"Nobody's cutting anything out of anybody."

The group had just enough time to duck for cover before the rocks came crashing down in front of them, blocking their way out of the ravine. Before Kion could turn back to the passage leading to the oasis, another rock fell and blocked that path as well.

The sound of laughter echoed down from on high, leaving no question in identifying their attacker.

"Hahaha! Looking a little cloistered there, fellas! You guys picked an awkward time to come visit my extended family. You should've sent a message in advance, Kion!"

"Janja." He picked himself off the ground, coughing stone dust as he did so. "Why are you attacking us? We're here on a diplomatic mission to see if your people really are starving like you said. We wanted to offer you hyenas a chance to come to the Pridelands." Which was technically true, though he doubted his father would let Janja in – and frankly, neither would he.

"Oh, we're starving all right." Janja's form only barely peaked out above the cliff's edge, but it was not hard to imagine his expression. "You need more than just food to live, Prince Kion. Take a good look around: There's nothing here but ash and dust. We've had to beg and grovel and eat bones and bugs just to get by, and now you come here to act like all that's in the past? No way, no how!"

"So you're the one who dropped that rock," said Ono, hovering in position next to Kion. "You and your clan were following us right from the start!"

"Eh? I dunno what you're talking about, bird boy. I just thought I'd pay Jasiri a visit so I could make up for lost time, that's all. It's been ever so long since we really had a chance to… talk."

Jasiri laughed scathingly. "Ooh, did I hurt the big bad meanie in his little boy pride? Why don't you come down here so I can kiss it better, Janja?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" His glare was visible even from down in the ravine. "You might have me beat when it comes to brute strength, Jasiri, but I'm not playing your game anymore. Do it, boys!"

There was commotion at the top of the cliff, and soon several more rocks came into view.

"Don't be an idiot," Fuli shouted. "Think this through! Janja, if you kill Kion, what do you think will happen next? His father will burn down the whole Outlands to get to you, until it makes the pile of ash and dust it is now look like Pride Rock!"

"The lady's got a point." A second hyena popped into view. "I don't wanna become ash and dust, Janja."

"Yeah," said another. "Can't we just sort of wing 'em a little and call it good?"

"Shut it, furbrains! Kion made a fool out of me, and there ain't nobody who gets away with that. Drop 'em!"

"I'll go get help," said Ono, flitting about in panic. "I'll fly back to the Pridelands and–"

"There's no time," said Fuli, staring in horror at the rocks that were about to fall on them. "We have to climb over the blockade before –"

The rocks tipped over the edge and fell, seeming first the size of pebbles but growing ever larger as they tumbled down the cliffs, and then…

The line from Kion's stomach snapped taut and he roared. The wind erupted from his mouth like a hurricane, smashing into the rocks and scattering them, tossing them into the air until they were circling the air like a flock of vultures. The vortex smashed Janja and his crew aside, while the mountain shuddered and the ground vanished beneath Kion's paws. Then there was a flash of light, and no more.

Darkness.

The first thing Kion felt was his headache, which was stronger than before. The pounding in his head was like a cascade of falling rocks against his skull – and that thought immediately brought him back to the present, for he realized in horror that this might literally be the case.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at an endless wall of sand and stone that rose up before him – but no, he was just looking at the ground. He raised his head shakily. There was sand all around him, and pillars of brown stone that looked like some giant had stacked boulders on top of each other, starting and ending with the largest so that they tapered in the middle. He was truly stranded in the desert now.

"Ono? Fuli?" He gazed at the desolate landscape that extended all around him. "Hello? Anybody?"

A faint, groaning sound emanated from one of the stone pillars, and he moved to investigate.

"Eughh…"

At the foot of the pillar there lay a grey and spotted hyena, covered in sand. She was slender, if large for a hyena – as large as him, even. Her long black locks lay in a tangled mess around her.

"Jasiri? Is that you?"

She shot up at the mention of her name, only to stagger and fall over again. She shook the sand out of her mane and blinked. "Kion?" Slowly, her eyes seemed to regain some of their focus. "You're hurt."

"Am I?" He brushed a paw over his forehead, which felt wet and sticky. "Huh. I guess I am."

She rose again, successfully this time, and looked around in a daze. "Where are we? How did we get here? What… what was that?"

"That was the Roar of the Elders," he said with a sigh. "It's the power which was granted to me by the Kings of the Past. I think it created a whirlwind that carried us away from danger – more or less." He frowned. "As for where we are, we're in the Outlands. Don't you recognize your own homeland?"

"Of course I know we're in the Outlands," she said with a roll of the eyes. "That doesn't mean I know where exactly. Do you know every part of your homeland by heart, Pridelander?"

"Well yeah," said Kion. "My father taught me that a wise ruler must know every area of his kingdom, and so when I was still a cub he took me with him on his morning duties whenever he could." It was tradition to teach the second child the duties of the king, just in case something happened to the first, as had been the case with Scar. Kion sincerely hoped that he would never need those lessons.

"Oh," said Jasiri. "Well, I'm sorry I never had a king to teach me the ins and outs of his kingdom."

Kion ignored her. He gazed around, trying to see if he could spot any landmarks, but every part of the desert looked the same. Seeing no other options, he closed his eyes and focussed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to tap into my connection to the Spirit Kings," he said, doing his best to suppress his growing headache. "I've done it before, so maybe I can make it happen again."

Great Kings of the Past, show me the path that leads back to my friends…

"Pff, what a bunch of poppycock. Just because you have a bunch of old dead lions on your side doesn't mean their sense of direction is any good." She snorted. "They're probably all senile by now, anyway."

The line to Kion's stomach snapped into place, and although it wasn't nearly as strong as before, the direction was unmistakable. "There," he said, opening his eyes. "We need to go that way."

"Why that way?" She followed him despite her complaints. "This doesn't look right at all. The sun is over there, which means north is there, so the oasis should be… well, not this way. Hey, hold up!"

Kion tried his best to block her out as he walked. The sun was beating down on him, and though he tried to get as much benefit of the pillars' shade as he could, the blistering heat did nothing to improve his pounding headache. Plus, he was hungry. He had not paid attention to it for a long time, but now there was a chasm inside of him that rumbled like a ravenous beast, howling for meat.

"Uh oh, looks like somebody gets grouchy when he's hungry. Here, hold on." She moved to one of the stone pillars where a gleam of white amongst the sand revealed the scattered bones of a long dead animal. She carelessly rummaged through them. "Lucky! There's still some marrow in these."

He eyed the old skeleton with distaste. "Jasiri, this is no time to be chewing on old bones. Janja just attacked us right outside your home, and he could still be out there. Doesn't that bother you?"

"I trust my family to take care of themselves," she said, "and so should you. Face it Kion, you're in no condition to help anybody. Now go on, have a bite: It's no zebra, but it's not so bad."

"Jasiri, those bones look like they belong to a hyena."

She glanced at the skeleton. "Doesn't look like anybody I know."

"That does it," he said, carrying on with twice his previous speed, and twice the headache. "I don't have time for this." The connection to his stomach was getting stronger with each step he took.

"Kion, wait!" She sped up to keep pace besides him, and gave him an exasperated look. "You know what your problem is? You Pridelanders are so full of yourselves that you can't bring yourself to listen to anyone else's advice, and so you just go off on a whim and act like you know what you're doing. If you were just a little less close minded…"

"Close minded?" He gave her an incredulous stare. "How am I the one that's close minded here? You're the one who's been mocking me for being a Pridelander right from the start! I came all the way over here to help you, risking my life, and all you do is insult my friends and family." Fuli and Ono could be in danger right now – being devoured by a group of hyenas that had only intended to go after her – but she did not seem to care about that in the slightest.

"I never asked you to come visit, and I'm hardly responsible for what Janja does," she protested. "I only make fun of you because you think you're better than me. Don't try to deny it! You keep going on about how you're a prince and you know the king and you're so much more responsible than me. Do you think any of that royalty stuff matters out here? We're the same, Kion. Sisi ni sawa."

"No, we're not." He latched onto the argument, using it to distract from his headache, his hunger and his fear for his friends. "I'm a lion, and you're a hyena. I'm from the Pridelands, and you're from the Outlands. I try to be responsible, and you treat everything as a joke. We're as different as can be."

She scoffed loudly. "You really think any of that stuff matters? Take a look beneath the fur. It's who we are on the inside that matters, Kion. It's about how we feel and what we do – not the stuff we own and the titles we hold. Deep down we're the same."

"But that's just not true," he said. "Being a prince is who I am on the inside." He recalled his father's heartfelt speech, about how an ancestor's legacy becomes an integral part of who you are. "Look, I get what you're saying, about how we're both living thinking beings and yeah, it's really important not to overlook that. But all that other stuff matters too. You can't just make some random meerkat the Captain of the Guard and expect the same result. There's a reason why it's lions who rule the kingdom."

She stared at him incredulously. "So you do think you're better than me. You admit it."

"I think I'm better than you in some ways," he said, "just as you're better than me in others. That just means we're different, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to press me on the issue, then sure, I think the reason we won the war is that we had honour and discipline and the wisdom of our ancestors on our side, while you guys rejected all of that just as you're doing right now. And yeah, I think those qualities make me a better prince and captain than you would."

"Wow," she said. "That's just… wow. That might just be the most closeminded opinion I've ever heard."

"Well, I guess you're closeminded too then," he said dryly, "seeing how we're… the same…"

In front of the two travellers, without either of them noticing, a giant cave had risen. The stalactites decorating the overhanging entrance made it resemble, ever so slightly, a lion's maw. Right in the centre of the shadow of the cave, a dark and aging lion sat hunched over, waiting for them.

"Welcome," said Scar, "to your new home."

A/N: Dun dun dunnnn! Probably quite a few of you were expecting it, but here we are. Everyone's favourite renegade lion king is back!

You might have noticed that the Lion King has some contemporary themes, when you think about it. I mean, hyenas which are not allowed to enter the Pridelands because they are foreigners who cannot be trusted? And then in the Lion Guard cartoon you have Kion who for the first time invites other species into his guard, one of them a girl, much to the chagrin of his traditionalist father.

On the other hand, Kion doesn't actually disagree when Zira tells him that lions are superior in her Lions Uber Alles speech (No really, the song is literally called "lions over all"). He just says that 'using fear and threat is no way to rule', and he never questions the fact that he is part of a monarchy. In Simba's Pride, Simba even literally says that not wanting to be a princess is 'like not wanting to be a lion; it's in your blood'. So that's a pretty interesting duality which I wanted to explore.

As for which viewpoint I agree with… well, what do you think? Who is less wrong here, Kion or Jasiri? Write a review and let me know!