[3rd POV]
"I can give you everything Leo gives you," Scarface said, sitting in front of a half-eaten carcass that currently had a dozen or so vultures enjoying the remains.
"You will live in abundance, more so than when you work under him. My pride is bigger, and I have my brothers with me. Serving me would be far more beneficial to you," Scarface said, trying to sound convincing to the horde of vultures that did not give him a shred of attention and continued to dig into the meat.
Scarface was getting frustrated. Trying to convince them was akin to barking up an empty tree. It bore no fruit, and he had been doing this for more than a day now.
But eventually, one vulture came up to him. It walked on both legs, its belly filled with meat by now. It could not have eaten more.
"What about you? I do not need the others. If I just have one of you, that would be enough," Scarface said, righting his posture as he thought the vulture was about to accept his proposal.
The vulture stopped right in front of Scarface, showing no fear as it gazed at him. Why would it fear other lions when it had been in the presence of Leo himself?
"So? What do you say?" Scarface asked hopefully.
The vulture opened its beak and remained like that for a while. Scarface waited with bated breath.
But eventually, what came out was not words but its vomit.
"...."
"...."
"Why you!!" Scarface roared.
The vultures quickly escaped in a flap of feathers and laughs.
"Those insolent birds," Scarface said, cleaning the vomit off his paws.
"You've tried that a hundred times, why bother?" Hunter asked, his body completely covered in the feathers of vultures.
There had been cases when the vultures pissed off the kings so they caught them and killed them. But even with that, the vultures still did not show any respect towards them.
"You don't realize how beneficial it would be if we could work with the birds too," Scarface said, "We would be almost unstoppable. But it seems these birds are not ready to betray their king."
"They have quite the loyalty for birds," Hunter commented.
Scarface shook his head, "It has nothing to do with loyalty. They are never convinced, even for a moment, that we would be better than him."
"Which is strange..." Scarface continued, "You would think such faith in Leo would be completely impossible. It's almost like they have been brainwashed and someone had convinced all these vultures to almost worship the king."
If you know, you know. But Grim would have a proud smirk and winked if he heard what they said.
"What about the other birds? If you desperately want allies in the sky, try other birds," Hunter said.
Scarface shook his head once more, "The other birds would not work with us. They have nothing to gain. Most birds eat insects, and others are predators of their own. The vultures are the only possible species to work with."
"It seems we have to fight this battle while being more uninformed," Scarface said with a sigh, "As if we needed more disadvantages."
Scarface went towards Hunter and the two lay together, close enough for their bodies to touch. Behind them was their pride, but only half was present at the moment. They were mostly juveniles, cubs, and older lionesses.
An hour passed as they hung around. Then, they saw their brothers and the rest of the pride returning from a distance. These lions had set out to hunt today.
But if you looked closely, you would notice that there were already many carcasses and half-eaten carcasses in their pride. Why were they hunting more? Why were they storing food away almost?
It was a strategy the Four Musketeers had used many times when at war with other coalitions. They did not have a pride of their own before they became kings, so whenever they wanted to challenge the kings, they needed to hunt beforehand so that they would not need to hunt after the battle when they were injured.
But another question could pop up. Why would they apply that strategy now, when they had a pride to hunt for them?
Well...
"The vultures interfered with our hunt," Sikio said with a mean face the moment he reached Scarface and Hunter.
"They revealed our positions every time and they chased away the herds before we could start the hunt," Morani continued, following right behind Sikio.
Scarface did not look surprised, "Just like we expected. There is much you can do when you have that many vultures under you. As we know, Leo applied the same strategy when he was outmatched by the Mbali coalition."
"So what should we do? We are stopped from hunting in our own territory," Hunter asked with an angry growl.
"The quicker we do this, the better our chances. Leo would recover while he starves us. He has the advantage in the long run. We need to fight the moment he reaches the Serengeti," Scarface said.
And right then.
As if on cue.
A roar split the sky.
It was so loud it shook the air. It was so loud that it immediately kicked up the laying kings and they stood up, fully alert.
There was silence in the whole region as the roar echoed.
"He's here," Morani said the obvious.
"He is quicker than we estimated. We thought he would at least take a week," Hunter added.
"Let's go," Scarface said and immediately led his brothers towards where the sound came from.
The four kings walked together, leaving their pride for a moment to respond to the roar. They walked a few distances but all came to a stop when they reached a large tree with thick branches and green leaves.
The four of them stopped.
Strangely enough, there were two lionesses that stayed under the shade of that tree. The location was not far, but it still gave the impression that these lionesses were not part of their pride.
Well, that was because they were not.
The lionesses looked up at them briefly before ignoring them. That was not how lionesses were supposed to act in front of their king.
But as mentioned before, the Four Musketeers were not their kings.
These lionesses were from the Northern Pride. A new pride that emerged under the rule of two kings. There were only four lions in their number.
But what was the Northern Pride doing here in the Central Serengeti?
"I suppose everyone heard that," Scarface said while standing underneath the tree.
"It's always hard to miss his roar," a voice came from above.
There, on top of the tree and hidden beneath the thick roof of leaves were the two kings of the Northern Pride. The branches were thick, so these large lions were able to lazily hang onto the tree like they were leopards or something.
"It's like getting ready to fight your nightmares," the other king commented.
If Leo looked at the two kings staying up in the tree, he would recognize them immediately. They were the same lions whom he kicked out the moment he took over the Siringet Pride.
Taking the name of their respective fathers, they called themselves Baraka and Roku. The second coming of the Mbali brothers.
They had ruled the Northern Region. They were young but powerful from the genes of their fathers.
Originally, they were three. Leo kicked out three grown lions when he first took over. But one of them had already passed away in battle, leaving this coalition half complete. But in turn, they had been ruling the Northern Serengeti for a few months.
A year had gone by, and these lions were ready to take revenge.
If you were wondering how Scarface expected the vultures to interfere with the hunt, it was because these two had informed him in detail how Leo took down the coalition of their fathers.
"Are you two ready?" Scarface asked.
The two lions who had been hiding from the eyes of the vultures came down the trees, and their faces were immediately rageful.
Leo did not know they were here.
"Always."
With the Four Musketeers and these two kings, that was six prime lion kings in total that were going to meet Leo in a clash.
Although Leo was powerful, he was not invincible. If we look at this from a logical and physical sense, Leo was outmatched. Perhaps he could take down the Four Musketeers together, but this was just too much.
And this coalition came to be because the first thing Scarface did in preparation for Leo was to head towards the Northern Territory and invite them to form an alliance.
The proposal went better than expected. They would form an alliance and kill a common enemy. But also, the Northern Pride would be given lionesses to increase their pride after the battle was won.
The Four Musketeers had a pride of over thirty. Many lionesses from the East, West, and South had come seeking new prides in them. So it was not really a loss to give these lionesses over to the Northern Kings.
The result was this.
The first alliance between two lion coalitions in history.
The humans were going to have a field day.
"Let's kill a monster then," Scarface said with a wide grin splitting his face.
Six kings, all royalty by strength and by heritage.
They headed towards a living storm that was going to test them and make them complete through death or through victory.
..
..
[IMAGE]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author : Surprised to see so many reader play MLBB too. That game is big in my region. I was searching for fanfics of the game but found no worthy reads.
So yeah, with the fabric contest I decide to use spare times writing one.
It's a Naruto fanifc with MLBB element. The book is called Immortal Shinobi of Konoha, check it out if you want.
Update is whenever I have free time but the book should become a decent story.