Vitani, tired from her long journey, heartbrokenly trekked back to the Pridelands, slowly wandering back across the dead land. She had dreaded the journey back. Her failure to kill Kopa, as well as the loss of the Uasilands, had shaken her and her hunting party to their core. She couldn't help but shudder at the thought of Scar's rage, his wrath upon hearing her failure.

And that is what she was. A failure. Kopa was handed to her on a silver platter and she failed to get him. Instead, he had humiliated her in front of her own friends. Even after jumping off the mountain, suffering for hours in the freezing cold, he was far too strong for them.

As they approached Pride Rock, most of the hunting party disbanded, strolling off into the nearby cave once occupied by the Lion Guard. Only Tazama stayed with Vitani, sitting before the anxious lioness with trembling paws.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" The keen-sighted lioness noticed the microscopic tremors reverberating across Vitani's face, heightened when the lioness glanced up the path leading up to the tip of the rocky monument. "It was our fault too that he escaped, I wouldn't-"

"It's okay." The scruffier lioness arose, cutting off her friend's words. "I will take the blame." Before Tazama could do anything, Vitani had started to ascend towards Pride Rock's peak, leaving her to stand alone at the base of the ancient monument. The wise lioness sighed before joining her friends, taking one last glance up at the peak as a demonic roar echoed from its tip.

Each and every step up the decaying monument only added to the weight on her body. She was not only knackered from her long, perilous journey but the thought that this could be the end, that Scar could very well destroy her for failing him. She tried to find a positive, anything to take her mind off it. But all she saw was darkness as the sun's corrupted light shone across her fur.

Her paws shook as she clambered up the final few steps towards the corrupted peak of Pride Rock. As she did, a thousand eyes turned to her, staring directly into her soul: hungry and furious. Hundreds of lionesses, hyenas, jackals and vultures stared at the nervous lioness as she sulked through their numbers, slowly creeping towards the edge of the monument. A pile of rotting branches and twigs rested before her, surrounded by a few familiar lionesses. As she approached, a cloud of blackish, green flames erupted from the pile, forming into the stubborn form of a dark, deceased lion. His eyes focused on the broken lioness, who slowly approached him, against her will.

"VITANI!" The fiery lion bellowed. Green, clawing, crackling bolts of lightning thundered down from the heavens, coated in a choking black layer of clouds. Though it had been midday, not a spec of light ruptured across the sky, suffocated by the pure darkness nestled before the poor lioness. Her stepfather.

Scar...

Vitani approached him, cowering in his twisted, majestic embrace. The loud growling and roaring of the demonic creatures surrounding them had ceased, shuddering to silence within seconds of Scar's roar. He craned his neck forwards, staring down at his stepdaughter with his green, flickering eyes.

"What news do you bring me?" Scar's soulless, death-inducing stare shot down to the cowering lioness before him. Her own eye slightly shot up at his and her mother's, who stood beside her old mate turned god. He had ascended to a new level of power, a power as twisted and dark as his unkempt, fiery mane.

Vitani sulked in front of the proud majesty of Scar, her breath falling into pure chaos, chest panting with haste. How could she explain? How could she make him see? The truth escaped her lips, washed away with tears escaping in the fur.

"He got away."

A series of roars and growls ruptured through the crowds of savage creatures surrounding them. A deathly, abandoning look shot across her mother's face whilst she turned her back on her only daughter. Scar shot down towards Vitani, his fiery mane igniting larger and bolder than ever before. Flickers of green-tipped embers roared at the young lioness' face, causing her to flinch in fear.

"WHAT!" Scar fumed, sending a bolt of fire into the air along with a thick choking hue of smoke. His concentrated, soulless brow raised above his head, bursting with pure, untempered rage. Vitani cowered to the safety of the cooler, rocky ground that she found herself on, still burning her underbelly.

"I tried!" The poor young lioness wept, looking up towards her ethereal master. "He was too strong, too... cunning." Her breathing had, once again, ruptured out of control. God, she wanted him to forgive her, to see that she was fighting against impossible odds. But his dark, foreboding eyes looked down at her, and a sudden, deathly shiver slithered down her spine.

Scar lowered himself to her, the stench of his life-consuming breath boiling her scruff. "He's taken the Uasilands, back from Baya and-"

"WHAT!" Scar grabbed his stepdaughter, his fiery paw grabbed hold of Vitani's neck, strangling the poor, forsaken lioness as she struggled, held high above the roaring crowd. Humiliated and ashamed, she gave up, her body rested, limp and resigned, as Scar stared directly up at her, practically growling.

"Next time! Sink your teeth into him, strangle him as I do you now!" He pulled her in so that their muzzles were practically touching. The odour of eternal suffering brushed across her muzzle, suckling upon her soul ripping her apart from the inside out. "Or don't come back at all!"

With one hefty lunge, Scar threw Vitani a few feet, landing in front of the gathered crowds of lionesses and hyenas who started to depart as she struggled back to her feet. The lionesses departed further down the summit, returning to the many caverns and caves they called their homes. The hyenas returned to their patrols, pillaging the land beneath them, spreading far and beyond the borders of the Pridelands.

As the crowds thinned, Scar turned outwards from Pride Rock, facing towards the Outlands. Vitani, recovering from being thrown by her stepfather's spirit, slowly cowered before him, hoping to not set off another explosion in his attitude. A series of hums and sighs escaped the demonic lion spirit's lips.

"Perhaps there is a chance of redemption?" Vitani's ears shot up at this hope seemed to glimmer through the old, dead lion's words. Could he forgive her? Despite ripping all her honour and standing out of her? She rushed to his side, sitting beside her twisted, darkness-infused master.

"He has taken our eyes." Scar growled, his eyes focussed on the dry, dead land on the Pridelands' rotting, decaying borders. "So, we will take his!" The old god-like spirit turned to his shunned stepdaughter, a conniving smirk adorning his twisted, demonic muzzle. Vitani looked up at him, slightly confused.

"The hyena rebellion!" Scar ground his rocky teeth, the greenish flames that made up his body flickered in pure rage. "Bring me their leaders. I wish to taste their disloyal blood!" He declared. Vitani's heart pulsed at his words. What he was asking, what he wanted. She was truly working for dark forces.

The young lioness bowed before her dark master, hoping to regain even a small amount of her lost honour. "Consider them yours, father." Her cheeks dried from her tears staining her fur as she looked down, away from the fiery god-like being. "I will not fail you."

"You'd better not!" Scar growled, ushering a single, molten claw to etch under his stepdaughter's chin. "For your sake!" He quickly removed it, allowing the lioness to breathe safely once more. Stepping back, Scar allowed Vitani to regain her strength, before bowing in his molten form.

"Thank you…Master." Vitani scurried away, breathing heavily as she stepped to the side, reuniting with her mother and brothers. Kovu still lay unconscious, much to her dismay. As she lay beside his body, she couldn't help but nuzzle up against him, dampening his fur with her tears. "Oh, Kovu…"

As Vitani joined her pride, Scar turned his attention back to the savannah before him. He couldn't help but grin as the ponders of the coming war brewed in his plotting mind. Silence fell among the gathered forces as a masculine shadow arose across the ground.

"I think it's time for more… inconspicuous eyes, don't you think, Vipawa?" Scar glanced behind himself at the young male who had approached him. His messy, brown fur gently blew in the wind as he sat before his master, focussing his humming, scarred eye at the demonic entity.

"It will be done, my lord." Vipawa's words carried no emotion, only obedience. As the young lion arose, he glanced over at Vitani, who flickered her eyes over at him before snuggling back up to her brother. Before he could reach the route down the ancient monument, Scar's physical form dissipated, slithering his spirit back into the netherworlds, where he belonged.

His plan was in action, its many cycles turning in unison. The war was on and he was willing to risk everything to win.

Especially his followers…