THE LION KING: THE FREAK

“Grandmother… you told me not to lose hope.”

“And, in a way… I haven’t. I’ve just accepted that… there never was hope. Never, not since I was born. Several times in my life, I’ve deluded myself into thinking otherwise.”

“But my time with you has made me strong. And for that, I thank you. I’ve learned my lessons well, now. My only regret is that it took so much time…”

“…so much suffering…”

“…for me to learn them.”

“Love kills…”

“Trusting others is something that a freak, an abomination like me, can never, ever do…”

“For Freak, there is no home but a place where the comfort that self-imposed solitude will protect others from his fate…”

“…the fate of Freak… is to suffer…”

“…And… everyone is a threat.”

He’d run from foes before. He’d escaped injury and death before, a thousand times, but this was the first time he was trying to escape the inescapable: the acknowledgment, deep in his soul, that for him, there was no hope…

Storm clouds were gathering above him. They were so thick, so gray, and so dark that they blotted out the sun, casting shadows upon the bleak, desolate sands of the northern Desert, where dunes gave way to grasses… then the disquieting jungles of the Unexplored Regions, from which so, so few had come out of alive…

“It doesn’t matter, though…”

“…if I die.”

“Death is natural. For me, doubly so. Death comes for all animals… but death has been sent to me so many times that… that my only conclusion is that it’s unnatural for me to live.”

“I’m… a crime against nature. I’m an affront to every being that struggles and bears pain in the pursuit of a better life, because I have never done anything but take away anything that’s worth struggling or working for.”

Consciously, Freak sheathed his claws, so that they wouldn’t cut into the Desert… as if it mattered. They’d cut into so, so many things before.

The Sun had hidden behind cloud cover, so there was no great orb of light, life, and hope to beat down on the li-tigon—literally. Because, really, there was no Sun for him, no dawn in the life of a thousand hardships, a thousand wounds endured, and a thousand insults swallowed and taken to heart.

The grayness of the northern Desert was amazing; the sky was gray, the sands were gray, and the Freak was as gray as his cold, slate, gunmetal eyes. If the li-tigon was a more poetic cat, he would have said that it was like the color was being sucked out of his world. And if he was paying just a little bit more attention to things, just then, he would have realized that sometimes, poetry can be taken quite literally.

Soon, it wasn’t just color that was being pulled away by some powerful, unseen force. Soon, the Desert sands were starting to be blown… somewhere, anyway. Freak didn’t know, however; his gaze was fixed to the north, to the unforgiving, unyielding, uninhabitable Unexplored Regions. He was going to go there, he’d determined, and he was going to die there. Whether it was by the proverbial sword or by the inexorable passage of time, Freak was going to meet his end in the Unexplored Regions.

Never again would he see Simba, Kiara, Kovu, or Sarabi. Never again would he speak with Usiku, Banzi, Ed, T, Shenzi, or Uvuli. Never again would he lay with the lionesses of the Desert or the Pride Lands, or the skeletons of his family. Never again would he peer down from Pride Rock over the most beautiful, most safe, and most loving lands he’d ever experienced, and never again would he lay eyes on anything worth protecting, for fear that exposure to the sickness within him would make it wither and decay.

“I suppose that if I live out the rest of my life alone, without even family and friends... I will have earned my fate, a thousand times over.”

“I said that to Sikia… and now, it looks like I’m finally going to start to accept fate, or at least a part of the fate that I truly deserve. Maybe it was my fate to suffer from the beginning… but the suffering that I’ve brought to other people is not something that I can repent for in one lifetime alone…”

“I’m… going to go to Hell. I’m going to burn there forever…”

“…But it’s okay. It’s alright. I’m… not used to suffering, not really. But I swear that in whatever broken pieces remain of my life, I am going to make myself suffer... I’m going to deny myself pleasure and food and water and rest. I’m going to spend every free moment devising ways to harm myself more, and I’m never going to harm another being, ever again…”

Freak had to squint, a little. Sand was being blown all around him, quickly, making his view of the not-so-distant Unexplored Regions grainy and blurred. But he didn’t stop running, not for a second.

“I’m sick… my disease is… death. It follows me everywhere. But I think I’m starting to understand now,” Freak said, shutting his lips tightly, even as the wind picked up so much that the Desert sand bombarded him, assaulting him, striking against his fur with enough force to make it painful and raw.

“I’m not supposed to outrun death. I’m supposed to outrun something else… I’m supposed to escape this… terrible, twisted mindset that I don’t know where I picked up. Death follows me… but I’m like a container, in a way. So, if I stay away from things that shouldn’t die…”

“Maybe that’s the purpose of Freak. To be a dump for all the pain and suffering the world has to offer. It makes sense…”

“No, I’m rationalizing. The Spirits aren’t so cruel to do that to me, but… I’m terrible… for existing. So many times have they sent death to me. So many times have they tried to quietly wipe my stain off their great land…”

“So many times have I resisted their will.”

“I really am an abomination; a sin against nature. I’m a freak of the worst kind… I’m the kind of freak that denies what he is, or deludes himself into thinking that he can become something else.”

“Because no matter what I do… I’m a freak. I always have been and I always will be. Up until now, I’ve been a cub. I suppose it’s time for me to grow up and start to accept life,” he thought harshly as he continued to run, or tried to; the wind was acting strangely now, but Freak was so single-minded in his purpose that he didn’t notice.

“I need to accept it…” he said out loud, allowing sand to fill his mouth without spitting it out, “I’m a stain on the Land of the Spirits, and it’s high time for me to fulfill the only responsibility I have in this life… I’ve delayed for so long; I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. So many people have been hurt by me… or for me.”

The li-tigon raised a paw to try to defend his muzzle, and tried to walk with three legs, struggling to hold himself to the ground.

“Now, it’s my turn to meet death. I do so without reluctance or hesitation… but with enough remorse and regret to make even the most heartless of the assassins of the Bloody Shadows sicken. I’ve lived my life caring only about me—I’ve stayed with others because they make me happy. Not because I contribute to their happiness or am even slightly deserving of their warmth…”

The wind was so strong now that it was cold. Freak shivered, but managed to anchor himself to the ground still. He looked up, and finally noticed the darkness of the sky, the spiraling path the sand blew in, and the bleak lack of color in his own fur.

“What’s going on…?”

“Uncle Mufasa? The Spirits? Mother? Father? …I understand. You’re trying to end my suffering… you’re trying to bring me up to you.”

“How… beautiful…”

A tear spilled from Freak’s eye, blasted away into dry nothingness within a second.

“And a Heaven with a freak like me in it…”

“How nauseating…”

“It’s good, then,” the li-tigon thought, with a sense of vague comfort, “that my fate lies not in Heaven, but in Hell.”

“Mother… Father… Maisha…” Freak thought, gritting his teeth—he wanted his last thoughts to be on the beings whose hearts were so large that they stretched to accept even him, “Uncle Mufasa… Grandmother… Grandfather… Simba… Nala… Sarabi… Kovu… Kiara… Shindani… Adhabu… Msaka…”

“Sikia…”

“…Vitani…”

“Usiku… T… Shenzi… Banzai… Ed…”

“Uvuli…”

“I used to think it was weakness, on my part, to give up on being… anything to anyone. But… what use is there in fighting a lost, hopeless battle? What sense? What is there to accomplish? Nothing…”

“So…” Freak groaned, only barely clinging to the Desert, as the wind began to spiral more, pulling him upwards, “I’m sorry… sorry for making you suffer. I’m sorry for hurting you and bring death, war, and tragedy to your lands and families. And, most of all… I’m sorry for making your sacrifices…”

“…meaningless…”

“And I’m sorry for tricking you like I tricked myself. I’m sorry for thinking that—” The li-tigon was ripped from the sand and yanked into the air—

“…there was hope…”

Freak closed his eyes, in a slow, final manner… he did not intend to open them, ever again. The wind and sand pulled him, higher and higher, spinning him around in the chaotic, spiraling tornado that raged across the north Desert.

Lightning cracked across the sky, but no rain fell. Now, everything for several miles was colorless, as Freak spun faster and faster and faster yet. He was limp; either unconscious or willfully submitting, for once, to fate and the will of nature.

The li-tigon was drawn to the center of the convergent winds, and, for a moment, the pressure exerted on him was comparable to an ant being trod upon by an elephant.

Then, there was a soft, low whooshing sound. Sand fell back to the desert, still colorless…

But Freak was gone. Gone from the Land of the Spirits; abducted and exiled to a distant, strange land where he could not survive…

The Lion King: The Freak
Chapter 15: Exile I: Back To His Roots

(Many apologies for the long delay, guys, and I hope I live up to your expectations. I hope you remember all the seemingly random backstory in previous chapters, because, as I’ve intimated before, everything will be tied together. You may need to familiarize yourself with military clock code position, as I’m going to use that system in this chapter. There’s a semi-suggestive drug reference just below.)

Both were invisible to each another, mostly. Every once in a while, a flicker of motion or light would reach across the dark, humid meeting room to lend an air of eeriness to the area.

There was a scent, a soft, subtle scent of cinnamon, tobacco, and ganja that reached the nostrils of both of the room’s in habitants.

A match was struck, casting a dim glow that didn’t make its holder visible. It was lifted, and floated to either tip of two rolled-up cylinders, lighting them. There was a pause, as the two beings inhaled, the glowing tips of their cigarettes, then exhaled, so that thick, dark clouds of smoke curled through the air, dancing slowly. One indulgent was lowered, set on a dark, stained mahogany table. The other was kept raised, and deeply smoked again.

“So… you’re sending me this warrior… to kill.”

“Yes. That’s precisely it. Don’t worry… he’s just one being.”

A pause.

“He’s one being that you could not take care of alone.”

“…Yes. Which is why I’m sending him to you. Your land… it’ll be foreign to him. I don’t know what kind of creature he is; that information has still eluded me. But whatever he is… he cannot survive there. This freak may have many oddities about him, but nothing can prepare him for—”

“I wonder…” another puff of smoke slid through a set of viciously sharp, serrated teeth to twist into the air, “you are so sure of my capabilities, though you cannot eliminate a single being yourself… I am flattered, but I have to wonder: you are a powerful being. Your land is more orderly than mine, so you have a greater deal of control and foresight than I; I merely direct chaos, violence and death… you create it. So… if you cannot destroy this freak, this warrior… how can I? Why do you trust me to do this?”

There was another pause. Both cigarettes were lifted, and used for a long, long moment. Two low, soft hisses were heard, and twin plumes of thick, powerful smoke billowed into the air, dancing in the dim, soft light.

“Because… that’s what friends are for…”

There was a pause… then low, growling, threatening, humorless laughter.

“You are good, my… heh… friend. Well… I suppose I’ll see what I can do about this freak. Leave him in my control; he’ll be finished within a week. But don’t think this is charity,” the other voice began to fade; it was getting time for them to leave, “you owe me, my friend.”

“Of course…”

The dripping, malicious, purring tone of assent was unmistakable. He was so relieved to be rid of the one thorn in his side, the one obstacle to complete dominance of the Pride Lands that he was willing to take on a debt to a being nearly as powerful as he. Perhaps this freak wasn’t as weak as he was letting on…

But still. The land the freak would be sent to was harsh. In fact, it was getting to be the Season of the Rains; when so much water was dumped on the land that all kinds of animals drowned in floods or were killed in landslides.

The room started to darken, and its two occupants turned, in a fashion, to leave. Flicking a bit of ash to the ground, the one with serrated teeth grinned.

“No... he will not live…”

The sky was dark, its clouds fat with raindrops that would not yet fall. Trees—not so dissimilar, perhaps, to the trees found in the Jungle or the Eastern Jungle of the Land of the Spirits—blotted out what little moonlight pierced the lingering atmospheric moisture, so that on the ground, it was pitch black.

All was still, for a moment, then, a ghost appeared…

Though it as oppressively dark, her white fur made her stand out in the forest. She seemed to glow, as an angel might, before a darker, more camouflaged figure jumped on her, holding her down.

“I think we can be fairly certain there are no hunters here…” he murmured, before looking down at his mate, flirtatiously, and gently giving her a sort of kiss; nudging his nose against her cheek.

She smiled, and in a delicate voice that sounded like a stream flowing through a patch of lotuses, spoke.

“I agree. Daughter—come. It’s safe,” she said, raising her voice as much as she dared. “At least… as safe as it can be within five miles of the Triangle of Pain.”

The male released her, and sniffed several times, angling his head so as to pick up as many scents as possible. Then, he hissed, and strode into the treeline, jumping a little as the leaves of a large bush folded up at his approach.

“Just a balsam…”

He looked down, and leaning towards the forest floor. There were few snakes so close to the Triangle of Pain; men hunted them down and killed them in order to make this lives as easy and safe as possible.

So, that was at least one less danger to worry about.

And now, so close to the Season of the Rains, the fair-skinned men who still entered the villages from places that one’s ancestors only knew would have returned to their homes.

One less danger to worry about.

But… so close to the villages of men, there were mongooses. Many of them. Their small, scattered militias harassed beings like him everywhere, but here, they were so ubiquitous that they could quite easily kill him…

So, if his daughter ran into mongooses, she wouldn’t last ten seconds, regardless of how quick she was. And now, so late at night, the mongooses patrolled the outside regions of the Triangle of Pain, exterminating snakes and other small pests, and practicing their strange, unsettling religion.

One big danger to worry about.

“When I find her, I swear to my mother that I will beat at least some discipline into her,” he growled, using a paw to tap the ground, testing it for the telltale depressions of a small, shallow pugmark, “that girl needs to learn some common sense; you do not leave your parents within spitting distance of the three worst man villages in this land!”

There was no sign of her, however, and he soon ground his teeth, and moved out to the west—his daughter had a habit of following the sun, wherever it seemed to go.

“You always promise that you will punish her,” his mate said, smiling a little as she calmly followed him. She quite purposefully bumped her shoulder into his, getting an irritated grunt in reply.

“Wah wah, and this time, I will punish her. Is she brainless? This is the most dangerous part of Hi—” he stopped in his tracks, and turned, looking upwards. His eyes narrowed and tightened, but his mouth split into a relieved smile when he heard a quiet, muffled giggle.

“I would say, dear husband, that she is not brainless. You, on the other hand, are just a little quick,” the female said, brushing the underside of his chin with her tail, “to judge.”

The male shook himself, once, then walked over to the bottom of the tree. He reared up onto his hind legs, and placed his forepaws on the tree. He pressed, hard, shaking it a little, so that that quiet, high-pitched giggle was heard again.

“I know you’re up there, little one…” he said sternly, trying to keep a straight face, “so, come down. You are a tigress; daughter of Nasher and Asal! Show some class; don’t act like a monkey.”

A small, orange and white face poked out of a group of thick leaves. The tigress kitten’s tongue slid out from between her lips for a second as she giggled at her father.

“Why not, Father? I’m having fun!” she grinned, before disappearing back into the tree.

A few gleeful squeals were heard as she scampered around, probably chasing a small lizard or insect. On the ground, her father grew upset, and shook the tree a little more vigorously

“Hey…” he said, in a deep, growling voice, “behave, daughter, and don’t make me come up there, because if I do, I’m bringing a beating with me.”

There was no reply; the kitten just continued her silly antics. On one level, Nasher had to admit, even to himself, that it was incredible and comforting, in a way, that even in such a time, even in such a place, kittens were kittens. But, on another, they were mere miles from the Triangle of Pain, and the animals in this area of the world were so against apex predators, like his family, that it was said the Earth itself sometimes opened up to swallow tigers and lions.

Fun was fun, but, like all good things, fun had to eventually end.

The male was skirting the edge of irritation when his wife spoke.

“Kochai, come along… that’s enough. We need to find a safe place to sleep and hunt from, very soon, yes? Now be a good girl, and come down.”

There was silence, for a brief moment. Then, a small orange and white ball neatly, and quietly leaped out of the tree. She fell through the air gracefully, but she’d jumped from over twenty feet—as a kitten, she would be injured; perhaps even seriously.

“Wait! Careful!” both parents hissed, moving quickly to catch the kitten.

They were too slow, however, and the young tigress hit the ground, hard—with her forepaws. She flipped over, rolling, so that the energy of the impact spread out over her back. There was enough force that when she was upright again, she could jump up, straight towards her rushing father—which she did.

“Aré…” the aging tiger groaned, shaking his head, “Asal, get this crazy kitten off me.”

The tigress stifled laughter, and walked over, Her daughter giggled, still clutching tightly to her father’s head, pressing his snout into her belly and blinding him with her golden fur. She managed to cling for a moment yet, but was finally pulled off by her mother’s dainty, but powerful paw.

Kochai was set down, and giggled triumphantly at her father, as the old tiger struggled to use his paw to straighten his facial fur. After shooting her daughter an exasperated look, Asal joined in, flattening and aligning that majestic fur; noting, with pride, that it hadn’t lost a shade of shininess since they’d been together.

Finally, with his fur corrected, Nasher turned to his daughter with a threatening growl. Kochai abruptly stopped giggling, and backed away, more than a little wary of her father just then. Asal gave her mate a worried look, but didn’t step in.

“For tigers to be close to one another so much… it’s not natural. This isn’t how things are supposed to be. It’s wrong… and… it’s natural for little slip-ups to happen, even around such a great male as my mate. All I can do, I think, is pray for him.”

“So sad is the day when all we have for comfort is religion, and not certainty, in our minds, that our lives, our children, and our loved ones are safe from one another…”

In the end, that’s all Asal did. She closed her ice-colored eyes, and murmured a series of quiet chants, over and over, before feeling, perhaps, the slight spark of a wish being granted.

Nasher was still advancing on his daughter, who was trapped against a tree. Her ears were flat and her head was hung, as she prepared to accept a painful blow—

Instead, however, the kitten received a gentle, almost playful tap on her nose. Blinking, confused, she looked up, to see a wide, sad smile on her father’s weather-beaten face.

“There is no sense in punishing what will never, ever happen again,” Nasher said quietly, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on his daughter’s forehead before leaning back and allowing his eyes to narrow and his lips to peel back a few inches, baring twin rows of razor-sharp teeth, “right?”

“Of course not… oh, thank you, Father,” the young tigress said, moving forward instantly to rub her soft, blunt head against the male’s forepaws until he stopped her, raising her chin and making eye contact with her.

“Come,” the tiger said, suddenly moving his paw past Kochai’s face and pushing to playfully knock the cub over, “we still must find a temporary home to stay at for a few days…”

“…Before we come up with a more permanent plan, for a more permanent home. Hindustan is no longer a home for tigers,” he said, turning to glance back at his family, a grim expression hardening his face, “and no amount of prayer can change that.”

“So…”

“Death, it seems, is too good for me.”

“…My suffering, it seems… has only begun.”

Full consciousness hadn’t returned, yet, but it didn’t matter. Thinking on a level less deep and instinctual would lead to the same conclusions.

“I don’t mind, but… why…”

“The Spirits are creatures of mercy and compassion; Simba relayed that message from Uncle Mufasa, who relayed it from Ahadi, who relayed it from Mohatu.”

“Still… I suppose it makes sense.”

Slowly, he got to his feet, blinking rapidly to clear his blurred vision. Consciousness was still out of reach, but now, its return was imminent. No—clearly, death was not in store for him… not yet.

“I’ve… killed.”

“I’ve killed for food.”

“I’ve killed for glory,” he thought, remembering the crime he’d committed in the former Dark Zone of the Jungle of the Land of the Spirits.

“I’ve killed out of apathy,” he thought, remembering every time he’d left a cub to die after he’d left their dead mother’s milkless body.

“I’ve taken innocent beings and cowardly used them as shields when all others want to do is give me the justice I deserve a thousand times over,” he thought, remembering Uvuli, and Kovu.

“I’ve killed the weak and defenseless, because I don’t care enough to help or protect them… I’ve slaughtered whole families,” he thought, remembering the grave sin he’d committed in the Shadow Lands against the hyena clan… a group that hadn’t had stability or peace for generations.

“When faced with difficulty, I… pretend to think. But I don’t think enough. I always think of how to use violence, I never consider that peace is an option… or that if violence must exist, I deserve it more than any other.”

“I’ve killed beings no worse than I and fooled myself into looking upon myself as a… as a hero, a warrior, a Shujaa, a vigilante. But I’ve never done an act of true generosity, an act that cannot benefit me. I’ve only ever worked for myself.”

“I’ve taken… life, dignity, peace, prosperity, sanctity, love, happiness, morality, and a thousand other things that I can neither understand… nor ever possess.”

“I’ve given…”

He thought for a moment. He honestly did; putting his brain’s considerable capabilities to searching his past for any single instance of generosity, of kindness.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing…”

“Then… I think I understand what’s happening. I’m… like a piece of rancid meat that you eat because you’re too optimistic. I’ve… been… …vomited… by the Land of the Spirits.”

“I’ve been cast out, abandoned, thrown up… it doesn’t matter what’s happened to me, technically. Because…”

“…There is no sin that I have not committed. I’ve killed, I’ve stolen, I’ve hated and, in spiteful defiance, I’ve evaded every noble act designed to purge my stain from a Land that, before, was untainted.”

“Even death is too good for me. Even the chance to prepare myself for the eternal suffering that is my fate in Hell is too good for me.”

“So,” he said out loud, in a dry voice that hurt his throat, “what is my purpose? Why am I here, what—”

Freak froze, and turned suddenly, without thinking. He’d been yanked thousands of miles from his homeland, across a sea—but already, the survival instincts that had been beaten into him from his first day alive were starting to return.

But there was something else… it wasn’t something he’d learned. It was a sort of fear that seemed to seep from his bones, an old fear; a fear written into his blood by generations that were born and died before him. It was a fear that made adrenaline flow through his body, preparing him to fight or run.

On a vague, academic level, Freak knew that it was madness. All the strange plants around him and the new, dangerous insects that he had no immunity to; those were surely bigger threats to him than this… this…

He couldn’t describe it. It… stood on two legs, like monkeys sometimes did. It was taller, but didn’t seem to be as muscled as a creature that lived its life in the wild. Loose, strangely colored flaps of skin seemed to hang off its body, and in its strangely developed, strong hands, it held an instrument that made the li-tigon’s heart stop.

It was in a clearing, in between two trees that had spikes covering their bows and were as foreign as any of the dark, wet plants that surrounded Freak. It wasn’t moving, not really; it was just raising that long, thin stick to its shoulder.

The li-tigon felt his heartrate increase, flooding his body with adrenaline. He twitched, his tail lashing around in panic, but he managed not to react—impulsiveness never paid, he had to think…

“What is it doing…? Everyone is a threat, but… how is this thing threatening me?”

The two-legged being seemed to mutter something, or speak. Freak flinched, unwillingly digging his hind paws into the ground.

And then, the strange being’s finger began to move. The li-tigon couldn’t ignore his instincts any more, and he sprang to the side, diving.

There was a terrible noise. It was like the war cry of the Pride Landers; when they all roared together as one. But it was louder and shorter, almost like a hyena’s bark. All Freak knew was that it made his ears flatten, even as he continued to fly through the air.

Still diving, he turned, and his eyes widened. From the being’s stick-like instrument, long, wide tongues of flame seemed to reach towards him, along with a pebble that raced towards him too quickly to be dodged.

The li-tigon managed to turn, so that the rock—smooth and conical, unnaturally so—cut through part of his mane, shaving off a thick tuft of black fur.

Then, he hit the ground, skidded, got to his feet, and kept running, circling around the being.

Strange leaves and vines whapped against Freak’s face and shoulders as he moved. Some cut into him, leaving long, bloody traces across his snout, but the panicked li-tigon preferred such superficial cuts to the bite of… whatever that pebble was.

Freak jumped over a fallen log, and managed to throw his legs upwards to avoid the strike of a snake that bit at him for, seemingly, no reason at all. This threw him off balance and he hit the trunk of one of those spiked trees… with his head.

The li-tigon saw stars, and tried to get up—he failed. But he did manage to open his eyes, and watch, as that strange, monkey-like being approached.

Cutting through the thick foliage with a long, shiny slab of… no, it wasn’t rock, it was more… refined, more artificial… it stopped to stand, five feet from Freak.

“No…” the li-tigon groaned, though he couldn’t move much, aside from bringing his paws up in a weak attempt to tell the attacker to go away, “don’t…”

But the being didn’t stop. It merely raised that long, strange instrument again. A series of clacks was heard, and the li-tigon closed his eyes, for a moment.

His paws fell to the ground, as he submitted, waiting to taste death—he didn’t know why, but he was certain that his creature would bring death to him.

Freak’s eyes were gray—a slate, dark shade of gray that mimicked the harsh obsidian of the volcanoes to the east and west of the Jungle that had been his home for most of his life. They could be called emotionless, and, even lifeless.

But that was in normal times, under normal circumstances… in a normal land. So, now, as none of the above applied, it wasn’t so surprising that when Freak opened his eyes, they seemed to churn with harsh, purposeful energy.

“No. No. No. I have to live. I’m not going to die, not now; not by the hand of this pathetic human. Never. Not now, not today. I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die, I’m NOT GOING TO DIE!”

With a roar that was even more different from the powerful, majestic calls Simba and Kovu could produce than it usually was, Freak moved. He dived, keeping his head and body down, flying low over the ground for just a few feet.

A wave of heat and pressure blasted over him as the being’s instrument shot another “pebble” at him, but Freak ignored it. The weapon’s report hit the ground harmlessly behind him, coming to rest several feet underground.

The li-tigon still had incredible horizontal speed. He was starting to fall, though, and his dive hadn’t put him high off the ground to begin with. That helped, though, because his forepaws hit the ground, then his hind paws, allowing him to jump upwards, maintaining his significant horizontal inertia.

Freak’s dive hadn’t been perfect; he couldn’t tackle his assailant to the ground, pin him, and perform the killing bite casually, daintily, as, subconsciously, he’d planned. He was too far to the side, and, for a moment, it seemed like he might sail right past his target.

But the li-tigon improvised; he could, because he didn’t just have the collective wisdom, knowledge, and experience of his grandfather’s species, of his grandfather—he had a crucible-like lifetime of pain, suffering, and, essentially, testing. He was smart and he was quick and he was strong and he was brutal, but if his entire life didn’t prepare him to end that being right then, it would use its killing stick to finish him. So, just then, it was literally Freak’s life… or his attacker’s.

But, of course, the li-tigon didn’t think about things at such a deep level. Not just then, anyway. The process that his mind underwent was a regression to basic, animal instinct—instinct that had protected him from his own mother within mere moments of his birth, instinct that had allowed him to fight vultures, snakes, hyenas, and even fellow big cats… and win.

He extended a powerful, muscled foreleg, wrapping it under one of the two-legged being’s upper limbs. As Freak continued forwards, he pulled his foreleg in, tightly. The combination of inertial energy and the li-tigon’s muscle pulled his attacker off his feet easily, pinning him to Freak’s chest.

Then, the li-tigon hit the ground.

There was no time for Freak’s attacker to struggle, or fight back, or beg. Because, as Freak realized several seconds into the process, he was using his thick, sharp teeth to make hamburger meat out of the being’s neck and collarbone.

The li-tigon’s eyes widened and he dropped his attacker. Hopelessly, he tapped at the two-legged being’s limp form with a paw, as if urging it to get up, to breathe, to live again. But there was no response.

“No, I didn’t mean to…”

“…kill him…”

“But then… what did I mean to do?” Freak thought hopelessly, as blood—a lot of it—poured from the enemy’s body.

With its eyes and mouth open—the latter of which was spilling blood, too—the strange being lay there. Its limbs were boney and there wasn’t much meat—flesh—on them, and those strange flaps of skin seemed to sag, as if life had left them, too.

The li-tigon’s moth watered. Saliva lubricated his teeth, his tongue, whetting his appetite. He hadn’t eaten properly, since… the last time he’d been in the Jungle, come to think of it. Since then, it was jus t warrior’s meals—brief, simple meals that he’d only taken because he had concerns more pressing than survival. His stomach hadn’t properly been filled for some weeks now.

He’d taken a step towards his fallen meal—attacker—but then, he stopped himself. Freak’s claws extended into the weird, loose soil of this new land, as if to hold him back from his primitive, animalistic instincts… but mental power, or weakness, was stronger than vague, spiritual desire.

“I’m… I’ve done wrong, but… there’s nothing I can do to help him now. Killing for food… it’s as much of a sin as anything else. And for me, killing in self-defense is as corrupt as killing for food, but…” the li-tigon’s stomach growled, and, for a moment, he dared think that his luck wasn’t that bad, not that bad.

“But… he’s already dead. I’ve sinned, I shouldn’t have done it… but I can’t change what I did. I have to move forward…” Freak took another step forward, and lowered his head… Gods, was that smell, that odor of fresh meat and blood intoxicating…

“And… to move two steps forward… sometimes you have to move one step back, first.”

“…How terrible I am,” the li-tigon said out loud, blankly, “I’m trying to use logic, reason, to justify this… when it’s that same logic and reason that tells me everything I do, everything I am is wrong… and that nothing I can do or ever will do is positive. I’m a sinner…”

Freak rasped, then spat. Thick blood sprayed across the ground, and Freak clenched his teeth, shutting his eyes, pulling his lips back into an outraged, not-quite-sane snarl.

“Another growth spurt…”

“It couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

“...There’s no mercy for a Freak, I suppose. Not that such an abomination deserves a semblance of mercy…”

He refused to let himself taste or feel the fresh, warm meat in his teeth or throat. He refused to think as his scratchy tongue rasped over bones both broken and intact, and he refused to acknowledge that even though he ate every bit of flesh that he could digest, both safely and otherwise… his hunger was not sated.

Blood dripped from his snout. His fur was, in many places, reddened with ichor, staining it a bizarre, devilish shade of maroon. But he didn’t lick himself clean with feline obsession, as he normally did. The blood on his muzzle was as much of a taint on his body as untold thousands of sins were on his soul.

Freak looked away, and then slowly reached out. He placed his paw on the being’s forehead, then pulled down, a little, shutting its eyes.

“I even allowed hunger to make me forget my moral responsibility to peacefully send other beings to the next world… even though I have no right to put them on such a journey in the first place.”

Suddenly, the li-tigon’s eyes widened, and he heaved, panting. With a groan, he managed to raise his head, his scarred eye remaining mostly shut. His muscles rippled under his tanned fur, and he awkwardly began to move away, half-limping, half-walking.

His jungle home could be likened, in some ways, to a rainforest. It didn’t really have season; it was wet and lush year-round. Its trees weren’t particularly tall, though; they tended to be from twenty to thirty feet tall at most, though there were a few fifty-foot outliers here and there. The trees of the Jungle tended to be wide and stout, with limbs branching off to reach to the sky without order. There were plains, here and there, but they tended to be relatively small and insignificant.

This, land, though… it was different. As Freak moved away—where to, he didn’t know—he felt the soil under his paws. It was loose, not like the thick, volcanic mud of his home. It wasn’t sandy, but a layer of gravel and sediment formed the topsoil, rendering it difficult to suddenly accelerate, decelerate, or change direction. The plants... they smelled strange—unfamiliar. But, for some reason, as the li-tigon walked along, he felt a vague sense of déjà vu.

He couldn’t understand for the life of him why he knew not to sniff too closely at a large, pearly-white flower. He didn’t know why he knew better than to linger around a strange, sandy structure the size of a hippo at the edge of a large expanse of grassland, and he was at a loss to realize why he knew to stay away from a smattering of fallen leaves…

“This isn’t natural…” the li-tigon thought, as after several seconds his powerful eyes picked up the body of a small but vicious-looking snake among the decaying foliage, “I… it feels like this place isn’t new, isn’t strange. This place… it feels like it’s as much of a home to me as the Jungle. Like this is my…”

“…ancestral home…?”

“That’s impossible,” Freak murmured to himself, as his slate-colored eyes flickered to a flattened patch of earth, where he knew an animal not all that dissimilar from the gazelles he’d hunted for the majority of his life had lay perhaps an hour ago, “…Grandmother said that Grandfather was a tiger; that tigers come from a different land—”

The li-tigon’s eyes widened, and as he looked to the sky, sensing its readiness to spill down gallon after gallon of water on him, continued to ponder—he had to do something to keep his mid from falling into depression.

“And that they’re solitary animals, and that if their cubhoods don’t provide them with enough affection and intimacy to live out the rest of their lives… they’re in pain, unless they find others who accept them…”

A deep, growling rumble of thunder echoed through the skies, but Freak didn’t jump. He’d felt it coming. Insects—smaller than those of the Jungle and less vibrantly colored, but more wary and cautious—began to traverse up and down trees, hiding in unseen holes and burrows.

Freak looked down, and took great care to avoid treading upon a practical river of black ants—the little beings were the sanitation workers of this place; and they did the world more good than he did.

“I know I’m only a quarter tiger. But—wait. Wait. My father, Scar… I couldn’t find out much from Simba about him; Mufasa was biased against his own brother. But…”

The lionesses were exhausted. Exhausted and panting, their paws dirty from a day of hard hunting. But they were returning northward to Pride Rock without Kovu, Simba, and Freak, and there wasn’t a drop of blood on their tawny frames.

“Ladies,” Sarabi said gruffly, turning to face her sisters and daughters from over her shoulder,” hold your heads high. We weren’t successful… that can’t be denied,” she said, before shrugging, and stopping to address the huntresses, “but what are we, if not imperfect? There’s nothing more positive we can do to ourselves than holding ourselves to the highest of standards…”

“And yet,” the oldest lioness said, cocking her head at the other females rhetorically, “what use is there in feeling upset for being as the Spirits have created us—imperfect? After all, we’re just lionesses, right?” Sarabi said, smiling suddenly to cheer her comrades up.

It worked, a little. Tired, somewhat strained smiles were flashed back at the ex-matriarch. Kiara’s tail lashed around for a moment, before she spoke.

“Everything you said is true, Grandma…” she said, a sardonic expression on her soft, young features, “…but I’m still hungry.”

Sarabi was on a roll. But with a short and, annoyingly, very valid point, her granddaughter had thrown her off course.

The old lioness’s lips twitched.

“That’s understandable,” said a still unfamiliar voice from the west, “so… why don’t you share this meal with me?”

A dozen or so pairs of eyes were on the li-tigon as he pulled something in his jaws up and over a slight hill, laying it to rest under the shade of a short, leafy tree.

“…I’ve found that the best hippos aren’t the young or the small. The sweetest, most succulent meat comes from the biggest, most muscular ones. But I always feel bad for killing them,” Freak said emotionlessly, sitting upright and cleaning a bloodied paw with his tongue, “because I can’t finish them. It used to be a waste,” he said, before fixing his blank gaze upon the lionesses, “…but now, that’s not the case.”

There was silence for a moment. It was understandable—Pride Land lionesses, even the ex-Outlanders, were creatures of honor and pride. They did not speak out of turn, and, to them, to accept food from a male who they were supposed to feed was a rather humbling act.

After a pause, though, in which the tired lionesses stared at the still warm prey, freshly taken from a nearby oasis, Sarabi laughed loudly.

“Go ahead…” she said, whatever other words she might have intended to speak being drowned up by the sudden, intense, but short-lived stamped.

Sarabi ducked and held still as the other huntresses dodged all around her, one or two even leaping cleanly over her as they assaulted the hippo. Freak still sat, though, several feet away, unresponsive to the heartfelt words of gratitude directed at him. And so, put off by the li-tigon’s moroseness, the various phrases of thanks diminished… then ceased.

Freak looked up, blinked, then cocked his head at Sarabi. A sudden zephyr made his fur shift, baring several stripes as the grass, the trees, the land itself made a soft rustling sound. The old matriarch’s yellow and red eyes were distant, until they changed, flickering towards, and then settling upon, her nephew.

“…I know that you like to hunt for us…” Freak said after a moment.

His voice didn’t change, but his ears pulled back, just a few centimeters.

“So… if I’ve offended you by getting this hippo, I apologize. But… I heard the herds move, earlier this morning. I knew it would be difficult for you, so, I changed my patrol route…” the li-tigon said, looking at the feasting lionesses, emotion flashing across his face for a moment, “…it wasn’t a big deal, for me. But if it upsets you so…”

Sarabi, however, was chuckling and shaking her head. A nostalgic smile light up her features, and she took a few steps towards Freak before slumping over, willfully ignoring the way he tensed up at her proximity.

“No, no… That’s not it at all. I was just thinking…”

“…Would you like to hear a story?” the old lioness said, rasping her tongue over a claw, as Sarafina ran off to tell Simba and Kovu about the kill.

“…Why not?” the li-tigon shrugged, reluctantly lowering himself to sit in such a way that, if need be, he could get up and run or fight for his life with just a second’s notice.

“Mufasa, Sarafina, Scar and I… we were all cubs then,” she said, feeling Freak’s interest rise instantly, along with his ears, at the mention of his father, “it was just a few days before when we were to go through our rites of passage. Mufasa, of course, was lifting rocks, and striking trees into toothpicks with those powerful, masculine paws…” the female sighed, in a moment of remembrance for her late mate, “but Scar went with us, Sarafina and I, to watch over us as we hunted. We were still cubs, technically, and we were going some distance from Pride Rock and the protection of our parents. But, of course, the minute we broke off to hunt… he lay down and took a cat-nap.”

“For six hours, Sarafina and I hunted. We tried, at first, to go it alone, but after four hours of that, we gave up, and tried together.”

“…Our luck didn’t change.”

“We went back to where we’d dropped Scar off… but we couldn’t find him. We tried to track him, a little, but we were so tired that we just fell over right there.”

“And then,” Sarabi smiled fondly, “we heard him talk. Ah, Freak… if only you could hear him. His voice… it’s very different from yours,” the lioness said, referring to the li-tigon’s flat, husky tone, “it’s… soft, it’s purring, it’s so sensu—that is, hissing… slithering that it makes the fur on the back of your neck stand on end.”

“Anyway, he spoke to us… what was it that he said?... Ah—yes, he said, ‘My eyes are playing tricks on me. Sarafina? Sarabi?... and you always berate me for being lazy. Now, you’re the lazy… lounging… lionesses. Returned from a failed hunt?’ he said, ‘that’s a pity. But every action is both good and bad. For instance, you’re exhausted, depressed, hungry, and questioning your abilities to pass the forthcoming tests –and righteously so.’”

“We rolled over—and Freak, I promise you, that if looks could kill, you’d never have been born—but he kept talking.”

“‘But now… I get to share a private meal that I—me, Scar—caught, alone… with the two most beautiful lionesses that I’ve ever known… ’”

“Sarafina and I turned our heads,” Sarabi said, smiling again, “and there, just behind Scar was a nice, plump zebra. He took it himself,” the lioness grinned, “for us. For a few minutes, Sarafina and I huffed, and turned our noses up, though the way our mouths were salivating must have created puddles of drool on the ground next to us.”

“‘And you call yourself a lion,’ we said… along with other, less repeatable things,” Sarabi admitted, her ears flattening for a moment.

“But he just laughed,” the matriarch smiled fondly, “and said, ‘If a lion is a creature that ignores the hunger of his friends out of pride,’—he spat when he said that word—‘then I’m not a lion. I’m something else.’”

“So…” Freak said, after a moment, pulling Sarabi back to the present, “he wasn’t a lion, but, instead, a being that cast aside personal pride for the well-being of his fr—his friends.”

The old matriarch nodded, and her smile widened as the li-tigon looked to the lionesses for a long moment. His face wasn’t expressionless, but was as unreadable as the blank mask he normally wore.

“Then… me, and Father… …what’s the saying…”

“Like father, like son.”

Freak walked on, but his footsteps were less heavy, less hopeless. He daren’t let himself feel too much, however, for fear of allowing the insanity of the situation get to him.

“Grandfather, Grandmother, Father, Mother… you’re all beings that were self-reliant. You… made me. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have survived my cubhood to live the life that Grandmother, and Father’s parents did.”

“I want to survive this,” Freak said quietly, “I need to survive this. This land… it feels hopeless, to me. I don’t want this place to be my grave.”

It was true. In the Pride Lands, vague and comforting compassion seemed to emanate from every rock, every stone, every blade of grass. Ancestors that had lived and died in the Pride Lands had become, as Mufasa once taught his son, part of the land, physically. But it was as if their protective, loving souls left traces of themselves behind, too.

This land, though…

Trees seemed to press in on Freak. Every hole, every shadowed part of this forest was ominous... threatening…

“Everyone is a threat,” the li-tigon thought to himself as, instinctively, he got down next to a tree that was made up of not one but several trunks that twisted together, like rope, to break apart again into branches.

Without even having to think about it, Freak became one with the environment. It was uncanny how he knew exactly what adjustments to make to his movements, his position, to drift from the physical realm and step back, to watch the world’s goings-on.

Because the goings-on of this world…

“Even the most grotesque rituals of the Bloody Shadows can’t compare to this.”

They were nearly perfect communists. Their leaders were little more than figureheads that motivated their ranks with fiery, disturbing rhetoric. They had little sense of self left; and they were willing to give up their lives without thought, if it was beneficial to their clan at large.

Freak knew this on a subconscious level. For generations, his tigerish ancestors had had to live with this threat, so basic information on its nature was hard-wired into even Freak. But it would take his mind some minutes of horrified watching to really comprehend how the mongoose clans operated.

Some were carrying prey in their mouths. Others were carrying children. They all, however, were crazily prancing about the trees and ground, racing; weaving in and out of complicated patterns that not once resulted in collision.

So fluid was their motion, their collective will, that Freak couldn’t see who was talking. And, he mused, it didn’t matter “who” was talking. The will of the clan was being spoken by a mongoose that was a mere voice of true power.

“Brothers!”

A low, sharp roar replied.

“Sisters!”

A higher, acrid snarl replied.

Then, all at once, everything stopped. Miniscule chests rose and fell, rose and fell. Every mongoose stood at attention, so that the neat rows of hundreds of the vicious creatures lined the forest floor.

Freak’s ear twitched as he watched, flicking away a sepia-colored moth. Even the touch-me-not that he’d accidentally disturbed was starting to unfold his leaves, such was the li-tigon’s descent—or, depending on whom you ask, ascent—into nature.

Several mongooses patrolled the ranks, appropriating food and cubs alike. The food—snakes, mostly, but spiders, scorpions, and even several birds—was piled up to the side of the formation. There was enough meat there to feed the army, literally, but aside from the mongooses designated to collect it, not an eye fluttered at it.

“As you know, food is scarce and times are harsh. It’s almost the Season of the Rains. It’s not a prosperous time,” said a being that was identical to every other mongoose in the clan, “we all have to give up some things, for the benefit of the group…”

There was a murmur of general assent. One of the cubs—they’d been dumped, really, in a sort of rectangle to the rear of the clan—started to cry for its mother, but a blow dealt by the lightning paw of one of the clan silenced it.

“It’s not a time in which adding to the family is beneficial. The pale men that enter the villages have left. They won’t use us as guides, as warning systems, not for some time yet. So… we’ll do as we’ve done for a thousand generations before!” he called, “and as we will do for a thousand generations yet…”

“And, after this Season… I promise you, our efforts to hunt down and exterminate the Dark One will not fail.”

A soft hissing slithered through the group, as Freak’s brow furrowed. The Dark One…?

“We will stay to the trees. We will find homes as close to the humans as possible. We will, as a group, live, and we will accept that not all of us will survive the Season of the Rains—this is life.”

“Our patrols, that keep our humans safe from the claws of the enemy cats,” Freak’s eyes widened, “will not decrease; as our will to serve the clan. We will turn away travelers from other clans with a gentle, but firm hand—good guests do not come to call when their hosts are needy.”

“We will eat when we can, we will starve when we can’t. We will protect our humans with every drop of blood, of strength, that we have in us. Some of us will perish.”

“But I ask you,” the mongoose thundered, “WILL THE BANGHAR CLAN DIE OUT?!”

“NO!”

The roar was fierce and angry and made the li-tigon shiver… as he clenched his teeth, biting back a groan.

“No… please… Spirits… not now…”

“They’ll eat me alive…”

“WILL IT?!”

“NO!”

Freak’s claws extended, digging into the ground. He did everything he possibly could to remain still and silent; he closed his eyes tightly, he flattened his ears, he pressed his tongue to the fleshy roof of his maw, hard… but it was of no use.

“Shit…”

Pain was not a new experience for Freak. In fact, it could be called one of the very few constants in a life that had taken him from the Jungle, to the Pride Lands, to the Bloody Shadows, to the Desert and beyond. For the li-tigon, pain was like powerful vodka—to be sipped briefly and quickly and felt but not reacted to.

Usually.

Because if the pain of a cut, bite, or fall was like drinking vodka, this stretching, aching, pain from his growing bones was like being forced to swallow acid.

Burying his face in his paws and even shoving his muzzle several inches into the loose, giving dirt of this new land did no good. The speaking mongoose was cut off as a terrible, heart wrenching yell rippled through the forest, making what insects remained active despite the congregation of the Banghar Clan scurry away.

Slowly, Freak looked up. He rose from behind the thick, myrtle bush that had, until then, concealed, him, and faced the mongooses.

The mongooses faced back.

“The cubs and food can wait,” one of them murmured, “we’re a race that knows its priorities. We know what we have to do when we see a li—…a… ti…? …a cat. We know what we have to do, brothers. We know what we have to do, sisters…”

Freak’s heart began to race, but he didn’t move. He didn’t allow himself to feel fear, either; not now. For now, he had to control his energy, bite it back, so that when it was time to act, he would do so with the utmost of alacrity and the least of reluctance. The cold prick of adrenaline signaled that it was just about getting time to run, as the mongooses slowly fanned out.

Their tactics meant that any fight with them would not be two-dimensional. Long had Freak used his tigerish ability to use the trees as well as the ground as a launching point for a pounce or tackle to catch enemies off guard, but the way these small, stout creatures easily walked up the trees, setting up a massive attack said that any escape the li-tigon might try to make would be contested.

Every one of Freak’s formidable senses were on high alert. His nose twitched, several times, and his ears angled behind him to search for a safe escape route; one, preferably, that wouldn’t take him from the frying pan into the fire.

“A group of water-buffalo to my five… a concentration of ant colonies to my six… …nothing…?... to my seven…”

The water-buffalo would offer no obstacle to the mongooses. The ant colonies, though…

“If I break their nests…” Freak thought, as he adjusted the position of his paws, slightly, coiling his muscles, “they might take some mongooses out of the picture for me.”

“We know what we have to do, brothers and sisters. We know the sacrifices that we’ll feel, and we know that we’re willing to taste them. We’re strong, we’re determined, and, above all, we are righteous.”

The brief silence was deafening.

“So…”

“ATTACK!”

The roar was primal, but the meaning behind it was what really made it terrifying. Freak was a being that had faced seemingly insurmountable odds before, a thousand times, and it made even his insides twist in a freezing, iron grasp.

Time seemed to slow down, again, allowing Freak to react. His eyes shot around. Mongooses were jumping, racing towards him from his ten to two o’clock position. The first wave’s short but viciously sharp claws sliced through foliage, clearing the path for the legions of back-up behind it. The second layer of mongooses spilled to the side to try to flank Freak, and the third and fourth waves prepared to charge as well.

By the time Freak had digested all of this information, he had moved. The looseness of the soil made it hard to take off from a cold start; but, for some reason, the li-tigon knew better than to run at his best speed from the beginning—he allowed his speed to change in a sustainable pattern, so that a sudden impulse of acceleration wouldn’t make him slip, fall, and be torn apart.

Freak’s body twisted as he turned. He extended his back claws just a little, so that his back half could move but would not fall and skid. He extended all of his front digits, giving himself as much grip as possible. Moving paw over paw, the li-tigon was able to turn away and start running as quickly as possible.

Time sped back up.

Blood-curdling screams frenzied Freak’s pace. Though he no longer felt the white-hot jabs of pain racing up and down every bone of his body, he knew they were still there; he was just too occupied to register them.

Though Freak had just eaten, he wasn’t in his best shape for several reasons. One was that he’d just made a death-defying spring… it seemed like so much longer than a few hours ago. Another was that this new land, its humidity, its strange noises, its air… all of it sapped at Freak’s strength and wit.

Another was, of course, the fact that he was undergoing a huge growth spurt.

But despite the odd twitches his muscles sometimes gave, despite the dull ache that penetrated even the blinds he’d used to focus his mind, he was only slowly losing ground to the mongooses.

But he could not keep it up.

The li-tigon sprang off of trees, slid through tightly-packed clumps of forest, and smashed through bushes. He tried every bizarre zigzag, every feint, everything; but the mongoose clan had so many members that no matter what, he couldn’t shake them.

And so, instead of trying to shake them as he normally might, Freak lowered himself to the ground and forced himself to run faster. His legs stretched out their fullest, moving in a wide arc of motion as he sprinted even faster. His efforts to decrease air resistance and squeeze that little bit of extra speed out of his body worked, and the li-tigon peered ahead, far ahead, preparing the only trick he had up his sleeve.

But the forest seemed to rebel against him. He’d been running for about a minute, now, and now that this land had realized that he, a li—…a… ti…? …a cat, was evading justice at the claws of the Banghar Clan, it was reacting.

Small animals in the trees pushed vines down to try to net, or hang Freak. The li-tigon had to use his claws to slash through those tough, knotted ropes several times, and to avoid a small swarm of dangerous, stinging, flying insects, he had to take to the trees.

But, abruptly, the forest broke into a plain, and he had to come down. Freak bounded, now, instead of sprinting, to avoid hasty bites directed at him by snakes and scorpions alike. The grass here was dense and green and hurt to move through, not like the tan, soft blades of the Pride Lands, but Freak had no choice.

The forest sprang up, again, but as Freak reentered it, a particularly powerful wave of pain made him grunt and slip, slightly. He skidded, but recovered, and moved on. There was no time to think or react properly; all Freak could do was use his paw to half-cut, half-pull the snake that had locked its teeth into him, and pray to whoever might be listening to him that it had only gotten a mouthful of mane.

Impressively, despite all of his troubles, Freak’s form had scarcely deteriorated. So, a close-view from the li-tigon’s side would show his exotic muzzle; the occasional stripe flickering in and out of view; his lips, held in pain, over the massive daggers that were his teeth, and his purplish nose, twitching.

“Just a little further…”

Up in front of the li-tigon, the forest broke, again. There was no grass, no trees, and only one kind of insect up ahead. The ant colonies…

Muscles screaming in protest, Freak continued to run. This trap… it might work. It really might. A deliberate attack against a nest would provoke an immediate, intense response. And the mongooses would reach anything stationary that Freak did after a few seconds…

It might work. It might. Hopefully… because if it wasn’t at least 90% effective at throwing the mongooses off, Freak would be run to exhaustion, then killed. They’d track him down, he knew, and despite the instincts that had, thus far, kept him alive in this land, they’d kill him.

The colonies were only feet away, now… and, thank the Spirits, they were active. Freak could see the miniscule creatures crawling around, making a few last-minute preparations for the Season of the Rains. They’d not only cleared out a good patch of the terrain—a rough ten meter by ten meter square that gave them visibility, organization, enhanced defensive capabilities, and respect. There will little holes all over that patch of earth—they were plugged up, now, but could be cleared in a heartbeat so that ants could pour out and flood the entire area in seconds.

Not only that, they’d set up drains to divert water away from their home. They’d set up small barriers, here and there, to slow the imminent flood-waters of the Season of the Rains.

“Why am I thinking about this, when the Banghar Clan is hot on my tail?”

Freak jumped forward, clearing a patch of mud. The mongooses were closing in.

Now, the li-tigon was just twenty or so feet away. A fallen log barred him from the ant colonies, so he hopped, once, so that his muscles rippled under his flesh, storing energy.

Then, he jumped high, and far. Freak turned his head to the side, then gave it a toss to throw off a vine. His eyes opened, and his paws, folded, began to move outwards to form a sort of V. Like this, he’d be able to knock off at least the top of any of the twenty or so nests in front of him and get out before he as well as the mongooses was consumed by the reactionary swarm.

Still in mid-air, Freak looked down. A small torrent of ants was carrying a few final provisions into a hole, preparing the colony for the harsh season ahead.

The li-tigon’s eyes widened, and his jaws fell open, slightly. What had he been planning…?

“I can’t do this, it’s their home! I can’t attack them and take advantage of them to rid myself of something that’s solely my problem. It’s inconceivable—no!”

His paws were already flying through the air. He’d used them, before, to knock heads off of enemies, and even to shatter solid walls of rock. And Freak’s kinetic energy was great—if he struck, the rapidly approaching nest in front of him would be smashed to rubble, killing untold thousands of its inhabitants…

The li-tigon managed to adjust his forelegs. His right limb arced over the nest, the energy of the strike turning him to his side. Then, with his left limb, he pushed, so that his body glanced off of the nest, leaving no appreciable damage.

The ants were upset, though, and just as Freak hit the ground, then sprang off back into the forest, to the left, they began to pour out of the ground.

Shrieks of pain rang out behind him as a good few dozen of the Banghar Clan were enveloped by the swarming, stinging masses. The rest, though, moved to the side or just ran on, shaking the ants off of their bodies.

Freak was desperate now. His adrenal rush was starting to die down, and fatigue was starting to set in, as well as the pain that hissed from every part of his body, from his tail to his nose.

He had only one option—to the seven o’clock position of where the mongooses had found him, there was… he didn’t know what. All he knew was that it was different from the rest of the forest.

And, he prayed, whatever he found there would benefit him, not the snarling, raging predators behind him.

Patches of moss suggested that whatever Freak was approaching was more water-rich, more wet. But the terrain was still as dangerous to him as the Clan behind him. Rocks shifted under his feet, pushed aside, slowing him down. Outraged howls all around him suggested that he’d harassed a band of monkeys.

Thrown stones, fruits, and less sanitary items landed all around Freak. He was gasping for breath, now; every hissing rasp hurt his throat, his lungs. Now and then, an involuntary shudder would rack his body; the growing pains were getting worse.

Suddenly, in front of him, the land seemed to break. Freak didn’t have time to stop and think—he was running on empty, now, and was too committed in forward motion to change his direction.

There was a tree, right in front of him, and a gap in its spiked, harsh branches formed a net that would block any mongooses that didn’t move perfectly behind him. But the gap was small, and blurred, black and white patches were starting to cloud his vision. He had no choice.

And so, for the last time that day, Freak jumped. His form was neither sleek nor graceful, this time; it was desperate. The way one leg seemed to trail the other, the way his paws didn’t fold up to minimize air resistance as they normally did… it wasn’t so much that Freak leaped into the air—he threw himself forward into the hands of fate.

A dark gray, howling form swung from the trees in front of him, striking forward with gnarled, twisted feet. It was a monkey, and the slight fluctuation in Freak’s path that its assault might cause could make him smash his head into the tree.

Its face twisted in rage, and then sudden agony as Freak swatted it aside. It hit the ground, hard, breaking its back on impact, then its neck due to whiplash.

But its mission had been successful.

The sudden blow had thrown Freak off-course. He wasn’t flying sideways, not really, but his body wasn’t perfectly aligned to thread the needle, as it needed to be.

As a last, doomed attempt at damage control, Freak tried to curl up into a rough fetal position, to at least minimize his injuries. But it was no good—he had no time.

The li-tigon’s snout cracked against the tree, so hard that a spiked branch broke off, but remained embedded in his face. His flank smashed against another branch, very nearly dislocating a leg. Freak felt cartilage shift, ripple, and tear, and knew that he’d be limping for at least a day… provided that he lived for another day.

In a way, it was good that Freak’s jump wasn’t perfect. His collision killed a lot of his kinetic energy, so instead of flying outwards, over the practical cliff whose floor was hundreds of yards below, he sort of flopped forward a few yards… before falling.

A few mongooses followed him, but not many. Those that did were torn apart by the rugged cacti and thistle that scratched life from the sharp layers of basalt and granite that formed the cliff’s steep slope.

As the rock surface rose up to meet him, Freak gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, exhaling.

“I hope that, at least, the Clan will leave me for dead…”

The first collision was bone-jarring. Freak’s balled form opened up, as every cubic millimeter of air was forced from his lungs. He bounced, a little, but the subsequent hits were no less perilous.

By now, of course, the li-tigon was unconscious. He hit a few stout cacti, blasting them into separate, bleeding chunks. Their spines dug into his flesh, deep, tearing dozens of miniscule holes into his protective skin, through which any number of terrible diseases could enter.

Dust and debris was blasted from the cliff’s face as Freak continued to fall. His limp form was shown no mercy—if there was a vague forth in his downward motion, every time, the li-tigon went down the path that led to a farther drop, or a thicket of cacti, or a particularly jagged group of rocks.

Finally, though, the fall ended—in a fashion. There were no more rocks or cacti…

There was open air.

Freak’s eyes—their shade mimicking the dull gray of the cliff almost perfectly—opened. He seemed to cling to the lip of the cliff, for a moment. His forearms, once sleek, powerful, and even protective, were now battered, bruised, cut, and weak. The lower portion of his body dangled, for a moment…

Then he fell…

The canopy of the forest was another hundred feet down. Freak had survived falls of thirty and even forty feet, before, but those had all been when he was completely conscious and able to roll, or do something to decrease the felt impact.

Now, though, he was half-dead, half-conscious, tired, and still shuddering from the pangs of rapid growth. He had no chance…

He slipped a little, at first, and then his grip failed entirely. Wind ruffled his mane, whistling in his ear, slightly, as he fell.

But Freak’s eyes closed, and he wrapped his forelegs around himself in a sort of hug. He might not be going to the same place all of the beings he’d known and cared about were, and he might not ever see a friendly face ever again in his existence…

But at least now, he was sure of his fate.

And so, as his muscled, weathered body met the first arrowhead leaves of the forest below, Freak smiled.

He was at peace…

(I hope that you’re all at the edge of your seats. I haven’t dared to do a cliffhanger ending for the past few months, because I haven’t been able to guarantee a speedy follow-up. Now, though, that’s no longer the case. Look forward to chapter sixteen in a few weeks, at most, because it took me just about ten days to write this. As always, five reviews are required to continue, but this time around, I’d like you to tell me one thing you want me to do more of, and one thing you think I can do better at. Oh yeah—a big shout-out to Kovukono. He read over and edited this chapter something like four times. …Well, that’s all for now, so this is the Lion Sheikh of fanfiction, formerly known as -Mujahid… see you next chapter.)

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