She wasn't around here anywhere. Jinjin even sent a couple of lions from the Night Pride to look for his daughter and make sure she was alright, though it probably wasn't needed since she might at least listen to Kion, who was also looking for her in the savanna. The male cub certainly had never seen Rani act like that before, even though she did crack under pressure in her mind by thinking of how good a queen she would be of the Night Pride someday. Deep down, Jinjin and Maya felt guilty about this, and they felt like it was their fault that Rani had a slight breakdown about her future as the queen. Rani sure found quite a hiding spot if Kion was having that much difficulty finding her.

For that, he decided to keep himself quiet, and rely on his hearing and sense of smell like a hound to try and look for his girlfriend. "Hmmm. She's gotta be around her somewhere." he thought in his brain. "Come on nose, don't fail me now."

He sniffed and sniffed for a total of ten long minutes, until finally he caught scent of Rani's odor, walking in a fast pace with his nose close to the dirt so that he can smell more of it. Ultimately, he heard the sounds of a lioness crying, and he traced it all the way back to a large log, with two boulders blocking both ends, and a round hole was showing on the upper part of the bark.

"Rani? Are you there?"

"Leave me alone." Rani said, coming from inside this large bark. Kion suspected she was trapped in that log, but realized that it had been there in that spot for a long time and speculated that the female lion crawled herself in that log so that no one could bother her. Perhaps... Kion could go in there and try to calm her down, and talk some sense into her.

He found the hole, and went inside the round chamber of the large log. There she was, Rani laying on her belly and crying softly, and a few tears went down her cheeks as her eyes continued watering. "Rani? Are you ok?" Kion asked, slowly walking up to her.

"Leave me alone." Rani sighed in a flat voice. "I just want to be alone and be by myself."

"Look Rani," said Kion softly. "You're not going to be the new queen right now. Your parents know that you aren't ready yet."

"Well they just put a ton of pressure on me, especially with all the 'royal' duties that kings and queens of their prides do."

"I hear you. " the male cub admitted. "They did it unintentionally though, and they are really sorry."

"Well I wish they would say it to my face instead of sending you to find me and be a mouthpiece." Rani admitted

"Come with me, and your parents can apologize to you right now." Kion urged her. "Everyone's worried about you."

"I'm worried about me too, Kion." Rani sniveled. "I'm worried that I would make a lousy queen of my family. I just can't do it, and I don't want to be accountable for any deaths that could be my fault."

"That's crazy talk, Rani." Scoffed Kion. "You're just... overthinking things a little bit. All you need to do is relieve your stress and let it all go." Poor Rani didn't look very convinced by her boyfriend's words. No, she had a small mind snap from all of this stress and overthinking about being a queen of the Back Lands. It would probably take more than Kion trying to coerce her into this, and Rani can be a little stubborn at times.

Meanwhile

While Kion and Rani were trying to settle this stress, there was a little problem going on in the Pride Lands. There was some kind of large beast. No, three large beast skulking around some areas. At first glance, they looked like maneless lions, but these big cats were larger than any lion combined (Though they appear to be one or two feet taller than lions). These big cats had something of red on their downy pelts of fur, with scattered, thick stripes on them. Not only that, but their tails were shorter than lions, and had no black or brown tips on the end of them. Whoever these creatures were, they looked like ones that would love to cause trouble and mayhem wherever they go.

These kinds of big cats were unlike anything seen most animals in the Pride Lands have ever seen before. A lion probably wouldn't stand a chance against cats like these ones. Rhinos and elephants, and maybe eland or cape buffalo would probably take them on, but many wouldn't survive in a fight against them. Their claws looked sharper than a lion, cheetah, and leopard combined. Could these be the ultimate type of cats? They most certainly looked like they came from a far, distant land in Africa, or somewhere else.

Another intriguing feature of these cats was that: they had a tuft main that was narrow and flowing in a straight line along their back, and two large canines protruding from their mouths like two twin daggers hanging from their jaws. These three big beasts were walking in a triangular pattern since there were three of them, and the were somehow looking for something to eat, but in a menacing way. The leader was slightly bigger than the other two and he had longer canines protruding his mouth. The leader of this group suddenly stopped and sniffed something in the air with his nose. "I think i'm getting something fellas." he said in a slightly gruff voice. "Something... delicious.

"What is it, boss?" asked the second big cat, sounding like a female.

"Is it something delicious?" asked the third, which was male, but in a slightly higher voice.

"Something big and meaty." the leader replied. "There!" he and the three big felines ran off to the east and they found a large herd of zebra grazing in the open field, and they rushed at the wild equines at full-speed like a runaway freight train. The zebras saw them coming, and scattered like a herd of frightened sheep, running around in many directions, and dirt erupting around them. While most of them got away, these three big cats managed to kill three zebras as their meal, all of the corpses with their eyes open. "I haven't had a kill like this in a while." said the leader.

"I'll say." the female added.

"We'll really like it here." said the third big cat.