AN: chapter revised from the original. Apologies for confusion

German phrases used towards the end:

Was ist das?...What's that?

Ich weiss nicht…I don't know

Sprich…speak/talk (as a command)

ACHTUNDZWANZIG

Fremdhilfe (II)

Hermann watched and waited. Any minute now, he thought, knowing it would be impossible for Zira to have gone inside and not run across what was already there waiting for her. Sure enough, a series of muffled shrieks cut through the air, followed by a truly incredible sight: four lionesses running for their lives at top speed and looking as if they had just seen a ghost, all being pursued by one very large, very unfriendly-looking Nile crocodile.

"Brilliant!" Hermann exclaimed. "That's the style…get 'em, Roberto! Give them a taste of their own medicine!" He saw that the four lionesses were stuck running in a frantic circle, often having to step over the bodies of the other ten. Those who hadn't already taken a pretend bullet feigned death shortly after Zira and her guards disappeared from sight, hoping that their leader wouldn't take the complete lack of subsequent gunfire into account, but in truth, none of the allied ten had anything to worry about: Zira was far too preoccupied with what was directly behind her—a one tone crocodile snapping, hissing, and occasionally throwing out insults in mangled English—to think the facts over and realize that the bulk of her pride was only acting.

As well as Hermann's idea was working, he suddenly saw a problem: for the first time that night, he would be shooting to hit as opposed to missing on purpose, and with a limited supply of shells left over. More to the point, he had four moving targets, all of which were going along understandably quickly given who was bringing up the rear. Still, it wasn't as if he had much of a choice as to when he could shoot and how fast his targets would be moving…or so he thought.

"Vitani, I don't want you to watch this," Hermann said as he loaded a few more rounds and motioned for Markos to do the same. "It's real now; no more misses; no more pretending. I think it's best if you turn away until we're through."

"She tried to kill Kopa," Vitani retorted, unmoved by Hermann's argument. "If there's one thing I've been waiting to see more than anything else, it's you taking care of that monster once and for all. Kopa? What do you think?"

Kopa picked up his front leg and gave a thoughtful look at the thin scar which still remained. He only paused for a second or two. "Get her, Hermann."

"I guess that concludes negotiations then," Hermann replied. "Simba! Go get them, and keep your heads down! Try and keep them from moving around too much; we're going hot!"

Simba and his pride charged the small group of Outlanders as Hermann and Markos exchanged a quick thumbs-up.

"For real this time, Schreiber. Make 'em feel it."

"Which one do we aim at first?"

"Prioritize, divide, and conquer. And save the brass ring for last; I want her alive, for the time being. Nala!" He stopped speaking German and switched into English. "There's one coming up behind you!" One of the four lionesses had broken out of the circle and gone around the back of the approaching line undetected, adding to her advantage the fact that Hermann's warning had gone completely unheard.

"She's going to get my mom!" Kopa gasped. "Hermann, shoot!" Hermann was about to try a last-ditch shot, knowing he had precious few seconds before Nala would be surprised from behind, when something unseen and unknown suddenly dug its claws into the would-be attacker's back and let out a terrific high-pitched screech. "Auugh!" the lioness yelled, completely stopping her run and trying frantically to shake off whatever had just landed on her, more than getting the attention of every last pride member on Simba's side in the process. "Get it off! Get it—

"Fire!"

BANG

"One down! Simba, why did she stop all of a sudden? What the heck was that?"

"I can't believe it; must be an old friend of ours!" Simba turned around and answered back. "I didn't think he'd actually fly all the way here, but better late than never, I suppose!"

"'Fly all the way here'…You mean whatever just did that was a bird? What kind of bird?"

"Big…very big! I'll fill you in later!" Simba replied as he rejoined the chase after the remaining Outlanders.

Hermann knew he wouldn't be able to see much of anything in the dark, even with the flashlight on the end of his rifle barrel, but he knew that anything big enough to stop a full-grown lioness dead in her tracks was surely a force to be reckoned with, certainly much larger than the common brown sparrows that would turn up from time to time outside the apartment in Stuttgart. Whatever this bird looks like, he thought, I'm glad he's on our side and not theirs! He then looked back out to where the rest of the Outlanders were still running in circles, trying to avoid getting stuck between a pair of crocodile jaws, and took another shot. Nobody fell over.

"Damn it! I missed! They're just moving too fast! Simba, can you slow them down?" Markos tried a shot of his own, with the same undesirable result.

"That's a negative…we can't hold them in one place!" Simba shouted back. "We're—oof!" One of the Outlander lionesses landed squarely on top of him, not in an attempt to take him off his feet, but rather as the result of a blind collision while she was running and looking backwards. Simba swatted her off, and immediately regretted it: as soon he had knocked the lioness over, a bullet whistled straight through the airspace she had previously occupied.

"Sorry, Hermann!" he said, "Give us some time! We'll try and slow them down as best we can." He narrowly avoided a second head-on collision with some fancy footwork, stepping sideways just in time to let two thousand pounds worth of crocodile run past. Despite Simba's superior numbers, the task of keeping the Outlanders even a bit contained was proving extremely difficult.

I guess crocodiles don't look where they're going any more than lions do, Hermann surmised, having seen the near miss between Simba and Roberto. "This is impossible; it's like corralling a flock of hummingbirds!" he said in German to Markos. "We'll never get in a shot like this!"

"How could it be too fast for you…you never miss!"

"Just a minor detail…none of those targets from our practice sessions were moving!"

Just then, Hermann got an unexpected helping hand from the 'old friend' of the pride, a bird which, as far as he could make out with his flashlight, was some sort of large eagle hovering directly over a lioness's head…the same lioness who had just run into Simba and dodged a wayward shot moments earlier. "Come on, come get the pretty birdy!" he said in a high-pitched, mocking voice. The lioness took the bait and set off in pursuit, while the eagle, keeping himself just barely out of reach, turned himself back around towards Hermann, Markos, and the two cubs.

"What's he doing?" Kopa said, half-asking, half-wondering. "Is he trying to get himself killed?"

"No, he's bringing her right by us!" Hermann answered. "He's giving me another shot." Sure enough, as the eagle breezed by, Hermann had a clear look at the lioness giving chase, but even the decrease in distance wasn't enough to offset the speed.

"Too fast!" he shouted. "Slow it down for me!" Hermann's words didn't go unnoticed. The eagle immediately broke his flight path, landed abruptly on a stone, and held up a wing.

"Stop!"

The lioness following behind skidded herself to an unexpected stop and scowled at the bird she had been chasing, having suddenly realized, and all too late, why he had stopped flying and how useless it would be for her to try and start running again.

"Gotcha."

"You feathered son of—

The bullet arrived before the sentence ended. Out of the corner of his eye, Hermann spotted the one remaining lioness making a desperate run for the hills in the distance, already too far away for him to risk spending a bullet. "One's getting away!" he called out. "Someone get after her!" The lioness heard Hermann's shouts and kept running away, thinking herself in the clear even though she was being pursued yet again...and not by a lion.

"Hey, you!" Hermann shouted, figuring he might as well savor the moment if he couldn't shoot. "Turn around and check your six!" She thought it was all a game until she looked back over her shoulder and saw, sure enough, the one pair of gleaming yellow eyes she least wanted to see.

"Oh no, not you again!" she cried, trying to run even faster. "Please, don't eat me!"

"Just one bite! One bite, then I leave you alone, I promise!" He threw in some lip-licking sounds as he ran along, just for dramatic effect. "Like your legs, you don't need those...ooh, they look tasty..."

The pair quickly disappeared over a small hill and out of sight, with Roberto noisily snapping at the lioness's back legs; neither Hermann nor Markos nor any of the lions (all of whom were thoroughly enjoying the spectacle) could believe that a crocodile four times the weight of the animal he was chasing could even come close to keeping pace. Then he quickly turned his attention back to the scene in front of him. The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived: only one of the Outlanders, Hermann's prime target, was left standing. With Roberto gone, chasing after the last of the surviving three seconds-in-command, Simba and his pride had managed to form a circle around Zira, effectively keeping her from running anywhere without having to barrel through a body barricade. True, she wasn't up against a crocodile this time, but her situation certainly hadn't changed for the better since her unexpected encounter not too long ago: if those who had spent the night defending Pride Rock were to have their way, she would never leave the circle alive.

"Markos, unload for a second," Hermann said. "I'm going down there. Kopa and Vitani, you two come with me."

"That's it, you've officially crossed the line from slightly off-kilter to officially insane. I think that stint in radiology did it for you…I told them all along that X-ray machine was leaking radiation! Just put your head back on your shoulders and take your damned shot."

"It's physically impossible for our X-ray machine to 'leak radiation'. And I can't shoot into that circle without risking hitting one of ours; the bullet could easily keep going and take out someone else along with Zira. I'll be back in a minute, and this engagement will finally be decided once and for all. Just keep me covered until then."

"Fine, do what you have to, but the little guys stay with me."

"No dice. We're making it personal. I want her to get a good, hard look at them—both of them—before I send that shot flying."

"This isn't right, Hermann…risk your own neck if you have to, but don't use the kids for dramatic effect! It's not worth putting them in danger just for you to get your kicks in."

"Vitani? What do you think?"

"I think I haven't understood one word of what you just said to each other. How many times do I have to tell you, I don't speak German!" Hermann quickly explained himself in English; Kopa quietly smiled to himself, rather proud that he could one-up his friend by not needing the translation in the first place. "Oh, I'm in," Vitani said when Hermann had finished. "Kopa? You coming?"

"Natürlich," Kopa answered confidently. "Of course."

"We'll be fine, trust me," Hermann reassured his friend, "just stay sharp for a few minutes more. If anything happens—

"But I stink at shooting! I can't—

"Keep up with that kind of thinking, and I guarantee you'll stink! I don't want to hear a word of it! You see something suspicious going down, you shoot…got that?"

"Fine. Go; you're wasting time."

Hermann picked his way down from the bunker, rifle in one hand, cane in the other. Kopa and Vitani followed cautiously behind him, and together, all three pushed their way into the circle, much to the surprise and distress of those who comprised it.

"So…we meet at last, Zira."

"What are you doing, Hermann?" Simba whispered through clenched teeth. "Get yourself out of here!"

"Well, well," said Zira, "if it isn't the much-fabled Hermann Sterlitz. I've heard a lot about you. I suppose I might actually admire your tenacity, that is, if you hadn't gone and stuck your nose into business that wasn't yours." She stared at Kopa, only becoming more irate when he shot the stare right back at her. "And you, Vitani…how does it feel to betray your own family?"

"Better, now that they're about to be avenged!" Vitani almost made a run at her mother right then and there, but she stopped herself before taking the first step. Hermann saw an opportunity to rub a little salt in the wound, and he certainly wasn't going to pass it up. He motioned for the cubs to follow him, walked a few steps over to a lioness lying immobile on the ground—one who was very much alive, but doing an excellent job of appearing to be otherwise—and knelt down over her, much the way a hunter might inspect a kill.

"Don't move," he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth before prodding the lioness's side with his foot. "Tsk, tsk…what a shame. This is your fault, you know. She didn't have to die."

Zira let out a snarl. "You're the one who shot her! You planted that crocodile inside the—

"You brought her here with you, did you not? Your fault! You! And speaking of the crocodile, tell me, how did you like running into Roberto…again? Admit it, that was a stroke of genius hiding him in there." Hermann was absolutely loving the chance to play the part of tormentor, unlike him as it was to do so. Looking into her eyes, Hermann could see Zira's victim lying once more the cave floor, covered in blood and agonized from the multitude of injuries inflicted upon him. He could feel Kopa squeezing his left hand and hear his cries; he saw the jagged wounds, bandages and stitch upon ragged stitch appearing before his eyes as if the entire course of events were taking place anew. From up above, Markos watched and waited.

Hermann decided to wrap up his tirade. Zira was still glaring at the cubs on each side of him, trying to figure out if she had one last chance to finish what she had started a few weeks ago. "I've been waiting a long time to do this," he concluded. "I guess everything they say about revenge is true: It's a dish best served cold, with a side order of whoop-ass." The w, of course, came out a as v, creating a word which didn't actually exist in any dictionary. Hermann raised his gun, for what he assumed would be the last time, and pulled back.

Click.

Hermann's smug expression suddenly gave way to terror. No, not a jam, not now! He took the rifle down and tried to open it, but the bolt was stuck fast. "Markos! It's jammed!" he shouted up to his friend as he continued to try and muscle the rifle open.

Zira watched and grinned, as she too understood what had happened, even though her knowledge of human weaponry was limited at best. "I guess I will have one consolation tonight," she said. "You're about to join the rest of my pride." Wasting no time, she sprung towards Hermann with a roar.

I'm about to die, Hermann thought as the lioness leapt towards him, too quickly and too unexpectedly for anyone else to stop her. As much as he wanted to cover up or jump off to one side at the last moment, he found himself glued to the ground where he was, and speaking words he hadn't used since childhood:

Sh'ma Yisroel, Adonai Eloheinu…

Hermann heard a bang go off from behind him, followed by a sharp whistling sound fractions of a second later. He waited, and then waited a bit longer, for a collision that never came: at his feet, only inches in front of him, lay Zira, the vicious expression still frozen on her face. All around him, the faces varied from shock to amazement to relief, all stemming from the same root cause—Someone had pulled off a nearly-impossible shot at an airborne, moving target…and it hadn't been Hermann.

"Hey" a familiar voice called down in German, "you, with the drinking problem and the death wish! You're welcome!"

"How did he do that?" Hermann said, wondering aloud how a person with normally horrible aim could even come close to placing such a difficult shot.

"Does it matter?" Simba replied, still looking and sounding confounded. "I'll admit, I wouldn't have expected that in a thousand years, and you coming down here in the first place was a questionable decision to say the least…but either way, it's over. We've done it!"

"I thought it was forbidden to involve other prides—or other animals—in things like this," Hermann spoke up. "That eagle who showed up, where did he come from? Was that just a crazy coincidence, or did you send for him ahead of time?"

"You forget, being me does have its advantages," Simba replied. "And who would I be to argue with a little extra help? I mean, look at him, a Crowned Eagle…he's practically a lion with wings. Birds don't get any bigger and meaner than he does." Hermann saw the eagle sitting on a nearby boulder preening himself, and had his first chance to accurately gauge the newcomer's size.

"That's a Crowned Eagle then, is it? He's absolutely huge," he said, looking over the set of long, sharp talons and the equally impressive beak.

"That he is," Simba concurred. "He and I go a long way back…his family knows my family, and my dad knew his dad, and so on and so forth. We've always helped each other out in the past, but I'm going to owe him a seriously big one after this."

"So we started with a tank, and ended up with a fighter jet as well," Hermann mused. "And speaking of tanks, look who's come back…did you get her, Roberto?"

"No, señor, I did not."

"You mean she got away?" Simba asked. "How could that happen?"

"I not say that she gets away. I no get her myself. But I follow her to the edge of the canyon, and she gets trapped, cornered with nowhere to go and…she jumps."

"She jumps where, exactly?"

"Over the cliff, su majestad. Very big drop."

Simba didn't know whether to smile or to grimace, as it wasn't the first time someone had fallen victim to the call of gravity at that particular spot. "You've done it, Hermann," he said again, amazed, relieved, and ecstatic all at once. "We've won."

Hermann looked around slowly. Thirteen Outlanders lay on the ground: three dead, ten pretending, and one more lying inert somewhere out of sight at the base of a precipice. "Get up!" he said, loud enough for the rest to hear. "Everyone on their feet. Schnell!"

Hermann climbed back up to their makeshift bunker as the ten lionesses nervously stood back up, checking themselves and each other for injuries which weren't there. The rest of the pride fell into place among the ten surviving Outlanders, all of whom were looking at him and waiting for him to say something.

"We've won," Markos echoed Simba's words in German. "I can't believe it…you, I mean, I, I mean we pulled it off! We're alive!"

Hermann could feel his excitement building. He turned around and shot a quick look up to the very top of the highest rock face, where his flag was still lit and flapping in the breeze, and then looked over at Simba, a large grin spreading across both of their faces. With a sudden burst of energy, he thrust his rifle into the air above his head. "Gewonnen! Die Nacht ist gewonnen!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "The night is ours!" A rising crescendo of cheers quickly went up from the lions in front of him, Pridelander and Outlander alike.

"Thanks, you guys," Vitani said to the two men, pausing only a second before making the rounds with her relatives. "Thanks for saving them."

"You did it! Come on, let's go celebrate!" Kopa shouted. "Let's get Markos stuck in the tree again!" But when he looked up at Hermann to wait for an answer, he saw something he didn't expect. Hermann had a puzzled look his face, and Markos was staring at one of the bodies.

"Was ist das?"

"Ich weiss nicht."

"What's going on?" Kopa asked.

"I…I don't know…everybody be quiet! Seid ruhig!" Hermann commanded. The cheering quickly died down.

"Oh no," Markos gasped, still watching the unmoving lioness. "Hermann…don't look now, but—

"But what? Just say it!"

"On her right. Not good." A small lion cub, barely old enough to walk on his own four feet, was prodding at her side.

"Mom, get up! Why won't you get up?" The tiny voice became more scared and confused by the second.

Hermann stood and stared, all his feelings of victory and triumph replaced at once by dread and revulsion. "My God, what have I done?" he said, all the time staring open-mouthed at the tiny cub who continued to try and wake his mother up. "That was my shot that did that. What have I done…" Horrible, grating words started running through his head: murderer, assassin, monster, cold-blooded killer. He found himself nearly gasping for breath and feeling as if he were about to be sick and pass out. By now, all eyes were on the heartrending scene playing itself out between the deceased lioness and her cub. A single flash of lightning carved its way across the night sky, momentarily turning the grey clouds an eerie orange-red.

"Is he OK?" Kopa asked his father, sensing that something was wrong but not putting the two and two together. "Vitani, what's wrong with him?" He didn't get a response.

Simba walked over and tried to talk a bit of sense. ""It's not your fault," he said, "you did what you had to do." There was no answer. A steady, cold rain began to fall.

"Please, talk to me; say something."

"Hermann, bitte, sprich," Markos offered, but his and everyone else's efforts proved for naught. Hermann dropped his rifle and ran inside as fast as he could, a single, chilling scream of "Nein!" rebounding off the rocks for a long time after. The lantern atop Pride Rock slowly flickered out.