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

A flick of gray and the lemur was gone. Returning back to camp, Mac was just able to see the tail disappearing over the rocks. Anger burned in him.

"What is happening here?" he demanded.

Sander snapped around. "Mac!" he gasped, slowly walking over to him. "W-What are you doing back so soon?"

"We finished early," Mac snarled, glaring at his second-in-command before turning his glare on the ruined cages. Ha! he mockingly thought. Second-in-command; what a joke! He was starting to question his decision.

Sander hung his head. "I'm so sorry, Mac. T-They tricked us…"

"A bunch of lemurs… tricked you?" Mac snorted disbelievingly.

"It's true!" Sander insisted. "They are smarter than they let on!" His eyes narrowed as he turned to glare at the remaining lemurs. Mac noticed with rising frustration that all the important ones escaped.

At least the king is taking care of, the lead fossa thought. But still, they had to get the others back as soon as possible before their plans were threatened anymore. Karl promised him that they could have the rest of the lemurs only if they helped him, which they've successfully done by not killing Julien, but by taking him far away and imprisoning his subjects. But now, thanks to Sander, their perfect plan was coming apart. It was unlikely but still possible that the runaway lemurs could very much find their king stumbling through the jungle.

"You need to find them." When Sander didn't move, Mac opened his mouth and snapped his jaws closed an inch or two away from Sander's muzzle. "Now!"

Sander jumped back, turned, and started running after the long gone lemurs. As he paused to gather a group of his campmates, Mac growled at him," You better catch them and bring them back here or you can kiss your position as my second-in-command goodbye!"

Sander gulped and hurried off, his patrol on his heels. Mac watched them go, his tail flicking to and fro angrily.

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"Where is Maurice?" the king repeated, feeling his heart beat faster with fear the longer his friends hesitate. He noticed Lilian whispering something to Weasel, but it was too quiet and he didn't hear what she said. Mort lowered his gaze, and Emily frowned at Julien.

"Well? Is anyone going to speak?" he demanded.

Suddenly Masikura appeared beside him, hanging from a tree branch by her tail. She looked at the others curiously, as if for once she didn't have an answer to the king's question but she wanted to know. Julien was kinda glad she didn't already know because she'd use riddles to disclose the aye-aye's location, and right now Julien didn't feel like figuring out a difficult riddle to find his friend. He was too worried. He just wanted to know where Maurice was and if he was okay.

"Well, you see, Your Majesty," Emily started but broke off and glanced at Lilian.

"We… um…" Lilian turned to Weasel.

"I'm sorry, but…"

Mort interrupted the black and orange lemur. "We left him behind!" he blurted out.

Widening his eyes, Julien stared down at the little mouse lemur. "What!" he exclaimed.

"Y-You don't understand, Your Highness," Emily stammered. "We had no choice! The fossa would have captured us again if we had stayed!"

Weasel nodded. "But now we can regroup and come up with a plan, and then return for him and the rest of them. They are still our friends and family." His voice cracked on the word 'family', and Julien was reminded that the fossa still had Elizabeth. Weasel may not be very fond of her because she was a bully to everyone, but she was still his sister no matter what.

Julien forced himself to relax. "Yeah, okay. We can recuse him later." Weasel was right. If they rushed in, they might get themselves caught again or worse, killed.

"But what do we do until then?" Lilian asked, and everyone, including Masikura, turned to the ring tailed king expectantly. Julien realized that as their king, he had to take charge so nobody does anything foolish.

"We-We can return to the kingdom," Julien decided. "I know nobody will be there," he went on when Weasel opened his mouth, guessing what he was going to say. "But we can go back to the plane and come up with a plan to rescue the rest of my people— I mean, our friends."

They nodded, agreeing with him and then they followed him through the jungle. Masikura disappeared, probably going to meet them on the plane. Julien lifted his gaze overhead to the sky, noticing that the horizon was turning an orange color as the sun made its first appearance of the day. It's hard to believe that all this happened in a day: His brother returning to him, fossa kidnapping his subjects, him being exiled by Karl, managing to find his way back while his closest friends— well most— escape the fossa. That thought brought back the memory of Maurice, still a prisoner to the fossa.

Still looking up, he sent a silent prayer to the Gods who watched more the lemurs of Madagascar. Great spirits, please watch over Momo and return him to me safely.

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The sun made its journey across the sky as Maurice, Clover, Sage, and Patch ran through the jungle. They didn't dare stop until they were far from fossa territory. Finally they skidded to a halt, panting.

"We-We made it." Maurice turned to the others. "I didn't think we would," he admitted, adding," But we did."

"Yes," Sage agreed. "Thanks to this little guy." He nudged Patch, who felt his whole body burn with embarrassment.

He was about to be modest and say it was nothing, but suddenly Clover turned on him.

"Don't thank him!" she snapped, glaring at Patch. "He's the reason we are in this mess to begin with!"

Patch frowned. "I'm sorry—"

"We don't need your apology. We need you gone!" She pushed him backwards.

"But-But I have nowhere else to go!" Patch objected. "Mac betrayed me and—"

"And you betrayed us." Clover narrowed her eyes. "We're even, so you can leave— now!" She pushed him again.

Maurice appeared between them. "Now hold on," he said. "This is a decision for King Julien to make."

Anger still blazed in Clover's eyes, and she opened her mouth to give a sharp retort, but then reconsidered. The look on Maurice's face revealed that he might have guessed what she had been about to say, and even though she didn't speak the words out loud, they still echoed in Patch's head.

And what if he's dead… No! He can't be dead! I just met him— I can't lose my brother again, for good.

They all fell silent. Finally Maurice sighed. "Let's just return to the plane and see if the others are okay. Hopefully that's where they thought to go."

"But what about him?" Clover pointed to Patch.

"Him, too," the aye-aye answered.

"But—"

Maurice interrupted her. "We can discuss this with the others." He walked off with Sage right behind him. Clover shot Patch another angry glare, before running to catch up to her friends. Patch sighed miserably and followed, trailing a little behind.

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