AN: Please pardon any mistakes; I wanted to get a first draft up sooner rather than later. Revision will be carried out in due time!

EINUNDZWANZIG

Der Anschlag

Markos and Vitani returned shortly after Hermann set out to look for them, but of the three, only Vitani was unclear as to why she had been called back (much to Kopa's disappointment). Hermann would only tell her, despite her urging for more information, that she had a visitor, and asking Markos what had happened certainly wouldn't have done any good either: Vitani knew that she couldn't speak German, Markos didn't speak much English, and Hermann spoke both, leaving any clandestine communications out of the picture. When they all arrived inside the cave after the short walk home, Vitani immediately stared at Hermann's bed, which had been taken over by what looked like an indiscriminate lump under a blanket. "Is it dead?" she asked.

"Dead? No, of course not," Hermann said. "And she's not an 'it'; that only works in Hannibal Lecter movies. She's a lion, like you." He turned to Markos and asked in German, "How long has she been asleep? What time is it?" Markos just grinned and snickered.

"Hel-lo? Not a hard question…what time is it?"

"It's Miller time."

"You're hopeless." Markos kept giggling, rather impressed with himself, as Hermann told Vitani that she could wake Adila up. "Do you know her at all?" Hermann asked the cub. "Her name is Adila; she was fairly intent on seeing you."

"Adila, as in Adila from our pride? This is her? Sure, I know who she is," Vitani said. "She was really nice to me, almost like having another aunt…that is, before I ran away and all that. I can't believe it, she made it all the way here? Hey, Adila, wake up! It's me!" Adila didn't move.

"You're talking to the wrong end," Hermann said. Even though the mix-up was understandable, as all of Adila, save for the end of her nose, was covered up, he still had to laugh.

"I meant to do that," Vitani said as she quickly went around to the other side. "Adila? Adila? Anyone home in there?"

If I woke patients up with that line, I'd be up a certain creek without a paddle, Hermann thought as Adila opened her eyes and saw Vitani standing next to her. "Vitani! You made it!" Adila said as soon as she recognized the cub.

"Yeah, there's a long story behind that one," Vitani said as she looked over at Markos. "I ran away after Zira tried to kill my best friend, and everyone here said I could stay, so here I am." Adila was surprised that Vitani didn't call Zira, "mom", but knowing what had happened, it wasn't long before she understood why. True, one lioness still carried that title as far as Vitani was concerned, but it certainly wasn't Zira. "So what brought you all the way here?"

"The same thing that brought you here. When Zira came back after that night, she thought for sure that she had succeeded in killing Kopa," Adila said, confirming what Hermann had though all along. "Of course, there was talk in the following days of what had happened here, but everyone spoke of an 'attack', not a murder. Zira might be evil, but she isn't stupid: she knew the reason for that choice of words. That's where I came in to this whole mess…I tried to convince her that the damage had been done, that the message had been set and so on and so forth, but she wouldn't have it. She had already decided to go back and finish the job."

"So were you complicit in this whole plan from the beginning?" Hermann asked, wondering where this lioness's loyalties truly lay.

"No, never! I never wanted any of this to happen. If I had known it was going to happen in the first place, I would have done anything to stop it. Killing another pride's cubs isn't a message, it's insanity…and I've never been on Zira's side to begin with. All my life, I've looked for some way out of that wasteland; I was always afraid to risk running because Zira would have had me killed for going against her. But this time around, not running would have been the death sentence, so I took my chances."

"Why? What happened?" Hermann and Vitani asked at the same time.

"After Vitani escaped—none of us knew exactly to where, but we all had a good idea—Zira started planning in earnest to return here and get rid of Kopa, and anyone else who stood in her way, for good. Like I said, I tried to talk her out of it for days, but it didn't do any good, and one night she just snapped. She jumped me from behind and tried to kill me; she said something about 'if you're not with me, you're with them.' As soon as I could get myself free, I took off running…I didn't stop until I reached that pond a few days later. After that, it's a blank until now, but what I do remember is what Zira and her pride are planning to do, even if the others are being dragged along more out of fear than out of loyalty. They're coming here, two weeks from the day I left…so that leaves a week and a half. And they only have one objective, one order: kill everyone in this room, plus one who isn't."

"You mean they're not just after Kopa anymore?"

"Zira took it personally. Kopa's not the only one with a price on his head; we're all on her hit list now, especially Vitani and 'those damned Germans', in her words, who rescued Kopa after the attack. I can only assume that means you two, even though I doubt she even knows what 'German' means," Adila said, looking at Hermann and Markos. "And it's also a safe bet that in the time I've been gone, my name's been added to the list as well."

"Why would they wait two weeks to come? Why not just show up overnight and raid, pillage, plunder, loot and burn before anyone has time to prepare?"

"Because they couldn't risk it…more than one of them are set to have cubs any day now. Once that's all taken care of, however, we're their next stop. I heard it myself; they won't leave for at least another week." Adila stopped, noticing that Vitani had completely changed, and not for the better, in the few seconds since her rather detailed description of Zira's plans. "What's wrong, Vitani?" she asked.

Vitani looked off to one side, then to another, and sprinted out of the cave, tears staining the ground below her as she ran.

"Warten! Was ist los?" his friend echoed in German, all to no avail.

"What kind of question is that?" Hermann answered back. "You know exactly what's wrong…if one of your parents were trying to kill you, don't you think you might feel just a little discouraged…that is, once the eighteen shots of Jägermeister you took to cope wore off?"

"Well, now I know what's wrong, but I think you're forgetting that none of that conversation took place in German. Calm down…have a drink, seeing as you're already thinking about alcohol this early in the day."

"I'm not opening that Scotch until we've both got time to enjoy it," Hermann said. "Stay here with Adila; looks like I'm on cub recovery duty again. Tell her I'll be back soon, and then we'll all head for the pond." Markos nodded and gestured for Hermann to go, even though he knew it would be a task just to introduce himself in English, never mind discuss the particulars of what was happening now. When Hermann had unsteadily three-stepped his way outside, all he saw at first was Nala licking at something indiscriminate curled up against her side, but upon taking a closer look he saw it was someone familiar. "Und? Wer ist das?" Hermann asked, even though he knew the answer. "And who's that?"

"That," Nala said, stopping the licks long enough to speak, "would be Vitani. I assume you know why she's so upset? She's practically inconsolable…hasn't told me a word."

Hermann walked over and whispered what he knew into Nala's ear, not wanting Vitani to hear everything a second time around. "Oh, dear…not good," Nala said after Hermann had finished, not knowing what to be more worried about: Zira's planned assault on her pride, or Vitani's trying to quantify the fact that her own mother was out for her blood.

"Go away, Hermann!" Vitani whined, her voice muffled from her head being all but buried in Nala's fur. She might not have been able to see him, but his irregular footsteps and unmistakable accent had given him away from the start. "Hau auf, or however you two crazies say it!"

"Vitani!" Nala said, "You're not to speak like that, especially not to him!"

"It's no big deal," Hermann quickly interjected, "and it's actually 'hau ab', not 'hau auf'; that would mean 'go up', which doesn't make much sense unless there's a staircase involved…so no offense taken. I'll leave you two alone." He turned around and went back inside; Vitani didn't move until she could no longer hear the wooden click of Hermann's cane against the ground. Nala, for her part, said nothing. She didn't quite know how to respond, seeing she had never had a contract taken out on her life—much less by her mother, of all the possible suspects—and as such thought it best to keep quiet until either she or Vitani found the right words.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Nala finally said after as she looked out over the plains. "Hermann's going to get Zira; he's a first-class shot, and on the small chance he misses for the first time in his life, Markos will be right behind him with a second bullet."

Unfortunately, as far as Vitani was concered, Nala was merely stating the obvious. She could have cared less about the fact that her life might have been in some kind of danger; she knew as well as Nala did that Hermann and his rifle against almost anyone else was a one-sided engagement. What Vitani was feeling was anguish, not fear.

"She wants me dead…my own mother…" she choked out. "How could she do that?"

"That…I…don't know." It doesn't make any sense—

"And the rest of my family? What's going to happen to them? Hermann's gonna shoot them too, I know it. They're not all bad, but Hermann won't have a choice if they go for him. I didn't even get to tell them 'goodbye' before I left; now I'll have no family at all."

"I'll talk to him, maybe there's something he can do. My feeling is, someone as well-trained as he is can make allowances for that. But more importantly, don't forget you've still got a family, no matter what happens. There's all of us here…me, Simba, Kopa, Adila—yes, she can stay; I've already made sure of that—and of course our little German detachment. And speaking of those two, they probably understand what you're going through even better than I do, given both of their histories."

"How would they understand? They've never had anything like this happen to them."

"Actually, they have. Remember how Hermann and Markos both lost their great grandfathers in the war, and how one of Hermann's best friends was killed just last week at the hospital? Trust me; they know what it's like to feel sad and confused. If you told them what you've just told me," Nala said as gently as possible, "I'd be very surprised if they didn't figure it all out in seconds. After all, they are doctors."

"Doctors with weird accents," Vitani said, smiling a bit.

"Well, they probably think we have weird accents. But more importantly than that, we're not going to just kick you out once all is said and done, the fight's over, and the boys are back in Europe. Like I've told you before, you're part of our family now—nothing's ever going to change that—and you'll never have to go back to that horrible place ever again. I promise."

Vitani could feel the tears coming back, and for once, knowing there would be no resultant ridicule, she made no effort at all to keep up her normally tough-skinned façade. After a few uncertain seconds, she got up and slowly inched her way between Nala's front paws, the same way she had always seen other cubs do with their own mothers but had never been able to do herself. Nala started grooming her again, and Vitani finally found the courage to ask the one question that had been on her mind from the moment she had arrived.

"Nala? Can I call you 'mom'?"

Meanwhile

With Hermann puffing and panting at the back of the line, everyone in his pond-bound excursion slowly made their way down to the water. Hermann knew that Zira would still be at least a week away, but since hearing Adila describe what was in store for the pride, he wasn't comfortable going anywhere without a rifle and a handful of shells. As Markos filled a few canteens and dropped in a few iodine tablets in each one—tablets which Hermann had already checked, just to make sure they weren't more sleeping pills—Adila set about rehydrating while Hermann took off what little of Kopa's bandages remained necessary. Eventually, everyone but Hermann, who remained on the bank with a worried look on his face, was swimming and enjoying themselves.

"Why aren't you coming in?" Markos asked. "There's nothing wrong with the water."

"I'm not concerned about the water; I'm concerned about what's in it!" Hermann said.

"Stop whining and swim, Vulture Bait."

"Crazy person says what?"

"Trust me, you could seriously use a cleaning-off! And I don't see anything here besides water, so you've got nothing to worry about in the first place."

Of course you don't see anything; ambush predators don't hang out where you can see them, Hermann thought as he pulled his socks and shoes off and waded in. "I guess it's not too bad," he said once he was up to his shoulders. "At least there are worst places to be than this, even if it's full of critters that would love to eat me."

"What are you doing?" Adila said as she watched Hermann scrubbing himself. "Does that hurt?"

"I'm trying to get clean. When your tongue's only a few centimeters long, you've got to make do with these instead," he replied, holding up his hands. "And with all the mud you've picked up, you might want to try it as well. Wait…where did that log come from?"

"What log?" everyone asked.

"The one right in front of…now it's gone! Markos, stop playing jokes on me for one minute, will you?"

"I didn't do anything!" Markos said. "Either you're seeing things, or…I take that back; it just popped up behind you."

Hermann slowly turned around to see that Markos was spot on about the "log". "Who's doing this?" he said, visibly annoyed. "Can't you think of a better practical joke than moving a piece of wood around in a pond?"

"Again, it's not us," Markos replied, "but it is off to your left side now…and one more thing, while we're on the subject: unless tree branches have suddenly evolved eyes and teeth, that's no log."

Hermann looked to his left and saw he was face to face with what he had been hoping to avoid all along: looking straight back at him was fourteen massive feet of crocodile, just far enough under the surface to keep from being seen the whole time. "So, this is Roberto?" he said to Kopa. "Uh…hi there."

"Buenos días," the shape said in a low, hissy voice before disappearing back under the water, only to re-emerge seconds later directly under Kopa, who was rather surprised to find himself suddenly clear of the water. What Hermann couldn't figure out was why Kopa looked so calm from then on as he sat on the back of an animal that could have easily, at any given time, turned him and everyone else into a four-course meal.

"See? Dad and I told you he's not bad," Kopa said as his unlikely carrier started paddling around.

"We must have found him on a good day," Hermann replied, still trying to clean himself off and get out as fast as possible. He could see that Kopa and this massive crocodile were having some sort of conversation as they circled around, but for the moment, he was quite content to make a hasty exit and ask about everything later. Once he saw that Adila had drunk enough water and managed to get the last of the mud and grit out of her fur, he put his shoes back on and picked up his cane, motioning impatiently for everyone else to follow him.

"What were you asking him?" Hermann asked Kopa as the two of them started to walk back.

"He was the one asking me things, actually," Kopa said. "He wanted to know why you act so funny around him. He said he wouldn't ever hurt one of us."

"Because in my country, if you see a crocodile three feet away, the accepted practice is to run like hell even if they've signed a nonaggression pact with the Prime Minister. What else?"

"He asked me how I was doing. He heard about what Zira did and wanted to make sure I was OK. The last time he saw me here with you, he said I looked pretty bad, but he didn't want to scare you and Markos by coming over."

Either that, or he wanted to know if you weren't strong enough yet to swim away, Hermann thought. "Is that all?"

"No, he also said that he recognized Adila, even though he didn't know her name, and that he brought her to us after she passed out, just like you thought. Figuring out how to say that one took him a long time; I don't think English is his first language."

"It isn't," Hermann said. "If he's from Spain, his first language would most likely be Spanish…Castilian, to be exact. Anyway, there's—

"That's not everything," Kopa interrupted. "He told me to tell you, and my Dad, that he can help us."

"Help us how? Disposing of the bodies once Markos and I stop shooting?"

Kopa rolled his eyes and gave a faint smile. "No, Hermann, before that. Have you ever heard of a lion going after a crocodile?"

"Come to think of it, no. If I recall correctly from my high school biology classes, nothing goes after crocodiles, at least not a crocodile that big."

"Not even Zira," Kopa said. "Even her versus Roberto isn't a fair fight."

Hermann began to see that Kopa had a point. "And the last thing we want is a fair fight," he said, "in our favor, of course."

"Roberto's lived here for longer than any of us have even been alive," Kopa went on. "He told me it's the least he can do for Dad's letting him stay all this time; plus, I think he kinda likes me! At least, that's what I think he said. He's even harder to understand than you and Markos are."

"I hope that his taking a liking to you is strictly, and not in terms of you winding up on the nightly menu," Hermann said with a grin as he began to think things over anew. "So how old is he? I'll turn thirty next year…I doubt he's older than that."

"He's actually seventy-two."

"Wow…that's getting up there in years, even for a human. At any rate, Zira won't have forgotten who's responsible for her ear," he said to no-one specific, testing the ground in front of him with his cane before taking each step. Then, as quickly as Roberto had appeared from under the water a few minutes ago, Hermann heard something strange from behind him:

"Dah-dum…dah-dum…"

"Markos, if you sing one more confounded measure of that "JAWS" theme, I swear in the name of all things sacred that I'll kill you and make it look like an accident."