~~~

Hyena Love, by Loa

~~~

Chapter 3, "What Happens When You Change Your Coat..."

~~~

Look, I’m not making any money out of this, OK? Practically all these characters belong to Disney. By the way, Cur is my character. If you want to use him, please ask me.

~~~

The Elephant Graveyard

...And then the world went mad.

Banzai gasped. It felt like his head was being turned inside out, and his legs, and his body. He grabbed his head. Managing to look up, he saw Shenzi curled up, sobbing and screaming at the same time. Ed was rolling around and kicking a wall in pain, laughing madly. He turned his head a little and instantly wished he hadn’t .It felt like it was being ripped off. He could see Scar writhing in pain on the rock he was bound to. Then, one by one, the ropes broke, and Scar was now making a spirited attempt at dragging himself away from the hyenas, biting his lip so hard that the blood came. There wasn’t any point in trying to go after him; they could hardly stand.

‘Gods, what the hells is happening?!’ he screamed in his mind…

~~~

Pride Rock

Simba looked up at the stars with pride. He had fulfilled his father’s wishes - Mufasa’s death was avenged. Okay, so it was the hyenas that had sorted Scar out, but now he was king, Nala was his beautiful queen, and the hyenas had been banished. The rain was washing away all the evil Scar and his army of hyenas had inflicted on the Pride Lands. He started his walk up Pride Rock. Suddenly, lightning struck…

...And then the world went mad.

Simba felt as if his body was exploding. Looking down, he could see Rafiki holding his staff so hard that his knuckles were bone white. Nala was shivering as if she was freezing cold. Zazu had just dropped out of the sky. The other lionesses, including Sarabi, were curled up and sobbing on the ground from pain. Timon was holding his head and groaning, and Pumbaa was squealing like a piglet.

"Gods, what is happening?!" he cried in his mind.

~~~

The Elephant Graveyard

Finally, the pain stopped. Banzai wanted to cry with relief. He got up… and up. He tried to take a couple of steps forward and fell over Ed, who was still on the floor.

"Sorry," he apologised to his brother, "It seems I don’t have enough… legs..." It dawned on him and he screamed again, this time not in pain, but in shock. Shenzi was also making a spirited attempt to stand, but she wasn’t doing any better. Ed wasn’t even trying to get up. Looking around, Banzai saw even the landscape was trying to change to a twenty storey apartment block with smashed windows and graffiti, before deciding that bones and elephant skulls were good enough for now.

Banzai looked down at himself. Now he could see clothes materialising on him as well as on the others. Shenzi looked from him, to herself, to Ed, and screamed, "What the hell is going on?! We’ve turned into," she paused to take a breath, "humans!!!"

~~~

After everyone had more or less calmed down, or at least stopped screaming, Shenzi, Banzai and Ed sat down to

talk. Well, Shenzi and Banzai sat down to talk, Ed just laughed and drooled.

Banzai looked at Shenzi. He could see instantly that she was as beautiful to him now as she had been as a hyena. She had black hair that hung in a fringe over her forehead, brown eyes, and was wearing black eye shadow, black lipstick and black nail-polish. Standing up, she would probably be a bit taller than him. She was wearing black tracksuit bottoms, a black crop-top and a back-to-front red baseball cap. She was wearing a slim, silver ring around her right middle finger. It had the symbolism of a crown. Ed was still Ed, even if he was a human and wearing clothes; wide, vacant eyes and a stupid grin. His hair was greasy and matted, and he was drooling slightly. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with a large ‘0’ on the front, and blue denim jeans.

Banzai looked down at himself. "Before you ask," said Shenzi, interrupting his thoughts, "You’ve got brown eyes, black hair and you need to shave. And you’re dressed in combat jeans and T-shirt."

Banzai looked down at his T-shirt, "How do we know what these words mean? I’ve never heard them before."

Shenzi shrugged, "Search me. I’ve never heard these words before either." Ed laughed. Shenzi waved a, well, a hand in front of his vacant eyes and sighed, "Something tells me Ed hasn’t changed all that much," She paused, "Some days I wish I knew what the hell goes on in his head. Most days I’m glad I don’t."

Just then, Banzai’s brain caught up with his ears. It’d had a lot of running to do, "Hey, how’d you know what was happening? You said we were changing into ‘humans’!"

"When you travel a lot, you learn these things," explained Shenzi, "There’s a lot of humans in the Dark Lands."

"And they look like we do now?" asked Banzai.

"Sort of. They have more variations on colour and size and stuff than we do. I mean, did." Shenzi paused. Banzai looked at her and opened his mouth, but she answered his question before he asked it, "And no, I don’t know why we turned like this, so don’t ask me. I don’t think anyone else in the Graveyard would know either."

All three of them looked around them. Not all the hyenas had changed, only those who had lead a reasonably active social life. There were still a few hyenas left.

"Did you see the landscape flicker a couple of minutes ago?" asked Banzai. Shenzi nodded, hesitantly. "Why didn’t it change to the… uh, buildings… when it had the chance?"

"Well, maybe it’s because old habits are hard to break?" suggested Shenzi.

Then someone, or something screamed in their heads, and the scenery finally gave in to general pressure. Any hyenas left changed into something resembling a wolf, and they were standing in the apartment block after all.

~~~

Pride Rock

When the pain in Simba’s body finally stopped, he stopped screaming and looked around him. Then he screamed again. Zazu was a short, middle-aged man with black hair, brown eyes and wearing a blue suit. Timon was a short, skinny teenager with red hair, brown eyes, a white T-shirt and black tracksuit bottoms. Pumbaa was a fat, black teenager, wearing a tight-fitting brown T-shirt, jeans and trainers. He smelt of the absence of baths. Nala had blond hair, and she was wearing a simple white dress. The other lionesses were wearing similar clothes. Rafiki now had entirely grey hair and was wearing all black. Simba saw the priest’s collar around Rafiki’s neck. He looked down at himself. He was wearing white, and there was a crown on his head, no thicker than a wire.

"Aargh?" he suggested.

Now it was the landscape’s turn to change. It was turning into detached houses with swimming pools in the back. This was most definitely the high rent district. Simba and Nala slowly turned around to view the landscape.

~~~

Elsewhere...

Scar was weak. He looked down at himself in a pool. Black hair, green eyes, a black cloak and all black clothes.

And covered in cuts and bruises. But he knew now that he would heal. While he had been running from the hyenas, he had seen others changing. And he was human too. He smiled to himself. This was far more than he could have ever wished for. It was only logical that if he had become human, and Simba’s pride, and so many of the other creatures of the Pride Lands too, that the hyenas had changed as well. And then… He thought of Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. He would get revenge on those traitors. And he knew exactly how to do it. As hyenas, he could only kill them. Kill them slowly, yes, but only kill them. But now…

"Watch out, Shenzi..." he whispered to himself, "I’m coming for you..."

~~~

Time Passes…

And time did pass, as it will. The animals slowly became accustomed to their bodies and surroundings, and learned how to deal with the problems that come with being human. The ‘hyenas’ still hated the ‘lions’, and vice versa. In theory, things hadn’t changed too much. Rafiki became older. Kiara, Simba’s daughter, was born.

And Scar grew stronger.

~~~

The Elephant Graveyard

Shenzi, Banzai and Ed were sitting in Shenzi’s flat, or bomb site, as Banzai called it, talking. Shenzi was wearing a red sleeveless top, with a black miniskirt. Banzai was wearing a green T-shirt and blue denim jeans. Ed was wearing a T-shirt that had probably been white a few days ago, but was now a murky grey, and black denim jeans. A hole was coming through one knee.

"Man, I hate lions," said Banzai, sulkily, for the seventh time that day, "They’re so pushy." He looked at Shenzi, expecting her to say, ‘And hairy,’ but she just sighed.

"Banzai, just shut up, okay? I know you won’t like me saying this, but they aren’t lions any more. You might as well say you hate humans."

Banzai opened his mouth, then closed it again. Obviously he hadn’t thought of it like that, "Well then, I hate Simba and his girls." Ed laughed. Banzai looked at Shenzi again.

"Maybe .Maybe it’s time to bury the hatchet." Shenzi still wasn’t looking at him.

"In Simba’s head?" Ed laughed. Banzai looked at her again, "Shenzi ?Is there something wrong?"

"Ever wondered what happened to Scar?" asked Shenzi.

"Every day."

"’cause… I thought..."

"What?"

Shenzi shook herself, "Nothing!" She got up. Banzai could just hear her whisper as she left her flat, "Nothing."

"Where you going?"

"Out."

The door slammed so hard that some plaster fell out of the ceiling and onto Ed’s head. He laughed. Banzai hadn’t

really expected him to do anything else. "What’s with her?" The pair of them got up and left, going into their flat

next door.

~~~

Shenzi sighed as she looked around her. The apartment block was called the Joshua N’Clement block, but it was

still in the Graveyard. Walking over to a bridge and leaning on the parapet - well, it went over a dried up river bed, anyway - she leaned on it and worried. Scar was out there, and he was human now, just like her. Somehow, that made it worse. And him… Would he come back too, now they were human?

‘Don’t be ridiculous’ she thought, ‘If he was ever coming back, he’d have done it a long time ago...’ She knew she was kidding herself. He’d come back sooner or later. And now was a perfect time to do it; when she didn’t know what he would look like. She hated to admit it to herself, but she lived every day in fear that ‘he’ would return, and she hated being afraid of anyone. Life really was a bowl of cherries at the moment. Unfortunately, they were all rotten. Just then, someone tugged on her skirt, making her jump.

"Please miss?" asked a little voice, "We need one more player for our game. Will you join in?"

Shenzi looked down to see a little boy. She opened her mouth to say words to the effect of ‘bugger off’ .Then she stopped and smiled. "Sure." The kids were playing football, with a squashed-up coke can as a substitute ball. While she played, she realised that for the first time in ages, she was actually having fun.

~~~

The Pride Lands

"Dad?"

"Yes, Kiara?" asked Simba.

"Why don’t we ever go to the dark place?" Kiara had clearly been thinking about this for a long time.

Simba was taken by surprise by this question. He was about to say ‘Because it’s beyond our borders," before realising that Kiara had a right to know. He looked at her. "Follow me." Kiara followed her father to the top of Pride Rock and looked across the land. "You see, Kiara, everything the light touches is our kingdom. I am king, but one day, I will pass on. You will no longer be a princess, but a queen. And you will rule these lands."

"I’ll rule these lands? Everything?"

"Everything the light touches."

"Why not there?" Kiara pointed to the Graveyard.

"The… hyenas live there."

"I thought they were humans now, like us."

"No .They may look like humans now, but they still act like animals. Have you ever met a hyena?"

"No, father."

"Be glad you have not. They hate us. And do you know why?"

"No, father. Why?"

"They hate us because of what we have worked for so hard. They want what we have, but they don’t want to work for it." Simba paused, "They are scum. They are murderers. They are traitors. That is why your great-uncle used them, and they even killed him."

"I thought you hated great-uncle."

"I do."

~~~

Kiara wandered along the borders of the Pride Lands, the Elephant Graveyard and the Outlands. She knew her

father hated the hyenas. He had told her all that had happened when the hyenas had lived in the Pride Lands. She just wanted to hear the hyena’s side of events. She wasn’t fool enough to go into the Graveyard, but maybe one day she would meet a hyena outside of the Graveyard.

"Kiara?" a voice said behind her, making her jump.

"Oh, Rhina, you made me jump!" Kiara laughed. Rhina was a little girl her own age, if a little taller. She had light brown hair and brown eyes. She and Kiara were great friends. Rhina was notoriously nosy.

"What are you doing so close to the borders?" she asked, "I know your dad told you not to come here!"

"Father told me not to go into the Graveyard. He didn’t say anything about the borders."

"Well, what are you doing here? Those moron street gangs might jump out and kidnap you! Mum says they’ll eat us as soon as look at us!"

"I’m just… thinking."

"What about?"

"Well, father says they are so bad. But I’ve never heard what they say about us. I’ve never even met one."

"Do you want to?" asked Rhina.

"Not on my own!" Kiara laughed, "I just want to know their side of the story."

~~~

Scar watched Rhina and Kiara talking and laughing. Of course, he would have to get his revenge on Simba too. But the… hyenas came first. Once he killed the three ringleaders - Shenzi, Banzai and Ed - the entire army would be his to command. Then - the Pride Lands!

He turned with an evil smile and headed for the Graveyard.

~~~

The Elephant Graveyard

Banzai looked around his flat and sighed. Ed might have won an award for the messiest room in the world, but for that Banzai lived there too. Banzai was the one who picked up the worst of the mess and made sure that the dirty clothes got washed occasionally. Banzai knew that Shenzi had no-one living with her to make her pick up her - he paused - clothes and stuff. At one point there had been so much rubbish in Shenzi’s flat that it was nearly ankle deep. It had looked like a bomb site, and Banzai had said so.

"Ed?" he called, "It’s your turn to find the clean clothes and separate them from the dirty ones."

"Ha-ha-ah-ha!" Ed’s voice came from the bedroom he and Banzai shared. He appeared in his silent, spooky way, almost right behind Banzai.

"Gods, Ed! I wish you wouldn’t do that."

"Hee-hee .Hahahah!"

Banzai looked at Ed. He was in a mess. He was always in a mess. "Ed, if I wasn’t here, I don’t even want to think what you’d be like. You’re nearly as bad as Shenzi!"

"Hahahaha!! Heeheehee!!!"

"What? No, I meant… Well, she knows..."

Ed gurgled. Banzai interpreted it as, "Does she?"

"Of course she does. I told her!" No you didn’t, said a little voice inside his head.

"Hee-heh-heh!!"

"Shenzi’s smart! She understands..." No she doesn’t, said the voice again.

"A-ha-ha-ha-ha!! Hee-hee-hee!!!"

"But… what if she doesn’t..."

Ed looked at Banzai for a moment. Then he burst into hysterical laughter. This didn’t mean anything, except that he was starting to hyperventilate. Banzai looked at Ed. Talking to Ed was like talking to yourself; Ed always seemed to know exactly what you were thinking, even if you didn’t know what he was saying. You had to be as stupid as Ed to see people the way he did. ‘Whenever you look at her,’ said the voice, ‘whenever you think of her, whenever she talks to you, whatever she does… you get that weird feeling inside you. No wonder Ed’s laughing!’

"You’re right, Ed. I should tell her. Properly."

~~~

Shenzi smiled as she headed up to her flat. Playing foot-can with those kids had been a real booster, and it had made her feel so much better. She reached her front door to find Banzai standing there with his hand raised to knock. He turned to face her, surprised.

"Oh, Shenzi! Uh, I need to talk to you..."

Shenzi grinned, "Sure." Shenzi unlocked her door and they walked into her flat. "Do sit down," she said, pointing to a chair. Shenzi sat down on another chair facing him. Then she stood up again and peeled a piece of bacon off the back of her skirt. "Urgh… I wondered where that had got to..." She went into the kitchen with it.

Banzai stopped and inspected the seat he was about to sit down on. He found a plate with what looked like the remains of a pizza on it. He put it on the table carefully, "You’re worse than Ed, and that’s saying something."

"You know, if you’d told me you were coming round, I could’ve tidied up a bit," Shenzi’s voice floated out of the kitchen.

"Well, this was kinda spur-of-the-moment."

Shenzi came out of the kitchen and sat down, "What did you want to talk to me about, anyway?"

Banzai looked at Shenzi, then at his feet, then at the wall, then at her again. That weird feeling was coming up inside him again, Oh gods, how can I put this? he thought to himself.

Shenzi looked at Banzai oddly, "Is there something wrong, Banzai?" When he didn’t answer, she got up and sat next to him, "Look, if there’s anything wrong, you can tell me."

"No! I can’t!" Banzai stood up, "I have to get back home..."

"Don’t go! You’ve just got here..." Shenzi stood up with him, "What’s wrong?!"

Banzai paused, and Shenzi took his hand. "If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?"

Banzai tried to pull free of Shenzi. This turned out to be a mistake. All he succeeded in doing was pulling her a few paces forward and into the tangle of a pair of tights she had left on the floor last night. She tripped over them

and grabbed hold of Banzai to steady herself. This meant that Banzai stumbled backward a few paces, fell over

the table and went down. Still holding onto Shenzi.

"Bloody Hellfire!"

"Oh shi-"

~~~

Scar wandered the streets of the Graveyard. Despite asking and killing a few people, he still didn’t know where Shenzi, Banzai and Ed now lived. Suddenly, a male ex-hyena approached him. He was very large, rivalling all but the tallest females. Unlike most ex-hyenas with black hair and brown eyes, he had blonde hair and ice-cold, blue eyes. His hair was up in a ponytail. Scar noted five deep slashes all across his face. He was smiling unpleasantly.

"I hear you’re having a bit of trouble finding our beloved Shenzi, friend," he said, smoothly.

"I’m not your friend, and mind your own business," snarled Scar. It had been a long day.

A really nasty smile graced the young man’s face, "So, what do you want with her?"

Scar narrowed his eyes, "I simply wish to kill her and her friends as slowly and as painfully as possible. Then, when I have finished with her, with the armies of the Graveyard I will rule both the Graveyard and the Pride Lands. Now if you don’t bugger off, I’ll have to kill you too."

"I can help you deal with Shenzi. For a little something in return."

Scar pulled himself up short, "And that is..?"

The male smiled, "It’s a long story. But to cut it short, I have been watching Shenzi for… some time. If I help you find her, then you must give her to me. What you do with her friends is no concern of mine."

Scar sneered, "What makes you think I need your help to find Shenzi, let alone defeat her?"

"Hmm… well, I know her. Her strengths, her weaknesses. After all, it is very easy to kill someone. It is much harder to kill their spirit. Especially when they are someone like Shenzi."

"Why don’t you go and get her yourself, then?"

"For the same reason you used our help in getting the throne of the Pride Lands. I’m not strong enough to take her on in a ‘fair fight’" The young man laughed cruelly, "You are a murderer and a traitor. If you attack Shenzi openly, all of the Graveyard would be against you. But if we work together..."

Scar looked at the young man, then extended a hand, "And your name is..?"

"My name is… Cur."

"You know who I am."

"Forgotten it already."

They shook hands. Scar looked around the Graveyard. Cur would be useful. For a little while, at least…

"Oh, and one more thing," Cur handed Scar something, "This will help both of us get what we want."

Scar turned it over in his hands, "What is it?"

"A gun."

~~~

Go to Chapter Four - What Happens When You’re A Murderous Scheming Scumbag…