Simba's Pride #FanFic #RebelTown

Simba's Pride

As the last rays of sunlight faded over the savanna, Simba double-checked the safety on his Glock and stole silently into the shadows outside the hyenas' den.

Cackling laughter drifted out into the cool prairie evening. Simba sniffed, smelling smoke and sweat. The hyenas' den. A cesspool of gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking. Right in the middle of the Pride Land, but these days, it didn't matter. They were untouchable, and they grew fat and rich in their web of safety. The hyenas' den was a bad spot to be caught in during the day, but deadly at night.

"All the light touches, my tail," Simba muttered, then crept closer to the entranceway formed by two tall leaning stones. Somewhere up there - yeah, even at night - dad was watching. Smiling, frowning, it didn't matter these days. Ghosts didn't sleep. But lions did, and that was when the hyena's opened up shop.

For a few years, life had been good in the Pride Land. The herds returned. The prairie grasses and baobab trees slowly sprang forth from the burned land, feeding the herds, which in turn fed the pride. The lionesses had given birth to cubs, and the cubs had grown into hunters themselves, bringing home all the meat the lions could want.

But then it had happened. Poachers, in the east. Nala had begged Simba not to go himself. Stupid pride, he hadn't listened. Had he learned nothing from Mufasa? Some days, he didn't think so.

A hyena suddenly staggered out into the cool night and Simba ducked behind a rock. The sun was down, and so was Simba's guard. Stupid. But luck was on his side. This close, any sober hyena would have sniffed him out all the way down to the lice in his mane, but this one was way past sober. Its front paw struck a stone, and it lurched right, it lurched left, then settled to the ground with a thud and a puff of dust.

Simba waited for one of its buddies to follow it out, but nobody appeared. Silently, Simba lunged forward and snapped the hyena's neck, then dragged it back into the shadows. No need for the gun, not yet. Just good old-fashioned wetwork. 

What would Nala think of all this? It wasn't the first time Simba had wondered, and if he made it out of here tonight, it wouldn't be the last. She may have forgiven him for leaving her alone that fateful day, but he'd never got around to forgiving himself. Couldn't seem to find the time for it these days. They'd been out three days, him and the lions, and the poachers had been easy enough. He'd taken his strongest lions, quick on their feet and silent as a lizard fart, and they'd been on the poachers before the weird apes even knew they were being tracked.

Simba had let the lions feast that night as a reward, and it was well into the following evening by the time they returned home. Would that extra day have made a difference? How many restless nights had Simba lain awake at night wondering? All this trouble, thanks to that monkey. That bastard baboon.

Rafiki.

Simba didn't know how long Rafiki had been planning his coup, but when he returned from his raid on the poachers, there had been just enough light to make out the monkey standing tall on Pride Rock, holding a small, squirming bundle in his outstretched hands. Holding it a little too far over the edge...

"Rafiki!" Simba had thundered, racing up the stones to meet the monkey on the high, flat stone, a hundred feet over the sharp rocks and savanna grass, where Rafiki held his infant daughter.

"Put Kiara down and explain yourself, Rafiki," Simba said, stepping out onto the rock.

"Don't take another step, Simba," the baboon crooned, using one hand to grip Kiara by the tuft of her neck and half turning to shake a finger at Simba.

Simba stopped walking. "This doesn't have to go any further, Rafiki. You're my most trusted advisor. More, you're my friend."

"Correction! I was your friend." Rafiki erupted in a shriek of laughter. Simba heard a chorus of deep growls behind him and without turning knew that his lions had followed him onto the ledge.