Chapter 1

I don't own Disney, though I can put Steam Boat Willie Mickey in this story and it would be just fine now! Thank you public domain!

I can't tell you who I am. Because I don't know myself. I do know who I am now. I'm Simba, the star of the 1994 Disney movie The Lion King. But you must trust me, I was not always. Alright, let me explain.

Apparently, Disney had been losing money. Over saturation of IPs and creative movies. It had got to the point they were willing to try anything. The someone showed up. From what I can gather, they call then "The Scientist" Who ever they are, they are spoken about in hushed tones. Seems they showed up saying they had a way to make Disney money again. Go beyond audio-animatronics and costumed people. Have ALL the characters be real. REALLY REAL. "The Scientist" said he could do it, and he delivered. We "Characters", as they call us, are all kidnapped victims from all over North American. I guess to make sure no one found any similarities. After they kidnapped us, then "The Scientist" transformed us. It is a painful process. I remember drifting in and out of painful conscious. Then I remember waking up in a cage about as long as two of me. Me being Simba now.

Surrounding me were other cages with Disney animal characters. Each one had red plastic sign with our "Character" name and a number. The number I found out was in what order we where kidnapped. That's the only real organization for now. No alphabetical or by movie, but by number of being stolen. I'm #41, while #40 Muffin. She is a yellow and white puppy that "belongs" to Snow White from the Palace Pets/Whisker Haven property Disney made (yeah, they really are going for ALL the characters) No humans, though. I guess it's easy just to dress up someone as Elsa or Tiana and have them meet the fans. But non-human characters? That would just blow peoples minds.

What would blow my mind is remembering my real life before I became Simba. I remember only three things about my actual life, by the way. I graduated high school, I loved photography, and my grandpa had a truck. That's it. That's one more than #42, Penny from 101 Dalmations. She remembers that she lived near Chicago and that her mom loves gardening. That's it. You feel like you should know more, but no matter how hard you try, the memories never come.

By they way, you are probably wondering how we look. Well, it's kind of complicated. We look EXACTLY like the characters we are now. I don't mean if we look like live action versions. If that was the case Disney could have just gotten a lion cub and called him Simba. No, I look just like animated Simba, specifically young Simba. I have huge yellow and brown eyes, a big pink nose, unnatural yellow fur, those weird thing around my eyes, etc. Take the others in my group of four (we are in a groups of four, for some reason.) Penny looks just like Penny from the movie. Big eyes, a wider muzzle, a different shaped nose than a normal Dalmatian puppy. Then there is #43 and #44, Lady and Thumper. Have you seen a Cocker Spaniel with eye brows, or a bunny with paw pads? No, no you have not.

Now, you may think we are toons, like in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" That was something that confused the scientist too, and I heard that "The Scientist" had to correct that myth. We are not cartoons. We are real. We got blood, bones, we have stomachs and need to eat. My fur is not animated fur, it is real fur, as real any other lion cub. It's just, like I said, unnaturally yellow. My eyes have irises that direct light to the back of the eye on the retina, it travels through nerves to my brain. How does my brain fit when my eyes are so big? I have no idea, I have not seen an X-ray of myself. There is so much I don't know.

It was around lunch time on what ever day it was (you think they let us look at calendars?) when the scientist in our lab announced something to us. Our transformations where almost complete for some of us, and tommorow we would be taken to Walt Disney World were some of us would be used at a press conference to announce "Characters In Real Life"

"Well, here we go." said Thumper from his cell as the scientist left out the white door for their lunch. Our lunch would come latter along with our 30 mins of break time, were we can go to a little yard in the middle of this facility some were in Florida I think. "How are thy going to make sure we just don't talk?"

"They mentioned it the other day when you where being worked on. Our transformations are not complete, which is manly our brains. They are going to finish erasing our memories and give us completely the voices, memories, and personalities of the characters." said Penny, scratching her right ear with her hind paw.

"Which means I will sound exactly like JTT Simba?" I asked with a sigh.

"I guess, and I will sound like that one voice line Penny did in the movie." said Penny. Sneezing, she stared into space for a bit.

"Are...are you OK?" I ask as I filp the end of my tail.

"No. Are you? Are any of us? I remember nothing of my life except I'm from around Chicago and that my mother loved gardening." she wailed a puppy dog wail as tears started falling down he white fuzzy muzzle. "That's all I remember of who I really am, and soon even that will be taken away. Then I will completely cease to exist, and only Penny will be here."

"I know, I know. " I said in reply. I would be replaced with Simba. I don't even know if I used to like or dislike Simba.

"I've met the other puppies, we all have. Patch, Freckles, Lucky, Pepper. Simba, do you know how often I've wondered if any of them could be my real siblings? Did I even have real siblings?" she moaned.

"I think all of us with "relatives" have felt that." said Thumper. "I have no idea." Turning to look at us through the cages, the young rabbit continued as tears came to his large eyes. "At least you and Simba remember more than one thing. All I remember is that I was in school, as you know."

Turning to look at Penny as her dog tag to jangle, Lady said "And all I remember is that I had CD of the Little Mermaid soundtrack. To think, my only memory from not being a Disney character is related to Disney!"

"And we will all loose it soon. " said Muffin from the other cage next to me.

"Do you think they payed Jennifer Goodwin a lot of money for me to soon sound like Judy?" asked Judy Hopps from her cage #56.

"Who know? If Disney is this crazy to "make" us, they might do crazy stuff to not have to pay money to every single voice actor." said Thumper bitterly.

"I think Lady's voice actor is long dead." said Lady. "Hmph, makes it sound like I'm speaking in the 3rd person."

"I hope the kids will enjoy us." said Penny. "That thought, and my mother loving gardening, are the only things that bring me happiness."

Lunch time came. A slice of ham for me, since I am a carnivore now. Did I learn about carnivores in school? I must have.

After lunch in our cages, we were taken down to the "Park" as the scientist call it. Since every park I have probably seen in my life dealt with memories of myself, I don't know if it counts as a park or not, since I don't remember. It was an out door area three times as large as the lab room we stayed in, and surrounded on all sides by the walls of the building the lab was in. Patches of grass were dispersed among plain dirt. The only other thing around was a piece of wood and a small bouncy ball, which was being played with by Remy, #45. His group, our group, and Muffin's group had only 30 mins of time in said "Park", then it was back to the cage.

"So, this is our last time to see the sun and clouds as the last remnants of us." said Thumper as my group stayed in a circle.

"At least it is sunny." I replied, trying to lighten the mood. It did not work.

"Ugh, I can't stand this anymore." as exclaimed. Suddenly, a thought hit me. "Hey, I've never asked this, but does everyone remember how to read?"

"Yes." came three replies. Smiling, and unsheathing one of my claws, I started to write in the dirt, grateful that the guards only had audio of the "park" as the camera broke yesterday.

:We should escape: I wrote. Reading my words, the three characters then turned and looked at me with big eyes.

:Are you crazy? How could we do that?: wrote Lady next with a claw

:Yeah, there is no way to escape! We don't even know where we are!: wrote the Dalmatian puppy. By now, there was no more room in our circle of dirt. I decited to start over, and commenced rubbing out the words with my paw. I then started writing again.

:Tomorrow, when we are transported:

:We don't even know what kind of transport we will be in?: asked Penny in the dirt.

:I don't know, but we have to try: I wrote. I then erased the words and started walking around the park, thinking how on earth we could escape.

"What we need is some sort of tool." I was thinking as I was walking next to the piece of wood. It was really a board, and had been placed there three days ago. Looking at it, I could help thinking it was too bad it was too big. Walking toward the board angrily, when I got to it I used my "lion strange" and flipped the board over.

And then I saw it. A nail, not a big one either, but a slightly rusted nail sticking out of the other side of the board with a layer of dirt on it. I couldn't believe it! This might be the tool we need! But how could I get it out? I didn't have hammer. Guess I'll just have to try pulling it out with my teeth. Padding over to it, I bit down on the nail and started yanking. It was in their tight. I was thinking I could not give up when I gave one more might tug. This time I fell over on to my back, the nail in my teeth!

It was at the time the Scientist came back to put us in our cages and take us back to the lab room. I had to make sure they did not see the nail, so carefully I got the nail into my mouth, making sure I did not start the gag reflex. Did not want a nail in my stomach. Walking back to the cages, I climbed into mine and did not say a word, pretending I was really sad so Penny, Lady, and Thumper would not try to talk to me. Once we went down a myriad of white hallways and back to out lab, the scientist then left again.

Finally, I was able to place the nail on the floor of my cage. Penny heard it, and started staring.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Hopefully, our freedom." I responded.

Another crazy idea I had. Like and review!