A fatal Dispute

When they got back to the oak, they were welcomed by the others. Glad that they had found what they needed, they began to divide up the food. In fact it were only the fruits that had to be shared; the penguins and the otter had brought their own food, and Burt was anyway eating from the trees – although he quite missed his peanuts. But the chimpanzees, lemurs and baboons had the same nurture and so they had to share fairly. This wouldn't have been a problem, if it hadn't been for Julien. The amount of food for them was little and he insisted of getting more than the others. They were really not in the mood for taking his narcissistic nature now and told him to be quite. Of course, the lemur didn't allow that to rest on him. He jumped up and pushed Phil away from his pineapple. Holding the fruit up high like an orb, Julien declared: "Listen, my subjects. I, who is your king, shall be given the most of what I want, which is in this case, this rarely delicious lot of food…" He looked down at the fruits – some where already brown.

"What?" Darla retorted angrily, "we shall starve while you're stuffing yourself?"

"When you formulate it like that" Julien said, threw away the pineapple, picked up a mango and whipped a dirt of it. "Yes."

Darla growled.

"Your majesty", Maurice tried it carefully, although it was noticeable that he was angry too about Julien's behavior, "maybe this isn't the best time to bring up a food-fight…"

"I'm not about to a fight, Maurice" Julien said and leaned back, biting into the mango "I'm just getting what's anyway mine. They just have to accept it", he said with his mouth full.

Mason lifted a finger to say something, but Darla was quicker.

"Listen, you selfish, close-minded king-fake: we're in times of trouble and it is just necessary that we share everything the same. So come out with the food! Now!"

Julien sat up. "Are you threatening me?" he asked and narrowed his eyes to slits.

"Yes, I think so" Darla responded, doing the same.

Julien and Darla moved closer with their angry faces as silence took over the room. It looked as if they would attack each other any moment.

"Fine!" Julien yelled suddenly and threw his arms up in the air. "We're leaving."

He got up from the fruits and strutted to the entrance.

"W-wait? What?" Marlene stammered.

"You heard it, silly otter" Julien told her, "we are leaving. Maurice, Mort, come!"

Nobody moved. They were all in a shock.

"Maurice! Mort!" Julien yelled again, angrily, louder this time. Mort got up from the floor and stepped hesitatingly over to him.

"What are you waiting for, Maurice?" Julien scolded. But the eye-eye-lemur didn't move.

"Don't… don't you want to think about it another time?" he asked carefully.

"No! Nobody of this … guys here are showing the slightest respect to their king! That is why we are leaving. And I am still in waiting for you to move your butt!"

But Maurice didn't. He shook his head. "No, King Julien. Here we're safe. You really should think about it another time. Out there is a killer. If he gets-"

"He won't get me" Julien proclaimed angrily and looked at his right-hand-man. "So, you're betraying me here, Maurice?"

"I am not betraying you. I just don't want to be sliced up by the sword of an insane penguin!" Maurice's voice had grown louder and he starred Julien through the room directly in the eyes. A moment passed.

"Then you'll stay here" Julien said and turned to the hole. "Mort!"

Julien disappeared in the darkness of the night outside. The little mouse-lemur looked at his friends again. Then he gave Maurice an apologizing glance and followed the ringtail.

"Wohow, wait!" Marlene said panicking as she saw the community breaking apart. "Maurice, you have to go after him!"

"He won't listen" Maurice said, his ears hanging down. "Just eat", he said to the others. "I'm not feeling hungry anymore."

With these words, the lemur cloistered into a corner where his bed stood, laid down and pretended to fall asleep.

Nobody said a word, the short good mood about having something to eat again, had vanished.

°.

The night came and marched on. Everyone was quite. Maurice was sitting on his bed, looking to the ground.

And they were waiting. In fact, they had all expected Julien to come back soon. Maurice hadn't thought that he would really mean it. He had thought, the 'king' would get afraid in the dark forest and would come running back.

Suddenly a lightning streaked through the lemur's body. Maurice was suddenly packed by an internal panic. Something in his heart had send an alarm signal. He jumped off the bed.

"We have to look after Julien" he said loudly. The others stared at him. But then they nodded.

°.

Everyone except for Darla and her friend left the oak to search for the two missing lemurs. Burt also stayed at the clearing – it would have been too obvious if the elephant had stamped through the forest.

The others went two by two: Rico with Private, Marlene with Maurice, Mason with Phil. Every pair went into another direction to search the woods for Julien and the little Mort.

The forest was dunked into darkness. There had to be a moon up there on the sky, but it was fully covered with clouds. They were all feeling quite unwell: it was dangerous to stumble around in the forest at night.

Rico watched over Private, watched every of his moves; and was thinking.

'I count on you' he heard Kowalski's voice say in his head. He had let nothing to happen to Private, he had promised it.Kowalski had always been his friend, they had trusted each other. But as the same, they had trusted Skipper. Rico clenched his fists and stared into the darkness. Skipper. He swore he would let making him pay for what he had done to Kowalski. And Private. He opened his fists and threw another look at him, who's face he couldn't spot in the darkness. Suddenly the anger was gone, and he felt only sad.

'Rape', he thought. Could it really be? He didn't want to believe it. As they had still been a team, they had never even taken that word in the beak. And at least not in front of Private. Skipper had slapped them for that … Rico looked forward again. And today?

Rico was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't realize at once that Private had stopped. They had reached the edge of the trees. Rico discovered the place at once: here, Skipper had brought down Kowalski…

Rico looked at Private, only just able to see his face there it was a little brighter outside the forest. But as Private spoke, Rico realized that he hadn't stopped because of the place they had arrived.

"Didn't you notice the wind?" Private said quietly. His tone was strange. Urging.

Rico looked up to the crowns of the trees that brushed in the strong breeze. He made a noise which matched with his shrugging.

Private was still starring forward without recognizing anything, but his eyes were widened. Rico didn't understand. What should be so bad about some wind?

"The storm" Private whispered. Suddenly he turned his head to Rico. "The storm is coming back."

Rico started to worry about Private.

"An'?" he asked.

"The storm means that Skipper came back" Private said and looked at Rico insistently. "The storm IS Skipper!"

"Huh?" Rico made disbelieving.

"Don't you understand?" Private said, he sounded desperate.

Rico laid a flipper around him.

"Eeeh… no Skipper here" he mumbled to reassure him.

But Private stroked his flipper from his shoulder.

"No. When Skipper was present the last time, there was this wind. And when we were in the town, there was the storm too. But at the other end of the city, were the buildings burned, we could see the storm was even stronger."

Rico tilted his head. He still didn't believe what Private was talking.

"Don't you understand?" Private craved. Rico noticed the despair in his voice to make him understand. "Rico! Skipper must be here, I know it!"

Rico looked at him with disbelieve, but his stomach crouched together. Did he have a point? Or had he gone paranoid?

Suddenly, the two penguins' heads flipped up as they heard a scream echoing through the forest.

°.

Marlene and Maurice searched in north-western direction of the oak, coming into the deepest part of the forest as it seemed. Fortunately, they both had good eyes in the dark, especially the lemur for being nocturnal. They looked anxiously around every trunk before they went further.

"You think we will find them?" Marlene whispered as they came close.

"We have to" Maurice answered.

He went through some bushes that tugged on his fur. Marlene came after him. Maurice turned to free his tail from some low growing thorns on the ground and as he wanted to walk forward again, he froze in his steps. Marlene stopped right behind him.

"What is-" she began, but then she saw it.

Right in front of them, lay a body. The body of a lemur. A tall lemur with a ringed tail. Maurice loosed himself from his rigidity and rushed to it. Marlene knelt down on Julien's other side. Julien was lying on his belly, face-down. Maurice shook him and called his name. There the king didn't react, Maurice grabbed him by his shoulders and rolled him around.

Marlene let out a loud scream.

Mason and Phil heard her as well as the penguins. Everyone turned around on their heels and ran to where they had heard it – from deep down inside the forest.

Private stayed closely behind Rico, who rushed forward. He had such a bad feeling in his guts. He knew that something horrible had happened. Halfway he asked himself, if he had really a bad feeling or if he just had a bad feeling by everything that happened, especially when it had to do with a scream.

But then, they saw Maurice coming towards them between the trunks, a horrified expression on his face.

"What is it?" Mason yelled, who neared with Phil from the right.

"Julien" Maurice said, his voice shook "he is… he's…"

Rico pushed him to the side. They followed him as he pushed through the bushes to stop abruptly in front of the corpse. Rico stared a moment down on it, then he suddenly turned back and urged Private away who was about to come after him, without saying a word.

Marlene had sunk down on a tree, clenching her legs. Rico went to her and tried to pull her up, but she rejected. Her eyes were wide opened.

Rico yanked her up and shook her. As her frozen look remained, he slapped her harshly. Marlene let out a little scream and looked at him shocked. But he just pulled her closer, his flippers grabbing her arms, and looked her deep in the eyes, as far as possible in this lighting conditions. It needed a moment, but then it worked. Marlene's hunting look vanished and she breathed deeply.

"Okay?" Rico asked.

She nodded. He let go of her and looked back. The chimpanzees were examining the body and Maurice watched them with shock still written all over his face. Rico looked at Private who stood beside him, as he had watched how Rico had brought Marlene back to her mind. He lifted his eyes as Rico turned his head to him.

"Where's Mort?" he asked.

Everybody looked up. He was right. The little mouse lemur wasn't here. That meant that he had been able to flee… or that Skipper had abducted him.

They spread out around the place and called Mort's name. Private's bad feeling increased. He didn't think it was the wisest idea to run around shouting in a dark forest where just someone had been sliced up with a sword. He suddenly realized how indifferently he thought about Julien's death. And was shocked of himself.

'But when I think back', he thought as he pushed some branches of a tree back on which he had climbed, 'I knew it… somehow. I knew he would die when he went out there alone.'

Again, he was disgusted of himself for being so cold-hearted. But then something caught his attention. Without noticing it, he had looked right into the gigantic eyes of someone just a few centimeters before him.

"Mort?"

The little lemur let out a terrified scream and rushed down the tree trunk.

"Mort, wait!"

The others heard Private shout and quickly came over. Mort had hidden in a scrub on the ground. As they looked into it, he flinched back.

"Hey, Mort, it's us" Marlene said softly. She had finally recovered from her shock state. She reached her arms in the scrub and pulled the little lemur out. Mort pressed himself against her chest.

"Mort, what happened?" Maurice asked earnestly.

Mort lifted his head. Rico upheld the torch he had just chocked up and pointed its light at the little lemur. Everyone gasped. Mort's fur was splattered with blood and his big eyes seemed to be widened even more than usual.

"King…King Julien" he stammered.

"Yes, we know, Mort" Maurice said, his tone sounded somehow aggressive "but how?"

But Mort's response was cut by a loud bang from far behind them, which let the ground and the trees quake.

"What the-" Marlene yelled and they all span around. They could see a red light glowing through the forest. Rico was the first, who tackled from his shock starring and ran back in direction of the old oak.

The others followed him a few moments later.

The closer Rico came to the place of happening, the clearer became the gleaming; and then, he could suddenly smell smoke and heard the crackling of flames. He quickened his pace, a terrible foreboding feeling in his heart.

Rico broke through the narrow standing thin trunks of the birches and stormed on the clearing. There he held on and his eyes wandered unbelieving and terrified over the scenery. The oak was on fire, the flames shot high into the dark sky, springing from the tree's crown. The clearing was draped in smoke that made the penguin's eyes tear. The flames were already taking over on the smaller trees that surrounded the clearing and they were growing higher.

But that wasn't the reason why Rico's knees became weak. Right before him, the big legs stretched out to the left, lay the giant body of the elephant. Rico swallowed and he had to scream internally at his legs that they carried him further. Slowly he made towards the giant animal and surrounded it till he approached its head. His knees finally quit him the service and he sank down on them.

Burt's big eyes were half opened, his pupils covered with a milky film that lay upon his irises. Rico needed a moment before he could tear his eyes away from Burt's and they wandered desperately over his body. Blood flew out of several cuts from the elephant's trunk, his face, rear and side. Rico looked down, and discovered that a pool of thick blood was clustering from down of the pachyderm's stomach.

The others stumbled through the trees behind him – and stopped.

"Oooh…" Private made and buried his face in his flippers. The others just stood in shock. They couldn't believe it. Not just the fact, that another friend had died, but the one that it had been Burt. Could it really have been Skipper? A penguin had killed an elephant? It sounded just too abnormal to be true.

Marlene looked up at the tree which was slowly eaten up by the flames. She gasped as a thought came to her mind and she ran over to the oak. As she passed Rico, he looked up and shouted after her, but she didn't react on him. Marlene climbed up to the hole in the trunk and looked inside. Everything was slashed and crashed. Deep scratches on the wall bore witness of a fight. Marlene pushed herself up to the entry to have a better view. She realized blood splatters on the floor and on the walls. And then… two lifeless bodies in the backmost corner of the room. Marlene's throat escaped a moan. She felt Rico climbing up beside her. He realized the scenery at once. The penguin lay an arm around the otter's shoulder and pulled her softly away.

"But" Marlene said "maybe we can still help them!" Nevertheless, she let Rico lead her away.

"Nu-uh" Rico shook his head.

The flames suddenly spread all through the oak, setting the room on fire. Marlene and Rico hurried that they came down from the trunk.

Helplessly, they turned back and watched as it completely enveloped in flames. Their home… the last thing they had had.

The others watched from further behind as the old oak began to break down.

Mason bowed down to Burt, and closed his large eyes.

Suddenly the wind veered and Rico looked up. A harsh blast of air drove into the fire and it hit out. They all took a step back as they felt the flames' heat and Rico and Marlene returned to the others to the edge of the clearing. Rico looked at Private who glanced at him with an anxiously and significant look before he looked up at the waving tree crowns again.

"It's not safe here" Private said quietly and Rico nodded.

"Come" he said, addressing to everyone.

°

As they looked back some time later, they could see how the flames grew over the forest. Luckily, you could say, it began raining soon.

Rain, to extinguish flames. Rain, to wash away blood. Rain, to hide footprints in the mud…