Someone Lied to Us
Panel 1:
"Help! HELP!!" the felled rhino shouted. Like a certain leader of his, he tried to keep bugs away by rolling in the dirt, but made the mistake of doing so near a crater.
"We are helping you." Vitani said curtly, "We're the Lion Guard."
"No, you're not! You're all Outsiders trying to trick me!"
"Simba let us in and accepted us. In case you haven't heard, our Guard formed to ensure our bond." Kasi clarified, having a tendency to translate Vitani's bluntness.
"And now you're tricking Simba too, I want the real Lion Guard!" the rhino kicked childishly, making the crater he fell in deeper.
"Unbelievable..." Imara rolled her eyes before sighing, "I'll dig him out."
"You Outsiders think you can stroll into Ndefu Grove all you want, you're lucky I missed you when I charged!"
"Charged?" Vitani's eyebrows flipped up, "Are... Are you the reason Laini fell out of her tree...?"
"You got too close, I did what I had to do by defending myself."
"By causing property damage to a district you're not even in?!" Vitani's hackles raised. This rhino was a huge hypocrite.
Imara silently continued to wedge herself under the heavy pachyderm during the commotion, "Alright, on three-"
"GET OFF ME, YOU LITTLE MURDER MACHINE!" the rhino screamed.
Vitani's eyes widened, "Stop! You're gonna hurt-"
Before Vitani knew it, Ngurumo kicked Imara hard in the shoulder, throwing her off-balance. Luckily the lioness was sturdy, and possessed a high pain tolerance. That did not stop her from scowling back in disgust for this belligerent herbivore.
"HEY! What is even wrong with you, dude?!" Shabaha shouted, claws unsheathed. She leaned to her leader's ear, "Should we even let him up, or should the Circle of Life get him?"
"On second thought, maybe we should." Vitani huffed, sharply turning back to Pride Rock.
"But, Vitani," Kasi frowned, "we're on such thin ice already! Not one animal has accepted our help since the King left."
"Because no one wants us," Vitani cut her off, "we're staying by Pride Rock until the royal family gets back. If a Pridelander comes to us with a problem, that'd be a miracle..."
Vitani marched off, feeling hurt at the constant off-and-on acceptance from animals. The Guard hesitantly looked back at the pathetic rhino on the ground before following their young leader.
Ngurumo would be found by other herbivores hours later, herbivores that the Guard hadn't realized had long bought into rumors started by Ngurumo after the mishap at Ndefu Grove and the following speech announcing the brief substitution of Kion's Guard in his absence.
Later...
Panel 2:
"So... Simba's gone back to an all-lion agenda, has he?" Ngurumo scoffed, facing up at Pride Rock.
"I chose who I knew were the most fit for my Guard in my eyes." Vitani explained. She straightened her posture, "And King Simba didn't appoint me, I did."
"So you think lions are better over all?!"
"Wha- No! We-"
Ngurumo rolled his eyes as he turned to the herds. "Leave it to the self-absorbed lions to think themselves to have it all..."
"What?!" Shabaha butted in, defending her lifelong friend.
"This Guard is even worse than the last one! These ones don't even bother to help us!" remarked Zito.
"Well you guys didn't seem to need any help, and you most certainly don't need us. So why even try?" Vitani spat, her temper being toyed with. Her remark was not received well.
"So you lazy lions have really just given up? You hear that, everyone? She believes in Lions Over All, just like her mother!"
Vitani's heart sank. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to lose her cool as the animals already expected her to become some kind of uncontrollable, feral, ravenous beast. At this point, that didn't sound like a bad idea.
"Where does it say that lions are the ones who need to be in charge of us, anyway? These high and mighty felines are just trying to make their savagery law!" the rhino stomped before gesturing to his broken horn and blinded eye, "I mean, look at what happened to my face! I barely survived a violent attack from these murderers!"
"You're absolutely delusional, man. That is NOT why-" Vitani sneered before her explanation became muffled by the cries of birds and various hoofed animals.
Ngurumo smiled slightly, he was fueled by the crowd now.
"First Kion's Lion Guard softens up our trust in these flesh-eaters by saving us and doing cutesy little chores for us and getting us to fight a war that wasn't even ours, now Simba changes his mind and enlists enforcers to warn us herds to not get too comfortable!" the rhino conspired.
A flurry of concerned murmurs and cries of convinced disgust filled the crowd.
Ngurumo was basically frothing from the heat of the moment, "The whole reason the Guard keeps other carnivores away is because the lions want us all to themselves! But wake up, sheeple! They're all carnivores in the end, and they'll eat every one of you! Now Simba appointed these mindless traitors of the Pridelands after letting them in like an idiot! I say we change the way things are done around here!"
A roar of angered, successfully manipulated war-cries thundered across the savannah. The Guard wished they hadn't been left home alone.
___
Almost everyone Kion knew had left to attend his coronation with Rani, such as the Royal family and even most of the Pridelands' leaders. Aside from the pride's elder lionesses, Vitani and her Guard were the only pride members who stayed behind. The new (and now official) Guard made a promise to the king and queen that they would watch over the Pridelands during their travels, despite the fact that there haven't been many problems since the unification of the Pridelanders and Outsiders, until...
The Guard is met with uncooperative and ungrateful Pridelanders when trying to help them, and they're baffled by the sudden change in behavior, until they're eventually met with an answer in the form of a rallied crowd of herds lined up in front of Pride Rock.
An outcast member of Mbeya's crash, Ngurumo, seizes the moment of the herd leaders' temporary absences and takes matters to his own hooves.
Nyumbu, leader of the Pridelands' wildebeests, is among the crowd, unsure of his old friend's agenda. He too remembers a time when he feared a lion leader, one who once forced the herds -- including the crash Ngurumo was from -- to leave the Pridelands, one who led Nyumbu and his very herd to the former king's death, taking great responsibility in accidentally trampling the noble king after he'd been thrown from a cliff. This was not the lioness temporarily in charge. All Nyumbu could see was irony in the role Ngurumo was playing, and a grave mistake for the future of the Pridelands...
___
((I thought about how nearly everyone attended Kion's Coronation with the exception of Vitani's Guard and non-leader animals. I quickly assumed that she and the Guard stayed behind to watch over things. One day, I came up with the idea that Ngurumo's rise as a villain could take place at this time, furthering the tension of the plot.))