(A/N: Announcement: Some time soon I will be changing my name on this site permanently from Samuel Reiman to Machungwa63, so that I can keep stories on here that may have been considered slightly contreversial (*cough* Rated M for Nala *cough*) without anyone "important" (as defined by society) being able to find it immediately and link it to my name or whatever. So...take a note. Also, sorry this update took so long. I hope the next one should be up soon(er).)
"If you ask me, I'd like to see Sarafina get back up," whispered Timon to Pumbaa.
"I think we all do, Timon," replied Pumbaa.
"See, when Sarafina was up, Simba and Queeny here were providing us with a running commentary. Now, I don't know what's going on!"
"Well…someone caught a zebra."
"Who?"
"Eh…"
"Exactly. And who are those two lions chasing that antelope?"
"That looks like Juni and Winda, Timon."
"Well that's great – who the heck are they?"
"Juni was the lioness Sarafina always supported, and Winda is the one who saw her sister die."
The crowd around them cheered. Timon and Pumbaa looked over towards the right, where the antelope had just been brought down.
"Who got it?" asked Timon.
"Eh…"
"My thoughts exactly."
Wamariri ran across to the inside of the track.
"Kanafa!" she called.
The cheetah heard his name being called and made his way over to the side of the track.
"Yes, Wamariri?"
"Can you move that lioness to the outside of the track? She's in the way."
"She's knocked out, Wamariri. She's not dead so we can't remove her from the track, so all we can do right now is try and wake her up so she can move herself. There is no rule that allows us to move an unconscious competitor."
Wamariri frowned. "Are you sure she's not dead?"
"She has a pulse."
Wamariri growled and turned back around so she could back in position to ambush.
Simba slowly slunk away from his mate as he let her body quietly fall to the ground.
"Hey guys," he whispered, as he moved over towards Timon and Pumbaa.
"Hi Simba," replied Pumbaa. He looked over Simba's shoulder. "So, Nala fell asleep?"
"Yeah. Poor thing. Cried herself to sleep on my shoulder." He sighed. "It's okay though. Sarafina's just knocked out. I'll wake her when she gets up, it will make her happy."
"Isn't Sarafina going to fall behind?" asked Pumbaa.
"I'm afraid so, but hopefully when she gets up she'll be awake as ever. I guess we'll have to wait and see."
"What's the hold up?" asked Bwana Zungumza.
"The antelope's too afraid to go out. You need to tell Tumaini to move further down the straight."
The lion looked over towards the track, where the competitors had slowly but surely been edging ever nearer to the track entrance in order to be the first to ambush any new prey.
Kanafa was walking back from his conversation with Wamariri when he realized what was going on. He was just across the track from Tumaini, so he knew that he was in the best position to communicate with her.
"He's not going to come out until you move, you know."
Kanafa's message caught the attention of both Tumaini and Anzi. Anzi, who had been sitting practically next to the other lioness, began to move on down the track.
"Tumaini, you too. You'll still be the first in ambush."
Tumaini wasn't going to move though. If this antelope wouldn't walk on by her now, it sure as heck wasn't going to walk on by her when it got out on the track. It would just stay stationary until one of the runners came out of the final turn and killed it. In which case, she needed to stay as close to the entrance as possible so that she could get an earlier run on the antelope when it did enter the track.
"Tumaini, are you listening?" asked Kanafa.
"All this chitter-chatter ain't gonna make that antelope come out any quicker. I'd just send out another one if I were you."
"Can no do, ma'am. Rules are rules."
"Well then I'm just going to stay here until the runners come along," Tumaini replied.
Kanafa sighed, but turned around and let the situation be.
She'll just be losing time and points. She'll see.
Wamariri ran her tongue over her blood-stained jaw as she walked back to the outside of the track after her most recent kill: a zebra. She now took position on the outside practically right next to Ema, another competitor who had also chosen to wait in ambush.
"Looks like that's the last prey we'll be getting for a while," commented Ema.
"Why's that?"
"Tumaini is glued to the entrance over there. The antelope is refusing to come out, and now so is the new zebra."
Wamariri looked over towards the track entrance for the prey and saw that Ema was indeed right.
"Why is she doing that?"
"Why do you think?"
"She's being an idiot."
"I know."
"She's not even leading!"
"I know."
"No one's going to score points if she stays there all day."
Ema smiled. "Well…she's not." Thinking about her own words, Ema took off into a run.
Simba sighed. "Not again."
"What?" asked Timon and Pumbaa in unison.
"Lenny's going after another buffalo. He's going to end up killing himself if he keeps doing that."
The three looked over as, indeed, Lenny began to chase the buffalo on track as soon as it had passed his ambush point. It wasn't too hard to catch up with it, but once he jumped up and began to ride the creature's back…well, that's when the trouble usually started occurring. It was no different this time. Lenny was not on the buffalo securely and thus the prey bucked and kicked, hoping and eventually succeeding in throwing Lenny off. Lenny closed his eyes as he braced for impact when he hit the ground, and luckily he came down on his side and was at no risk for fatal injury. But not all injuries are fatal. The lion soon found his shoulder in severe pain and he jumped back up onto his three working legs with his eyes still shut tight.
"AAaarrgghh!" he yelled, limping towards the outside of the track. "It hurts so much!"
Unknowingly to Lenny, as he moved with his eyes closed, he limped over right into the path that Ema had chosen to run. Ema was able to stop herself before hitting him, but she wasn't very happy about it.
"Excuse me," she said, in a tone letting Lenny know how she felt.
Apparently Lenny had an inability to recognize that tone.
"Ema! Ema! You're a hypnotist, aren't you? Can you put me to sleep, please? It hurts."
"I'm trying to…"
"Please?"
"No!"
"I'll make it up to you, please," pleaded Lenny. His eyes were opening now, and getting watery from the pain.
Ema growled. "No! I'm sorry, I do not have the time to stand around and hypnotize someone right now. The pain will go with time. I'm sorry. I've got to go."
And with that, Ema maneuvered around Lenny and ran on.
"Well this should be exciting," commented Timon, as he watched Nakshi, Guvu, and Rakusa make their way out of the final turn.
"If they'd put a piece of prey out on the track it would be," replied Simba. "They're trying to get that antelope and zebra to move but Tumaini is just sitting too close."
"She moved!" commented Pumbaa.
"She moved?" asked Simba, checking back over to see if Pumbaa was correct.
He was.
At the last moment Tumaini had began to move off, and now the antelope and zebra were more scared about the fact that the three lions of Nakshi, Guvu, and Rakusa were charging their way out of the turn, than the fact that Tumaini was a slight bit in front of them. Thus, the two pieces of prey moved their way out onto the track.
"Ooh dear," commented Zazu, sitting not far off from the group, "I do hope none of them run over Sarafina."
Simba's face fell grim. He'd forgotten about that. Nala's mother's body was still lying motionless in the dead center of the front stretch.
Well there wasn't much anybody could do about it right now.
Tumaini ran on by Sarafina easily, as did the antelope and the zebra. Nakshi was elegant enough to incorporate a jump into her run and she easily made her way over Sarafina's body, and Rakusa just was able to make his way on by. Guvu, however, was not so lucky. He tried to jump over her, but one of his rear legs caught her body, making the champion stumble and making Sarafina's body roll over.
Simba gasped and covered his mouth.
"Oh, that wasn't that bad!" said Timon.
"No," admitted Simba, "but look at her face."
Timon looked.
"Oooh…" was his reply.
The side of Sarafina's face that had been pressed down on the ground ever since her accident had now been upturned and was quite the unpleasant site. It was the side that Simba was glad Nala had never seen. Blood and dirt coated her entire cheek, scratches and bruises surrounded her eye, and a trickle of blood has been pouring out of her nose too.
Guvu, meanwhile, got up from his trip easily enough, but he had lost the chase. He decided to walk back over to the side and wait in ambush for whatever came next. Before he arrived at the side though, a loud coughing sound came from behind him. He checked back over his shoulder and saw that it was coming from the same lioness that he had just tripped over. He decided to stop and wait to make sure she was okay. It was the sportsmanlike thing to do.
"You okay?" he asked, once the lioness's coughing had subsided a little.
A loud cheer suddenly erupted from the crowd, but Guvu checked over his shoulder and realized that it was because Tumaini had caught an antelope and Rakusa had caught a zebra.
"Ha ha!" exclaimed Zazu happily. "Rakusa beat Wamariri to it!"
Simba smiled. "Good for you, Zazu," he said as a reply.
"And Sarafina's up!" exclaimed Pumbaa.
"She's…what?" asked Simba in disbelief, checking back over to where the sputtering lioness now slowly rose to her feet.
"Woohoo!" Simba cheered. "She's back in it."
Simba's cheer woke Nala up, and the lioness lifted her eyelids open. Realizing where she was, the queen was soon back on her feet. It only took her a couple of seconds of scanning the track to catch what she had been looking for. "Oh, Mom!" she exclaimed happily, feeling a huge knot in her chest being loosened up immediately. "She's alright, thank heaven!"
"You're alright?" asked Guvu to Sarafina as she stumbled towards the outside of the track.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"Fantastic," replied the lion sarcastically. "Seriously though, you were lucky you weren't ran over. What happened?"
"I have no idea," replied Sarafina sighing. "I'm in the Siku Choka…I'm on the front stretch…it's night…and I feel terrible, that's all I really know right now…and need to know I guess."
"You're going about this well."
Sarafina shook her head. "I've seen too many Siku Chokas. I know that whatever happened, I'm probably very lucky."
"Hmm," was Guvu's reply. "What's your score?"
"No idea. What's yours?"
"One hundred and forty-five. They're still keeping score on the inside there if you wanted to check yours now."
Not knowing how long she had been asleep, Sarafina considered that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea if she was to check up on what her score was. She made her way over to the inside of the track.
"What's your name, ma'am?" asked one of the scorekeepers.
"Sarafina."
"Sarafina…let's see here…your current score is sixty-nine."
Sarafina ran that number through her head a few times before replying: "Oh darn."
"Why don't you like talking to me?" asked Lenny inquisitively.
Wamariri continued to stare off into the distance, without even considering answering.
"You know…cos…cos I understand that maybe you're not the talking type…but you're just not being very nice about it."
"Lenny," came a commanding voice.
Lenny turned his head around. It was Tumaini who had called him.
"I'm sure what Wamariri is trying to say is that we're competitors, and we're all focusing on killing that next piece of prey right now, and that she doesn't want to talk to you in case she accidently kills you later on."
"You didn't really seem too fond of talking to me earlier, either."
"That's because I feel the same way Wamariri does."
"But at least you're being nice about it."
"That's not a complement. I don't want to hear you say anything else from now on, either."
Lenny blinked. He shrugged. "Alright. But if you're begging me to call someone over to help you later, then I'm going to remember what you just said, and there'll be no help for you."
"Fine," replied Tumaini.
Lenny shook his head and smiled. These guys were insane.
Ema brought down a buffalo and Bahati a zebra. Sarafina tried to forget about the pain running through her head, and she scored an easy ten points just by ambushing an antelope.
The Pridelanders cheered.
"She got back in it quick," commented Simba. He soon noticed, however, that a lot of the spectators' attentions had been drawn to the left hand side of the track.
"They've let out three pieces of prey at the same time, and there's seven lions waiting in ambush," Nala explained.
"I miss it when there would be huge packs of lions charging prey down."
"Well…you've got two lions coming out of the final turn."
"Who's that leading them?"
"I was just wondering that."
"It's not…it's not…"
"I think it is," sung Nala happily.
"I thought she was injured."
"Guess the walk done her some good."
"I guess so."
Suddenly the rest of the spectators got to their feet and began cheering. Seemingly, they'd just noticed who the leader of the run was as well: Uku.
A flock of birds then distracted all of the Pridelanders' attentions as they landed around Timon and Pumbaa.
"What's going on?" asked Simba.
"I don't know," replied Nala.
The pair decided, without words, that it was worth walking over and finding out though.
"Guvu leads with 145 points," said a hornbill.
"Wamariri second with 131," said another.
"Oh my gods," commented Nala, placing a paw over her head and trying hard not to laugh.
"Tumaini third with 111."
"Ema fourth with 101."
"There's a tie for fifth…Bahati and Rakusa on 100."
"Seventh is Winda with 91."
"Sarafina is eighth with 80."
"Nakshi is ninth with 60."
"Anzi is tenth with 52."
"Juni has 48 points in eleventh."
"Uku has 47…twelfth."
"And thirteenth and last is Lenny with 41."
With all the hornbills now having done their reports, the all took back off into the air and flew off.
"What was the purpose of that?" asked Nala.
"We wanted to know the scores," replied Timon.
"That's a lot of work for the scorekeepers, though."
"Hey, it's only the first time we've done it. We won't do it again until the end."
"Speaking of work," added Simba, "do you guys want to go and get more rainberries?"
"No," replied Timon.
"What part of 'no' doesn't he understand?" asked Timon to Pumbaa as they carried a tortoise shell full of rainberries back to the track.
Being the first waiting in ambush, everyone assumed that Guvu was going to go after the first piece of prey that came along: the buffalo. They were correct. As he struggled to bring it down, the zebra and antelope cautiously made their way around the battle as Bahati waited second in ambush, and then there was Sarafina, Rakusa, Tumaini, Wamariri, and Lenny, also all waiting.
Bahati went after the zebra, but mistimed it and the zebra began to run away. Tumaini, Wamariri, and Lenny decided to join in the chase.
Sarafina, thus, was offered another easy ten points by ambushing another antelope.
Uku and Winda had now finally made their way onto the backstretch. Although Uku looked fine, she was still in quite a bit of pain, and thus she wasn't running as fast as she would normally be able to.
Thus, Winda was closing.
Meanwhile, the zebra had taken off into the turn. Either he was fast, or the four lions after him were worn out, because the zebra was pulling away from them. Tumaini and Bahati backed off, but continued to run so that they could get back to the front stretch as quick as possible. Wamariri and Lenny were now left running after the zebra.
"Is Guvu going to ambush that buffalo just before Uku and Winda go after that antelope?" asked Simba concerned. "Seems a bit dangerous to run across the track like that."
"Ehhh…he should be okay…" came Nala's reply.
As expected, Guvu ran across the circuit and tried to bring the buffalo down, but for once the buffalo was actually able to shake him off and continue to run.
This caught everyone off guard a little. None more so than Rakusa and Uku. Rakusa was the next waiting in ambush, and Uku had known that she wasn't fast enough to catch the antelope…but now this was a new opportunity for her.
Timon and Pumbaa passed over the top of the hill and caught sight of the track.
"What's going on, Pumbaa?" Timon asked from his back.
"Eh…it looks like Wamariri and Lenny are after the zebra, Sarafina and Winda are after the antelope, and Rakusa, Guvu, and Uku are after the buffalo."
"I guess it would do no harm seeing if Sarafina catches that antelope, then."
"Hey," suddenly came a deep voice from beside the two.
"Aargh!"
"Are you two going to serve us some of those rainberries or not?" asked the deep voice, that Timon and Pumbaa had now identified as belonging to a hippo.
"Yeah…sure…how many do you want?" asked Timon.
"I have friends and family to feed, I'll take them all," replied the hippo, and with that he took the tortoise shell away from them in between his teeth.
Timon and Pumbaa watched as he wandered away.
"He wasn't meant to take the whole shell," commented Pumbaa.
"You tell him," was Timon's reply.
"She has it."
"Who?"
"Your mom. That antelope's hers."
"I thought so too…but she's not that good at running. The longer they run, the more that antelope has Winda's name on it."
"And Rakusa for the buffalo?"
"Most certainly."
"What about the zebra? Wamariri and Lenny have backed off."
Nala checked over the track and caught site of where the zebra and its pursuers were. She smiled. "Yeah…but Tumaini conserved her energy."
Indeed, the zebra was now beginning to slow down because he heard the paws right behind him fall further back…but then Tumaini came sprinting around the other two lions and was able to bring the zebra down before he even knew she was there.
Sarafina watched as the ten points she was after became Winda's, and Rakusa was also successful in bringing down the buffalo, leaving Guvu and Uku to run on by.
Timon and Pumbaa finally made it back up to where the Pridelanders were sitting.
"We had the tortoise shell taken from us," explained Pumbaa, "Timon and I believe that means the rainberries are no longer our responsibility."
"Woo ha ha! Did you see that?" Timon shouted. "A whole pack of lions just ran out of the final turn, thinking they'd get something – and there's nothing there! Sucks for them," he continued, jumping down off of Pumbaa's back and taking a seat on the ground, "oh boy, do I love this game. I think I'll just sit here and watch for the rest of the night."
"But—" began Nala, but Simba held her back.
"Don't worry Nala," he whispered to her, "if anyone needs more rainberries they know who to go to. Timon and Pumbaa will soon work out if this is a good decision or not."
Anzi, Ema, Nakshi, and Juni all watched as the buffalo walked on by them. None of them wanted to go for it: a new antelope and zebra had just been released.
As the new prey began to walk on by, Anzi and Ema moved away from their positions and after the zebra, leaving Nakshi and Juni to go after the much faster antelope.
"Want to stop running, bro?"
Lenny heard the voice from behind him and he slowed up his pace as he turned around to look at who had called him.
"Bahati!"
Lenny now slowed up his pace even more, and both lions ended up walking over to the outside of the track where they stopped and sat down.
"I figured we might as well stop here. There's no prey on the front stretch right now. How have you been, brother?"
"Okay. Some of these competitors really aren't nice though."
"Wamariri and Ema?"
"And Tumaini. Well…I guess she's okay."
Bahati shook his head. "Don't know her. What's your score?"
"Forty-one."
Bahati groaned. "Might want to start getting yourself some points there, little brother."
"Why, how much do you have?"
"One hundred and one…and I'm not leading."
"Oh. I eh…I see what you mean."
"All that energy you used running around this place ten times could have easily been used to bring down at least one antelope."
"Digit points are important though."
"They are…" admitted Bahati. He couldn't really think of much to add onto that. "Come on now, follow me. I'll help you out for a bit. We'll just pretend this is like an old game."
Lenny chuckled. "Isn't it though?"