Chapter 48:
Timon, the colony, Jina, and the pride were a good distance away from the hyenas' cave. They weren't sure how many were inside, or how many might be outside. From this distance they could not be seen. The lions were lying down, waiting. Jina was pacing. The meerkats were looking inside several coconut shell halves, each filled with different things, such as water, leaves, grass, and many twigs. Timon was sitting on a rock looking over an oddly shaped hollow shell as Yasmin and another meerkat were making a cast out of clay around Timon's right foot. "There. Not exactly our best cast, but it'll help protect your toe until it mends," Yasmin said.
"I don't mind the clay... it's actually quite soothing..." Timon began, and then held the small end of the shell over his mouth as he shouted directly into Yasmin's face, " After that whole relocating the toe bone thing!" His voice was amplified when he shouted into it. He then waved his paw over the clay to help it dry a little faster.
Yasmin stuck a finger in her ear, cleaning it. She then furrowed her brow at Timon and snatched the shell away and spoke into it. "OK, so I'm not a shaman."
Timon snatched it back. "I figured that out right away after you reset the wrong toe!"
"At least it gave us something to do while we're waiting for the scout to come back."
"Yeah, I guess... Better than watching Jina pace." They looked over at Jina, who was still pacing. "Jina, would ya stop? You're acting like you've got an upset stomach."
"I can't help it, Timon." Jina continued to pace, growing more and more anxious for something to happen. "I still don't see why we can't just go on inside and fight the hyenas," she said. "Get it over with. At least then we'd know if Pumbaa, Zuri, and Sudi are still alive."
"We're going inside only as a last resort. If Timon's plan succeeds we won't have anymore hyena troubles. If it doesn't work, then we'll go inside," Simba replied. He looked at Jina, who was still pacing. He put a paw down in front of her path, causing her to stop and look at him. "We're all just as worried for Pumbaa and Zuri as you are, but we have to be patient. One false move and we fail."
Jina sighed and sat down. "All right, Simba. I'll try to calm down."
They heard some burrowing below their feet. A few meerkats stepped back. A hole appeared and a meerkat's head popped up from inside. "It's about time. Find anything?" Timon asked.
The meerkat dusted the dirt out of his hair before replying. "There's a skylight on the west side of the cave that we can get into, but they're too small for the lions and it's guarded by two hyenas."
"They're expecting us. We either have to find another way in or lure those hyenas away without drawing the others' attention," Simba said.
"I just want to say... I am not putting an apple in my mouth while someone does the hula!" Jina snorted.
"And I'm not exactly able to dress in drag and do the hula myself," Timon said as he pointed to his clay-covered foot. "But you would draw their attention better than a few scrawny meerkats, Jina," Timon said. "And lions would alert them."
"So what am I suppose to do?" Jina asked.
"Follow my lead and try not to act insulted."
"I don't like where this is heading..."
A few minutes later...
Two hyenas were sitting next to a skylight about fifteen feet above the ground. One yawned, and then glanced downward. His eyes widened and then he elbowed the other. The other growled, and then looked where the second was looking.
Jina was walking on the ground in front of them, humming. Timon was riding on her back, looking from the right side of her to the left. "Say, Jina... haven't you put on a few pounds?" he asked in a loud enough voice that the two hyenas would hear, but acting like he didn't see them.
"You've noticed!" Jina beamed, also loud enough for the two hyenas to hear.
Timon stood on her back with a cane supporting him, taking a good look at her. He cupped one side of his mouth to add volume. "Why, I bet you could feed a family of four!"
"Oh, at least!" She grinned as she twirled around in a circle once. "Picture me rolling in butter. Roly-poly, roly-poly, roly-poly..." The two hyenas began to drool. They looked at each other and nodded. Licking their chops they began to slide down to the ground. Timon and Jina 'noticed' them.
"OK, my roly-poly friend, I'd say it's time we turn into fast food!" Timon said as he pulled on Jina's ears, causing Jina to turn and run. The hyenas followed. As the hyenas ran from their post, the meerkats pushed their coconut shell halves up the slope towards the skylight.
"You were right, Timon! They really don't like to share!" Jina said as she continued running for her life.
"Good thing Morake mentioned that!" Timon nodded. The hyenas snapped at Jina's heels, but then skid to a halt when they saw the lions up ahead.
"Uh-oh," they both gulped.
"Did everyone skip breakfast?" Kiara asked with a grin. A few lionesses licked their chops as a reply. "Me, too." The two hyenas yelped and ran away, and were pursued by some of the lionesses, making sure they weren't running back towards the cave.
"Whew... that was a close call," Jina panted.
"Yup, but now we can get closer to the cave and move onto Step 2," Timon grinned as he rubbed his paws together schemingly. "I just love playing tricks on hyenas." With that, the remaining lions and Jina walked towards the cave. "And remember: the Plan B code is 'a wave of lions will wash over you.' Got it?" A round of nods.
Meanwhile...
Pumbaa pushed against the bars of his ribcage prison, which still refused to give away. "Come on, know when to say when..." he said to himself.
Sudi tapped his fingers on his knee, looking extremely bored... or tired. "Pumbaa, you should know when to say when. You've been doing that for... how long, Zuri?" he turned to his sister.
Zuri yawned and flicked a pebble. "I stopped counting after about thirty minutes." She sat up and stretched, and then looked ahead at the pack of ten hyenas ahead of them. They were huddled in a circle, whispering. "They're up to something. They've been running around doing stuff all morning. I wonder what they're talking about now."
"Probably planning on which one of us isgoing first and how they're gonna do it," Sudi grimaced. He stood and kicked at the bars. "If we just had the tools we could dig out of here and get help. I'm getting tired of waiting."
Pumbaa suddenly stopped pushing against the bars and sat down at the side of his cage closest to the meerkats. "We wouldn't have to wait long if one of them would just call me you-know-what."
"I wouldn't hold my breath." Zuri yawned and stretched again, and then blinked when she felt something fall on her. "Huh?"
"What is it?" Sudi asked.
"Shh." Zuri lowered her paws down to see what fell into her paws. It was a flower bracelet, identical to the one she was wearing now. She softly gasped. "Yasmin," she whispered. She, Sudi, and Pumbaa looked upward. On the ledge above the cages Timon and Yasmin were leaning over the side. Yasmin gave them a silent motion and then ducked back. Timon winked and blew Zuri a kissed before he ducked back. Zuri smiled and whispered, "He came..."
"About time," Sudi whispered.
Up on the ledge the meerkats were setting up their trick. A few were pushingthree coconut shell halvesfilled with twigs and blades of grass behind a large rock, big enough for the meerkats to hide behind. Others were scattered around right above a few of the geysers with their coconut shell halves filled with various things. One meerkat was hanging by a vine near one of the geysers, waiting for it to blow. When it did he held out a stick, and the end caught fire. He climbed back to the top and ran over to the piles of twigs, where Timon was waiting with the oddly shaped shell and Yasmin was sitting next to one of the piles.
"Everything's set up. They haven't noticed us yet," a meerkat whispered.
A few of the meerkats peeked over the rock and looked down at the hyenas still huddled in a circle. "Would you look at all those... teeth?" a meerkat whimpered. They dropped back down behind the rock, except the one that just spoke. Yasmin reached up and pulled him down. "Maybe we should try this tomorrow."
Timon grabbed that meerkat by the front of his fur and pulled him up to his face. "Why, you miserable, cowardly, wretched little caterpillar! Don't you ever want to become a butterfly? Don't you want to spread your wings and flap your way to glory?" he asked in a whisper.
"But we eat butterflies," the meerkat said.
"That's not the point. We're avenging your colony, remember?" Timon blew some air out of his mouth and released the meerkat. "Aside from this spineless jellyfish, are we all ready?"
"I think so," a meerkat whispered.
"Good. You all know what to do," Timon nodded to everyone. The group nodded. Timon drummed his fingers on the shell and grinned wickedly. "Operation: 'Ghost of Fearless Buzz' is now in order. Send the signal."
The meerkat holding the burning stick waved over it over towards the other meerkats near the geysers. The meerkats waved, and one dropped the contents of coconut shell from the ledge and down into a geyser. When the geyser erupted, the steam turned a burning red. Burning leaves rained down over the cave, drawing the hyenas' attention.
"It's raining fire!" a hyena yelped when one of the leaves landed on his backside.
"Inside the cave? What's going on here?" Bintaka barked. The meerkat with the burning stick set fire to the coconuts filled with twigs and grass and then tossed it aside. Two other meerkats fanned the flames with leaves, causing smoke to build up.
"Look! Up there!" a hyena pointed to the smoking ledge. Then a large shadow of a muscular meerkat appeared on the wall in-between the two separate towers of smoke. "What's that? What's that?"
"I am your worst nightmare come true!" a booming voice sounded. "You have gone too far, son of Mataka! Never again will you take the life of a meerkat and know a moment's peace!"
"Who are you?" Jumbe demanded.
A meerkat stood in front of the flames, and had his shadows cast on the wall. Yasmin sat to the side of one of the fires and used her paws to add shadow muscles to the meerkat. Timon laid down next to one of the meerkats fanning the flames, speaking through the small end of the shell, amplifying his voice and deepening it, as if he was the muscled shadow meerkat. "I am Fearless Buzz! Descendants of Mataka and all those associated with him will now face my wrath!" The meerkat casting the shadows acted along with Timon's speech.
"You mean this cave's haunted?" a hyena whimpered.
"That's right! As long as you reside in these lands I will haunt you forever!" Timon shouted, and then cackled as another geyser erupted with leaves in it, causing even more burning leaves to rain down.
"Don't overdue it, Great Timon," Yasmin whispered through clenched teeth.
Timon covered the speaking end of the shell. "Why not? It's cool," he whispered back. He cleared his throat and prepared to speak again.
Pumbaa was covering his head and quivering. "And I always thought Buzz was a nice guy!" he whimpered.
"He is... just not to hyenas," Sudi said. "After all, they did kill him."
"If I was you, Bintaka, I'd pick up some change of address forms on the way out of town," Zuri said as she leaned against the bars of her cage. "He did beat up your father pretty good. Who knows what his ghost might do to you?"
Bintaka scoffed, "I ain't afraid of no ghost. What could you do to me?"
"I could do many... unpleasant things to you, son of Mataka," Timon said in wicked tone. "Why, with just a thought, this space could be plagued with locusts!" He blinked and then covered the mouthpiece and mumbled to himself, "Nah, locusts wouldn't scare them. What scares hyenas?" Yasmin rolled her eyes. Timon snapped his fingers. "Oh, I know. Watch this." He spoke into the mouthpiece. "I know many beings in the other world... beings who owe favors to me..."
"S-S-S-So?" a hyena gulped.
"Maybe you wouldn't be scared of me... but maybe you would fear the ghost of King Mufasa!" The geysers erupted again with more burning leaves raining over them. Jumbe heard a sound, and walked away from the group of hyenas to see.Many hyenas whimpered and backed away from the shadow."Or, if not Mufasa, then perhaps... Scar!"
"But Scar's dead!" a hyena barked.
"I said ghost, didn't I?" Timon asked dryly. "Ghosts are dead." He then re-gathered himself and got all wicked again. "Yes, Scar! Many of you served under his power years ago, but he's never forgotten your betrayal. After all, most of you are probably still picking your teeth with his bones!"
One hyena whistled nervously as he pushed a few bones to the side. "Don't know what you're talking about..."
"Don't insult me!" Another geyser erupted, followed by more burning leaves. "This is my natural size, which is bigger than any one of you. Imagine the size of Scar's ghost... he'd eat two of you in half a gulp!"
"No!" a few hyenas gulped.
"Yes! But of course... Mufasa is much bigger and tougher than Scar..."
"You wouldn't dare...!"
Timon grinned. "Oh, wouldn't I? But of course, since I've landed in this part of the plain, I can never leave. Unfinished business and all that. Once I call in Mufasa and Scar they'll never be able to leave, either. But since you are technically still a part of the great Circle of Life, you can leave whenever you'd like." He said in a hinting tone, "But don't get any ideas that you'd want to leave the Outlands and never ever come back!"
"That actually sounds like a good idea," a hyena said as he began to inch towards the exit.
"Yeah, forget this Timon guy. If he's anything like his father, I don't wanna meet him!" a second hyena said as he followed the first. Five of the hyenas ran out of the cave.
"Cowards! Come back here!" Bintaka barked.
"It's working!" Yasmin whispered to Timon.
"Naturally," Timon grinned. "Five down, five to go. I just have to scare them a little more." He spoke into his shell. "If you don't follow in suite, Bintaka, you'll wish your father had never come to my colony and threatened my son!"
"Really?" Jumbe's voice asked.
"Yes, really!"
"I don't suppose these threats include more..." Everyone ducked when a steaming coconut shell half hit the wall and the shadow and landed in front of the meerkats. "Coconuts?"
"Someone must've dropped one of the shells into the geyser," Yasmin whispered.
Timon tried to think of something. "Uh... I was... just giving you a sample of what could come down! Half a coconut shell might not hurt, but next time it'll be the sixty-pound seed!"
"Really. Well, if that's the case, I'd better get some protection, hadn't I?" Bintaka asked.
"I can't see. What is he doing?" Timon whispered, covering the mouthpiece of the shell again.
"We can't look, or they'll figure us out," a meerkat fanning the flames whispered.
"Might be a little too late for that," Yasmin gulped. A bit of movement was heard down before, and then a shout. Timon recognized it right away. Yasmin quickly covered Timon's mouth before he could say anything.
"Put me down, you scavenger! I'm not a helmet!" Zuri shouted as the hyena held her in his mouth. "Bad enough hippos wanted to use me as a seat cushion!"
"Oh, don't worry. I'm not gonna use you as a helmet. When I'm hit on the head, I'm gonna use you as the thing to bite down on," Bintaka said, his speech slightly muffled. Zuri gulped.
"Let her go!" Pumbaa grunted as he banged his head against the bars of his cage. Sudi tried to lift his cage up and over him, but it was too heavy for him.
"So, Fearless Buzz... unleash your wrath on me now that I have a female meerkat in my jaws." He walked out into the center of the cave and sat down. "I dare you."
Timon bit down on his finger, trying to think of what to do. The meerkats near the geysers were trying to decide what to do as well. They knew the raining fire trick would no longer be effective. Jumbe watched Bintaka as he walked over to the exit of the cave.
Timon whispered, "I think it's time for Plan B." Yasmin and the other meerkats nodded. Timon cleared his throat, uncovered the mouthpiece, and spoke into it. "I believe you'd do what you say you'd do, but do you really want to add fuel to the fire? Crush her and..." He yelled towards the exit so that the lions would hear, "... A wave of lions will wash over you!"
At that note, the remaining hyenas could hear lion roars from outside. Jumbe grinned and pulled on a piece of vine that was hanging by the exit. Suddenly a support that was lying under a hill of boulders was released, and the boulders rained down, blocking the exit. The lions could not get in, nor could anyone get out that way. The meerkats' eyes widened, shocked. "That's what they were planning," Pumbaa said. "They knew the lions might come, so they set up a landslide! We're on our own!"
"Lady Luck just spit in my eye," Timon said.
"So much for your wrath, Fearless Buzz. Nothing can get in or out. We've gotten used to your rain of fire... so what's next?" Bintaka asked.
Suddenly Jumbe yelped and spun around, growling. "Who did that?"
"Who did what?" Bintaka asked.
Jumbe yelped again and looked around. "That! Something hit me! A rock!" The meerkats looked at each other, blinking. "Hit me instead of him, will you? Bintaka, crush her!"
"Gladly." Bintaka tossed Zuri into the air to catch her in his mouth, but a rock flew out of nowhere and into his mouth, breaking a tooth. Bintaka yelped and covered his mouth, and Zuri dropped to the ground.
"Nice catch," Zuri growled as she rubbed her backside. "At least I landed on something soft."
Timon looked over the side of the rock to see. "Zuri, don't just sit there! Run for cover!" he shouted into the shell, forgetting to add the deepness in his voice.
"Oh, right!" She got up and ran into Pumbaa's cage. "Let me in, let me in!" She clung to Pumbaa, who stood to defend her.
"Is the colony doing whatever they're doing?" Yasmin asked.
"Maybe..." Timon said as he ducked back behind the rock.
On the other side of the cave on one of the upper ledges Kito, Bango, and Morake were looking down. They had a vine tightly tied to two large separate rocks like a slingshot. The trio grinned and gave each other silent high fives.
"Nice shot, Morake. You saved Mom," Kito whispered.
"Did you see him flinch? I'd pay to see that again," Morake said with a sharp, toothy grin.
Bango loaded another rock and prepared for the next shot. "Let's get one of those other hyenas next," he said, and then pulled and released. He hit one hyena in the leg, who yelped and hopped on his other three feet. The three of them grinned again and prepared for the next shot.
"I've had enough of this! I won't fall for your tricks like my father did, Great Timon! Either show yourself or I'll vent my anger on your warthog friend!" Bintaka barked at the shadow.
"If I show myself you're gonna go for him anyway to see the look of despair on my face, right?" Timon called through the shell to amplify his voice. He didn't bother adding the deepness of his voice. They had already been found out.
"That's the idea. It's a win-win situation... for me."
Timon growled softly to himself, "Wish I had a Plan C cooked up."
"What are you going to do, Timon?" Yasmin asked. Timon was silent for a moment.
"We can't let them get Dad. What can we do?" Bango whispered to Kito and Morake.
"Hope that they spend this time fighting over who eats him? They bickered like crazy earlier," Morake whispered, swishing his tail. "Saying who was gonna get what and such... if we could just use it to our advantage."
Kito rubbed his chin, and then snapped his fingers. "I've got an idea." He took some extra vine they gathered, tied one end to one of the rocks and tied the other end around his waist. He looked down and noticed a hyena was underneath. "This time I'm gonna jump with a bungee." He jumped down and landed lightly on the hyena's back. "I get the pig, Bintaka, and I won't take no for an answer!" he said quickly in a deep voice before the vine recoiled and he was pulled back up. The hyena looked back, wondering what that was.
Bintaka looked over at that hyena. "You'll take no for an answer and like it! He's mine!" he barked.
"Are you talking to me?" Pumbaa asked, slowly boiling over. Zuri stepped away from him.
"Uh-oh, you called him a pig," Timon said as he looked over the side of the rock, still speaking through the shell.
"Are you talking to me?"
"Shouldn't have done that."
"ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?"
Timon grinned, "Now you're in for it." He quickly asked himself, "Why wasn't this my Plan C? Well, it is now."
"They call me... MISTER PIG!" Pumbaa screamed and broke right through the bars in his ribcage prison and attacked the hyena that he thought called him pig. The hyena ran from him, and Pumbaa gave chase.
"Go, Uncle Pumbaa," Kito silently cheered.
"Whoo-whoo-whoo," Bango and Morake added.
Bintaka growled and looked upward, where the shadow once was. He looked at the boulder pile that blocked the exit and judged how far it was to that ledge. He walked towards the boulder pile and started to climb it.
To be continued...
OK, so I did cut it up, but only two long chapters and I won't leave you hanging this time! Hurry, hurry, leave a review for this chapter (I like hearing the input) and "turn" the page!