Lion Guard: King of Life

Chapter 10: Crusade

Kion stood alone on the edge of a cliffside that overlooked a massive canyon beyond the northwestern border.

The young King took a deep breath before he arched back and unleashed another roar. The sky erupted into a series of telekinetic columns. Each column moved just as Kion wanted and crashed into five stone towers.

The five towers collapsed into loose stone and Kion panted for a moment. He had been training since dawn once again.

Kion closed his eyes for a moment and relaxed his muscles. When Kion opened his eyes again, he brought forth another roar. This time it came as a tsunami wave that almost flattened the canyons remaining rocks.

With this Kion panted again and gazed at the canyon's dwindling among of rocks. After so many training sessions, Kion had nearly depleted the canyon's supply.

Despite this, Kion couldn't throw off his drive to keep perfecting the roar. The King looked up at the sky again and noticed something interesting.

"Your majesty! Your majesty!" Cadoc frantically squawked as he descended upon the rock ledge.

Kion hadn't seen Cadoc so worked up since the invasion.

"Cadoc, what's happening!?"

When Kion heard the answer his eyes widened and he sprinted back into the Kingdom with Cadoc close behind.

Baliyo sprinted towards the tree of life with the King's Guard close behind.

Each seemed held a look of pure determination as they sprinted forward towards the Tree.

"Come on! Come on!" Baliyo huffed as he tried to keep up his pace despite a long night of patrolling.

Finally, they reached the tree and almost got bottlenecked trying to get in.

"Let me see!" Bunga shouted.

"No way! I'm first!" Baliyo growled as he pushed Bunga aside and raced towards the stone slab.

Baliyo stopped just before the slap and went still.

The others reached Baliyo and looked out in front of them.

Makini and Nirmala both stood just to the side of the stone. Makini held her mouth as if she were trying to hold in her emotions. Nirmala simply smiled like a proud mother.

On the stone, itself were Kion and Rani. Kion stood over Rani while she rested on her stomach. In between her front legs rested something else, a very small cub.

Baliyo nearly trembled as he gazed upon the cub. The infant's fur was a pure mix of Kion and Rani's it was darker than Kion's golden fur but not quite as dark as Rani's brown fur. Coming off as a lighter-tannish brown. The infant's earlobes had darker brown fur lining them and atop his head was a small scruff of darker brown fur that would one day become his mane. The cub's eyes were like his fur, a mix of Kion and Rani's own eye colors.

Rather than being light red or dark brown they came off in between.

Kion and Rani were on the verge of tears as they stared down at their cub. Rani finally understood what Nala said. Never could she have imagined feeling so much love and passion for anything.

Rani slowly licked her cub while Kion came close and nuzzled her head.

None of the others could even muster words. Each simply stared with overwhelmingly passionate expressions.

For Ono and Anga, seeing the cub lifted away clouds that had long dwelled over them. In Ono's heart, he could almost feel the goodness of the world again. For the first time since the Northern Kingdom, he truly felt happy again.