Kovu's First Hunt

By Black Lion

xalanthas@yahoo.com

Warning: This story is not meant for young readers, for its quite large amount of graphic content. If you are a young reader and ignore this message and get caught by your parents, its YOUR fault, not Brian's, so don't go complaining to him, wasting his time. Thank you.

Kovu crouched down low. How I wish I didn't have to do this, He thought to himself. "Hunting in the outlands is easy enough, the antelope there are half dead, but here..." he murmured to himself. Kovu was used to hunting the antelope in the outlands, but in the Pridelands, he used all of his skill hoping to just chase one. The antelope in the Pridelands where very healthy and very sharp in their senses, a simple noise such as a low grunt could send them all into a full sprint. Just as Kovu creeped a little closer one of the antelope looked up, eyes twitching left and right. Kovu could see that he was a male, a strong male, for his obvious overgrowth and elegantly curved horns. He used his claws to settle into the Earth, not to make noise, as his mother had instructed him to do. Its time, he thought to himself, as the male put his head down to graze some more, He Leaped with all his might out of the foliage and shot into a full sprint. As if on cue, the Antelope had already shot off into a sprint before half of his body had even emerged from the foliage. He ran as fast as he could against the antelope, his heart pumping in his chest, and the adrenaline rush surging through his body. He looked around wildly to find a slower member of the herd. He had found an almost perfect one. This one was swollen with the food that it had grazed, and its belly had swollen far past normal regions. Kovu slowed to come side-by-side to it, and was almost gored by an antelope running past to get out of his way. Kovu smiled as he came less than a few feet from it. The antelope looked at him with wide eyes, tongue lolling at the side of its mouth. He had not run for too long, as it had started to slow as it looked at Kovu. Kovu saw the opening and took it. He pounced as the antelope tried to move slowly away. Jaws wide open and claws extended, Kovu grabbed his victim and ripped it to the ground. Kovu went with it as his claws sank into his back (he had seen earlier that this one was also a male) and jaws locked on tight to the back of the antelopes neck. They hit hard into the ground, and Kovu flew off, ripping off flesh just as he went. As soon as he had rolled away and stopped, Kovu span immediately around, ready for the possible charge from the antelope. Surprisingly, the antelope just laid there, and still breathed, by the rythmitic up-and-down motion of the animal's side. Another feature made it possible to believe why the animal had run off. One of the hind legs of the animal had been horribly broken, its blood staining the wet grass. The most obvious reason had presented itself to Kovu as soon as he saw it. The force of the fall and the weight of him on the animal and the animal's weight alone had done some considerable damage. He noted the utmost reason the animal had not run off, or at least hopped off. The animal's neck had been broken. Kovu walked up to it, and just as he did, the animals eyes looked up into his, the tongue hanging out of its mouth, its breathing getting faster as he came closer to it. Kovu suddenly burst with joy, running in circles and roaring and laughing. " My first valuable kill!!" he exclaimed, as he looked to the animal, which was extremely frightened at this point, and started to what seemed to squirm away in its broken state. "Ohh, you're not going anywhere.." he said to it, and the animals eyebrows lifted up into a sort of "huh?" gesture. Just at that, Kovu opened his Jaws and grappled them onto the Animals broken neck. It started to squirm violently, and Kovu tightened his bite, and twisted its neck. "Mother will be so happy!" he told himself just as he tried to lift it. Too heavy. "Oh no" He tried to lift it again, but to no avail. "Uh oh, this is not good" he told himself. As he could not carry it, as he still was a young lion, his mane barely starting to form, He started dragging the corpse back to the outlands so he could feed the outlanders something different from bugs and mice. "I can't believe I had to pick the fat one from all the others..." he told himself as he dragged the corpse off, back to the Outlands.

He started to reach the border of the outlands just as he heard something running. "Just an antelope..." he said to himself, just as it roared. Roared? Kovu shot up to see who was coming and hoping that it wouldn't be......Simba. "OH NO!! NO! NO! NO!" Kovu exclaimed to himself. He stared to drag the corpse relentlessly. " NO! no no no!...." he whispered to himself as he hoped he could hide the corpse and himself. Kovu hid in the tall foliage, closing his eyes as he hid. He could hear Simba's heavy steps as he paced looking for him. It stopped. Kovu locked his eyes shut, but dared open them after a while had passed. He gasped, or what he could call a gasp. Simba's eyes looked straight into his, a menacing fire burning within them. Kovu tried to speak, but nothing could come out. " What are you doing roaming these parts, Outlander?" scolded Simba. Kovu tried to speak again, and again no words would come out, only a faint whimper. Simba shot his head up, Roaring the fiercest roar Kovu had ever heard. Kovu was so frightened, he started to shiver as Simba's roar overtook him, Kovu noticing only him, not any of his surroundings. Simba glared at him again, and yelled "SPEAK!!" Kovu could do nothing. He stared at him with his mouth open, gasping. Simba took a small step forward, and Kovu Shrieked, turned as fast as he could and ran into a full sprint, maybe even faster. Kovu had not dared look back. Tears filled his eyes, as he ran back to the outlands, knowing that one day, the promised day, he would get his revenge on Simba, as his mother told him he would since he was a cub. He hoped that day would come soon, as he felt that he had been abused long enough.