanksgiving and Halloween that Kopa looked forward to all the time those "holidays" crept around the corner.
The now-human with chestnut hair and muscles like steel attended someplace called school where he would learn about all sorts of crazy stuff. Except there were no hunting or kingly lessons involved like what his dad was teaching him. Kopa made lots of new friends too. Like Ricky and Hazel. His bestest friend though was named Vanessa, a shy girl with long black hair and a few pimples on her face and amber-colored glasses. She had the face of an angel and a pure heart of gold in his opinion.
She and him met in the eighth grade in science class, and they never left each other's side since. And they did everything together. They ate lunch together, they talked and played occasionally with each other, EVERYTHING.
The two of them even graduated high school in the same category and went to college together. There was nowhere you would find one of them without the other. Their friendship was inextricable.
And it became even more serious when they became boyfriend and girlfriend. Finally. They were each other's first romantic partner ever. And they were both 27! A little late if you ask me. Their first date was at Music Under The Stars where they both shared their first kiss which was basically a bunch of weird lip-moving and Vanessa biting Kopa's lip and causing it to bleed which led them to have to leave to get it treated. But all the dates after that were more romantic and actually succeeded. There was just this magic between them that they couldn't explain. It was as if they were fated to be together. Sparks flew every time they touched, hence Taylor Swift's famous song.
Things only became more magical the evening of October 24th a few years later.
"Will you be my queen," he asked Vanessa as he knelt down on one knee, while they were on a date in Paris underneath the Eiffel Tower at night, and pulled out a diamond ring that Mrs. Garcia gave him from her previous marriage. He had worked up a lot of nerve to "propose" as the humans say. He just knew that she was the one. No God or earthly being could explain why. He just knew. And after asking his friends for advice, watching romantic proposals on the internet, and getting Mrs. Garcia's blessing along with a ring to present, he invited her to come to Paris, a city he understood to be the most romantic place ever. Little did Vanessa know that her man would turn her whole world upside down. She began crying tears of joy and squealing while jumping up and down when she saw that the man she loved the most since middle school wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
"Van, I've realized that there will never be a more perfect girl for me. And now that I've found her, I see no reason to wait any longer. I have loved you since we shared our first ice cream back in the eighth grade, to right now where we're in freaking Paris, the city of love. I never want to lose you because I don't think I'll ever find a girl that'll make me as happy as you do. So, Vanessa Lea Brown, will you marry me?"
She cupped her hands around her mouth in amazement at the little speech her love had just given her about how special she is to him. She had never thought she'd meet someone who loved her like those television couples that we ship in movies love each other, like Troy and Gabriella in High School Musical and Tessa and Hardin in After.
Her voice was a little shaky and high-pitched, but it didn't take long for her to say "yes."
Their love was so ecstatic and passionate that they didn't even do a wedding; they just went for it. They did that thing where a couple goes to a courthouse and the judge marries them or something. But that part didn't make the cut because it was just too boring to describe in any detail whatsoever. The kiss they shared as they were pronounced husband and wife was pretty magical though. Like a fire was ignited inside both of them. And they loved it.
The two love-birds eventually settled in a two-story house a few neighborhoods away from Mrs. Garcia. She was very happy that she would get to see him every now and then now that he lived closer to her. Everything from then on was perfect. The house was perfect. Their love was perfect. The baby Vanessa was going to have was perfect and…
Wait.
To Be Continued in Chapter 16