Chapter X alternative version

Winds of Twilight

The thick, damp jungle atmosphere quickly made almost all breathing difficult. Yet even so, the prides still pushed on, although it did take some effort: the almost intolerable heat, coupled with the humidity heavily weighing down on them made the lions exhaust far more quickly than usual. After all, the savannah-lingering lions weren't exactly adapted at the extreme jungle condition. But the fact they pressed on forward even then went a long way to explain their determination.
Yakta and Kwini walked out in front of the other lions, probably because they were more used to living in the jungle. Of course, it's not because they walked in the lead that they led the lions pride travelling with them; that task fell on Jino and Spotty who walked some feet behind them, followed closely by their pride.
It had actually been a stroke of luck that Jino, Spotty and their pride had been around at all; they had just completed a short visit to Yakta's realm, the Mighty Jungle. And that whilst Tiko, flying towards the jungle moments earlier, had already given up on the idea of trying to find Jino's Green Pride because they would have to travel too large a distance too reach the Pridelands in time. In stead, he had decided to just call upon Yakta and Kwini to try and help out. However, upon arriving in the jungle, he had quickly spotted the Green Pride. If not for that chance meeting, Tiko's intervention would have been pretty much in vain.

Not that the decision of both prides to join Tiko as he returned to the Pridelands had come without any complications. Spotty's joining them had been a close call, as she was already in a pretty advanced stage of her pregnancy. Jino had firs opposed Spotty's decision to follow him towards the Pridelands, strongly opposed it actually. Not unlike Yakta, who hadn't been too happy about Kwini putting herself in potential danger for a fight that wasn't her. But it seemed that in the Pridelands and it's surroundings, male dominance was somehow what in decline, as both queens decided to follow their partners either way, whether those partners liked it or not.

"Are you still sure you want to go on with this? You can turn back any time you want, you know..."

"Yeah, right, any time you want," grinned Spotty, not exactly staying in line with protocol, "I'm not turning back when it's my friend and my former queen who needs me, no matter what. If anyone should turn back, it would be you. This isn't your fight."

"If it's your fight, it's my fight as well. Besides, as King, it's my duty to support my colleagues whenever I can – its a scary world out there, so we monarchs better stick together. Especially now that I married into the family, so to speak."

Further to the front, Yakta and Kwini had a similar discussion, although they had to interrupt every now and then to check up on Tiko. The hornbill had taken it upon himself to, in stead of flying back home to report a mission accomplished, guide the Green Pride through the jungle to the best of his abilities, pointing out obstacles in the jungle where he could. Of course, his abilities in that area were somehow what limited because of all the foliage blocking his line of sight, but he was helpful nonetheless. Thanks to him, the lions crossed into the more open savanna before long, quickly nearing the Border River just of the Mighty waterfall.
Arriving at the border, the prides halted. Chanua quickly hooked up with the leaders of the pride. The Queen-Mother, queen to the late King Horen, had stepped down as a queen shortly after the fight in which her husband had lost his life to rogues, and the same fight where the prince had proven what he was capable of. She now spent most her time enjoying some well deserved rest, and assisting her son as much she could by bestowing as much wisdom and advice upon him as she could.

"It's just around the bend now, I suppose?" she asked Spotty.

"Yep, we're almost there."

"I think we should let the bird scout on ahead, to be sure – we can't be too careful..."

"Good point," nodded Jino.

"Well then – why don't you send him out?" yawned the Queen-Mother.

"I would... but I cant actually command him to do anything. He's not under my jurisdiction, thus no subject," smirked the king, only half serious, "Yakta, how 'bout you do the honors?"

"Gee, I'd love to..." chuckled Yakta, "But I'm afraid he isn't my subject either – Tiko falls under Vitani's authority..."

"Hey, here's an idea," shouted Tiko from up high, following the conversation with a mix of annoyance and amusement, "How 'bout I do some freelance work? Good? Great! Later!"

With that, the green bird soared on towards the Pridelands, leaving the lions to stare at him as he flew off.

"That bird's brazen arrogance is really out of bounds," grumbled Yakta, "Vitani should really put him in his place more often..."

"Maybe if she put her entire pride in place more often, we wouldn't be needing to cover her back right now," mumbled Spotty under her breath. She respected her former queen with all her heart, but she couldn't help but feel like Vitani had somehow brought this mess upon herself. But that wouldn't stop Spotty helping her former leader; after all, that's what friends are for. They help you out, regardless of whether the trouble you're in is caused by yourself or someone else. And as for respecting Vitani as a queen, Spotty was well aware that even queens are, all things considered, just lions – she could know, now being one herself.

"Hey!" Kwini suddenly shouted, "Look, up there... what's the Stars is happening up there?"

Spotty, drawn from her thoughts, as well as the rest of both prides quickly turned their stares up to the skies. At first, they saw little worthy of their attention: some vultures in the distance, the odd cloud every now and then... but then it became obvious what Kwini had been so excited about: in the distance, a small blue spot could be seen racing in the lions' direction, at fairly low altitude. However, as soon as the lions caught on with the blue spot, they noticed a similar green figure, hovering a lot higher than the blue one. Then, suddenly, the green spot turned around, picked up speed, and started soaring down. In a matter of seconds, it seemed to be catching up to the before mentioned blue spot. Before being intercepted, however, the blue spot shifted it's course slightly, making it's pursuer fly by with maybe an inch' margin. But the green dot wasn't about to give up just yet, turning around and going at the blue dot again. But the blue dot was agile enough to avoid attack after attack, continuing towards the lions.

"Wait a minute..." grumbled Yakta, "Aren't those... Tiko and Zazu! What's up with them?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say they were fighting – seems to have become somehow what of an eerie tradition in these lands nowadays, family fighting family," frowned Spotty. As the fight between Tiko and Zazu went on, both birds kept on nearing the lions. As they did, the lions could start hearing fragments of some sort of a shouting argument over who held the absolute truth. As always, that discussion was waged with ample violence to boot.
For most of the flight towards the lions, the birds seemed to be able to fly on without taking each other down. However, just before Zazu seemed to attempt a landing near Yakta, Tiko slammed into him, causing Zazu to crash down onto the ground hard, in stead of making a gracious landing as he used to.
His feathers now ruffled and full of mud and dirt, Zazu still seemed to have the spirit to rise out of the moist grass to try and address the lions, even though his hoarse voice was strained by fatigue and anxiety. Tiko wasn't about the let off already, however.

"How dare you even still come here, traitor! You disgrace our family, our office and our loyalty, yet you still dare show your face?"

"Please, Tiko!" shouted Spotty as she reached out to hold him back before the hornbill assaulted his uncle again, "What has gotten into you? Someone could get hurt!"

"With all due respect, your Highness, that was the whole idea!" snarled Tiko.

"Hey, show some respect, will ya? Both for the Queen and your uncle!" Yakta quickly reprimanded the bird. Meanwhile, Chanua paced over to Zazu to lend the mangled majordomo a hand. With ample effort, Zazu managed to hop onto her back, still wet, ragged and overly dirty from his painful crash-landing.

"Now, Zazu, what on earth is happening? Why are you here?"

"I-I came looking for you, Sires," stuttered the elderly bird, shivering from anxiety and general discomfort at his present state.

"That much I figgured out already, what else?"

"I came to tell you that it is already all over..."

Tiko violently interrupted his uncle: "Lies! Sire, please, will you really continue to put up with the poison his words spread?"

"No, please, your Majesties, listen to me!" continued Zazu, pleading in uncertain voice, "It's over, the deadlock has ended – Lady Vitani has voluntarily stepped down, ceding all her powers back to King Simba; she moved back to the Outlands and..."

I don't believe a word of it," growled Kwini, "He's just trying to stall us..."

"Yeah, I know Vitani, and she wouldn't just step down – the fact she had Tiko call us over is the best prove of that," agreed Spotty.

"No, please, your highnesses, I would never..."

"Pull the other one, Zazu; we're not buying it," smirked Spotty, "and even in the if the unlikely event you were right, it couldn't hurt to go check out the Pridelands either way..."

"After all, if you're right, we'll still have to go over there to congratulate Simba on his re-enthronement," added Yakta in a sarcastic smile, "Let's go! Tiko, lead the way again – freelance, of course."

In a matter of seconds, Tiko had flew up again, without even deeming Zazu worthy of a triumphant look, followed by most of the lions on the ground. Chanua lingered a bit, however.

"Since, notwithstanding my own blessed age, you're probably the oldest among us, I'll give you exactly three seconds to get off and fly along..."

"But I can't fly like this!" protested Zazu, more pathetic than angry as he held out his wet and mud-stained wings, of whom some feathers had crooked after his unfortunate landing moments earlier.

"Then you'd better hold on real tight," chuckled the queen-mother, after which she too rushed off, following her pride. Luckily for him, the elder majordomo was indeed able to hold on, though just barely.

"Dad, enough! Stop..." grunted Tanabi, seeing how close they were to the Border River, where it seemed everyone's fate would be decided. Without uttering even one word of acknowledgment, Simba came to a stumbling halt and fell through his knees into the soft grass. From the screeching sound of his heavy breathing, Tanabi could make it his father was in no condition to talk. Pity; he'd have to go without encouragement from here on.
Of course, Simba's current state was largely the effect of the former king's own overconfidence – relying on the experiences he had had while carrying Tanabi when he was still a cub had proven to be a pretty misleading idea. But it could have been worse, reasoned Simba, just imagine how heavy Tanabi would have been if he hadn't been starved by his temporary coma. On the other hand, if Tanabi hadn't been weakened by the come, Simba wouldn't have had to have carried him for most of the way.

"All right, thanks, dad. Now you stay here, while I sort the mess out happening by the river."

The lion was just about to continue his journey, when he saw Timon and Pumba re-appearing, which made him mindful of just one last thing he had to say.

"Oh yeah... and guys, remember: the carrying – it never happened, capice?" With that, Tanibi took off again, towards the river. Timon stared at him as the lion ran forth.

"Simba, I hate to have to break it to ya, but your kid is really starting to go cuckoo for coco pops..."

Umeme really was in a tough spot there – on the one hand, she was fighting it out with Bibii, whom supported Nala. On the other hand, however, it seemed Nala was quickly losing ground to the incredibly skilled and agile Vitani. But Umeme's entire idea had been to keep either side from winning this fight, thus keeping both her 'queens' and friends alive. As said, such a goal wasn't an easy one. But Umeme was determined, that had to count for something.
Bidii, whom Umeme was confronting now, wasn't about to let off, however. She had to be dealt with first without inflicting too much harm – a daunting task. For now, their wrestling fight was somehow what of a draw: Bidii threw a punch at Umeme's flank, Umeme aimed a bite at Bidii's paw, but for apparent reasons, no one seemed to be willing to go in for a final blow.
Then, as she was just knocked over by a well placed swoop from her opponent, Umeme saw an opening. In a swift and sudden motion, the lioness curled up, after which she forcefully thrust forward both her back-paws, scoring a major hit on Bidii's chin. Sticky streams of blood and saliva flew from the lioness' mouth as her head was thrown backward. In a stroke of misfortune, Umeme's hit had caused Bidii to bit of a small tip of her tongue.
Counting on her opponent being temporarily knocked out, Umeme got up and ran towards the river's edge, where Vitani was starting to overpower Nala, beating her down into the mud time and time again. However, she suddenly felt a sting of pain in her back, and lost her balance, falling face down in the dirt. She looked back, and saw Bidii digging her teeth in her hind-paw, which hurt hideously. She hadn't knocked her out after all, even though Umeme, as she looked into the other lioness' groggy, hazy eyes guessed her opponent was still pretty close to collapsing.
Bidii's persistence shouldn't have come as a surprise to her though; after all, Bidii was fighting not just for her queen, but for her daughter as well. And whomever gets between a mother and her child is in for a world of hurt.
At that very moment, however, a hairy paw suddenly appeared around Bidii's neck, violently pulling her back, then pushing her down onto the ground. It was Kucha, who had seemed to have gotten up again from her previous unconscious state, notwithstanding the fact half her head was still covered in blood from her previous fight with Bidii, moments earlier.

"Go!" shouted the lioness to Umeme, sounding awfully dazed as she did. As a matter of fact, Kucha felt so light-headed she could hardly stand up on all fours, but she had rejoined the battle nonetheless. Irony had it, however, that Kucha thought Umeme was about to spring to Vitani's aid, while in fact she wanted to try and keep Vitani from taking down Nala. Otherwise, she would have never sprung to Umeme's aid.
But that didn't matter ti Umeme, who now saw her chance to try and maintain some sort of balance between the two belligerents. And no moment to soon, it seemed, as Vitani now towered out above Nala, already lifting her paw for what seemed to be about the final blow as Nala tried crawling away desperately. Umeme sprinted forward, took aim and then leaped at Vitani, who stood with her back towards the approaching Umeme. Teeth and and claws bared, Umeme leaped closer as Vitani was aiming at Nala's vulnerable neck.

"Watch it!"

"Wha...?"

Before Dakly could even turn his head around, the lioness had already come in close enough to maul him hard. Putting all her energy in one uppercut, she hit the hyena smack on the chest. In the blink of an eye, he felt all the air being forced out of his lungs, after which he was momentarily unable to breathe back in again. He quicly fell down on the grass, convulsing as he struggled to draw breath.

"Oh no you didn't!" yelped Shenzi as she in turn charged the lioness. The feline, not expecting such a brazen charge and still focused on her first target, was caught by surprise. Before she could even growl in surprise, the hyena had already caught the lioness' neck in her yaws.
Of course, Shenzi's first reflex would have been to simply chomp down and shatter the lioness' spine, but at the last moment she remembered the promise she had made to Vitani: no killing. But she still had the lioness between her yaws, and if she'd let her go it would be Shenzi who would be on the receiving end to much more severe consequences – the Pridelanders had, after all, not made the same pledge to prevent fatalities among their opponents. Lacking inspiration, she couldn't come up with anything better than to use the enormous strength she had in her neck and yaws to try and knock the lioness out by banging her head to the ground. That wasn't an enormous success, though, and before long the lioness had wrenched herself free from the hyena's grip.
Here, however, the hyenas' numerical superiority came into play, as she was immediately mobbed by two fresh opponents. This freed Shenzi to check up on Dakly, who still lay down in the grass.

"Come, on get up already!"

"Give... me... a... second..." coughed Dakly.

"Please, don't tell me you're letting them beat you that easily," chuckled Shenzi, "I'm almost twice your age, but I'm still up and running..."

"Well kudos to you," huffed the still shocked Dakly, "But I'll have you know that... Ow crud!"

"You wanted to let me know that?"

"No, look! Over there!" Dakly shouted, pointing down at the river's edge. Shenzi turned around just in time to see Umeme grabbing Vitani, pulling her away from the downed Nala who was crawling away to try and recover. As the former queen wasn't hurt too bad, chances were that wouldn't take incredibly long.

"Crud! Two on one, that ain't fair!" She conveniently ignored the lioness she had just attached and who was still engaged with the two hyenas that had saved Shenzi's butt.
Concerned for Vitani now that Umeme seemed to have turned on her, and eager to finally confront Nala after all these years, Shenzi needed only a second's though to break away from the current fighting and storm down towards the river, having little regard for all else what was happening.

"Wait, aunt!" shouted Dakly, as he scrambled to his feet trying to keep up with Shenzi. And 't was a good thing he did, because as soon as Shenzi started running down, she got a lioness on her tail. With half a portion of luck and half a portion of skill, Dakly was able to bite her back paw, tripping the lioness over and ruining her chase. That gave Shenzi pretty much a clear path to the river, although it also meant Dakly would be in for yet another painful beating dealt by one of Nala's lionesses.
As Shenzi ran down the hill, avoiding the various skirmishes happening all over, she observed how Vitani became enraged at what she perceived as a betrayal on Umeme's part and attacked her without any restraint, forcing the other lioness to respond in kind. She could only imagine the bitter swears and reproaches such confrontation would produce. What she also noticed, however, was that Nala had gotten up again without either Vitani or Umeme noticing. Strangely enough, the old queen seemed relatively unhurt, and was obviously preparing to rejoin the fight at the most opportune moment – namely, the moment where she'd get a shot at Vitani's neck. Yet Shenzi reasoned the fight Nala had just crawled out of would have left at least some marks, making Nala a more suitable match to take on.
What Shenzi forgot to take into account, however, was that Nala's spirit had dramatically risen as soon as she had seen Umeme taking on Vitani – there seemed to be some hope after all that Nala's original plan would ultimately still work out as she had intended, even though the confrontation had, at first, turned out a disaster.

"It's time I end this madness once and for all," whispered Nala, as she prepared to intervene in the fight unfolding between Vitani and Umeme, "Tough luck, Vitani: it seems as if my daughter did come forth to save me after all – even though it wasn't the kind daughter you were expecting."

Nala readied her muscles, and picked her target: Umeme and Vitani were so occupied with each other, that they hadn't noticed Nala. The old queen now needed but to jump fort, onto Vitani's back, pull back her head and...
Suddenly, her stream of thoughts was interrupted as she noticed, from the corners of her eye, appearing next to her an row after row of enormous yellowish fangs. In an fast and unconscious reflex, Nala was just able to lift up her forepaw, preventing the unnamed yaws from clapping shut around her throat.
Immediately, a searing pain shot through her paw as she felt her tissue being ripped apart. In the blink of an eye, however, the pain moved up through her shoulder as her paw was suddenly and forcefully jerked backwards. The rest of her body soon followed suit, as the force of her opponents charge pulled her over, into the shallow part of the river.
This hadn't exactly been what Shenzi had had in mind: in stead of getting a hold of Nala's neck, she had bitten into her paw. Unable to stop her charge in the slippery mud, she had subsequently slid past Nala while still holding her paw, causing them both to tumble into the river. And in what appeared to be a stroke of luck on Nala's behalf, the hyena had been unable to find grip in the bone of Nala's paw, in stead just ripping through the soft tissue, tearing of skin and flesh in stead of breaking the paw. That of course also hurt – hurt a lot! – not to mention it somehow crippled the former queen. Yet it wouldn't exactly be the death-sentence a severed paw would have been.
Nala struggled to get up from the water. She quickly noticed she couldn't rely on her wounded paw anymore, because as soon as she did, pain racked her body and she just fell down again. But even though her agony was crippling, she was still conscious enough to try and figure out who had foiled her plan this time around and get back at her

"You!" she roared as soon she noticed a soaked Shenzi standing up near her, a few feet further into the river.

"What, you didn't think I had just disappeared, did ya? It's time I made you bleed for what you did to us for bringing back that fool of a Simba out whatever cesspool you dug him up from..."

"We should have killed you all when we first chance," hissed Nala as she stumbled closer, hindered by her wounds and the cold water, "But that's a mistake I won't make twice..."

"My thoughts exactly..."