"Shenzi?" It wasn't a rhetorical question – Kion was genuinely unable to make out the blurred shapes enough to be sure it was her. But then, he supposed it was unlikely to be Janja's father.

"Sorry," she said again. "I honestly didn't know for sure what I was gonna do until right at the very end. But I guess I can't let you kill my son after all."

The two shadows flanking her giggled hysterically, their hideous laughter rolling through the cave.

"Young master," Zazu said, as he picked himself up off the ground, "why don't you go after Janja and the others? We will care of matters here."

Kion glanced backwards. Jasiri was already vanishing down the tunnel in the back of the cave, chasing after Janja and his gang. "But…"

"Don't be a fool," said Ushari. His tongue flicked rapidly in and out of his mouth, tasting the danger before him. "The hyenas have clearly betrayed us, my prince. You must chase after Jasiri before she escapes and trains the others to create an army of empowered hyenas. The three of us shall deal with Shenzi."

"I don't-"

"Young master, remember what I told you before." Zazu's eyes did not leave Shenzi as he spoke. "If you ever were to end up down some hyenas' throat, it would be my duty to fly in after you. Your father ordered me to keep you safe, and for that reason I'm ordering you to go. You agreed to follow my commands, remember?"

"Don't worry," Bunga said, a feral grin spreading across his face. "We've got this, Kion. It's three against three, and one of those three is me, so we've got them outnumbered!"

"…right," said Kion. He chanced one more glance towards the enemy, and then he ran. Even through his blurry vision, he could tell that Shenzi was staring after him with half-lidded eyes – though she seemed content to let him leave and even the odds.

Kion was not even halfway through the tunnel before the air exploded behind him. The sudden force nearly bowled him over, but he kept going, kept moving ever further down into the tunnel. He could smell the enemy's trail leeding deep into the darkness. Janja had gone down here, and so had Jasiri.

He squeezed himself through the ever-tightening passage, wondering dimly if his nose had misled him after all, but then he popped through the opening and tumbled into a large chamber. The smell of hyena was still strong, but there was another scent that now permeated it. Sulphur. The volcano was close.

"…shouldn't have come here…"

Kion chased the source of the echoing sound, his heart beating quickly as he half-stumbled through the darkness. Ushari's words ran through his head. The hyenas have betrayed us. Had he been naïve?

"…the matter, Janja? Already had enough?"

In the centre of the chamber, a single silhouette was circled by a dozen smaller shadows, though in the darkness of the cave they all seemed to blend together. There was a sudden flash of blue fire as one of the volcanic vents in the ground erupted, basking the cave in an eerie light and casting a thousand shadows. In that split second, the smaller figures all pounced on the larger one, pinning her down.

"Enough," said Janja, his outline clearly visible in the unnatural blue light. "It was stupid of you to come here, Jasiri. What were you thinking? Did you really believe you could just walk in here and-"

"Uh, Janja," said a particularly mangy looking hyena, "I don't think we're alone anymore."

They all turned to look at Kion, some of them visibly paling even in the dim light of the smouldering vent. Jasiri took advantage of the distraction to throw Janja off her, and immediately swiped at one of the other hyenas, who jumped back with a yelp.

"Oh Kion," she said. "Funny running into you down here."

"Jasiri, what's going on?" He stared at her uncertainly. She was fighting Janja, but… she was not fighting him. "Why did Shenzi attack us just now? Did you… did you know she was going to do that?"

"Little busy right now," she grunted, as she shook off two other hyenas who tried to pounce on her. Seeing her throw them around like that, he could see what she meant about male hyenas being smaller and weaker. Holding them all off did not seem to take her much effort at all.

"Don't butt in," Janja growled. "This is between me and Jasiri. I'll deal with you later, Kion."

Kion stared at them, his jaw clenching and unclenching at the realization of what he was seeing. "You're not really trying to kill each other," he said at last. "You're just… playing around."

"That's not fair," she grunted as she head-butted another drooling hyena. "I'm trying to murder him, but his minions keep getting in the way. They're being really difficult about this."

"No you're not," Kion said. "You're just taking turns to swipe at each other. And Janja is not trying to kill you either!" He strode towards Janja, who took a hurried step backwards at the sight of his expression. "I cannot believe this: We were all just getting ready to kill Janja and his clan, and now it turns out that you were just-" He swept his paw around, lost for words. "You were having some kind of lover's tiff?"

"What? No!" Janja looked somewhere between horrified and disgusted. "I mean sure, we were together at some point, and yeah that was pretty fun for a while, but she insisted on acting like she's better than me just because she's a girl and I'm not, and so now we're deadly enemies!"

Jasiri laughed scornfully. "Hah, yeah, more like you took your little boy band and ran off with your tail between your legs 'cause you couldn't accept that I was stronger and braver than you. You're so used to being treated like you're special because of your mother that nobody ever dared tell you this, Janja, but you know what? You're a big-balled stud of a man."

"You take that back!"

"Enough!" Kion felt like his headache was about to explode out of his skull – being hurled against that wall by Shenzi had added another layer of pain on top of the one that he had almost stopped noticing. "We all decided to go to the Outlands together, risking our lives-" wind exploded out of his mouth with the last word, pushing the frightened hyenas back even as they sought purchase on the ground with their nails, "-and I spent so much time worrying, asking myself if I really had it in me to kill people-"

Jasiri looked up, eyes widening with horror. "Uh, Kion…"

"And here you are just screwing around. You hyenas take nothing seriously, even when it comes to your own lives." It was just like back in the desert, when Jasiri had so casually mocked him even as his friends were in danger. "And meanwhile, Shenzi is after us, and somehow I don't think she's treating it all like a game the way you are. We've got to get up there right away and tell her-"

"Tell me what?"

Kion turned around slowly, the fury that blazed in the back in his skull mixing with a thick layer of dread. There was a lone figure standing in front of the tunnel, the opening to which now seemed somehow larger than before, her form outlined by the eerie blueish light from the volcanic vent.

She was holding something in her jaws.

"Shenzi," he said, swallowing thickly. "Where… where are the others?"

"Fighting." She spat the bundle out onto the ground, and shrugged. "Could be alive. Probably dead."

Kion's breath caught in his throat. His companions versus the two laughing shadows. That had to be a fight they could win, or so he prayed. He did not dare look down at the bundle.

"You betrayed us," he whispered. "Betrayed Scar. After everything he did for you."

"Scar was naïve," she said. "Thought he was being cynical, but that's a fool's game. He spent all his life using others, and then when that lion cub made him all soft inside, he thought he could undo it by giving everyone power instead. He thought that just because he changed his ways, I'd want to change mine too." She gave Kion a sickly grin. "Guess he never stopped thinking the world was all about him."

Jasiri took a half-hearted effort to step closer, but she could not bring herself to keep going. "Shenzi. I thought – you said we were all going to change the world together. I… I believed you."

The matriarch gave her a contemptuous look. "Naïve. Did you really think I'd forgotten about everything the lions did to our people? I thought you were stronger than my son; braver, more worthy of being my heir. But it seems you're just as weak as he is." She froze Janja with a glance, before he could say anything. "Just as unwilling to accept reality for what it is. Just as incapable of taking anything seriously."

The two younger hyenas stood there, their earlier fight forgotten – bereft of any more words to speak.

"So, just like that, huh?" The fury in the back of Kion's mind was growing stronger now – it was winning out over whatever forces held it back. "Just like that, you'd throw everything away? You say Janja and Jasiri aren't capable of taking anything seriously, but you're just the same. Without even a second thought, with just a shrug and a sarcastic remark, you'd throw away everything of value in the world…"

Shenzi stared at him with half-lidded eyes, but said nothing.

Kion looked at the bloodied bundle she had spit out. It had blue feathers, and a red beak.

"You know," he said, "I really hate hyenas."

The line to his stomach snapped tout as a connection fell into place, pulling on him like a cord of purest burning light, and all the pressure poured out of him at once. Wind poured forth from hidden tunnels and blasted Shenzi with debris even as she raised a stone wall in defence. Kion kept going, pulling on the ceiling until the stalactites broke and rained down over the barricade like deadly stone fangs.

"Kion! Behind you!"

Kion leaped away without thinking, and raised a wall of dust to smother the volcanic fumes that rushed at him from the vent. He kept moving, darting into the cloud of dust to cause Shenzi to lose sight of him.

"Janja," she called, "this is your chance to prove yourself! Kill Kion, and I'll restore you as my heir!"

Kion ignored her, using the sound of her voice to track her location, and focused all of his effort on willing the ground to crack. There was a crashing sound and a scream as a fissure opened beneath her feet. For good measure Kion clogged the vent behind him with more dust and forced the pressurized gas into the opening. With nowhere else to go, the fiery fumes erupted from the fissure, and Shenzi screamed in pain as Kion willed the toxic fumes ever closer to the sound of her voice.

All of a sudden he lost his footing as something hurled him onto his back, and for a second he thought Shenzi had finally managed to hit him, but when he looked up it was Janja's face that stared back at him. The rest of his hyenas were there too, halfway between wanting to back their leader and running away terrified.

Hate hyenas/ worthless scavengers

"Janja, get out of my way."

"I can't," he said. "I gotta do this, Kion. I've got to." He bared his teeth and lunged at Kion's neck.

Kill them / hate them so much

The blast crashed into Janja before Kion even knew what was happening – it was like his rage itself was lashing out at his enemies, burning them. There was a golden light pouring forth from somewhere, from some hole in the ceiling – but no. It was coming from him. He was radiating starlight.

He got up, ignoring the pain that flared in the side of his neck, and advanced towards Janja. There were several more hyenas in front of him, but he blasted them aside with bursts of wind and stone and something more.

"Kion?" Janja struggled to get away, but it was no good – his paws had been scorched, and he dragged them uselessly across the ground, mewling pathetically. "Hey. Hey, stop, no more."

Worthless trash / kill him

"Hey, Kion. Come on." He grinned weakly. "It's me. You remember me, right Kion? Remember all the fun times we had together?" The grin slowly slipped from his face as Kion approached, only to be replaced with raw primordial terror. "Hey. Hey Kion. Come on. Hey."

One of the other hyenas was dragging itself over to Janja, trying to protect him. Wounded, burned and close to dying, but willing to shelter him with her body if need be. It was Shenzi.

Hate hyenas / so much

Kion opened his mouth and roared, one last time. It came out not as sound, nor wind, nor earth or any normal kind of fire, but as pure golden light, slamming into a wall that had not been there mere seconds before, a wall which had not been raised by Shenzi but by another hyena who was standing behind him. A hyena that looked just as fearful as the others, if for entirely different reasons.

"Please, Kion," she said. "She's like a mother to me. I didn't – I never really had…" She looked at him, pleadingly. "And I don't – I don't want him to die either!"

Hate / so / much / hate

Kion screamed, first at the wall which had already nearly melted from the onslaught, then at the roof of the cave which shuddered as the last of the stalactites fell, and then he turned to Jasiri and… stopped.

He panted, and hung his head. "I hate hyenas… so much."

Then he collapsed, and knew no more.