THE LION KING: THE FREAK

Chapter 27: Battles and Wars III: Fearless

(The game is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down…

And please be aware that there will be some bad language, here and there. After all, this is a Kifo-Freak chapter.)

This was it—the moment that Freak had knowingly spent the last several months of his life preparing for, and the moment that he had unknowingly spent the entirety of his life preparing for.

He was meeting Kifo: his twin and his enemy. When everything was finished, at least one of them would be dead. There was no peaceful third way, no de-escalation. Aggression had been initiated the moment Kifo came into existence...

Freak tried not to dwell on that as he continued to walk forward, getting to within twenty yards of his enemy, his twin. He kept his face neutral, or at least tried to—this was not the time to show fear, or any other emotion, for that matter. Finally, so close to Kifo that he almost choked from the rank, smoking scent emanating from the demon's hide, he stopped.

He looked at the demon, and the demon looked back at him. It was hard to tell who felt what—both were impressed, though, and wary of the other. This was understandable: on the one hand, Freak was staring at a being that, while vaguely human, bore no semblance to Raj's tanned, friendly face. Kifo was over eight feet tall and built like a tank—endless pounds of muscles coated a frame crafted from iron; his body rippled with enough power to flatten forests or even mountains. Freak recognized some of his arms, and knew, immediately, that this fight was not one he could win at long range. He'd have to get in close to prevail.

For Kifo's part, he wasn't sure, at first, what to make of the massive cat approaching him. Freak was far, far larger than Kishindo—or, for that matter, Kovu or the broad-shouldered Roderik. He'd gone the path of the Dark One, who, as a liger, was genetically predisposed to being a walking giant.

The li-tigon's size, though, wasn't the only thing that kept Kifo's hand off his sidearm. Freak seemed to almost vanish into the landscape, as he approached; the stripes that had been handed down to him from his mother and before her his grandfather and before him his great-grandmother did their job, but something else was at play. Something else, that made Freak look like a ghost—even as he stood, focused, intently, on the approaching feline, Kifo couldn't see him well.

He could see Freak's eyes, though. And those set, gunmetal orbs were nothing if not intent as they fearlessly stared back at him.

Kishindo, for her part, had frozen in her tracks as well; Kifo surmised this, but didn't dare confirm it. Taking his eyes off the deadly fighter in front of him, even for a second, could mean suicide.

"You're expecting me," the demon said, slowly—it was the only explanation that was remotely plausible, and that wasn't saying much. Never before in his "life" had Kifo met anyone that didn't flee from in terror, except for Kishindo. But he knew, somehow, that he wasn't looking at another… not an ally or friend, but a tool. Kifo didn't have allies or friends.

He watched as the strange cat before him nodded, slowly. His movements were precise, carefully measured, but somehow not robotic—there was something incredibly, vitally alive about the striped feline, something that Kifo had searched for his entire life but had never found even in his death.

"I am," the stranger replied, calmly, just as slowly—there was no need for anyone to get excited. Not yet, at least. "Your name is Kifo. Death." It wasn't a question, but it wasn't quite a statement either. After weighing his response, for a moment, the demon replied.

"Yeah, that's me. How do you know my name?" His fingers twitched, but the stranger didn't react. That was disconcerting—if such a blatant threat couldn't throw him off balance, Kifo didn't know what would. Strangely, though, for just a second, the cat had… sort of phased into focus. Kifo's mind raced; he tried to understand what was going on, but he couldn't, and he would never be able to. He was just a killing machine, after all.

Come to think of it, he wasn't even "Kifo"—"Kifo" was not his name. It was an alias, forcibly placed on him by a being that had abandoned him when he grew too powerful to be tightly controlled. He didn't know his name. He had no name. But it wasn't important—all that was important was his mission—that was the purpose of his posthumous existence, and that was all.

The cat didn't answer, and, after a moment, the demon gave up on expecting him to. Instead, he twitched to the side, slightly—finally, a reaction. It wasn't the one he was hoping for, but it was the one that he expected—no, more than expected—and dreaded.

The striped male shook his head, slowly, and moved, once again placing himself in between the demon and his destination. Kifo considered sidestepping again, but decided against it. He had to hear what this stranger was going to say.

"You're not going to pass me," the cat said. "And… I know that you're not going to leave, either."

Slowly, the demon nodded. It was most strange, the vague sense of understanding, of fulfillment that entered his being—he was doing what he was supposed to be, somehow. Kifo had never felt it before, not once—but it felt… not good. But it felt… not right. Whatever it made the demon feel, he felt something that wasn't as black and charred as the skeleton that had fallen into the Forbidden Island all those months ago.

"You look familiar," the demon said. He smiled, for some strange reason; the corners of his scarred, parched lips upturning the slightest amount—he really was amused. "I ain't sure why. I know I've never, ever seen you before… there's no way. If I did, I'd never forget it. There's something about you…" to emphasize his point, he reached out, with his left hand, pointing at the being before him. "You're… whatever you are… you're rare. One, maybe two of a kind…"

He didn't flinch. But again, he almost came into full view, though he didn't say a word in response—not this time. So, slowly, the demon turned his head to the side and spoke, not taking his eyes off of the other monster in the Pride Lands.

"Kishindo," he said, firmly, "it's time for you to go. Take out your little boy, and Simba, if you can. When it's all over… we'll see each other again."

"Kifo—"

"Go."

There was no arguing with the demon when his voice took that tone, so Kishindo had no choice, really, but to nod, slowly, looking at Kifo for a long, long moment. He really was impressive, she thought, and she was glad to have played a role in forging him into land's second most devastating fighter—no, not second. Never second. Kifo was the best, and he was going to win. This stranger, this male, this feline of indeterminate heritage… he was nothing.

Well, of course he was huge, and broad-shouldered, and rippling with muscle and intelligence and speed and agility. But there were two areas in which the demon, surely, had him beat: sheer power, and malicious will—will that could be translated into action with shocking results.

Kishindo smiled, slightly; her face was neither brooding nor cracked in half by a vicious, toothy grin—she was quietly confident, sure of the results of the impending brawl.

"I'll see you later, my dear Kifo," the lioness said, loudly—but neither fighter so much as glanced at her. Ah, well—it was worth a try. Kishindo shrugged, and started to move, slowly considering her next move. She had neither the time to gather actionable intelligence nor plan out an effective attack—but that was okay. Kifo had shown her that, on occasion, there was sense in just letting everything go and going insane on the opposition.

That wouldn't be hard… Cruel, hated, Simba. Bastard, treasonous Kovu… No, Kishindo would have no difficulty in becoming a wild beast with the sole, singular purpose of ripping both of them—and anyone that came to their aid—limb from limb.

The lioness's form diminished, slowly, in Kifo's view, as she continued in the general direction of Pride Rock. He watched her with his peripheral vision—almost all of his visual attention was directed at his enemy. Now, Kishindo was irrelevant—all that mattered was the here and now.

Duels in the Wild West were tense—before they started. Glaring at one another, men in bandanas and dusters and hats would stand, twenty paces apart, fingers twitching, constantly, ever closer to the pistols on their hips. And then, all at once, someone would snap—and, one way or the other, the fight would be over.

Well. Kifo and Freak had been staring at one another for over five minutes, but neither of them had budged. They were both busy sizing one another up—Freak, of course, knew what he was doing well enough to have plotted out several plans of attack and defense. He'd had several overall strategies in mind for some time, now, but still wasn't sure which one to implement—they revolved around his mind, cyclically, none offering any net advantage over the other.

Kifo, however, was less cultured, and far more reliant on Kishindo than he might have liked to admit. His pre-game routine, so to speak, involved not much more than projection—he imagined himself demolishing his enemy in ways too numerous and violent to list.

Or, rather, he tried to. Because for some reason, the demon really couldn't see himself crushing the strange feline before him—certainly not the way he'd defeated the rest of his enemies. If he was going to beat this one, it wouldn't be a resounding victory—he'd pull through by the skin of his teeth.

"Yo," the demon said, rather suddenly—but his enemy didn't jump. He simply tilted his head, several degrees, an amount so insignificant that it could be safely disgregarded. "Got a question…"

The cat blinked, once, but shrugged. "Go ahead."

"I was wondering… who are you? How—you knew I was coming, and you know who I am. How? Have you been tracking me?"

The feline's expression hardened, and he didn't answer. Kifo watched him, closely, and could swear that he saw an iota of uncertainty in his eyes—but that didn't last.

Freak was hundreds of yards from where he intended to fight—he'd finally settled on a plan. Until he could get to the forests or the rocks, there would be no cover—he'd be an easy target, unless...

"Akane, I hope you're right."

The li-tigon looked up at his enemy. Stared deep into his eyes. He spoke quietly so that, unconsciously, Kifo leaned forward, just a little, to properly hear what was being said.

"I…" Freak's voice faded. He swallowed, and tried to speak again. This time, he did so with a confident, intent, and yet a dreadful edge in his voice.

"My name… is… Freak."

Kifo stared at the cat for perhaps ten more seconds. And then, he found that he was staring at nothing more than empty space. Freak had vanished.

Kishindo had hunted lions like herself for much of her life. One might have been able to say that she'd grown adept at it—if any of her hunts had ever been successful. However, one might also recall that she'd never so much as set a paw on Simba, nor any other of the Pride Landers in her life.

Things had changed, though, since she'd last been in the area. She'd gotten a lot stronger, a lot smarter, and even more merciless than she had been before. This time, she would not fail.

The lioness closed in on Pride Rock, taking the final five miles to the behemoth structure at a crawl—sentries were doubtlessly posted everywhere. And being spotted would mean fighting an entire pride of lions—more than that, in fact, though she didn't know it. One on two odds, for her, were fair—one on two dozen… not so much.

Her tan fur blended in perfectly with the endless plains covered by long, wavy grass; the terrain that defined the northeastern Pride Lands. The pride she and Scar could have created in a land like this, with its endless natural resources, its natural defenses, its perfect climate—in two generations, they could have forged the master race that the White Sand pride had been attempting to make since before anyone could remember.

Anger at the way the current rulers of the land wasted it so frivolously had been a near constant for most of Kishindo's life. But sometimes it spiked, ballooning to proportions too large to easily be contained.

After a moment of struggle, the lioness controlled herself. A nasty snarl crawled across her lips, but that was all. The rest of her anger was used for focus—she needed to concentrate.

Kishindo wasn't accosted as she got closer and closer to Pride Rock—good. Surprisingly, though, she increasingly got the feeling that there were no sentries in the area at all. In fact, there wasn't a single being in the vicinity of Pride Rock itself.

Well, now. That was odd, even for the depraved beings that lived there. Still, Kishindo didn't waste brain cells attempting to unravel the motives of the Pride Landers—her mission was simple and needed to be executed quickly. There wasn't time to psychoanalyze anyone.

Prowling low to the ground, the lioness's angular nose twitched once, then twice. She began to smirk malevolently, will and determination building up in her eyes—she'd scented Kovu. Simba… she could smell him too, but not well enough to track him. That's not what worried her, though.

What was worrying was the presence of a great number of other distinct scents. Kishindo couldn't be certain, but it was difficult to deny that there were dozens of other, unfamiliar lions in the Pride Lands, and that was bad. More muscle and meat to fight through or sneak past would take time, and that was the one asset she was desperately short of.

She could manage, though. She always had.

Understandably, Kifo stared into apparent thin air. Not for long, though—he shouldered his machinegun, a deadly, 7.62x51mm bullet hose—and went to a modified low-ready position. He stepped forward with one foot, looking, intently, all around the several cubic feet of air that Freak had just occupied. His finger was on the trigger and he was ready to shoot the moment the li-tigon reappeared, but what he didn't expect was to take blows from a still-invisible attacker.

They came hard and fast and unexpected; Kifo was taken off guard. In a second, he'd been knocked back several yards, almost thrown off his feet.

He was being attacked from the left side, but even as the demon tried to fight back, striking back with a vicious, clawed hand, he saw nothing. And, after the briefest heartbeat, in which his attacker ostensibly avoided his attempted counter, he felt jaws clamp shut around his wrist, and, gruesomely, twist.

The fight almost hit its climax there. If Kifo was any weaker, he might have endured a broken forearm, dislocated wrist, or worse. As it happened, though, the demon was powerful enough to clench the basketball-sized muscles in his arm, making the entire limb as immovable as steel.

The only indication that the demon was in any pain was the horrible, twisted snarl he wore, then, as his eyes glowed, malevolently, scouring the space just next to him for anything—any refraction, any movement, any shadow. Surely, his attacker wasn't entirely invisible. That was impossible.

Kifo's thick fur was excellent protection against a great many attacks—from knives, from blunt attacks, from acid, and maybe even from bullets, too, a possibility he intended to take full advantage of when he got back to Times Square. It was not impenetrable, though, and rows of razor sharp teeth backed up by over a half ton of force somewhat outstripped his skin's protective abilities—by a longshot. If the demon allowed things to continue for long, the soft tissue that connected his arm to his hand might be destroyed, effectively taking away one of his most powerful weapons.

Fortunately, Kifo was in little danger of losing his footing. If this fight had occurred in the White Sands, he'd have been on the ground moments ago—now, though, he could dig his talons into the moist, fertile soil, preventing himself from being taken down and mauled.

Horribly, Kifo felt his wrist being pulled, and hard. His attacker was attempting to rip his hand off with sheer, brute strength. The demon could play that game and win with anything, anyone.

Except for this one.

Gritting his teeth, he lifted his weapon, intending to fire. He paused, though, and then forcefully moved his finger off the trigger—he sensed that if he opened up, the ferocious cat clenching to his paw would twist out of the way and cause him to shoot himself. That would be devastating. Kifo had to be creative.

Well. He'd evolved a thousand times before, in this post-life existence of his. He could adapt again.

The demon suddenly shifted his weight in line with the pull—in doing so, he dropped to a knee, stabilizing himself, while circling his arm into a sort of outer block. The sudden, rotational motion was unexpected by his attacker, and there was no way the feline could maintain his grip, not without turning over onto his back or side and giving up the ability to move while exposing a large, unprotected target to the demon.

Naturally, Kifo's attacker released, albeit a second too late. The demon actually saw a flicker of motion, then, as time slowed down, allowing him to continue to track it as he brought his machinegun up. A millisecond later, he started to fire; flowery explosions emanating from the pronged muzzle of his weapon. The thunderous concussions of the blasts flattened the grass for several feet in all directions—there was no way that anything could avoid a barrage like this. None.

Fighting Kifo was like fighting a great white shark—the demon was many times more powerful than Freak ever would be. The li-tigon was expecting it, but he couldn't help but be surprised. This was a being that could and would easily toss him all over the Pride Lands, if allowed—Freak knew that he couldn't rely on sheer power. He had to be craft, quick, cunning, sly—he had to use every weapon his life had equipped him with, and far, far more.

When the demon threw him aside simply by moving his arm, Freak was not only shocked, but angry—at himself. The sudden torque wrenched him off his feet with such intensity that he nearly snapped his neck.

Somehow, though, the li-tigon managed to roll with the motion, in a fashion, allowing his teeth to slide out from his foe's flesh. He did a sort of sideways roll in the air—or, rather, several of them—but managed to keep his eyes on his enemy despite the impromptu kung fu film move.

Freak landed, several yards away, skidding to a halt. He dug his claws into the ground to slow himself down more rapidly, dropping into a low fighting stance—that was wise. A vicious scythe of gunfire cut through the air, above him. The li-tigon flattened, in response, and dived to the side, rolling again. As he did, he actually saw the hot lead slugs spinning above him, trailing paths of disturbed air—then, of course, he heard them.

Akane had been correct; it seemed that Freak really was invisible to his enemy. This advantage was rather reduced, though, when the li-tigon kicked up dust. Keeping this in mind, he trotted to a stop instead going for an immediate halt—this left his enemy confused and looking for another opening, while Freak circled around to take him from the flank, or the rear.

Kifo was looking in the opposite direction, head swiveling from left to right, giving the li-tigon a few precious heartbeats to think before the demon turned or began to fire indiscriminately, simply using the force of numbers to score a hit—Freak kept his footfalls light, before sprinting forward when he got to within ten feet of the demon.

His muscles tightened, briefly, before the concentrated energy stored within them was released, propelling the li-tigon forward, and high. Having inserted himself into such a welcoming position, Freak had no intention of using finesse anymore—he was going for a devastating shot to his twin's head, intending to pummel him into a concussion, or at least a brief black-out.

Kifo surprised him, then. Instead of continuing to stupidly look around, he acted suddenly, without warning, and deftly. It was probable that the demon really didn't know where Freak might come from, next, because there were many maneuvers that would have been more advantageous for him—but what he did wasn't bad, either.

He rolled forward, or started to, ducking just quick enough for Freak's massive paw to blue over the back of his head, hardly grazing any of the dark, coarse fur at the nape of his neck. The li-tigon's eyes widened, but he recovered, quickly, reaching in with the claws of his left paw extended.

Any natural creature would have been skinned, at least—more like fatally wounded—by the li-tigon's next move. He grabbed at the flesh of Kifo's gut, and pulled, bracing himself by twisting and placing his forearm against the demon's shoulder. All this happened in less than a second, but Kifo wasn't torn wide open. In fact, he wasn't even hurt.

Demonic rhino hide really was a marvel, it seemed, because the demon's flesh was untouched. It was true that the vicious feline was all over him, just then, controlling the motion of the fight, but that was about to change. Kifo, too, could react in the space of milliseconds—he, too, could combine brutality and ability in order to win fights.

Instead of shaking the strong cat off, however, something that could have been rather easily accomplished, the demon reached up with his left hand the moment he felt contact on his shoulder. Somehow, the rock-hard muscle of his bicep complied, allowing him to find the cat's wrist in the air and crush.

Well. This was certainly interesting. The demon had looked up, moving his machinegun behind his head. Firing from such a position would be odd, but it didn't matter. All he needed to do was to strike his target with one bullet to leave behind a lasting impression.

His job was made rather easier by the fact that when he clamped down on the furred, clawed appendage against his clavicle, the form of his attacker rippled through the air for the briefest moment.

That was all Kifo needed.

He pulled the trigger, just long enough to fire a burst—in that time, the cat managed to flip his body over, clawing through Kifo's vice-like grip before his bones could be shattered. The demon heard impact, several yards away, and prepared to let loose again—

His enemy came into view, and this time, not just for a heartbeat. Was this an illusion, or something—a trap? Kifo didn't know, so, he didn't open fire.

If it was a trick, it was a very convincing one. Kifo had spent more time memorizing and analyzing every aspect of his foe just moments—just seconds ago, so he knew precisely what telltale traits to look for. But everything he saw led to the conclusion that this was, in fact, no illusion.

His enemy stood on his four legs, looking at Kifo defiantly. The lack of wind, the absolute lack of sound in the northeastern Pride Lands meat that the demon could hear the cat's labored, heavy breathing—it wasn't the exertion that had winded him. It was getting shot in the chest.

The demon had done his job well, it seemed. Two gaping, thumb-sized holes within five or six inches of one another lay at the cat's lower abdomen—just where his ribs ended. Kifo didn't know much about anatomy, despite having performed several vivisections in his day, but he guessed that he'd landed a very palatable hit.

Indeed, his heavy, spitzer bullets had torn apart a chunk of Freak's diaphragm—that's why he was finding it so hard to breathe. Internal bleeding was heavy… already, spittle mixed with blood was starting to spray from his lips.

The li-tigon bared his teeth, threateningly, as he saw the cocky smirk of assumed victory spread across his twin's face. His entire face tightened, for a moment, before he roared.

Loudly.

So loudly that when he was finished, the demon had taken several steps back and raised his machinegun from his hip, prepared to let loose with another salvo of bullets. Two, it seemed, wasn't enough to make a clean job of things. Not by a long… shot.

The expression on Freak's face could only be described as ugly. To be sure, both sides of his tawny, striped chest had fur matted red to his bones—with his blood. But before Kifo's eyes, the vicious exit wounds both of his shots had made began to seal up, slowly, healing.

Again, the demon stared at his enemy. He felt… something. Something unfamiliar to him, something that he wasn't supposed to feel. Yet, it was a feeling as natural to him in life as apathy.

Was it fear?

If it was, Kifo was justified in it. This foe was one that was fast, strong, agile, invisible at times, and had a healing factor that rivaled his. If he was going to beat the supernatural cat in front of him, though, he was going to have to let that fear go—or, better yet, replace it with a more useful emotion.

The demon didn't roar, but his hiss was low, unsettling, like a death rattle. As the harsh sound penetrated his opposition's ears, Kifo saw the fur on the back of his neck stand up, the muscles in his forelegs squirm, uncomfortably. Whatever the feline was doing to make himself invisible, whatever he had done to put himself in the nearly inconceivable shape that he was—none of it matter, because Kifo would kill him.

Freak deserved credit, though. Although he didn't complete suppress the natural reaction of being stared down by a being created out of hate and malice not ten feet from him, he did not back down. He just stared back, powerful shoulders bunched up to make himself look even bigger than he already did.

"Before you ask," the li-tigon said suddenly, "yes, you did shoot me. Your bullets don't hurt, Kifo. Not for long."

The demon simply shrugged. He wasn't going to get into a battle of wits (mostly because he'd soundly lose)—let the cat talk as much as he wanted, Kifo would simply watch, and wait, and listen and analyze his words to discover any potential weak points. It was as if simply being around this guy was making him less prone to losing himself to blind rage—he was calmer, cooler, smarter, more analytical. More human…

Taking a brief risk, Kifo glanced down at the hand that his enemy had so desperately tried to rip off. To deter an attack, he thrust his machinegun forward, aggressively—unknowingly, then, both fighters began to circle.

Viewed from above, it seemed that they were both determined to maintain the same tangential velocity with respect to the axis of their aggressions. Kifo was bigger, to be sure, but he wasn't clumsy by any standards. Not anymore, thanks to Kishindo, bless her little heart. He smiled, slightly, murderously, and knelt.

This made him decidedly less quick and agile, but, in exchange, he was able to bring his thick left forearm in front of his chest, protecting his neck with his paw. This was something of a conservative knife fighter's stance—it was defensive, and for a good reason. Kifo wasn't going to win a battle of agility, not by a long shot—there was almost nothing he could do to stop his enemy from pouncing on him. So, instead, the demon resolved to take a tackle and fight back.

For this reason, he held his weapon at about elbow level, so that the barrel wouldn't as easily be shoved out of the way. He could fire fairly accurately, he presumed, and that was good. The current theater of operations had lots of free space, lots of it indeed.

"Son of a bitch," the demon thought, surprise betrayed by a slight, almost imperceptible widening of his eyes—as he continued to stare, though, he swore that he saw his enemy's gunmetal gray orbs twitch, slightly, as if he knew what the demon had just realized.

It was of little consequence, though. It seemed that the cat's invisibility had run out, or failed, or something, and that was good for Kifo. Slowly, he began to back up—he had a ranged weapon, his enemy did not. Distance was his friend.

They were twenty yards apart, a moment later, a quantity that slowly but surely began to increase. The demon was a deadly shot at up to two hundred yards with his weapon—he intended to get to fifty, though, before lighting his enemy up. There was no way the cat could continuously dodge a barrage of bullets for very long.

The demon was prepared for any sort of counterattack—he knew that the second his enemy realized what was going on, he'd strike back, probably zigzagging toward him too rapidly to be tracked. Kifo imagined himself sweeping the muzzle of machinegun around, finger not letting off of the trigger until the hits really began to rack up, pummeling the other one's muscular, toughened body into submission and then into death.

"Do you really think I'd fall for something this simple?" the demon's enemy said, not even bothering to move, anymore. "I know what you're trying to do, and it's not going to work."

Kifo ignored his words. If his tactic wasn't going to work, fine. He'd think of something else.

Panting, softly, the demon dropped to a knee, fully. He supported his machinegun with his left hand, aiming, carefully, at the calm, static profile of his foe—this wasn't a long range shot, not even close, but Kifo knew how fast the cat could move. One bullet would be dodged, but a flurry, hopefully, was another matter.

His finger tightened around the trigger, almost but not quite overcoming the resistance of that small blade of metal—there was something going on here that he did not understand. How did his enemy become invisible?

Almost accidentally, Kifo squeezed off a dozen rounds. The roar of their slightly parabolic paths through the air diminished, quickly; there was nothing for miles for the sound waves to bounce off of—and there was no sign whatsoever that they'd met their target.

The demon hissed, for a second, then fired again. And again. And again, in increasingly longer, less controlled bursts. There was hardly a degree of space that he didn't fill with lead in the seconds that followed; there was no way that his enemy could avoid a barrage like that if it took any effort whatsoever for him to maintain his invisibility.

That was unsettling. Even more unsettling was the fact that when Kifo lowered his smoking, red-barreled weapon, teeth bared—his enemy promptly reappeared. Almost exactly where he'd disappeared, in fact.

There was no denying, though, that the cat had moved. Avoiding taking a hit from that full-auto fusillade had left him breathing hard, just a little—he'd had to move a lot faster than he usually did, after all. But he'd dodged so many bullets, at such a relatively close range…

Well. That wasn't going to stop Kifo. Because even though he hadn't hit his enemy, he had seen the slightest wisps of existence sliding through the air—tracking the deadly path of his gunfire on them had nearly resulted in hits, several times, but it was only range that protected the cat.

The demon began to walk forward, then, gradually stepping up the volume of outgoing fire. He didn't bother using his sight—tunnel vision was the last thing he needed, and this foe was an agile one. One second he was in one position; the next, he was twenty yards right of it; the next, he was back where he'd started. Kifo couldn't rely on finesse—he just had to spray as many bullets as he possibly could in order to bring his target down to a cold, bloody halt.

When he started to move forward, again, the cat backed up—it wasn't that he was scared. He had a plan…

Then, Kifo realized that they'd circled just enough that now, he was facing the east—the far eastern borders of the Pride Lands, where grassland and savannah quickly morphed into wet forests not that dissimilar from the Jungle that Freak had once called home. That, apparently, was what Freak had turned on a dime to sprint toward.

This was a trap, of some sort, and Kifo knew it. He knew that he'd be rather disadvantaged in a closed, tight environment like that—he needed space to fight real opposition like Freak.

But, as the demon began to run, chasing the silhouette that his twin purposefully let exist in the air, he also knew something else: he would not be able to turn his back on this strange, deadly cat. He had to fight him and defeat him in order to go on. He could not back down.

He was following. That was good—now, Freak could bring him into the jungle, wear him down to exhaustion, and, finally, when the demon didn't have a working limb left, or a weapon, or even the ability to stand on his two feet, Freak would—

"Damn it," the li-tigon thought, "I'm actually fighting this guy. Forget that he's my twin—why can't I even think about killing him?"

This question, though, would have to be answered some other time. Perhaps some time after Kifo's body was at his feet, motionless; the threat he posed to a stable, safe Land eliminated. Now, though, Freak had to concentrate.

He'd rarely been to the Pride Lands' far northeast—there just was no reason to be there, when there were more vulnerable and well-traveled borders to protect, and the best hunting grounds were far, far away. He was in his element, though, regardless of this fact and the fact that this forest was a dark one.

Even the tallest trees of the li-tigon's Jungle home couldn't come close to the giants that existed here. They towered up to well over two hundred feet tall; the entirety of their trunks were bristling with branches until perhaps fifty feet off the ground. By that time, there was almost no light—only a few dappled patches of ground showed that where the Sun's rays managed to penetrate.

Freak was going to fight in the shade. He wondered, briefly, what color his eyes reflected in low-light situations—normally, they were gray, but did they still shine green?... he'd have to ask someone. Soon. After he was finished with Kifo…

The demon had slowed down, merely walking toward the forest with the grim determination of a zombie. Freak was several hundred yards ahead, protected from being shot by several thousand cubic feet of tough, unyielding wood—so, he started to make plans as quickly as he possibly could, knowing that Kifo was probably doing the exact same thing.

Vines occasionally hung as how as forty feet into the air—of course, Freak couldn't jump that high. Perhaps, though, he could climb or sprint a little over twenty feet up a tree, then use a vine to get to a branch—that could work. From the thick matrices of branches and other vines, he could mount a surprise attack that Kifo could not defend himself from.

The li-tigon had taken into account the demon's lack of real speed and his slightly sub-par hand-to-hand skills. What he hadn't taken into account was Kifo's sheer power.

The demon was a hundred yards from the forest when he stopped. He knew what Freak was going to do—bring him into a place from which he couldn't fight well, couldn't escape. And yet, if he wanted to engage the li-tigon, he did have to find him.

The options were simple: enter and die, or change the rules of the fight.

Kifo selected the second option.

He'd changed his machinegun, then, for a weapon that would be almost useless against Freak in direct engagement, especially in an open environment. It was also a weapon that was built to engage light vehicles at over five hundred yards: it was an automatic, water-cooled grenade launcher.

The demon braced it against his hip before he prepared to fire; despite his great size and mass, such a powerful weapon might have knocked him off the feet if he'd attempted to shoulder-fire it. He wasn't aware of how much time it would take to bring down a single tree, much less the entire forest—but it didn't matter. What Kifo could see was that within fifty yards of the forest, he would be surrounded by potentially hostile positions on all sides.

His first grenade was fired—the somewhat comical, domed shell was spat out of the thick, pronged muzzle of the launcher, briefly clutched at by a plume of flame and smoke. After spinning twice—a built-in safety mechanism—the grenade was live, ready to explode.

It struck its target several seconds after it was fired. The explosive deformed, slightly, chipping off bark and dirt and moss as it entered the tough, fleshy wood—before exploding, leaving behind a gaping, wide crater. The tree was structurally damaged with one hit, and Kifo hadn't yet released the trigger.

The demon's weight was oriented forward, allowing him to place his shots far more accurately than he might otherwise have been able to. Soon, he realized that three grenades per tree was alright—in this manner, he began to methodically shear the forest down.

Despite his distance from his collective target, or perhaps due to it, the demon was able to watch every detail of the destruction he was causing with stunning clarity. The refraction of every shattered, falling leaf; the lazy circles slowly disintegrating wood made as it trailed through the air—these were small pleasures. What really got his heart pumping were the more blatant results of his actions—when huge limbs, several dozen times his age, fell, crashing, to the ground; when flocks of thousands of birds chirped in terror and too flight, only to be downed by the truckload when he fired into the air.

The demon continued his work, gleefully, watching as entire chunks of the forest simply ceased to exist. People tended to react badly when their property was demolished; hopefully, his enemy was no different. Kifo knew that Freak was defending the Pride Lands from him, or at the very least, Pride Rock. He suspected that what he was doing wouldn't tolerated for long—Freak would be drawn back out into the open.

The tables would be turned.

Freak had stared down interior crocodile alligators down before he was a year old. He'd fought sharks, literally, and won—members of his own superspecies were pushovers; he couldn't conceive of any feline that could stand up to him for a second. He'd fought humans, too—although he couldn't claim to be able to take them down with the frightening ease that he normally employed, he could hold his own.

Fighting an enemy that, it seemed, was indiscriminately launching grenades into a forest to scare him out would require a change in strategy on a fundamental level. Now, Freak saw that he'd made a grave mistake, one of the worst nature: Kifo was far, far stronger than he could have imagined.

The li-tigon sidestepped, at first, then sprinted. He didn't simply retreat, because he knew that Kifo wouldn't hesitate to level the entire forest—sooner or later, Freak was going to run out of places to hide. He had to go to the demon eventually, so he might as well do it on his own terms.

Just before he emerged from the forest, a grenade exploded only a few yards from his position. Along with perhaps ten cubic feet of dirt, Freak was thrown into the air. His eyes widened, but he managed to clamp down on his emotions—and try to right himself, so that at least he would hit the ground on his feet. It didn't work—the li-tigon hit two branches, breaking through them with only the slightest drops in speed. Thick contusions were already spreading under his fur as he finally reached the peak of his flight, and began to fall.

Freak saw only vague blurs all around him as he hit the ground, bouncing several times—tan and green to his right; everywhere else, subdued brown. He wasn't aware of exactly when he came to rest, but the moment he had control of himself again he stood, blinking, rapidly, shaking his head to try to get the oppressive buzzing out of his ears. The li-tigon tasted blood, and took cover, for a moment, as Kifo continued to fire—thankfully in another direction. If he had been any closer to the explosion, he would have broken several bones, or perhaps much, much worse.

There wasn't time to catch his breath, though—now that he was finally confronting his twin, there wasn't time to breathe. The li-tigon panted, not out of exertion, but to try to get some oxygen back into his lungs, to speed up the process that was healing him even as he considered his next move. Kifo was still there, blazing away—Freak could see spent casing after casing fly, smoking, from the chamber of his weapon despite the fact that the demon was hundreds of yards away and he had only peeked out for a second.

Freak waited, for a moment—not to rest, not to recuperate, but simply out of the hope that the demon's fire would continue its current bias away from his direction. If he rushed out while Kifo was firing toward him… well, there wouldn't be much left if he took a grenade to the face.

Fortunately, Kifo's misguided trend continued—Freak was in the clear. An opportunity like that wouldn't last for long, so, while it existed, the li-tigon took it.

Racing low to the ground, just in case his twin decided to launch a few grenades in his direction while he approached, Freak sprinted across the ground. He maintained silence as he did so, with difficulty—but Akane had been very clear in what he'd said. Although Freak was invisible to his enemy, he still made noise.

Now, he was in the immediate vicinity of the eight foot tall monster that was threatening everything and everyone he held dear. Maybe—just maybe—Freak could turn against Kifo his own greatest weapon: fear.

With that in mind, the li-tigon allowed the demon to see him as he made his way up and over the final rise between them. They were close enough, then, that he could see every detail of Kifo's scared, scaly form—his dark fur was pulled taught around the ironclad bunches of muscles that put his physique at a level above Freak's.

But power wasn't everything. Freak knew that, and he knew it because he'd spent his entire life fighting enemies far, far more powerful than him. This was no different.

Kifo turned at the last second—or, in fact, an instant after that; an instant too late. He tried to bring his grenade launcher to bear, but there was no time: the li-tigon was on him. Freak tackled the demon with such force that the wind was knocked out of him, as, together, the twins flew into the air. Before a second passed, the li-tigon had his teeth and claws in Kifo—was this the end?

Fifty caliber rifles have limited backpacking use—unless, of course, you're a member of the seven-feet-tall-three-hundred-pound-or-more club. Such things exist, although most of their numbers exist in "sports" like professional wrassling.

Kifo, though, had no difficulty toting the overlarge weapon in one hand, pretending to shoot things as he and Kishindo sought to confirm the kill he'd made. He strolled along, to the southwest, still in a rather good mood from the massacre he was going to commit.

Nothing could ruin his day, it seemed. Even the miserable desert that he was leaving was no long bright and sunny and hot—cloud cover had rolled in, and didn't seem like it would be leaving anytime soon. Above Kifo, in fact, was a concentration of airborne moisture so thick that it blotted out the Sun entirely—it comforted him to know that everything else that lived in the White Sands, from travelling herds to snakes to the tiniest desert any would be unable to look to the sky with hope. He'd taken away hope—what fun.

"Hold up."

Kifo frowned. Fucking Kishindo—getting in his way all the time, holding him back… did he really need her anymore? No, he really didn't. The lioness had walked up in front of the demon, her tawny, somewhat scraggly form standing out against the White Sands'… sands. It would be so easy, he thought, lifting his rifle, aiming it in her general direction, to end the annoyances she forced on him…

"Kifo, this doesn't make sense."

"Huh? Oh… shit…"

Before the lioness could realize what he'd almost done, the demon turned, quickly, rifle at his hip—but there was nothing, nothing at all in the area except for blood.

And a lot of it.

Kifo's bullet had met its mark, there was no doubt about that. Conceivably, it struck the lion in the meaty part of his shoulder, or perhaps somewhere on the foreleg—there were no bone fragments to be found, anywhere, so the demon had only landed a flesh wound. It had not been an instant kill, and, in fact, it was more than possible that the lion had survived long enough to move—though not very far.

Why, then, despite the time and effort the two spent searching for the body, were they unsuccessful? What could possibly have rendered it invisible to them—and how? The answer, was, obviously, nothing—nothing natural, anyway, and the demon was the only unnatural thing in the Land of the Spirits. Nothing else could touch him.

Kishindo spoke up, a moment later, in a tone that made it clear how unsure of herself she was. And there was nothing incidental about the manner and position in which she oriented herself with respect to Kifo—she was preparing to defend herself.

"It must be," she said, slowly, eyes traveling across the uniform desert sand, "that you're so powerful… that when you shot him, he was killed—completely. There must be nothing left of his body to find… that must be it."

"Yeah." He sounded a lot more confident than she did, so, after a moment, the lioness shrugged, and stood normally. Indeed, nothing unexpected happened—it looked like she was right.

"This is good," Kishindo noted, as they began to walk again, again bearing down on the Pride Lands. "Vaporizing a lion in one shot… you are powerful, Kifo. It's almost breathtaking."

"I try," the demon said, smirking, though not in a dangerous manner. "But I'm not using a sniper rifle on the Pride Landers—not enough bullets in a clip."

After the Lion Sheikh got over emulating such a blatant display of gun newbishness, he got back to the story at hand.

"So what will you use, then?" the lioness asked in an almost precatory manner. "Something powerful, to be sure… but what?"

"I'll decide later," Kifo shrugged, finally starting to move away from the area where the lion had ostensibly—no, definitely—been killed. "For now, what I've got is good enough. Let's get going, Kishindo."

She nodded, briefly, knowing better than to reply. Of the few traits that encompassed Kifo's being, tolerance for unnecessary chatter was not one of them—and she appreciated that, really, she did. No true leader could like talking much—Scar certainly hadn't; she remembered that with stunning clarity.

Now, Kishindo knew that Kifo would never replace Scar, not in any manner. He could, however, exact revenge on the dead fascist's usurpers—and that was enough for her. So, with a slight, malicious smile, and not the slightest intuition that she was being watched, the lioness moved a little closer to the demon's side, walking forward, coolly, confidently, to the White Sands.

How he survived was something that no one would ever know, not for certain. It wasn't divine intervention that had protected Akane—the Spirits had been irrelevant for months. Could it be said, then, that he was lucky?... perhaps, yes, it could. But it could also be said that the lion's sheer willpower kept him on his feet, fearless, proud and noble and strong as he waited for the demon to finish him.

It was minutes before he realized that, somehow, he was invisible to Kifo.

That was a significant discovery. Potentially, Akane thought, it could give Freak the advantage he needed to kill his twin.

And that meant that martyrdom would have to be postponed. Akane had to get back to the Pride Lands—immediately. He couldn't risk anything to waylay the demon, or attempt to…

The white lion watched as, after a moment, Kifo and the strange, deadly-looking lioness at his side left him, continuing, inexorably, to his home—to kill his family, he reminded himself; every being that he'd known and loved since he was a cub.

It couldn't be said that his parents and their brutal followers didn't have it coming—but Akane had never been cold-hearted; indeed, he'd largely been ostracized from his family for the opposite reason. Abandoning so many admittedly flawed beings to torture and total annihilation was not something he did easily.

But he did it.

He felt like a coward, though he knew that he was not. He could offer a service to the Land that far exceeded what just another dead body, lying to rot or mummify in the White Sands would—he could give Freak a real weapon against his twin. That's why he was running—not because he feared death.

This lack of fear, in fact, was why he had survived his encounter.

(Massive points to whoever is able to guess who the grandfather is!)

"If you don't shoot, you don't eat."

Motivation for marksmanship, it seemed. Of course, not to the boy that that curt, harsh statement was delivered to. It wasn't that his grandfather was cruel, not really—he was, however, somewhat too realistic. There was no need, really, to be so honest to a ten year old.

In truth, however, he wasn't just any ten year old—he formed a third of his grandfather's living relatives. Hunter blood ran in his veins; he'd been a natural shot since he'd first taken a rifle into his hand over a year before. He'd made his first kill before he truly understood what he was doing—the hope was that this act would have an effect on him similar to the effect it had had on his brother.

The goal, of course, was complete desensitization. A lack of sympathy for lesser, subhuman creatures was the only reason the old man had pulled himself out of otherwise certainly permanent destitution all the years before to become what he was that day—an old, blind cripple hardly capable of bringing a spoonful of food to his mouth without assistance.

Several times, the boy had considered suggesting that he did not want to follow in the path of his grandfather or that of his brother. Several times, though, he'd shown wisdom beyond his years and kept his mouth tightly shut.

Self-censorship before even attending public school. In many ways, he was ahead of the game.

There was little rain that day, despite its immediate proximity to a season known across the world as one in which everything that was not permanently attached to the ground and many things that were were carried away by torrents of water so large and so powerful that one could only watch, in awe, as his house was destroyed. A hilled community offered some protection against the flooding, but this house—this sad, lonely shack, constructed out of cut-down saplings and brick and mortar and metal sheeting—it was on the fringe of the village, well into an area in which heavy flooding would undoubtedly occur.

The boy worked the bolt of his grandfather's rifle with the ease and skill of a professional, before slipping a single round into its magazine; he would need no more. Once the firearm was loaded and ready, he slung it over his somewhat bony, narrow shoulders, and stood.

"I'll go now, Grandfather. I'll be back soon—please pray for me… we're due for a tiger attack."

"Never," the old man growled. He felt around, with a trembling hand, until his fingers brushed across a box. As the boy watched, his grandfather brought a dirty, somewhat tapered cigarette to his mouth, lit it, and began to smoke.

The habit was one of the many things killing him at such a relatively young age. It was true that his homeland was third-world to the core, but life expectancy had risen, slowly, to at least mid-sixties. At fifty two, though, the man was more sick and broken than many men twenty years his senior. He would die soon, and he knew it—he might as well enjoy what time he had left with what life he had left.

"Listen, you idiot child," he said—the boy stopped in his tracks, but he did not turn to face the man. "There is no God; there is no purpose in prayer. All that matters is what you do with what you have. I can sit here like a superstitious old monkey and hope for your safety all I want, but the only thing that will protect you from a tiger's jaws are your own hands. Understand?"

He wanted to do and say many things just then. At least, he wanted to calmly say, "No." And at most, he wanted to turn, lift his rifle to his shoulder and put a bullet in his grandfather's head.

"Yes, Grandfather."

Perhaps a respect for prudence was something he'd inherited from his grandfather as well.

Some minutes later and the boy was in the jungle. He had an easier time flitting, silently, through the closely-packed trees and shrubbery than he would when he was older, taller—at well under four feet tall, he disturbed the environment less than a man ever could.

It wasn't just out of prudence, though, that the boy kept so incredibly quiet. Unlike his grandfather and his brother, he liked the jungle. Unlike the village and the family into which he would never really assimilate, he felt at home in the forest.

The constant livelihood of it was breathtaking. The boy's hearing was sharp—unlike most, he didn't hear a dull, monotonous din as he entered the jungle. He heard all of the individuals sounds that made it: the flow of water in innumerable, miniscule streams, the movement of small animals and insects, the slight rustle of leaves against one another…

It had been very rainy, of late, but the boy knew that the real downpour had not yet started. Walking was tough, or it would have been, if he didn't know where and where not to step—mud would have sucked at his feet, pulling him down and immobilizing him if he wasn't careful. But he knew what he was doing: he'd hunted for his family before, a dozen times.

Without realizing it, he'd traveled at least two miles into the jungle. This was more than far enough for some terrible predator to take him and make off, making him vanish too completely to be traced. A hundred yards from the village, things started to get dangerous—a lone ten year old at least half an hour from the nearest able man was defenseless.

He squeezed through a gnarled, twisted tree buffered by a thorny plant with which he was unfamiliar. He paused, realizing that, and took a moment to examine the leaves and the positions of the spikes that lined its brown, sinewy branches—in seconds, he'd memorized every aspect of it. Such knowledge would probably never prove useful in his life, but he walked away with a smile on his face.

Annoyingly, however, it seemed that there was nothing to hunt that day. The boy wasn't surprised; after all, the rainy season would start very, very soon—perhaps later that day, even. Still, he should have been able to find something, some lone straggler, some bird or something else.

Luck was not on his side that day. Another half an hour later, and he still had seen… nothing. Now, the boy was starting to feel real concern, and not for himself. Though thin, he could go for a day or two without food—his grandfather, however, was never more than a few inches from death's door at any time.

Perhaps, then, it was time to change strategies.

What could be causing the absolute dearth of creatures? It wasn't the boy—he was being far too careful and silent for that. It was almost as if something had been there before him; something big and clumsy that had scared everything away.

Yeah. Right. He might as well quit wasting time and head home to rest and save energy. Who knew, maybe the old man would finally croak, leaving him in relative peace.

He regretted that thought almost the second after it occurred to him. Morality aside, there was karma to consider—maybe his brother would beat him up extra hard the next time he was in a bad mood.

Or, maybe, he'd make the slightest misstep, breaking a twig with an audible snap—alerting the reason that there were no animals left in the forest that it was not alone.

The boy wasn't far from her when she jumped to her feet, hissing in surprise. How he'd missed her at all was a matter of simple poor luck—a strange depression in the ground, separated from him by a rather thick tree had rendered her invisible to him. Now that he saw her, though, he knew that his life was at an end.

She was fifteen feet away, almost glowing in the subdued green of the jungle—her fur was white, and the boy knew that if his grandfather had heard a reliable account of a creature like her, he would have pursued her 'til the ends of the Earth. He would have done so without a second of reflection, a second of appreciation for the beauty before him.

Well. Although she was going to kill him, that didn't mean that the boy had to hate her. Already, he'd lowered his rifle—then dropped it. His fate was constant; all the mattered now was how he spent his final seconds.

He'd never seen anything like her, though his grandfather had told him that white tigers existed, behind bars. The extreme rarity of the trait, combined with the obvious disadvantages it carried—finding one like in the wild was a treat that few men ever tasted.

He considered, briefly, attempting to shoot her. It wouldn't be hard, and if he failed, well, he wouldn't be losing anything that he already surely would. The boy looked down—his rifle was on his foot; it would be easy to snap it up and point-shoot, or attempt to. A skin like hers could bring generational wealth, although it would have to be sold on the black market to some Arab (or Texan) oil sheikh. He was literally looking at an opportunity to make him and his sons and their sons prosperous, safe, happy, content.

In the end, though, he decided to accept his fate. She would do as nature and prudence dictated—his suffering would be at an end.

"Make it quick, please," the boy said, though he knew that it was useless. She was a tigress; she couldn't understand him.

The battle, it seemed, would be a classic contest of agility and speed versus sheer animal power. Freak was faster than Kifo, but Kifo was incomparably stronger than the li-tigon. The great white shark analogy that the Lion Sheikh employed earlier remains sounded—the demon thrashed around in his twin's grasp, struggling for an escape. It took Freak every skill he had to stay on his enemy—delivering meaningful attacks was another issue.

At first, the demon tried to get up, but Freak repeatedly managed to wrestle him back down to the ground. Although one of the li-tigon's paws was occupied, helping him cling to Kifo, he had a free paw—his steel-trap jaws notwithstanding. The li-tigon struck, twice—the first blow was diagonally upward, raking over the demon's muscle-bound chest. That attack directly chained into a sort of grab, which pressed the demon's face aside, baring the union of his jaw and his neck as well as the vulnerable nerves and arteries there.

All this happened in less than a second. Freak had dived into Kifo with such force that the demon had cracked a rib; a painful injury that he didn't notice thanks to the continued onslaught against his face. The li-tigon's blitzkrieg, though, was too quick, too hasty—he hadn't prepared for failure and he had no means of defense. He'd bet on the hope that he'd be able to kill or at least seriously injure the demon and then jump off.

Things, unfortunately, did not work out.

Though Kifo reeled from the initial vatic ferocity of the warrior's assault, he was too tough to be crushed so quickly. To be sure, he was hurt by the li-tigon's claws—they gouged long, cavernous wounds at least a centimeter deep into his flesh. A palatable hit, to be sure, but not a debilitating one—not by a long shot.

The brief lull that allowed the demon a chance to land a decisive counterstrike occurred when Freak went in for the final blow. He was fast, but he was also predictable—he went for obvious bait too easily; he'd overestimated the factor by which his own speed outstripped Kifo's.

In short, the demon was able to reach up with his left paw—he took hold of the li-tigon's spine, causing the slightest, instinctive spasm—this brief delay misguided Freak's bite enough to give Kifo time to act with his right hand.

He formed his massive appendage into an ironclad fist, and moved it up, quickly, millimeters from his own form. The close-in uppercut was aimed and executed perfectly, though it was an extremely risky maneuver. Freak's steely jaws came within inches of Kifo's neck when the blow connected.

The punch was so hard that the demon was jarred. He swore that he felt his bones deform when his knuckles connected with the li-tigon's jawbone, forcing his mouth shut with explosive force powerful enough to make his mouth bleed. The energy of the strike, though, was far in excess of the amount required simply to shut Freak up—the excess continued on, unstoppably, to throw Freak off the demon.

Or, it would have—if Kifo hadn't had a death-grip on his twin's back.

The demon barely kept hold of the li-tigon after the jolt of the punch hit his paw. Freak's fur strained almost to the breaking point, but it held—no massive wound was opened to infection and blood loss, but the alternative wasn't much better. The li-tigon had blacked out from Kifo's first real hit of the fight, and now he was literally in the demon's grasp.

Kifo, however, would shortly make the same mistake that his twin had. He would underestimate his foe.

Yes, Freak blacked out—but not for very long. His spell of unconsciousness was so brief that he came to without forgetting where he was or what he was doing—not a millisecond after the demon's blow had connected. He looked around, rapidly, ignoring the agony of having his coat almost torn in two, and saw that Kifo's paw was still continuing upward; the demon had punched through his jaw and doubtlessly was preparing for a follow-up of some sort—but Freak wouldn't let that happen.

The li-tigon's mouth clamped shut around Kifo's hand again. The demon howled in agony and tried to shove Freak away, but now he was the one that was predictable. The li-tigon had already taken advantage of the shock of being bitten that had caused Kifo to release his back and thrown his hindquarters to the side—the large angular inertia gave him the torque necessary to twist, viciously, causing his teeth to sink through the flesh in Kifo's hand. Now, literally, the demon's paw was skewered, at least a dozen different ways, by his twin's teeth.

And, as suddenly as he'd appeared, Freak had disappeared.

Well. At least now, Kifo knew that his hand had been targeted specifically for elimination. It was a reasonable strategy, to be sure—putting one of his hands out of commission would be a serious blow to his offensive capabilities. Even as the cat wrench him, though, onto his belly, the demon had decided to throw the dog a bone, in a fashion.

Acting rashly was one of Kifo's… pastimes, really. Nothing beat the rush of going into a high-risk environment without a clear plan or even an idea of what might result from one's actions. In that fashion, at least, what he was doing had some precedent. It wasn't simple self-mutilation.

The thick, brambly grasses of the northeastern Pride Lands had just enough give to them to allow Kifo's feet a purchase. Instead of immediately resisting the li-tigon's efforts, though, Kifo not only accepted them but exceeded them—he clawed himself to his feet and ran forward, briefly, as fast as he could so as to normalize or even decrease the tension on his hand.

Then, however, he stopped in his tracks. And he took up his blade with his free hand.

And cut his other hand off, just below the wrist.

Black, thick ichor spurted from the grotesque injury the second Kifo's angular blade met his flesh. He'd sliced through several inches of tough flesh and bone with a single, deft stroke; the change in the speed of his weapon due to the cut was negligible—that's how sharp it was.

Kifo didn't stop moving; he was prepared to lose his hand. The numbness, the lack of feeling that emanated from the stump below where his wrist would have been didn't slow him down—it merely tempered his will, and allowed him to see the blatant shimmer in the air before him, centered, in part, around the disembodied hand that had once been his.

"I think I'm starting to understand things," the demon said. He leaped forward—and a second later, he'd pinned a struggling, invisible mass to the ground, taking advantage of his greater size, weight, and strength. He couldn't see his enemy, but he could feel him. Effecting any sort of workable lock or pin would not be possible—a simple onslaught would, however, have dramatic results.

"You're not really invisible," Kifo continued, as he feinted with his knife—and looked to his other hand. Yes, his other hand—already, a slender, somewhat underdeveloped appendage had started to grow back. "I think I'm starting to get it."

The demon was straddling Freak, holding him in position with enough pressure to crush a truck engine. And then, the blows began to rain down on him.

Many of them missed, but those that hit were powerful enough to jar the li-tigon's brain within his skull. The feline was lithe and agile, but he was not invincible—he could only take so many of the vicious attacks before something broke—like a rib.

Clearly, it was time to change tactics. Freak took two fists to the upper chest and face before he realized that he wasn't going to get very far by fighting from the ground. Of course, it wasn't exactly easy to escape from a hold like the one he was trapped in—but the li-tigon could cope. He had no other option.

What kind of a monster, he asked himself, would cut off his own hand in order to create the most transient of advantages? What had Kifo intended to gain by that act—he'd given up his hand in order to surprise the li-tigon for the briefest of moments. His actions had resulted in a net loss, or certainly would, when Freak found a way to get away from the demon.

Going for Kifo's face or arms, however, seemed foolish. If he reached up to attempt to claw out the demon's neck, Kifo's skin would protect him long enough for him to pin the li-tigon's arm in place and then go for a vicious break. It was best to keep his forelegs where they were, as buffers between Kifo's fists and his face, and attempt to swallow down the disquieted, shocked expression caused by the recent, unexpected move.

Kifo wasn't letting up, though, so Freak had to act—and soon. The li-tigon's options were rather limited, but not entirely bad. When he sank his teeth into the demon's leg and bit down, tugging to the side in an attempt to make neat shreds out of Kifo's quadricep, Kifo knew precisely where he was—but he also jerked back the slightest amount.

That was enough.

The li-tigon slid downward. An instant later, he was behind his enemy, while Kifo was still reeling from the sudden, crushing bite—but this time, Freak knew better than to go for a simple blow to the back or side of the skull. Instead, he decided to take advantage of his belief that due to all of the toughened flesh coating his form, Kifo wasn't exactly flexible.

Freak raced forward and took the demon by the scruff of the neck. Now, it was Kifo's skin that was nearly torn off his body as the li-tigon ran, quickly, back toward the forest. The demon tried, unsuccessfully, to reach his attacker, but he could only barely rap Freak's chest with the back of his knuckles. He tried to use his blade, too, but due to the angle at which Freak had attacked, a counter was essentially impossible.

Kifo could neither grab at the ground to slow himself down nor get to his feet—they were simply moving too fast. Sooner or later, he would have come up with something—if Freak hadn't kept sprinting at that furious pace before hauling Kifo's head into a tree.

The demon saw stars, but regardless, he managed to get to his feet—shakily. With his back to the tree that he'd just plowed into, he raised his knife in preparation to defend, while he lifted his unarmed hand up to feel the results of the crushing blow that he'd just been dealt.

His fingers came back black and stinking, and the demon knew that the dizziness he felt would take a few moments to go away. Not much time could have passed, however, since the li-tigon had struck him—he felt an emptiness at the back of his neck where his skin and some of its connective tissue had been torn away and hadn't yet returned.

Though Kifo was conscious, he wasn't in the best shape. He was still reeling from the terrific blow, and, worse, he was now in an environment that severely hampered his retaliatory capacities. Directly before the demon, the forest opened up—but crossing those fifty yards to the dozens of miles of open sand and grassland wouldn't be possible. Not immediately, anyway. Doubtlessly, his enemy was expecting such a blatant rush, and now Kifo knew that he would only win this fight by being spontaneous and unpredictable.

Rapidly, the demon's vision cleared. There was still a terrible gash across his skull, but even the pain from that was abating—it was time for something to happen. Freak would attack soon—unacceptable. Kifo had to force this engagement out of his enemy's comfort zone.

The quickest way to do that was the most obvious, but it wouldn't be to Freak. No, it was doubtful that the li-tigon could predict the rate at which his enemy would adapt to the pace of the battle; his strategies weren't fluid enough. Kifo, though, was dynamic and his skills were more well-rounded than Freak could have thought possible. Being bipedal, after all, had its advantages—and one of them was the ability to climb faster than a feline ever could.

Although Kifo's leg was somewhat damaged, he still had more than enough strength to squat, slightly, before jumping upward, turning 180 degrees in the process. Before he reached the apex height that his leap would have returned, he sheathed his blade and began to claw his way up the tree, rapidly forming his next plan. He was in the tree, Freak was either on the ground or on his level but gravely disadvantaged. The only question was—how was he going to change the flow of the fight again?

Freak had carried Kifo through the tree, and when the demon's head had struck that tough, unyielding surface, the resulting jolt had nearly torn several of the li-tigon's teeth out. The cold satisfaction that resulted, however, more than compensated for the slight discomfort—he'd landed a serious blow, he knew, and an injury like that would overwhelm even Kifo's healing factor, if for just a few minutes. That was enough time to—

"Cheeky," the li-tigon thought, as, silently, he circled around to watch Kifo scramble upward, clawing his way past and through several lower branches too quickly to be followed. Freak was reminded, briefly, of a dark, hairy spider—Kifo's dexterity was incredible. Although he was a demon, his human influences were apparent—Freak needed to remember that.

It was likely that sooner rather than later, Kifo would stop climbing. Then, Freak reasoned, he would create some other terrible weapon and indiscriminately start to destroy the forest again. Although the temptation to allow the demon to bring the forest down around him and then tear him from his perch into the jumbled mess of logs and shattered wood below was strong, Freak knew that he had to set a very low limit on the amount of destruction Kifo would be allowed to cause.

Invisible to the demon, Freak moved as quickly as he possibly could. He glanced upward, briefly, gunmetal eyes flashing with intuition—then, he jumped forward at a roughly 45 degree angle.

Kifo could climb fast, this was true, but there was no reason that Freak couldn't beat him with his superior mind and agility. The li-tigon reached forward with his massive forepaws, accepting the impact outputted by the tree he'd jumped into—less than a tenth of a second later, he'd brought his hind paws up and kicked off.

In midair, the li-tigon twisted so that the process could continue. Although exhausting and perilous—the slightest miscalculation, now, could drop him an uninterrupted fifty feet—his ascent was rapid. Rebounding between the two adjacent trees, Freak would beat Kifo on their race to the treetops—the only question that remained was what would happen when they stopped climbing?

Kifo, by then, had armed himself with a medium-bore rifle of uncertain caliber and model; it was strapped to his back so that when he finally got far enough away from the ground, he'd be able to draw and fire rapidly. He had his claws out, halfway, so that he could pull himself up without attaching himself to the tree itself. At first, his eyes were fixed upward, on his destination, but soon he saw the folly in that and began to look around, after the rather unpleasant image of Freak jumping through the air to tackle him to the ground crossed his mind.

He'd raised the stakes, ironically, by bringing the fight up to a new level. With his superior strength, Kifo could hold onto the tree and pummel his enemy until he lost his grip, accepting whatever blows were thrown in return until Freak was plunging down—hopefully, to his death.

What the demon did not expect, however, was for Freak to climb up to him so quickly, and attack from an angle so unexpected—the assault was too sudden for Kifo to put into practice any of the tactics he'd thought up.

Freak attacked him from the back—and he knew better than to try to give the li-tigon a guilt trip over such a tactic. The li-tigon didn't believe that there was such a thing as ethics in the context of a fight—he had, and always would, do whatever was necessary to win. Ethics, after all, don't help you if you lose.

The li-tigon latched onto Kifo's back, taking advantage of the demon's skin's cohesion. There was no way Freak would fall off, and Kifo couldn't easily throw him off—now was his time to deal his twin was much damage as he possibly could.

Holding himself in place with his equivalent of a full nelson, the li-tigon allowed his hind legs to dangle free while he bit down on Kifo's trapezius. He could hardly fit the thick chunk of muscle in his mouth, but he managed it, and applied as much force as he possibly could. It was unlikely that he could tear directly through the armored flesh, but causing internal bleeding and nerve damage would be almost as bad.

The demon lurched in pain—Freak felt it—and screamed, as well, a roar so loud and close that his ears folded back. He snarled, though, through his bite, and continued the assault. All the while, though, the li-tigon couldn't help but wonder—Kifo wasn't fighting back, but he was still climbing. Why?

Well, to be honest, Kifo didn't know either.

He couldn't fight back, he knew that, and simply stopping would tell his enemy that he'd been taken off guard. At least if he continued the pretense that he was planning something, Freak would be on his guard and not devoting all of his attention to tearing up the demon's neck.

How long this tactic could be maintained, though, was limited by two factors: Kifo was running out of tree to climb, and he was also running out of flesh that could withstand the constant crushing force exerted against him.

The demon's face was contorted with rage, then, but not just rage—there was another, unfamiliar expression etched into the deep creases of his skin. It was one that he hadn't felt since before his "death"—well before his "death".

Turning didn't help; neither did attempting to kick, punch, or claw at Freak. He couldn't bring a firearm to bear, either—if he put a pistol anywhere near the li-tigon, he'd lose his hand again or simply have the weapon batted away, to the ground. In short, the demon realized, as he broke free of the canopy, exploding into a sky so clear and bright and blue that it hurt his eyes to look at it, he was going to lose if he didn't fundamentally change the way the battle was happening.

Thus far, the only constant in Freak's and Kifo's battle had been change—sudden, surprising, massive changes that had completely reversed the flow of the fight whenever they happened. Sooner or later, one or both of the combatants would run out of tricks, and things would settle into a straight, direct engagement. In a fashion, theirs was a war of attrition—whoever ran out of creativity first would lose.

Kifo knew this. And he knew that he had to again act in an unexpected manner, though he didn't know how.

Perhaps that was what caused him to let go of the tree and jump as high as he could, a clear thirty five additional feet into the air. Freak, doubtlessly, would be surprised by that and react, perhaps in a manner that would give the demon the upper-hand—

But Kifo was wrong. He was continually chewed up, though there was no way that his attacker didn't know that they were seconds from arriving at the apex of their battle, seconds from starting to fall with enough speed to feel every preliminary impact before they were both broken apart when they hit the ground.

Maybe Freak was just as determined and insane as he was. That was a disturbing thought, but it meant that the demon had nothing to lose. Long-term prudence be damned—he'd have to struggle to come through this by the skin of his teeth.

With that in mind, Kifo looked down and to the side. He focused, manipulating the dark energy within him that allowed him to create guns and blades and ammunition in a rather different manner than he usually did. The demon saw his elbow ripple—before a spike of sudden pain shot through him.

And Freak.

The li-tigon knew, of course, that Kifo has just effectively committed suicide. By blindly leaping into open space, he'd disarmed himself—Freak expected the demon to reach up, over his back, and grapple with the li-tigon's face. Either that, or simply try to slam his back into a tree.

Both responses would have been relatively effective, and would have forced Freak to change tactics or simply bail out. But in mid-air, there was no reason for him to stop biting and digging his claws into the demon—he could jump off whenever he wanted to. The damage he was doing now, he hoped, would make it necessary only to finish Kifo off when he hit the ground, because Freak somehow knew that the demon would survive the fall.

Rapidly, they began to speed up. Freak was biting as hard as he could, but results were slow in coming. Clawing at Kifo's neck would do no good; he had to keep his claws in the demon flesh to make any progress—it was getting time to make his escape. The li-tigon suddenly released Kifo and turned, striped form twisting in the air as he pushed off of the demon—

And, because of the spike in his side, got nowhere.

A slick, organic black blade had grown out of the back of Kifo's elbow, it seemed, quickly enough to stab through Freak's protective fur and muscle. The li-tigon actually felt the strange, bone-like structure enter him, goring his diaphragm, before he changed his goal.

The li-tigon couldn't breathe, and he didn't dare move around too much—if he did, Kifo's blade, still growing and expanding, could very easily tear open a hole large enough for Freak's guts to spill out. His best option would be to take that hit until the last possible second, and, until then, ravage his enemy.

It was at least comforting to know that one of the demon's arms was occupied and wouldn't be going anywhere, leaving Kifo with only one frail hand for self-defense as Freak repeatedly struck him with his powerful paws. His blows were as powerful as he could make them and they were also malicious and hateful—the li-tigon wanted to crush his enemy with such violence that no one so much as looked at him wrong ever again.

In this manner, the two combatants, neither discernible from the other, began to fall.

Hunting was rather different when one didn't plan to come back from the hunt. Less inhibitions created opportunities that could not otherwise exist. Kishindo still had to kill one of them before moving on to the other, though—that would be a pain. She could, of course, make her goal to take either Simba or Kovu, but that wouldn't satisfy—the lioness would probably die that day; her only hopes of survival required for Kifo to come back after his victory against Freak and rescue her, wiping Simba's Pride from the face of the planet.

Well. She wanted the pleasure of killing one or both lions, if she could manage it—she needed that cold satisfaction to be only hers.

Kishindo was following her nose to the west, for some reason. She inferred, correctly, that every single lion in the Land was patrolling the borders—why? It would make some sense if they were protecting a certain part of the border, forming along some threatened area in a sort of normally distributed phalanx.

But they hadn't just built up the defenses of one part of the Pride Lands—so, they weren't worried about invasion from one specific aggressor. They were paranoid—that's why they were so spread out. They were worried about something big… something bigger than Kifo? That didn't make sense—no such force existed.

The lioness sighed; she was attempting the impossible. Simba and his lot were loony—there was no function whatsoever in trying to figure his motivations out. Kishindo wondered, briefly, if this was some sort of overly elaborate trap—but that didn't seem very likely. She could be defeated, after all, with sheer brute force—five lioness would have sufficed. Even Simba would have known to do that.

Kishindo, then, had the element of surprise. That was enough for her.

Though old, the lioness could move quickly—and quietly, at the same time. It wasn't long, though, before she had to ditch speed entirely in favor of stealth. Quickly, she was coming up on a passing squad of lionesses—they were five hundred yards away, but there wasn't much in the manner of cover between herself and them.

Kishindo got down and peered through the vertical slats of grass that dominated the Pride Lands' west, eyes malevolent but curious. These females… were entirely unfamiliar to her. They were far too old to have been born after her "death"—that meant that somehow, Simba's Pride had grown in strength.

Did anyone have a brain anymore?

She sighed in familiar frustration—then, the lionesses were far enough for her to get up and press on. Kishindo's paws noiselessly glided across the ground, kicking up no dust as they moved her forward. It had been years, literally, since she'd been so far into the Pride Lands—and it felt so, so good to walk around with the gritty, somewhat painful feeling of chipped rock under her feet. That was the norm for her previous home in the area.

Now, things were getting interesting. Kishindo could smell Simba—specifically him. It had been quite some time since she'd last scented the monarch, but she hadn't forgotten the specific blend of outrage and calm, academic hatred she felt when she detected him. It was him for sure—five miles more to the west, and she'd be on him.

The problem, of course, was all the damn lionesses he had around. One on one, Kishindo stood a good chance of tearing Simba literally limb from limb—but he'd never fight fair. He never did.

Yet, Kishindo continued to crawl toward the red-maned lion. She didn't have much of a choice—wait, just a second…

That scent… that was no lioness, but she was very close to Simba. She was playing with Simba—she was a cub, Kishindo guessed, though not with much confidence. For all the lioness knew, the perverse false God of the Pride Lands had taken on another mate—one far younger than him.

Either way, Kishindo had an opportunity before her too enticing to refuse. A crooked smile twisted across her face—she would have her blood, soon enough.

Believe it or not, the Spirits had not been up to absolutely nothing. Despite the Lion Sheikh's failure to detail their actions for several chapters—or more—their efforts did have some results. They just weren't easily visible and attributable, that's all.

For example, they worked long and hard to make Freak's journey from the Desert to the Pride Lands as quick and easy as possible. They did much more to maintain a reasonable supply of food, water, and Sun in the Pride Lands—they had neither the excess power nor time to speak to their loved ones. It was hard.

Especially for Mufasa, who, previously, had contacted his son almost every other day. Chukizo and Scar actually had advantage over him in this manner—they had a child that they could be with as much as they wanted. Of course, it was hard to only occasionally catch glimpses of their son—but they managed. Somehow.

They were rather removed, though, from the events of the world. Kifo's Master had done a lot to take them out of the picture, seeing the danger in allowing his enemies to be armed with the weapon of hope.

As a result, no one really knew when Freak and Kifo started to fight. They couldn't—but for some reason, that day, little Maisha was even more grateful than usual when her uncle came to play.

Let us now consider the potential of the Black Army to really make things interesting.

First, a brief rundown of the situation: Freak and Kifo going at it in the northeast, the Pride Lands' best spread out across the southern and western borders of their home, and Kishindo was busy infiltrating their masses with a vicious plan and the ability to carry it out.

The one area that really was vulnerable, though, was the Pride Lands' southeast—where it bordered the Jungle and the Eastern Volcanoes. A simple invasion by a small, fast group would have gone unnoticed for hours, potentially allowing them to get all the way to Pride Rock.

Fortunately, though, the Black Army was on strict orders to stand down—they didn't even do any killing while they were in the Jungle, paradoxically quite close to the cave that Freak had once called home. Shah bristled and stormed back and forth, but he couldn't fire a shot—the gag order given by his Master was too powerful.

The reason that the Black Army couldn't be mobilized was the fact that the Spirits were working overtime—setting foot into the Pride Lands would be either impossible or fatal, and simply wasting such a marvelous force—even while another army was being prepared—wasn't wise.

So, for the moment, the Black Army bided its time. They knew that they'd have a chance to rock and roll soon enough—when Kifo and Freak were finished whatever they had going on, well… then, it would be time for whoever the survivor was to encounter real resistance.

Kifo couldn't strike Freak repeatedly, but what he could do was churn the black spine that had grown from his elbow around, roughly, tearing up the li-tigon's innards. Into his gouging thrusts, he poured all his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life—er, that is—well, the above description, though stolen, is not inaccurate.

Freak fought back, but the spike in his gut was at least distracting. It hampered his movement significantly, though, fortunately, not to the point that he was unable to batter the demon's head. The li-tigon gripped the organic knife in one paw, keeping it relatively still with respect to his body while he smashed his other appendage into his twin's skull.

The affect wasn't as dramatic as it would have been if Kifo had less tough flesh to absorb the shock of the vicious blows. Still, Freak could tell that his efforts were being rewarded—if not with unconsciousness, then at least with a jarred brain. Just a few more hits out to put Kifo down for the count, giving him a chance to bail—

There. The limen came when a powerful, sudden blow collided directly into the demon's ear, causing a pressure difference too great to readily compensate. Freak saw Kifo recoil and shake his head, in confusion and pain—and knew that he had his chance.

The li-tigon didn't know much about the conservation of mechanical energy or momentum, not in the academic sense. He did, however, know that he could make Kifo's collision with the ground even more devastating if he jumped, roughly, upward.

With that in mind, Freak pulled himself free of the demon's terrible blade, and tensed his muscles. Looking around at the blurred trees gradually widening in his vision, the li-tigon selected one particularly tough looking branch—that would be his perch. He pushed off, then—

And got about two feet away from the demon before Kifo grabbed his twin's hindpaw.

An annoying ringing in his ears wasn't nearly enough to put him out of commission—not even close. It angered him, yes, but the series of blows Freak's relatively soft, giving paws had dealt his head wasn't enough to do anything serious. Only the li-tigon's claws and jaws could really injure his twin.

Kifo yanked Freak back toward him, almost crushing the cat's ankle in his King Kong-like grasp. The whiplash of his sudden reversal of direction made Freak's eyes bulge, almost blacking him out as his twin began to punch him, repeatedly, in the ribs.

Freak felt one, or two, or perhaps more of the relatively weak protective bones in his chest collapse entirely, shattering into several vicious fragments. His internals were bruised—he couldn't breathe for the brief period of time that Kifo's fist was literally inside his ribcage.

Looking back at the demon with an identical expression, the li-tigon fought back. Kifo could punch, but he could claw him across the face—he couldn't knock the demon's teeth out but he could tear them out, digging his claws into the weak flesh that held them in place and ripping, pulling, yanking them out.

There was little finesse to the exchange of blows that took place as the twins fell down, and down, and down, and down. Things only changed with the impact of hitting the ground—an impact so immense that it rattled them both to their cores.

They both lived.

Stating that so quickly rather destroyed the intensity that the Lion Sheikh hopefully built above—but it's important to clear that up right now. Both Kifo and Freak lived that incredible drop.

Both were knocked unconscious, of course, but in their unconsciousness both of them healed—one more than the other. One of them had the power to render his body to its previous glory; the other did not.

The forest was silent for some time. Two minutes passed before one of the two fighters moved.

One warrior stood. He stood, and blinked, and looked down at his enemy.

Freak was grievously injured. He swayed and saw stars that didn't go away no matter how rapidly he blinked. The li-tigon coughed, twice, feeling hot, thick blood run down his chin and his chest—but he managed to stabilize himself.

He couldn't see well, not well at all. He couldn't even see in the visible spectrum anymore—all he could see was a general blackish haze, one that intensified as his gaze turned downward.

There was a body in front of him—a warm, living, functioning body.

Kifo.

Unexpectedly, the li-tigon felt hate so palatable he almost threw up. Barely, he held down his bile and stayed on his feet—but he couldn't let go of his rage. He didn't really try to, either—this had gone on for too long. He needed to end things.

Freak stumbled forward and fell. He managed to crawl on, though; his legs weren't quite up to working as designed yet. Legs be damned—he had to kill his enemy. The fulfillment he'd get from it… was icing on the cake.

With a trembling hand, the li-tigon raised his blade over his enemy. Then, hatefully, he plunged it down, relishing in the spurt of blood that ensued.

That woke Kifo up—the demon gasped, and stared for all of a second before he rolled with speed he wasn't aware that he had. He was on his feet, surging with energy, staring at his enemy without a snarl on his face but with a simple, powerful determination to destroy him.

Odd. But he'd have to deal with it; introspection could wait—indefinitely.

He was suddenly very acutely aware of his surroundings. Every tree, every branch, every patch of earth in the northeastern forest—he knew where everything was. He knew what it was, and why, and how he could work with his surroundings to defeat his enemy.

He also knew that a direct contest of power would not be prudent.

Kifo jumped, then long but not very high—when he hit the ground, he changed direction and took cover behind a tree just as his enemy prepared for another assault. He healed not faster but more completely; the injuries coating his enemy's form were unmistakable.

Not that he was incapable of fighting—not by a longshot. Kifo almost peeked out of cover—as a result, his head was nearly blown off by a salvo of 12 gauge slugs that his enemy fired in his direction.

Freak had armed himself with a Saiga-12, it seemed; a devastating combat shotgun rather more cultured than the unwieldy revolver-shotguns Shah's gang had used. The li-tigon meant to exterminate Kifo with extreme prejudice, it seemed; he was advancing while firing intermittent bursts. The demon's responses were, for the moment, rather limited—but altogether not bad.

Kifo ran, then, diving out of cover and sprinting out of sight too quickly to be retargeted. As he moved, though, he became aware of several things—the most significant of which was the fact that his body was not his own. He was the li-tigon—and Freak was the demon.

Freak reloaded his shotgun in a deft, rough motion—now armed with forty rounds, he started to move again. Kifo was darting between trees too quickly to be readily fired upon, but sooner or later the demon would make a mistake—the, Freak would have his kill. His hand still hurt and he wasn't up to his optimal level of health yet, but Kifo could never touch him in terms of sheer power. He'd win a direct, force-on-force contest with his enemy any day of the week.

It occurred to Freak, vaguely, that he'd down a complete about face from the overwhelmingly wary, conservative manner in which he'd fought only minutes again. Now, he was fighting like his enemy had been—he was caught in a perpetual bum rush, a tactic that would have been doomed to failure if thrown at Kifo if it wasn't for Freak's impossible power. Real battle tactics were beyond him—all he could do was keep going and going and going and going.

Freak crashed into a tree as he ran, shearing a good chunk of wood off its trunk, trailing black smoke and decay in his path. He shrugged off the impact without effort—and at last, Kifo had made a mistake. He jumped into the air, hoping to take the fight to a higher altitude, but that brief second of flight took him out of cover and put him in Freak's sights.

The li-tigon slowed down and aimed, tracking his target for a millisecond before he pulled the trigger. Empty, smoking shells began to fly from the action of his shotgun, and that, like the staccato recoil pressing against his shoulder was satisfying—but not nearly as satisfying as watching the blunt shock of his report knock Kifo off course, even before the fat slugs could do any flesh damage.

Freak was certain that he'd hit the demon's hip, and that was good. If the bone broke, he wouldn't be able to move… at all, really, and it would be child's play to pump rounds into Kifo's begging, crying body until there wasn't nothing left of him but bloody mash on the ground.

Kifo landed on the tree; Freak couldn't keep shooting because he'd expended all of his ammunition. Without taking his eyes off his target, the li-tigon reloaded—but before he could snap off another shot, Kifo was invisible.

Oh, he'd been hit. He'd been hit badly, and he'd only barely been able to grab the tree he'd been leaping toward in the first place. The pain was almost mind-numbing, but now Kifo knew how to not lose himself. He knew how to control his body and mind, and, most importantly, he knew how Freak had fought.

Kifo knew that he was all too literally in the li-tigon's sights. But he also knew that he was invisible.

A second before Freak opened fire, the demon had clawed himself out of the way, pulling himself to the far side of the tree. He barely clung to the thick, protective bark even as it was blasted into little splintered bits by the li-tigon's shotgun, but he had the upper hand. He was controlling the pace of the fight.

It would take time for the gaping wounds on his flank to heal, but Kifo helped things along by applying pressure with his broad, padded paw. The bleeding slowly lessened, and the demon knew that the ball was in his court—he had to make the next move.

He turned, somewhat, clinging to the tree with only one paw. Freak, he knew, was advancing even then, looking around for any sign of movement with a fresh magazine of ammunition to let loose. Therefore, it was time to move.

Kifo was healed enough to do what he needed to do next. He pulled himself up with his forepaw and then kicked off of the tree, turning away in the process. Freak saw him move—either that, or he just decided to open fire out of the evil in his heart.

The demon felt bullets whiz past him and knew that he'd had several close calls in the interval of a second. Fortunately, he wasn't hit, and made his way into the treetops without injury.

Kifo took a step back, after that, moving several hundred yards away from his twin. He didn't need to watch the li-tigon to know that Freak was preparing for another attack in an almost paranoid manner—let him stew in his own fear and uncertainty, for a while, and then Kifo would attack.

If Freak didn't take out a grenade launcher and start to blow the forest apart, things would be alright. Kifo could continue this fight indefinitely—it wouldn't matter. What he had to wonder, though, as he took cover so deep that even his own mother would never have seen him even if she was right in front of him was who, exactly, he was. Was he Kifo, the demon, in Freak, the li-tigon? Was he Freak? What had happened, and how, and why?

And if one of them won, well… who would win?

Kishindo was silent.

Her many trespasses into the Pride Lands, over the years, had enabled her with the specific know-how to avoid lions with almost instinctive ease. She knew exactly when to move, when to stay still, and when to prepare for an emergency silent kill—fortunately, that had never happened. Any unfortunate accidents in the Pride Lands would have been used as an excuse to attack; Simba's warmongering tendencies were legendary.

Now, though, Kishindo didn't have to worry about anything but the here and now. They could wage all the war he wanted; as long as she killed Simba or Kovu it would be alright.

She was now danger-close to her red-maned enemy—within a hundred yards of him. Kishindo breathed rapidly but quietly; if she had to move she would have to move fast. Simba was so close to her that the temptation to just get up and roar and attack was strong—but she had to be smart.

The lioness was hidden behind a somewhat squat tree. It wasn't ideal cover, but she didn't have any alternatives. It would do.

The sheer number of lions in Simba's Pride was stunning; the strength he commanded was more than enough to overwhelm any other force she could think of. And yet, he was just sitting around apparently waiting to be attacked, instead of being proactive and going forth to create an empire of his own. Pathetic.

Simba's cowardice was at an end, though. Kishindo wasn't sure exactly what kind of a being he was playing with—not mating—but it was no lioness. It was a predator of some sort, but… her light, orangish fur and green eyes… What a freak.

Whatever she was, she meant something to Simba. And that was all that mattered. Kishindo would take advantage of his idiotic compassion and force him into a one-on-one fight. And that would be the end of him.

She had to move painstakingly slow, now, to get within fifty yards of her enemy. Everything she did mattered—she couldn't blink for several seconds out of the fear that Simba would hear it. His ears had turned to face somewhat behind him… but it looked like he hadn't realized what was going on.

He said something, then, and despite the attention Kishindo was paying she didn't hear it. Presumably, he told the small female—perhaps his half-breed daughter? Who knew?—to run along.

She did run along, trotting happily away from the lion… directly in front of Kishindo. Now was her time.

With the intensity of years of pent-up aggression and anger, the lioness struck. At first, it seemed like the tan grasses that she'd been hiding in had shifted, in some inconceivable way—then her target realized what was happening, but Kochai didn't have a chance to scream, much less fight back. Kishindo was too vengeful.

True madness was something Freak had experienced exactly once in his life. When Vitani had died… he'd been swarmed by carnivorous plants. He'd lost his mind on them, exterminating them more efficiently than Weed-B-Gone. Never before, though, had the li-tigon really felt pure, black, hot rage.

Conveniently, Freak had forgotten much of what had happened that night. If he hadn't, he might have turned out to be a very different being. After all, that feeling, that hate, that power… it was intoxicating.

Now the li-tigon was trapped in an abyss that he could not easily escape. Every shot he fired, every vicious thought he had made something inside him speak up in protest, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. He could barely guide the actions of his body; he couldn't restrain himself.

At once, it seemed, Kifo had disappeared. Freak tried to prevent himself from considering his next best move, but he couldn't even control his own thoughts, it seemed. The li-tigon knew what he would have done if he was in the body that had been only his for… heh, well, only a few months.

Waiting to be attacked wasn't going to work; Kifo now was the faster, stealthier one. Leaving the forest might, but to Freak, that was not an option—it was simply block off in his mind as an invalid action. So, then, the li-tigon could build some kind of defense… or he could get to work on tearing the forest apart.

Guess what Freak decided to do.

It was somewhat predictable, but, in moments, the li-tigon had a grenade machinegun at his hip. The moment Kifo saw it, he knew, he'd be attacked—but he was tougher, now, and stronger. He could withstand concussive explosions as close as five yards from him. The demon, on the other hand, could not.

With that in mind, Freak pulled the trigger of his weapon and didn't let go. The trees closest to him were his first targets—the wider the radius of the circle of nothingness he intended to create around him was, the safer he'd be. Kifo needed a lack of space and time to attack without warning—by destroying all the cover near him, Freak would create both the space and time needed to launch an attack, and he'd constantly pressure Kifo into attacking.

Things couldn't continue for long, but they ended rather too quickly for Freak's tastes. He was only able to blow apart two or maybe three trees before he turned, knowing better than to keep his grenade launcher—he dropped it and brought his hands up, prepared to absorb the incoming, living projectile.

Something happened then, however, that neither Freak nor Kifo expected. They switched back.

The sudden shot of fear that spiked through the li-tigon gave away his position, and Kifo reacted to the switch back almost as quickly as he did. Freak careened toward the demon, headlong, flailing in midair for a split second before he realized where he was and what he was doing.

The demon managed to get his knife up in time to meet him twin's assault.

The pain, then, was severe. Freak had been injured in the same region, once before… on the day he was born.

But Kifo didn't merely cut across his eyelid and some of the flesh near it—he very nearly stabbed Freak's eye out, and was prevented to do so only by the li-tigon's momentum. The wound that resulted was regardless vicious—a gaping cut, at least three feet long, danced across Freak's ribs, etching a nick into each bone.

And this cut was one that would not heal. Getting shot was one thing, but getting stabbed with a demonic blade, one that trailed blackish smoke as it sliced through Freak's flesh… that's a whole 'nother ball game.

Freak accepted the pain, though. Before Kifo was finished cutting him, he'd eaten his fear again and was re-evaluating his tactics. He could have tackled the demon to the ground and left, trading the forest's long-term solvency for a chance to heal his own wound.

Instead, the li-tigon pressed his advantage. He parried Kifo's arm with one foreleg and reached around the demon's back, with the other, pulling free a large shred of skin that covered the demon's deltoid. That wasn't all, though, not by a longshot—because Freak also opened his jaws and cleanly bit Kifo's neck.

He twisted his muzzle, too, in a move that no lion had ever learned. Kifo's throat was trapped in Freak's jaws—its structure resisted the crushing pressure exerted on it for just a second before something broke.

The li-tigon's next move was to pull the smashed mixture of cartilage and flesh out of his twin's neck. If that didn't kill him, it would disable him significantly enough to let the li-tigon finally put Kifo down—but he didn't get that far.

Kifo gave a strangled cry of agony, one that quickly deepened into a Hellish shriek so unsettling that Freak was completely visible to the demon for more than a few seconds. And in those few, paralyzing seconds… the demon took hold of the li-tigon's jaws.

He was on his back, and couldn't face his enemy—but he knew he had his fingers literally inside Freak's mouth. Slowly, he began to pry Freak's jaws apart, freeing his neck; the li-tigon's teeth left that unprotected mass of ruined flesh. But Kifo did not stop.

Freak tried to escape, pressing against the ground so hard that his paws dug one, then two, then three inches into the soil—but Kifo was too strong. He started to feel pain, now, and absolutely failed in biting down the fear that rose in him. He really was fighting a demon, a being without a shred of mercy or decency—a sadistic sociopath with enough power to pull his jaws in two.

The li-tigon said something, then, something so garbled and distorted that no one would ever know what it was. He felt and heard several soft, fleshy clicks and shifts and snaps—and then an audible crack. Freak's hearing dropped off and he saw red, a knife of pain so vicious and hot that he almost fainted running through his core. Kifo had broken or dislocated one part of his jaw at least and was still pulling—did he intend to full remove the li-tigon's mandible?

Freak, by then, was almost in a cold-sweat; he'd never felt fear so mind-numbing in his life. Almost shaking in terror, the only thing preventing him from running to a hole to hide was the fact that Kifo would not let him escape—almost tauntingly, he held the li-tigon back, a little, laughing through the bloody holes in his throat. His eyes, as red and hot and dark as the blood that ran down both of their bodies, bore into Freak's.

And in those hateful eyes, the li-tigon saw how he'd win.

Freak wrenched his head to the side, again, while striking at the inside of the demon's elbow. This move was not designed to do any real damage—it succeeded, however, in its intent to free the li-tigon from his twin's terrible grasp. He felt his claw damage a taught muscle, and that gave him enough slack to squirm and then run away.

But not for very long.

Freak no longer had the will in him to completely bite back his fear; at best he was simply a translucent blur in the forest. His determination had changed from carefully controlled neutrality to justified anger; his face wore a fairly ugly expression that Kifo had a chance to see, for a second—an interval of time somehow long enough to allow the li-tigon's jaw to fix itself.

The demon didn't have more than a few milliseconds to get to his feet, but he managed it. He was just fast enough to take Freak's shoulder to his abdomen and not his face, a blow powerful enough to knock the wind out of him even as he was carried forward with rapidly increasing speed.

Kifo recovered, however, and lifted his knife, allowing the li-tigon to keep running. He was on the verge of stabbing downward at the cat's unprotected spine, inducing either severe nerve damage or outright paralysis. Freak was too quick, however, in driving the demon into a tree.

They struck with such force that his abdomen—taught with muscle so thick and hard that it would take a powerful circular saw to cut through them—was compressed down to inches in width. Internal contusions and bleeding made Kifo's eyes physically bulge out, but Freak wasn't done.

The li-tigon used his claws, next, to shred the demon's pulverized flesh. He struck up, right, down, then jumped to dodge a hasty icepick knife strike and ran again.

As Freak again disappeared into the forest, Kifo got to his feet, screaming that his opponent was a coward. It did him no good, though—but perhaps remaining with his back to the tree would.

The demon's fur was frazzled and bloodied by then, but what was really shocking was the fact that the raw hate in Kifo's eyes was no longer matched by the power behind them. This fight had continued for too long, and the demon, who had never done any intense endurance training, was reaching the fringes of his ability to keep going.

He flexed his forearms, though, and knew that Freak was still a long, long way from ending his existence.

The li-tigon's determination and bravery, however, made the next minutes a blur of pain and hopeless rage for Kifo. Although the demon struck back with every fiber of his being, he could feel himself slowly slipping away. His body was battered about and bruised—his blood no longer evaporated into caustic gas seconds after being spilled. Now, it flowed and coagulated as if it was human in nature, not demonic.

Kifo could scarcely lift a hand in defense after twenty minutes of repeated, brutal pounding. He was sure that he'd shot or cut the li-tigon at least once or twice in the ordeal, but nothing seemed to slow Freak down.

In the end, the demon was yelling, trying to scare Freak off simply by being as loud as possible—it did not work. Before his collapsed, broken form, Freak stared… and, slowly, began to march forward.

Kifo was shaking in a combination of fatigue, anger, and what he finally recognized as real fear. There was nothing unnatural or demonic about his emotions—he was terrified and fighting for his life. A collapsed, formless heap on the ground, the demon was hyperventilating and bleeding and incapable of running.

But he was still armed.

In the end, he lifted his blade—a weapon too heavy for his bony, sinewy hands—but dropped it and simply cried, clawing at the ground to try to escape the terrible beast approaching him. Blood blocked much of his vision, but somehow, as he continued his pathetic attempt to escape, Kifo became aware—

That he was neither more nor less than a human.

(Next chapter will be up sooner or later. We're coming to the end…)

Back                         Home                              The Lion King Main Page                          Next