Disclaimer: I do not own All Hail King Julien or any of its characters. I do own Emily, Patch, Weasel, Lilian, Elizabeth, and the fossa with names, and the idea for this story

The pack started heading out, and Patch was about to follow them, but Mac suddenly appeared in front of him. The ringtail lemur blinked up at him in surprise.

"This is a mission for real fossa," he growled, which only confused Patch more.

"I am a real fossa!" Patch objected.

"Sure," Mac chuckled as he pushed Patch aside and ran to catch up to the rest of the patrol heading toward the lemurs' side of the island. Patch stared after him, frowning. What just happened? Mac found him as a baby and raised him, and all of his life Mac told him that he was a fossa, that he belonged with the pack. When someone would say otherwise, he'd stand up for Patch. But now he took back everything he ever said to Patch by saying he wasn't a real fossa. That cut him deep.

Sighing miserably, Patch walked to the five fossa chosen to watch over the prisoners. He huffed when he heard them laughing at him. Hot with embarrassment, he flopped down on the ground with his back to them.

"Psst!"

Patch jumped and turned around. From where he, Emily, and Mort stood surrounded by the fossa, the king was calling out to him, trying to get his attention. He gestured for Patch to come closer. Groaning, Patch got up and went over there.

"What do you want?" he demanded with a temper. Mac had humiliated him.

Julien frowned at him. "I'm sorry that your fossa friend said those things, but he's right, you know." Patch narrowed his eyes at him. Before he could give a sharp retort, though, the king went on. "You're not a fossa. You're a lemur, and even more you're my brother. If you come back to the kingdom, we can be a family and I'll never reject you."

His offer was very tempting, especially after what Mac said to him, but his loyalty belonged with the fossa. They did raise him after all, even if most of them teased and bullied him for being an outsider all his life.

"Your Majesty, you can't seriously be trying to reason with him," Emily said, turning to Julien in surprise. "He may be a lemur, but he's proven that deep down he's a fossa."

"Well technically," Julien cut in," if he was a fossa, we'd be in his belly right now. Speaking of which," he went on in a surprised tone," why haven't any fossa tried to eat us yet?"

"They need all the lemurs," Mort mindlessly said, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Emily and Julien blinked at him before turning to Patch, who sighed. The plan was already in play. There was nothing they could do to stop it, so he saw no harm in telling them.

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"Maurice! Maurice!"

The aye-aye turned around when he heard his name being called. He was surprised to see Lilian and Weasel running to him urgently. They stopped in front of him, panting.

"What's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

Lilian, still panting, opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the leaves above them rustled. Maurice noticed that Lilian and Weasel huddled closer together. He blinked. What's gotten into them?

A branch swayed and Clover appeared. She hopped down, and Lilian let out a sigh of relief, while Weasel looked embarrassed about being so easily spooked.

"There's no sign of the king," the orange lemur announced. "Did one of you have better luck?"

Weasel exchanged a look with Lilian. "I'm not sure about better luck," he responded, turning back to the others. "But we know where King Julien is."

Maurice's heart lifted. "Where?"

Weasel's voice was replaced by a growl. Startled Maurice spun around to find himself face to face with a fossa. He gasped and jumped back, accidentally bumping into Clover. Instantly the king's bodyguard pushed him toward the others and launched herself at the fossa. Her foot struck it right in the face. It stumbled backward, then shook its head and crouched down, growling.

Clover ready herself for another attack, but suddenly more fossa slipped out of the bushes, circling the lemurs.

"Wait!" Maurice called to Clover, noticing that she was about to jump on the fossa. "There's too many of them. You can't possibly fight them all."

"I can try." Clover crouched low.

"Maurice is right," Weasel said before she could launch herself at the fossa again. "You won't be able to win against all of them. We are goners." He turned to Lilian and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."

Lilian was about to respond when suddenly the patrol of fossa backed away from them and sat down. Maurice was confused. Weren't they going to eat them? A fossa stepped into the middle of the circle and faced the lemurs with his head held high.

"You are not goners if you obey me," it growled. "Do you understand?"

"No," Maurice said without thinking. When the fossa narrowed its eyes, he stammered," Y-Yes. I-I mean… what is going on?"

"You are without a king," another fossa announced.

Maurice snapped around. "What!"

"Don't worry," the first fossa said. "He's not dead. We just have him, and now we have the rest of the kingdom too. As we speak," the predator went on," the rest of our patrol are gathering the other lemurs and bringing them home with them."

Maurice was confused. They weren't acting like the bloodthirsty fossa he knew. Once they eat half the kingdom! Now they were kidnapping King Julien and gathering the rest of the kingdom together to do only the Gods knew.

"Let's go," the fossa growled and it turned around to walk away. The others herded the lemurs with them, pushing them along. When they would hesitate, the fossa would bare their teeth at them.

At first it seemed like Clover had given up on fighting off the fossa, but then suddenly she jumped into action, surprising the predators. She punched one in the face and another in the stomach until a large gap opened up.

"Come on!" she called to her friends, and she took off, jumping into the nearest tree. Maurice was frozen with fear, but a push behind him snapped him out of it. He chased after Clover, looking over his shoulder just in time to see fossa blocking off the escape route. Lilian and Weasel were trapped once more.

From up in a tree, Maurice watched the fossa talk among themselves. They seemed to be deciding what to do, but Maurice was too far away to hear. Finally they set out again. Maurice's instincts told him to run after his friends and try to save them, but he knew he'd only get caught again.

The branch bounced as Clover joined him. "You okay?" she asked.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Thanks to Weasel. I owe him my life."

"You can repay him by rescuing him."

Suddenly determined, Maurice nodded and followed Clover through the trees, toward the predators' side of the island.

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